Don’t swim in the Gulf. Just don’t:
In this interview with Rose Aguilar, Riki Ott talks about the health crisis caused by the BP oil disaster in the Gulf. She says she’s currently dealing with three or four autopsies and knows of people who are down to 4.7% of their lung capacity and have enlarged hearts. “These people have oil in their bodies,” she said.
She believes four to five million people in the Gulf were exposed to either acute or intermediate levels of oil at dangerous levels.
Rose spoke with Riki Ott on the sixth-month anniversary of the BP oil disaster — one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history.
In 1989, Ott, a marine toxicologist who lives in Cordova, Alaska, experienced firsthand the devastating effects of the Exxon Valdex oil disaster.
She’s spent five of the past six months traveling back and forth between Louisiana and Florida to gather information about what’s really happening in the Gulf and share the lessons she learned about long-term illnesses and deaths of clean-up workers and residents. She’s planning to return in January.
