The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is a national nightmare that seems to have no ending. Every day new details come out that are even more shocking than what we learned the day before.
The truth is that life will never be the same in the Gulf of Mexico or for those who live along the Gulf coast. Now Barack Obama has made a big Oval Office speech and has tried to convince all of us that he is in charge of the crisis.
Well, perhaps if he had tried to take decisive action a month ago the American people may have rallied around him. But right now the BP/government response to this disaster remains completely and totally chaotic.
Nobody seems to be able to stop the leak, and BP has made the environmental nightmare far worse by dumping over a million gallons of highly toxic dispersants into the Gulf. U.S. government officials are running around holding press conferences and waiting for BP to do something.
Meanwhile oil is pouring ashore and toxic gases are being detected at very alarming levels. The biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history is also quickly becoming one of the biggest economic disasters and potentially one of the biggest public health disasters.
The truth is that the American people deserve some answers about what in the world is going on down there in the Gulf. BP does not own the Gulf of Mexico and they have no right to keep the American people from seeing what is happening.
There are some very serious health and environmental questions that have been raised in the media recently, but both BP and the U.S. government are not giving us any answers.
But we need some answers. People are getting sick. Crops are dying. Wildlife is being devastated. Birds are flocking north by the thousands.
But BP and the U.S. government continue to treat us as though we are on a "need to know" basis and that what we "need to know" is not much.
Actually, much of what they have decided to tell us throughout this crisis has turned out to be lies anyway.
The truth is that it is about darn time that someone started telling it to us straight.
The following are 16 questions about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that we really need some answers to....
1) Barack Obama has authorized the deployment of more than 17,000 National Guard members along the Gulf coast to be used "as needed" by state governors. So what are all of these National Guard troops going to be doing exactly? Are the troops going to be used to stop the oil or to control the public?
2) Barack Obama has also announced the creation of a "Gulf recovery czar" who will be in charge of overseeing the restoration of the Gulf of Mexico region following the oil spill. So is appointing a "czar" Obama's idea of taking charge of a situation?
3) Because it is so incredibly toxic, the UK's Marine Management Organization has completely banned Corexit 9500, so if there was a major oil spill in the UK's North Sea, BP would not be able to use it. So why is BP being allowed to use Corexit 9500 in the Gulf of Mexico?
4) It is being reported that 2.61 parts per million of Corexit 9500 (mixed with oil at a ratio of 1:1o) is lethal to 50% of fish exposed to it within 96 hours. That means that 1 gallon of Corexit 9500/oil mixture is capable of rendering 383,141 gallons of water highly toxic to fish. So why was BP allowed to dump 1,021,000 gallons of Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527 into the Gulf of Mexico, and why aren't they being stopped from dumping another 805,000 gallons of these dispersants that they have on order into the Gulf?
5) If these dispersants are so incredibly toxic to fish, what are they going to do to crops? What are they going to do to people?
6) If the smell of the oil on some Gulf beaches is already so strong that it burns your nostrils, then what in the world is this oil doing to to wildlife that encounter it?
7) Is it a bad sign that birds from the Gulf region are flocking north by the thousands?
8) Why is BP being allowed to use private security contractors to keep the American people away from the oil cleanup sites?
9) Why is BP openly attempting to manipulate the search results on sites like Google and Yahoo?
10) Why has the FAA shut down the airspace above the Gulf of Mexico oil spill? What don't they want the American people to see?
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11) Senator Bill Nelson of Florida says that there are reports that there are additional ruptures in the sea floor from which oil is leaking. If there are quite a few of these additional ruptures, then how in the world does BP expect to completely stop this oil leak?
12) Why are scientists finding concentrations of methane at up to 10,000 times normal background levels in Gulf waters?
13) At some testing stations in the Gulf of Mexico, levels of benzene have been detected at over 3000 parts per billion, and levels of hydrogen sulfide have been detected as high as 1192 parts per billion. Considering that these levels would be highly toxic to humans, why hasn't the general public been warned?
14) Why are so many Gulf oil spill disaster workers showing up at local hospitals complaining of a "mysterious illness"?
15) If "70% or 80%" of the protective booms are doing absolutely nothing at all to stop the oil, then what is going to stop the millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf from eventually reaching shore?
16) It is being reported that the deepsea oil plumes are creating huge "dead zones" where all creatures are dying as they are deprived of oxygen. If this oil spill continues to grow could the vast majority of the Gulf of Mexico become one gigantic "dead zone"?
By. Michael Snyder
