(Alternate title: Life's a beach, until you're drowning in oil!)
As some of you may have heard, there was a "little" incident off the coast of Louisiana ~ 55 days ago ~ in the body of water knows as The Gulf Of Mexico.
It seems the current 'powers that be' had not been very diligent in their safety regulations and compliance check duties and there was an explosion on a little oil rig owned and operated by a company named British Petroleum.
The initial explosion was a horrible tragedy in and of itself. Eleven hardworking men lost their lives. Fathers, sons, brothers, husbands....
Unfortunately, the tragedy did/does not end there.
Since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon on April 20th, an estimated 2.5 million (BP's worst case estimate) and 4.2 million (scientists'/experts' worst case estimate) gallons of oil have been flowing into The Gulf... DAILY.
Both BP and Obama administration officials had been 'lowballing' these numbers from day one.
Well, the truth seems to be out now. At least the truth about just how much oil has been flowing and continues to flow into the Gulf Of Mexico and the truth about BP's use of BANNED dispersants being sprayed over and injected into the Gulf of Mexico.
"Is the EPA aware of this?", you may ask. Why, YES... they are and they're not doing a damn thing to stop BP's usage of these banned (in the 1980's) chemicals.
So, not only is the GOM, our waters, our marshes, our wetlands, our wildlife, our sealife and our seafood industry being POSIONED and destroyed by the millions of gallons of oil spewing into the gulf each day; we're all being posioned by banned disperants and no one is doing a gosh dang thing!
And, did I mention how many people, families, small businesses have been affected by this mess? Fishermen, oystermen, shuckers, crawfishers, crabbers, crab pickers, charter boat operators, family owned and operated restaurants ~ their cooks, waiters, waitresses, buspeople; small hotel/summer rental owners, campground operators... thousands of livelihoods lost.
This disaster is not "just" an ecological disaster physically affecting four states (as if that wouldn't be bad enough). It's a HUMAN TRAGEDY as well. Affecting even more people than Katrina did.
So, my questions are:
WHERE IS THE HELP NOW?
Where are all the people screaming at the federal government NOW?
WHERE IS THE NATIONALLY TELEVISED OUTRAGE NOW?
Hello world... is anybody out there? Is anyone paying attention to what's happening "down here"?
S O S!
WE ARE STILL AMERICANS!
Please visit the following sites to learn more and to help:
