Ripple

The title speaks for itself. This, “The Lost Patients”, and “Suave” are among the podcasts I’ve listened to over the last few years that have caused me to reexamine an issue I thought I knew about all over again. Compelling, heartbreaking storytelling.

Incredibly well told with the most important stories elevated - the workers, the clean up crews, and residents of the Gulf. I just finished reading Fire on The Horizon which was captivating but missed the aftermath and egregious actions by the government and BP. Outstanding storytelling!

This podcast was pretty good. I do think the host/producer did their due diligence in trying to research this. As someone in the environmental industry, however, I think there were a number of points during the podcast where the host seemed overly alarmed or alarmist by things that are fairly normal - things that are not really malicious. For example, when they submit FOIA requests and get redirected to a local agency that keeps the records instead of the federal government. This is pretty normal and I didn’t really get their frustration. In fact, local agencies are often able to keep far MORE records than the federal government, and can respond with much more information more quickly, even for federal jobs. Or when they were very alarmed talking to the man who was deconned upon his arrival to the hospital and his clothes taken. These are normal OSHA procedures and were likely decided by hospital admin who were acting out of an abundance of caution, not some back channel BP leak. The clothes were not “confiscated” but more likely destroyed, as per decon procedures. I don’t think the overall conclusions of the podcast were incorrect, but I think there was enough alarming information in the podcast already without having to panic about normal procedures.

Blown away by this. I'm on episode 6 currently in tears. Thorough reporting and done with empathy and humanity.