A Sea in Flames - Carl Safina [53]
The federal government closes more fishing areas, to the west and south, on May 25. The closed area now: 54,096 square miles, over 22 percent of the Gulf of Mexico’s federal waters. “This leaves approximately more than 77 percent still open for fishing,” our National Marine Fisheries Service adds with silver-lining turn-a-frown-upside-down think-positiveness.
Meanwhile, U.S. Geological Survey director Marcia McNutt says the oil leaked in the last five weeks totals somewhere between 18 million and 39 million gallons. That’s way past Exxon Valdez’s 11 million gallons. (So it’s said; others insist the total was much more than Exxon ever admitted.)
And speaking of Alaska, Shell Oil has been poised to start exploratory drilling this summer as far as 140 miles off Alaska’s coast. But now the Obama administration suspends proposed exploratory drilling in the Arctic Ocean until 2011. Alaska politicians are pissed! They have to be—about 90 percent of Alaska’s general revenue comes from the petroleum industry. It’s what helps get them elected. They’re like sled dogs who start the day with a big bowl of oil and then get harnessed up to pull Petroleum’s sled.
“I was certain I was going to die,” Deepwater Horizon survivor Stephen Stone tells a congressional hearing panel. He says the April 20 blast was “hardly the first thing to go wrong.” He testifies, “This event was set in motion years ago by these companies needlessly rushing to make money faster, while cutting corners to save money.” More than a day after the explosion, Stone was finally back on land. “Before we were allowed to leave, we were lined up and made to take a drug test. It was only then, 28 hours after the explosion, that I was given access to a phone, and was allowed to call my wife and tell her I was OK.”
Then, a few days later, a representative of rig owner Transocean asked him to sign a document “stating I was not injured, in order to get $5,000 for the loss of my personal possessions.” He declined to sign.
These are the kinds of people we’re dealing with.
Eight workers airlifted to a Louisiana hospital this week were released. That’s the good news. One fisherman hospitalized after becoming ill while cleaning up oil—severe headaches, nosebleeds, and so on—files a temporary restraining order in federal court against BP. He wants BP to give workers masks and not harass workers for publicly voicing their health concerns. He also says, “There were tents set up outside the hospital, where I was stripped of my clothing, washed with water and [had] several showers, before I was allowed into the hospital. When I asked for my clothing, I was told that BP had confiscated all of my clothing and it would not be returned.”
A lot of fishermen are reluctant to complain. Making as much as $3,000 a day cleaning up the oil, they fear losing their jobs with BP. If it’s partly hush money, BP’s plan for them is working.
Of course, a BP spokesman says there have been no threats against workers for speaking out. He adds, “If they have any concerns, they should raise them with their supervisors.”
In the space after that statement, I hear “and not with anyone else.” When I ask one worker a question, he says to me, “No comment.” When I ask him if his supervisors have told him to say that, he says, “Yeah.”
“The only work fishermen can get right now is with BP,” affirms the fisherman seeking the restraining order.
A fisherman’s wife says her husband called her from a boat, saying, “This one’s hanging over the boat throwing up. This one says he’s dizzy, and he’s feeling faint.” She says they were downwind of it and the smell was “so strong they could almost taste it.”
In addition to concern over oil, many fear the million gallons of dispersant served so far. The dispersant’s own manufacturer states that people should “avoid breathing vapor” and that when this product is present in certain concentrations in the air, workers should wear masks.
The fisherman’s wife says her husband came home so sick he collapsed into a