Conflict of Interest Worries Raised in Spill Tests

[highplainsdem]

Source: NY Times

Conflict of Interest Worries Raised in Spill Tests
By IAN URBINA
Published: May 20, 2010

Local environmental officials throughout the Gulf Coast are feverishly collecting water, sediment and marine animal tissue samples that will be used in the coming months to help track pollution levels resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, since those readings will be used by the federal government and courts to establish liability claims against BP. But the laboratory that officials have chosen to process virtually all of the samples is part of an oil and gas services company in Texas that counts oil firms, including BP, among its biggest clients.

Some people are questioning the independence of the Texas lab. Taylor Kirschenfeld, an environmental official for Escambia County, Fla., rebuffed instructions from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to send water samples to the lab, which is based at TDI-Brooks International in College Station, Tex. He opted instead to get a waiver so he could send his county’s samples to a local laboratory that is licensed to do the same tests.

Mr. Kirschenfeld said he was also troubled by another rule. Local animal rescue workers have volunteered to help treat birds affected by the slick and to collect data that would also be used to help calculate penalties for the spill. But federal officials have told the volunteers that the work must be done by a company hired by BP.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/science/earth/21conflict.html

[texastoast]

1. Fuck them. I'll clean the birds if I fucking want to

Heading down there in a couple of weeks. And I'll be wearing my Erin Brochovich shirt.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

2. SSDD

Corporation ownership society, until we make a real stand against it.

[RKP5637]

3. So much BS and no wonder. How can politicians accept political contributions

from corporations and then make decisions without being biased. Good lord, they gave them the contributions so they would be biased. God I get so F'en tired of the BS in this country.

This is but one example, but pretty vogue...

No doubt this has significant influence. And is why we've got to get the money out of campaign contributions, of course, the supreme court is of absolutely no help, they are part of the problem.

"BP's Oily Political Connections, From the Bush to Obama Era" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikolas-kozloff/bps-oily-political-connec_b_562059.html

[alp227]

4. Given BP's repeated failure for weeks to plug the leak

it's very very hard to trust anyone connected to BP to do any cleanup or resolution. Strive for independence! Heck, maybe get Canadian or Mexican laboratory if you have to!

[Angry Dragon]

5. Where is the federal oversite??

where is the federal involvement??

Obama, if he does not clarify this, he might as well pull a palin and just bail for he will be a lame duck anyway. I am getting sick of him letting this go on this way and not stepping up to be a leader.

[Iowa]

7. I wouldn't look for him to bail...

I can recall a couple of my co-workers speculating about the possible retirement of a feckless manager, and another co-worker saying, "Why the hell would he retire? He's gotta read the paper somewhere."

Maybe we'll see someone like Alan Grayson run in 2012. We can hope.

[pundaint]

8. Leadership? I went back and reviewed the campaign speeches, we were never promised leadership.

That's just you projecting your own hopes into the increasingly empty shell which, apparently, constitutes Change.

[JDPriestly]

6. This is the problem. It sounds so easy to just have Obama take over

managing the spill control and research. But in fact, the oil industry is a small, small world in which people tend to know each other. It's hard to find experts who aren't somehow plugged into the corporate reach and grab.