Today the EPA released new requirements for BP to use a less toxic dispersant since they are using so much. Hip-hip-horray…about three weeks late but better late than never, right? But to be fair to BP, they were purchasing the stronger, more toxic dispersant, from a sister company or something to that effect. So why use less toxic chemicals they’d have to buy from an outside vendor? Seriously.

BP has 24 hours to find a new dispersant to use and then they have to have it approved by the EPA.

In addition, BP is now drawing 5000 barrels of oil to the surface via the tube inserted and oil is still billowing out of the 21 inch pipe which has led BP to admit the spill is much larger than they thought. A mechanical engineer said there could be 20,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil spewing into the Gulf every day.

And….the wetlands are now being coated in the first wave of toxic, thick oil. God help us.

I listened to part of a news conference concerning the Oil Flow yesterday. Wildlife agencies reported 162 sea turtle deaths thus far related to the spill. This is nesting time for sea turtles along the Gulf Coast which makes this especially bad timing for the incident. This number doesn’t include deep water surveys but only those washed up on beaches.

There are five species of endangered and threatened sea turtles that live in the Gulf of Mexico. The loses experienced will not be recovered in my lifetime and that fact saddens me deeply.

It’s not great timing for other species as well. Grouper, amberjack, mahi-mahi, and pink and white shrimp are in their larval stages now, close to shore. The dispersants being used are known to kill larvae.  The oil doesn’t help them either. Offshore bluefin and yellowfin tuna are two of the pelagic species being greatly affected.

Thousands of species live in and around the Gulf of Mexico. The wildlife agencies anticipate long term effects as well as the short term issues already mentioned. Of special concern is the potential for tropical storms and/or hurricanes that could push the oil and dispersants into mangroves and salt marsh areas. It would take decades for the environment to recover.

I am actually grateful the audio file quit working as the more I listened the sicker I felt. The only thing I know to do is to document it and work to educate those who do not realize what’s going on….and yes, they are everywhere. I spoke with a physician two days ago that thought it was a tanker spill and the event was over. We have to keep this at the top of the news so effective changes can take place from this catastrophic event.

Last night I dreamed that I was at the farm where my grandfather used to raise cattle. I looked out across the rolling hills and instead of beautiful, lush grass saw a monstrous tank filled with blue-black fluid being filled by a pumping derrick. There was a lone steer standing at the huge tank drinking and drinking and drinking. The landscape lay in ruins, the ground blackened. The other cows were standing huddled in a mass of despair.

I thought the cows were being fed antibiotics and growth hormones, which is a practice many farmers use to make their cows grow faster or produce more milk. I was sobbing at the fate of our children who eat beef or drink milk contaminated with these products.

It wasn’t until I awoke and was trying to understand the dream that I remembered the oil derrick device pumping fluid from the ground (oil) into the container. What was my subconscious trying to work out?

Whenever I have a dream so profound in symbolism I pay attention and use it to bring awareness to my waking consciousness. I know that at times I feel despair about the kind of place we are leaving our children and their children’s children. It seems collectively we have a need to go faster, grow faster and produce more and more no matter what the cost. Fatter, bigger cows who produce more milk….fatter oil executives–BP had a $6 BILLION profit in the first 3 months of this year.

What if we allowed cows to grow at the natural rate that eating delicious grass would promote? What if we stopped new explorations for offshore drilling? It only accounts for 12% of the oil we use anyway. What if we slowed down to 55 or 60 mph–I’m doing it and have increased my gas mileage on the highway from 26 to 31 mpg. There are many proven ways to increase efficiency in fossil fuel use. We have to discipline ourselves to put them into practice. And perhaps if we got serious about implementing them we wouldn’t have to take the environmental risk of more offshore oil drilling….and I wouldn’t be dreaming about cows feeding from oil derricks.