My BP Mole Spills the Secrets of BP's Cleanup Ops-Told "500 times" that if he talks, he's fired.

[kpete]

My BP Mole Spills the Secrets of BP's Cleanup Ops

— By Mac McClelland
| Thu Jun. 3, 2010 7:56 PM PDT

BP's got a mole working on its cleanup team. The company might be able to keep the press from getting to oiled-up Elmer's Island Wildlife Refuge, but as long as people have cell phones, it's going to have a hell of a time keeping Elmer's Island from getting to the press.

Late Wednesday night I talked to a spill worker involved in the efforts to clean up South Louisiana's barrier islands. Let's call him Elmer, because we spoke under condition of strict anonymity. Though he hasn't signed one of the BP contracts that bars workers from communicating with reporters, he has been told "500 times" that if he talks, he's fired. He certainly didn't contact me because his politics are similar to mine. "George Bush was too liberal for me," he explained. But: "I like the media. The country couldn't run without it, and it's important to have media from both the left and right."

He also called because on Tuesday BP told me (again) that I couldn't go to Elmer's Island with a producer from PBS's Need to Know because the road to it "needed more gravel." This was a lie: "Everyone else," Elmer said, "is driving on that road"—about 20 cars and vans going up and down a day, and the re-graveling had happened the day before we arrived. Since BP was making my job so much harder, Elmer wanted to make it a little easier.

BP's got good reason for wanting to keep insiders like Elmer away from reporters. Elmer says that last Thursday, when the Coast Guard was announcing that the top kill seemed to be working, the cleanup supervisors on Grand Isle had already been informed it was a failure—which, of course, was not publicly announced until several days later.

more:
http://motherjones.com/rights-stuff/2010/06/BP-spill-worker-elmers-island

[Arctic Dave]

1. Oil corporations lie?

No way!

[KittyWampus]

2. Bush was too liberal and yet "Elmer" LIKES the press and wants both sides represented?

Does not compute.

I am not buying BP's snake oil but I am having a very hard time buying her source. She seems credible looking at her work.

I'll recommend this though.

[FirstLight]

3. Outrage...

we need more of it.

This entire thing is full of lies, wanton greed and destruction of the planet...

hmmmm, are we tired of being raped by corporations yet?


we need another anti-trust act, circa 1800... break 'em ALL apart and then see if they can swim without their legal and financial force.
PROSECUTE.

What would happen if the local EDD offices filled busses with folks and they all showed up down there to clean up, no expectations of who gets paid, just show up and work...

those are public beaches, they can't keep people off them.

anyone and everyone should just show up with some gear and dig in.

they can't stop us from cleaning up our own wetlands.

I guess the idealist in me still thinks there *IS* a chance for cleanup...short of a magic anti-oil spell, i don't know what that is.

[Coyote_Bandit]

4. Who owns that road?

Seems like whoever owns it should determine who can and cannot travel it.

And if the frickin government owns it then they need to show that traveling it somehow is an issue of public safety.

And the media need to go out looking for stories and location sites instead of checking ahead for photo ops for their stories. No frickin way BP and our complicit government an keep the entire Gulf shore ff limits to the media.

[fascisthunter]

5. You Mean Oil Companies Need to be Regulated because if not they lie?!

oh my, what will the libertarians say....

actually, I already know what the sociopaths say... they blame this all on regulation. Fucking two faced perverts.