Remember Buck Lee, the Santa Rosa official who authorized the beaches back open?
Well, now we have hundreds of folks complaining about illnesses related to getting into that water:
Federal health officials wanted the beach closed, but local officials re-opened Pensacola Beach?
What is the authority for the safety of humans?
Now these beaches have local authorities on site to keep people out of the water, claiming high tide, surf, but what about some truth telling here.
These local business owners are acting like that Mayor from Jaws, remember him:
Now the EPA tours the Pensacola Beaches:
Now caution to avoid oil at the Pensacola Beaches?
I am just shocked because we all KNOW that contact with toxic crude, along with the dispersant in these waters is a cocktail for DEATH for human consumption. We don't need the government or local officials to tell responsible individuals this, yet how the EPA can not trump local officials is baffling to me. Also, I can not believe that the EPA has not tested the water, ALONE, on the Florida beaches. But in the end, it is about MONEY. Money can make everyone make BAD DECISIONS.
``We don't know how long this nightmare is going to move in slow motion,'' said Greg Brown, the property appraiser for neighboring Santa Rosa County. Though he has no firm estimates, Brown said the county's tax rolls could drop 25 percent this year because of the oil spill. ``It's well within the range of possibilities,'' he said.
{snip}
Sam Bearman, a Pensacola lawyer working on real estate claims against BP, said a plunge in vacation-home bookings has already ravaged property values.
``We're seeing much more of a ripple effect than you would have ever imagined,'' he said. One client has a home that ``she was intending to sell for $500,000. I'm not so sure she thinks she can get $100,000 at this point.''
{snip}
Fred Simmons has exposure to all facets of the tourism economy here -- he owns the Paradise Bar and Grill, the Paradise Inn and the Paradise Coastal Realty.
He has seen sales drop 40 percent since the April 20 oil-rig explosion in the Gulf ``and it's getting worse daily.''
``I don't know where this is going to end up,'' he said. Of BP, he said: ``I'm just hoping and praying they're going to pay. It will end my career if they don't.''
At least one person admitted that this oil catastophe is not one summer but many to come.....
And now the reality of what has been kept under wraps for a while, "Gulf spill 'bigger and uglier than we had hoped'". NO SHIT.
How dead is the Gulf of Mexico?
It is perhaps the most important question of the BP oil spill — but scientists don't appear close to answering it despite a historically vast effort.
In the 2 1/2 months since the spill began, the gulf has been examined by an armada of researchers — from federal agencies, universities and nonprofit groups. They have brought back vivid snapshots of a sea under stress: sharks and other deep-water fish suddenly appearing near shore, oil-soaked marshes turning deathly brown, clouds of oil swirling in deep water.
But, with key gaps remaining in their data, there is wide disagreement about the big picture. Some researchers have concluded that the gulf is being spared an ecological disaster. Others think ecosystems that were already in trouble before the spill are now being pushed toward a brink.
"The distribution of the oil, it's bigger and uglier than we had hoped," said Roger Helm, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official and the lead scientist studying the spill for the Interior Department. "The possibility of having significant changes in the food chain, over some period of time, is very real. The possibility of marshes disappearing . . . is very real."
I am not an ecological or environmental professional, but it does not take a rocket scientist to understand that all the crude oil spouting daily, along with the dispersant on the rampage daily does not bode well for the Gulf of Mexico. Both ingredients are toxic and you need haz-mat equipment to even deal with it, yet the down playing of this is very bothersome, along with the continued control by BP in regards to the media to show the full affects of what is happening in the Gulf. This is all about trying to convey that spill is not as bad, as many thought, when in fact it it worse. And the government? They are no better.
Lastly, to expect BP to make everyone whole is a joke. BP will fight giving anymore money after their initial 20B payment and this payment is over 3 years. The Florida Coast is upward of 60B alone. What about property damage, as in its worth? Businesses going belly up? Massive job loss in Florida alone? Trusting BP with their disastrous safety record, all for money should not make anyone comfortable. In the end, we will pay for this, as usual. The buck is always passed along to tax payers for corporate fuck ups. My question, "When is that going to stop?" And that loop current? From a previous diary, looks like the oil is already there.
Cross-posted on Daily Kos
Home Page
Share
