Recently, the US Coast Guard has created a rule to ban anyone from coming within 65 feet of the oil containment booms. Without Coast guard approval, of course. They originally tried to make the exclusion zone 300 feet. They claim that this is done to ensure the safety of the public. However, it is currently preventing reporters and members of the media from reporting the conditions down in the Gulf.
Not only are we being barred from seeing what is actually happening, but we get fined if we try! The fine is for $40,000 and a Class D felony. Journalists have been repeatedly blocked by BP, coastguard and private contractors. Meanwhile, the Man in charge, Admiral Thad Allen has promised transparency and unfettered access. Ummm, am I missing something?
This is the Whitehouse Press Briefing for 7-1-2010.
Q For Admiral Allen, can you talk about this new 20-meter safety zone, and if that was done at BP’s request, or what the reason is to do this at this stage in the crisis?
ADMIRAL ALLEN: Can you be more specific?
Q The safety zone for vessels around plumes and other oil response.
ADMIRAL ALLEN: Oh. It’s not unusual at all for the Coast Guard to establish either safety or security zones around any number of facilities or activities for public safety and for the safety of the equipment itself. We would do this for marine events, fireworks demonstrations, cruise ships going in and out of port.
Q Right, but we’re so far into this disaster now, why do it now and why the new –
ADMIRAL ALLEN: I actually had some personal complaints from some county commissioners in Florida and some other local mayors that thought that there was a chance that somebody would get hurt or they would have a problem with the boom itself — had not presented itself before, but once presented with it, the logical thing to do.
Q So it wasn’t a BP request?
ADMIRAL ALLEN: Not at all.
Well, even though it was not BP’s request, it is still not acceptable. We all have a right to know what is going on in the Gulf. Just because the images are graphic and progress is not being made does not make it “okay” to ban transparency.
Associated Press photographer Gerald Herbert, who has been documenting the oil spill, raised concerns about the restrictions within his news organization on Wednesday. He has asked for a sit-down with Coast Guard officials to discuss the new policy, and the penalties, but has not received a response.
Photographers have had similar problems viewing the oil’s impact from the air. Photographer Ted Jackson of The Times-Picayune was trying to charter a flight with Southern Seaplane in late May to photograph oil coming ashore on Grand Isle, but the pilot was told that no media flights could go below 3,000 feet because of restrictions from the Federal Aviation Administration.
That FAA policy has remained in effect, requiring media outlets to get special permission in order to fly below 3,000 feet.
“Often the general guise of ‘safety’ is used as a blanket excuse to limit the media’s access, and it’s been done before,” Herbert said Thursday. “It feels as though news reporting is being criminalized under thinly veiled excuses. The total effect of all these restrictions is harming the public’s right to know.”
Matthew Hinton, a Times-Picayune photographer who has been on boats throughout Barataria Bay and Breton Sound in recent weeks, said it is already difficult to capture images of oiled birds when at the edge of the boom. Adding a 65-foot buffer would mean “You’d have to mount a telescope” to the camera to get a clear picture, he said.
And from a practical standpoint, the 65-foot safety zone could serve to block photographers and reporters from accessing some waterways altogether. Boom is often placed along the water’s edge in some bayous that are less than 20 meters wide.
“Just to go through a bayou, you’d need more than 20 meters,” Hinton said. “Your whole path would be blocked.”
Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said he believes media access is important to getting the word out about the local impact of the spill, and said the Coast Guard’s safety measures were an “overreaction.”
“I think somebody came up with a good reason of how to justify keeping the press away,” Nungesser said. “But guess what? That isn’t gonna keep us away. Anytime you all want, you all can come in there wherever we go, on our boats.” Although the order mandating the safety zone was carried out by the captains of the Ports of New Orleans, Morgan City and Mobile, Ala., a spokeswoman at the joint information center for the unified command said the order was a Coast Guard-wide directive from the top.
Loading ...