Ban Corexit Now: Join Us, Send a Clear Message!
As stated in the prior post, one of our top priorities today is to send a clear message to the EPA to ban Corexit IMMEDIATELY. BP MUST stop using this product. Today more workers were hospitalized shortly after the toxic dispersant was dropped near the boats where they were skimming oil. This can not be emphasized enough. This is not just injuring the workers, but wreaking havoc on the entire ecosystem in the gulf, ensuring that what the oil doesn’t destroy, Corexit will, forever altering marine life and a significant food source for millions of people.
“We want to clean up this oil, but these dispersants have got to stop,” Ronnie Anderson, a shrimp boat captain and cleanup worker who has been helping with the effort since April 30. “The burning seems to work, but these dispersants are making people sick. It has to be hurting our fisheries if it’s hurting us.”
Earlier in the week, seven oil spill recovery workers were hospitalized in New Orleans after complaining of feeling ill. All were properly trained and had protective gear on.
Make no mistake, the BP spin machine will continue to blame heat and exhaustion. Do not accept these stories. It’s time to send a resounding message that we will not, we can not tolerate this. Leave a comment here to indicate your support! Call the EPA.
Here is the online contact form for President Barack Obama in the White House. This is quick and easy. Simply fill in the form telling him to step in and ban Corexit, effective immediately. This is one sure way to restore confidence from a lot of Americans and send a signal that he is willing and able to assert some control here. We also want to send the message to use the alternative and much safer Bioremediation products. Take 30 seconds, click and send your message to BAN COREXIT IMMEDIATELY: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
Note in the above story BP states its strong commitment to worker safety:
A BP spokesman, John Curry, has said the company takes “worker safety seriously.” The company also said it has provided spill recovery workers with protective equipment, such as suits, steel-toed boots, gloves, hard hats and safety glasses.
and yet in this article on the gulf oil spill clean up:
BP reportedly told the workers that if they encountered oil, it “wasn’t supposed to bother [them].” BP did not distribute gloves, suits, or any other kind of protective gear.
Things that make you go hmm.
Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the EPA can be found on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/lisapjackson and the EPA can be found at: www.twitter.com/EPAgov. Send a clear message – stop BP’s use of Corexit immediately! Lisa’s office number is: 202-564-4700.
Take a moment and indicate your support using the comment forms below. I will deliver both electronically and by fax a copy of the complete list of comments directly to the EPA and to White House. Sign your name and your city and state and leave a brief note if you wish. JOIN US NOW!! BAN COREXIT IMMEDIATELY!!!
| Print article | This entry was posted by Jennifer Roth on May 29, 2010 at 6:04 pm, and is filed under BP Oil Spill, corexit. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |




about 1 year ago
Why are we using the toxin COREXIT when there are safer, proven alternatives? Milled bagasse a by-product of sugar cane that in 1998 was demonstrated by Dr Gary Breitenbeck at LSU to be safe and effective. Now he is “encountering heavy opposition from the regulatory agencies”, OSE II a biological enzyme that converts the waste into a natural food source for the enhanced native bacteria found in the environment. The end result of this process is CO2 and water. Further on bagasse: http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/1998/B/199801591.html Further on OSE II: http://www.osei.us/
about 1 year ago
Corexit is simply keeping the oil beneath the surface of the ocean. There are more effective alternatives to this toxic chemical. Why isnt BP using them? One of the board members of Nalco (the company that makes Corexit) is Rodney F. Chase, who is a former BP board member. BP and Nalco are obviously trying to make a big business out of this environmental tragedy, rather than making any kind of morally sound effort to repair the damage that BP has caused.
There needs to be a Federal level effort to demand that BP use a safer method to clean the Gulf. One of the cleanest and most effective alternatives is the use of microbes in bioremediation.
Back in 1989 there was a major demonstration done in Texas (both in the lab and in the field) using microbes to clean up a very large oil spill within 6 weeks without interfering with any ecological processes.