Louisiana native and "Vampire Diaries" star Ian Somerhalder has been working tirelessly to promote awareness of the dire situation on the Gulf Coast since the spill two months ago. He's been keeping fans and fellow activists updated via his Twitter, @iansomerhalder.

Recently, he's expressed frustration about the lack of industry and celebrity voices speaking out about the disaster.

"Brad Pitt and people at his level in this industry - they do amazing things for the world, all over the world," Somerhalder tells Zap2it. "But it seems obvious to me that there's a certain silence, with this particular issue, and I have my own theories why -- politically, why that might be, but I would never discuss that, because they're my thoughts. It's not my place to project that on anyone."

Somerhalder isn't alone in his quest to bring awareness and aid to the Gulf coast. A number of celebrities, including Justin Bieber, Jenny McCarthy, and Alyssa Milano participated in Larry King's special two-hour telethon "Disaster in the Gulf: How You Can Help," which raised $1.8 million for disaster relief. And this week, some of Somerhalder's fellow CW stars added their voices to the cause as well.

"One Tree Hill" star Sophia Bush has never been a fan of online social networking, but she and her co-star Austin Nichols signed up for Twitter accounts this week (@SophiaBush and @AUS10NICHOLS).

"I've never been a person that's wanted to open up any facet of my personal life to any kind of social media," Bush tells Zap2it, calling from New Orleans, where she and Nichols have been working with Global Green and learning about the impact of the B.P. oil spill.

"We started accounts because we were so angry about the spill," Nichols -- Bush's boyfriend on screen and off -- explains. "We wanted to get as many followers as we could before we got here so that we could tell people what's going on."

"All of my skepticism has been destroyed," Bush says. "Last night the sheer outpouring of support, and not to sound cliche, but the outpouring of love that we've received -- I have cried. I am humbled and appreciative." 6157-oilball.jpg

That's not to say that she's feeling particularly warm and fuzzy at the moment. After two days of touring Grand Isle, speaking to natives, and trying to get answers from B.P.'s contracted workers, she's furious. "I'm enraged. I'm not even mad anymore. Coming down here I was angry, and leaving this place tomorrow, I am enraged and shocked that any of what's going on down here is legal in the first place."

The access that Bush and Nichols got to the affected areas was limited at best. "There's a section of beach that's blocked off by this giant orange boom, and they're saying that on the other side of it is a crime scene," Nichols says. "If we cross over it, then we are violating criminal trespass. And they're calling it 'the hot zone,' and it's like - is there an Ebola contamination?"

"You're blocking off public property and saying that it's now a crime scene, and there's 4,400 miles of coast in Louisiana, so you've got 4,400 miles of crime scene?" Bush says, speaking quickly, frustration clear in her voice. "And what I find interesting is that if a murder has been committed, you don't send the murderer in to the crime scene to clean the blood up off the floor, so if this is a crime scene, why is B.P. in there running the show? Why can't the people who live here and the people who are affected get in and help?"

The beach is being treated as a crime scene to the degree that when Bush and Nichols attempted to cross the boom, the Sheriff sped over on an ATV and threatened to arrest them or forcibly remove them if they entered the closed-off area. "We asked where the ATVs came from, by the way, and they said, 'The sheriffs department,'" Sophia writes in an e-mail, attaching photos of what she describes as a 'war zone.'

"We asked if they knew who paid for them though, and they simply cracked a smile. The B.P. 'safety' officer then told us, 'Money is no option for us down here. We can have anything we ask for.' Meaning from B.P. But we can't get them to rapidly engineer better clean up options because that's too expensive."

Currently, the only people allowed to work on beach clean-up are the workers contracted by B.P. who, according to Bush, are under strict orders not to talk about which company they work for or what they're doing. Nichols and Bush tried to get onto the beaches to help with clean-up and take photographs, but they were refused access.

"Everyone is clamoring to volunteer. Everyone is saying, 'We'll go out on the boats and we'll go on the beaches and we'll go pick up oil.' B.P. has told everybody that you've got to go through a Hazmat certification course, which they're not offering, and unless you have a Hazmat suit and the training, you can't go out on the beach," she says.

The photographs they've taken of B.P.'s workers tell another story. "We watched these guys walking around on the beaches wearing no protective gear other than plastic gloves and rain boots. They've been told that if they're photographed wearing respirators they'll be fired."

Somerhalder says that things aren't getting any better for the residents of the Gulf Coast, especially for Grand Isle, which he describes as "ground zero."

"I just was on the phone with the park manager of the Grand Isle State Park," he tells us. "She said that the oil is now coming back into the lagoons, and she said it's significantly worse. As she's sitting there talking to me she's watching two dolphins stuck in that oil, swimming around in the lagoon. She got very emotional about it. She goes, 'I just want to let you know, in case you haven't heard, there's a giant oil slick several miles out into the gulf that's coming right to us.' So they're about to get hit, again, with a massive oil slick, again. It's never-ending."

When we spoke to Somerhalder a month ago, he was nearly in tears as he described the damage to his home. Now, after the Larry King telethon, he's more hopeful, repeating that this disaster is the "game-changer" that will force our country to examine our excessive use of dirty energy.

austin-nichols-oil-water.jpg"Look, it's a shame that we had to destroy an entire ecosystem, but hopefully we can move forward in the right direction. People spoke up [at the telethon], and it was a really, really powerful moment, a really moving thing for me, personally. It was unbelievably obvious that people care. The passion with which people were voicing their discontent - I was overwhelmed," he says.

Bush says that the people in Grand Isle and the surrounding areas are becoming more desperate by the day. "Obviously animal rescue organizations need help paying for the operations they're setting up down here, but really more than anything, it's the locals whose ways of life have been stolen from them. All of the fisherman and their families have told us that within the next few days, they'll have completely run out of money," she tells us. "These are people who earn their living every day. They don't make a monthly salary. These people don't have large savings capital. We have to urge the government to make B.P. pay these people, and not take 90 days to process their claim."

The stories that Bush and Nichols tell us are shocking. They explain that B.P.'s financial liability is calculated by the number of gallons spilled, the lost wages, and the number of dead birds, sea turtles, and mammals. "Every animal that dies that they prevent us from counting and finding out about is less money out of their pocket," Sophia says.

"We were told this yesterday by some of the people who are working with us with Global Green. There are animal rescue boats out there that are sort of fighting to be in the water with the B.P. boats, because B.P. is trying to keep them out. They're doing oil burn-off, and there was a rescue worker out on the water who saw a sea turtle swimming in between the barges. He waved down the fire guy and said 'Hey, hey, don't light it. Let us in to get the turtle.' And they looked at him and said, 'Don't have time,' and lit it anyway. And they burned - in front of the rescue worker - a sea turtle. Alive. There are animals they're burning alive with nobody witnessing it, simply so that they can save four and a half minutes." To learn more about these "controlled burns" and to sign a petition against them, click here.

"It's all very covered up and dark and dirty. It's a really awful feeling down at the beach," Nichols says. "All of this is a reminder of the price way pay for being dependent on dirty energy."

Somerhalder agrees with them. "We've got to change. We're perpetuating danger, and right now, as it stands, Obama's moratorium on the oil drilling has been lifted. That just means that deepwater drilling can start in the gulf again. The Natural Resources Defense Council is going to appeal on an expedited schedule, but as it stands right now, deepwater drilling can happen."

"In the end, this isn't about celebrities putting their face on the cause," Sophia says. "We all have to write our congress. We all have to write our senate. We all have to petition our president. The more of us that get involved in this and the longer that we clamor and scream and stand up for our rights, the faster the change will happen."

Nichols urges fans to sign Global Green's petition to President Obama, which urges the president to require B.P. not only to pay full restitution to those impacted by the spill, but also to fund a clean energy plan. "It's important not only to call attention to the catastrophe," he says, "But to remind people to keep paying attention. This isn't going away any time soon."

"It's time to make some noise. We all have to scream and yell and stomp our feet," Bush says. "Someone is going to listen."

For information about how you can help, check out United Way, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Nature Conservancy. Keep an eye on Zap2it for more from our interviews with Sophia Bush, Austin Nichols, and Ian Somerhalder.
Quelle: Link