I found the following list of books etc. at this link, http://www.paddlin.com/fivelakes/resources.html. While not complete, it is more than worth repeating here:
The Essential Wood Canoe Enthusiasts Library
Boats and Boating in the Adirondacks by Hallie Bond. Contains excellent history of wood canoes, especially with regard to their influence on recreation in the Adirondacks. Also has a photographic catalog of every canoe and boat in the collection of the Adirondack Museum. Some study plans are presented, full size versions of which are available from the museum.
Canoeing the Adirondacks with Nessmuck: The Adirondack Letters of George Washington Sears edited by Dan Brenan. Join Nessmuck as he galavants around the Adirondacks in several of Rushton’s tiny cedar canoes. Was Nessmuck a freeloader? Decide for yourself!
A Real Runabouts Review of Canoes: Cedar Planked and Canvas Covered by Bob Speltz. Capsule histories, with descriptions, photographs, and catalog pages, for sixteen wood canvas canoe manufacturers. A good place to start when identifying an old canoe, but suffers from a lack of notable manufacturers, including Morris, Rushton, Gerrish, Racine and Carleton.
Rushton and His Times in American Canoeing by Atwood Manley. The definitive guide to J.Henry Rushton’s life, business and canoes, and a good general history of canoeing. Includes some canoe plans, but they must be used with extreme caution, as they are quite flawed.
Sailing Craft by Edwin J. Schoettle. Has a chapter with a partial history of decked sailing canoes in North America by Maurice Wilts.
The Story of the Chestnut Canoe by Kenneth Solway. A history of one of Canada’s most famous canoe builders. Includes reproductions of catalogs of various Canadian canoe companies, and gives the locations of extant Chestnut canoe forms.
The Wood & Canvas Canoe by Jerry Stelmock and Rollin Thurlow. The essential reference for anyone interested in wood canoes. Mainly a building guide for new canoes, also covers restoration, history, and capsule summeries of selected manufacturers. Includes plans for Rollin’s Cheemaun, Atkinson Traveler and Whisper canoes.
Catalog Reprints (available through the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association)
Carleton Canoes and Boats. Reprint of 1916 catalog.
Chestnut Canoes. Reprint of the 1950 catalog.
Kennebec Boat and Canoe Co. Originally printed ca.1914.
Morris Canoes. Reprint of catalog ca. 1908.
Old Town Canoes. 1910 catalog reprint for the oldest producer of wood canvas canoes.
Peterborough Canoes. Reprints 1929 catalog and other selected material.
The Rice Lake Canoe. Reprint of catalog from ca. 1916-1918.
Rushton Indian Girl Canoes. Reprint of 1910 catalog describing Rushton wood canvas canoes, including the Indian Girl and American Beauty.
Rushton’s Rowboats and Canoes: the 1903 Catalog in Perspective by William Crowley. A reproduction of the 1903 catalog from the heyday of Rushton’s canoe manufacturing. Also includes additional information.
Sailing Canoes Reprint of 1935 pamphlet published by the American Canoe Association. Covers both open and decked sailing canoes.
Wood Canoe Building and Repair
Building Lapstrake Canoes by Walt Simmons. Building guide for cedar lapstrake canoes, with an emphasis on Walt’s double-paddle canoes.
Building the Maine Guide Canoe by Jerry Stelmock. An earlier effort, makes a nice supplement to The Wood & Canvas Canoe. Some of the techniques have been updated in the later volume. No plans.
Canoe and Boatbuilding for Amateurs by W.P. Stephens. Most recently published in 1903, this book is an essential reference for anyone interested in decked sailing canoes, by one who built them.
More Building Classic Small Craft by John Gardner Has a chapter entitled “Four Canoes” which describes building a Peterborough four-plank canoe, a Rushton smoothskin lapstrake Arkansaw Traveler, and two decked sailing canoes.
Repairs by Walt Simmons. Discusses a wide variety of repairs to various boats and construction types. Makes reference to an Old Town Otca that Walt restored.
Ultralight Boatbuilding by Tom Hill. Describes building canoes and small boats with glued plywood lapstrake construction. I highly recommend watching the companion video of the same name, as some techniques are better described than in the book.
The Wood & Canvas Canoe by Jerry Stelmock and Rollin Thurlow. Guide for building the wood canvas canoe, and also discusses restoration. Contains plans for several of Rollin’s canoes.
Bark Canoes
The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America by Edwin Tappey Adney and Howard Chappelle.
Birchbark Canoe by David Gidmark.
Builder of Birch Bark Canoes by William Rossman. Story of Bill Hafeman.
Building a Birchbark Canoe: The Algonquin Wabanaki Tciman by David Gidmark
The Building of a Chippewa Indian Birch-bark Canoe Milwaukee Public Museum.
Wood Strip/Fiberglass Composite Boats
Building a Strip Canoe by Gil Gilpatrick. Includes eight designs.
Canoecraft by Ted Moores and Marilyn Mohr. Arguably the single best book on the modern stripper canoe, along with several nice canoe designs.
The Stripper’s Guide to Canoe Building by David Hazen. Includes full size station patterns. My understanding is that at least one is not fair and needs to be jiggered. Double check when setting up if you choose one of these designs.
Paddle Making
Making Canoe Paddles in Wood by Graham Warren. This is a nifty book that describes making paddles; both single piece and laminated. Includes patterns for a variety of styles. Makes you want to run out to the garage and grab a drawknife….
As I mentioned previously the above list is not complete. For example it does not include When The Chestnut Was In Flower: Inside The Chestnut Canoe by Roger MacGregor, the most definitive history and tale of the Chestnut Canoe. However, it contains great reading and resources for the wooden canoe afficianado. Besides getting through the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association, many of those listed are available at the Canadian Canoe Museum’s gift shop.
Paddles up until later then.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Resources For The Wood Canoe Esthusiast « Reflections On The Outdoors Naturally
Apple intros Mac Pro with 12 processing cores | Apple - CNET News
July 27, 2010 7:11 AM PDTApple intros Mac Pro with 12 processing cores
StumbleUpon: The Silent Social Media Success Story
ritten by Richard MacManus / July 26, 2010 9:21 PM / 15 Comments
When you think of social media, two products immediately come to mind: Facebook and Twitter. If you're in the technical world, you'd probably also mention Digg and Slashdot. A product that is rarely talked about among social media products, but has a surprisingly large footprint on the Web, is StumbleUpon. It now has 10.6 million users and regularly pushes big traffic to online publishers.
According to a new analysis by Web analytics company Woopra, StumbleUpon drives nearly twice as much traffic than Digg. StatCounter uncovered a similar trend recently, with StumbleUpon second only to Facebook among social media traffic drivers.
Source: WoopraHow it Works
"Explore the web like never before," declares the StumbleUpon sign up page. And indeed the beauty of StumbleUpon is how easy it makes browsing the Web. It's often called a 'serendipity engine' for its ability to turn up strange and new content.
Here's how StumbleUpon works as a user. You firstly download and install a browser add-on, then select categories that interest you. Now you're ready to explore. Simply click the Stumble button in your browser to be magically transported to an unknown web page. Where you're taken is driven by StumbleUpon's sophisticated recommendation engine, which is fueled by data from its users - who vote on whether they 'like' or 'dislike' web pages across the Web.
What's Popular on StumbleUpon?
It's simple for the users, yet surprisingly difficult for the media industry to get its collective head around. Its randomness and lack of an easily identifiable core audience are two things that make StumbleUpon hard to understand. So what kind of content is popular there?
Much like Digg, another crowd-sourced recommendation engine, the most popular content on StumbleUpon tends to be easily digestable and entertaining. Lists, bizarre things, scientific discoveries, animals, humor, images, and so on. Among the most stumbled content of 2009 were these articles: '99 Things You Should Have Seen On The Internet' (471K Stumbles), 'Life Summarized in 4 Bottles' (439K Stumbles), '14 Rare Color Photos From the FSA-OWI' (341K Stumbles),... you get the idea.
3 Ways to Get More Business at Networking Events - printable
Ivan Misner: Networking3 Ways to Get More Business at Networking Events
Building your contact list isn't an 'all-you-can-eat' contest.
Businesspeople unfamiliar with referral networking sometimes lose sight of the fact that networking is the means--not the end--of their business-building activities. They attend three, four, even five events in a week in a desperate grasp for new business. The predictable result is that they stay so busy meeting new people that they never have time to follow up and cultivate those relationships--and how can they expect to get new business from someone they've only just met? As one of these unfortunates remarked to me, "I feel like I'm always networking but rarely getting anything done."
I certainly agree that meeting new people is an integral part of networking, but it's important to remember why we're doing it in the first place: to develop a professional rapport with individuals that will deepen over time into a trusting relationship that will eventually lead to a mutually beneficial and continuing exchange of referrals.
When meeting someone for the first time, focus on the potential relationship you might form. As hard as it may be to suppress your business reflexes, at this stage you cannot make it your goal to sell your services or promote your company. You're there to get to know a new person. A friend of mine told me something his dad always said: "You don't have to sell to friends." That's especially good advice when interacting with new contacts.
This doesn't mean you'll never get to sell anything to people you meet while networking; it does, however, mean that you'll need to employ a different approach. Networking isn't about closing business deals or meeting hordes of new people; it's about developing relationships in which future business can be closed. Once you understand that and put it into practice, you'll notice a few things happening to your business.
First, you'll stand out from the crowd with everyone you meet. People often ask me how they can get business at an event when there are so many other people trying to do the same thing. I simply tell them to be different. A good way to do that is by asking a new contact good questions and taking the time to listen to her answers. (A "good" question is one that gets the person talking about herself while helping you understand her business. It's not an opportunity for you to vet this person as a client.)
Good questions not only get the ball rolling, but they also take the pressure off you to carry the conversation. Meeting new people can be hard enough without feeling like you have to be the life of the party to do it. If you're not sure what kinds of questions to ask, read Master Networkers Ask the Right Questions for more some ideas.
This advance networking approach is especially vital for mortgage brokers, real estate agents, insurance agents, CPAs, financial planners, and others in highly competitive industries. You can't go to a networking event without running into at least one person in some of those fields.
When you network selflessly, you'll absolutely blow away any competitors who still feel compelled to meet as many people as they can. Why? Because when you call your contacts back, they'll actually remember who you are and will be willing to meet with you again. This is a critical next step for securing more business.
With all of this in mind, let's take a look at some specific steps you can take toward getting more business from your very next event.
- Limit the number of contacts per event. The most important thing is the quality of the contacts, which means the type of contact, the relevance to your business and interests, how good a connection you're making and the individual involved. At a typical event, five to 10 might be all you can handle. This may not seem like a lot of contacts, but it's really more than enough when you're talking to the right people. (That's why it's so important to have a networking strategy.) If you attend two events per week, that's 10 events a month, or 30 to 50 new contacts every 30 days. Continue to do that over the next couple of months--while following up with the people you've met--and you'll soon have more than enough high-quality contacts to keep you busy.
- Spend five to 10 minutes talking to and listening to each person. Just because you're not handing out your business card to 1,001 people doesn't mean you should spend 20 minutes talking to just one individual. Invest a few minutes to get to know each person. Make sure to ask for her business card. Then follow up with her after the event; this is where the heavy lifting takes place. Remember, all we're doing now is setting the stage for future business.
- Write notes on the backs of people's cards. Not only do notes help you remember what the other person said at an event, but it also slows you down a bit so you're not running around trying to meet the next person. On the front of the card, you can write the date and name of the event where you met the person; on the back, jot down a few quick notes about the conversation or anything else of note. When you contact the person later, this will give you something to refer to.
Here are a few things to remember when it comes to meeting new people:
- You're not interested in selling anything to this person you've just met; you want to find some way you can help her. You understand, of course, that what goes around comes around, usually in the form of referrals for your business.
- You want to create a visible identity with everyone you meet. A visible identity is the answer to this question: "How can I differentiate myself, in the mind of this other person, from the other five people she's already met?"
Keeping those two ideas in mind will give you a leg up when meeting new contacts. Using these simple approaches, you'll see an up-tick in the amount of new business and referrals you get while networking.
Called the "father of modern networking" by CNN, Dr. Ivan Misner is a New York Times bestselling author. He's the founder and chairman of BNI, the world's largest business networking organization. His newest book, Networking Like a Pro, can be viewed at www.IvanMisner.com. Dr. Misner is also the Sr. Partner for the Referral Institute, an international referral training company.
Hack Away: Feds OK Jailbreaking iPhone
U.S. Government Says Jailbreaking iPhone Is Legal
Jailbreaking Is Hacking Phone's Operating System to Let Users Run Any Application
By DAVID KRAVETS
July 27, 2010—
Federal regulators lifted a cloud of uncertainty when they announced it was lawful to hack or "jailbreak" an iPhone, declaring Monday there was "no basis for copyright law to assist Apple in protecting its restrictive business model."
Jailbreaking is hacking the phone's OS to allow consumers to run any app on the phone they choose, including applications not authorized by Apple.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation asked regulators 19 months ago to add jailbreaking to a list of explicit exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention provisions.
At stake for Apple is the very closed business model the company has enjoyed since 2007, when the iPhone debuted. Apple says it's unlawful to jailbreak, but has not taken legal action against the millions who have jailbroken their phones and used the underground app store Cydia.
Apple maintains that its closed marketplace is what made the success of the iPhone possible, and sold more than three billion apps. Apple also told regulators that the nation's cellphone networks could suffer "potentially catastrophic" cyberattacks by iPhone-wielding hackers at home and abroad (.pdf) if iPhone owners are permitted to legally jailbreak their shiny wireless devices.
Free iPhone Hacks AvailableM
Every three years, the Librarian of Congress and the Copyright Office entertain proposed exemptions to the DMCA, passed in 1998. The act forbids circumventing encryption technology to copy or modify copyrighted works. In this instance, Apple claimed the DMCA protects the copyrighted encryption built into the bootloader that starts up the iPhone OS operating system.
But the Copyright Office concluded that, "while a copyright owner might try to restrict the programs that can be run on a particular operating system, copyright law is not the vehicle for imposition of such restrictions."
Jay Freeman, who runs Cydia, said about nine million iPhones have his alternative marketplace installed on their phones.
"If there was something on the books that jailbreaking was not exempt, that would be painful," Freeman said. The Dev-Team, one of the main groups offering free iPhone hacks, declared Monday's development as "fantastic news."
Turn Your iPhone Into a Wi-Fi Hotspot
Mario Ciabarra, chief technical officer of Rock Your Phone, which sells an application to turn an iPhone into a Wi-Fi hotspot, said the the Copyright Office's decision is a "big win for consumers and applications developers" and has given the jailbreak community "the legitimacy it deserves."
Apple told regulators that modifying the iPhone operating system leads to the creation of an infringing derivative work that is protected by copyright law. The Cupertino-based computer maker also claimed that the license on the operating system forbids software modification.
Monday's decision, (.pdf) which applies to all mobile smart phones and not the iPad, does not require Apple or other handset makers to allow jailbreaking. Instead, it makes it lawful to circumvent controls designed to block jailbreaking.
In an April security bulletin, Apple said "Unauthorized modification of iPhone OS has been a major source of instability, disruption of services, and other issues."
The EFF contended that the iPhone's embedded protection system was implemented by Apple as a business decision to prevent competition and is unrelated to copyright interests.
Jailbreaking, the EFF maintained, constitutes fair use of the firmware tied to the operating system.
Regulators agreed, declaring Monday that "the activity of an iPhone owner who modifies his or her iPhone's firmware/operating system in order to make it interoperable with an application that Apple has not approved, but that the iPhone owner wishes to run on the iPhone, fits comfortably within the four corners of fair use."
Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said Apple won't change its policy that voids iPhone warranties if a phone has been jailbroken. "It can violate the warranty and cause the iPhone to become unstable and not work reliably," she said.
Here is a how-to and legal primer on the issue.
Other exemptions to the DMCA announced Monday include: *allow the unlocking of mobile phones to change carriers. *allow the cracking of video game digital rights management controls to probe security flaws. *allows the breaking of DVD encryption by professors, students and documentary makers so the clips can be used for education and commentary. *allows the blind to circumvent locks on e-books to enable read-aloud features. *allows the bypassing of broken or irreplaceable dongles.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Jon Christian Ryter's Conservative World
Two major oil companies and Caterpillar pull
out of Climate Change Carbon Tax Alliance
The Wall Street Journal reported that two of the oil giant Seven Sisters, BP-America and ConocoPhillips announced on Tuesday, Feb. 19 that they would not renew their membership in the US Climate Partnership. Joining them in their decision was Caterpillar, Inc. At the same time, The Hindu, India's largest newspaper, reported that Barack Obama suffered a major setback to his green agenda when the three corporations dropped out of the coalition of business and environmental groups that had been lobbying Congress for passage of carbon legislation.ConocoPhillips CEO Jim Mulva agreed that the House and Senate bills "...disadvantaged the transportation sector and its consumers and unfairly penalized domestic refineries that would have to face international competition on an unbalanced playing field."
Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon—who plays at a little bit bigger table than his smaller oil siblings (Exxon is now the flagship of the Standard Oil empire)—is not quite ready to dump USCAP and join Conoco-Phillips or BP-America. But that's not to say that Tillerson is not concerned where the social progressive's legislation will lead. "My greatest concern," he said in January, "is that policy makers will attempt to mandate or ordain solutions that are doomed to fail..." (such as Cap & Trade, the legislation that is sitting in Joint Conference waiting for Nancy Pelosi's stealth move to force either the House or the Senate to adopt the other house's measure without change). "A carbon tax would be a more direct and transparent approach," Tillerson concluded. Tillerson likes a plain old everyday tax, because its the easiest thing to foist off on to the consumers. The oil company tacks the tax on to the cost of the product, and it becomes the part of the cost charged to distributors, who in turn pass it on to the consumers as they pump the gasoline into their gas tanks. The carbon tax never touches the bottom line of the Seven Sisters. It simply becomes a consumer tax that's collected by the oil companies and paid to Uncle Sam. You just pay more for each tank of gas. Ultimately, every tax or assessment levied against big business is always paid for by the little guy
In a written statement issued on Tuesday, Caterpillar said it had decided to join forces with FutureGenAlliance, an organization working on the development of building coal-fired near-zero emission power plants. They are currently building their first near-zero emission power plant in eastern Illinois. Red Cavaney, senior Vice President for Government Affairs for ConocoPhillips said that ConocoPhillips did not want to "rush" legislation through Congress without closely examining the details of what what being passed.
USCAP, Cavaney noted, was focused only on getting a climate bill of any type passed without close scrutiny by Congress what was in it. Conoco, Cavaney said, is increasingly concerned with what the legislation will deal with. "USCAP," he said, "is starting to do more and more tto get a bill out without trying to work as much on the substance of it."
Spokesmen for both ConocoPhillips and BP-America said their companies remained committed to some type of climate change legislation, but they believe they can accomplish more working outside USCAP's umbrella. "Our position on this issue," BP spokesman Ronnie Chappell said, "is unchanged. What this does is underscore our desire to continue to participate in this important discussion—but to do it as BP."
A spokesman for USCAP, Tad Segal said the group would continue to campaign for legislation to cap US carbon emissions and greenhouse gases. When asked by the Wall Street Journal why the two oil giants dropped their membership in USCAP, Segal said questions about their reasons for dropping out would have to be directed at BP-America, ConocoPhillips and Caterpillar and not USCAP. "We think there's momentum to get it done...Obama's State of the Union address made it clear the administration is behind us."
When asked if he thought the current legislation would become law, Chappell told Fox News "I would never speculate as to what would happen with a pending piece of legislation." But, he added, the "bills on the table" no longer conform to what USCAP claimed it initially envisioned as a climate change bill. He said the legislation—including one bill that passed the House but stalled in the Senate—does not provide adequate protection to US refineries. If any of the bills pass, Chappell said, they will result in more, not less, oil imports. In addition, the bills now pending in Congress will result in the closures of most, or perhaps, even all US refineries—and the loss of even more US jobs. The United States will become so oil dependent on countries like Venezuela, China and the Soviet Union that when our enemies decide to attack us, they will simply shut off the fuel faucet and our tanks and military transports won't be able to meet our enemies at their beachheads, nor for that matter, will our navies be able to sail into harms' way to prevent the navies of our enemies from getting anywhere near our coastlines. Nor will our Strategic Air Command carrying nuclear payloads reach either Moscow or Beijing, nor will Tactical Air Command strike forces be able to drop our enemies, who will be carrying nuclear weapons, into the oceans before their reach the United States. Did you ever wonder how the French felt in the opening days of World War II? If this Cap & trade legislation passes, we are going to find out. If fact, we are going to find out on the Polish horse mounted cavalry felt like when they attacked the German 4th Panzer Division on Sept. 1, 1939. (While military myth claims that the Poles attacked over 2,800 tanks and armored vehicles with 11 Calvary Brigades and 39 infantry divisions, the Poles actually also had 660 tanks and 84 armored cars.) Any nation which allows its avowed enemies to control not only the production of all of its durable and consumer goods, but also the availability of oil, the refining of gasoline, heating oil and jet fuel, as well as the processing of natural liquid gas, has fools in leadership roles and idiots casting the votes on election day.
Separating the bull from the crap, all three companies (with more likely to follow) are being swayed by the fact that, once again the social progressives are deliberately crippling US industry and forcing the United States to buy goods and services from their friends and our enemies. It is not enough that we fire every social progressive in the House and Senate, and in the Executive Branch of government as well. We need to charge them with high crimes against the United States and give them room and board in a federal institution for the rest of their lives. I think we probably have enough internment camps to house them until we can arrange their deportation to social progressive countries more to their liking somewhere else in the world like the Soviet Union, the people's Republic of China, North Korea, Cuba or Obama's favorite, Indonesia. Our jobs, however, need to stay here. Slave labor consumer goods being churned out what by are referred to as American companies in China, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Mexico because they wear US trademarked brand names, need to stay in the countries which produce them. If the American people want jobs, they need to stop buying the crap excreted from the bowel fluxes of the third world. The American consumer needs to stop and think for a minute. Which do they want? Doing without the latest techno-gizmo sporting an American brand name but made in a sweat shop in Indonesia or China—or doing without a job, an income and a place to live? Your choice. Will it be curtain one or curtain two? Oops—wait a minute. Too late. You already picked curtain two. But, for a bonus, the princes of industry and the barons of business are throwing in curtain three. You didn't know about curtain three? Behind curtain three are 254 million illegal aliens who are lined up to make sure that any jobs left in the United States go to them and not to the US citizens whom the social progressives believe have had it too good since 1787.
The American people now have 9 months to fix what the social progressives needed almost a hundred years to screw up. If the voters do not clean house—and I really mean clean house by getting rid of every social progressive and left-leaning politician not only in of the federal system but the States and county systems—this nation will no longer exist as a sovereign nation within three more years.
EPA Officials Warns Government Lying About Corexit and Gulf Oil Spill Water Samples To Save BP Billions | Alexander Higgins Blog
EPA Whistleblower Says Federal Government Covering Up Lethality Of Corexit And Lying About BP Gulf Oil Spill Water Samples To Save BP Billions
Posted by Alexander Higgins - July 24, 2010 at 5:29 pm - Permalink
Democracy Now has published a shocking interview with a top EPA official, Hugh Kaufman, who tells us that NOAA and the EPA are covering up the lethal effects of the neurotoxin pesticide dispersants and lying about Gulf Oil Spill water samples to save BP billions of dollars in fines.
In the interview with Democracy Now! Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, reveals some appalling details to the public.
Here are some highlights of the revelations made by Hugh Kaufman.
Well, Corexit is one of a number of dispersants, that are toxic, that are used to atomize the oil and force it down the water column so that it’s invisible to the eye.
In this case, these dispersants were used in massive quantities, almost two million gallons so far, to hide the magnitude of the spill and save BP money.
And the government—both EPA, NOAA, etc.—have been sock puppets for BP in this cover-up.
Now, by hiding the amount of spill, BP is saving hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in fines, and so, from day one, there was tremendous economic incentive to use these dispersants to hide the magnitude of the gusher that’s been going on for almost three months.
Congressman Markey and Nadler, as well as Senator Mikulski, have been heroes in this respect.
Congressman Markey made the BP and government put a camera down there to show the public the gusher.
And when they did that, experts saw that the amount of material, oil being released, is orders of magnitudes greater than what BP and NOAA and EPA were saying. And the cover-up started to evaporate.
…
… People who work near [Corexit] are hemorrhaging internally [but the] EPA now is taking the position that they really don’t know how dangerous it is, even though if you read the label, it tells you how dangerous it is.
… for example, in the Exxon Valdez case, people who worked with dispersants, most of them are dead now.
The average death age is around fifty.
It’s very dangerous, and it’s an economic—it’s an economic protector of BP, not an environmental protector of the public.
…
We know there is a cover up.
Dispersants are being used.
[In] Congress, at least three Congress folks—Congressman Markey, Congressman Nadler and Senator Mikulski—are on the case.
And I think the media now has to follow the money, just as they did in Watergate, and tell the American people who’s getting money for poisoning the millions of people in the Gulf.
The sole purpose in the Gulf for dispersants is to keep a cover-up going for BP to try to hide the volume of oil that has been released and save them hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars of fines.
That’s the purpose of using the dispersants, not to protect the public health or environment.
…
I did the ombudsman investigation on Ground Zero, where EPA made false statements about the safety of the air, which has since, of course, been proven to be false.
Consequently, you have the heroes, the workers here, a large percentage of them are sick right now, not even ten years later, and most of them will die early because of respiratory problems, cancer, etc., because of EPA’s false statements.
…
And you’ve got the same thing going on in the Gulf, EPA administrators saying the same thing, that the air is safe and the water is safe.
And the [EPA] administrator misled Senator Mikulski on that issue in the hearings you talked about.
And basically, the problem is dispersants mixed with oil and air pollution.
[The] EPA, like in 9/11—I did that investigation nine years ago—was not doing adequate and proper testing.
So we now have statements directly from a top EPA official that Government Agencies are doing doing inadequate and improper testing of Gulf waters and statements stating the Government is lying to the public about the dangers of Corexit to save BP millions of dollars in fines.
In the interview Hugh Kaufman then goes on to discuss how independent water tests performed by an local news station directly contradicted EPA test results and proved that the director of the EPA lied under oath in a congressional hearing about water samples taken from the Dauphin Island Alabama area.
And the Dauphin Island water samples are only one of many instances in which the EPA has lied about the contamination of Gulf waters.
In fact in my last post I actually dug through the test results of all of the water samples that the EPA has done up until July 13th and pointed out dozens of instances showing the EPA is lying.
The bottom line here is that the Federal Government agencies has allowed tens of thousands of Americans to be poisoned during the Exxon Valdez and during 9/11 and history is once again repeating itself.
Why? To protect the profits of the billion dollar corporations from having to pay out liability claims and fines.
We find ourselves once again in the same exact situation again.
The difference is we now have a top EPA official warning us that the Government is allowing us to be poisoned and lying to us about it just to save BP money.
Furthermore it is clear that the available evidence corroborates the claims of this official yet we sit idle allow it to happen.
When will we finally act and do something about it?
When tens of thousands of Gulf Coast residents end up with cancer, genetic mutations or some other mysterious unexplained illnesses?
Why must we wait until after the damage is done when we can act now and prevent that damage from being done?
Perhaps we are not motivated to do anything because at this point it time it does not directly affect us?
But surely there has been enough oil and toxic dispersant released into the Gulf of Mexico to contaminate the food chain and even NOAA has admitted that may have already happened.
So then why must we wait until it is us or our children that have been poisoned?
Now is the time to act to put an end to the Government coverups of environmental disasters such as the BP Gulf Oil Spill.
Scientific research has already revealed that the BP Gulf Oil Spill has created a massive dead zone off the Coast of Alabama and BP is already paying off scientists and universities to keep such research from the public.
Yet instead of revealing such data to the public the Federal Government says it can’t make such information public because of litigation with BP but immediately turns over the data BP.
If we simply sit by and continue to allow this to happen history will continue to repeat itself until we become part of the collateral damage ourselves.
If we don’t act now sooner or later it will be us and our children that are being poisoned in the name of profits for big corporations.
Watch: EPA Whistleblower Accuses Agency of Covering Up Effects of Dispersant in BP Oil Spill Cleanup
Here isa rush transcript of the interview with the EPA whistleblower provided by Democracy NOW!
SHARIF ADBEL KOUDDOUS: The Obama administration has given BP the go-ahead to keep its ruptured well sealed for another day despite worries about the well leaking some oil and methane gas. National Incident Commander Thad Allen said the seep was not cause for alarm.
Meanwhile, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, has released its analysis of BP’s data on the exposure of cleanup workers to the chemical dispersants being used in the Gulf. OSHA chief David Michaels told the environmental website Greenwire that, quote, “I think you can say exposures are low for workers. Exposures of workers on shore are virtually nonexistent. There are significant exposures near the source, and that’s to be expected given the work being done there. Those workers are given respiratory protection,” he said.
But with BP having poured nearly two million gallons of the dispersant known as Corexit into the Gulf, many lawmakers and advocacy groups say the Obama administration is not being candid about the lethal effects of dispersants. At a Senate subcommittee hearing last week, Maryland Democrat Barbara Mikulski grilled administrators from the EPA about Corexit and said she didn’t want dispersants to be the Agent Orange of this oil spill.
SEN. BARBARA MIKULSKI: I’m concerned because I feel and I believe, and my reading verifies, that we don’t know enough about the impact of dispersants and dispersed oil on people, marine life and water quality. I’m very concerned. And my question is, should we ban them? Should we take a time out from using them? What are the short- and long-term consequences of using them? I don’t want dispersants to be the Agent Orange of this oil spill. And I want to be assured, in behalf of the American people, that this is OK to use and OK to use in the amounts that we’re talking about.
AMY GOODMAN: Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski.
While concerns over the impact of chemical dispersants continue to grow, Gulf Coast residents are outraged by a recent announcement that the $20 billion government-administered claim fund will subtract money cleanup workers earn by working for the cleanup effort from any future claims. Fund administrator Kenneth Feinberg says the ruling will apply to anyone who participates in the Vessels of Opportunity program, which has employed hundreds of Gulf Coast residents left out of work because of the spill. It’s seen as an effort to limit the number of lawsuits against BP.
We’re joined now by two guests on these two issues, on Corexit and the workers. Independent journalist Dahr Jamail is joining us from Tampa, Florida. He’s been reporting from the Gulf Coast for three weeks. His latest article at Truthout is called “BP’s Scheme to Swindle the ‘Small People.’” And from Washington, DC, we’re joined by Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. He’s been a leading critic of the decision to use Corexit.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with Hugh Kaufman. First of all, explain what Corexit is, the company that makes it, what’s in it, and your concerns.
HUGH KAUFMAN: Well, Corexit is one of a number of dispersants, that are toxic, that are used to atomize the oil and force it down the water column so that it’s invisible to the eye. In this case, these dispersants were used in massive quantities, almost two million gallons so far, to hide the magnitude of the spill and save BP money. And the government—both EPA, NOAA, etc.—have been sock puppets for BP in this cover-up. Now, by hiding the amount of spill, BP is saving hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in fines, and so, from day one, there was tremendous economic incentive to use these dispersants to hide the magnitude of the gusher that’s been going on for almost three months.
Congressman Markey and Nadler, as well as Senator Mikulski, have been heroes in this respect. Congressman Markey made the BP and government put a camera down there to show the public the gusher. And when they did that, experts saw that the amount of material, oil being released, is orders of magnitudes greater than what BP and NOAA and EPA were saying. And the cover-up started to evaporate.
But the use of dispersants has not. Consequently, we have people, wildlife—we have dolphins that are hemorrhaging. People who work near it are hemorrhaging internally. And that’s what dispersants are supposed to do. EPA now is taking the position that they really don’t know how dangerous it is, even though if you read the label, it tells you how dangerous it is. And, for example, in the Exxon Valdez case, people who worked with dispersants, most of them are dead now. The average death age is around fifty. It’s very dangerous, and it’s an economic—it’s an economic protector of BP, not an environmental protector of the public.
Now, the one thing that I did want to mention to you, Amy, that’s occurred in most investigations, back even in the Watergate days, people said, “follow the money.” And that’s correct. In this case, you’ve got to follow the money. Who saves money by using these toxic dispersants? Well, it’s BP. But then the next question—I’ve only seen one article that describes it—who owns BP? And I think when you look and see who owns BP, you find that it’s the majority ownership, a billion shares, is a company called BlackRock that was created, owned and run by a gentleman named Larry Fink. And Vanity Fair just did recently an article about Mr. Fink and his connections with Mr. Geithner, Mr. Summers and others in the administration. So I think what’s needed, we now know that there’s a cover-up. Dispersants are being used. Congress, at least three Congress folks—Congressman Markey, Congressman Nadler and Senator Mikulski—are on the case. And I think the media now has to follow the money, just as they did in Watergate, and tell the American people who’s getting money for poisoning the millions of people in the Gulf.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Hugh Kaufman, who works at the Environmental Protection Agency. This is an issue we’ve brought up before, but it’s an absolutely critical one, the issue of proprietary information of these companies, in particular, the ingredients of Corexit, even though 1.8 million pounds of it have been dumped into the Gulf. What’s in Corexit? Do you know? What is EPA allowed to know, and what is the company allowed to keep private?
HUGH KAUFMAN: EPA has all the information on what’s in—the ingredients are. The largest ingredient in Corexit is oil. But there are other materials. And when the ingredients are mixed with oil, the combination of Corexit or any dispersant and oil is more toxic than the oil itself. But EPA has all that information. That’s a red herring issue being raised, that we have to somehow know more information. When you look at the label and you look at the toxicity sheets that come with it, the public knows enough to know that it’s very dangerous. The National Academy of Science has done work on it. Toxicologists from Exxon that developed it have published on it. So, we know enough to know that it’s very dangerous, and to say that we just have to know more about it is a red herring issue. We know plenty. It’s very dangerous. And in fact, Congressman Nadler and Senator Lautenberg are working on legislation to ban it.
AMY GOODMAN: And I should correct myself: 1.8 million gallons, I think it is, of Corexit that’s been dumped. Sharif?
SHARIF ADBEL KOUDDOUS: And Hugh Kaufman—
HUGH KAUFMAN: Tha’s correct, almost two million gallons of—yes, sir.
SHARIF ADBEL KOUDDOUS: So the—
HUGH KAUFMAN: I’m sorry, I’m not—
SHARIF ADBEL KOUDDOUS: No, no, go ahead. The dispersant is—
HUGH KAUFMAN: I’m not hearing you, sir.
SHARIF ADBEL KOUDDOUS: These nearly two million gallons have been dispersed not only on the surface of the water, but also 5,000 feet below the water, as well. Can you talk about that?
HUGH KAUFMAN: Well, not only do you have airplanes flying and dropping them on the Gulf region, like Agent Orange in Vietnam, but a large amount of it is being shot into the water column at 5,000 feet to disperse the oil as it gushers out. And so, you have spread, according to the Associated Press, over perhaps over 44,000 square miles, an oil and dispersant mix. And what’s happened is, that makes it impossible to skim the oil out of the water. One of the things that happened is they brought this big boat, Whale, in from Japan to get rid of the oil, and it didn’t work because the majority of the oil is spread throughout the water column over thousands of square miles in the Gulf. And so—and there’s been a lot of work to show the dispersants, which is true, make it more difficult to clean up the mess than if you didn’t use them. The sole purpose in the Gulf for dispersants is to keep a cover-up going for BP to try to hide the volume of oil that has been released and save them hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars of fines. That’s the purpose of using the dispersants, not to protect the public health or environment. Quite the opposite.
AMY GOODMAN: You’ve made comparisons between Corexit, the use of Corexit and hiding BP’s liability, and what happened at Ground Zero after the attacks of September 11th, Hugh Kaufman.
HUGH KAUFMAN: Yeah, I was one of the people who—well, I did. I did the ombudsman investigation on Ground Zero, where EPA made false statements about the safety of the air, which has since, of course, been proven to be false. Consequently, you have the heroes, the workers there, a large percentage of them are sick right now, not even ten years later, and most of them will die early because of respitory problems, cancer, etc., because of EPA’s false statements.
And you’ve got the same thing going on in the Gulf, EPA administrators saying the same thing, that the air is safe and the water is safe. And the administrator misled Senator Mikulski on that issue in the hearings you talked about. And basically, the problem is dispersants mixed with oil and air pollution. EPA, like in 9/11—I did that investigation nine years ago—was not doing adequate and proper testing. Same thing with OSHA with the workers, they’re using mostly BP’s contractor. And BP’s contractor for doing air testing is the company that’s used by companies to prove they don’t have a problem. If you remember the wallboard pollution problem from China, the wallboard from China, this company does that environmental monitoring. It’s a massive cover-up. And so far, luckily, we have two members of Congress and one member of the Senate on the case. Hopefully more will join in.
SHARIF ADBEL KOUDDOUS: Let’s go to a clip that’s been circulating on the internet. It’s from an investigation from WKRG News 5 into the toxicity levels of water and sand on public beaches around Mobile, Alabamba. One of the water samples collected near a boom at Dauphin Island Marina just exploded when mixed with an organic solvent separating the oil from the water. This is Bob Naman, the chemist who analyzed the sample, explaining why it might have exploded.
BOB NAMAN: We think that it most likely happened due to the presence of either methanol or methane gas or the presence of the dispersant Corexit.
SHARIF ADBEL KOUDDOUS: Hugh Kaufman, can you talk about this video clip?
HUGH KAUFMAN: Well, yes. I saw that when it first came out, I think on Sunday. And what they documented was that the water—you know, when you’re on the sand with your children and they dig, and there’s a little water?—they documented there was over 200 parts per million of oil waste in the water, and it’s not noticeable to the human eye, that the children were playing with on the beach. On top of it, the contamination in one of the samples was so high that when they put the solvent in, as a first step in identifying how much oil may be in the water, the thing blew up, just as he said, probably because there was too much Corexit in that particular sample.
But what’s funny about that is, on Thursday, the administrator of EPA, in answering Senator Mikulski’s question at the hearing that you played the clip on, said that EPA has tested the water up to three miles out and onshore and found that it’s safe. And then, a few days later, the television station in Pensacola and in Mobile document with their own limited testing that that statement was false, misleading and/or inaccurate by the administrator, under oath, to Senator Mikulski in that hearing.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: We want to also bring in Dahr Jamail. He’s an independent journalist who’s been reporting from the Gulf Coast for the past three weeks.
Dahr, you’re joining us from Tampa, Florida, right now. You just drove along the Gulf Coast. But talk about this dispersant, as well. You wrote in article about the effect it had on you personally.
DAHR JAMAIL: Right. About a week and a half ago, my partner and I were down in Barataria talking with shrimpers and fishermen and people affected by the oil disaster. And literally within minutes of driving down there, the air was so chemically laden, you could smell and taste chemicals in the air. And immediately, our eyes began to burn. And everyone that we were talking with there, Tracy Kuhns with the shrimpers’ union, Clint Guidry on the board of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, and their spouses and everyone else that we spoke with down there, everyone was complaining of different kinds of health problems—headaches, which, actually, again, within minutes, I personally was starting to experience that; shortness of breath; nausea—all kinds of different symptoms, which I then went home and started to educate myself on the immediate and then longer-term effects of the two Corexit dispersants being used and realized that myself and everyone that we spoke with down there were basically having onset of these symptoms, and people were suffering from it very much.
And another very disturbing thing that I saw down there was I met a charter fisherman named Gene Hickman, who showed me a video he had taken two days prior to my arrival there. He was outside of his house at night, and he had a video of, literally, crabs crawling out of the water at night onto his bulkhead to escape the water. And Tracy Kuhns, who I was also speaking with, said, “Look, we’ve been watching regularly these huge plumes of dispersant under the surface of the water coming into our canals, sometimes bubbling up to the surface. We’ve seen marine life fleeing from these.” And there have been some reports of this happening throughout the Gulf. But then, I went down to Gene Hickman’s house and then saw, just minutes after watching this video of crabs literally crawling out of the water trying to escape from the water, to see basically crabs floating belly up in the water, dead, all in his canal. There was sheen over the top of it, dead fish. And again, the stench of the chemicals was so intense that our eyes were watering.
AMY GOODMAN: Dahr Jamail, your piece in Truthout is called “BP’s Scheme to Swindle the ‘Small People.’” What is that scheme?
DAHR JAMAIL: Right. Well, the scheme is—let’s be really clear, Amy. We all know that context for news reporting is key. And Kenneth Feinberg, who is the Obama-appointed individual in charge of this $20 billion compensation fund for victims of the BP oil disaster, who is he being paid by? He is being paid by BP to do this job. When he was asked recently, just in the last forty-eight hours, how much he’s being paid, he said, “That’s between me and British Petroleum.” So let’s be—let’s start right there.
And then, to move forward, this story came up because I was talking with Clint Guidry, who I just mentioned, and he was, like all the other fishermen, outraged by how this fund is being handled. And how it’s being handled is that these people who join this so-called Vessels of Opportunity program, which are basically fishermen who are now completely put out of work, the shrimping and the fishing industry in Louisiana—and this is spreading across the coast along with the oil, as it travels across the coast—is completely shut down, so these people are forced in to do this work, going out skimming, putting out oil boom, other types of recovery efforts for BP, because it’s literally the only way they can make a living now. And so, Feinberg then recently announces, last Friday, as you reported, that, “No, actually now all the money that you’re earning, you folks in the Vessels for Opportunity program, any future compensation claims that you make, this money will be deducted from that claim.”
And so, upon further investigation, it turns out there’s a lawyer in Louisiana named Stephen Herman, and his firm, back on May 2nd, had an email correspondence with a law firm representing BP. And he questioned this very thing, because it had first come up way back at the beginning of this disaster when people were going and looking into joining the Vessels for Opportunity program, but before they could join, they were going to be asked to sign a waiver. Well, this was of course then brought—Stephen Herman brought this to the attention of the BP lawyer, questioned it, challenged it. And then the BP lawyer wrote back and said, “That is not going to happen. We’re going to tear up those claims. We’re not going to do that.”
Stephen Herman also questioned BP’s lawyer as to this very thing that we just saw Feinberg do, which was, “I want to make very clear,” said Herman, “that any of this work, any of the payment for the work these folks do, will not later be taken out of claims that they may make for future compensation for loss of livelihood, etc.” And he was told at that time in a response on May 3rd by BP’s lawyer, “Absolutely, that will not happen. That is BP’s stated position.” And so, then we have Feinberg come out Monday, and every day since then, acting as basically a BP salesman trying to push this new agenda that you have to file your claim within a year, and then, once you do that, you’ll get paid, and you will not file any further claims. And then, of course, any work that you’ve done in this Vessels for Opportunity program, any of that money will be deducted from any future claims. So this directly contradicts what BP said to Stephen Herman’s law firm in New Orleans back on May 3rd. And again, we have Kenneth Feinberg running around, clearly accountable to BP, clearly working in the interests of BP, and as he’s being accused by Clint Guidry and basically fishermen up and down the Gulf Coast at this point in the Vessels for Opportunity program, is that this a guy who’s doing nothing but working to try to limit BP’s long-term liability for this disaster.
AMY GOODMAN: Dahr Jamail, we want to thank you very much for being with us, independent journalist. His latest piece in Truthout is called “BP’s Scheme to Swindle the ‘Small People.’” Special thanks to WEDU, PBS in Tampa. Florida, where he is speaking to us from. And Hugh Kaufman, senior policy analyst at the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, for joining us from Washington, DC. Of course, we will continue to cover the fallout of the spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
You can watch the entire original interview which is almost 45 minutes long at the original story here.