Riki Ott; ‘We need to start talking about who’s going to pay for evac.”
Riki Ott
Riki Ott
Thursday 22 July 2010
Experts: Health Hazards in Gulf Warrant Evacuations
When Louisiana residents ask marine toxicologist and community activist Riki Ott what she would do if she lived in the Gulf with children, she tells them she would leave immediately. “It’s that bad. We need to start talking about who’s going to pay for evacuations.”
In 1989, Ott, who lives in Cordova, Alaska, experienced firsthand the devastating effects of the Exxon Valdex oil disaster. For the past two months, she’s been traveling back and forth between Louisiana and Florida to gather information about what’s really happening and share the lessons she learned about long-term illnesses and deaths of cleanup workers and residents. In late May, she began meeting people in the Gulf with symptoms like headaches, dizziness, sore throats, burning eyes, rashes and blisters that are do deep, they’re leaving scars. People are asking, “What’s happening to me?”
She says the culprit is almost two million gallons of Corexit, the dispersant BP is using to break up and hide the oil below the ocean’s surface. “It’s an industrial solvent. It’s a degreaser. It’s chewing up boat engines off-shore. It’s chewing up dive gear on-shore. Of course it’s chewing up people’s skin. The doctors are saying the solvents are making the oil worse.”
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In a widely watched YouTube video, Chris Pincetich, a marine biologist and campaigner with the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, said Coast Guard planes are flying overhead at night spraying Corexit on the water and on land. “People need to realize that their water, their air, the sand they’re walking on, the things they’re touching when they wake up in the morning, are coated with this stuff,” he said. “We are producing an experiment in the Gulf, the likes that no one has ever seen and top scientists admit that, so we’re all part of the experiment.”.
The quote: “If you talk the talk, then walk the walk”, comes to mind when I hear so much about how the crude oil is not toxic. It isn’t enough to fly into a pre-selected area, visit with a few selected locals, and then fly back to safe surroundings. That is all SHOW. Dr. Riki Ott has been living on the Gulf scene since the beginning of the oil spill. She is one who “Talks the talk, and walks the walk”. All my respect goes to her.
BP’s deception comes as no surprise to any of us. Please American people think about it: If there had been no explosion in the beginning, would we have known about the gushing oil from the well? How many of the abandon oceans oil wells are gushing oil? Shouldn’t here be an agency that monitors all oil companies’ drilling action in our ocean beds? Oh, that’s right, there is! However, just like BP, Exxon and the rest of the oil companies, government official agencies are busy covering their lies,
Crude oil continues to invade the Gulf; as BP, the US Government, and other official agencies monitoring the toxic crude, continues to FIDDLE. That is what I called the Dance of Deliberate Deception. No one will come forward with the intestinal fortitude, and declare the obvious – that crude oil is toxic to breathe. I have been told by OSHA that a medical study cannot be conducted until after 6 months of exposure. WHAT? There have been 21 years since the exposure of the crude oil in Prince William Sound, and no one is listening. So, after 6 months of workers in the gulf breathe in the crude oil, a study can be conducted? That leads us to believe that the government is holding up the rug, while BP sweeps known reports under the same rug, and the other agencies conduct the Dance of Deliberate Deception on top of the rug.
President Obama, how about admitting that the crude oil is toxic, and demand BP provide respirators for the oil cleanup workers, and compensation for the Gulf unemployment caused by the disaster.
In 1989 Exxon told the cleanup workers the same story, that the crude oil is not toxic. Some of us are living proof of the toxic exposure, and many others have died. The 21 years of my health issues should be an example that crude oil is toxic. Please view the YouTube video, and help get the message to Gulf residents, BP crude oil cleanup workers, respirators are necessary on the Gulf oil cleanup.
Toxic Crude Oil in The Gulf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M1J7U2GYA0