BP Paying Off Universities And Gulf Scientists In Mass To Hide Oil Spill Research Data From The Public
Posted by Alexander Higgins - July 16, 2010 at 3:28 pm - Permalink - Source via Alexander Higgins Blog
If the people of the Gulf have had one advocate throughout the BP Gulf Oil Spill it has been the scientific community.
They have not been afraid to step and challenge BP and The Federal Government over the existence of underwater plumes, the dangers of the dispersants BP is using, or the safety of Gulf waters.
The scientific community has sounded the alarm on skyrocketing arsenic levels in the Gulf while the Government has kept quiet and has exposed the improper BP cleanup practices that are contaminating Gulf beaches.
Scientist have come forward to reveal the real location of the oil spill, exposed the lies about oil and methane plumes, and have alerted the public to severely low-balled flow rates.
The list goes on and on.
However those days may soon becoming to an end.
A startling new report from the Alabama Register reveals BP is trying to buy up Gulf scientists and Universities in mass to prevent them from releasing research data to the public.
For the last few weeks, BP has been offering signing bonuses and lucrative pay to prominent scientists from public universities around the Gulf Coast to aid its defense against spill litigation.
BP PLC attempted to hire the entire marine sciences department at one Alabama university, according to scientists involved in discussions with the company’s lawyers. The university declined because of confidentiality restrictions that the company sought on any research.
The Press-Register obtained a copy of a contract offered to scientists by BP. It prohibits the scientists from publishing their research, sharing it with other scientists or speaking about the data that they collect for at least the next three years.
“We told them there was no way we would agree to any kind of restrictions on the data we collect. It was pretty clear we wouldn’t be hearing from them again after that,” said Bob Shipp, head of marine sciences at the University of South Alabama. “We didn’t like the perception of the university representing BP in any fashion.”
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BP officials declined to answer the newspaper’s questions about the matter. Among the questions: how many scientists and universities have been approached, how many are under contract, how much will they be paid, and why the company imposed confidentiality restrictions on scientific data gathered on its behalf.
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More than one scientist interviewed by the Press-Register described being offered $250 an hour through BP lawyers. At eight hours a week, that amounts to $104,000 a year.
Scientists from Louisiana State University, Mississippi State University and Texas A&M have reportedly accepted, according to academic officials. Scientists who study marine invertebrates, plankton, marsh environments, oceanography, sharks and other topics have been solicited.
The contract makes it clear that BP is seeking to add scientists to the legal team that will fight the Natural Resources Damage Assessment lawsuit that the federal government will bring as a result of the Gulf oil spill.
The government also filed a NRDA suit after the Exxon Valdez spill.
In developing its case, the government will draw on the large amount of scientific research conducted by academic institutions along the Gulf. Many scientists being pursued by BP serve at those institutions.
With its payments, BP buys more than the scientists’ services, according to Wiygul. It also buys silence, he said, thanks to confidentiality clauses in the contracts.
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Richard Shaw, associate dean of LSU’s School of the Coast and Environment, said that the BP contracts are already hindering the scientific community’s ability to monitor the affects of the Gulf spill.
“The first order of business at the research meetings is to get all the disclosures out. Who has a personal connection to BP? We have to know how to deal with that person,” Shaw said. “People are signing on with BP because the government funding to the universities has been so limited. It’s a sad state of affairs.”
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“This is not an agreement to do research for BP,” Wiygul said. “This is an agreement to join BP’s legal team. You agree to communicate with BP through their attorneys and to take orders from their attorneys.
“The purpose is to maintain any information or data that goes back and forth as privileged.”
The contract requires scientists to agree to withhold data even in the face of a court order if BP decides to fight such an order. It stipulates that scientists will be paid only for research approved in writing by BP.
The contracts have the added impact of limiting the number of scientists who’re able to with federal agencies. “Let’s say BP hired you because of your work with fish. The contract says you can’t do any work for the government or anyone else that involves your work with BP. Now you are a fish scientist who can’t study fish,” Wiygul said.
Perhaps even more startling is the scientists that BP isn’t paying off to keep quiet the Federal Government is.
A scientist who spoke to the Press-Register on condition of anonymity because he feared harming relationships with colleagues and government officials said he rejected a BP contract offer and was subsequently approached by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with a research grant offer.
He said the first question the federal agency asked was, “‘is there a conflict of interest,’ meaning, ‘are you under contract with BP?’”
Other scientists told the newspaper that colleagues who signed on with BP have since been informed by federal officials that they will lose government funding for ongoing research efforts unrelated to the spill.
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He said the first question the federal agency asked was, “‘is there a conflict of interest,’ meaning, ‘are you under contract with BP?’”
Other scientists told the newspaper that colleagues who signed on with BP have since been informed by federal officials that they will lose government funding for ongoing research efforts unrelated to the spill.
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NOAA officials did not answer requests for comment. The agency also did not respond to a request for the contracts that it offers scientists receiving federal grants. Several scientists said the NOAA contract was nearly as restrictive as the BP version.
The state of Alaska published a 293-page report on the NRDA process after the Exxon Valdez disaster. A section of the report titled “NRDA Secrecy” discusses anger among scientists who received federal grants over “the non-disclosure form each researcher had signed as a prerequisite to funding.”
“It’s a very strange situation. The science is already suffering,” Shaw said. “The government needs to come through with funding for the universities. They are letting go of the most important group of scientists, the ones who study the Gulf.”
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Scientists Sound Alarm As Arsenic Levels Rise In Seawater Around The BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
BP’s Lies About Methane And Oil Plumes Exposed
Mmm,soon you will be able to only trust your self! Yup nothing new!
Apparently, “It’s business as usual”! It’s the way, AIDS got to be the way it Is! Wyeth Pharmaceticals was just busted, for publishing over 40 different scientific reports, that were FALSE! THEY MADE IT ALL UP! They “paid scientists to L-I-E”! Remember, fen phen?
So, why not just “let the scientist HAVE the $, & only ask for precise test results, & NO NAMING NAMES”! This way, the scientists get their grant $, since this is what they SURVIVE ON, yet, they get to “stay within their personal constitutions”, by giving “precise test results, BUT, No Naming Names”! (Didn’t James Fox, already do this, in his own way?)
This way, when challenged with a source, you can keep it confidential, & keep the challenge
within the ‘precise test results’. This way, if there are any lower test results, via official sources, you will already have the originals, in your hand. And the scientists can have their $ & their anomynity, & you can have “superior & precise test results”, & no questions asked!
(It all makes, “paying off the academics, LOL,
O-B-S-O-L-E-T-E”! ) Why, am I doing this? It’s for ALL, “Of the 1000′s of dolphins/sea turtles/sea birds & countless millions of fish,that “Would NEVER DO, THIS, To US”!
The dolphins & sharks BEACH THEMSELVES! Fleeing from an acid/oil bath, “in a searing agony, the world, has yet, to actually Know”.
(I also was ‘saved by dolphins, from drowning’,
about 25 years ago, off of a beach, in Sarasota, Florida. Have you ever been in a boat & led to shore by dolphins?)
Here’s a link,if you want to know
why the sea water,is NOT, “safe to wade in”! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5CDxqjIfmI
And, here’s a link, if you’ve never seen a live dolphin, & zoom back to see where you are;
http://www.360cities.net/image/playing-with-dolphins-in-moorea#97.04,-10.49,10.0
Thank f**k, finally someone intelligent is following this crisis in detail.
Alex, this is awesome coverage of the disaster. We need to stand up and help people see this kind of nonsense going on, I’ll continue to share all of this stuff on Facebook and tell people.
Thank-you.
(And b.t.w. The Real Reason for Climate Change, is NOT, because of ‘all the oil burning’, but because of a BRIGHTER FULL MOON!)
Check out this link, for proof;
http://www.360cities.net/image/full-moon-at-camas-rubha-a-mhurain-scotland#482.08,-20.30,20.1 & here, for more proofs;
http://www.360cities.net/search/full-moons
As, “Since WHEN, does a full moon, mimic the sun”? (Hint; “It’s what the chemtrail program, is all about”! And the ‘burning of the oil’, only exaspurbates the real problem. H-E-A-T! And NOT, some “carbon blanket, to keep it all IN”!)
You can only fool, some of the people, some of the time. But NOT, all of the people, all of the time….
MASSIVE BP LIE BREAKING NEWS
They’re still lying about the oil disaster
Oil expert Simmons insists ‘20 million people are entrapped in harm’s way’
17th July 2010
Oil industry insider Matt Simmons blew the whistle on the made-for-TV capping of the so-called oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico Thursday, July 15, during an interview on KPFK radio, the NPR station in Los Angeles.
Simmons, former energy adviser to the second President Bush, explained that according to his reading of the data from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, capping of the so-called riser and the subsequent announcement by U.S. President Obama was “the biggest con job we’ve ever seen.”
Simmons, creator of an investment bank catering to oil companies, told radio host Ian Masters that the real problem continuing to gush oil into the Gulf was not the 6-inch “riser” that apparently has been capped amid much TV hoopla, but that an open hole or cauldron perhaps up to 10 miles distant from where British Petroleum’s cameras are focused which continues to spew 120,000 BARRELS per day, and that BP’s much publicized effort to drill relief wells in what the company says is an effort to stop the flow of oil is nothing but a cynical publicity stunt.
“The dimensions of this lie are beyond belief,” said Simmons, explaining that the idea of a relief well is “tricky at best,” since trying to hit a pipe of less than a foot in diameter 35,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf may be entirely futile because the casing of the original pipe is not even there, having blown away at some point.
But Simmons noted that both BP and Obama continue to deny that this open hole, or cauldron, even exists, even though Simmons and others insist the NOAA data from satellites prove by speed of flow and depth of light that the amount of oil that has been flowing through the on-camera riser could not possibly account for the amount of oil that has spilled into the Gulf.
“The riser is totally irrelevant,” Simmons stressed, adding “and there’s no way to cap the open hole.” He explained that BP continues to deny the open hole exists and theorizes the continuing flow of oil into the Gulf is really just the residue from what has already been spilled during the first 90 days of the disaster.
“There is denial that there’s even a problem,” Simmons said. “In about a month or two people will realize that this actually was the biggest con job we’ve ever seen.”
Simmons also noted an additional danger. “What the researchers now believe is that basically is that between 4000 and 4500 below the ocean floor lies an oil lake that’s somewhere between 100 and 120 miles wide and it’s about 4500 feet deep. It’s this toxic waste and crude and it’s releasing methane gases that are absolutely lethal which is why all the fish and dolphins and sharks and whales are dying. And workers too, which is why so many have gotten sick, or maybe really sick.
“The health problems are so serious,” Simmons said. “When you inhale methane you just die.”
The only possible solution, Simmons insists, “is a small diameter low level nuclear device. They insert it down the well 18000 feet, and set it off. It will fuse the rock and glass, and it’s totally safe, three miles under the seabed.”
Radio host Masters asked, “When do we get the truth?”
Simmons responded, “Basically the walls are starting to cave in on BP. there are only so many things you can make up.”
“But here’s the really scary thing,” Simmons told the Pacifica radio audience. “If we have a storm, let alone a hurricane, what hurricanes basically do is they churn up cold water from the base of the Gulf. This time it’s not going to be cold water, it’s going to be black poisonous crude. It will also shut down the 18 power plants along the Gulf Coast.
“So we’re going to entrap 20 million people in harm’s way.”
Radio link:
http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/mp3/kpfk_100715_170004dbriefing.MP3
John Kaminski is a writer who lives on the Gulf Coast but is currently vacationing a thousand miles away from this scene unprecedented in world history. http://www.johnkaminski.info