Originally Posted by aupoet

And just what proof do you have that no enviromental damage was done in those cases? The words of the party/parties responsible maybe or the reports being put out by some government reporting agency. Yeah, there are no motives for either one of them to push lies off onto the public are there? I live along the Gulf Coast and all I keep hearing are the lies about how everyone should come on down to the beach, the water is fine and the seafood is safe. Yet the beach cleaners are still wearing hazmat suits and the fish kills are increasing. One of our local news stations conducted water tests for the levels of petroleum hydrocarbons in several area Gulf waters. They collected water samples right along the beach fronts in Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, and Dauphin Island. They then collected water samples up the beach some 20 yards from the surf, after digging down into the sand and letting the water seep into the hole. They also collected sand samples and finally they collected a sample farther out near one of the oil booms. All the samples looked clean without any noticeable cloudyness or oil droplets. The chemist found levels of petroleum hydrocarbons in the water samples from 16 to over 200 parts per million and said normally they should be undectable or under 5 parts per million. The sample taken off the boom could not be tested because it exploded in his lab when he added a solvent to it to get the hydrocarbons to parcipitate out. The government and media keep telling the public that the beaches are safe yet they post signs telling those with weakened immune systems, who might be pregnant, or young children should stay out of the water. Oh yes, the beach sand samples and waters taken higher on the beach had the highest levels of contaminants. I have yet to hear anything about any government tests being conducted. It was just reported yesterday that sand is being hauled in from New Jersey to cover up the oil soaked beach sand rather than cleaning it up and guess what they are doing with all the oily sand and tar balls they are collecting -it is all going to our local landfills to leach out and pollute our ground water. The government and its bedfellow the big oil companies are both white washing this disaster and trying to hide everything from the publics eye as fast as possible. People such as yourself are only helping them by believing them when they say that "No damage has been done".