Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by doone on April 19, 2012 at 6:26pm

Ah, personally I do not like eating the eyes.  However, I wonder how they survive in the open water without seeing.  Vegan seems like a better alternative all of the time.  

Permalink Reply by Michel on April 19, 2012 at 6:43pm

That's horrible.

I wonder what kind of supershrimp from hell will survive the massacre and emerge, resistant and adapted to this toxic soup.

Permalink Reply by Adriana on April 19, 2012 at 7:49pm

Interesting that we have to hear about this via Al Jazeera; I guess the major media outlets in the US don't give a hoot about their native land and waterways.

Permalink Reply by Neal on April 22, 2012 at 9:34am

Apparently some of the major media outlets have been embarrassed into reporting the story.

Two Years After the BP Drilling Disaster, Gulf Residents Fear for the Future

Friday, 20 April 2012 13:12
By Jordan Flaherty, Truthout | News Analysis

Matt O'Brien sorts shrimp to determine their value at Tiger Pass Seafood in Venice, Louisiana. (Photo: William Widmer / The New York Times)

On April 20, 2010, a reckless attitude toward the safety of the Gulf Coast by BP, as well as Transocean and Halliburton, caused a well to blow out 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. As the world watched in horror, underwater cameras showed a seemingly endless flow of oil - hundreds of millions of gallons - and a series of failed efforts to stop it, over a period of nearly three months. Two years later, that horror has not ended for many on the Gulf.

"People should be aware that the oil is still there," says Wilma Subra, a chemist who travels widely across the Gulf meeting with fishers and testing seafood and sediment samples for contamination.
Subra says that the reality she is seeing on the ground contrasts sharply with the image painted by BP. "I'm extremely concerned on the impact it's having on all these sick individuals," she says. Subra believes we may be just at the beginning of this disaster. In every community she visits, fishers show her shrimp born without eyes, fish with lesions and crabs with holes in their shells. She says tar balls are still washing up on beaches across the region.

While it's too early to assess the long-term environmental impact, a host of recent studies published by the National Academy of Sciences and other respected institutions have shown troubling results. They describe mass deaths of deepwater coral; dolphins; and killifish, a small animal at the base of the Gulf food chain. "If you add them all up, it's clear the oil is still in the ecosystem, it's still having an effect," says Aaron Viles, deputy director of Gulf Restoration Network, a leading environmental organization active in the region.

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Permalink Reply by Neal on April 22, 2012 at 9:38am

Then Melissa Harris-Perry did a segment on it that I think is fairly shocking.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Permalink Reply by Neal on April 23, 2012 at 8:38pm

BP Covered Up Blow-out Two Years Prior to Deadly Deepwater Horizon Spill

Monday, 23 April 2012 13:22
By Greg Palast, EcoWatch | News Analysis (Video)

Two years before the Deepwater Horizon blow-out in the Gulf of Mexico, another BP off-shore rig suffered a nearly identical blow-out, but BP concealed the first one from the U.S. regulators and Congress.

This week, EcoWatch.org located an eyewitness with devastating new information about the Caspian Sea oil-rig blow-out which BP had concealed from government and the industry.
The witness, whose story is backed up by rig workers who were evacuated from BP’s Caspian platform, said that had BP revealed the full story as required by industry practice, the eleven Gulf of Mexico workers “could have had a chance” of survival. But BP’s insistence on using methods proven faulty sealed their fate.

One cause of the blow-outs was the same in both cases: the use of a money-saving technique—plugging holes with “quick-dry” cement.

By hiding the disastrous failure of its penny-pinching cement process in 2008, BP was able to continue to use the dangerous methods in the Gulf of Mexico—causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history. April 20 marks the second anniversary of the Gulf oil disaster.

There were several failures in common to the two incidents identified by the eyewitness. He is an industry insider whose identity and expertise we have confirmed. His name and that of other witnesses we contacted must be withheld for their safety.

The failures revolve around the use of “quick-dry” cement, the uselessness of blow-out preventers, “mayhem” in evacuation procedures and an atmosphere of fear which prevents workers from blowing the whistle on safety problems.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., president of Waterkeeper Alliance and senior attorney for Natural Resources Defense Council, said, “We have laws that make it illegal to hide this kind of information. At the very least, these are lies by omission. When you juxtapose their knowledge of this incident upon the oil companies constant and persistent assurances of safety to regulators, investigators and shareholders, you have all the elements to prove that their concealment of the information was criminal.”

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