Posted by Bruce Bourgoine who blogs at
Kennebec Blues and Dirigo Blue.
As Orwellian as it seems, the program for hurting coastal fishermen to assist BP in its many needs for local small boat services is actually titled "Vessels of Opportunity". The oil marketing spin doctors must have been working hard to avoid the logical name "Victims of Toxicity".
Unfortunately even the people shut out from harvesting marine food from the Gulf of Mexico who are reluctantly now working in the BP/Deepwater Horizon environmental mess to put food on their family tables are also possible victims according to this report in the Daily Comet in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana:
Fishermen who had talked to the affected group said they were east of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet and had entered an area where dispersant used to break up the oil had recently been sprayed.
The fishermen said they knew the dispersant was present because they had previously smelled it during their weeks on the water.
One of the fishermen reported vision problems, other had respiratory distress, low blood pressure and severe nose and throat irritation, family members and associates said.
Fishermen working the oil spill are issued protective suits and goggles and ordered to wear them, although a BP spokeswoman said they are not required by law. BP does not provide respirators, which the company says are also not required by law.
Air samples are taken in areas where cleanup crews are working to ensure conditions are safe, company representatives said.
Scattered reports of headaches and other maladies have emerged over the past few weeks from clean-up sites.
This unnatural disaster, with its fish stock kills, damage to our shores, and toxic affect on man shows the interconnectivity of us and our environment. We ought to look at this manmade disaster as a vivid time-compressed example of the same connectivity evident in manmade climate change which in slower motion has been taking place, is still occurring, and will have ever greater life threatening outcomes as it speeds up exponentially in the future.