Rally for the Truth

Rally for the Truth
Dean Blanchard, Karen Hopkins & Stephen Baldwin

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Obama administration planning 8 'dockside chats' to promote Gulf seafood

Obama administration planning 8 'dockside chats' to promote Gulf seafood SEAFOOD.COM NEWS [Associated Press Newswires] Aug 26, 2010 - (c) 2010. The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Federal officials are planning what they are calling 'dockside chats' to promote information about the safety of Gulf seafood. Eight such events are being planned at sites in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida panhandle, according to a Wednesday news release. Senior officials from the Obama administration are to take part. The events are to be coordinated with state and local officials. From the press release: 'Federal and state officials recognize the importance of ensuring that seafood caught from the Gulf of Mexico is safe to eat,' said FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg. 'We have worked diligently over the past several months to develop criteria that must be met and tests that must be successfully passed to make sure that seafood from open harvest waters is free from harmful oil residues. We hope these chats will answer any questions that harvesters may have so they can resume harvesting with confidence in the safety of their catch.' 'This administration continues to stand shoulder to shoulder with Gulf Coast fishers and their families during these challenging times,' said NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco. 'We are committed to making sure that Gulf seafood is the safest in the world, and to reassuring consumers that Gulf seafood is safe to eat.' 'This administration's extensive monitoring provides a wealth of information to our federal, state and local partners about water quality in the Gulf,' said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. 'EPA alone has collected more than 4,000 air, water, sediment and waste material samples since the beginning of the BP oil spill. We have an extraordinary range of up-to-date information to guide us in determining if there are any risks to human health.' The team will visit dockside locations where fishers work to clearly address the issues of seafood safety and toxicity - answering questions, correcting misinformation, and providing details about the rigorous actions undertaken by the federal and state governments to ensure that Gulf seafood from areas that are open to fishing following the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill is safe to eat. The 'chats' are being hosted and coordinated by local officials and fisherpersons on the ground in each community. John Sackton, Editor And Publisher Seafood.com News 1-781-861-1441 Email comments to jsackton@seafood.com

1 comment:

Holt Webb said...

Thanks for posting this Karen. I'd love to attend.

NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco says: "We are committed to... reassuring consumers that Gulf seafood is safe to eat."

That sounds suspicious.

They say they have done rigorous testing. But, if you watch the Ed Markey hearings, they have only tested seafood from open waters. They have not tested seafood in tainted waters. And they have not tested for heavy metals and the other toxins that oil and corexit contain.

I hope they come away from these "chats" with a desire to fix the problems. Too many times, grassroots information such as will be gathered at these chats is used to help officials find ways to better hide the truth.