There’s a weird story brewing over at Fire Dog Lake about the worst oil spill ever to hit San Fransisco’s Bay. First, volunteers are being told not to help.

Hundreds of would-be oil spill cleanup volunteers who wanted to do something were told on Saturday in San Francisco to go home and do nothing.

Spilled oil is just too dangerous for ordinary citizens to clean up, the experts said.

Even more strange, volunteers are being made to sign “loyalty oaths” before being sent home!

At the volunteer meeting, everyone at the gathering was given an official-looking state volunteer application to fill out, complete with a loyalty oath.

And if that isn’t odd enough, the state of California is arresting volunteers who are cleaning up public areas of their own state!

Beth Brown of San Francisco said she and her boyfriend spent about 15 minutes cleaning Baker Beach on Saturday morning, filling a couple of plastic bags with oily clumps. Then a park ranger and a cop appeared, told her the beach was closed and threatened them with arrest.

It was much the same in Marin County, where Sigward Moser led a 30-person volunteer group – including 20 monks-in-training from the Mill Valley Zen Center – onto Muir Beach on Friday. For his efforts, he was detained and handcuffed.

“He asked us to leave, and we said we needed to do what we were doing, so he put me in handcuffs,” said Moser, a communications consultant. “I told him, ‘Well, there was nobody else doing the cleanup before we began,’ but he just said I was breaking the law and this is hazardous material that I shouldn’t be dealing with.”



  1. ECA says:

    OK…
    How many KNOW what it takes to ignite Crude OIL??

    THEn tell me if they have Out law’d Flare guns??

    This is a sorry state of affairs..
    Being worried SOMEONE might start a terrorist attack because its THERE…

  2. Michael R. Brown says:

    Maybe, sneaky Dick Cheney and his henchmen have some stock in a couple of companies which deal with these types of cleanup operations. Can’t have the good people of SF take away your work.

  3. Dr. Rabbitfoot says:

    I thought the Democratic majority in Congress meant an end of all environmental crimes? This happened in Nancy Pelosi’s district? She must be impeached…now!

  4. moss says:

    #1 – most crude wandering the high seas is damned hard to ignite. The exception being the thinnest versions of “light, sweet”. You can take some of the Nigerian product straight from the wellhead into a diesel – and run.

    #2 – I’d love to see someone do a modded video a la the famous Hitler dance – of Bush and Cheney when oil hits $100/bbl. They will retire 4 times wealthier than they would have been – if they hadn’t invaded Iraq.

  5. Brian says:

    This is a direct consequence of the increasingly rediculous lawsuits that have been filed claiming the state or some coporation is responsible for individual stupidity.
    The state is now faced with a choice: stop people from helping by using the law and security forces, or let people help and wait for one idiot to eat some of the oil and sue the state for one billion dollars.

  6. jlm says:

    “ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country”
    -unless what you are trying to do gets in the way of no-bid contracts.

    but seriously, I cant really blame them for doing this, the risk for lawsuits is too great. People are fed commercials from lawyers promising big payouts “ONE CALL THATS ALL, I GOT PAID!”

  7. ECA says:

    Its a GIANT tax write off…
    Every BIT OF IT…
    And another way to force prices UP.

  8. GetSmart says:

    Can’t let them citizens get any of them ideas about being part of a community. That’s too dangerous. Let FEMA do it. We’ll have a nice no bid contractor in place in no time. This time though, the activists may well have the Terminator-er- I mean the Governator on their side.

  9. grog says:

    all it takes is one idiot to sprain their ankle slipping on oil and BOOM massive multil-zillion dollar lawsuit; oh, and can you imagine the potential for a class-action lawsuit(s) when these untrained volunteers start getting sick?

    given california courts’ predisposition to support large tort settlements, it makes perfect sense to keep these well-meaning people off the beaches.

    granted, the EPA’s budget is forever being slashed by conservatives who think mother earth is nothing but a huge dumpster, but our litigious society precludes allowing untrained personnel in hazardous waste areas.

  10. The answer says:

    It’s really mutagen. Prepare for TMNT San Fran style.

  11. tallwookie says:

    #13 – lol, woot!

    I like my pizza w/ extra cheese, hold the oil…

  12. Theo Burns says:

    Is anyone here scared that Bush and Cheney will create a disaster and then declare martial law before the next election? I think we are being primed for such a move. Let’s face it, things couldn’t get any more ridiculous.

    This country is in denial. We’re in for a big surprise.

  13. J says:

    Please stop with the lame strawman arguments of lawsuits. People can file lawsuits over this without volunteering. Claiming they want to help so they can sue or claiming there is larger risk of lawsuits is just stupid. Why don’t you bother to read the volunteer contract they sign before they are allowed to help.

  14. cleanup says:

    Wow, your country has lost it completely. Common sense just left the room and shut the door behind it.

  15. hhopper says:

    Absolutely nothing that happens in this country surprises me anymore.

  16. Smith says:

    Does the fire department hand water hoses to curious on-lookers at a warehouse fire? No. They use police to cordon off the area and keep the busy bodies the hell away. It’s call “zone of control.”

    Cleaning up hazardous spills requires response from trained professionals using appropriate PPE. (And if you don’t know what “PPE” stands for then you can keep your uninformed opinions to yourself.) Furthermore, every piece of oil-contaminated debrie becomes a hazardous waste, triggering DOT and RCRA regulations for its transportation and disposal.

    Whine if wish, but this is the world created by your elected leaders in response to your demands for a safe and “green” environment.

  17. flyingelvis says:

    professionals only. nothing to see here, move along.

  18. Phillip says:

    I can’t believe you guys are actually serious. At what point is hazardous material not hazardous enough to allow the Average Joe play with it–without protection? Would you take your children with you for a day of “let’s clean up some HazMat”? While very noble to risk your general health for the benefit of the coastline, I, for one, think these people are just stupid. If you really cared and wanted to help, you would volunteer through the proper channels, get proper instruction and protection, THEN go about helping clean up the mess.

  19. OhForTheLoveOf says:

    #10 – that’s because the average person has acquired a great taste for gettin’-rich-today by sueing like crazy

    So, you are saying the average person has gotten rich off of a lawsuit?

    I know its fashionable to hate lawyers and lawsuits, but that doesn’t make it true.

    #19 – I predict a mass exodus to Canada in the not-so-distant future

    WOO HOO — Affordable housing coming soon! 🙂

  20. Mr. Fusion says:

    #21, Smith,

    Very good points. The actual clean-up crew have enough to do without rescuing the ill informed though well intentioned.

    #25, pedro,

    Honestly, sometimes your ignorance is truly expected.

    Affordable housing? in Canada? care to show me where? because what I saw is that, on average, the cost of housing was almost double that of a similar house in the US.

    Where in Canada compared to where in the US. For example, my little slice of heaven is worth about $100,000. Plop the same place down in San Fransisco and it would be over a million.

  21. Ron Larson says:

    Same sort of thing during Katrina. Lots of people wanted to help, but were prevented from getting in there. There were lots of people with flat bottomed boats that could have gone around pulling people off of roofs of flooded houses.

  22. ABC says:

    #19 Bullshit.. we don’t want you… err.. them.

  23. ECA says:

    23,
    ITS NOT THAT bad, of material to handle..
    IT IS a great material to process and make your OWN fuel.
    ANd if they do the clean up, they will probably ONLY get half, and process the water OUT, and make fuel with it ANYWAY..

  24. whattheheck says:

    I am amazed at the number of poster’s here who believe that the average person is an idiot with no common sense whose main motive in life is greed. Well, now I know what each of these poster’s see when they each look into a mirror,
    But just because you are like that does not mean that I am. If a person stands up to help, I will pat him on the back, not call him names.
    Grow up.

  25. phoflame says:

    The spill is NOT Crude Oil. The ship was a container cargo vessel, and the oil that has been spilled is the Bunker Fuel Oil that the ship uses for its engines.

    While I do not agree with how the agencies are handling the situation, I can understand why they do not want untrained civilians, who more than likely do not have the proper hazmat gear, to handle bunker fuel.

  26. Mark says:

    It is at the point where American volunteers are not even allowed to clean up their own backyard. If you do, the police will handcuff you and arrest you. It’s getting more and more fascist by the minute. I am surprised that no one got tasered yet for offering to clean big oil’s shit show on the beach.
    The point is not that civilians lack training to clean up this kind of mess. It’s the good intentions of civilians that we should be looking at here. Instead of arresting them and dragging them off the beach like terrorists, the government should be supportive of it’s people and invite them into the process somehow. Whether it’s cleaning or helping out with other things that will speed up the operation, I am certain that someone at the top can think of something otherwise mediocrity governs us all.
    It’s time for the people to take action against the bigots who are militarizing the country with their fascist strategies. Otherwise, before you know it, Blackwater will be contracted out to shoot people on the beach trying to help save the environment. They are already putting environmentalist groups on terrorist watch lists.
    Day after day, we are seeing civil liberties getting axed. Even here in Canada, many anti war protesters and organizers are victims of government intimidation tactics. They are put on lists and refused at the border. Same thing goes for US anti war protesters; they are barred from entering Canada if they are caught carrying anti war litterature with them. Let’s take these rights back.
    On another point, Canada is not an affordable housing solution by the way. So a mass exodus to Canada will not be the ultimate solution to all the problems Americans are facing today with their government. There is growing poverty here in Canada every day. Homelessness in Vancouver alone grew by 50% since 2006. People are being thrown out of their affordable housing to make way for big olympic development.

  27. Persona non grata says:

    This may seem a bit base but it needs to be said,

    FUCK THE GOVERNMENT

    “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

  28. Evan L says:

    Arresting volunteers who help clean, yet another infringement on our rights by the gov’t. Add it to the ever-growing list of violations:
    They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like America Deceived (book) from Amazon.
    They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
    They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
    They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
    They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing.
    They violate the entire Constitution by starting 2 illegal wars based on lies and on behalf of a foriegn gov’t.
    Support Dr. Ron Paul and save this great country.

  29. kimbutgar says:

    The smell the day the tanker hit the bridge in the downtown area was awful. I was surprised to hear it was oil. It smelled like something else. Are they covering up something?

  30. Carol K says:

    I’d like to hear what this “loyalty oath” says that people are being made to sign. Anybody know?


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