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Drowning in Dispersants; Flooding Devastates Northwest Pakistan; Fun with Food Safety

Aired August 01, 2010 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Doing more harm than good. New allegations now about the use of chemical dispersants in the Gulf and accusations that the government gave BP a pass.

Deadly floods leave thousands stranded on their rooftops in Pakistan. But the worst may not be over. More monsoon rains are coming.

Plus, one caught, two on the run. A manhunt for escaped murderers in Arizona. Convicted killers break out of prison. Police say they had a little help from the outside. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Randi Kaye, in for Fredricka Whitfield.

We start with the oil cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico. We've heard this week about a lack of oil on the surface of the Gulf, possibly because of the Navy skimmers that are on the water. Also because of those dispersants. But now we're learning BP may have used more of those chemicals than they were supposed to and the Coast Guard signed off on it. Our Jim Acosta is in Venice, Louisiana, with more. Jim?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Randi. We just - were on a conference call with Thad Allen, and you know, the admiral who is the incident commander of this oil disaster, and he briefed reporters on basically a letter that came out of the Congress today.

A House Democrat from Massachusetts, Ed Markey, released a letter over the weekend basically alleging that dispersants were used at a greater scale to dramatically reduce the amount of oil in the Gulf under orders from the Coast Guard and Thad Allen, despite EPA guidelines that that dispersant be curtailed.

And Thad Allen talked about this during this conference call and said that essentially he was on top of this the whole time. That any use of dispersant that was exempted from the new EPA guidelines on dispersant use went through him, that he authorized those dispersant uses and in his words, they were only used as much as needed.

So he is essentially shooting down the accusation that's coming from Ed Markey on that key committee that oversees this disaster out here, the disaster response out here. And essentially is saying that, you know, EPA wanted the use of dispersants curtailed in response to this disaster and he believes that that is what happened. Randi?

KAYE: And the EPA has been saying that they were only supposed to be using these dispersants in rare occasions, but it doesn't sound like that's what Thad Allen was saying? ACOSTA: Well, he said that there were exemptions that were granted from time to time and that those decisions - I actually asked him about this at one point. He was very clear that the decisions were not made by BP to use the dispersants, they were made by the - the (INAUDIBLE) that was handling whatever use of dispersants was being used that day.

So according to Thad Allen, all of this was under the control of the federal government so if any blame is to be made in any of this, it should not go to BP, it should go to the federal government. But Thad Allen was pretty clear that he felt that this did not go above and beyond what was necessary in order to clean up that oil spill.

I also have to let you know that we're standing by in just a little while from now at about 3:30 Central time, 4:30 your time, Doug Suttles, the COO for BP is expected to give a briefing here just behind me. He's been out on the marshes all day long today, looking at some of the oil that's washed ashore in Plaquemines Parish, which is south of New Orleans.

And as you know, Plaquemines Parish is the home of the president of this parish Billy Nungesser, who's been sharply critical of BP and of Thad Allen in recent days, essentially saying that all these rosy scenarios that we heard last week about the vanishing oil in the Gulf, that the oil in the Gulf is dissipating faster than anticipated, Nungesser believes that all of that is not the case and that people need to go out and look a little harder for the oil that is still out there. So Suttles went out there this afternoon with some folks from the media to take a look at some of these marsh areas that Billy Nungesser is concerned about. So we'll get a briefing from Suttles here in just a few moments.

KAYE: Yes, I just talked to Billy Nungesser on Friday night, Jim, and he told me he was up there in his own helicopter in the same area where Thad Allen had been and said he hadn't found oil and sure enough, Billy Nungesser in Plaquemines Parish said they certainly did see oil. So it will be really interesting to see what Doug Suttles has to say about that. Thank you, Jim. And we'll be carrying that press conference live -

ACOSTA: Absolutely.

KAYE: - of Doug Suttles, coming up in just about a half hour or so.

We want to get a better idea of the chemical dangers here. Joining me now on the phone from London is Carys Mitchelmore, an aquatic toxicologist from the University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Science. Carys, tell me how concerned do you think that we should be that despite the federal directives, the U.S. Coast Guard was granting BP these exemptions to use what many call excessive amounts of dispersants? I mean, in some cases the documents say that BP was using dispersant and then asked for that exemption to be made.

CARYS MITCHELMORE, AQUATIC TOXICOLOGIST: Yes, that was an interesting recent report. And of course, the highlight from that report demonstrating the discrepancies in the volumes that are reported to Congress and also the Deepwater Horizon report. That was an interesting point that I noted from that report.

But the report does suggest that there has been many exemptions given to use dispersants on the surface and the volumes are much lower than was originally used, and in fact EPA had suggested recently that after their directive, BP had decreased their use by 72 percent overall. And of course the dispersants are used to protect the sensitive shorelines and marshlands, so if you have that surface oil slick and you don't use any dispersants, then hat oil will come to the shoreline.

KAYE: And the U.S. congressman, Edward Markey, who released these documents about all of this, I mean he calls the dispersants "a toxic stew of chemicals, oil and gas with impacts that are not well understood." So how much do we really know about dispersants? Is he right?

MITCHELMORE: Yes, I mean, the key with using dispersants is it's not necessarily the dispersant toxicity itself for the most part, it's what the dispersants do to the oil. The dispersant used does not get rid of oil from the environment, it basically changes the chemical and physical properties of that oil.

So it's essentially an environmental trade-off. You will be protecting one environment, which is the sensitive marshland and near shore environments at the expense of another environment, in this case the organisms that are underneath in the water column.

KAYE: And what is it about surface dispersant versus subsea dispersant? I mean, obviously they work differently and can harm different things.

MITCHELMORE: Yes. The subsurface application is very noble. It has never been done before. There are differences between those two applications. With the oil coming to the surface, you have your oil slick on the surface. Up to 40 percent of that oil will move into the air above that water, so you do lose some oil. But if you are dispersing oil down at the subsurface, then those compounds that would be lost to the air, if that oil rose to the surface, are not lost there, they're entrained into that water column.

KAYE: And how long do you think it will really be before we really know what type of damage these dispersants have done, maybe on the creatures that are living far below the surface or anything else?

MITCHELMORE: It's going to be a long time. Potentially years, even decades until we have a full understanding. And that's one of the key issues here, the sheer volume and time that dispersants are being used and the oil is spilling. There's so many unknowns and data gaps, particularly with the long-term impacts of dispersants used.

KAYE: And you, I know, have said and just very quickly here, you've said there is a lot of misinformation out there about dispersants. Can you clear up some of the most important myths just very quickly.

MITCHELMORE: Well, it's mainly that, you know, we're not just talking about dispersant toxicity. You don't put dispersants out on their own. And so the toxic plume that people refer to is not just dispersant, it's dispersed oil. It's mainly the dispersed oil droplets that are the toxic entity for most species, because the oil droplets are small and so some organisms will see those as food and ingest those oil particles, because these water column organisms would not have seen that surface oil. It's because you've used dispersant that you've now moved this oil down into the water column.

KAYE: All right. Carys Mitchelmore, thank you so much for your insight on all of that. We appreciate your time.

One escaped killer is back behind bars and police have intensified the manhunt for two more. 36-year-old Daniel Renwick was caught early today in Rifle, Colorado, which is between Denver and Grand Junction. He had been serving a 22-year sentence for second-degree murder before fleeing an Arizona prison with two other inmates on Friday.

Police say Renwick's accomplices, Tracy Province and John McClueski remain at large and are believed armed. A female friend of one of the inmates may have helped them escape. Province and McClueski are accused of abducting two truck drivers and hijacking their rig at gunpoint. One of the truckers describes his ordeal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRABJHEET BAINES, TRUCKER CARJACKED: The two guys and the one female, they pulled us over at gunpoint and they tried to kill us. So finally they drove us to over here from Kingman to Flagstaff. So finally they changed their mind and they didn't kill us, they left us over here and we are good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: The escapees dumped their ride and released the hostages at a truck stop in Flagstaff yesterday.

For Pakistan, a tragedy on a national scale. Floodwaters have killed hundreds of people. Hundreds of thousands of others are fleeing the impact.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: And let's check in with Jacqui Jeras now who's keeping her eye on the tropics. Jacqui.

JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, this is that time of the year where things really start to get busy, Randi. We're concerned about an area of disturbed weather that's way out there though in the middle of the Atlantic at this time.

So here you can see Africa, here are the Cape Verde Islands. Here's South American and there you can see the United States up there and so it's way out here, literally 3,000 plus miles away from Miami, but it's something we're going to have to keep our eye on because it's a large area of disturbed weather. It has the potential to become a tropical depression and the National Hurricane Center has now upgraded that probability to 80 percent of that happening in the next 24 to 48 hours.

In fact we could start seeing advisories issued on this really at any given time, possibly as early as 5:00 Eastern time. Now, what are the computer models doing and where is this going to go. First of all, I'm just going to say, it's way too early to tell whether or not it will have an impact on the United States.

But the computer models are showing very good agreement moving at west-northwesterly over the next couple of days, potentially moving north of the Windward Islands. That would probably happen or get within this area by Thursday and if we would be talking about the United States, that wouldn't happen until over a week from now.

So a lot can happen between now and then, but the thing that's so concerning about this is that it is or potentially will be what we call Cape Verde storms and those are storms that develop just outside of the Cape Verde Islands. And as we turn the calendar now into the month of August, it's more common to start seeing these type of storms and the vast majority of major hurricanes are Cape Verde hurricanes. By major, I mean category 1, 2 and 3.

So things are starting to get active in the tropics. We expect this to be a very active hurricane season. As you know, we've already had two named storms, which was Alex and Bonnie. So next on the list will be Colin. And the National Hurricane Center is saying that we could see 14-plus storms easy this season.

So things are getting interesting, Randi. And of course, if we do get a tropical depression or a named storm, we'll break in and bring that along to you.

KAYE: All right. Jacqui, we're counting on you for that. Thank you.

Pakistan is coping with one of the worst tragedies in its history. Floodwaters have killed at least 1,100 people. Another 30,000 are trapped on rooftops and higher areas. The floods along the country's northwest frontier followed days of monsoon rains.

CNN's Reza Sayah is in the disaster zone.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REZA SAYAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The wet and muddy planks of wood were twice her size, but eight-year-old Moniva (ph) wasn't about to let them slip away.

Our house washed away and I'm finding wood, she said. Wood her family plans to use as they build a new place to live. Like tens of thousands of others, Moniva (ph) lost her home in the worst floods ever to hit northwest Pakistan. Set off by record-breaking monsoon rains, the water leveled entire villages. The mud houses in this settlement never had a chance. With no one to help, and nowhere to go, the villagers pitched tents at this nearby graveyard. For now, this is home.

EKRAM SAFI, FLOOD VICTIM: There is no medicine for us, no water for us. There is no meal for us, we don't have anything.

SAYAH: A family of 35 used to call this place home. The decision now, move or rebuild.

UMER SAEED, FLOOD VICTIM: This is the first time in my life that I am looking at disaster.

SAYAH: The government insists it's doing what it can to bring relief to the victims, but in the villages near Charsatta, two hours west of Islamabad, there was no sign of help from the government or aid groups.

Local villagers recovered the dead themselves. In area roads, entire families walked, often barefoot, with the few items they had left.

SAEED: Looking on the TV, the government has promised us that there is aid coming from Karachi and there is still nothing.

SAYAH (on camera): Why haven't relief crews been able to get to some of the victims? This is a big reason. This is one of the bridges on the motorway, the major highway connecting Islamabad, the federal capital east, to Peshawar and other villages west. And as you can see, the floodwaters have completely demolished it.

(voice-over): With the bridge down, traffic to Peshawar, the biggest nearby city was backed up for hours. No one seems to be moving, not even brides and grooms. With scorching temperatures and little food or water, frustration has set in. Villagers threw mud at pictures of their local government officials, the same mud that buried their homes. It's their way of saying get us help now.

Reza Sayah, CNN, Charsatta, Pakistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: A severe drought in Russia and the hottest summer in at least 130 years is feeding devastating wildfires there. So far 28 people have died, thousands more have lost their homes. More than 700 wildfires have torn through 80 towns and villages. Soldiers are joining firefighters to battle the flames whipped up by some very strong winds.

For weeks, commercial fishing was off limits in the Gulf, but boats are going back out and hauling in seafood again. And business owners who are watching and catching still, they say, hey, come on by, the food is safe.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Checking our top stories now, NASA is troubleshooting a cooling problem aboard the International Space Station. A power spike in one of the ammonia-fed cooling systems triggered a warning alarm. Three Americans and three Russians are aboard the space station, but NASA says they are not in any danger.

Air travelers get ready to dig deeper into your wallets. Yes, deeper, at least for one discount carrier, Spirit Airlines today became the first airline to charge passengers for carry-on bags. It's charging passengers $30 to put a carry-on bag in the overhead bin. And that fee gets higher if you don't prepare in advance. Passengers who pay at the gate will be charged $45.

Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton and her new husband, Marc Mezvinsky, are likely on their honeymoon right now. The couple exchanged vows in inter-faith ceremony at a posh estate in Rhinebeck, New York last night. Clinton is Methodist, her new husband is Jewish. The bride wore a Vera Wang gown and the groom a traditional prayer shawl and yarmulke.

All right. So you drop food, then you pick it up and eat it. Admit it, yes, we all do that. But is that OK. Let's talk about food safety. Paul Dawson is a food science professor at Clemson University. He's been having some fun with food and doing some serious research at the very same time. Thanks for joining us. So Paul, let's talk about this five-second rule. Because you know, I've always been told sure, if it's not on the ground for five seconds, you can still eat it. And I know you've been looking into that. Is it true?

PAUL DAWSON, FOOD SCIENCE PROFESSOR, CLEMSON UNIVERSITY: Well, we had a group of students study that five-second rule and found out that bacteria is transferred within five seconds of dropping food on there.

KAYE: So that's not good.

DAWSON: Well, that's not good. There's different ways to look at it though. And what we did is we took an approach where we're trying to prove or disprove the fact that bacteria is transferred.

KAYE: (INAUDIBLE) props. OK.

DAWSON: So we went to the hardware store and picked up some common surfaces you might find in the home, a tile, a carpet and then a wood laminate flooring. We actually inoculated these surfaces with Salmonella. As then as you might expect, we let it set there different times and then dropped food on it.

KAYE: I should have dropped some French fries or something.

DAWSON: French fries. We used bread, things of that nature.

KAYE: OK. So we don't have any food but what would happen if I dropped something on these.

DAWSON: And we picked it up and then we took it through a microbiological assay to determine how much bacteria was on the food after being in contact with that and found that there were high levels of bacteria even after only five seconds.

KAYE: Wow.

DAWSON: Yes.

KAYE: And so it happens pretty quickly.

DAWSON: Very quickly. And now, I guess part of that is an educational aspect. We have our undergraduate research teams called creative inquiry teams, and they - the question was what's their objective. Other people have done studies where they randomly dropped food. In fact, there was a radio call-in show (INAUDIBLE) I don't believe the five-second rule because I've done this all my life and I never got sick.

KAYE: So is your advice is don't eat it if it drops on the floor?

DAWSON: It's like not wearing a seat belt. You can drive your whole life not wearing a seatbelt and not have a problem and you can probably eat food dropped your whole life and probably never get sick.

KAYE: But you never know.

DAWSON: But you never know. You never know.

KAYE: So this is what the bacteria looks like?

DAWSON: Yes, we have some bacteria that we use that we are easy to look at.

KAYE: Show me how we can see that.

DAWSON: Yes. We have a black light here. These bacteria have fluorescent genes. We can't turn the lights off here but you can see -

KAYE: Oh, it shows up.

DAWSON: The glowing bacteria.

KAYE: So that's what we could be eating.

DAWSON: Yes. We actually recovered from the food, plate it out on a plate like this and this is an agar plate and then count the bacteria and that's how we enumerate how much has been transferred.

KAYE: Yuck. I'm not going to eat anything that falls on the floor anymore.

DAWSON: Unless it's chocolate.

KAYE: I know. Yes, just chocolate. You don't want to waste chocolate. What about chips? I know a lot of people, you know, you go to a party or you're sharing a bowl of chips with somebody and they double dip in the dip or the guacamole. Is that OK?

DAWSON: Yes, in our other study we did, our students again every year pick a topic of food safety and I think this came from a "Seinfeld" episode where George was double dipping. And so we set up an experiment. I guess part of the process is to learn how to do research. And we had the students either dip and not bite until they dip or do that and count the bacteria.

KAYE: What did you find?

DAWSON: We found about a 1,000, 10,000 bacteria in the dip that was double dipped and virtually none in there. And we tested different dips, salsa, chocolate dip and cheese dip. We also found that some dips are - I want to qualify this statement. But salsa was a little worse than cheese dip and probably because the salsa falls back in there more than the cheese sticks on the cracker or chip.

KAYE: OK. Quickly one more. We just have about a minute left.

DAWSON: OK.

KAYE: So quickly, I know you're looking at birthday cakes. A lot of people who are wondering why are you looking at birthday cakes.

DAWSON: We were in the process of doing a study and will finish it up probably next month. And it's about is there bacteria transferred during blowing out the candles on birthday cakes.

KAYE: Oh, no!

DAWSON: We'll know in a few months.

KAYE: So it's not licking the knife when you cut the piece, it's blowing out the candles.

DAWSON: We'll find out.

KAYE: Oh, my. I have never even thought of that. All right. Good to know.

DAWSON: We have a bunch of them. Yes.

KAYE: OK. We'll have to have you back.

DAWSON: I hope so.

KAYE: And talk more about that. All right. Thank you very much.

DAWSON: Thank you.

KAYE: Well, here is some more food for thought. Seafood from the Gulf. The government gives it a thumbs up again. We'll take a look for ourselves.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Day 104 of the Gulf oil disaster, and we could soon see the ruptured well sealed for good. The crew is expected to start pouring mud and concrete into it tomorrow or possibly Tuesday.

As for the company's initial response to the disaster, new documents released by a congressional subcommittee indicate the Coast Guard allowed Bp to use excessive amounts of chemical dispersants. Retired Admiral Thad Allen, who is overseeing the federal response, says he is satisfied with the amount of dispersants used so far. Bp's chief operating officer, Doug Suttles, is reviewing recovery efforts today and we do expect to hear from him any minute now and we will bring you his comments live.

Well, eat and enjoy. That's what EPA officials are saying after doing more tests on the seafood in the Gulf. Our photojournalist Chris Turner checked it out for us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM RAWLINGS, BAR MGR., AJ'S SEAFOOD AND OYSTER BAR: This is known as the Emerald Coast. It's got beautiful, white sandy beaches, emerald green waters, the food is certainly one of the reasons people would come down. Since April, when the oil spill occurred in the Gulf Coast, the fear and the concerns have come into the beaches has certainly slowed our business.

Certainly the perception that coming to the Gulf beaches would be tainted by oil-covered beaches, by the lack of food, seafood, the possibility that seafood could be tainted by the oil, which is purely perception. It has not occurred in one instance to my knowledge. The perception, however, is that the Gulf Coast is one body; it's all covered in oil, which is certainly not true.

JEFF NORTH, CUSTOMER FROM MISSISSIPPI: It's hard to know without being here every day. You don't really know exactly what's out there, what's in the water. But when you come down and you see people having a good time and you see them taking the care that they're taking with the oysters, they're checking every one of them.

RAWLINGS: No doubt.

(UNIDENTIFIED MALE): The restaurants are open for business. Unfortunately we're not seeing the tourist that say we would like.

WILL KUYKENDALL, OYSTER SHUCKER, AJ'S SEAFOOD AND OYSTER BAR: Just take a leap of faith and believe what you see on TV. You see somebody saying its good down here, come on down here, spend some money, and help some of these hard-working people out. We could really use a hand up right now. Not a handout, but a hand up.

NORTH: You don't know until you get here and then you come down and experience the seafood.

(UNIDENTIFIED MALE): Dig in.

NORTH: It's wonderful, absolutely wonderful.

RAWLINGS: The food is fine. It always was. We're just trying to clear up that fear. You're trying to cure that cancer of the fear of the food in destine, the food on the Gulf Coast. The beaches are clean. The seafood is good, the restaurants are open.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KAYE: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is angry about this week's leak of classified Afghan war documents. Admiral Mike Mullen says Wikileaks and its founder might have blood on their hands because the identities of Afghan soldiers may have been revealed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADMIRAL MIKE MULLEN: The scope and the volume of these leaks are unprecedented, and the specifics of them, and I've been through some of them, but we've still got a lot of work to do to really put the details together. But I think the leaks themselves don't look clearly at the war that we're in. There is an ability to put this kind of information together in the world that we're living in, and the potential for costing us lives, I think, is significant. I said when it first occurred I was appalled. I remain appalled and that the potential for the loss of lives of American soldiers or coalition soldiers or Afghan citizens is clearly there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Senate foreign relations chairman John Kerry says the leaks are regrettable, but not a game-changer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA), CHMN, SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Once we got a chance to really examine the documents and get the timeline, I think they're not particularly revelational at all. We knew almost everything that's there. It gives a little color to the battlefield struggles and to, you know some of the difficulties within the villages and so forth, but basically they are an incomplete presentation of the challenge and not particularly game changing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Senator Kerry was a guest today on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS."

Still to come, President Bush's tax cuts are about to expire. We'll tell you that what might mean for you, the taxpayer.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Top stories now. A new congressional report on the Gulf oil cleanup says the Coast Guard let Bp use an excessive amount of chemical. Congressman Edward Markey said the company carpet bombed the Gulf with the dispersants. Responding to the report, the Environmental Protection Agency says the chemicals have helped limit the disaster's impact. And the government's point man on the disaster, retired Admiral Thad Allen, says he is satisfied with the amount of dispersants that have been used.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is still in a Washington hospital but he's out of intensive care. His daughter, Liz, told Fox News her father is doing well. Cheney, who has suffered five heart attacks, underwent heart surgery early last month. In Rhinebeck, New York, a fairy tale wedding for Chelsea Clinton. The former first daughter married her long-time beau Marc Mezvinsky in a lavish interfaith ceremony at an estate along the Hudson River. Clinton is Methodist, Mezvinsky Jewish.

As Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky write the next chapter of their lives together, friends and family are keeping mum about their honeymoon. The secrecy surrounding the wedding hasn't stopped people from speculating about it, though. Earlier today I spoke with celebrity event planner Colin Cowie.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COLIN COWIE, CELEBRITY EVENT PLANNER: I think she looked absolutely beautiful. The strapless gown, the ballroom skirt, she really looked radiant and you could see she was glowing from within.

KAYE: I love the belt on the dress as well. How about the cake, have you seen any pictures of it or heard much about it?

COWIE: I haven't seen pictures of the cake, but I believe, you know, when you think about it, the wedding cake truly is the icon of the wedding. So I'm sure it was as lavish and as beautiful as everything else with a lot of attention to detail too.

KAYE: How much do you think the cake cost; have you heard anything on that? So many numbers floating out there.

COWIE: You know, it's very interesting. I mean cakes range from about $7 a slice to about $25 a slice so that cake could have cost anywhere from a couple of thousand dollars to $10, $15,000. It all depends on the amount of work that goes into it and who is making the cake and where it comes from.

KAYE: So a lot of people were comparing this really to a royal wedding or as close as we can get to it. What do you think about that?

COWIE: I think it is about as close as we get to a royal wedding. We all watched Chelsea Clinton grow up in the White House. We've watched her grow and flourish and I think that's why there was so much attention on this wedding.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Didn't she look great, though? Jacqui Jeras joining us now.

JACQUI JERAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: She looked radiant. Never seen her looking better.

KAYE: The belt that was on her dress.

JERAS: I liked the veil. I love a long veil.

KAYE: Bill, I must say, he looked a little nervous walking her down the aisle, I thought.

JERAS: I would think any father would be.

KAYE: Any father is.

JERAS: Yes, a little bit.

KAYE: So we are here to have our little Sunday chat.

JERAS: Yes.

KAYE: We're going to talk first about the outrageous parenting items from "Parenting" Magazine.

JERAS: Well, you know "Parenting" Magazine always does these top ten lists like best toys, worst toys. This one very interesting, it is the top list of ridiculous parenting products.

KAYE: Let's take a look at the first one, if we can. This one I'd say, this is the time-out pad, as it's called. This, I guess, makes sounds and it turns the whole time-out, which is really a punishment, into a game?

JERAS: Right, pretty much. That's what "Parenting" Magazine says. The idea is your kids have a place to, you know, to be punished basically. There's a timer on it. It makes sounds so they know where they're supposed to be, how long they're supposed to be there. Yes, it does kind of seem like a little game. "Parenting" Magazine says they think the chair against the wall plus an egg timer works just fine.

KAYE: Instead of buying a time-out pad.

JERAS: Yes.

KAYE: How about the customizable cot. This is a cardboard box apparently that comes with a little something; I guess a pillow for your child?

JERAS: Look at that.

KAYE: I just don't know about that. Would you put a child in a cardboard box?

JERAS: Personally, no. It's super chic industrial so that's the big selling point. There are also large wheels on this, by the way, when I looked it up online. I suppose it kind of serves like a cradle. It doesn't look terribly safe to me. Guess how much that thing costs?

KAYE: How much?

JERAS: It's like $200 bucks.

KAYE: What a deal. How about the pillow? I looked this up online too, it's all on their website, but the pillow, and this is the really kind of creep y pillow, its hands. It's a pair of hands.

JERAS: They look like puppet hands to me.

KAYE: They just cradle the body. I mean it just -- it's just so bizarre, so strange.

JERAS: Well, the idea is, if you've ever been a mom or ever been with a baby and it's fussy and you're trying to get it to sleep, right, the idea is it mics your hands so the baby never knows that you left the room and they'll stay there sleeping.

KAYE: Who has hands like that, do you?

JERAS: Not so much. Like Seinfeld, man hands.

KAYE: Exactly. Well, should we continue?

JERAS: Interesting items. Well, we've got some other topics we want to get to today as well. We were talking about beautiful brides. Interesting, QVC, the shopping network, as you know, has come out with the age when you're the most beautiful, when a woman is the most beautiful.

KAYE: And?

JERAS: And that age is 31.

KAYE: 31?

JERAS: So they say. That a woman is in her prime in terms of confidence, style and beauty.

KAYE: I'm trying to remember that.

JERAS: Yes, that was also long ago, wasn't it? But interesting.

KAYE: We were looking at a list of who's 31. Jennifer Love Hewitt, Norah Jones and Pink are all 31 years old. Look at Jennifer Love Hewitt, she looks great. There was just some cover of her in a swimming suit and she looked fantastic.

JERAS: She said she really doesn't care what people think, whether she looks good or bad, she doesn't care.

KAYE: There you see Norah Jones right there, the pianist and singer looking fantastic.

JERAS: I guess we won't have time for the world's most expensive hot dog.

KAYE: We can do it in 20, right?

JERAS: You go.

KAYE: You've been in New York, you lived in New York.

JERAS: Serendipity 3, you've been there and the frozen hot chocolate and have a number of world records.

KAYE: Now they have the most expensive hot dog which is, sells for, quite a deal here, just $69. Its three feet long, a beef hot dog and it looks really good.

JERAS: Look at that.

KAYE: It could feed a family there.

JERAS: There's like truffles and those mushrooms that are so rare, helps bring the price tag up there.

KAYE: That goes right with the $25 burger that you can get at pretty much any restaurant in New York City.

JERAS: I have a hard time with three bucks for a dog.

KAYE: That was fun, Jacqui, enjoyed our chat.

Bush era tax cuts are about to expire and the middle class could be slapped with a massive tax increase. We'll take a closer look.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Let's take a quick look at some of the financial stories we're going to be following this week. On Tuesday the government releases its report on how much money we're making and spending. Those numbers are both expected to be up. On Thursday, it's the weekly jobs report, a key indicator for financial forecasters. And then on Friday, we learn how we did on jobs for the month of July. Experts are expecting it to show an increase in the unemployment rate to 9.6 percent.

A campaign promise by President Obama could soon be tested. He promised people who made less than $250,000 wouldn't see a tax hike, but federal tax cuts from the Bush era are about to expire. Now our Allan Chernoff says middle class families could be hit by one of the largest tax increases in American history.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The Chudyk's of Ramsy, New Jersey like to enjoy their money.

CHRIS CHUDYK, CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANT: We're definitely spenders. We like to have a good time, like to enjoy life.

CHERNOFF: But even though Chris and his wife Dawn have stable jobs they're preparing to tighten their belts. Chris, an accountant, figures he'll soon need and extra $350 a month to pay more federal taxes.

CHUDYK: Where does that come from? Maybe not going out to eat as much, maybe bringing a lunch to work. You know also reducing maybe the amount that we can save.

CHERNOFF: Brace yourself. There's a very good chance your family also may soon have to confront the same tough choices, find extra money to pay Uncle Sam. Tax rates are scheduled to rise once the year ends. That's because tax cuts that President George W. Bush championed in 2001 and 2003 were put in place only through the end of the decade. SCOTT HODGE, PRESIDENT, TAX FOUNDATION: If Congress does nothing it could lead to one of the largest tax increases in American history.

CHERNOFF: President Obama pledged let taxes rise only on families earning more than $250,000 per year. But as things stand right now tens of millions Americans who earn less are about to get whacked by new higher tax rates.

ROBERT TRAPHAGEN, PARTNER, TRAPHAGEN FINANCIAL: If new tax legislation is not implemented it would be a dramatic effect to the middle class.

CHERNOFF: Middle class tax rates are scheduled to go up by 3 percent. But the Chudyk's earn just over $175,000 the change will put them into the 31 percent marginal tax bracket, up from 28 percent today. Also due to change, the tax credit that middle and lower income families get for each child would be cut in half, to a maximum of no more than $500 per child. And taxes would rise on dividends and capital gains, especially hurtful to retired Americans.

(UNIDENTIFIED MALE): Thank you.

CHERNOFF: In planning to let taxes rise, President Obama hopes to chop the budget deficit. But if families like the Chudyk's cut back spending by $350 a month that may hurt the economy. It could derail the recovery. And if that happens, some experts argue, it could mean lower overall tax revenues for the treasury.

Allan Chernoff, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Oily sand, tar balls, hazmat suits covered in crude. What happens to it all is not what some Gulf residents say they ever expected.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Bp is using everything from booms to rags to mop up oil from the Gulf, but what happens with all that waste has some residents steaming. I recently took a look for myself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE (voice over): If you've been wondering where all that scooped-up onshore oil ends up, here's your answer. This is Mississippi's Pecan Grove Landfill. What cleanup crews gather on shore, tar balls, oiled sand and vegetation, is hauled away and buried here. That even includes the cleanup crews' gloves, suits, shovels and rakes, anything that's touched oil. It's one of nine landfills Bp has cut deals with across the Gulf to dump all this stuff.

So that must mean the communities are OK with it too, right? Wrong. Connie Rockco is the president of the Board of Supervisors in Harrison County, Mississippi, where the Pecan Grove Landfill is located.

How do you feel about this oily mixture coming off the beaches and ending up in your landfill?

CONNIE ROCKCO, BOARD OF SUPERVISORS, HARRISON CO. MISS: We're tired of being dumped on. We don't want it, it's valuable landfill space and it's hazardous to our citizens. Take your waste somewhere else or, please, find an alternative.

KAYE: Rockco says the county board passed a resolution not to accept any Bp waste in this community, but that didn't matter. That's because waste management, which owns the landfill, doesn't have to listen to what the county board says. It answers to the state. So it signed a contract with Bp and started dumping the oily waste right where Rockco and plenty of others feared they would.

What concerns you most about this oil and the tar balls and the whole mixture going to your landfill?

ROCKCO: The long-term effects that we will have to endure if it in fact -- if in fact we do find that it is dangerous.

KAYE: Like if it gets into your water.

ROCKCO: Into our water table, absolutely.

KAYE: Keeping them honest, we asked Bp why it's disposing of spill waste in a county that says it's pleaded with them not to. Bp wouldn't comment. So we asked waste management's Ken Haldin to take us inside the landfill so we could see for ourselves why Bp, the EPA and waste management all say it's safe.

There are many worried that whatever is going into this landfill from the oil spill is going to end up in their water system and make the community sick.

KEN HALDIN, WASTE MANAGEMENT: Well, it's an understandable concern because there's a lack of awareness about what ends up in your landfill.

KAYE: Haldin says this is a non-hazardous waste site. He says there won't be any liquid oil coming here, just solid oil waste. Before it's dumped, it's stored in these huge containers and analyzed. In the last 24 hours, Haldin says they dropped more than 150 tons of Bp waste into this landfill, 150 tons.

If the county didn't want it, why is it here?

HALDIN: That's something they certainly appealed to the state about and others and we understand that and we're going to do our utmost to be sure they are familiar with what's going on here.

KAYE: Haldin says this landfill has a liner that runs underneath the entire site. In fact it's under my feet where I'm walking right now. He said that liner is supposed to contain everything that's dumped here at the landfill and protect it from any leaks. He also says the groundwater and the air is monitored and if anything goes wrong, they would know it. The EPA told us Bp, along with the EPA, are also sampling the landfill's regularly to make sure they are safe. The agency also said it directed Bp to keep its waste disposal operations, quote, fully transparent. Bp must post information about the disposal of all collected waste on their website along with any community complaints. Connie Rockco is first in line.

ROCKCO: If it's not hazardous, why would someone be out with tibex suits and rubber gloves picking it up and taking it to the landfill?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Since we first told you about this last month, little has changed. Oily waste is still being brought to the landfill. No lawsuits have been filed against Bp.

Let's update you on the Gulf oil disaster. We could soon we the ruptured well sealed for good. Crews expect to start pouring mud and concrete into it tomorrow or Tuesday. New documents released by a congressional subcommittee indicate the Coast Guard allowed Bp to use excessive amounts of chemical dispersants.

Retired Admiral Thad Allen, who is overseeing the federal response, says he is, quote, satisfied with the amount of dispersants used so far. Bp's chief operating officer, Doug Suttles, has been touring the area this afternoon. He's in Venice, Louisiana, and we expect to hear from him any minute now. We'll bring you his comments live.

The remaining chemical mix has some worried about the future recovery of the Gulf. Last hour I talked about those fears with an aquatic toxicologist, Carys Mitchelmore.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARYS MITCHELMORE, AQUATIC TOXICOLOGIST: The key with using dispersants is it's not necessarily the dispersant toxicity itself for the most part; it's what the dispersants do to the oil. The dispersant used does not get rid of oil from the environment, it basically changes the chemical and physical properties of that oil and so it's essentially an environmental trade-off.

You will be protecting one environment, which is the sensitive marsh land and near-shore environments, at the expense of another environment, in this case the organisms that are underneath in the water column.

KAYE: And what is it about surface dispersant versus Sub Sea dispersant? I mean obviously they work differently and can harm different things.

MITCHELMORE: Yes, the subsurface application is very novel. It's never been done before. And there are differences between those two applications. With the oil coming to the surface, you have the oil slick on the surface. Up to 40 percent of that oil will move into the air above that water, so you do lose some oil. But if you - dispersing oil down at the subsurface, then those compounds that would be lost to the air (INAUDIBLE) it's that oil, rogue (ph) surface are not lost. They're entrained into that water column.

KAYE: And how long do you think it will be before we really know what type of damage these dispersants have done, maybe on the creatures that are living far below the surface, or anything else?

MITCHELMORE: It's going to be a long time, potentially years, even decades until we have a full understanding. That's one of the key issues here, the sheer volume and time the dispersants and the - are being used and the oil is spilling.

There's so many unknowns and daily gaps, particularly with the long- term impacts of dispersant use.

(END VIDEO CLIP)