Escambia Official Raises Conflict Of Interest Worries In Oil Spill Tests

May 22, 2010

Taylor Kirschenfeld, an environmental official for Escambia County, does not want to play the water testing game under the rules set forth by BP and NOAA, according to an article in the New York Times.

Water, sediment and marine animal tissue samples are being collected now in Escambia County. NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has instructed that the samples be sent to the lab at TD-Brooks International in College Station, Texas. The lab’s biggest client is BP. Kirschenfeld instead wants to send the samples to licensed local lab.

“Everywhere you look, if you look, you start seeing these conflicts of interest in how this disaster is getting handled,” Kirschenfeld told the New York Times. “I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but there is just too much overlap between these people.”

Click here to read the complete New York Times article.

Comments

8 Responses to “Escambia Official Raises Conflict Of Interest Worries In Oil Spill Tests”

  1. Wendy on May 25th, 2010 11:40 am

    I think our county politicians would just prefer to funnel tax money to testing labs who will then contribute some of it back to their reelection funds. They don’t get any kickbacks from the NOAA test labs. This just sounds to me like another round of the pot calling the kettle black.

  2. ghendricks on May 23rd, 2010 9:52 pm

    Bring back Bush? Did you forget that one of the coporate “Three Stooges” in this disaster is Halliburton? Did you also forget that Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton?

  3. David Huie Green on May 23rd, 2010 4:08 pm

    no problem sending it to one lab as long as that one is monitored and the source of samples is kept separate from test results until afterward.

    if you think BP is paying the lab to rig the results, it would be nice to have some reason to make the claim other than that’s what you would do under such circumstances.

    A simple solution: take samples, split the samples, send half of some of them to local lab and other half to suspected lab. Don’t do it with all samples, just randomly select samples to test to correlation.

    See if the results differ.

    If they differ, do they favor BP or simply differ slightly?

    If there’s a big difference, check the local lab for accuracy too.

    David thinking it’s more fun to suspect the worst, though

  4. anydaynow on May 22nd, 2010 8:49 pm

    Bring back Bush?? Are you kidding?? go read about his man Randall Luthi that put the oil companies in charge of regulating themselves.

  5. huh on May 22nd, 2010 12:36 pm

    Bush? hahaha the same guy that pushed so hard for drilling offshore without regulation?

    Of Course, we can’t fully blame him as Obama approved it as well, they are both as bad, but we need the oil, so what can we do

  6. traci on May 22nd, 2010 10:33 am

    you said that right LJ, bring back Bush.

  7. Cheryl on May 22nd, 2010 7:38 am

    Thank you. Finally someone steps up to the plate, and he works for the county! Stay diligent Chips!

  8. LJ on May 22nd, 2010 6:53 am

    I pray that someday our government will learn how to handle disaster situations better. Obviously, today is not that day! It sickens me when I think of how this one has been handled!