Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, shocking revelations are just now circulating that the Coast Guard and NOAA actively attempted to cover up University of South Florida findings (among others) of the now-infamous underwater oil plumes.
USF marine sciences dean William Hogarth told the St. Petersburg Times: “I got lambasted by the Coast Guard and NOAA when we said there was undersea oil.” And Hogarth wasn’t the only one the Coast Guard and NOAA tried to put the clamps on. It seems like a coordinated campaign to hide information. According to the Times: “Vernon Asper, an oceanographer at the University of Southern Mississippi, was part of a similar effort that met with a similar reaction. ‘We expected that NOAA would be pleased because we found something very, very interesting,’ Asper said. ‘NOAA instead responded by trying to discredit us. It was just a shock to us.’ ”
It is absolutely unconscionable that it appears factions of the federal government have been complicit in BP’s campaign of misinformation and secrecy from very early on in this disaster. As one of my colleagues said: “This is just a third-rate burglary of our environment followed by the traditional coverup.” Well put.
For me, it’s frankly a vindication of sorts. I’ve committed a small fortune doing independent testing after repeatedly being asked “why are you spending all this money for testing when you can use the government and BP data?” I’d cringe from decades of courtroom experience and say “that’s the best and fastest way to lose an environmental case, the government is never on the victim’s side, never seen it in 23 years.”
Now we need a full and immediate investigation into this apparent coverup. What other information has NOAA and the Coast Guard squelched? What else has been kept from the public? Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen has a lot of very difficult questions to answer…and the whole country will be watching.
Read full article: http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/article1114225.ece
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