TagCorexit

New study confirms the worst about toxic dispersant in the Gulf

N

In 2010, I was part of an alliance of environmentalists and others who pleaded with the federal government to work with BP in ending the widespread use of the toxic chemical called Corexit. This dangerous substance was being sprayed, in large quantities, to make the crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe disappear. It seemed clear from Day One that simply spraying another poisonous...

It’s time to ban the use of Corexit, period

I

The jury shouldn’t be out anymore on Corexit, the toxic dispersant that was massively dumped on the Gulf of Mexico after the BP oil spill in 2010. Many of us had concerns almost from Day One, with reports from clean-up workers of headaches and nausea. Despite our campaign to convince the government to prevent BP from dumping more toxins on top of its gigantic oil spill, the feds ultimately...

My LA Times op-ed: “5 years after BP spill, little has changed to protect Gulf of Mexico”

M

Today, on the actual 5th anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, I published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, voicing my dismay not only at the current state of the Gulf of Mexico but over the complete failure to take the necessary steps to make sure this never happens again. Here’s an excerpt: The Obama administration, for its part, has been a lot more aggressive about awarding new...

Book excerpt: “Colluders in Crude: The Oily Politics of How the Obama Administration Sided with BP Over the American People”

B

My feelings about BP and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon catastrophe have been consistent from Day One. Working closely with dedicated environmentalists from Louisiana and elsewhere, we have never fully trusted the oil giant’s public version of events. We have fought for safety and protection of workers and wildlife — ever skeptical of early reports that seafood from the Gulf of Mexico was...

“The Gulf will never recover in the near future”: The Huffington Post covers ‘Crude Justice’

&

I continue to be flattered by the good notices and coverage of my new book, Crude Justice: How I Fought Big Oil and Won, and What You Should Know About the New Environmental Attack on America. This week, an environmental activist and writer that I’ve known for years, Jerry Cope, interviewed me for the Huffington Post, and we talked about the book — and how Big Oil’s ever-growing...

No, BP did not make the oil in the Gulf “disappear”

N

This week has been something of an upsetting one for the millions of Gulf Coast residents whose lives were turned upside down by the massive BP oil spill in 2010. Inside the federal courthouse in New Orleans, lawyers for the British oil giant have been pushing to reduce the civil penalties it will have to pay for the widespread damage under the Clean Water Act. In doing so, the firm has called a...

The feds act on toxic oil-spill dispersants — too little, too late

T

One of the many battles with Big Oil that I chronicle in my new book — Crude Justice: How I Fought Big Oil and Won, and What You Should Know About the New Environmental Attack on America — is the fight over BP’s handling of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010. The action peaked during the darkest days of the spill that poisoned the Gulf with 5 million barrels of oil. While...

BP’s Politico puff piece wasn’t just shady journalism ethics — it was mostly a lie

B

BP, with a huge assist from the popular Beltway-insider website Politico, stirred up the muddy waters of the Deepwater Horizon spill aftermath this week when it published a corporate-love-letter-disguised-as-news entitled, “No, BP Didn’t Ruin the Gulf.” Anyone expecting humility from a firm whose court-certified wanton negligence killed 11 people and seriously polluted...

The truth about the vanishing Gulf oyster: It’s worse than you think

T

Over the last year or so, an increasing number of articles have appeared — in widely read publications like Newsweek or the Guardian — bemoaning the sorry environmental state of the Gulf, more than four years after the Deepwater Horizon spill. To me, there’s no more important issue than this — it’s the very reason that I started this blog not long after the spill, so...

Stuart H. Smith is an attorney based in New Orleans fighting major oil companies and other polluters.
Cooper Law Firm

Follow Us

© Stuart H Smith, LLC