Lab results confirm that oil discovered in Pensacola Bay last month has extreme toxicity levels.
BY SCOTT PAGE Gulf Breeze News scott@gulfbreezenews.com
Test results are in for oil material found in Pensacola Bay late last month, and the numbers are frightening.
A lab experienced in testing petroleum products determined that the oil’s toxicity levels are sky-high.
“In its natural state, the numbers are off the chart,” said Heather Reed, the environmental expert for the City of Gulf Breeze who made the discovery. “It’s extremely toxic to human health.”
Lab workers had to dilute the sample 20 times just to get a reading. Reed said samples are usually diluted only once.
“The oil is very well preserved,” Reed added. “It smells very strong when pulled out of the water. It made me nauseated.” Reed in late September discovered a significant amount of oil buried in submerged sediment near Fort McRae in Escambia County while conducting independent research.
“The oil was in about 3 feet of water and was buried pretty deep in the sediment,” Reed recalled. “The mats where between 6 inches and a foot in diameter, but some were more than 2 feet in diameter. I kept digging and finding more and more.
“Finding this submerged oil is very alarming to me because it’s in such large mats,” Reed explained. “I believe it came into (the bay) in June with the initial impacts.”
Reed on Sept. 30 revisited the site and another near Barrancas Beach with BP and Coast Guard officials to inform responders of her discovery. She also discovered oil present at Johnson Beach, Fort Pickens and Orange Beach through research she conducted in September.
The topography near Fort McRae helped preserve the submerged oil. Because the area is a secluded cove, very little water flows through it – resulting in low oxygen levels.
“(The oil) is in an anaerobic environment, so there is not a lot of bacteria to break it down,” Reed explained.
Reed said that similar samples that might possibly remain submerged in the Gulf of Mexico could be extremely damaging to the marine ecosystem.
“I am concerned about upwelling events,” Reed said. “Strong currents draw up nutrient rich water and sediment from the sea floor that nourishes plankton and other organisms that are the foundation of the marine food chain.
“If an upwelling event brings up any oil material with these toxicity levels, it could be harmful to any animals near the upwelling plume.”
Reed is unsure of the effects of the oil on the water quality near Fort McRae.
“The surface area is very large, and it gets pretty deep, so there could be a lot of dilution,” she said. “Because it sank and is submerged, it will stay there.
“I would not recommend going into the water.”
She explained that the effects near the beach would be different because of more aeration.
Though no oil has been reported on Gulf Breeze shores or in local bayous, those areas could be at risk.
“We don’t have any barriers, the Coastwatchers aren’t patrolling anymore, and there has been no communication to the city of this oil entering the bay,” Reed said.
If oil entered any of the Gulf Breeze bayous, Reed explained that it would sink and become submerged just as it had near Fort McRae.
“It would definitely sink and be preserved,” Reed said. “And it would be very difficult to find.”
View Original Article HERE
Related:
Trisha Springstead, is a registered nurse of 36 years who lives and works in Brooksville, Florida.
“What I’m seeing are toxified people who have been chemically poisoned,” she said, “They have sore throats, respiratory problems, neurological problems, lesions, sores, and ulcers. These people have been poisoned and they are dying. Drugs aren’t going to help these people. They need to be detoxed.”
Chemist Bob Naman:
“I’m scared of what I’m finding. These cyclic compounds intermingle with the Corexit [dispersants] and generate other cyclic compounds that aren’t good. Many have double bonds, and many are on the EPA’s danger list. This is an unprecedented environmental catastrophe.”
Related Article: BP Dispersants Causing Sickness
Thursday, October 28, 2010
$3,000 Fine Announced For Homeschooling
By Bob Unruh
WorldNetDaily
Officials in Sweden announced a $3,000 fine for a couple homeschooling their son then barred them from a court hearing on the dispute.
Word of the latest attack on parents dissatisfied with government-run public schools in the free world who choose to educate their own children comes from the Home School Legal Defense Association.
This week's report is about the 'R' family dispute with their local municipality, Partille, in southwestern Sweden.
Homeschooling in Sweden has been in the news in recent weeks with the Johansson case. Social workers had police officers forcibly take custody of Dominic Johanssona, who was being homeschooled while his parents prepared for a move to India. Most recently, a judge ruled social workers will continue to have custody of the boy.
The decision in the Johansson case by Judge Peter Freudenthal was reported by the Home School Legal Defense Association, which with the help of international attorneys working with the Alliance Defense Fund already has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights for help reuniting the family.
Dominic Johannson was seized from his parents June 25, 2009, because he was being homeschooled, had a few untreated cavities in his teeth and had not been given the latest vaccinations scheduled by the government.
Since then, he's been allowed a brief visit with his parents, sometimes five weeks apart, and at other times a brief, monitored telephone call.
In the newest case, the HSLDA said that the municipal officials rejected the family's request for homeschooling permission then ruled that the family should not get a court hearing to argue their case.
"This action ignores basic principles of fairness and due process that are well established in Western nations. This behavior asserts the power of the Swedish state in a way that is increasingly punitive toward those who deviate from the 'norm,'" an analysis of the case by HSLDA said.
The authorities had rejected the family's homeschool request last year "despite the fact that the 'R' family have successfully educated their son at home for the past six years."
"It appears that the municipality based this decision solely upon its prejudiced views of homeschooling as 'inadequate' and even 'harmful' to children. These views have been repeated in other judicial decisions in Sweden," the organization reported.
The fines stem from the government's orders to the family last year to put their son in school immediately and the parents' refusal to comply while they were arguing their case in court.
"Fines are for people who act illegally, not for law-abiding citizens," the 'R' family told the organization. "Our child is going to school. It would be different with parents who don't take their child to any school. That is where they can use fines."
Mike Donnelly, the HSLDA director of international affairs, said the municipality's "denial of the 'R' family' due process rights is the most recent action by Swedish officials that reveals a blatant agenda to persecute homeschoolers as a specific social group."
"These officials are attempting to take away basic due process rights like access to an impartial hearing for each denial of their rights. This practice of denying individuals their legal right to due process shows that Sweden is on a dangerous path heading towards tyranny," he said.
"By denying due process like this, Sweden has departed from a system of law that safeguards the rights of the individual," he said. "Both of these cases, and many others like these, call into question the basic fairness of the Swedish legal process. Decisions such as these, regarding homeschoolers and others where the state overpowers the rights of individuals to squelch 'dissent,' are frightening and echo Germany's treatment of homeschoolers," he said.
Germany is notorious in its treatment of homeschoolers as criminals, and the U.S. has granted asylum to a German homeschool family.
View Article With Links HERE
WorldNetDaily
Officials in Sweden announced a $3,000 fine for a couple homeschooling their son then barred them from a court hearing on the dispute.
Word of the latest attack on parents dissatisfied with government-run public schools in the free world who choose to educate their own children comes from the Home School Legal Defense Association.
This week's report is about the 'R' family dispute with their local municipality, Partille, in southwestern Sweden.
Homeschooling in Sweden has been in the news in recent weeks with the Johansson case. Social workers had police officers forcibly take custody of Dominic Johanssona, who was being homeschooled while his parents prepared for a move to India. Most recently, a judge ruled social workers will continue to have custody of the boy.
The decision in the Johansson case by Judge Peter Freudenthal was reported by the Home School Legal Defense Association, which with the help of international attorneys working with the Alliance Defense Fund already has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights for help reuniting the family.
Dominic Johannson was seized from his parents June 25, 2009, because he was being homeschooled, had a few untreated cavities in his teeth and had not been given the latest vaccinations scheduled by the government.
Since then, he's been allowed a brief visit with his parents, sometimes five weeks apart, and at other times a brief, monitored telephone call.
In the newest case, the HSLDA said that the municipal officials rejected the family's request for homeschooling permission then ruled that the family should not get a court hearing to argue their case.
"This action ignores basic principles of fairness and due process that are well established in Western nations. This behavior asserts the power of the Swedish state in a way that is increasingly punitive toward those who deviate from the 'norm,'" an analysis of the case by HSLDA said.
The authorities had rejected the family's homeschool request last year "despite the fact that the 'R' family have successfully educated their son at home for the past six years."
"It appears that the municipality based this decision solely upon its prejudiced views of homeschooling as 'inadequate' and even 'harmful' to children. These views have been repeated in other judicial decisions in Sweden," the organization reported.
The fines stem from the government's orders to the family last year to put their son in school immediately and the parents' refusal to comply while they were arguing their case in court.
"Fines are for people who act illegally, not for law-abiding citizens," the 'R' family told the organization. "Our child is going to school. It would be different with parents who don't take their child to any school. That is where they can use fines."
Mike Donnelly, the HSLDA director of international affairs, said the municipality's "denial of the 'R' family' due process rights is the most recent action by Swedish officials that reveals a blatant agenda to persecute homeschoolers as a specific social group."
"These officials are attempting to take away basic due process rights like access to an impartial hearing for each denial of their rights. This practice of denying individuals their legal right to due process shows that Sweden is on a dangerous path heading towards tyranny," he said.
"By denying due process like this, Sweden has departed from a system of law that safeguards the rights of the individual," he said. "Both of these cases, and many others like these, call into question the basic fairness of the Swedish legal process. Decisions such as these, regarding homeschoolers and others where the state overpowers the rights of individuals to squelch 'dissent,' are frightening and echo Germany's treatment of homeschoolers," he said.
Germany is notorious in its treatment of homeschoolers as criminals, and the U.S. has granted asylum to a German homeschool family.
View Article With Links HERE
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