Post by Swamp Gas on Jul 4, 2010 10:02:35 GMT -5
blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2010/06/23/residents-businesses-local-florida-officials-bp-government-misleading-public-safety-florida-beaches/
BP and Government Misleading Public About Safety Of Florida Beaches
Posted by Alexander Higgins - June 23, 2010 at 1:16 pm
As a tide of tarballs from the BP Gulf Oil Spill assaults the Florida coast line local Florida residents, businesses and county officials are demanding action from BP, State, and Federal Government officials in charge of monitoring and responding to the spill.
Local residents in Walton County, Florida demanded a Town Hall meeting to discuss the lack of response to the oil assaulting the coast line.
They are also demanding answers to other questions like why local beaches have been declared safe and remain open even though tarballs have been washing ashore for weeks in Florida and the DEP hasn’t tested the waters for hydrocarbons since May 1st.
Ed Berry, a local businessmen, urged the commissioners to make sure the appropriate parties are being held accountable.
In his testimony he said “The children were in the water swimming. They were coming out of the water with tarballs on their face; they were wiping their face and having tar in their eyes and on their mouth.”
While Ed Berry was demanding accountability and pushing for independent testing and monitoring of the local Florida waters Darryl Boudreau, the DEP Assistant District Director, admitted that no direct sampling has been conducted in Walton County waters but worked to downplay the issue.
Boudreau told the commission “Now the tar balls obviously are petroleum, but the water quality surrounding it, it’s not leaching out chemicals”
Video I found seems to tell a different story.
While the supposedly “non-toxic” tarballs wash up on the shore itself, just a few feet from the shore is indeed a toxic mixture of tar based material that is killing sea life on the seafloor.
It is that toxic mixture that turns into that tarballs that Ed Berry alludes is ending up on the faces and in the mouths of children swimming on the beach.
In fact the video not only shows the formation of the tarballs but shows another danger lurking in the waters.
The massive exodus of sea life swarming to shallow water to flee from the oil spill has cause sharks to lurk dangerously close to shore line.
This type of activity is happening all along the Gulf Coast.
In fact multiple BP funded campaigns being ran by state tourism groups is urging people to come to Florida because the beaches are clean, safe and open.
But local reports continued to tell a different story.
Take for example official reports that put the oil slick 10 miles off the coast of Purdue Key while a video of a Coast Guard led boating expedition goin out to film the slick found the oil only 2 miles off the shore.
In that same video a Coast Guard official says she can’t explain why the public beaches are still open with the slick being so close to shore but says she would not allow her children to swim in the waters.
In Seaside a similar story plays out as oil and tarballs wash up along the shore.
This video shows hundreds of people, who have been assured the beach is safe, frolicking in the surf as tarballs wash up on the shore.
BP and Government Misleading Public About Safety Of Florida Beaches
Posted by Alexander Higgins - June 23, 2010 at 1:16 pm
As a tide of tarballs from the BP Gulf Oil Spill assaults the Florida coast line local Florida residents, businesses and county officials are demanding action from BP, State, and Federal Government officials in charge of monitoring and responding to the spill.
Local residents in Walton County, Florida demanded a Town Hall meeting to discuss the lack of response to the oil assaulting the coast line.
They are also demanding answers to other questions like why local beaches have been declared safe and remain open even though tarballs have been washing ashore for weeks in Florida and the DEP hasn’t tested the waters for hydrocarbons since May 1st.
Ed Berry, a local businessmen, urged the commissioners to make sure the appropriate parties are being held accountable.
In his testimony he said “The children were in the water swimming. They were coming out of the water with tarballs on their face; they were wiping their face and having tar in their eyes and on their mouth.”
While Ed Berry was demanding accountability and pushing for independent testing and monitoring of the local Florida waters Darryl Boudreau, the DEP Assistant District Director, admitted that no direct sampling has been conducted in Walton County waters but worked to downplay the issue.
Boudreau told the commission “Now the tar balls obviously are petroleum, but the water quality surrounding it, it’s not leaching out chemicals”
Video I found seems to tell a different story.
While the supposedly “non-toxic” tarballs wash up on the shore itself, just a few feet from the shore is indeed a toxic mixture of tar based material that is killing sea life on the seafloor.
It is that toxic mixture that turns into that tarballs that Ed Berry alludes is ending up on the faces and in the mouths of children swimming on the beach.
In fact the video not only shows the formation of the tarballs but shows another danger lurking in the waters.
The massive exodus of sea life swarming to shallow water to flee from the oil spill has cause sharks to lurk dangerously close to shore line.
This type of activity is happening all along the Gulf Coast.
In fact multiple BP funded campaigns being ran by state tourism groups is urging people to come to Florida because the beaches are clean, safe and open.
But local reports continued to tell a different story.
Take for example official reports that put the oil slick 10 miles off the coast of Purdue Key while a video of a Coast Guard led boating expedition goin out to film the slick found the oil only 2 miles off the shore.
In that same video a Coast Guard official says she can’t explain why the public beaches are still open with the slick being so close to shore but says she would not allow her children to swim in the waters.
In Seaside a similar story plays out as oil and tarballs wash up along the shore.
This video shows hundreds of people, who have been assured the beach is safe, frolicking in the surf as tarballs wash up on the shore.