Gulf Oil Clean-up Officials Pretend the Crisis Is Over

Aug 2, 2010

Bob Dudley, the new head of BP, announced that he was reducing the size of the clean up workforce in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil-absorbing boom, as well as other heavy equipment, has already been removed from some coastal areas. They have stopped production of boom in factories and they have cancelled catering contracts.

BP says the oil from the spill is shrinking and disappearing after they claim to have capped the blown-out well.

U.S. officials are now saying the same thing. “The light sheen remaining on the Gulf’s surface will continue to biodegrade and disperse, but will not travel far,” said one U.S. official.

But local people along the coast are outraged. As one example, on July 31, Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser took reporters on a boat tour of an inlet about an hour south of New Orleans to show them where fresh globs of thick oil have saturated the marshes and huge tar balls have washed up.

From the beginning, BP tried to deal with the disaster like it was going away. It sprayed Corexit dispersants which are so poisonous they are banned in most countries. BP dropped the dispersants from planes and sprayed them underwater with its robotic submersibles. In reality, BP added millions of gallons of poisonous chemicals to the billions of gallons of oil. By dispersing the oil, BP was trying to make it look like it was disappearing. But it is there just the same. It is in enormous underwater plumes. And it is saturating the sea water, even if it is harder to see.

BP is doing exactly what it swore it would never do–pull out and wash its hands of the whole disaster, cutting its losses in the search for greater profit. All this with the blessings of the Obama Administration, the U.S. EPA and the Coast Guard.