Environmental groups enlist Bob Graham to help stop bills

Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer

Tuesday, April 23, 2013 6:26pm

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/environmental-groups-enlist-bob-graham-to-help-stop-bills/2116972

A pair of bills now steamrolling through the Florida House and Senate have drawn such strong objections from environmental groups that former Sen. Bob Graham flew to Tallahassee this week to lobby against them.

The two bills — HB 999 sponsored by Rep. Jimmy Patronis and SB 1684 by Sen. Thad Altman — are packed with provisions relating to sugar company leases in the Everglades, making it easier to wipe out wetlands and limiting the power of water districts to control pumping.

Why bring in Graham? Because "there's a whole big army of 40 or 50 lobbyists working on the other side," explained Estus Whitfield of the Florida Conservation Coalition. By comparison "the environmental voice has been a little chirp in the distance."

Read more here.

Legislators prepare for potential fracking in Florida

TALLAHASSEE — No one knows if Florida is going to be the next frontier for the new generation of oil and gas drilling known as fracking, but state legislators say — just in case — it's time to write rules to require disclosure of the controversial technology.

The Florida House on Wednesday is expected to pass a bill that will require companies to disclose what chemicals they use when they explore for oil and gas using the controversial extraction process.

Fracking uses hydraulic fracturing technology to inject water, sand and chemicals underground to create fractures in rock formations. Oil and gas is released through the fissures and is captured by wells, built at the sites. Environmentalists warn that the chemical makeup of the fluid that is pumped into the ground could contaminate groundwater and release harmful pollutants, such as methane, into the air.

"The Fracturing Chemical Usage Disclosure Act," sponsored by Rep. Ray Rodriques, R-Estero, would require the state Division of Resource Management to set up an online chemical registry for owners and operators of wells, service companies, and suppliers that use hydraulic fracturing.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/legislators-prepare-for-potential-fracking-in-florida/2117017

READ THE WHOLE STORY AT THE LINK ABOVE...

Wise Women Media for 4/26/13-Pat LaMarche, Politico, Radio Maven, Huffington Post Blogger, Homeless Advocate

DON'T MISS THIS SHOW! 10PM to MIDNIGHT EST!

Pat LaMarche's experiences working with the nation's poor -- most recently as Vice President of Community Affairs at Safe Harbour, Inc., Cumberland County Pennsylvania's largest homeless shelter -- make her uniquely suited to answer the tough questions about how welfare, social services, inadequate education and societies other challenges effect the economy and the nation as well. As a former journalist and award winning broadcaster Pat spent more than two decades studying and reporting on poverty issues both in the U.S. and abroad. During her 2004 Green Party Campaign for U.S. Vice President, Pat took to the streets to uncover the lives of the homeless in what she called the "Left Out Tour." Pat traveled the nation living in homeless shelters and on the streets. The book she wrote about those experiences is called, "Left Out in America; the State of Homelessness in the United States." 
FROM PAT: Join me on my current 5000 mile trip among the nation's poorest folks.
Join us in the chat room or for the live broadcast (or archive) here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/here-be-monsters/2013/04/27/wise-woman-media-with-anita-stewart
Call in to speak with the HOST or the GUEST: (213) 816-0357.

BREAKING BP NEWS: BOMBS Were Used to Burn the Oil-to ELIMINATE OIL So Less Declared and Less Fines

***BREAKING NEWS*** New witness has come forward stating that BP hired workers to gather oil, and then used BOMBS to burn the oil - to eliminate the total amount of oil declared was spewed in the Gulf and lower their fines - and set fires the size of city blocks, as tall as skyscrapers - with no worker protections. They would drop individuals in small aluminum boats by air, and detonate large surface oil areas WITHOUT reporting any of this activity. Please watch this video - and please share! http://www.aljazeera.com/video/americas/2013/04/2013420175513563658.html

BP Spill: Three Years On Oil Still Lingers in the Gulf Coast by Maureen Nandini Mitra

Three years after an explosion at British Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers, injured dozens, and set off the worst oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, the waters along Gulf Coast seems almost back to normal. Much of the oil is gone. New Orleans-based photographer Julie Dermanskysays there’s still a lot left. The oil, she says, is often hard to locate because it has a tendency to play hide and seek. Dermansky, who photographed the spill in 2010 “pretty much non-stop for four months, has been doggedly following the story for the past three years — reading up all the research she can lay her hands on, making trips out to the worst impacted areas in Louisiana every few months, and talking to people from affected communities. In the early days of the spill the spill she was hired by several major publications, including The Times, London, The Washington Post, and Der Spiegel. But these days she travels without assignment, covering expenses on her own since few publications hire photographers or reporters to cover what’s now an old news story. Last, Dermansky again visited the beaches and marshes along the Louisiana and Mississippi coast — some of the worst hit areas where crews are still cleaning up tar mats and tar balls. I spoke with Dermansky via email and over the phone about her trip and her assessment of the situation in the Gulf Coast.

All photos copyright Julie Dermansky. Click on this photo to view a slideshow.

What did you find on your recent trip out to Grand Isle, Bay Jimmy in Louisiana, and the Mississippi coast?

There was oil sheen stirred up from the turbulence in the Bay Jimmy PJ Hahn Plaquemines Parish director of coastal zone management, who I accompanied on an oil spotting trip, turned over some of the dead marsh grass and exposed roots covered in hardened oil. There was also hardened oil on top of some of the surface we walked on. With each step on the surface, oil sheen spread around my boots. Much of the vegetation there is now dead. That’s tragic as with less vegetation coastal erosion, already a problem before the spill, has intensified. A rainbow oil sheen has moved over parts of the marsh surface. There were signs of life though: small crabs moving around, snails and, raccoon paw prints.

On Grand Isle, at the state park, I found tar balls ranging from the size of a quarter to eight inches long. The beach was not blanketed in them but you could find one every couple of feet.

You can see the whole interview at: http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/bp_spill_three_years_on_oil_still_lingers_in_the_gulf_coast/

HELP KEEP WISE WOMEN MEDIA ON THE AIR!

***WISE WOMEN MEDIA is an independent channel and we do our own fundraising to cover our own expenses. We broadcast on the HERE BE MONSTERS Network.
Independent Media is how most thinking people get their news these days.

The Mainstream Media has failed us and broadcasts and writes the news that their corporate sponsors will permit “we the people” to hear.

Unfortunately, radio shows, blogs and information take hours to produce, compile and deliver to those who want to read and hear the TRUTH.

Wise Women Media was created to give an on air “VOICE” to Women over the age of 40, while we are disregarded in the job market and downplayed demographically in the media and advertising and everywhere else in our culture.

We put the spotlight on remarkable women that are over 40 years old that are SHAKING THINGS UP on a Global scale. Some of our guests: Lierre Keith, Dr. Wilma Subra, Meryl Ann Butler, Flash Silvermoon, Gwendolyn Holden Barry, Carolyn Mas, Julie Dermansky, Cherri Foytlin, Cindy Sheehan, and so many more.

On April 19th, 2013, I broadcasted a news show on Wise Women Media, the Radio Show that you would have not heard on any other channel, even on Community Radio and NPR. A show to commemorate the 3 years since the Gulf Oil Disaster and the aftermath of that event. There was an audio feed from Dr. Riki Ott, author, Environmental Activist, Toxicologist and a live guest, Trisha Springstead, RN, Radio Talk Show Host, Nurse, Patented Inventor, Activist. 

Link to archive to listen: http://wisewomenmedia.blogspot.com/2013/04/wise-women-media-for-41913-voices-from.html

Next Friday, April 26th, 2013, my featured live guest will be Pat LaMarche, former Vice Presidential Candidate for the Green Party of the US in 2004, Radio Personality, Huffington Post Blogger, Writer and tireless advocate for the Poor and Homeless and the most critical of these victims: the forgotten children who get caught up in this desperate downward spiral of our current economy. Don’t miss this show!

If you want to hear more shows like these in the future, I urge you to help keep HOODOOED, the Blog and WISE WOMEN MEDIA, the weekly Radio Show up and running and on the air.

We have plenty of upcoming guests in store and lots of ideas for future shows. We have always welcomed suggestions for guests and live show call-ins from you, the listeners and supporters. Wise Women Media is truly your resource for news and information and belongs to you! 

But it is crunch time now and I cannot even afford to keep my Internet Service on without help from all of you. 

Won’t you please contribute to this valuable media resource and help to keep it ON THE AIR? We need your help NOW! 

Please donate to WISE WOMEN MEDIA at the following link: http://www.gofundme.com/WiseWomenMedia

RSVP on Facebook if you can PLEDGE before May 1, 2013. https://www.facebook.com/events/317888108339905

Sincerely,

Anita Stewart

Creatrix and Producer of Wise Women Media

http://wisewomenmedia.blogspot.com

http://www.facebook.com/wisewomenmedia

http://www.twitter.com/wisewomenmedia 

and

http://hoodooed.blogspot.com 

Three Years After the BP Spill, Tar Balls and Oil Sheen Blight Gulf Coast by Julie Dermansky

The rest of the U.S. may have moved on, but along the coast where oil drifted to shore, residents are still waiting for some kind of closure.

April 20 marks the three-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which took the lives of 11 men and resulted in the largest oil spill in American history. BP, along with Transocean and Halliburton, are still in the midst of a civil trial held in New Orleans federal court over liability for the catastrophe.

The extent of the damage and the long-term effects from the spill remain impossible to determine. Some scientific evidence -- for example, that collected by NOAA's Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program, which includes the results of necropsies of dead sea turtles and dolphins -- is not available, since it is being used as evidence in the trial. Yet even three years later, the residual effects of the oil spill are still apparent on the Gulf Coast. I covered the BP oil spill from the start, and have gone on documenting the effects of the hardest-hit areas in Louisiana and Mississippi, revisiting those areas over the last week. Below are some of the photos I have taken. Along the Mississippi coast one can still find tar balls. In Louisiana I observed, among other disturbing signs of the spill, oil sheen along a coastal marsh, and erosion on an island in Barataria Bay sped up by the death of mangrove trees and marsh grass.

---

Cat Island was once a rookery for pelicans and other birds. The island is now a fraction of its former size, void of the mangrove trees and healthy marsh grass that thrived there before the spill. The birds that would normally would be nesting this time of the year are also absent. (April 18/All images Julie Dermansky)

---

Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, La., stands on what remains of Cat Island, holding pelican bones. (April 18)

---

A bird rookery on a barrier island in Barataria Bay. The lack of mangrove trees in the area has forced the pelicans to nest in the marsh grass. Alternations of the tide put their eggs at risk here. (April 18)

---

See more at the link here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/04/three-years-after-the-bp-spill-tar-balls-and-oil-sheen-blight-gulf-coast/275139/

WISE WOMEN MEDIA for 4/19/13-VOICES FROM THE GULF, Dr. Riki Ott and more!

We are on FACEBOOK and TWITTER also!

Show is at 10PM EST tonight!

For tonight's show, we are featuring VOICES FROM THE GULF on this third year REMEMBRANCE of the Gulf Oil Disaster. We will have some special guests, perhaps Dr. Riki Ott and others who will call in to give us updates. We will hear about the pending legal implications with BIG OIL and the Extraction Industries, the human impact, flora/fauna and the politics of what is happening in the Gulf Region NOW in the aftermath of this horrific event. There are current actions to ban the use of toxic dispersants permanently and that gives us some hope. But, THE OIL IS STILL HERE AND SO ARE WE! 

***Join us in the CHAT ROOM or call in to ask questions of the Host and Guest.

You can reach us at wisewomenmedia(at)gmail(dot)com or 213) 816-0357.
LINK HERE to get to the CHAT ROOM and live broadcast of the show:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/here-be-monsters/2013/04/20/wise-woman-media-with-anita-stewart

Mississippi Beach Three Years After the BP OIl Spill by Photo-journalist Julie Dermansky

April 13, 2013, Man fishing near dead stingrays dead fish on a beach in Bay St. Louis Mississippi a week before the third anniversary of the BP oil spill. 
Julie Dermansky©2013

(PLEASE SUPPORT INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM OR IT WILL GO AWAY!)

From Julie: I had read the mortality rate of the sea turtle and dolphins is still higher then usually but had not seen pictures this year I drove to the beach today to have a look. I didn't find as many dead animals as I had in the past 2 years after the BP oil spill but still more then i would call normal. Is it ever normal to find a dead Kemps Ridley sea turtle? If you haven't checked on my Indiegogo campaign please check it out now--http://igg.me/at/jsdart/x/2934268 and join in if you appreciate my reporting ! Thanks.

More pictures and a write up from yesterday's shoot can be viewed on Julie's Facebook page here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.508036855898795.1073741850.389462407756241&type=1

See more of Julie's work at her site here: http://www.jsdart.com

NO KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE and TAR SANDS TIMMY! PLEASE SHARE IT!

Tar Sands Timmy from MarkFiore on Vimeo.

PLEASE SHARE THIS VIDEO.
I was not permitted to embed it here, so just click on the link above to open it!

Wise Women Media for 4/12/13-OPEN MIC CHECK! PRESENTATION BY NAOMI WOLF! Call in or CHAT with us!

Tonight's show might have a surprise guest or two!
Our LIVE BROADCAST will be on from 11PM EST until 1AM EST. And of course, this is YOUR SHOW, and an OPEN MIC CHECK!
Feel free to call in, join us in the chat or send me email on any topics you would like to hear covered.
EMAIL ADDRESS: wisewomenmedia(at)gmail(dot)com.
LINK TO THE SHOW and CHATROOM on BLOGTALKRADIO:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/here-be-monsters/2013/04/13/wise-woman-media-with-anita-stewart
CALL IN #: (213) 816-0357

The Fossil Fuel Resistance: Meet the New Green Heroes--Cherri Foytlin: The Angry Mom

Not long after the BP oil spill, Cherri Foytlin, a part-time journalist
in a small Louisiana town, hitched a ride with a fisherman into the Gulf
of Mexico to see for herself the damage caused by one of the largest
environmental disasters in U.S. history. As they pushed farther out
from shore, Foytlin started to notice gooey brown sludge bubbling up
along the surface of the ocean, and then she saw something that changed
the course of her life: a pelican, covered in oil, gasping for its life. Foytlin
yanked the bird from the water, and it died in her arms.

"When I pulled that pelican from the water, I realized I couldn't stand on
the sidelines any longer," Foytlin says. As the wife of an oil worker who
has spent most of the last decade on the Gulf Coast, Foytlin speaks from
a position of authority, noting that for all the money Big Oil sops up every
year, precious little ends up in the communities that are the backbone of
the industry. "We're a battered woman that keeps going back to the aggressor,"
Foytlin says. "We still have oil in our marshes, fishermen are out of work
and it seems like everyone knows someone with cancer. It's time to take the
blinders off and see what this industry is doing to us."

Me and Cherri in 2011.

Read more of the story in THE ROLLING STONE, how EXCITING! 

CLICK HERE

Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

Dr. Wilma Subra, Voices From The Gulf

This is the woman who has 300,000 sick people reporting to her in the Gulf Region.
She is an expert on the aftermath and human impact of the Gulf Oil Spill.
She was on my show WISE WOMEN MEDIA.
The archive to the show is linked here:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/here-be-monsters/2012/08/18/wise-woman-media-with-anita-stewart

Other shows are linked here:
http://wisewomenmedia.blogspot.com

HOT WATER Documentary Trailer

Trailer for this documentary film about URANIUM CONTAMINATION in our water supply. Not a CONSPIRACY THEORY but a CONSPIRACY FACT. Dennis Kucinich, former long time Congressman and Presidential Candidate is also in this film.

Is YOUR WATER irradiated?

DARK FOR APRIL 5TH, 2013. JOIN US NEXT WEEK, APRIL 12TH FOR A BRAND NEW SHOW!

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FOLLOW us on TWITTER:

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Tampa students occupy administration building to defend education rights

By Jared Hamil | 

March 7, 2013

Read more articles in Student Movement

Above: 

Matt Hastings of Tampa Bay SDS holds a sign before the rally. (Fight Back! News/Staff)

Left: 

Students speak out in Marshall Center. (Fight Back! News/Staff)

Center: 

Catherine Lim and Tyler Fox of Tampa Bay SDS dropped a banner inside of the Marshall Student Center at USF. (Fight Back! News/Staff)

Right: 

Students confront Administrators in building lobby. (Fight Back! News/Staff)

Tampa, FL - Students gathered in the Marshall Student Center, on the University of South Florida's (USF) campus, on March 6 protesting budget cuts and tuition hikes. The average USF student's debt is over $22,000 from loans. Meanwhile, the school's Board of Trustees – those who cut the budgets and raise tuition – are made up of representatives of corporations like Tampa Electric Company and Fifth Third Bank. Last year the Board voted to raise tuition by 11%. On top of this, Florida Governor Rick Scott has cut $300 million from the eleven state universities' budgets. Now, the USF administration is threatening to raise tuition yet again.

Students marched into the Marshall Center demanding that the school “Chop from the top.” From there, they dropped a banner from the fourth floor which read “Education is a right, not a privilege.” Inside, the students, most of whom were a part of Students for a Democratic Society, gave speeches.

Susie Shannon, a staff worker and member of AFSCME Local 3342, said “The union's position on education is that it should be free! Students shouldn't have to get two jobs or put debt on their families in order to get an education. We have the voice to do something about it.”

Jared Hoey of Tampa Bay SDS said, “We can't default on student loans. While the banks on Wall Street got billions in bailout money, we didn't get a dime! Where the hell is our bailout?”

From there they marched through campus to the office of USF President Judy Genshaft. The USF president has not taken a firm stance on the budget cuts nor the tuition hikes. SDS demanded that she join the students and fight against the budget cuts brought on by Governor Scott's office in Tallahassee. Across campus the crowd chanted, “No cuts, no fees, education should be free!”

The whole article can be found at this link:

http://www.fightbacknews.org/2013/3/7/tampa-students-occupy-administration-building-defend-education-rights

Sinkhole Update from Bayou Corne, Louisiana: Explosive Gases Found in Adjacent Residences

This update is the 13th article in this Opednews series about the Bayou Corne sinkhole.

BACKGROUND: In Spring of 2012, Louisiana's Corne and Grand Bayou residents noticed strange bubbling in the bayou for many weeks, and they reported smelling burnt diesel fuel and sulfur. Then suddenly a sinkhole the size of three football fields appeared on Aug. 3, swallowing scores of 100-foot tall cypress trees. The sinkhole resulted from the failure of Texas Brine Company's abandoned underground brine cavern. The Department of Natural Resources issued a Declaration of Emergency on Aug. 6, and 150 families were evacuated. 

For maps, diagrams and additional information, please see the twelve previous articles in this series, listed at the end of this article.

Oil on the surface of the sinkhole by On Wings Of Care, used with permission
See the whole article at this link:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Sinkhole-Update-Explosive-by-Meryl-Ann-Butler-130404-444.html

Mainstream media is STILL not covering this!

Heavy oil sheen showing across Bayou Corne, Louisiana

The Exxon Pipeline Spill: Questions That Should Be Frequently Asked by Dr. Riki Ott

People need to know what is happening in Arkansas. Dr. Riki Ott is one of the world's most visible and truthful authorities on what needs to be done next.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

ExxonMobil Tar Sands Oil Pipeline Ruptures in Arkansas (VIDEO)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNkU8p6qq_k

Click to see the video from Democracy Now.
http://www.democracynow.org

NO KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE!

Our s-elected officials all take money from BIG OIL to fund their campaigns.
Appealing for a changed decision on this is futile.