July 12, 2010
My name is Larry Everest. I’m with the Emergency Committee to Stop the Gulf Oil Disaster. Our mission is building a broad, determined, and powerful peoples’ response across society with all hands on deck to stop this catastrophe. The reason we’ve undertaken this: the government and British Petroleum have proven unable and unwilling to stop the gusher, to protect the gulf, to protect human health, or even tell the truth. I would urge everyone to go to our website www.stopgulfoildisaster.org and join with us in this mission, read our seven demands, read our mission statement…and one of our seven demands is stop oil drilling in the gulf of Mexico.
Today our focus is our fourth demand: Complete transparency and disclosure of all information and documentation, including scientific, medical, and technical data bearing on this disaster. One of the enormous outrages of this situation has been that both British Petroleum and the government have refused to be transparent or truthful.
There are four particular and urgent issues that demand attention and a change of what’s going on right now. First of all, the public still does not know how much oil is gushing out from the Deepwater Horizon. Even the flow-rate assessment team has only been provided a limited data set by British Petroleum. This has to change. They need full access to the well.
Number two, Dr. Ira Leifer of UC-Santa Barbara and the flow-rate assessment team, has proposed a scientific study to assess the flow of the oil from the well and its fate in the water column. These kind of hypothesis driven scientific studies are urgently needed to assess the true scope of this disaster and evaluate clean-up and remediation. Yet so far his proposal has been delayed and blocked by British Petroleum, which has refused to discuss its scientific merits and importance. This is intolerable and must change.
Number three, nearly two million gallons of dispersants have been used in the gulf without adequate study, including what the result of mixing them with oil is. This is the whole problem, that dispersants make the oil much more toxic.
Number four, we’re calling for the end of the Coast Guard’s twenty meter rule, which is an attempt at censorship and preventing the public and journalists from finding out the truth and reporting this to the public.
Anyone who wants our mission statement and press statement I will give it to them. I will also present it to the commission. Once again I urge people to join us at: www.stopgulfoildisaster.org
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