For almost 90 days oil spewed from the shattered wellhead of BP's destroyed Deepwater Horizon. However, for much of that time BP was more concerned with protecting its corporate fanny than with protecting fragile wildlife or the environment.
The Unified Area Command (UAC) directed the response. It was funded by BP and made up largely of its employees. They were in charge. Other members of the command included specialists from U.S. Fish and Wildlife, National Park Service, National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration and Coast Guard. Many were specialists with expertise in managing large-scale natural disasters. Some had been called out of retirement to assist in this man-made disaster.
BP ordered all UAC members not to talk with anyone about what they saw. However, one worker agreed to talk with me anonymously. He questioned BP's control which included taking no photographs and a requirement to "leave all notes and other such information behind when you leave." So much for transparency.
My source also tells me that BP got a vote in every action taken by the wildlife teams, despite the obvious conflict of interest. When litigation finally begins, BP will be charged with each death caused by the spill. They have a stake in keeping the recorded numbers of dead animals as low as possible. It's like saying, "A fox broke into the henhouse, so let's put him in charge." The fox and the hens have very different objectives.
By last week 6,000 birds and 1,000 sea turtles had been collected by wildlife biologists. As staggering as these numbers are, they are only the tip of the iceberg. Many animals never make it to shore. Crews on commercial vessels actually stopped reporting live oiled birds to BP's hot line "because no one could get to them before they died and sank." Moreover, some reports from locals cite masses of bird, turtle, fish and whale carcasses being stealthily collected from the open sea and dumped at waste facilities inland or burned up in pools of boomed oil. BP and its UAC don't want us to see this. We may never know the full extent of suffering inflicted on wildlife.
And as my source reminds us, "The death and suffering won't just stop the day the oil flow stops. It will go on for many years, not just days - years and years."
Perhaps BP should have only been in charge of stopping their leak. Perhaps all other work related to clean-up and wildlife should have handled independently and then billed to them. Perhaps foxes shouldn't be sent to guard henhouses. More on that tomorrow.
• Lorie Schaefer is retired. For current counts of wildlife go to www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/