NOAA Can’t Fool Us Again

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Fool me once, the old saying goes, shame on you…fool me twice or a half-dozen times, and you must be NOAA and I’m the American public. And, yes, if we’re being fooled once again by these guys, the shame should be almost entirely on us.

In the context of the spill, very few Gulf residents give the government much credibility anyway. Retired Adm. Thad Allen and his Coast Guard seem to be partners with BP and Big Oil, and NOAA’s “greatest hits” include helping BP low-ball oil-flow estimates and that now-disgraced claim about 75 percent of the oil being magically “gone.”

And now we’re supposed to trust these folks to gauge the safety of seafood? Really? They should be facing congressional hearings on why, for example, we have no test in place for Corexit, the toxic dispersant used to hide (sorry, “break up”) the oil. So we’re reduced to a “sniff test” and examination by NOAA. It would be laughable if it weren’t so serious.

We can credit NOAA’s consistency in one area: They refuse any real transparency in regard to their results, no doubt because when independent scientists get involved, they have to recant major findings. And this time folks, we may be trusting them with our lives.

Fool us this time, and there will be plenty of shame to go around.

The USA Today has a good report, even if the critical comment is a bit hidden in the tick-tock recounting of what amounts to a meaningless lab process. See article here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-08-23-shriming-season-gulf-mexico_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

© Smith Stag, LLC 2010 – All Rights Reserved

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