Journalism

The celebrity chef Alice Waters is probably the world's most famous advocate of growing and eating local, Organic food. In February 2010 her Chez Panisse Foundation chose as its new Executive Director the wealthy "green socialite" and liberal political activist Francesca Vietor. Vietor's hiring created a serious conflict of interest that has married Waters and her Foundation to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) and its scam of disposing of toxic sewage sludge waste as free "organic Biosolids compost" for gardens.

For the first time, thanks to an ongoing "open records" investigation by the Food Rights Network, the public and the press have easy online access to dozens of internal SFPUC files (SFPUC Sludge Controversy Timeline), documenting the strange tale of Chez Sludge, or how the sewage industry bedded Alice Waters.

The Washington Post published a misleadingly-titled article June 30 about the environmental effects of dispersants BP is using in the Gulf. The Post article's headline reads,"Oil dispersant does not pose environmental threat, early EPA findings suggest." But neither the body of the article, nor the Environmental Protection Agency's's press release about studies the agency hastily performed on eight dispersants, indicates that there is no environmental threat from using them. The agency also gives no assurance about using dispersants in the quantities BP is applying them. EPA's June 30 press release about the studies says "dispersants are generally less toxic than oil," but does not suggest dispersants pose no environmental threat. The EPA's testing was also very limited. The agency only tested for short-term endocrine-disrupting activity of the dispersants, only tested dispersants alone (not mixed with oil, as they are in the Gulf), and tested the chemicals only on mature life forms and not young life forms, like juveniles and larvae, which are more vulnerable to the effects of chemicals. EPA also studied only very short-term exposures. The agency admits that "additional testing is needed to further inform the use of dispersants." Questions remain about why the federal government is allowing BP to engage in such widespread use of toxic chemicals in the ocean in the absence of any clear data showing it is harmless, and why the Washington Post article had such a spurious title.

British Petroleum has stooped to a new low, if that's at all possible.

As if spewing over 80 million gallons into the Gulf of Mexico were not a sufficiently criminal activity, they are now attempting a cover-up and have facilitated, working alongside the police of New Orleans, a blockade of sorts of hard-hitting journalists from getting their hands on what's actually taking place in the ravaged Big Easy. It is truly a sham of epic proportions.

And now, word of a big hurricane with winds of up to 90 MPH rolling into town has surfaced. Trouble, it appears, has just begun in the Bayou.

Mitigating the Exposure

Mother Jones, known for hard-hitting, deep-digging, no-holds-barred journalism, has approached coverage of the on-going and seemingly perpetual BP oil spill with the same vigor as usual in its reporting. Unfortunately, they've got some competition, or as astronaut Jack Swigert of Apollo 13 once said before going down, "Houston, we've had a problem!" The problem? BP is doing everything in its power to stop journalists dead in their tracks and scare them away from exposing their crime of poisoning the Gulf.