Updates from the Gulf Coast

 

Updated Press Release - Please Forward!

 

Friends,

 

Kristian and I have been hard at work down in Louisiana and Mississippi meeting and interacting with everyone from individual citzens to agencies and businesses including the Coast Guard, EPA, NOAA and BP in public forums.  These forums have been, as you might imagine, very emotionally charged.  There is concern amongst the local community that, like Hurricane Katrina, they are going to be left in the dust after all the immediate attention drifts off to other issues around the country.  We're going to do our best to make sure that doesn't happen.

 

Whats Been Happening - A Community Perspective

 

Issues the local community is facing include

• Hiring people from out of state at $12 per hour to clean up the beaches while local residents who have lost their livelhoods are being asked to volunteer to clean up,
• Fishermen have been asked to sign waivers limiting their rights to legal recourse in exchange for a small payoff,
• Men and women who survived the initial explosion were held on a ship for 15 hours while the rig burned into the ocean and their friends burned and drowned, then were held in a hotel for another 25 hours without being able to communicate with their families until they cracked and signed promises to remain silent  about the accident and waiving their rights to legal recourse, and
• After a promise of transparency by BP the Director of Mobile Baykeeper was given a pass to go into the Mobile Command Center, she was turned away and escorted out by 2 BP security guards.

What We're Up To

 

We've been out on boats filming - Kristian and Eco-Warrior James Pribram went out to Ship Island and the Chandeleurs last week, we went out into the Atchafalaya River basin yesterday and Kristian is heading up in a plane tomorrow with Basinkeeper Dean Wilson and Jared will be in New Orleans meeting with local organizations.  Come Saturday, we will be heading to Ship Island with local Captain Louis Skrmetta on the ferry his family has run for 3 generations to interview locals and tourists getting one last look before the slick hits the shore, and on Sunday its back to the Atchafalaya Basin on the Gulf Coast, as the slick appears to be heading west.

 

Why We're Here and What YOU Can Do!

 

We're here helping our friends that helped us on our expedition down the Atchafalaya River in February.  There is an article in the current issue of Readers Digest about this expedition.  We're back in town to support the efforts of individuals, scientists and organizations that have been gathering video, photos and data about the current conditions in the Gulf, and are incorporating all of that into a Google Earth map that anyone can use. 

 

Please help us in this Gulf Coast focused grassroots effort to gather current and real time information by pass this request foremail any footage or data that you have with your contact information so we can give you credit to video@belowthesurface.org.  This is critically important to ensuring that when the flow is finally controlled, the beaches will be restored to their current conditions.

 

You can help Below the Surface directly by donating $10 to support our work down here at www.belowthesurface.org/deepwater.php

 

Thanks for the support!

 

Jared and Kristian

--
Jared Robinson Criscuolo

BELOW THE SURFACE Founder
A coast-to-coast exploration of America's waterways
203 887 3272
www.belowthesurface.org

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