UPDATED: BP Brings Sand To The Beach
We’re getting reports from the gulf that BP is involved in another cover-up – in the literal meaning.
British Petroleum is trucking in sand to cover up the oil. Let me repeat that – instead of cleaning up the oil they are just bringing in sand from other beaches and covering it up. In the photos and the video you can see the layering of Grand Isle, LA sand, oil and then a sand of a different type. Photo-journalists have four independent confirmations by local Sheriff’s in Grand Isle, Louisiana.
CS Muncy, a freelance photo-journalist from New York has gone down to report the story on his own dime. He’s a friend of The Mudflats and has sent us these photos to get the word out. To support his work, you can make a donation through PayPal to OilSpillStory@gmail.com – Click the link here.
Video by Save Our Shores‘s Judson Parker
[slideshow]
UPDATE: This report came out after I posted. Please read for update.
I was on Grand Isle Monday, treated to a view of a relatively pristine beach. You can’t actually walk on the beach without an escort and she said she was too busy to walk us to the shore, but we zoomed in on a truck on the beach and noticed the well groomed nature of the surrounding sand. There was barely a tarball to be seen. What a difference a few days and the outer bands of Hurricane Alex make.
Click link above for more.
HMmmm..is it meant to be..a ‘makeover’..for the big weekend..upcoming? How delightful of BP..to think of saving the family..Photo-Ops.
The lord works in mysterious ways down in Jesusland
When oil is our God, I guess we get what we deserve from who or what we worship.
I saw a video of the beach in florida that had the same oil line. We just thought it meant that the oil was in a stream under the sand…scary. But now I wonder…is it a huge cover up? Oh like that would come as any surprise
Sent them money…oh how I wish it could be more. Great reporting…keep it up!
let’s get this report on Huffington post and send it viral….
This is almost more than I can believe! It is like a really stupid movie. Good grief! Sick making.
I saw that on your blog earlier, Shannyn. Doesn’t that just take the biscuit? I have one question…why is your government allowing this?
We’re talking about such a huge stretch of coastline that I’m sure the coast guard is overwhelmed trying to police it all. And it’s not like they don’t have other things to do in working to try to contain this disaster, not to mention their usual patrol chores. We have just a couple of Coast Guard cutters where I am, and they have an enormous stretch of coast line to take care of. I can’t imagine they’d be able to watch for dumped sand, even bringing in help from all over.
I wonder if the beach will be “screen cleaned” in several days –
perhaps this is an attempt for the sand to coat or absorb the oil –
then they just clean the sand of “clumps”
If it is being buried to “hide the oil” – they will be surprised
after the first coastal storm when the good sand shifts &
all thats left is coated oil.
I see Jindahl is trying to extort $10M from BP for “Mental Health”
They’ve refused… (Google News) obviously, Jindahl wants
to act independently from the Federal Government
and do his own …… what did that Republican call it….
oh yes …. his own Shakedown of BP
He’s just a mavricky kind of Gov.
watched this on Keith yesterday
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann/#38028832
it is sickening and heartbreaking
no amount of covering up will hide this
Jindal is a hypocrit to rival all of them.
I’d heard that they were trucking in sand to cover the oil anytime any politicians or reporters were coming. BP, or whoever is covering up the oil, has no shame.
Imagine what will happen when the beach looks white and pristine, a family shows up for the long weekend and their three year old decides to build a sand castle and starts digging. Have they really thought what the consequences of this latest cover up might be?
Does give a new twist to political cover up doesn’t it?
We need to think of a name for it and apply it to people like Haley and Bobbie.
We do realize don’t we that all this oily trash in going in a land fill somewhere and people will be living on top of it 50 years from now?
Impossible, Herculean task, Unbelievable. Can’t even begin to fathom – What Were They Thinking?
Many thanks for helping get these films out. Shannyn’s link is on Political Carnival as well.
Where the eff is EPA to put a stop to these criminals.
Watching BP over-lording heavny handed, immoral acts is like sitting through the Godfather.
Somebodies in DC and the capitols of the effected states need to grow some ball and stand up to these British Mafia thugs.
Hmmm. Why does BP trucking in sand to hide the oil remind me of Palin applying “troughs” of makeup to hide her own mug…..
Beauty is only sand and skin deep, but ugly goes all the way to bedrock.
Shannyn, thanks for the horrifying information. None of us want to hear this, but all of us are grateful that opened our eyes to this.
Please use your contacts with the Rachel Maddow show to see if she will break this nationally. Perhaps she will even interview you about it and give the photographer national exposure which could mean funding for more of this eye-opening evidence. We know some members of the administration and many of the prestigious movers and shakers of our country watch her show so this could help stop BP’s despicable destruction of our land.
A long time ago, when I was a lot younger, there was a play and then a movie titled “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off.” Don’t remember what it was about but was taken by the sentiment and I have felt that way a few times since.
This Gulf horror is one of those times. Just not sure where to go. Or how I get off.
I love that musical. I was in it when I was waaaaaaay younger, thinner, had better hair, a voice, and a waistline! What a great show. The songs are wonderful.
http://www.amazon.com/Stop-World-Want-Original-Broadway/dp/B000008L6L/ref=pd_bxgy_m_text_b
Does this surprise me? No. What surprises me is that BP has not hired Blackwater to kill any and all who would view or report on anything that goes on there be they government or private citizen. Perhaps i speak to soon.
I posted this link on my FB and a friend from down there wrote me back.
“It is understandable for people to start this kind of thinking when nothing is being done to fix the oil. I want to say first, Im mad as hell at BP. But they are not trucking in sand and burying the oil. The oil is left on the shore and the next high tide that comes in buries the sand deeper every tide. So yes the oil is getting buried, but Mother Nature has the shovel. ”
If anyone has any pictures of the trucks ‘trucking’ them in.. then there you go. Other then that, I’m inclined to believe my friend since he lives right there. Just a note.
trucks: http://i750.photobucket.com/albums/xx150/SOSFLorida/DumpTrucksFlorida.jpg
result: http://i750.photobucket.com/albums/xx150/SOSFLorida/Sand%20piles%20on%20the%20beach/_MG_7922-1.png
cover up: http://s750.photobucket.com/albums/xx150/SOSFLorida/Oil%20coverup/
Good try, just 2 problems with using these as “proof” of an oil cover-up in Grand Isle, LA. First, these were taken in FL, and second, this is obviously a public beach with people walking and sunbathing openly on the sand. The 65 foot rule would apply if this activity was even remotely connected to the oil spill.
Adding sand, or moving it around, on a public beach is not uncommon, as any beach resident can attest to.
I still say if the original author wants to “prove” any conspiracy, he needs to produce photos of actual sand trucks dumping actual sand on oil-fouled coast, or come up with names and quotes of actual witnesses.
I’m with you, Delta and Village Reader ~~ I’m going to need some actual proof (visuals of the act!) that sand is being trucked in to cover the oiled beach(es).
One of the marvelous things about the intertubes is that information spreads far and wide nearly instantaneously…one of the truly horrific things about the intertubes is that ‘information’ spreads far and wide with just as much speed!
I completely understand why strict guidelines and rules have been established for media and journalists covering this disaster; why media and journalists aren’t all free to just tromp around, take photos, and report their ‘findings’ to the world.
No matter how noble their intent, media and/or journalists sometimes just get it all wrong; sometimes they draw ‘conclusions’ that are *not* supported by even the most rudimentary of verifyable, *supporting* facts, yet they report them *as if* they were valid, nonetheless. This ‘information’/report about sand being trucked in to ‘cover up’ the oiled beaches, being a case in point.
‘Information’ derived from (and/or based in) truthiness is *not* information, let alone, responsible journalism. beth.
Truthiness: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/24039/october-17-2005/the-word—truthiness and
http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/06words.htm
Like using a pinkie band aid to cover a butt crack, isn’t it.
I just read your update. What is going on? Who is imposing a $40K fine for getting to “close” to the beach? Is it the government? I can’t imagine that BP is able to impose a $k40K fine. It wasn’t made clear in the article. Either way, there is some major league cover up going on here. I am watching and waiting to hear more about this. Disturbing on all fronts.
to = too close to the beach…..(sigh…..)
i would imagine the $40K fine is being imposed for logistical and safety reasons…for both the [paid] workers and the rest [onlookers, media, gawkers, bare-handed 'helpers', etc.]
If you’ve got a line of workers systematically combing the beach (and cleaning it up), having non-workers mingling and mulling about would tend to make things a bit discombobulated, I would think… even if those folks ‘helped’ clean the sands while the mingled and mulled, their ‘helping’ would probably end up not being so much help.
And, since there are still looming questions about *what* the effect of the oil and the oil-disbursant mix on humans, is, the fewer people who are ‘intimately’ exposed to it, the better. I’m sure the Docs in the area are already working their buttockals off trying to figure out which presented symptoms are a direct result of handling/being ‘intimate’ with the contamination, and what symptoms are just run-of-the mill ones that just crop up in any population. Until a *real* understanding of what the goop is doing –or not– to humans, probably the best thing to do is to limit the number of people tromping on the beaches amid all of the gunk. To my way of thinking, that’s a good idea. beth.
PS – as someone pointed out on the update link, the photo of the truck is not a photo of a *dump* truck. Enlarge it and take a gander: it’s tipping off / off-loading a large, blue container, not dumping sand. Could be more booms, cleaning materials, poles and ropes for closing the beach, who knows…but its not sand – sand isn’t transported that way. b.
Here’s a better one: http://i750.photobucket.com/albums/xx150/SOSFLorida/DumpTrucksFlorida.jpg
[[See: Delta @ 16.1.1. beth]]
How deep is this sand? I mean, there are plans to remove 700,000 sea turtle eggs from the beaches (hurray!) but next year, and the years after, there are hopefully going to be females coming back to these oil-slick shores to lay eggs again. Will it kill them outright? Are people planning on rescuing those eggs and sending them to safer shorelines to hatch for the next decade or three?
*heaves sigh*
The photos he shows of the “layered” sand are actually perfectly normal looking, at least for MS beaches and have been for at least my life-span of 50+ years. The finer sand naturally sifts down and is ground down as the tides come in and out, and the “oil” layer is probably the common black silt layer. The “different type” of sand on top is what the most recent tides have brought in. The truck isn’t anything like any sand truck I’ve ever seen, and isn’t a dump truck at all. It appears to be some sort of container truck that is off-loading a big blue container. Notice the hydraulic lifts at the front of the trailer.
There is enough fear and blame and accusations (both founded and unfounded) going around now that to add this sort of conspiracy theory to the mix does no good for anyone. I can’t imagine that he can be the ONLY person who has seen or knows about this particular conspiracy or has proof of sand trucks dumping loads on the beaches, and yet nobody else has come forward and none of the people I know who actually live there have any knowledge of it. If there are truly independent confirmations of this happening, why haven’t they stepped forward? There’s no way on Earth that Billy Nungesser is keeping quiet about this if it’s really going on.
More photos or statements from identified witnesses or something beyond pictures of totally normal-looking sand and a bunch of conjecture from someone not intimately familiar with our beaches would be nice and would go a long way towards convincing people this is accurate. We’ll be the first in line to make a huge media stink about it if in fact it is true. If he is mistaken, then he does more harm than good by putting it out there.
The truck that is pictured is not a dump truck. What he is doing is either picking up or dropping off a large dumpster typical of those used at construction and demolition sites. If you notice, the tailgate of the dumpster is not open and the truck has a cable on it’s bed that is used to either pull the dumpster onto its frame or lower the dupster to set it on the ground. Who ever took this picture, was not paying attention to what was actually going on or just misrepresented what was happening.