"Narratives for the Discerning Connoisseur of Deep Dialogue"

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April 26, 2011. Captain Ryan Lambert – President of Cajun Fishing Adventures Lodge in Buras, Louisiana & Veteran Investigative Journalist Patrick J. O’Brien

New Legacy Series – Re-Mastered Radio Streaming Broadcast: April 30, 2014 (Original Broadcast April 26, 2011)

Guest Captain Ryan Lambert is President and owner of Cajun Fishing Adventures Lodge in Buras, Louisiana. He is also Vice President of the Louisianan Charter Boat Commission, a member of the Coastal Conservation Commission and has testified before the House Natural Resources Committee on the effects of the BP oil spill. He has been a fishing guide in the waters of the Louisiana bayou for more than 30 years. He was recently quoted “This special place along the Gulf of Mexico is a national treasure, a place where you could cast a rod out into the warm waters and pull out a red fish or speckled trout like snapping your fingers. Used to be we’d head out for a few hours and come back with ice chests full of the freshest, tastiest seafood ever caught. Unfortunately, the BP oil disaster almost put an end to that. Last year, my fishing and hunting business was all but wiped out by the oil spill — I lost 94% of my business. I have 23 people working for me: 23 families dependent on the income. But no one wanted to come down to a place threatened by 170 million gallons of oil. All told, it has cost me $1.2 million in business losses already, with no end in sight. But BP compensated me for just 10% of that. BP Claims Administrator Kenneth Feinberg says he is making us business owners whole. Ten cents on the dollar? BP isn’t making us whole: It’s pressing business owners to the ropes in the hope that we’ll become desperate enough to accept the company’s “quick claim” $25,000 settlement offer.”

“The quick claim gives individuals $5,000 and business owners $25,000 if they sign away their rights to ever sue for more. If you don’t agree to this amount, you start a terrible process — constant delays, requests for more documentation, with no communications from BP. Most people can’t wait any longer to pay off their bills. Forgive me if I blanch when I see BP spending millions on public relations trying to convince Americans that it is “making it right” in the Gulf of Mexico. Here’s what making it right would look like. First, people like me would be compensated for our losses — fully, fairly and in a timely fashion, before we lose our homes, our boats and our businesses.”
Second, the Congress would ensure that the fines BP pays for polluting our waters would go toward restoring the Gulf. Unless a law is passed, those fines — which will likely amount to billions of dollars — could instead be set aside for some future oil spill. That doesn’t make sense. The money needs to go to correct the harm done here. Our lawmakers need to act. Third, we must put in place a responsible Gulf restoration plan that deals with the devastation of this catastrophic spill while also addressing the long-term health of our wetlands. The Louisiana wetlands — the nursery to fish, birds and shellfish and the foundation of life in the Gulf — are eroding before our eyes. We’re losing thousands of acres each year. It didn’t start with the BP blowout, but the oil has made matters worse, killing marsh grasses and other front-line vegetation that helps to hold our precious wetlands in place. A comprehensive restoration plan must address the diverse causes of this erosion while we still have wetlands here to protect.

Finally, Congress, the oil and gas industry and the Obama administration must work together to strengthen the safeguards we all rely on to protect our workers, our waters and wildlife. As Gulf fishermen and outdoorsmen, we’ve lived with the petroleum industry all our lives. We mourned the loss of the 11 workers who died aboard the Deepwater Horizon last April. And we understand that rig workers need to make a living. But this work has to be done safely. It has to be done right. The approach some lawmakers would take, rushing the permitting process in ways that would put our workers and waters at needless risk, is something we just can’t afford. The stakes, for our home and our country, are just too high. Six years ago, Hurricane Katrina blew 24 feet of water into my fishing lodge, the business I’d devoted my career to building, the sole means of support for myself and my family. I rebuilt that lodge nail by nail. I rebuilt my business, too. Now, I’m praying that I can hang on once again, not from a natural disaster this time, but from a corporate calamity inflicted on this special region I call home.

“You see, this is more than just business to me. This is about saving a national treasure. It’s about making our people whole. It’s about making sure nothing like this ever happens again.”

“The Gulf of Mexico Disaster” – The Deep Water Horizon MACADO 252 Disaster

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (also referred to as the BP oil spill, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill or the Macondo blowout) is a massive ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, now considered the largest offshore spill in U.S. history.Some estimates placed it by late May or early June as among the largest oil spills in the world with tens of millions of gallons spilled to date. The spill stems from a sea floor 10,000 foot deep oil gusher (MC252) that followed the April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion. The explosion killed 11 platform workers and injured 17 others. The gusher, now estimated by the quasi-official Flow Rate Technical Group to be flowing at 20,000 to 40,000 barrels (840,000 to 1,700,000 US gallons; 3,200,000 to 6,400,000 litres) of crude oil per day, originates from a deepwater wellhead 5,000 feet (1,500 m) below the ocean surface. The exact spill flow rate is uncertain in part because BP has refused to allow independent scientists to perform accurate measurements and is a matter of ongoing debate. The resulting oil slick covers a surface area of at least 2,500 square miles (6,500 km2), with the exact size and location of the slick fluctuating from day to day depending on weather conditions.

Scientists have also reported immense underwater plumes of oil not visible at the surface. Experts fear that the spill will result in an environmental disaster, with extensive impact already on marine and wildlife habitats. The spill has also damaged the Gulf of Mexico fishing and tourism industries. There have been a variety of ongoing efforts to stem the flow of oil at the wellhead. Crews have been working to protect hundreds of miles of beaches, wetlands and estuaries along the northern Gulf coast, using skimmer ships, floating containment booms, anchored barriers, and sand-filled barricades along shorelines. The U.S. Government has named BP as the responsible party in the incident, and officials have said the company will be held accountable for all cleanup costs resulting from the oil spill.

At approximately the same time, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf occurred. Within a day after the disaster, one of his product vendors called him and said they had an environmentally-safe product that could solve the oil issue. In trying to introduce this product to the BP Corporation, he felt strongly that he was being stonewalled first by BP, and then by the Deepwater Horizon representatives. This led him on an investigative trail that uncovered the dispersant product BP had continued to use in the Gulf of Mexico. A very toxic product to humans and highly harmful to the delicate ecosystems of the Gulf. As the story continued to unravel around the plight of the Haitians, combined with the untold complexity surrounding the Gulf oil spill, unanswered questions slowly began to link many of the issues that the mainstream media was not exposing. As fortune would have it, he had the opportunity to work with David William Gibbons to further develop the story as a journalist. Since the disaster that robbed the souls of eleven in the Gulf of Mexico, he dedicated himself to finding answers and solutions to the BP spill. As he and his research team discovered and verified that the dispersant product being used by BP was a poison that had been banned for use in the UK since 1998. He felt an obligation to reveal their findings to the world by joining the David Gibbons “In Discussion” program later to become DG Networks.