News, photography and analysis by an award-winning independent journalist and select colleagues

Laboratory confirmed oil-soaked sorbent pad. (Photo © Erika Blumenfeld 2010)

Story by Dahr Jamail; Photos by Erika Blumenfeld

The State of Mississippi’s Department of Marine Resources (DMR) opened all of its territorial waters to fishing on August 6. This was done in coordination with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Food and Drug Administration, despite concerns from commercial fishermen in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida about the presence of oil and toxic dispersants from the BP oil disaster.

On August 19, Truthout accompanied two commercial fishermen from Mississippi on a trip into the Mississippi Sound in order to test for the presence of submerged oil. Laboratory test results from samples taken on that trip show extremely high concentrations of oil in the Mississippi Sound.

James “Catfish” Miller and Mark Stewart, both lifelong fishermen, have refused to trawl for shrimp because they believe the Mississippi Sound contains submerged oil. [Read more →]

Dead fish wash up at Port Fourchon, Louisiana. Credit:Erika Blumenfeld/IPS

OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi - Another massive fish kill, this time in Louisiana, has alarmed scientists, fishers and environmentalists who believe they are caused by oil and dispersants.

On Aug. 22, St. Bernard Parish authorities reported a huge fish kill at the mouth of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet.

“By our estimates there were thousands - and I’m talking about 5,000 to 15,000 - dead fish,” St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro told reporters. “Different species were found dead, including crabs, sting rays, eel, drum, speckled trout, red fish, you name it, included in that kill.”

The next day, a thick, orange substance with tar balls and a “strong diesel smell” was discovered around Grassy Island, near the fish kill, according to a news release.

Taffaro admitted that there was oil in the area, but cautioned against assuming it was the cause of the fish kill.

[Read more →]

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

The scene is post-apocalyptic. Under a grey sky, two families play in the surf just off the beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana. To get to the beach, we walk past a red, plastic barrier fence that until very recently was there to keep people away from the oil-soaked area. Now, there are a few openings that beach goers can use. The fence is left largely intact, I presume, for when they will need to close the beach again when the next invasion of BP’s oil occurs.

A father jokingly throws sand at his little boy who laughs while dodging it. This, against a background of oil rigs and platforms looming in the Gulf. In the foreground, littering the beach, are tar balls. We stroll through the area, eyeing even more tar balls that bob lazily underwater, amidst sand ripples in the shallows … they are in the same location where the father sits, grabbing handfuls of sand to toss near his son. [Read more →]

Story by Dahr Jamail, Photography by Erika Blumenfeld, Inter Press Service | Report

The Mississippi Sound was recently reopened, but Mark Stewart and other commercial fisherman fear oil and dispersants, and refuse to fish. Credit:Erika Blumenfeld/IPS

BILOXI, Mississippi - The U.S. state of Mississippi recently reopened all of its fishing areas. The problem is that commercial shrimpers refuse to trawl because they fear the toxicity of the waters and marine life due to the BP oil disaster.

“We come out and catch all our Mississippi oysters right here,” James “Catfish” Miller, a commercial shrimper in Mississippi, told IPS. Pointing to the area in the Mississippi Sound from his shrimp boat, he added, “It’s the only place in Mississippi to catch oysters, and there is oil and dispersants all over the top of it.”

On Aug. 6, Mississippi’s Department of Marine Resources (DMR) and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, in coordination with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, ordered the reopening of all Mississippi territorial waters to all commercial and recreational finfish and shrimp fishing activities that were part of the precautionary closures following the BP oil rig disaster in April. At least five million barrels flowed into the Gulf before the well was shut earlier this month.

But Miller, along with many other commercial shrimpers, refuses to trawl.

[Read more →]

Story by Dahr Jamail, Photography by Erika Blumenfeld | t r u t h o u t | Report

James “Catfish” Miller, Mississippi commercial fisherman, turned whistleblower. (Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010)

The rampant use of toxic dispersants, out of state private contractors being brought in to spray them, and US Coast Guard complicity are common stories now in the four states most affected by BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.

Commercial and Charter Fishermen, residents, and members of BP’s Vessels Of Opportunity (VOO) program in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana have spoken with Truthout about their witnessing all of these incidents.

[Read more →]

DAUPHIN ISLAND, Alabama - BP says it is no longer using toxic dispersants to break up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Gulf Coast residents claim otherwise, and say they have the sicknesses to prove it.

On Aug. 5, Donny Mastler, a commercial fisherman who also works on boats, was at the Dauphin Island Marina.

“I was with my friend Albert, and we were both slammed with exposure,” Mastler, told IPS, referring to toxic chemicals he inhaled that he believes are associated with BP’s Corexit dispersants. “We both saw the clumps of white bubbles on the surface that we know come from the dispersed oil.”

Both of their eyes were watering and their throats were burning, so Albert went to sit in his air-conditioned truck, while Mastler headed home.

“I started to vomit brown, and my pee was brown also,” Mastler said. “I kept that up all day. Then I had a night of sweating and non-stop diarrhea unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.”

BP has been using two oil dispersants, Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527, both of which are banned in Britain. More than 1.9 million gallons of dispersant has been used to date on the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. [Read more →]

by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t | Book Review

(Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: The U.S. Army, K. OS, whiteblot)

While most media continue to ignore the US-installed disaster in Iraq, author Nicolas Davies refuses to do so, and his book “Blood on our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq” could not be released at a better time.
This sweeping work covers US policy in Iraq that spans decades, and is written as a call to action for the US to begin following international law - not just in Iraq, but everywhere. For it was the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq that, more than perhaps anything else, continues to defile what is left of the tattered reputation of the US.

“The US foreign policy establishment’s response to this crisis of legitimacy has been to withdraw from the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ; to oppose both the formation and the functioning of the new International Criminal Court; to withdraw from other multilateral treaties; and to hire new experts and lawyers to devise far-fetched rationales for exempting US behavior from international legal constraints on a case by case but increasingly systematic basis,” writes Davies, in what is essentially a prelude to a brilliant analysis of why and how the US has systematically destroyed the country of Iraq.

“I started out with a firm conviction that everything the US was doing in Iraq was illegitimate and that everything we were being told about it was propaganda, and the outrage I felt made me determined to find and expose the reality behind the lies,” Davies told Truthout, “I was able to place events within a coherent context of criminal aggression, hostile military occupation, and popular resistance because that was the way I saw it all along.”

Studying US foreign policy has always been a passion for Davies. In addition to this, he added several books and articles on international law to his reading list, and went to work.

[Read more →]

Story by Dahr Jamail, Photography by Erika Blumenfeld, t r u t h o u t | Report

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

Commercial Fishing communities in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida have united to demand that local, state, and federal agencies force BP to discontinue the use of toxic dispersants and conduct better testing before reopening fishing waters.

“We need to get our government to get a handle on this situation and shut down our fishing waters until they test for dispersants, and get the use of dispersants stopped unless they can prove to us they are not harmful,” Kathy Birren, a spokesperson for commercial fishermen in Florida, told Truthout, “We are seeing fish kills. They [US Government and BP] are covering this all up.”

Since the BP oil disaster began in late April, the secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) was granted emergency powers to open and close fishing areas. The department recently announced the opening of three shrimp management zones for August 16. These areas include zones that have been severely affected by the oil disaster. Dates were also set to open fishing for sea trout and harvesting oysters.

These moves are being questioned by commercial fishermen, who are skeptical of the motives of the state and federal governments’ decision to begin reopening fishing areas that had been closed by the oil disaster.

[Read more →]

Story by Dahr Jamail, Photography by Erika Blumenfeld, t r u t h o u t | Report

Louisiana resident at a public forum about the BP oil disaster and the widespread use of toxic dispersants. (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld © 2010)

While the devastating ecological impacts of BP’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are obvious, the less visible but also long-lasting psychological, community and personal impacts could be worse, according to social scientists, psychologists and psychiatrists.

“People are becoming more and more hopeless and feeling helpless,” Dr. Arwen Podesta, a psychiatrist at Tulane University in New Orleans told Truthout. “They are feeling frantic and overwhelmed. This is worse than [Hurricane] Katrina. There is already more post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and more problems with domestic violence, threats of suicide and alcohol and drugs.”

Dr. Podesta, who also works in addiction clinics and hospitals said, “It’s a remarkably similar experience to that of the stressors of Katrina. There is an acute event, but then a long-term increase in hopelessness with every promise that is broken. Like a promise for money to rebuild a life, then people are put through red tape and each time they fail to move forward, they take five steps back in their psychological welfare.”

“The total number of years this will affect us is unknown,” Dr. Podesta said, adding, “however, it could affect us for possibly 20 to 30 years.”

Dr. Janet Johnson, an associate professor of psychiatry at Tulane University, told Truthout, “People are on edge. People are feeling grief. I’m hearing of physical illnesses related to the oil and people are worried about losing their home, their culture, their way of life.”

[Read more →]

Story by Dahr Jamail, Photography by Erika Blumenfeld, Inter Press Service | Report

Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010

GULFPORT, United States – Contrary to recent media reports of a quick recovery in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists and biologists are “deeply concerned” about impacts that will likely span “several decades.”

“My prediction is that we will be dealing with the impacts of this spill for several decades to come and it will outlive me,” Dr. Ed Cake, a Biological Oceanographer, as well as a Marine and Oyster Biologist, told IPS, “I won’t be here to see the recovery.”

Dr. Cake’s grim assessment stems partially from a comparison he made to the Exxon Valdez oil disaster and the second largest oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico (BP’s being the largest), that of the Ixtoc-1 blowout well in the Bay of Campeche in 1979.

“The impacts of the Exxon Valdez are still being felt 21 years later,” Dr. Cake said, “The impacts of the Ixtoc-1 are still being felt and known, 31 years later. I know folks who study oysters in bays in the Yucatan Peninsula, and oysters there have still not returned, 31 years later. So as an oyster biologist I’m concerned about that. Those things are still affected 31 years later, and that was a smaller spill by comparison.”

[Read more →]