Tell the Feds to Protect Gulf Wildlife, Not BP

Restricted air space? Felony charges for getting too close to cleanup operations? BP contractors crushing birds' nests? What gives?

BP's public relations department has been working around the clock to hide the true impacts of the drilling disaster from the public, and it's well past time we had some real transparency! The federal government should be taking all possible steps to protect Gulf wildlife and open the cleanup and recovery effort to light of public scrutiny - not to protect BP's image.

Please use the form below to send a message to the President and other federal agencies today asking them to:

Make the clean-up and recovery effort more transparent by lifting restrictions on flights and boat excursions to impacted areas.

Protect bird nests, eggs, and fledgings from being harmed by inadequately trained BP contractors.

Make sure that BP is held accountable for long-term recovery costs by accurately testing whether or not deceased wildlife was impacted by BP's oil.

Subject:

Your Letter:

It is well past time for the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command (DHUC), BP, and other agencies involved in the clean-up and recovery effort to fully open up the process to the light of public scrutiny and to take all possible steps to ensure that wildlife is protected.

Groups like Gulf Restoration Network, reporters, and concerned citizens must all be allowed reasonable access to impacted areas. While I understand the need to ensure that clean-up efforts and booms are not disturbed, I feel that many of the current restrictions are an effort to protect BP from the PR nightmare of images of oiled wetlands and wildlife. For example, private monitoring planes flying over oiled areas are restricted from descending below 3,000 feet. This ‘temporary’ flight restriction has been in-place for over 80 days now, and forces independent monitors to rely on awfully long camera lenses and an awfully clear day to reveal the awful truth of BPs crude on our coast. New restrictions on how close independent monitors can get to boomed areas and other clean-up operations are also a concern. These flight restrictions and severe restrictions on access to impacted areas must be lifted.

Independent monitoring efforts have already revealed significant concerns with how clean-up efforts are impacting wildlife like brown pelicans, least terns, and sea turtles. Reports indicate that BP contractor cleanup crews working on islands off of Louisiana’s coast crushed nests and eggs of birds nesting on these islands. Similarly, crews on beaches have been disturbing least tern nests along the water’s edge and, at times, crushing or otherwise endangering fledglings. There must be improvement in communication from DHUC to BP field supervisors regarding this issue – supervisors must be trained to recognize risks and better control access to dune and back beach areas by their workers. In addition, more attention needs to be focused on rescuing abandoned or orphaned fledglings.

Finally, there are significant concerns regarding the testing being done to determine the cause of death for wildlife and the secrecy surrounding what stranded or dead species are being collected by response teams. The massive spike in wildlife deaths must be scientifically attributed to the oil disaster in order to assess the proper fines and ensure solid restoration plans as part of the response.  But some toxicologists are afraid NOAA isn’t testing for the right contaminants, and the whole process remains secretive. Specifically, current testing for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) might not be an accurate measurement of oil impacts because these chemical compounds break-up quickly and therefore might not show up in many toxicity tests.  These tests should be expanded to include PAHs’ metabolites that would more accurately determine the role that BP’s oil has played in wildlife deaths. In addition, federal agencies should be sharing all available data on which species are being collected by response teams. NOAA has begun releasing species specific data on oiled and stranded marine mammals and sea turtles, but USFWS is still not releasing information about the species of birds that are being collected or captured.
  
It is essential that DHUC and other government agencies do everything necessary to protect Gulf communities, and wildlife – not BP. As this massive and unprecedented clean-up and recovery effort continues, increased transparency is vital to successfully achieving the mission of restoring the Gulf, defending our communities, and making sure this never happens again.

President Barack Obama

Phone:(202) 456-1111

Fax:(202) 456-2461

Thad Allen

Joint Incident Command

Rowan Gould

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Dr. Jane Lubchenco

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

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