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© Sean Gardner/EPAGreenpeace senior campaigner Lindsey Allen walks through a patch of oil from the Deepwater Horizon on the breakwater in the mouth of the Mississippi river where it meets the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana
As early as May 9 it was announced that FEMA evacuation protocol for forest fires in and around Tampa, Florida could be activated at a moment's notice in the event of the oil slick approaching Florida's coastline. One proposal is to undergo a 'controlled burn' of surface oil in the Gulf to prevent the oil reaching Florida's coast. This would result in highly toxic fumes blowing ashore. In fact, toxic fumes have already been reported elsewhere as Gulf residents complain of breathing difficulties and nausea:
Oil is semi-volatile, which means that it can evaporate into the air and create a heavy vapor that stays near the ground -- in the human breathing zone. When winds whip up oily sea water, the spray contains tiny droplets -- basically a fume -- of oil, which are small enough to be inhaled deep into the lungs. We know that's happening in the Gulf Coast, because people are reporting a heavy oily smell in the air. Already my colleagues in Louisiana are reporting that people in the coastal community of Venice, Louisiana are suffering from nausea, vomiting, headaches, and difficulty breathing.
The following eyewitness account came to our attention yesterday:
Hi all,

Making this quick, don't feel well. About 4:15pm or so eastern, coming back from Tampa, Florida north on Veteran's Expressway...about 7 miles perhaps from SR 54...it sprinkled some gray watery and solid black oil on my car. Thought it was bugs, but so fast did not make sense and windshield wipers just smeared it. Got out of car at store and looked on the paint and solid black dots on my car...I touch? huh? it's wet? it's OIL!!!!!

I had several folks verify it before I sprayed it off and it came off easier than the few love bugs. Two hours later still wet like OIL! nope, not water, smell it, OIL!!!
Anyone on Gulf try not to smear touch it as it is harder to wash off if it happens to you. Bands of storm clouds coming this way from Gulf of Mexico...has not actually rained at least where I have been, just ran through the sprinkle. I smell it now I am inside the house...it's just hard for me to believe also. One can think of a other things...oh maybe it was a vehicle in front of you...there was no vehicles near me at the time. So coincidence oil spill in the gulf and it rains oil on my car? okay believe what you will...but I know my gut and what happened to me, what I saw, others witnessed, I took pics of (sorry don't know how to post them, and it photos could be debatable anyway, take my word or not whichever...but we are in deep hocky doo folks.

I was noticing that big black blotch closer to west coast FL on some images that someone posted yesterday on Disasters board...wondering. Well, maybe wrong board but felt more may see it here and ones that live here. Be careful, if it gets on your clothes, pets, hair, eyes, skin...it won't be so easy to wash off as a well waxed car is.

Not checking this for now, gotta wash out my ears, eyes, nose and lay down...change clothes as I smell it now inside the house on my clothes. I did not smell it while out though and my nose is now desensitizing, but I feel nauseated. I am really sensitive though, some may not be so much or get the heavy warnings I do.

Thanks for letting me post this bopp, if you want to move it, okay with me I understand...maybe nobody pay attention anyway and I am not super pops here as it is!

~ Eve
If a regular storm can displace oil like this, what would a hurricane do in the upcoming hurricane season? This season is predicted to be 'fierce', by the way. If weather systems can dump fish and frogs there's no reason why oil couldn't be lifted clean into the atmosphere to then fall back to the ground many miles inland. Stranger things have happened.

There is also the dispersal agent 'Corexit 9500' that BP has been used in unprecedented amounts (700,000 gallons). Sounds like very toxic stuff (it's banned in many countries around the world because it is so toxic), and fishermen have already reported getting sick from inhaling it. What are the chances that any oil that either evaporates off into the atmosphere from 'controlled burns' or is lifted clear from the water by storms then falls back to land with this toxic chemical mixed in with it?


When you see images of the oil slick and it appears as orange, the orange is the chemical dispersant. This toxic sludge is already making its way up Louisiana's marshlands and the Mississippi delta.

Just HOW did anybody think using a noxious chemical by-product of the oil industry to clean up a massive oil leak was a good idea? Probably this same pathological BP executive who should be tried, and if convicted, sentenced for crimes against humanity and the planet:
In a handwritten statement to the Coast Guard obtained by the AP, Transocean rig worker Truitt Crawford said: "I overheard upper management talking saying that BP was taking shortcuts by displacing the well with saltwater instead of mud without sealing the well with cement plugs, this is why it blew out."

At a Coast Guard hearing in New Orleans, Doug Brown, chief rig mechanic aboard the platform, testified that the trouble began at a meeting hours before the blowout, with a "skirmish" between a BP official and rig workers who did not want to replace heavy drilling fluid in the well with saltwater.

The switch presumably would have allowed the company to remove the fluid and use it for another project, but the seawater would have provided less weight to counteract the surging pressure from the ocean depths.

Brown said the BP official, whom he identified only as the "company man," overruled the drillers, declaring, "This is how it's going to be." Brown said the top Transocean official on the rig grumbled, "Well, I guess that's what we have those pinchers for," which he took to be a reference to devices on the blowout preventer, the five-story piece of equipment that can slam a well shut in an emergency.
The leak has not been stopped yet but already this is the worst environmental disaster in history. It's impact on the Gulf region will be devastating:


The number of people this disaster may eventually affect is potentially staggering, and nobody is doing anything other than pointing fingers. We suspect that we're only seeing the beginning of the effects of this ecological nightmare scenario. The Gulf of Mexico is obviously an invaluable ecosystem for the humans, animals and plants that are directly dependent on it, but further afield it serves as the 'pump' for the Gulf Stream ocean current that effectively keeps Europe's climate temperate rather than 'Arctic'. Al Gore is wrong about the "man-made global warming", but only about the "warming" part. Man-made global cooling... now there's a thought.