Discussion Thread: BP OIL RIG DISASTER [Archive]

Spang

04-30-2010, 03:31 AM

Palin’s Oily Lies Drip from the Pages of Going Rogue…

I know facts aren’t going to matter to many people buying Sarah Palin’s, Going Rogue. Facts certainly didn’t matter to folks who voted for her.

According to the “fact checkers”:

PALIN: Welcomes last year’s Supreme Court decision deciding punitive damages for victims of the nation’s largest oil spill tragedy, the Exxon Valdez disaster, stating it had taken 20 years to achieve victory. As governor, she says, she’d had the state argue in favor of the victims, and she says the court’s ruling went “in favor of the people.” Finally, she writes, Alaskans could recover some of their losses.

THE FACTS: That response is at odds with her reaction at the time to the ruling, which resolved the long-running case by reducing punitive damages for victims to $500 million from $2.5 billion. Environmentalists and plaintiffs’ lawyers decried the ruling as a slap at the victims and Palin herself said she was “extremely disappointed.” She said the justices had gutted a jury decision favoring higher damage awards, the Anchorage Daily News reported. “It’s tragic that so many Alaska fishermen and their families have had their lives put on hold waiting for this decision,” she said, noting many had died “while waiting for justice.”

When Sarah Palin was asked by Katie Couric what Supreme Court decisions other than Roe v Wade she disagreed with, she couldn’t think of one. NOT ONE! Sarah squandered an opportunity-the perfect chance to tell America our story…an Alaskan story…dozens of suicides…thousands sick from clean up…tens of thousands bankrupt from a dead fishery.

Sarah Palin is to Alaska what Velveeta is to cheese; sadly unsatisfying and empty of nutrition. She had the national stage to plead Alaska’s case to citizens who had long forgotten the images of a once pristine Prince William Sound turned into a thick, black, rolling sea; the oiled sea otters and birds; unrecognizable seals and whales; an initially deformed and diseased herring run that became extinct-costing Cordova $100 million a year. Exxon exploited Alaska and turned pain into profit.

AND NOW, Palin is claiming to be part of a victory for the people of Alaska? Reality Deficit Disorder…now in book form.

The Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker Supreme Court decision in June 2008 all but pardoned Exxon’s negligence. The highest court in the land condoned the half-assed cleanup. (audio interview on the day of the ruling with Greg Palast). Exxon, the company that set and broke planet earth’s quarterly profit record three quarters in a row, was let off the hook. Because of this unprecedented landmark decision, future corporate punitive damages are now forever minimally capped at literally pennies on the dollar!

The Roberts Court based its activist ruling on 19th century maritime law. Really! 21st century corporations can now view punitive damages as the small cost of doing business. Due to Exxon’s negligence and the corporate sympathy of the Supreme Court, one the largest acts of environmental terrorism in history was treated like an accidental littering. The RATS-Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia, (Alito recused himself, confident that Souter and Kennedy would fill the business-friendly void) winked at their corporate masters as the Judas Court betrayed Justice.

Exxon doesn’t have marked offices in Alaska. There are some pretty hard feelings even 20 years later…for some pretty good reasons. When Palin was pointing fingers at Letterman in July of this year, she did it from Houston, Texas. She was there to sign a deal with Exxon on behalf of Alaska. The state’s willingness to do business with Exxon was like having your parents rent the basement to the guy who date raped you on prom night. Am I clear?

So Sarah was against the decision before she couldn’t remember it before she was for it. And now, courtesy of Going Rogue, Sarah Palin manages to insult and injure Alaskans who will never be made whole with yet another one of her documented lies.

The jury originally punished Exxon with $5 billion in punitive damages-a year’s profit at the time. In 2008, nearly 20 years later, Exxon reported the largest annual profit in US history at $45.22 billion. The company shattered its own record set the previous year. Would the original $5 billion in punitive damages been punishment enough? The answer is now slowly dripping onto victims at 10 cents on the dollar. Opening your mailbox to an Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Settlement check is like getting a royalty payment for the snuff film your kid brother was in. Hey, you’re getting paid…but he’s still dead and you got to watch.

(No Nudity)

(above) Then Governor Palin’s appropriate reaction to the Exxon v. Baker decision June, 2008

(No Nudity)

Candidate Palin’s stunning memory lapse of Exxon v. Baker just 3 months later…

Look for Going Rogue in the revisionist history section of your local bookstore on Tuesday…

The Source (http://shannynmoore.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/palins-oily-lies-drip-from-the-pages-of-going-rogue/)

Also, this photograph was taken in 2008:

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/exxon-not-done.jpg

NoFear

04-30-2010, 12:55 PM

Where did all the "drill baby drill" advocates go? Still waiting for their queen to make an official statement?

Spang

04-30-2010, 01:25 PM

Obama shelves new offshore drilling

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Friday directed that no new offshore oil drilling leases be issued unless rigs have new safeguards to prevent a repeat of the explosion that unleashed the massive spill threatening the Gulf Coast with major environmental damage.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, meanwhile, declared a state of emergency in the state's Panhandle coastal counties because of the threat.

"The oil slick is generally moving in a northerly direction and threatens Florida's coast," Crist said in the order declaring the emergency in Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, Bay, and Gulf counties.

Obama ordered Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to report within 30 days on what new technologies are needed to tighten safeguards against oil spills from deepwater drilling rigs.

The Source (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36865687/ns/us_news-environment/)

Spang

04-30-2010, 06:36 PM

Palin's ghostwriter finally speaks:

Domestic Drilling: Why We Can Still Believe

We’ve all been shocked and saddened by the tragic events in the Gulf of Mexico. My heart breaks for coastal residents who are facing fears of the unknown impacts of the oil spill.

As an Alaskan, I can speak from the heart about the tragedy of an oil spill. For as long as I live, I will never forget the day the Exxon-Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef and millions of gallons of North Slope crude poured into the waters of our beautiful Prince William Sound. The spill was devastating to so many Alaskans who, like my own family, make their living on the water from our commercial fishing industry. “Heartbreaking” was the word my husband Todd, an Alaska Native and trained oil spill responder, used to describe the scene as we watched it unfold on land and water that we feel is sacred.

Alaskans understand the tragedy of an oil spill, and we’ve taken steps to do all we can to prevent another Exxon tragedy, but we are still pro-development. We still believe in responsible development, which includes drilling to extract energy sources, because we know that there is an inherent link between energy and security, energy and prosperity, and energy and freedom. Production of our own resources means security for America and opportunities for American workers. We need oil, and if we don’t drill for it here, we have to purchase it from countries that not only do not like America and can use energy purchases as a weapon against us, but also do not have the oversight that America has.

In the coming days, there will be hearings to discover the cause of the explosion and the subsequent leak. Actions will be taken to increase oversight to prevent future accidents. Government can and must play an appropriate role here. If a company was lax in its prevention practices, it must be held accountable. It is inexcusable for any oil company to not invest in preventative measures. They must be held accountable or the public will forever distrust the industry.

The Source (http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=384560338434)

Spang

05-01-2010, 12:24 AM

Air Force C130s, Navy Equipment to Support Oil Slick Response

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has authorized two Air Force Reserve C-130H aircraft to support the response to a massive oil slick that threatens wetlands and beaches along the Gulf Coast, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell confirmed today.

In addition, the Navy has dispatched 66,000 feet of inflatable oil boom with anchoring equipment, along with seven skimming systems and their supporting gear to the region, Navy Lt. Myers Vasquez reported.

The C130 crews, assigned to the 910th Airlift Wing’s 757th Airlift Squadron at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station in Ohio, had prepositioned in Mississippi in anticipation of the tasking.

“We are posturing to be ready to provide support to the ongoing emergency efforts if called upon,” said Air Force Col. Craig Peters, the 910th Operations Group commander.

The Source (http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=58985)

Spang

05-01-2010, 03:14 AM

Solution to Capping Well Remains Elusive

As cleanup crews struggled Friday to cope with the massive oil slick from a leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico, dozens of engineers and technicians ensconced in a Houston office building were still trying to solve the mystery of how to shut down the well after a week of brainstorming and failed efforts.

They have continued to focus their attention on a 40-foot stack of heavy equipment 5,000 feet below the surface of the gulf — and several hundred miles from Houston. Known as a blowout preventer, or B.O.P., the steel-framed stack of valves, rams, housings, tanks and hydraulic tubing, painted industrial yellow and sitting atop the well in the murky water, is at the root of the disaster.

When an explosion and fire crippled the deepwater drilling rig on April 20, workers threw a switch to activate the blowout preventer, which is designed to seal the well quickly in the event of a burst of pressure. It did not work, and a failsafe switch on the device also failed to function.

The Source (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/us/01engineering.html?src=twt&twt=nytimesscience)

Spang

05-02-2010, 01:26 AM

(No Nudity)

cindyb

05-02-2010, 01:42 AM

I'm hearing that this disaster is being called, "Barack's Katrina." A little late on the uptake was he?

Spang

05-02-2010, 01:46 AM

I'm hearing that this disaster is being called, "Barack's Katrina."

Of course you did, you get your news from FOX, and they're a bunch of idiots.

Spang

05-02-2010, 04:08 AM

(No Nudity)

Spang

05-03-2010, 12:56 AM

Drilling, Disaster, Denial

It took futuristic technology to achieve one of the worst ecological disasters on record. Without such technology, after all, BP couldn’t have drilled the Deepwater Horizon well in the first place. Yet for those who remember their environmental history, the catastrophe in the gulf has a strangely old-fashioned feel, reminiscent of the events that led to the first Earth Day, four decades ago.

And maybe, just maybe, the disaster will help reverse environmentalism’s long political slide — a slide largely caused by our very success in alleviating highly visible pollution. If so, there may be a small silver lining to a very dark cloud.

Environmentalism began as a response to pollution that everyone could see. The spill in the gulf recalls the 1969 blowout that coated the beaches of Santa Barbara in oil. But 1969 was also the year the Cuyahoga River, which flows through Cleveland, caught fire. Meanwhile, Lake Erie was widely declared “dead,” its waters contaminated by algal blooms. And major U.S. cities — especially, but by no means only, Los Angeles — were often cloaked in thick, acrid smog.

The Source (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/opinion/03krugman.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter)

Spang

05-03-2010, 01:17 AM

Fishing Closed By Oil Spill: Feds Ban Commercial And Recreational Fishing From Louisiana To Florida

VENICE, La. -- BP's chairman defended his company's safety record and said Sunday that "a failed piece of equipment" was to blame for a massive oil spill along the Gulf Coast, where President Barack Obama was headed for a firsthand update on the slick creeping toward American shores.

BP PLC chairman Lamar McKay told ABC's "This Week" that he can't say when the well a mile beneath the sea might be plugged. But he said he believes a 74-ton metal and concrete box - which a company spokesman said was 40 feet tall, 24 feet wide and 14 feet deep - could be placed over the well on the ocean floor in six to eight days.

McKay said BP officials are still working to activate a "blowout preventer" mechanism meant to seal off the geyser of oil.

"And as you can imagine, this is like doing open-heart surgery at 5,000 feet, with – in the dark, with robot-controlled submarines," McKay said.

The Source (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/02/fishing-closed-oil-spill_n_560217.html)

Spang

05-03-2010, 02:27 PM

Palin promotes offshore drilling in the middle of oil spill

As an oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico grows larger by the hour, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin continues to stick to "drill, baby, drill."

In a 30-minute speech to a Republican crowd in Kansas City Saturday, the onetime Republican vice presidential nominee dubbed the gulf spill "very tragic" but added: “I want our country to be able to trust the oil industry.”

Writing in the Kansas City Star, reporter Steve Kraske summed up her remarks as, "She said the U.S. must wean itself from foreign oil in order to be truly free."

“We’ve got to tap domestically because energy security will be the key to our prosperity,” Palin remarked.

Palin spoke as BP and military officials sought to get a handle on a leaking oil rig site in the Gulf of Mexico, which is purportedly leaking as many as 5,000 barrels of oil a day. The leak began after an explosion on an offshore rig sent the rig to the bottom of the sea and unsheathed a tube that was supposed to be carrying oil to the surface.

Kraske noted that Palin's speech was also rich with God and "gottas."

There were lots of “we gottas,” religious references, praise for the troops and even a trademark Palin growl or two as she outlined a conservative vision for the country that adheres, in her view, far more closely to the Constitution.

“We believe that God shed his grace on thee,” she said. “We still believe that America is exceptional.”

In response to a question from local radio talk show host Chris Stigall about her political plans, Palin punted. Although she has hinted in recent months that she is considering a 2012 run for the White House, Palin on Saturday joked that she might run next for a PTA position when her son, Trig, starts school.

Palin spoke to a group called "Preserving American Liberty." She wouldn't disclose how much -- or if -- she was paid for her speech. The former governor has been earning as much as $100,000 for each appearance.

The Source (http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0503/palin-promotes-offshore-drilling-middle-oil-spill/)

Spang

05-03-2010, 04:17 PM

(No Nudity)

Laura Cereta

05-04-2010, 07:53 AM

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/162061/thumbs/s-OIL-SPILL-large300.jpg (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/03/noaa-warned-interior-was_n_561615.html)

Spang

05-04-2010, 02:24 PM

BP: Stopping oil spill could take three months

In an admission that may spell further disaster for coastal areas and marine life surrounding the oil spill that erupted after a rig sunk off the Gulf Coast, British Petroleum said Tuesday that containing the spill may take three months.

TimesOnline reports that BP "launched a new front in its battle to contain the spill, as engineers began drilling a relief well designed to cut off the leaking oil permanently."

"The new well, which is in 5,000 feet of water, is planned to intercept the existing well at 13,000 feet — about two miles — below the seabed. It will be used to inject cement to cap the one that is leaking."

"Drilling began on Sunday at 3pm local time, after days of delays caused by poor weather conditions. However, BP confirmed that the operation would take “some three months” to complete."

The Source (http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0504/bp-stopping-oil-spill-months/)

Spang

05-04-2010, 02:28 PM

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/lk0430d-500.jpg

Spang

05-04-2010, 03:03 PM

Perry defends BP, alludes to 'act of God' as possible cause of oil spill

At an appearance in Washington Monday, Gov. Rick Perry alluded to an "act of God" as he addressed a question about the Obama administration's response to the April 20 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"From time to time, there are going to be things that occur that are acts of God that cannot be prevented," Perry said. "So until we know that, to make a judgment on this administration or any further activity may be a bit premature."

The governor's staff says Perry was not insisting that an "act of God" caused the spill. (He later said that he suspects a "mechanical failure" is the cause.) Perry aides say that he was simply making the point that it is too early to blame BP PLC, which leased the rig that was drilling the well.

Still, Perry seemed to leave the door open to the possibility of random chance in his comments to reporters:

"I don't think that a big wave came along at a very inopportune time and caused ... but I don't know that," he said.

Perry said BP has "historically had a very good safety record from my perspective." After a reporter pointed out that an explosion at BP's Texas City refinery killed 15 workers in 2005, Perry acknowledged the company has been under scrutiny for its safety record.

"If you go from that point forward, they realize there is a bull's eye on their back," Perry said. "If there is a company that knows the world, the United States and Texas is watching what they are doing, it would be British Petroleum."

The Source (http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/05/perry-defends-bp-alludes-to-ac.html)

cindyb

05-04-2010, 03:54 PM

I'm glad that the right is not crucifying Barack for taking 12 days to respond to this horrible disaster.

Spang

05-04-2010, 04:16 PM

I'm glad that the right is not crucifying Barack for taking 12 days to respond to this horrible disaster.

Me, too.

A timeline of events following the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill belies the absurd media claim that the spill represents "Obama's Katrina."

April 20 (10 p.m.): Oil rig explosion. An April 21 ABCNews.com article reported, "An overnight explosion in the Gulf of Mexico rocked the Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the Louisiana coast, sending spectacular bursts of flame into the sky. The fires were still raging today." The U.S. Coast Guard's National Oil and Hazardous Substances Response System assigns primary responsibility for cleaning up oil spills to the spiller as the responsible party.

April 21: Deputy Secretary of Interior, Coast Guard dispatched to region. An April 22 White House statement noted that following a briefing with President Obama, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen, Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, EPA Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe, and FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, "Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes was dispatched to the region yesterday to assist with coordination and response." The Coast Guard announced that four units were responding to the fire, with additional units en route.

The Complete Timeline of Events (http://mediamatters.org/research/201004300053)

cindyb

05-04-2010, 04:42 PM

Me, too.

The Complete Timeline of Events (http://mediamatters.org/research/201004300053)

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2010/05/obamas-katrina-illustrated-timeline.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/deepwarter-horizon-obamas-katrina-2010-4

It's been argued that Hurricane Katrina was one of George W. Bush's biggest organizational failures, for the tragedy was allowed to fester on for way too long before his much-vaunted homeland security apparatus sprang into action.

Will the oil spill in the gulf -- which some suspect could be worse than Exxon Valdez -- be the equivalent for Barack Obama?

Today the story got elevated to national emergency level, but the explosion on the rig happened eight days ago!

While numerous investigations will no doubt be launched into the companies behind the rig (BP, Transocean), will anyone ask what the DHS and The White House have been doing for 8 days, while an ecological disaster was unfolding in such a sensitive region?

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/deepwarter-horizon-obamas-katrina-2010-4#ixzz0mzXdzUif

I guess I was wrong. ;)

Spang

05-04-2010, 04:46 PM

I guess I was wrong. ;)

So is anyone who thinks this corporate disaster is Obama's Katrina.

Laura Cereta

05-05-2010, 12:24 PM

http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/6635/slide_6635_88155_large.jpg

Spang

05-06-2010, 03:43 AM

Can You Eat Oil-Slick Oysters?

Good news for oyster eaters—sort of. Oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill hasn't hit Lousiana's oyster reefs yet, but according to the National Ocean Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, it could within days. Yesterday I talked with Thomas Soniat, a professor and researcher at the University of New Orleans' Department of Biological Sciences, and he told me that, yes, oysters will take up oil as the slick comes through, so you wouldn't want to eat oysters harvested around that time—they'd even taste like oil.

But: "Oysters are very good at cleansing themselves. They're very resilient." The process, if you want to impress your friends with the fancy name, is called depuration, and self-cleansing oyster tissue means that they're safe—and delicious—to eat again just two weeks after their exposure to oil ends. It's the bad post-spill PR that's harder to get rid of. "The public-perception problem persists much longer than the true problem," Soniat says, "and expands over a much broader geographical area."

Of course, depending on the slick's ultimate size and the weather patterns, oil could settle over the reefs and cover them for an extended period of time, which could kill some of them and would lengthen the depuration process. Even so, Soniat is optimistic. "Oysters are very fecund. It's not gonna destroy the oyster industry in Breton Sound on a permanent basis. The industry will survive. The oysters will survive. The reefs could be safe to open again within weeks." That is, if the oil stops leaking so cleanup can really get under way. "It's just hard right now because the extent of the hardship is unknown."

The Source (http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/05/oil-spill-oysters-BP-louisiana)

Spang

05-06-2010, 03:56 AM

There Will Be Blood

Sen. Bill Nelson wants the government office infamous for its "sex orgies and pot parties" probed for its lax oversight of offshore drilling.

With the Deepwater Horizon oil spill shaping up to be a calamity of historic proportions, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) on Tuesday slammed the Interior Department division responsible for regulating domestic oil development, calling for an investigation into the infamously problem-plagued Minerals Management Service—and asking what the Obama administration is doing to clean it up.

"In the Bush administration, these were the guys that were having sex orgies and pot parties and weren't showing up for work," Nelson told reporters, referring to the 2008 scandal in a Colorado regional MMS office in which it came to light that agency employees had been partying with industry execs rather than collecting millions of dollars in royalties for lease deals. Nelson has asked the agency's inspector general to investigate, among other things, the extent to which the oil industry has influenced the agency’s rulemaking process.

The disaster in the Gulf has once again cast a spotlight on MMS, a troubled division with a long history of regulatory negligence. Conservatives have dubbed the spill "Obama's Katrina." But the roots of the disaster, which could potentially have been prevented by enhanced safety measures, stretch back to the George W. Bush years. During that era, Interior became a revolving door haven for industry lobbyists. MMS developed a hands-off approach to regulation and was known for its deference to the companies it was supposed to be policing.

The Source (http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/05/bp-bill-nelson-oil-spill)

foxyladi

05-06-2010, 11:07 AM

B.P. has been one of bo,s biggest contributor's for many many years.:eek:

Spang

05-07-2010, 01:48 PM

The Ongoing Administration-Wide Response to the Deepwater BP Oil Spill

Since the Deepwater Horizon explosion the night of April 20, federal authorities, both military and civilian, have been working onsite and around the clock to respond to and mitigate the impact of the resulting BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

We have compiled this chronology in the spirit of transparency so the American people can have a clear understanding of what their government has been and is doing to respond to the massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster.

The Chronology (http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/05/05/ongoing-administration-wide-response-deepwater-bp-oil-spill)

Laura Cereta

05-08-2010, 01:03 AM

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/164328/thumbs/r-GULF-OIL-SPILL-CONTAINER-DOME-huge.jpg (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/07/oil-spill-concrete-box-to_n_568520.html)

Spang

05-08-2010, 11:22 PM

Breaking: BP Effort To Use Dome To Contain Oil Disaster Fails

Efforts to contain the Deepwater Horizon oil gusher with a 100-ton, four-story concrete-and-steel box have failed, BP officials announced. The giant box, known as a cofferdam, was lowered onto the leaking wellhead yesterday, with the intent of pumping the leaking oil up a pipe to the sea surface a mile above. However, BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles announced in a press briefing this afternoon that the dome effort failed. After the cofferdam was lowered onto the leak site, a slurry of methane crystals formed on the inside of the dome’s surface, making it bouyant and clogging the outtake at the dome’s roof.

The giant box has been moved 200 meters from the disaster site, and is sitting on the sea bed. BP had anticipated that methane hydrates could form within the pipework from the dome to the surface, but not within the dome itself, especially at such a rapid rate.

Suttles, clearly chastened by this setback, had a much less confident tone about containing the leak than he had at previous press conferences, such as the one attended on Tuesday by the Wonk Room when he announced the cofferdam was being shipped out to the disaster site. “It’s very difficult to say whether solutions will work,” he admitted.

The Source (http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/05/08/bp-box-fail/)

foxyladi

05-09-2010, 12:22 PM

what about the 11 lost lives haven't heard a peep???

CGP

05-09-2010, 07:37 PM

YouTube- La. Fishermen Frustrated With Oil Containment

CGP

05-09-2010, 07:38 PM

YouTube- Oil Containment Box Fails

Spang

05-10-2010, 01:01 PM

Oil spill ‘likely to dwarf’ Katrina in terms of lawsuits

BILOXI, Mississippi (AFP) – Armies of lawyers are turning their sights to the massive oil slick spreading across the Gulf of Mexico, eagerly seeking damages from the companies at the center of the disaster.

Lawyers who faced a massive onslaught of demands after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005 are now flooded with calls from oil workers and local fishermen eager to receive compensation for their losses.

Judy Guice, an attorney based in Biloxi, Mississippi, said the oil spill "has the potential to dwarf Katrina" in terms of the number of lawsuits.

"Katrina was a natural disaster. I had to deal with clients angry at their insurance companies. But the oil spill is a man-made disaster."

The Source (http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0510/lawsuits-manmade-oil-spill-likely-dwarf-katrina/)

foxyladi

05-10-2010, 01:21 PM

will this be the end of B.P. oil?????

Spang

05-11-2010, 02:30 PM

BP facing a wave of pressure, but not from its balance sheet

Standing outside BP's Houston offices Thursday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that the company's "life is very much on the line here."

BP's financial wounds from April 20 drilling-rig explosion might be serious, but they probably won't be fatal. One analyst report, issued by Citigroup, even declared in its title, "Reaction to the Gulf of Mexico oil leak is a buying opportunity."

Even though most investors have soured on BP, driving down its stock price by 19 percent and wiping out $36.7 billion of its market value since the explosion, the business remains a behemoth. The company has a market value of $152.6 billion, bolstered by a global marketing network, a lucrative oil venture in Russia, a promising contract to boost production in a giant Iraqi field and scores of other large interests. It remains the largest oil producer in the Gulf of Mexico. Measured by revenue or assets, it is among the world's five largest companies.

Citigroup analysts said stockholders' reactions seem "disproportionate to the likely costs to the company." It noted that punitive damages against Exxon for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil-tanker spill were originally set at $5 billion in 1994 but were reduced on appeal. The company agreed last year to pay less than $1 billion, including interest.

For now, at least, BP's prodigious costs combating the oil spill in the Gulf are outweighed by prodigious profits.

On Monday, BP said it spent $350 million in the first 20 days of the spill response, about $17.5 million a day. It has paid 295 of the 4,700 claims received, for a total of $3.5 million. By contrast, in the first quarter of the year, the London-based oil giant's profits averaged $93 million a day.

The amount of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico has been estimated at 5,000 to 25,000 barrels a day. In the first quarter, BP produced 2.5 million barrels of crude oil a day worldwide -- and it received $71.86 for every barrel.

BP has strong borrowing capacity, too. Analysts say it could get as much as $20 billion without exceeding its debt targets. "Even a pretty large digging into the pockets would be within our capacity to handle," said Andrew Gowers, a BP spokesman.

The company does, however, have large needs -- with a $20 billion capital spending plan for this year and $8.4 billion needed for acquisitions, mainly of assets from Devon Energy.

Now, cleanup costs must be added. Relief wells being drilled to intercept the damaged one could cost more than $100 million each. Scores of lawsuits have been filed. Legislation passed in 1990 after the Exxon Valdez accident makes BP and its partners responsible for cleanup costs and up to $75 million in damages.

BP officials said Monday that they expect to exceed that. "A $75 million liability is not where our head is at this moment," said David Nagel, an executive vice president.

On Friday, Standard & Poor's affirmed BP's credit rating but revised its outlook to "Negative" from "Stable." "Provided BP can stem the well and clean the spill within a reasonable time, the company has adequate liquidity and financial headroom to meet immediate costs," said a report by S&P credit analyst Simon Redmond. "However, it is still too early to estimate with any degree of confidence the full future impact on BP from the spill."

BP will survive, analysts say, but damage caused by the rig disaster that killed 11 workers was still huge. Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst at Oppenheimer, said the accident was "a major disaster with catastrophic implications not only for the companies involved, but also for the offshore oil industry and the economies of the Gulf Coast."

The Source (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/10/AR2010051004664_pf.html)

Spang

05-12-2010, 02:00 PM

Rig Owner Had Rising Tally of Accidents

The sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which triggered the spill spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, caught the energy world by surprise. The operator, Transocean Ltd., is a giant in the brave new world of drilling for oil in deep waters far offshore. It had been honored by regulators for its safety record. The very day of the blast on the rig, executives were aboard celebrating its seven straight years free of serious accidents.

But a Wall Street Journal examination of Transocean's record paints a more equivocal picture.

Nearly three of every four incidents that triggered federal investigations into safety and other problems on deepwater drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico since 2008 have been on rigs operated by Transocean, according to an analysis of federal data. Transocean defended its safety record but didn't dispute the Journal's analysis.

In addition, an industry survey of oil companies that hired Transocean perceived a drop in its quality and performance, including safety by some measures, compared with its peers, though it still scored tops in one safety category.

Already the largest deep-water driller, Transocean in November 2007 took over rival GlobalSantaFe in an $18 billion deal. A Journal analysis of records maintained by the U.S. Minerals Management Service found that Transocean's share of incidents in deep water investigated by the regulator has gone up since the merger, even after accounting for its increased size.

From 2005 through 2007, a Transocean rig was involved in 13 of the 39 deep-water drilling incidents investigated by the MMS in the Gulf of Mexico, or 33%. That's roughly in line with the percentage of deep-water rigs, 30%, Transocean owned and operated in the Gulf then, according to data firm RigLogix.

Since the merger, Transocean has accounted for 24 of the 33 incidents investigated by the MMS, or 73%, despite during that time owning fewer than half the Gulf of Mexico rigs operating in more than 3,000 feet of water.

Some of Transocean's clients have cited the merger as a reason they believe the company's performance has dropped.

Transocean says it is committed to safety and has a strong overall safety record. Larry McMahan, Transocean's vice president for performance, said the company investigates all incidents and adjusts its procedures accordingly. He said he believes the 2007 merger went smoothly.

"We are a learning company. We do not make the same mistakes again," Mr. McMahan said.

The April 20 explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon killed 11 workers and has left thousands of barrels of oil a day pouring into the sea.

Besides Transocean's record, lawmakers and Gulf Coast residents have questioned those of BP PLC, which hired Transocean to drill the well, and the MMS, a federal agency that oversees the offshore drilling industry. Those questions are likely to grow if evidence emerges that Transocean had a pattern of problems.

There were few indications of any trouble with the Deepwater Horizon before the explosion. The rig won an award from the MMS for its 2008 safety record, and on the day of the disaster, BP and Transocean managers were on board to celebrate seven years without a lost-time accident.

Toby Odone, a BP spokesman, said rigs hired by BP have had better safety records than the industry average for six years running, according to MMS statistics that measure the number of citations per inspection. BP has been a finalist for a national safety award from the MMS for the past two years. Mr. Odone wouldn't comment on BP's relationship with Transocean after the Gulf disaster but said BP continues to use Transocean rigs. The MMS declined to comment.

The cause of the April 20 explosion hasn't been determined. Investigators are expected to focus on two things: a cement seal meant to keep oil and gas from escaping from a well, and the blowout preventer, a set of valves on the ocean floor that is supposed to close off a well in an emergency.

Transocean has had problems with both, MMS records show.

In 2006, regulators found, a blowout preventer failed, in part because of maintenance issues. In 2005, a well leaked drilling fluid because of problems with the cement seal.

Transocean's Mr. McMahan said cementing issues are primarily the responsibility of an outside contractor hired by owner of the well. He said Transocean has a strong maintenance program to keep blowout preventers working.

Oil companies must inform the MMS of all offshore incidents such as injuries, fires and oil spills. The agency investigates those it deems serious and makes public its reports. Those are the incidents the Journal analyzed.

A decision to investigate an incident doesn't mean a company broke any laws. The MMS issued citations in only a quarter of the Transocean cases it investigated since the start of 2008, mostly for failure to follow safety procedures or for small oil spills.

The MMS says it issues fines only in limited circumstances, such as spills or when workers don't use required safety equipment. The agency can convene panels to conduct more detailed investigations into major incidents, but rarely does.

Some of the investigated incidents on Transocean's rigs have been minor, involving incidental injuries, dropped equipment and small leaks.

MMS investigators linked several Transocean incidents to workers' failure to follow company procedures. In a 2008 case, the Deepwater Horizon partially flooded and began to tilt after a worker removed a piece of pipe without telling those in overall charge of the vessel. Regulators didn't find any violations.

The MMS has investigated four fires aboard deep-water drilling rigs since 2005, all operated by Transocean.

Last September, for instance, a fire broke out on a brand-new Transocean rig, the Discoverer Clear Leader. It knocked out power to the thrusters that keep the rig in position above the well—a serious situation, because if a rig drifts too far it can disconnect from the well and cause a spill. Power was restored in time.

Transocean's Mr. McMahan said the company has trained firefighters aboard all rigs, and he didn't believe it has a problem with fires.

In 2006, Transocean's Discoverer Enterprise was drilling for BP in over 6,000 feet of water when a gauge suggested a leak from the blowout preventer. It took nearly an hour for a robot submarine to reach the valve and determine that it was leaking drilling fluid. The robot tried to shut down the well, but didn't have enough hydraulic fluid to add to the valve.

A second robot shut down the well about five hours after the problem arose. Investigators estimated 54 barrels of fluid spilled into the Gulf.

MMS investigators found that debris had gotten into the blowout preventer and reduced its effectiveness. The agency said the problem was caused in part by "extended use of [the blowout preventer] without inspection/maintenance."

Transocean said it couldn't comment on details of the incident. BP, the owner of the well being drilled, was cited by the MMS for failing to prevent a spill.

Most incidents reported to the MMS take place in shallow water, either on "jack-up" rigs that stand on the sea floor or on small, often unmanned platforms that produce oil and gas from the thousands of wells in the Gulf drilled in the offshore industry's 60-year history.

Transocean operates only a few rigs in shallow water. It specializes in a new frontier, drilling from huge floating rigs that are either anchored to the sea floor or kept in place with satellite-controlled thrusters. This work is done for major oil producers such as BP, Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. Transocean was founded in Louisiana in 1926 as Danciger Oil & Refining Co., and was based in the U.S. until it relocated to Switzerland in 2008, partly for tax reasons.

BP is Transocean's biggest client in the Gulf of Mexico, hiring four of the 14 rigs the driller had there at the time of the fire. The Deepwater Horizon had worked on BP projects for years, and BP just last year extended its $500,000-a-day contract.

Oil companies typically review contractors' safety and environmental records before hiring them. Transocean's business could suffer if it develops a reputation for problems, said Arun Jayaram, an energy analyst with Credit Suisse in New York. "You just wonder if the incident makes it a little bit more challenging for Transocean," he said.

Transocean's Mr. McMahan said he didn't believe the incident would hurt the company's ability to find customers.

BP said last week it was asking all contractors to review their safety procedures and in particular to confirm that blowout preventers meet industry standards. Transocean is complying with the request, Mr. McMahan said.

Transocean Chief Executive Steven Newman told investors in a May 6 conference call that two rigs in India were offline in the quarter, in one case because of a problem with the blowout preventer. He said the company had "put in place a team specifically looking at the performance of the deep-water fleet" and to deal with equipment problems.

Transocean's 2009 safety record, as measured by injuries per hour worked, is better than the overall industry average. Companywide, Transocean had 0.77 injuries per 200,000 man hours, vs. 0.81 for all offshore rigs world-wide, including those in both deep and shallow water, according to statistics compiled by the International Association of Drilling Contractors. Still, its record was worse than those of some big deep-water competitors. Noble Corp. had 0.47 injuries per 200,000 hours, and Ensco PLC had 0.6.

Safety has improved for the industry as a whole, including at Transocean, whose injury rate has fallen 16% since 2007, according to securities filings.

Transocean's board was sufficiently concerned about safety that it eliminated all executive bonuses for 2009 after four workers died aboard rigs in separate incidents. In a securities filing 20 days before the Deepwater Horizon accident, Transocean said the move would "underscore the company's commitment to safety" and give executives incentives to prevent accidents. The company said Mr. Newman, who took over as CEO March 1, and other managers brought the proposal to the board.

Recent years have seen a rapid increase in deep-water drilling as companies push farther out in search of oil. The number of rigs able to drill in 3,000 or more feet of water is up 43% since 2006, to 146, according to research firm ODS-Petrodata. Sixty-five more are under construction.

Contractors have struggled to find enough experienced workers. Veteran crews are sometimes poached by new competitors, leaving rigs with less-experienced workers. "You've had trained personnel at a shortage, people stealing experienced crews," said Mike Smith, president of Bassoe Offshore, which advises companies on buying and selling offshore rigs. Mr. Smith said both BP and Transocean have strong safety records.

There are indications Transocean's reputation suffered after it acquired GlobalSantaFe in 2007. Before the merger, Transocean routinely ranked near the top in surveys by Energy Point Research, which rates oil-service firms on customer satisfaction. Since the merger, Transocean's rankings have fallen to close to the bottom in many categories.

In 2008 and 2009, the surveys ranked Transocean last among deep-water drillers for "job quality" and second to last in "overall satisfaction." For three years before the merger, Transocean was the leader or near the top in both measures.

Transocean ranked first in 2008 and 2009 in a category that gauges its in-house safety and environmental policies. In a category that measured perceived environmental and safety record, Transocean ranked in the middle of the pack in the polls.

In anonymous comments submitted with the surveys, some customers cited the merger as a problem. "The company is so large, they don't even know which assets and related equipment are available and when," an engineer with a major oil company wrote last September.

Other comments were positive. Transocean "is our rig contractor of choice," one said in 2008. A customer in 2009 called Transocean "the prototype of an offshore driller for the next several decades."

Mr. McMahan said that the merger had gone well but that, as with most mergers, the joined companies had to learn how to communicate and work together.

"It's a merger of two like companies with very similar cultures," Mr. McMahan said.

The Source (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704307804575234471807539054.html)

Spang

05-12-2010, 06:18 PM

BP knew of problems hours before blast

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- BP knew of problems with an offshore well hours before it exploded last month, spilling millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, a House committee chairman said Wednesday.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said the oil company told the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight privately that the well failed a key pressure test just hours before it exploded on April 20.

The test indicated pressure was building up in the well, which could indicate oil or gas was seeping in and could lead to an explosion, said Waxman.

"Yet it appears the companies did not suspend operations, and now 11 workers are dead and the Gulf faces an environmental catastrophe," he said, asking why work wasn't stopped on the well.

Witnesses before the panel, which included executives from the three primary companies working on the well - BP, Transocean, and Halliburton - said the course of events and actions leading up to the explosion is still under investigation, and will come to light over time.

BP's deepwater oil well, 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana, is now leaking some 200,000 gallons of crude a day following theexplosion that claimed 11 lives.

Lawmakers also wanted to know a valve sitting atop the well, known as a blowout preventer, known as a BOP, failed to close and avert the disaster.

"It is far too early to draw conclusions about how the incident occurred," said Jack Moore, president and CEO of Cameron International (CAM, Fortune 500), the company that built the device. "Our BOPs have a very long history of reliable performance, including performance in some of the harshest operating conditions in the world."

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., said the blowout preventer may have failed for four reasons: Modifications to it may have reduced the number of shears that can close the well; a hydraulic leak may have knocked it out of commission; it may have hit a section of pipe that was too thick to cut; and its battery power may have died.

The executives said the blowout preventer is not designed to handle all situations, especially when it becomes clogged with debris from an actual explosion.

"I would think that your blowout preventer should be designed to handle that," said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas.

Lawmakers also criticized proposed efforts to seal the well by injecting rubber debris down the top, including old golf balls and bits of tires.

"The American people expect a response on par with the Apollo Project, not Project Runway," said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass.
Senate hearings

On Tuesday, hearings in the Senate focused on similar themes: what caused the well to explode, and why the blowout preventer did not work.

Three executives from the three principal companies working on the well all blamed each other.

BP (BP), which owns the well and subcontracted the other companies to work on it, said it was Transocean's job to ensure that the blowout preventer was functioning. Transocean was the owner of the drilling rig that sunk, the Deepwater Horizon, and also owned the blowout preventer.

Transocean (RIG) said the blowout preventer worked just fine in tests, and that it may have gotten jammed with concrete or other well fluids that were injected by a third contractor, causing the well to explode. Either way, argued Transocean's president, it was the faulty well, not the rig or the blowout preventer, that ultimately caused the leak.

Halliburton (HAL, Fortune 500) was the third contractor; it injected cement and other well fluids into the hole before the explosion. But a Halliburton exec said it was only following the orders of BP, which wanted a heavier fluid, known as mud, removed from the well before the well was capped with a concrete plug.
The risks and rewards of offshore drilling

Some senators, citing a Wall Street Journal report, said this process of removing the heavy fluid before the concrete plug is installed is unusual in deep water drilling, and suggested it may have caused the accident by allowing the highly pressurized oil and gas to escape. But Halliburton's executive said the process was not out of the ordinary.

The Minerals Management Service, the federal agency that regulates offshore drilling, has also come under fire in the wake of the spill.

On Tuesday, senators wanted to know why there weren't other back-up systems in place to stop a leak besides the blowout preventer, and questioned why the blowout preventer may not have been able to cut through thicker sections of pipe to pinch it shut and stop a leak. Lawmakers also questioned the agency's relationship with the oil industry, which some have described as cozy.

The Obama administration announced plans Tuesday to split the agency in two, thus removing an apparent conflict of interest between the drive to maximize oil production and efforts to ensure safety, which could slow drilling down.

Under federal law, BP, as the lead project operator, is responsible for all clean-up costs associated with the spill.

While the subcontractors are thought to have some legal indemnification from BP and the federal government, lawyers say they could still be open to lawsuits from fisherman and others affected by the spill.

Ultimately, experts have said the total cost of the spill could range from $2 billion to $14 billion or higher, depending on when the leaking well is closed and where the oil washes ashore.

The Source (http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/12/news/companies/bp_house_hearing/index.htm?hpt=T1)

Spang

05-13-2010, 04:21 AM

DRILL, BABY, DRILL!

Spang

05-14-2010, 02:31 PM

An Oil Drilling Company Even Sarah Palin Can Hate

Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded and is still spewing millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, is sending a message loud and clear: it intends to assume very little financial responsibility for the disaster. In a filing submitted to a federal court in Houston this week, the company has invoked an obscure, 159-year-old law to contend that it should only have to pay for the cost of salvaging the debris of the rig from the ocean.

This is a claim so outrageous that even Sarah Palin is complaining about it. The former-half-term Governor of Alaska and drilling cheerleader-in-chief took to Twitter late on Thursday to lambaste Transocean:

Oil spill states:FIGHT that 150-yr-old,irrelevant maritime law thats used as claim to NOT apply remedy to innocent injured people;Alaska did

Palin is referring to the aftermath of Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989, when Exxon also attempted to use the Limitation of Shipowner's Liability Act of 1851 to curb its liability for the incident. The company wasn't successful, though it managed to drag out the legal case for almost two decades and ultimately paid just $500 million in damages—a fraction of the disaster's total cost.

The Deepwater Horizon rig was valued at $500 million before it blew up on April 20 and later sank to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Now it's worth only $27 million. If Transocean's bid is successful, the company could dodge paying not only any environmental damages, but also for compensating its employees who were injured in the blast. McClatchy reports:

In a statement, Transocean said the court petition was filed at the request of its insurance companies, and the petition will allow the company to consolidate all outstanding lawsuits before a single federal judge in Houston. The company said it now faces more than 100 lawsuits over the spill in several states.

Lawyers for those injured in the blast said the petition could also prevent any claims filed more than six months after the accident.

"It's very unfair," said Matthew Shaffer, a Houston attorney who represents a handful of Transocean employees injured in the blast. "It's a slap in the face to anyone who has been injured because of their negligence."

It remains murky which of the companies involved in the spill deserves the lion's share of the blame. BP maintains that the problem was with Transocean's rig; Transocean blames contractor Halliburton for a bad cement job. Halliburton says it was just following orders from BP.

But regardless of who's the biggest culprit, it's rather rich for Palin to be posing as the champion of those injured by the spill. Even in the midst of the disaster, she was defending offshore drilling (including in a Facebook post titled "Domestic Drilling: Why We Can Still Believe"). "I want our country to be able to trust the oil industry," she said in a recent speech. But as all three of the major players in the Gulf spill scramble to avoid responsibility, it's not clear why Palin thinks the industry has earned that trust.

The Source (http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/05/transocean-oil-company-even-sarah-palin-can-hate)

Spang

05-15-2010, 03:05 PM

Gulf oil spill: BP's latest attempt to stop leak encounters problem [Updated]

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says BP had a problem with its latest attempt to stop the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill but is continuing the effort to stick a mile-long tube into the gusher at the ocean floor.

Salazar offered few details about the snag that occurred early Saturday during a briefing at a bird rescue center near Ft. Jackson, La.

BP technicians have been carefully trying to guide the skinny tube into a leaking oil pipe to siphon crude to the surface.

A stopper surrounding the tube would keep oil from leaking into the ocean. Salazar said the company had to reconfigure its approach but is continuing the work.

“They are back down again … trying to get it inserted,” Salazar said, although he wouldn't elaborate. A BP spokesman said he hadn't received the report Salazar had, so he couldn't comment on it.

[Updated at 9:55 a.m.: BP has offered scant details of its progress in trying to thread the 6-inch tube into the 21-inch pipe spewing oil from the ocean floor. Company spokesmen said technicians were continuing the methodical work of using joysticks to guide the deep-sea robots that are manipulating the contraption, but wouldn't elaborate on Salazar's report.

"We've never done such operations before and we need to take our time to get it right," BP spokesman Jon Pack said in an e-mail Saturday.]

The Source (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/05/gulf-oil-spill-bps-latest-attempt-to-stop-leak-encounters-problem.html)

CGP

05-16-2010, 12:59 PM

YouTube- Purdue Professor calculates oil loss

CGP

05-16-2010, 01:38 PM

YouTube- Giant Oil 'Plumes' Detected in Gulf of Mexico

Laura Cereta

05-16-2010, 03:05 PM

http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/uu212/2059911/image.jpg

Spang

05-16-2010, 03:38 PM

Tube Catches ‘Some’ Oil From Leak

NEW ORLEANS, La. — An experimental attempt to stop an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico experienced some limited success over the weekend, BP announced Sunday afternoon.

Engineers successfully inserted a tube into the damaged riser pipe from which some of the oil is spewing, capturing “some amounts of oil and gas” before the tube was dislodged, the announcement said. The tube was inspected and reinserted, BP said.

“While not collecting all of the leaking oil, this tool is an important step in reducing the amount of oil being released into Gulf waters,” the announcement said. It did not say why the tube had come dislodged or how much oil and gas were taken aboard the Discover Enterprise, the drill ship waiting to separate the oil, gas and water as it is siphoned off. The gas that reached the ship was burned using a flare system on board.

The tube is one of several proposed methods of stanching the flow of at least 210,000 gallons of oil a day into the Gulf, threatening marine life and sensitive wetlands and beaches in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. BP officials have emphasized that none of the techniques has been previously attempted at the depth of this leak, 5,000 feet below the surface.

Efforts to insert the tube, a five-foot section of pipe with a rubber seal designed to keep seawater out, into the broken riser pipe from which the majority of the oil is gushing, began on Friday using robotic submarines.

But the initial attempt to connect the mile-long pipe leading from the drill ship to the tube failed, and the device had to be brought back to the surface for adjustments.

“This is all part of reinventing technology,” said Tom Mueller, a BP spokesman, on Saturday. “It’s not what I’d call a problem — it’s what I’d call learning, reconfiguring, doing it again.”

BP still has an array of untested short-term options for reducing the flow, including a small “top hat” that could be placed over the leak, a “junk shot” that would involve plugging the blowout preventer at the well’s opening with debris like old tires, and a “top kill” that would pump mud and cement into the preventer in an attempt to seal the opening.

The long-term solution, already under way, is to drill two relief wells, a process that will not be completed until August, officials said.

The Source (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/17/us/17spill.html?src=twt&twt=nytimes)

Spang

05-16-2010, 04:17 PM

Massive underwater oil plumes found off US Gulf Coast

Scientists have found vast underwater plumes of oil, one 10 miles (16km) long and a mile wide, in the Gulf of Mexico following last month's rig explosion.

A Georgia University expert warned oxygen levels had fallen 30% in some areas of the sea, and it could take decades to repair the damage.

BP meanwhile says it has successfully inserted a pipe to siphon oil from the damaged well up to a ship.

The US government has demanded BP make clear its commitment to pay damages.

Researchers from the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology say they have detected several sprawling oil slicks lurking just beneath the surface of the sea and at depths of 4,000ft (1,200m).

Dead zones

The find suggests the scale of the potential environmental disaster is much worse than previously feared since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blew up on 20 April, killing 11 workers.

Samantha Joye, a marine science professor at the University of Georgia, said: "It could take years, possibly decades, for the system to recover from an infusion of this quantity of oil and gas.

"We've never seen anything like this before. It's impossible to fathom the impact."

The experts say the oxygen depletion is likely to continue, endangering sea life and raising the prospect of underwater dead zones.

The scientists said the chemical dispersants BP has been dumping underwater may be preventing the oil from rising to the top of the ocean.

Official estimates doubted

The energy giant has said the chemicals, which it began deploying on Friday, have already resulted in less oil surfacing.

Some scientists cast doubt on official estimates of the oil flow rate, saying the widely repeated figure of 5,000 barrels per day dramatically understates the real amount.

On Sunday, BP said it had successfully inserted a 6in-wide (15cm) tube into the well a mile beneath the surface and diverted some oil and gas to a ship above.

The firm said the test was halted when the tube became dislodged on Saturday night, but the pipe had since been re-inserted.

It could capture more than three-quarters of the leak; BP must also contain a smaller spill on the seabed nearby.

A week ago, BP tried to cap the well with a 100-tonne box, but gave up after it became encrusted with ice crystals.

On Saturday, the Obama administration demanded immediate clarification from BP over its commitment to pay damages for the spill.

Officials said they wanted to be sure BP would honour commitments not to limit costs to a US statutory cap of $75m (£50m).

It is not clear what prompted the letter as BP said last week the cap was irrelevant and it would settle all costs.

Mississippi has become the third US state to have traces of oil wash up on its coast, along with Louisiana and Alabama.

The spill is threatening to eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez leak off Alaska as America's worst environmental disaster.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/47858000/gif/_47858940_oil_spill_466_static_16may.gif

The Source (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8685368.stm)

Spang

05-16-2010, 05:29 PM

Oil Leak: What Does the Discovery of Oil Plumes Mean?

Scientists studying aboard a research ship in the gulf are discovering huge underwater oil plumes up to 10 miles long, a result of the April 20 oil rig explosion in the Gulf. But what do the plumes mean?

Experts already know that 210,000 gallons of oil have been spilling into the Gulf of Mexico a day for more than three weeks. This weekend, BP worked to insert a tube into the damaged oil pipe, with small degrees of success. But the newly-discovered oil plumes now alert experts to an greater problem: depth. The plumes drastically reduce oxygen levels, which can then kill wildlife at a high rate.

Researchers aboard the ship Pelican from the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology discovered the plumes, the New York Times reported Saturday night. One plume was 10 miles long, three miles wide, and 300 feet thick.

So why does it matter that the oil is in a plume? “That means there’s a whole bunch of oil moving around in the system and nobody knows where it will wind up,” Ray Highsmith, the executive director of the Institute studying the spill, told TIME. “There’s so much oil coming out of that leak. It could really drive an awful lot of microbial activity and resulting chemical reactions that result in oxygen depletion. That could go on for a long time.” Plumes typically move in mass, often with the current, and can become harder to detect over time, he said.

The plume discovery magnifies the oil spill’s worsening consequences. It’s clear that the government and BP don’t really know how much damage the spill has caused. While BP and the rig owner Horizon point fingers, scientists must cope with what could turn into a tragic loss of deep sea life.

The Source (http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/05/16/oil-leak-what-does-the-discovery-of-oil-plumes-mean/)

Spang

05-16-2010, 11:57 PM

(No Nudity)

Spang

05-17-2010, 04:43 AM

AP: Feds severely neglected inspections of offshore drilling rigs

The federal agency responsible for ensuring that the Deepwater Horizon was operating safely before it exploded last month fell well short of its own policy that the rig be inspected at least once per month, an Associated Press investigation shows.

In fact, the agency's inspection frequency on the Deepwater Horizon fell dramatically over the past five years, according to federal Minerals Management Service records. The rig blew up April 20, killing 11 people before sinking and triggering a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Since January 2005, inspectors issued just one minor infraction for the rig. That strong track record led the agency last year to herald the Deepwater Horizon as an industry model for safety.

The inspection gaps are the latest in a series of questions raised about the agency's oversight of the oil drilling industry. Members of Congress and President Barack Obama have criticized what they call the cozy relationship between regulators and oil companies and vowed to reform MMS, which both regulates the industry and collects billions in royalties from it.

Earlier AP investigations have shown that the doomed rig was allowed to operate without safety documentation required by MMS regulations for the exact disaster scenario that occurred; that the cutoff valve which failed has repeatedly broken down at other wells in the years since regulators weakened testing requirements; and that regulation is so lax that some key safety aspects on rigs are decided almost entirely by the companies doing the work.

The AP sought to find out how many times government safety inspectors visited the Deepwater Horizon, and what they found. In response, MMS officials offered a changing series of numbers. The MMS has had long-standing issues with its data management.

At first, officials said 83 inspections had been performed since the rig arrived in the Gulf 104 months ago, in September 2001. While being questioned about the once-per-month claim, the officials subsequently revised the total up to 88 inspections. The number of more recent inspections also changed — from 26 to 48 in the 64 months since January 2005.

No explanation was given for the upward revisions. AP granted the officials anonymity because without that condition, communications staff at the Interior Department, which oversees MMS, would not have let them talk.

Based on the last set of numbers provided, the Deepwater Horizon was inspected 40 times during its first 40 months in the Gulf — in line with agency policy for offshore drilling rigs.

Even using the more favorable numbers for the most recent 64 months, 25 percent of monthly inspections were not performed. The first set of data supplied to AP represented a 59 percent shortfall in the number of inspections.

Interior Department spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff would not comment on the inspection numbers. Instead, she offered a general statement: "We are looking at all the questions that are coming out of the Deepwater Horizon incident."

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by AP, the agency has released copies of only three inspection reports — those conducted in January, February and April. According to the documents, inspectors spent two hours or less each time they visited the massive rig. Some information appeared to be "whited out," without explanation.

Since the explosion, the agency has reiterated several times the inspection-once-per-month assertion, which appeared on its website at least as early as 1999.

In an e-mail to AP, an Interior Department official emphasized with italics that the MMS inspects rigs "at least once a month" when drilling is under way. Monthly inspections of offshore drilling rigs are an agency policy, though not required by regulation, said David Dykes, chief of the agency's office of safety management for the Gulf region.

Last week, at a joint Coast Guard-MMS investigatory hearing in Kenner, La., MMS official Jason Mathews asked Michael Saucier, MMS's regional supervisor for field operations in the Gulf, "And how often do we perform drilling inspections in the Gulf of Mexico?"

"We perform them at a minimum once a month, but we can do more if need be," Saucier said.

The job falls to the 55 inspectors in the Gulf who are supposed to visit the 90 drilling rigs once per month and the approximately 3,500 oil production platforms once per year.

The Deepwater Horizon's inspection frequency numbers struck Kenneth Arnold, a veteran offshore drilling consultant and engineer.

"I'd certainly question it," he said. "I'd ask, 'Why aren't you doing it?'"

When the AP did ask, MMS and Interior would not answer directly. Instead providing a set of conditions when a rig would not typically be inspected — including during bad weather, when it is jumping among short-term jobs, when a rig is preparing to drill or is done drilling but hasn't left for another site.

Transocean Ltd., which owned the Deepwater Horizon and leased it to BP PLC, would not provide a detailed accounting of the rig's activity history. According to RigData, a Texas firm that monitors offshore activity in the Gulf, the Deepwater Horizon was working approximately 2,896 days of the 3,131 days since it started its first well — about 93 percent of the time. That number represents the total number of days between when the Deepwater Horizon broke the sea floor during a drilling operation to when it was released to another site.

A summary of the inspection history that the MMS officials provided AP said the Deepwater Horizon received six "incidents of noncompliance" — the agency's term for citations.

The most serious occurred July 16, 2002, when the rig was shut down because required pressure tests had not been conducted on parts of the rig's blowout preventer — the device that was supposed to stop oil from gushing out if drilling operations experienced problems.

That citation was "major," said Arnold, who characterized the overall safety record related by MMS as strong.

A citation on Sept. 19, 2002, also involved the blowout preventer. The inspector issued a warning because "problems or irregularities observed during the testing of BOP system and actions taken to remedy such problems or irregularities are not recorded in the driller's report or referenced documents."

During his Senate testimony last week, Transocean CEO Steven Newman said the blowout preventer was modified in 2005.

According to MMS officials, the four other citations were:

_ Two on May 16, 2002, for not conducting well control drills as required and not performing "all operations in a safe and workmanlike manner."

_ One on Aug. 6, 2003, for discharging pollutants into the Gulf.

_ One on March 20, 2007, which prompted inspectors to shut down some machinery because of improper electrical grounding.

Late last week, several days after providing the detailed accounting, Interior officials told AP that in fact there had been only five citations, that one had been rescinded. The officials said they could not immediately say which of the six had been rescinded.

The agency's problems with providing information extends to the data on display on its website. For example, the accounting of accident and incident reports is incomplete, making it very difficult to perform a thorough data analysis of the agency's performance and preventing a full accurate tracking of safety records of the rigs.

Data problems date back at least a decade. According to John Shultz, who as a graduate student in the late 1990s studied MMS' inspection program in depth for his dissertation, the agency's data infrastructure was severely limited.

"The thing I regret most is that, to my knowledge, MMS has not fixed the data management problem they have," said Shultz, who now works in the Department of Energy's nuclear program. "If you have the data you need, the analysis becomes fairly straightforward. Without the data, you're simply stuck with conjectures."

Whatever the correct citation total — five or six — the Deepwater Horizon's record was exemplary, according to MMS officials, who said the rig was never on inspectors' informal "watch list" for problem rigs. In fact, last year MMS awarded the rig an award for its safety history.

The Source (http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0516/ap-feds-severely-neglected-inspections-offshore-drilling-rigs/)

Kelle

05-17-2010, 11:49 AM

Spang,
I'm not following this as closely as you but the other day I heard a story about first response practice drills done as recently as months before this incident which should have put everyone (the government as well as the industry) on notice that the oil soaking booms wouldn't contain the oil.

I tried googling and meta-searching this the other day but didn't get anywhere.

Have you heard anything about that?

kel

foxyladi

05-17-2010, 11:55 AM

looking better got it plugged ..(_hope.).

Spang

05-18-2010, 02:37 AM

Have you heard anything about that?

Not yet, but here's another article (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6430AR20100518):

U.S. to probe spill, containment efforts in high gear

(Reuters) - The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will be in the political spotlight in Washington Tuesday as energy giant BP scrambled to contain crude spewing from its ruptured deep-water well.

President Barack Obama will create a presidential commission to probe the disaster as the oil industry and its practices come under sharp scrutiny in the face of a looming economic and ecological calamity in the Gulf.

"Whether it's a nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island or an oil blowout one mile deep, appointing an independent review panel is critical to reduce the risks of future accidents," said Edward Markey, chairman of a House of Representatives committee on global warming and energy independence.

The presidential commission will investigate issues related to the spill and its aftermath, including rig safety and regulatory regimes at the local, state and federal levels.

The federal government's oversight role, environmental protections, and the "structure and functions" of the Minerals Management Service, the Interior Department agency that has been heavily criticized for regulatory lapses, also will be on the panel's agenda.

With a shakeup of the agency imminent, Chris Oynes, the top official overseeing its offshore oil and gas drilling, announced he would retire at the end of the month.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is due to face questions from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday about the agency's failings on issues surrounding the oil spill and how the Interior Department will be reformed.

A Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the oil spill is also due to question BP America President Lamar McKay and Steven Newman, president of Transocean, which owned the rig that exploded and was working on behalf of BP Plc.

SOME PROGRESS

London-based BP said its latest "quick fix" -- a mile-long siphon tube deployed by undersea robots down to the leaking well-- was capturing about a fifth of the oil leaking from the ruptured well. Officials cautioned that the tube is helping contain the oil but will not stop the flow.

"I do feel that we have, for the first time, turned the corner in this challenge," BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward said in Florida. BP's stock rose more than 2 percent in London on the news but later shed its gains.

Investors have knocked $30 billion off BP's value over the spill, which followed the April 20 rig explosion that killed 11 workers and the fallout it faces is ramping up.

The disaster has hurt BP's image, already tarnished in the United States from a 2006 spill in Alaska from a BP-owned pipeline and 2005 fire at the company's Texas City refinery that killed 15 workers and injured 180.

Battling to salvage its reputation, BP said Monday it was providing grants to Gulf coast states to help them promote tourism.

Tourism and fishing are two of the economic mainstays in a region known for its beaches, wildlife and mild climate.

While the U.S. Gulf Coast has so far been spared a massive landfall of heavy oil, small amounts in the form of surface sheen and tar balls, have come ashore in outlying parts of the coastline of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

"People are freaking out. They see the news and think oil is everywhere, but it is not," said Michael Dorie, co-owner of Wild Native and Five Rivers Delta Safaris, which takes people on eco-tours of Alabama's Mobile Tensaw Delta.

"If it all dries up and disappears, well the highlight of my tours is wildlife and pretty flowers. Take that away and my tour becomes just a boat ride. If people see oil slicked birds, how many more will not come?"

Spang

05-18-2010, 02:43 AM

It's also quite interesting how silent the "drill, baby, drill" crowd has been (http://www.commongroundpolitics.net/discussion/misc.php?do=whoposted&t=56326) in this thread.

Laura Cereta

05-18-2010, 09:21 AM

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/166870/thumbs/r-KEY-WEST-OIL-SPILL-FLORIDA-huge.jpg (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/17/tar-balls-key-west_n_579660.html)

Laura Cereta

05-18-2010, 11:48 AM

Is the spill already here? (http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/article1095742.ece)

http://www.tampabay.com/multimedia/archive/00122/01_TarBalls051910_4_122284a.jpg

Laura Cereta

05-18-2010, 11:50 AM

It's also quite interesting how silent the "drill, baby, drill" crowd has been (http://www.commongroundpolitics.net/discussion/misc.php?do=whoposted&t=56326) in this thread.

Isn't it? Kind of like how silent the Obama crowd is in threads about his Bush policies on terrorism and his drilling proposal and...

foxyladi

05-18-2010, 01:18 PM

Isn't it? Kind of like how silent the Obama crowd is in threads about his Bush policies on terrorism and his drilling proposal and...

oh snap.....

Spang

05-19-2010, 12:45 AM

Florida Florida Florida

Here is your lesson in pure unadulterated bullshit for the day…

British Petroleum would have you, me and everyone else believe that there is around 5000 barrels of oil spilling from the disaster that was the deep water horizon…

Independent estimates based on the video that BP finally released put the number at somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000 barrels a day…

Who’s right? Let’s run the numbers shall we?

5,000 barrels a day breaks down like this:

5,000 barrels x 42 gallons per barrel = 210,000 gallons per day.

210,000 gallons per day / 24 hours = 8,750 gallons per hour.

8,750 gallons per hour / 60 minutes = 145.8 gallons per minute.

145.8 gallons per minute / 60 seconds = 2.4 gallons per second.

70,000 barrels a day breaks down like this:

70,000 barrels x 42 gallons per barrel = 2,940,000 gallons per day.

2,940,000 gallons per day / 24 hours = 122,500 gallons per hour.

122,500 gallons per hour / 60 minutes = 2041.6 gallons per minute.

2041.6 gallons per minute / 60 seconds = 34 gallons per second.

So it is either 2.4 gallons per second or 34 gallons per second… Now watch this video and tell me that BP isn’t blowing smoke even faster than they are blowing oil.

The “Drill Baby Drill” crowd is going to suck on this and hard in the midterms just think for a moment of the timeline… think about how Florida will feel about this spill by November, and think, just for a moment, of the words uttered by the late Tim Russert…

Florida

Florida

Florida

The Source (http://www.arrghpaine.com/2010/05/florida-florida-florida.html)

Spang

05-19-2010, 02:55 AM

It looks like the Republicans wants the taxpayers to pay for the cleanup. The tea party people should be outraged. I doubt it, though.

Bill to Raise Oil Spill Cap Rejected Again

Democrats tried again this morning to bring up their "Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act," a measure that would raise the liability cap for major oil spills from $75 million to $10 billion. And once again, that effort was shot down by Republicans—this time by the Senate's climate-change-denier-in-chief, Oklahoma's James Inhofe.

In blocking the measure, Inhofe made the same argument that Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski made last week. The two Republicans worry that a $10 billion cap would bar small players from entering the offshore drilling business. Inhofe also made sure to include some scare-mongering about China and Venezuela for good measure. Yep, that's Inhofe—always looking out for the underdogs:

Big oil would love to have these caps up there so they can shut out all the independents. Now we have independents, my state of Oklahoma, and right now 63 percent of the Gulf's natural gas and 36 percent of its oil are produced by independents. Now what you do if you raise the caps right now precipitously to this high, you will help the five big oil companies, including BP, give them exclusive rights, you help the nationalized oil companies such as those in China and Venezuela.

Unfortunately for supporters of raising the damage cap, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar gave Inhofe and Murkowski's obstruction a boost on Tuesday. While Salazar maintained the Obama administration's position that the cap should be raised, he indicated that $10 billion is too high (despite the fact that the Gulf spill is already on course to exceed that figure). "You don’t want only the BPs of the world to be involved in these operations," said Salazar. He said that the administration "will work with you and other members of Congress to get to a number that makes sense."

Robert Menendez (D-NJ), a co-sponsor of the bill to raise the cap, balked at Salazar's suggestion. "That simply means if you're smaller you can get away with taking the same risk and having less liability."

The Source (http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/05/bill-raise-oil-spill-cap-rejected-again)

Spang

05-19-2010, 02:00 PM

Gulf oil now in powerful Loop Current, scientists say

The first oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill has entered an ocean current that could take it to Florida and up the east coast of the US, scientists say.

The European Space Agency said satellite images suggested oil could reach the coral reefs of the Florida Keys within six days.

"We have visible proof that at least oil from the surface... has reached the current," said Dr Bertrand Chapron.

The ESA images show a stream of oil extending south into the Loop Current.

Meanwhile, the US Coast Guard said tests showed that tar balls that washed up on Florida beaches in recent days did not originate from the oil spill off Louisiana.

It is unclear where the tar balls came from, coast guard officials said.
Turbulent system

ESA scientists described the Loop Current as a "conveyor belt" that joins the Gulf Stream, the most important current in the northern hemisphere.

If oil is dragged into the Gulf Stream, it could be carried up the east coast of the US, they said.

The scientists warned that the turbulent Loop Current could mix the oil and water, making it difficult to track the oil's progress in the coming days.

"This might remove the oil film on the surface and prevent us from tracking it with satellites, but the pollution is likely to affect the coral reef marine ecosystem," Dr Fabrice Collard said.

The Source (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10127904.stm)

Spang

05-19-2010, 02:40 PM

More Alarming Spill Footage

Senators released several new terrifying videos of the well gushing oil into the Gulf yesterday. But the video below is perhaps the most shocking of all: footage of the spill site from Monday, May 17—the day after a pipe was inserted into the well to siphon a portion of the spill to the surface.

According to BP, the riser--a device that operates like a catheter--has allowed crews to capture 1,000 barrels of oil each day. That would be about one-fifth of the oil, if you believe BP's estimate of the total size of the spill. But many people don't think BP's estimate is accurate. Outside estimates range from 26,000 barrels per day to 71,400. If that's the case, siphoning off 1,000 barrels isn't really all that much. BP, mind you, refused to release images of the spill site for weeks, and only released this new round of videos yesterday under pressure from senators. The company has clearly tried to keep the public from seeing exactly what is going on in the Gulf.

BP plans to use a "junk shot" to plug the well this weekend, a method the company describes as choking off the flow of oil and natural gas by shooting debris down the well. This is the latest effort to stop the spill—after capping it failed twice. But if the junk shot fails, experts say it would take until August for BP to drill a relief well.

So if this is what the well looks like with the temporary fix in place, we could be in for months of spillage at an unknown (and likely very high) rate.

DRILL, BABY, DRILL!

The Source (http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/05/more-alarming-spill-footage)

Spang

05-19-2010, 06:31 PM

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/7Bd08cfda1-f722-4ce5-b05c-ea0e4d202.jpg

Spang

05-19-2010, 06:51 PM

Where Will the Deepwater Horizon Oil End Up?

The short answer is everywhere--the sea surface, deep waters, the Gulf Coast, in deepwater corals and even as far as the Arctic

As a tendril of oil from BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster creeps south in the Gulf of Mexico—potentially already caught up in the swirl of a massive conveyor of ocean water known as the Loop Current—the larger question is, where will the at least 5 million gallons of oil already spilled end up?

"The proximity of the southeast tendril to the Loop Current means it is increasingly likely to become entrained," said marine biologist Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at a press briefing on May 18. If that happens, the oil will "reach Florida straits in eight to 10 days." Though tar balls found in Key West have not been linked to the ongoing spill, "the tar balls washing ashore in the Florida Keys are an example of what might happen should the oil become entrained in the Loop Current," Lubchenco said.

The Loop Current is just one part of a massive system of oceanic conveyor belts—and one that feeds into the more broadly known Gulf Stream that flows past the entire U.S. East Coast. At the same time, an eddy—a swirling maelstrom of seawater—is flowing in a circle directly above the Loop Current in the Gulf. So the oil is like a baseball in a pitching machine, caught between two swirling currents and just as likely to head north to the Gulf Coast as south to Florida and the Atlantic.

"If this stuff comes onshore, a lot of birds are going to die," said ecologist Roger Helm, chief of the division of environmental quality at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). As a result, the Department of the Interior has teamed with a number of Gulf states to submit a proposal to the Army Corps of Engineers to build a giant sandbar offshore of barrier islands—a relatively permanent way to keep the oil off the coast. "The project is still being developed," said FWS acting director Rowan Gould, a marine biologist, at the May 18 press briefing. "There is no timeline about when any decisions are going to be made."

As for oil beneath the surface, which may have been detected in massive plumes by the research vessel Pelican, that is more likely to remain in place. "Below 50 meters, the velocity of this current drops off dramatically," said NOAA chief science advisor Steve Murawski, a fisheries biologist, giving those oil particles more time to clump and sink to the bottom or wash ashore. But what happens when the oil hits those communities that live on the seafloor, such as Lophelia coral, remains unknown. "This ecosystem is not totally devoid of at least some hydrocarbons in the water," Murawski added. "Those issues are going to play out over time as we document where the oil has been and at what concentrations.... We've never had this substantial an oil leak a mile down."

Added NOAA director of marine mammal health and stranding response Teri Rowles, a veterinarian, impacts on "those species living in deep water, like sperm whales, may not be detected," because dead whales simply disappear beneath the waves. Plus, the use of dispersants beneath the surface to break up the oil into droplets may make it more damaging to deep-sea wildlife. "Instead of having big chunks of oil that are very buoyant and move very quickly to the surface, you have microdroplets with an enormous surface-to-volume ratio, which then are captured by the viscosity of the seawater. They're stuck down there," says environmental chemist Jeffrey Short of environmental group Oceana, who has studied the aftereffects of the Exxon Valdez spill. "Ancient deep-water corals, which are suspension feeders, are extraordinarily efficient at accumulating microdroplets of oil. It's a major unseen impact."

Much of the oil will also end up trapped in big eddies—like the infamous Pacific Garbage Patch or the Sargasso Sea—which is where sea turtles and other ocean life like to congregate. "Most of those mortalities will never make their way to shore to be counted," said NOAA national sea turtle coordinator Barbara Schroeder.

As a result of all this, NOAA has extended its fishery closures to shut down more than 45,000 square miles of Gulf waters—roughly 19 percent of all federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico. "This spill is significant and in all likelihood will affect fish and wildlife across the Gulf, if not all of North America, for years if not decades," said FWS's Gould. "We may never know the spill's impacts on many species of birds and marine life, given how far offshore they are found."

And ultimately, if the oil gets pulled by the Loop Current into the Gulf Stream, it will end up far to the north: the Arctic. "A lot depends on what the ocean currents do and what the winds do in terms of actual transportation," Lubchenco said, although it is clear that high-speed travel will expose the oil to more weathering and more dilution, which reduces its impact on ocean ecosystems. Once in the far north, the remnants of the oil would sink to the bottom, entering the cold, dark deep for a millennia-long journey along the seafloor. "This oil spill is unprecedented and dynamic," Lubchenco said, and it is likely to be part of the ocean for a long time.

The Source (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=where-will-the-deepwater-horizon-oil-end-up)

Spang

05-20-2010, 04:48 AM

BP Withholds Oil Spill Facts — and Government Lets It

WASHINGTON - BP, the company in charge of the rig that exploded last month in the Gulf of Mexico, hasn't publicly divulged the results of tests on the extent of workers' exposure to evaporating oil or from the burning of crude over the gulf, even though researchers say that data is crucial in determining whether the conditions are safe.

Moreover, the company isn't monitoring the extent of the spill and only reluctantly released videos of the spill site that could give scientists a clue to the amount of the oil in gulf.

BP's role as the primary source of information has raised questions about whether the government should intervene to gather such data and to publicize it and whether an adequate cleanup can be accomplished without the details of crude oil spreading across the gulf.

Under pressure from senators, BP released four videos Tuesday, but it hasn't agreed to better monitoring.

The company also hasn't publicly released air sampling for oil spill workers although Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the agency in charge of monitoring compliance with worker safety regulations, is relying on the information and has urged it to do so.

"It is not ours to publish," said Dean Wingo, OSHA's assistant regional administrator who oversees Louisiana. "We are working with (BP) and encouraging them to post the data so that it is publicly available."

Much of the worker exposure data is being collected by contractors hired by BP.

Toby Odone, a BP spokesman, said the company is sharing the data with "legitimate interested parties," which include government agencies and the private companies assisting in the cleanup. When asked whether the information can be released publicly, he responded, "Why would one do it? Any parties with a legitimate interest can have access to it."

Joseph T. Hughes Jr., the director of the worker education training program for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, said he didn't think "anyone has seen much of that data at all."

"The hard part about it is that in a normal response, when the government is doing this, there might be more transparency on the data," Hughes said. "In this case, when you have BP making the decisions and collecting the data it's harder to have that transparency."

Unlike the response to other past national disasters such as Hurricane Katrina where the government was in charge, BP has been designated as the "responsible party" under federal law and is overseeing much of the response to the spill. The government is acting more as an adviser.

So far, the government has been slow to press BP to release its data and permit others to evaluate the extent of the crisis.

"I think that one of the lessons learned here is whether the federal government should have more of a role in the response and not leave that decision-making in the hands of the responsible parties," said Hughes, whose institute was one of the first to raise questions about air quality at the World Trade Center site in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

A recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine found that many Sept. 11 rescue workers still suffer from impaired lung function.

The Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health, one of BP's consultants, is collecting air quality samples over the coast and the water.

"It's fair to say that a majority of the air monitoring along the shoreline is being done by our organization," said Glenn Millner, a partner with the CTEH and a principal toxicologist.

Gina Solomon, a medical doctor and a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said her environmental organization has been pressing the government to release the data, after hearing reports of fishermen concerned about exposure.

"The fact that OSHA is saying that it's safe is important because they have access to data that we don't have," she said. "It's sort of awkward to have to take that on face value given the fact that there are fishermen who feel they are getting sick."

The Environmental Protection Agency is releasing shoreline data on its website, but not information about the air quality workers encounter on the water.

OSHA has access to that data and is monitoring it to determine what type of equipment the workers should be issued and other questions related to worker safety. So far, the air quality does not require workers to receive respirators, Wingo said.

Millner said that data as a matter of practice is shared only with the oil clean up worker and the company overseeing the cleanup.

BP also has exercised considerable control over how much is known about the amount of oil gushing into the gulf.

Early on, the government estimated that 210,000 gallons was being released daily. That estimate was based on satellite observations of the water's surface.

The first look at the oil coming out of the pipe on the sea floor was a video clip that BP released last week in response to demands from reporters and others. It caused a stir because some experts who analyzed it estimated that the amount of oil pouring into the gulf was many times the government's official estimate.

Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., on Monday asked BP on Monday to provide all available video footage.

BP provided clips from several days of the spill on Tuesday.

The clips, however, would still result only in rough estimates because the oil flows at different rates at different times and it's mixed with gas, said BP spokesman Mark Proegler.

The company had no other equipment on the sea floor to monitor the amount of the flow, and no plans to install any.

"We've said from the beginning . . . it's difficult if not impossible to measure from the source of the flow," Proegler said on Tuesday. BP's focus is stopping the flow and keeping the oil away from shore, he said.

Jeff Short, an oil pollution expert and former National Marine Fisheries Service official who now works for the environmental group Oceana, said the estimate based on surface observations was very imprecise, and that looking at the flow rate from the pipe would be better.

"The public has the right to see what harm the environment is exposed to, and knowing the flow rate is fundamental to that," he said.

Judy McDowell, the chair of the biology department and a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts who's studied many oil spills, said that in addition to knowing the amount of oil flowing in, scientists also need to figure out how it's dispersing and breaking down in order to know what effect it would have on living organisms in the water.

Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of NOAA, said in testimony to a Senate committee Tuesday said it was important, but difficult to get a better estimate of the amount of oil. She said that the Coast Guard planned to set up a team to get a better estimate.

Some university researchers have been frustrated by the lack of data and the refusal of federal agencies to press BP to collect detailed measurements from the broken well pipe or fully assess what might be happening underwater.

"We have been screaming from day one for data,'' said Peter Ortner, a fisheries biologist at the University of Miami.

Ortner also said that NOAA had been slow to consider sub-surface effects and didn't deploy the sophisticated gear that might help surveying for submerged oil.

Lubchenco said Monday that the agency had been discussing ideas about more sensing gear on the ocean floor but said "the priority at this point is to stop the flow.''

Meanwhile, an analysis of satellite imagery by the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, reported Tuesday that the spill has grown to more than 7,500 square miles, or about the size of New Jersey.

The Source (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/05/19-0)

Spang

05-20-2010, 02:37 PM

Here's a live feed (http://globalwarming.house.gov/spillcam) of the oil spill.

Spang

05-20-2010, 03:55 PM

Why Is BP Still In Charge of the Spill Site?

With the Gulf spill now one month in, some lawmakers and environmentalists are starting to question why BP is still in charge of the containment and clean-up effort. The company’s attempts to cut off the spill have failed. The chemicals BP is spreading in the Gulf might be creating entirely new problems. And independent estimates of the spill indicate that the company is grossly underestimating the size of the disaster.

So why is BP still running the show? The government has launched an unprecedented response. But when it comes to crucial issues of control and decision-making, it seems like the oil giant is still in the driver's seat.

Let's start with the size of the spill. Outside estimates have put the volume as high as 4 million gallons of oil per day, based on analysis of video that BP finally released in the past week. Video released Tuesday only added to those concerns. But BP has only been releasing a limited amount of footage, at the demand of Congress. (BP American president Lamar McKay told a House panel on Wednesday that the higher number is "theoretically possible," but said he doesn't "think anyone who's been working on this thinks it's that high.") The Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, meanwhile, are still using the 5,000-gallon-per-day figure that BP has provided.

Rep. Ed Markey, chair of the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming, has called on the Coast Guard to force BP to relinquish control over the spill site. Markey has also pushed BP to post a live-streaming video of the spill that outside experts and the public can view, which the company consented to Wednesday evening.

"BP thinks this is their ocean, so they should be able to control the information," Markey said during a congressional briefing on the spill. "It's BP’s spill, but it’s America's ocean."

He told reporters Wednesday, "BP should not be allowed to decide as a result who is allowed to participate in the effort to first determine how large it is, but also what the dispersants are that are used, etc."

Steven Wereley, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Perdue University, told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that by his calculations on last week's video, the spill appears to be closer to 72,000 barrels per day–or more than 3 million gallons. He also analyzed a second, smaller leak shown in new video, which he believes alone may be leaking 25,000 gallons, he told House members Wednesday. But in order to get a more accurate reading, higher-quality, uncompressed video is necessary, as are longer clips of the spill. While pinning down an exact figure is difficult, one thing is clear: "All outsider estimates are considerably higher than BP's," he said, adding later that the size of the spill is "fully an order of magnitude higher than what BP projects, without question."

Richard Camilli, an associate scientist specializing in applied ocean physics and engineering at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, testified that BP had invited him, along with a team of scientists, to analyze the spill using advanced techiques. But BP quickly changed its mind the next day, May 6, and uninvited the team. He was told it was because the containment dome had been finished ahead of schedule and their services were no longer needed (we now know that dome failed to work). "I've had no contact with BP since May 6," said Camilli.

The spill volume is crucial for planning the containment and clean-up efforts. It's also critical in determining the amount of dispersant that should be used and anticipating the short- and long-term effects of both the dispersants and the oil on marine ecosystems.

Frank Muller-Karger, a professor of biological oceanography and remote sensing at the University of South Florida, called the current operation an "experiment in nature we have never done." The dispersants seem to be helping keep a significant portion of the oil below the surface, but the understanding of long-term environmental impact is still lacking. There's also concern about how far the dispersed oil may travel and where it may accumulate. (On Wednesday night, the EPA apparently stepped in and demanded that BP find less-toxic disperant options, after environmentalists and scientists raised concerns about the impact they might have on the Gulf.)

Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told a Senate panel on Tuesday that a government task force has been assigned to determine the real size of the spill. "These efforts are extensive," said Salazar. “The conclusions will be correct."

But that hasn't eased concerns about the bigger problem, which is why BP still seems to be calling the shots in the Gulf. A coalition of 10 conservation groups wrote to President Obama Wednesday calling on the federal government to take charge of the Gulf efforts. "The federal government should immediately take over all environmental monitoring, testing, and public safety protection from BP," said Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation on Wednesday. "Too much information is now in the hands of BP's many lawyers and too little is being disclosed to the public."

The Source (http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/05/why-bp-still-running-show)

Spang

05-20-2010, 06:21 PM

Oil Hits Louisiana, Sheriffs Block Beaches, MoJo's Mac McClelland on the Scene

MoJo reporter Mac McClelland is getting one hell of a chilling story in Louisiana right now. This morning she headed down to the area where, according to online maps, oil from the BP fiasco was headed. Wherever she turned, she found sheriff's deputies blocking the beach access roads—until she hit a beach at Grand Isle, and literally stepped into the mess. (Follow Mac on Twitter here.) Here's what unfolded in her tweetstream:

Has oil made landfall in port fourchon, LA? Can't look, bc cops turned us around at bridge to beach. about 3 hours ago

Oil just hit land in grand isle. Blobs completely covering this shore. about 2 hours ago

Governor's helicopters are flying overhead. about 1 hour ago

All these spots are blobs of oil. about 1 hour ago

Crude all over my fingers. about 1 hour ago

These vacationers say there was no oil earlier today; this shit all just started washing up, and it's already everywhere. about 1 hour ago

This was when I realized oil arrived; when I stepped in crude. 42 minutes ago

5 sheriff's cars have arrived. No pics allowed, no more access to elmer's island. 27 minutes ago

The gov's office has arrived. 10 minutes ago

Mac says the sheriff's deputies who arrived at Grand Isle told her she couldn't take pictures of them, but didn't keep her away from the beach—yet. She's headed back to New Orleans as we write, but will be back in Grand Isle later tonight. (Here's some more background from the local media, and more pix.) UPDATE: Mac just called and noted that there are still kids on the beach, "splashing around in this huge sheen."

This begs many questions, such as:

Why is law enforcement trying to stifle coverage of this horror? And, as our own Kate Sheppard (follow her on Twitter here) asks: Why is BP still in charge? Kate has also been following developments intensely, live tweeting the BP hearings, and breaking the latest news—ranging from concerns over these so-called chemical dispersants to the rig owner's efforts to weasel out of responsibility. She's covered BP's fumbling containment efforts, its second Gulf rig, and its shameless attempts to downplay the problem: 5,000 barrels a day indeed! That's how much BP is now recovering, and this thing is so far from being over.

You can keep on top of Kate's and Mac's dispatches on our home page, Facebook page, and by following their Twitter streams.

We'll also have some video up shortly, we hope. Check back soon.

The Source (http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/05/crude-oil-reaches-beaches-louisiana-gulf-bp-spill-transocean)

Spang

05-21-2010, 02:09 AM

BP Oil Spill a Crime Not a Disaster

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/bp.jpg

Language matters, especially at times of crisis. The explosion on BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig that released hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico has been called a “disaster” by many. It isn’t a disaster. It is a crime. Early estimates are that the spill will cost more than $14 billion to clean, will devastate local fisheries for generations and will result in untold damage to all parts of the ecology in the Gulf region. Corporations are the criminals here - British Petroleum (BP) and, a company that is no stranger to corporate crime, Halliburton. This massive spill highlights both the need for an immediate transition to clean energy sources and the need to apply democratic controls to inherently criminal multinational corporations.

The clean up of the area must begin immediately, it must be conducted with the consultation and best interest of local fishermen and environmentalists and it must be entirely paid for by BP. In addition, BP should be made to pay into a public fund that would be used for the continued clean up and preservation of the local ecology. Any failure to meet these demands should result in the seizure of the US holdings of BP and its banning from conducting business in this country. Anything less than this should be considered as a betrayal to the best interests of residents of region and the broader international community.

This massive oil spill demonstrates the urgent need to transition to clean renewable energy forms. Such a transition will not likely take place inside of a capitalist system where short-term profiteering dominates the allocation of capital funds. BP has fought the federal government on safety procedures that might have minimized the impact of the most recent spill for more than a decade. CEOs do not get bonuses based upon ensuring future generation’s access to resources, clean air, or a hospitable climate. The purpose of corporations is not to oversee the welfare of the people of the world, but to make money. Environmental damage is not factored into the corporate calculations of costs and profits. Instead, environmental damage is viewed as the collateral damage of the free market in operation.

Not surprisingly, BP had a partner in this crime – Halliburton. Fresh off their stint bilking US taxpayers during the war in Iraq, the company was contracted by BP to cement the drill, oil well and pipe into the ocean floor. The Los Angeles Times reports that this task was completed a mere 20 hours before the well exploded. Not surprisingly, Halliburton has also been accused of being responsible for another oil spill in the Timor Sea last August after completing a similar cementing job. Here was see the logic of capitalism in full display. BP wants to take the cheapest bid for the job and Halliburton wants to pocket the most money with the least costs. All with no mind paid to the environment, local fishermen, or the future of the planet.

Meanwhile, politicians from the Democratic and Republican parties serve as willing accomplices to the corporations. In 2008, the McCain/Palin ticket was run on the suicidal slogan of “Drill Baby Drill!” The campaign of now President Barack Obama softly dismissed these claims, but once in office, designed a plan to allow oil exploration off the coastline of North America. The current spill exposes the bankruptcy of Obama’s drilling plan and the futility of his cap-and-trade market based proposals to address carbon emissions. Corporations will continue to pollute the environment as long as they have political partners who will allow them to evade the desires of the vast majority of people in this country for clean energy and a safe environment.

The Socialist Party USA offers a clear eco-socialist alternative to the proposals of the two parties. By establishing a system of public ownership and democratic control over our natural resources, we will ensure that corporations are prevented from exploiting and spoiling our environment. By creating strong enforceable laws regarding endangered species that focus on habitat-centered protection, we propose to begin repairing the damage done by capitalist production. Finally, we intend to bring the United States back into line with the world by signing on to international environmental treaties and participating and supporting grassroots environmental justice efforts. In short, our goal is to create a cleaner, more democratic future where environmental preservation, instead of profit motive, becomes a primary part of economic decision-making.

Capitalist profit-motive will be the death of our planet. Democratic socialism, operating on an international basis, can save our fragile ecosystem and our health by defending the rights of future generations to clean water, clean air and a democratically run society.

The Source (http://www.socialistwebzine.org/2010/05/bp-oil-spill-crime-not-disaster.html)

Laura Cereta

05-22-2010, 01:40 PM

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/168336/thumbs/r-OIL-SPILL-SPLASH-huge.jpg (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20100522/us-gulf-oil-spill)

CGP

05-23-2010, 11:31 AM

YouTube- Anger Mounts As Oil Seeps Into Gulf Wetlands

foxyladi

05-23-2010, 11:37 AM

righteous anger and fear /fear for the immediate :eek:and also the future:eek::mad:

Spang

05-23-2010, 04:54 PM

Mac McClelland of Mother Jones has been on the ground in Louisiana the past few days.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/BPOilSpill001.jpg
Raking up oil on the forbidden elmer's island

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Every day they rake it up, and every day more washes in, they say

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They collect the oil/sand piles into bags. Have done this same spot three days in a row.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/BPOilSpill004.jpg
This beach is coated.

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They take these to a plant and separate out the sand so they can process the oil.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/BPOilSpill006.jpg
Another problem is that after surface cleanup, raking the sand brings up more oil.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/BPOilSpill007.jpg
Aw. All of Grand Isle beach is now also closed.

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Cleanup crews assembling in protective suits.

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Grand Isle residents not amused by the beach closing.

The Source (http://twitpic.com/photos/MacMcClelland)

Spang

05-23-2010, 05:35 PM

"That's it. Grand Isle is totally enveloped in gas fumes. The smell is completely nauseating and inescapable." - Mac McClelland

Spang

05-23-2010, 06:13 PM

Cleaning oil-soaked wetlands may be impossible

The gooey oil washing into the maze of marshes along the Gulf Coast could prove impossible to remove, leaving a toxic stew lethal to fish and wildlife, government officials and independent scientists said.

Officials are considering some drastic and risky solutions: They could set the wetlands on fire or flood areas in hopes of floating out the oil.

They warn an aggressive cleanup could ruin the marshes and do more harm than good. The only viable option for many impacted areas is to do nothing and let nature break down the spill.

More than 50 miles of Louisiana's delicate shoreline already have been soiled by the massive slick unleashed after the Deepwater Horizon rig burned and sank last month. Officials fear oil eventually could invade wetlands and beaches from Texas to Florida. Louisiana is expected to be hit hardest.

On Saturday, a major pelican rookery was awash in oil off Louisiana's coast. Hundreds of birds nest on the island, and an Associated Press photographer saw some birds and their eggs stained with the ooze. Nests were perched in mangroves directly above patches of crude.

Plaquemines Parish workers put booms around the island, but puddles of oil were inside the barrier.

"Oil in the marshes is the worst-case scenario," said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the head of the federal effort to contain and clean up the spill.

Also Saturday, BP told federal regulators it plans to continue using a contentious chemical dispersant, despite orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to look for less toxic alternatives. BP said in a letter to the EPA that Corexit 9500 "remains the best option for subsea application."

The EPA didn't immediately comment on BP's decision.

Oil that has rolled into shoreline wetlands coats the stalks and leaves of plants such as roseau cane — the fabric that holds together an ecosystem that is essential to the region's fishing industry and a much-needed buffer against Gulf hurricanes. Soon, oil will smother those plants and choke off their supply of air and nutrients.

In some eddies and protected inlets, the ochre-colored crude has pooled beneath the water's surface, forming clumps several inches deep.

With the seafloor leak still gushing at least hundreds of thousands of gallons a day, the damage is only getting worse. Millions of gallons already have leaked so far.

Coast Guard officials said the spill's impact now stretches across a 150-mile swath, from Dauphin Island, Ala. to Grand Isle, La.

Over time, experts say weather and natural microbes will break down most of the oil. However, the crude will surely poison plants and wildlife in the months — even years — it will take for the syrupy muck to dissipate.

Back in 1989, crews fighting the Exxon Valdez tanker spill — which unleashed almost 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound — used pressure hoses and rakes to clean the shores. The Gulf Coast is just too fragile for that: those tactics could blast apart the peat-like soils that hold the marshes together.

Hundreds of miles of bayous and man-made canals crisscross the coast's exterior, offering numerous entry points for the crude. Access is difficult and time-intensive, even in the best of circumstances.

"Just the compaction of humanity bringing equipment in, walking on them, will kill them," said David White, a wetlands ecologist from Loyola University in New Orleans.

Marshes offer a vital line of defense against Gulf storms, blunting their fury before they hit populated areas. Louisiana and the federal government have spent hundreds of millions of dollars rebuilding barriers that were wiped out by hurricanes, notably Katrina in 2005.

They also act as nursery grounds for shrimp, crabs, oysters — the backbone of the region's fishing industry. Hundreds of thousands of migratory birds nest in the wetlands' inner reaches, a complex network of bayous, bays and man-made canals.

To keep oil from pushing deep into Louisiana's marshes, Gov. Bobby Jindal and officials from several coastal parishes want permission to erect a $350 million network of sand berms linking the state's barrier islands and headlands.

That plan is awaiting approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

After surveying oil-stricken areas Saturday, Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser said the berms were the marshes' last hope.

"It's getting in between all the cane and it's working through from one bayou to the next," he said.

Smaller spills have been occurring in the marshes for decades. In the past, cleanup crews would sometimes slice out oiled vegetation and take it to a landfill, said Andy Nyman with Louisiana State University.

But with the plants gone, water from the gulf would roll in and wash away the roots, turning wetlands to open water.

Adm. Allen said that where conditions are right, crews could set fire to oil-coated plants.

Nyman and other experts, though, warn it's tricky. If the marsh is too wet, the oil won't burn. Too dry, the roots burn and the marsh can be ruined.

BP PLC — which leased the sunken rig and is responsible for the cleanup — said Saturday that cleanup crews have started more direct cleanup methods along Pass a Loutre in Plaquemines Parish. Shallow water skimmers were attempting to remove the oil from the top of the marsh.

Streams of water could later be used in a bid to wash oil from between cane stalks.

In other cases, the company will rely on "bioremediation" — letting oil-eating microbes do the work.

"Nature has a way of helping the situation," said BP spokesman John Curry.

But Nyman said the dispersants could slow the microbes from breaking down the oil.

White, the Loyola scientist, predicted at least short-term ruin for some of the wetlands he's been studying for three decades. Under a worst-case scenario, he said the damage could exceed the 217 square miles of wetlands lost during the 2005 hurricane season.

"When I say that my stomach turns," he said.

The Source (http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0522/cleaning-oilsoaked-wetlands-impossible/)

Spang

05-24-2010, 05:08 PM

“It’s BP’s Oil”

Running the corporate blockade at Louisiana's crude-covered beaches.

Elmer's Island, even after all the warnings, looks worse than I imagined. Pools of oil black and deep stretch down the beach; when cleanup workers drag their rakes along an already-cleaned patch of sand, more auburn crude oozes up. Beneath the surface lie slimy washed-up globules that, one worker says, are "so big you could park a car on them."

It's Saturday, May 22nd, a month into the BP spill, and I've been trying to get to Elmer's Island for the past two days. I've been stymied at every turn by Jefferson Parish sheriff's deputies brought in to supplement the local police force of Grand Isle, a 300-year-old settlement here at the very southern tip of Louisiana. Just seven miles long and so narrow in some spots that you can see from the Gulf side to the inland side, Grand Isle is all new clapboard and vinyl-sided bungalows since Katrina, but still scrappy—population 1,500, octuple that in tourist season. It's also home to the only route to Elmer's, a barrier island to the west. I arrived on Thursday with my old University of New Orleans lit prof, John Hazlett; a tandem kayak is strapped to his Toyota Tacoma. At the turn to Elmer's Island Road, a deputy flags us down. Can't go to Elmer's; he's just "doing what they told me to do." We continue on to Grand Isle beach, where toddlers splash in the surf. Only after I've stepped in a blob of crude do I realize that the sheen on the waves and the blackness covering a little blue heron from the neck down is oil.

The next day, cops drive up and down Grand Isle beach explicitly telling tourists it is still open, just stay out of the water. There are pools of oil on the beach; dolphins crest just offshore. A fifty-something couple, Southern Louisianians, tell me this kind of thing happened all the time when they were kids; they swam in rubber suits when it got bad, and it was no big deal. They just hope this doesn't mean we'll stop drilling.

The blockade to Elmer's is now four cop cars strong. As we pull up, deputies start bawling us out; all media need to go to the Grand Isle community center, where a "BP Information Center" sign now hangs out front. Inside, a couple of Times-Picayune reporters circle BP representative Barbara Martin, who tells them that if they want passage to Elmer they have to get it from another BP flack, Irvin Lipp; Grand Isle beach is closed too, she adds. When we inform the Times-Pic reporters otherwise, she asks Dr. Hazlett if he's a reporter; he says, "No." She says, "Good." She doesn't ask me. We tell her that deputies were just yelling at us, and she seems truly upset. For one, she's married to a Jefferson Parish sheriff's deputy. For another, "We don't need more of a black eye than we already have."

"But it wasn't BP that was yelling at us, it was the sheriff's office," we say.

"Yeah, I know, but we have…a very strong relationship."

"What do you mean? You have a lot of sway over the sheriff's office?"

"Oh yeah."

"How much?"

"A lot."

When I tell Barbara I am a reporter, she stalks off and says she's not talking to me, then comes back and hugs me and says she was just playing. I tell her I don't understand why I can't see Elmer's Island unless I'm escorted by BP. She tells me BP's in charge because "it's BP's oil."

"But it's not BP's land."

"But BP's liable if anything happens."

"So you're saying it's a safety precaution."

"Yeah! You don't want that oil gettin' into your pores."

"But there are tourists and residents walking around in it across the street."

"The mayor decides which beaches are closed." So I call the Grand Isle police requesting a press liason, only to get routed to voicemail for "Melanie" with BP. I call the police back and ask why they gave me a number for BP; they blame the fire chief.

I reach the fire chief. "Why did the police give me a number for BP?" I ask.

"That's the number they gave us."

"Who?"

"BP."

When I tell Chief Aubrey Chaisson that I would like to get a comment on Barbara's intimations—and my experience so far—that BP is running the show, he says he'll meet me in a parking lot. He pulls in, rolls down the window of his maroon Monte Carlo, and tells me that I can't trust the government or big corporations. When everyone saw the oil coming in as clear as day several days before that, BP insisted it was red tide—bacteria. Chaisson says he's half-Indian and grew up here and just wants to protect the land. When I tell him BP says the inland side of the island is still clean, he spits. "They're ******* liars. There's oil over there. It's already all up through the pass." The spill workers staying at my motel later tell me they've been specifically instructed by BP not to talk to any media, but they're pissed because BP tried to tell them that the crude they were swimming around in to move oil containment boom was red tide, dishwashing-liquid runoff, or mud.

The next morning at breakfast, the word at Sarah's Restaurant is that the island will have to be shut down; the smell of oil was so strong last night one lady had to shut all her windows and turn on her AC; if her asthma keeps up like this, she'll need to go on her breathing machine tonight.

I've corralled Irvin Lipp, who drives me and a few wire photographers out to Elmer's. (He tells me ruefully that he has history with Mother Jones, having once been a flack for Dupont.) The shoreline is packed with men in hats and gumboots and bright blue shirts. Nearly all are African-American, all hired from around New Orleans. They tell me they've been standing in these exact same spots for three days. It's breathtakingly hot. They rake the oil and sand into big piles; other workers collect the piles into big plastic bags, and still other workers take them to a plant where the sand is separated out and sent to a hazardous-waste dump and the oil goes on for processing. Then the tide comes in with more oil and everybody starts all over again. Ten dollars an hour. Twelve hours a day. When I joke with one worker that he should pocket the solid gobs of oil he's digging up to show me how far beneath the sand they go, he stops dead and asks me if BP's still trying to use the oil they all collect. "Aw, I knew it!" he says. Another leans on his rake to ask me, "Have they at least shut the oil off yet?" He randomly picks three spots in a three-foot-wide expanse of sand that he's already raked clean and drops his rake in an inch deeper to show me how the oil bubbles up from underneath. He can't count how many times he's raked this same spot in the 33 hours he's worked it since Thursday, but one thing he's sure of, he says, is that he'll be standing right here tomorrow and the next day, too.

The Source (http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/05/oil-spill-bp-grand-isle-beach)

Spang

05-24-2010, 09:37 PM

DRILL, BABY, DRILL!

U.S. declares fishery disaster in 3 Gulf states

(Reuters) - The U.S. government has declared a "fishery disaster" in the seafood-producing states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama due to an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, making them eligible for federal funds, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said on Monday.

"We are taking this action today because of the potentially significant economic hardship this spill may cause fishermen and the businesses and communities that depend on those fisheries," Locke said in a statement.

"The disaster determination will help ensure that the Federal government is in a position to mobilize the full range of assistance that fishermen and fishing communities may need," he said.

Louisiana's $2.4 billion seafood industry supplies up to 40 percent of U.S. seafood supply and employs over 27,000 people. The state is the second-biggest U.S. seafood harvester and the top provider of shrimp, oysters, crab and crawfish.

The Commerce Department said the disaster declaration was made in response to requests from Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour.

The statement did not give any figures or say when funds would be dispersed.

Gulf of Mexico states have lost access to many commercial fisheries as a blown-out oil well spews hundreds of thousands of gallons (liters) of oil into the Gulf every day, a disaster that threatens to become the worst U.S. oil spill in history.

The Source (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64N5TT20100524?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F +US+%2F+Top+News%29)

Spang

05-24-2010, 10:37 PM

(No Nudity)

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/bpflag600.jpg

Spang

05-24-2010, 11:09 PM

"The good news: Mermaids are real. The bad news: They are now extinct." - Matthew Kresha

Spang

05-25-2010, 02:50 AM

Just how big is that gusher in the Gulf of Mexico?

After having been pasted by hecklers on Slashdot, saying that riser was only 21 inches in diameter, not five feet, so his estimates on the oil flowing from the BP well must have been wrong, Paul Noel rebuts with additional information that confirms that the this gusher has been releasing more oil every day than the Exxon Valdez catastrophe.

The cameras have come in from the sea floor. They have answered the question. The riser is the drill rod and is used to torque the bit and pump mud down the well. The well has at least 2 times cross sectional area of the riser. If the well was also only 21 inches in diameter, no mud or cuttings could return up the well from the drilling.

The Blowout Preventer (BOP) is leaking far more oil than the riser. Exactly how much more is not yet determined but it appears to be about 2 to 3 times the Riser output. The riser has a hole in it that holds 0.61 cubic feet to the foot of pipe. Watch the live feed on the SpillCam if you want to see this. (It isn’t always available and BP controls it.) There are other leaks as well.

The formula for calculating the flow in the riser is: 0.61 cu ft/ft * feet per second of flow = Cubic Feet per second.

The riser is blowing in excess of 40 feet per second. The amount of oil emitted would be over 24.4 Cubic feet per second

The formula for converting to Gallons is: Cubic Feet per second * 7.48 gallons per cubic foot. = Gallons per second

This calculates 24.4 Times 7.48 = 182.5 gallons per second (Rounded to 180)

There are 42 gallons per oil barrel. This means that the Riser spill is 4.2 barrels per second (Rounded to 4)

Now throw the critics a 2:1 error factor and cut the number to 2 barrels per second. Then cut the BOP down to equal and exclude the obvious other leaks going on. We still have 4 barrels per second. That comes out just about 350,000 barrels of oil per day. That is a low ball estimate for this blowout.

The actual size of the gush coming out of the BOP is in the order of 2 to 3 times the Riser output. Everyone can argue any numbers but this is fudged down so far that it is probably wrong by a factor of 2 or 3 being too small for reality. The numbers suggest the possibility of a Million Barrels of Oil a day spill. (I am not willing to go that far out and prefer to suggest the 350,000 BPD rate)

As was first noted here (PESN Exclusive) the process of this spill is only bringing a small fraction of the oil to the surface. (Initially I suggested to Sterling Allan that it might be only 20% or so.) It probably is only 5%. Research ships have now found massive plumes of oil beneath the sea. The process of fractioning the oil is spreading out the oil separated by molecular weight in the saltwater column density anticlines. The exact volume of oil in these plumes as a percentage of their volume is not known at this time but even assuming a tiny fraction unbelievably large volumes of oil are escaping the well. The reported volume for one plume alone was 1.7 cubic miles. (Do your own math it was 10 miles by 3 miles by 300 feet thick) There were at least 5 similar plumes found.

It is entirely safe to say that this well has been releasing more oil every day than the Exxon Valdez wreck did. Nobody wants to believe the size of the spill. History will settle the matter beyond all question that my math was probably giving a very low estimate of the well output.

Now let’s look at the surface of the Gulf of Mexico and see what we have. There is a slick there as large as the State of Maryland. (National Geographic; Picture 5/17/2010) For calculation, spread 50,000 BPD over the area for the entire time. Do not leave out one drop and don’t let any evaporate, sink or mix with the water or get disbursed by the US Armed Forces and BP effort. It actually is doing these things quite fast. The whole mess spreads out to a thickness of 20 millionths of an inch deep. That isn’t even sheen and would evaporate at that thickness in a few minutes. Do your own math if you want. The point is that the spill is evidencing massively larger numbers than even the largest academic estimates.

One curious fact someone pointed out to me is that if the slick area were covered only 7/100ths of an inch deep in oil the volume would about equal the Mount St Helens eruption volume (May 1980). What does this suggest?

Using my estimate of 350,000 BPD * 42 gals/barrel we get 441 million gallons of spill over 30 days. That is 59,000,000 cubic feet. A square mile is 27,878,400 square feet. The area of the slick is now about 12,000 square miles more or less. This is enough oil to cover one square mile 2.11 feet thick. That averages 0.00017 inches thick over the spill area. That would hardly be a shiny surface.

The reality is that the physical evidence supports higher numbers than I have said. (I simply do not want to guess that big) Large volumes of oil are washing up on the Coast of Louisiana as I write. Some of these frothy slimy mats are very thick others are just thick oil enough to kill everything they touch except the oil eating bacteria that lives in the Gulf of Mexico. The damaged coast of Louisiana now covers over 200 linear miles of shore line. It also covers in islands and such damage to well over 1000 square miles. That damage cannot have been done by oil 0.00017 inches thick. It took a lot more than that.

One of the reasons all of the fuss over chemical applications to disburse the spill have been made is that it sinks the oil onto the fragile offshore reefs like the Pinnacles where much of the life cycle of the Gulf Coast sea life centers. This site is destroyed already. The fishermen are getting unbelievably angry over this careless damage.

People reading about this spill are starting to learn a whole lot about the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf of Mexico is the origin of the Gulf Stream which is the largest ocean current on earth. It is at the apex of the global circulation. Now they are going to learn a bit more than just about the Eddy and the Loop Current.

Typically the Gulf Stream makes the Florida Strait at about 6 to 12 knots going east bound. The loop current is a large feeder of the Gulf Stream. On shore of the north coast of Florida (The Emerald Coast) and the coast of Alabama is a loop current that feeds the “Loop Current”. This lesser loop causes the shape of the coastal islands from the Apalachicola River (east of Panama City) to Dauphin Island in Alabama. By Mississippi’s Horn and Ship Islands it is largely turning south. This loop current is typically on shore seen as water moving west about 2 to 4 knots almost continuously.

During Hurricane Season, this loop reverses, going east bound. In fact you can tell that Hurricanes are coming soon to the area by this reversal about 30 days ahead of the storms. This reversal notably causes deviations of the “Loop Current”. This reversal is fairly seasonal. The strength of the reversal tends to indicate the Hurricane strength and location. I have seen this several times myself. Deviations of the “Loop Current” have been noted in the past week or so. The winds change as well, bringing air on shore consistently when this happens.

If this happens it will cause the spill oil to start soiling the coast of Louisiana more and more to the north and east and along the Chandelier Islands. Then it will appear in the Mississippi Sound and spread east bound along the coast of Alabama and into North Florida. Because this has happened pretty consistently for the last 5,000 years we can expect it will happen. If it happens the oil will spread to the east along the US Gulf of Mexico coast. That vast puddle of oil in the Gulf of Mexico is going to hit Alabama and Mississippi pretty hard. It is just a matter of time now. This is why BP just hired 500 workers to handle spill cleanup in Alabama.

Some minor other issues. It is claimed by BP and others that the well only has about 19,000 to 20,000 psi pressure. This may be accurate. To clarify the scale of this is hard for most people to understand. Maybe it will become clear if you understand that the 45 cal ACP ammunition generates about the same pressure when fired. Unless you just like standing in the way of ammunition that is larger than battle ship shells driven by pressures equal to pistol ammunition I suggest you assume that the pressure is simply beyond belief. This is why solving the problem is really hard.

Many people have discussed the issue of simply closing the top of the well. This is the famous “Junk Shot” and many other solutions. It all sounds nice. Imagine 3 miles of oil coming at you at high velocity (Several miles per hour) and under this pressure. You slap the valve closed after the mud is out of the well and the ram force may well slam the well casing, BOP and all several miles into the sky. It has happened in the oil industry before. In Libya in the 1950’s it was actually photographed that at least a mile of well pipe and equipment on top was blown into the sky all at one time. At these pressures a well without mud is out of control. At the velocities of the oil coming up this well, there is a fair question if the mud can be successfully reinserted. It might just get blown back out of the well. I have a firm respect that the Oilmen working this have a hard job.

One thing that has happened since I have been writing here is that some people have sent me Ideas on how to fix this well. Some of these were pretty good. Sadly I have nothing I can do with them. One thing that has been driven home to me in this situation is that we do not lack for brains that want to and which could fix this situation quite promptly if they were to have influence. I am beginning to seriously think that BP should be compelled to sit down and listen to some of these suggestions. Please don’t send them to me anymore. I cannot get them done. I really wish I could get them done.

In fact the quality of the thinking I have seen on this makes me have absolutely no doubt that if these people were working on our energy problems with decent levels of support our problems would quickly disappear.

A final point: As always I must point out that Alternative Energy is the only solution we have to such insanity. It isn’t opposition to oil, it is just sanity. To this end I suggested from the very start that this included Magnetic Energy. Some hecklers on Slashdot had a field day. They were sure I was just in fantasy land on this one. I have sad news for them. I live in Huntsville, Alabama. Magnetic Energy is a fair cottage industry here and it is proved and working. I have seen it working. It is quiet but it really is here. For the past 70 years the world has bet against every project Huntsville scientists have done. In that period we have proved all those who bet against us wrong. When my father was 20 if you had told him men would go to the moon in his lifetime he would have said you were delusional. By the time he was my age, he had sent men to the moon and brought them back alive. It was his navigation and computers that did the job (with others as well for sure). He worked Apollo mission engine controllers and navigation among other things. I would suggest that the Slashdot hecklers get on board and help the development effort and quit heckling. That way they could be on the winning side when it all comes out.

The Source (http://pesn.com/2010/05/23/9501654_Gulf_gusher_size/)

Spang

05-25-2010, 03:26 PM

BP To Kill Leak Cam During Seal Attempt

BP's live video feed of the oil leak now polluting the Gulf of Mexico will be shutdown Wednesday as the oil company tries its next effort to seal the leak, according to the Massachusetts congressman who urged that the live feed be put in place.

"BP informed Rep. (Edward J.) Markey's office that the live feed would be terminated some time early Wednesday morning, and would continue to be offline until after the attempt at the so-called 'top kill' is completed," Markey's office said in a release.

Markey also spoke out against the shutdown, calling it a blackout and stating the live feed is needed to keep residents apprised of the progress.

"It is outrageous that BP would kill the video feed for the top kill. This BP blackout will obscure a vital moment in this disaster," Markey, who chairs the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the Energy and Environment Subcommittee in the Energy and Commerce Committee, said in the release. "After more than a month of spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP is essentially saying to the American people the solution will not be televised."

If you've forgotten what the video feed looks like, see it HERE.

The Source (http://mediamatters.org/strupp/201005250045)

Spang

05-25-2010, 04:19 PM

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/jp-SPILL-1-popup.jpg

Spang

05-25-2010, 05:20 PM

Diving Into the Gulf's Toxic Soup (http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/diving-gulfs-toxic-soup-10735329)

Philippe Cousteau Jr. and Sam Champion take hazmat dive into Gulf's oily waters.

Spang

05-25-2010, 06:44 PM

The Oil Belongs to Us, Not British Petroleum: Let the Revolution Begin Here

In tar balls, oil slicks and sludge, the oil is returning to the Americans to whom it belongs. Catastrophically it makes its way across the Gulf of Mexico waters, killing sea life as it spreads and rolling onto and despoiling the beaches, marshes, wetlands, bayous and rivers of the south coast. But it finally -- in an ironically tragic way -- is returning to its rightful owners: us.

In a disgraceful, deferential manner, the White House has let British Petroleum be in charge of the disaster clean up of its own making, just as the White House let Wall Street "deal with" the crash of the American economy that the river boat gamblers in Manhattan created.

But the oil is ours, and British Petroleum has no more right to be overseeing the ruin it has caused than Wall Street had in cleaning up an economic casino implosion of its own making.

It is way past time that we stop bowing to the mantra of property rights over the rights of people. British Petroleum is making hundreds of billions of dollars off of oil that belongs to the people of the earth, not to a corporation that is above the law and is a predatory profiteer and polluter. This applies equally to all oil companies, since all oil companies are chronic polluters, profiteers, and scar the earth with impunity.

It's odd that Christians have played such a strong role in promoting the privatizing of natural resources that they believe a God created for men and women. Wouldn't God have created these natural resources for the common good and not for some multi-billionaire corporations to own what belongs to nature and the people of our planet?

These are not revolutionary words; they are common sense. They are the words that the revolutionary founders of America used to throw off the chains of despotism of tyrannical rule.

For all practical purposes, the head of the Coast Guard operations in the Gulf has admitted that the White House is giving BP free rein to deal with this cataclysmic disaster as they wish. BP is even disregarding EPA's requirement that they stop using toxic dispersants, banned ironically in the UK, to try and break up some of the massive and continuing oil spill, even though it is not clear that the chemicals even are effective.

It is time for rebellion against the tyranny of corporate personhood which takes away livelihoods, destroys fish and fowl, savages our beaches and waterways and pollutes our drinking water.

It is time to return the control of oil and other natural resources to "we the people."

It is time to investigate and charge the executives at BP, not treat them on bended knee as the White House is doing.

It is time to cancel contracts with all oil companies and renegotiate them so that the oil belongs to the people of sovereign nations and not to the oil companies. Let them be paid a fee for extracting the oil, but the creations of the earth belong to us, not to the predators and destroyers of nature and livelihoods at BP.

Let the revolution begin here.

The Source (http://blog.buzzflash.com/editorblog/305)

Spang

05-25-2010, 07:04 PM

BP Idiot CEO Yells At Cameramen Filming His Massive Oil Pools

Well isn’t this fun. The moron tea-sipping CEO of Britishe Petroleumeshire, Tony Hayward, decided to take a Very Serious stroll along the terrifying, ruined oily death-beaches of the Gulf Coast, and then yelled “GET EM OUTTA THERE” at independent media reporters filming the awful, profit-destroying scene. Apparently he only “invited” the cameras for a press conference later, hundreds of yards away, with no oil in sight. Well, sorry to tell you mister fancy Lobsterback queen-f***er, but here in ‘Merka we just show up whenever and go nuts.

(No Nudity)

The Source (http://wonkette.com/415626/bp-idiot-ceo-yells-at-cameramen-filming-his-massive-oil-pools)

Spang

05-25-2010, 07:57 PM

The Source (http://mediamatters.org/strupp/201005250045)

"BP will continue to provide live video feeds from the seabed throughout the planned ‘top kill’ procedure #oilspill #bp" - @BP_America

mack20

05-25-2010, 09:40 PM

There are some really heartbreaking photos at the Boston Globe's Big Picture:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/oil_reaches_louisiana_shores.html

http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/oil_05_24/o38_23540017.jpg

http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/oil_05_24/o33_23478397.jpg

http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/oil_05_24/o29_23462477.jpg

http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/oil_05_24/o13_23462363.jpg

http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/oil_05_24/o01_23462419.jpg

Laura Cereta

05-25-2010, 11:09 PM

Omg, that is just painful to look at. :(

http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/oil_05_24/o38_23540017.jpg

Spang

05-26-2010, 12:30 AM

BP had warning signs before Gulf blast: panel

(Reuters) - BP Plc told congressional investigators on Tuesday that pressure tests on a drill pipe hours before the deadly explosion that caused the Gulf of Mexico oil leak showed a "fundamental mistake," a memo released by two congressmen showed.

The memo, by Representatives Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak, who were briefed by BP about the progress of its internal investigation, also said problems were found in equipment meant to provide fail-safe protection against a blow out.

A BP investigator indicated to the lawmakers that the fundamental mistake may have been made because heavy pressure on the drill line of 1,400 pounds per square inch (98 kg per square cm) was an "indicator of a very large abnormality."

The memo did not indicate who made decisions after the problem was found. BP and Transocean, the owner and operator of the rig, had supervisors on the rig when it exploded.

About two hours before the explosion that killed 11 workers and caused the leak that is still gushing oil, the rig team was satisfied a test on another line was "successful," the BP investigator said.

BP would not comment on the memo and Transocean could not be immediately reached.

The memo said BP data showed there were numerous problems with production equipment. Nearly five hours before the explosion, an unexpected loss of fluid was observed in the well's riser pipe. That suggests "there were leaks in the annual preventer," a rubber gasket in the blowout preventer, the memo said.

Waxman and Stupak chair the House Energy and Commerce Committee's investigative subcommittee, which has reviewed over 105,000 pages of internal documents from BP, rig owner Transocean Ltd, Halliburton Co, and blowout preventer manufacturer Cameron.

The memo said the BP investigation has also raised concerns about the maintenance history, modification, and inspection of the blowout preventer.

Officials from BP and Transocean are next slated to testify before congressional panels on Thursday.

According to BP, there were also three warming signs of problems with unwanted flow in the well starting 51 minutes before the explosion. About 18 minutes before the explosion abnormal pressure leaks of the fluids known as mud meant to keep oil and gas capped were observed and the pump was shut down.

"The data suggests that the crew may have attempted mechanical interventions at that point to control the pressure, but soon after, the flow out and pressure increased dramatically and the explosion took place," the memo said.

The Source (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64P0JS20100526?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F +US+%2F+Top+News%29)

Spang

05-26-2010, 02:42 AM

It may not matter that the GOP want the tax payers to pay for this disaster.

Whoa, BP Could Be Hit With A Staggering $60 Billion In Fines Over The Oil Spill

It sounds like the issue of limited liability for BP is moot.

Both Reuters and The Guardian are reporting that according to legal documents and a close reading of the law, BP could be liable for some $4300/barrel that gushes into the water.

In the worst case scenario, says the Guardian, with oil gushing at over 100,000 barrels per day for more than two months, the oil giant could be looking at a $60 billion fine. Reuters arrives at a more conservative estimate of $10 billion.

Meanwhile, BP has already lost about $60 billion in market cap, but our guess is that if the ultimate fine were to be at the high end of the range, the stock would have a lot further to fall.

The Source (http://www.businessinsider.com/whoa-bp-could-be-hit-with-a-staggering-60-billion-in-fines-over-the-oil-spill-2010-5)

Suzan

05-26-2010, 02:50 AM

Omg, that is just painful to look at. :(

http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/oil_05_24/o38_23540017.jpg

I agree. It just destroys me to see wildlife like this--and there's going to be so much more of it.

Spang

05-26-2010, 04:07 AM

Obama's Sluggish Oil Spill Response

Why has the administration been so slow to take charge of the disaster in the Gulf?

Nearly one month into the worst environmental catastrophe in US history, President Barack Obama finally appeared to be stepping up his response to the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. On Saturday, he announced the formation of a national commission to prevent future spills. In the past week, his administration has also called on BP to make more information on the spill available to the public, and to find a less toxic alternative to the chemicals it's using to disperse the oil. These were noteworthy developments, because when it comes to the response effort, the Obama administration has been surprisingly hands-off. But despite the administration's latest moves, it's still leaving many of the critical decisions to BP.

For starters, despite BP's repeated failure to stop the flow of oil into the sea, the firm remains in charge of the efforts to plug the well. This weekend, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen affirmed his support for BP and its CEO in an interview with CNN. "I trust Tony Hayward," he said—a statement that did little to allay concerns that the administration has put too much faith in the oil giant. In a White House press conference on Monday, reporters pressed Allen about why the federal government hasn't pushed BP aside (on Sunday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar had indicated it might do so). Allen bluntly replied, "To push BP out of the way would raise the question of to replace them with what"—adding that the federal government doesn't have the technology or expertise to deal with this problem.

BP has also kept a tight grip on information about the spill, despite the fact that the Coast Guard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are all operating in the area. And there are reasons to believe that BP is significantly misrepresenting the extent of the problem. The firm has repeatedly claimed that 5,000 barrels of oil are leaking into the sea each day—which Hayward described as a "relatively tiny" amount compared to the "very big ocean." But outside experts have said the real number is likely far higher—one of the worst-case estimates is as high as 95,000 barrels daily. Confronted about the discrepancy, Salazar told a Senate panel last Tuesday that the government was setting up a task force to determine the most accurate figure—nearly four weeks after the spill began. (NOAA head Jane Lubchenco told reporters on Thursday that the 5,000-barrel figure "was always understood to be a very rough estimate.")

Under heavy pressure from the media and members of Congress, BP finally released a live feed of the spill site on Thursday, which will allow outside experts to evaluate the flow of oil. But BP still appears to be asserting control over some areas affected by the spill. A CBS news team was chased off a Louisiana beach last week, and Mother Jones' Mac McClelland was barred from a tar-slicked beach by a sheriff on Friday and informed that she'd have to obtain permission from a BP "liaison" to talk to local residents.

Greenpeace and Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) have filed Freedom of Information Act requests seeking all of the information the government has on the spill. The groups believe that the administration knows a lot more about the scale of the disaster than it's let on. "This is a government with lots of smart people in it," said Damon Moglen, global warming campaign director at Greenpeace. "Did nobody do the math?"

For almost four weeks, the Environmental Protection Agency also allowed BP to dictate the choice of chemical dispersant used to prevent the oil from spreading. Scientists raised concerns that BP's chosen dispersant, Corexit, could cause significant harm to marine ecosystems. But although the Environmental Protection Agency directed BP to find a less toxic alternative last Thursday, the oil giant has refused to do so, and continues to withhold crucial information about the chemicals it's spraying over the Gulf.

The administration also announced Thursday that it is forming a Flow Rate Technical Team comprised of experts from the Coast Guard and government agencies to assess the rate at which oil is flowing into the Gulf. And Director of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and EPA administrator Lisa Jackson wrote to the company asking it to post all its information about the spill "on a publicly accessible website."

Yet critics say the administration should be doing far more. Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle grilled administration officials on the response last week. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) criticized Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the administration for being "a bit slow moving." (For his part, Salazar said, "The characterization of slowness is absolutely wrong and misplaced.")

As one reporter pointed out to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Thursday, it's not enough to ask BP to be more transparent. "Why are you not demanding it?" the reporter said. Gibbs' response was less than forceful: "We think that is what the company owes, again, both us and the American people as we work through our response and as the public has questions about their operations." When pressed on whether BP could be trusted to provide accurate information, Gibbs said he thought the company would "respond favorably" to Napolitano and Jackson’s letter. Pressed again about the letter's weak wording, Gibbs got testy: "Well, do you have a better idea?"

A coalition of 10 conservation groups have called on the federal government to take charge of monitoring the spill and its environmental impact, and to release that information to the public. "BP has every financial incentive to downplay the scale of the spill and the damages," says Jeremy Symons, senior vice president for conservation and education at the National Wildlife Federation. As long as BP remains in the lead, decisions will be driven by its need to minimize its liability, says Kristine Stratton, executive director of the Waterkeeper Alliance. "We've got risk-based decision making happening, as opposed to precautionary decision making." On Friday, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) called for BP to create a fund that would help cover the costs of bringing independent scientists to the scene, rather than relying on those hired by the oil firm, which BP agreed to on Monday.

There are several possible reasons for the administration's reluctance to take charge of the recovery effort. No one—not BP, not the administration—seems to know how to stop the gushing well. Nor do they know just how bad this mess could get. The administration would prefer that the blood stay on BP's hands.

There's also the awkward fact that weeks before the spill, the White House announced a vast expansion of offshore drilling. Eighteen days before the Deepwater Horizon blowout, Obama observed, "It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills." Even in the wake of the disaster, he's continued to support offshore drilling, only calling for a time-out on expansion plans. Perhaps because of the administration's need to defend its embrace of drilling, it hasn't used the BP debacle to push for an end to fossil fuel dependence.

In fact, last week at the Senate panel, Salazar dug in to defend the administration's drilling plans. "We should be honest with ourselves…we are dependent on oil and gas and we will be," Salazar told senators. "That frankly sounds like something we’d hear from Bush administration folks," says one Democratic aide. "That's not encouraging." Obama, too, reaffirmed his belief that offshore drilling should remain in the country's energy portfolio in his weekly address Saturday.

BP plans to try a so-called "top kill" early this week, in which it will shoot heavy drilling liquid into the hole to choke off the flow of oil and natural gas. In case that fails, the company is also drilling two relief wells, though experts warn those may take until August to complete. If you believe BP's estimates, more than 7 million gallons of oil have already hemorrhaged into the Gulf; if you believe the most alarming outside estimates, the figure is likely closer to 136 million. Then there's the more than 785,000 gallons of toxic dispersant that BP has already added to Gulf waters. One thing is clear: Failure to act decisively now will only add to the magnitude of the problem.

The Obama administration appears to be calculating that assuming full control of the effort in the Gulf could lead to the disaster being branded "Obama's Katrina." But not taking every possible step to minimize the damage may ultimately lead to the same result.

The Source (http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/05/obamas-sluggish-response-oil-spill)

Spang

05-26-2010, 03:32 PM

Top-kill procedure has begun. You can watch the live feed here (http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/homepage/STAGING/local_assets/bp_homepage/html/rov_stream.html).

Spang

05-26-2010, 07:10 PM

Kill, baby, kill.

Over 300 dead birds are likely Gulf spill victims

(Reuters) - More than 300 sea birds, nearly 200 turtles and 19 dolphins have been found dead along the U.S. Gulf Coast during the first five weeks of BP's huge oil spill off Louisiana, wildlife officials reported on Monday.

The 316 dead birds collected along the shores of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida -- plus 10 others that died or were euthanized at wildlife rehabilitation centers after they were captured alive, far outnumber the 31 surviving birds found oiled to date.

The raw tally of birds listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as dead on arrival at wildlife collection facilities include specimens obviously tainted with oil and some with no visible signs of oil contamination.

But all are being counted as potential casualties of the oil gushing since April 20 from a ruptured wellhead on the floor of the Gulf because of their proximity in time and space to the spill, said Jay Holcomb, who directs a rescue center for birds in Fort Jackson, Louisiana.

The same is true of nearly 200 sea turtles found dead and dying along the Gulf Coast, and 19 dead dolphins verified in the region since the oil drilling blowout on April 20.

Tissue samples collected eventually will be analyzed to determine more conclusively if the animals were contaminated with oil from the BP spill.

Holcomb, director of the California-based International Bird Rescue Research Center, said mortality for sea birds, many of them in the midst of their breeding season, is expected to climb sharply, especially if hurricanes move into the region and sweep more oil ashore.

"The potential for this being catastrophic is right there because there's a massive amount of oil in the water, and it's still pouring out, and there's a lot of nesting birds and a lot of birds using the coast," he told Reuters. "If the tropical storms take that oil and move it, that's when you're going to see the real impact, I think."

The size of BP's disaster in the Gulf could eclipse the scale of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska's Prince William Sound, in which an estimated 250,000 sea birds perished.

DIVING BIRDS HARDEST HIT SO FAR

The birds hardest hit by oil in the Gulf so far are those that feed by diving into the water for fish, including the Louisiana state bird, the brown pelican, removed last year from the U.S. endangered species list, and the northern gannet, Holcomb said.

But shorebirds, wading birds and songbirds will increasingly be put in harm's way as more oil washes onto beaches and into marshlands.

Oil impairs the insulating properties of birds' feathers, exposing them to cold and making it difficult for them to float, swim and fly. Chemicals in the petroleum also can burn their skin and irritate their eyes. They also end up ingesting the oil when they preen, damaging their digestive tracts.

Other wildlife at immediate risk in the Gulf are sea turtles and marine mammals.

To date, 209 sea turtles have been found dead or debilitated along the Gulf Coast, about double the number reported late last week, a tally that wildlife officials said then could be considered normal for this time of year.

The latest figure includes 194 that washed ashore dead and 12 that were found stranded alive, two of which later died in rehab, said Dr. Michael Ziccardi, a veterinarian and professor at the University of California at Davis who is overseeing sea turtle and marine mammal rescue teams in Louisiana.

Three remaining turtles in the latest tally were found heavily oiled at sea but have survived, he said. Those three are the only ones with outward signs of oil contamination.

Necropsies, the animal equivalent of autopsies, have been performed on 40 turtle carcasses found intact, and a majority of the findings pointed to drowning or the aspiration of bottom sediments as the cause of death, Ziccardi said.

Although the results are "inconsistent with oil exposure as a primary cause of death," lab tests of tissue samples are still pending, so less visible factors remain to be determined, he said.

Nineteen dolphin deaths also have been confirmed since the spill began, but none of those animals showed any obvious external or internal signs of oiling, Ziccardi said.

The Source (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64N5L020100525)

Spang

05-26-2010, 09:30 PM

BP says tricky deep-sea oil plug plan on track

(Reuters) - BP Plc said an ambitious deep-sea operation to choke off a gushing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico was proceeding as planned on Wednesday, while President Barack Obama cautioned Americans there was no guarantee it would work.

BP is under intense pressure from Obama to bring a swift end to the five-week-old leak that threatens an environmental catastrophe and a blow to Obama's crisis-manager image.

Undersea robots were helping to inject heavy fluids and ultimately cement pumped down about a mile to the sea-bed well, while BP chief executive Tony Hayward and U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu monitored operations together in Houston.

"The operation is proceeding as we planned it," Hayward said in a media briefing four hours after launching the "top kill" strategy to stanch the leak.

"It will be another 24 hours before we know whether or not this has been successful," he added.

The embattled CEO stood by BP's 60-70 percent odds of success. But top kill, a routine procedure on the surface, has never been attempted at such depths, prompting one industry expert to put the odds of success at less than 50 percent.

"You have got some of the smartest guys in the business trying to figure this out, but it has never been done before," David Pursell, partner at Houston investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co, told Reuters Insider.

"I think the odds have to be 50 percent or less," he added.

Obama said that if successful, BP's plan to cap the well should greatly reduce or eliminate the flow of hundreds of thousands of gallons (liters) of crude billowing into the Gulf.

If it fails, "there are other approaches that may be viable," he said on a trip to California.

Obama , who has told aides to "plug the damn hole," will head to Louisiana on Friday for the second time since the April 20 rig blast that killed 11 and unleashed the oil.

BP says the next approach would be to install a containment device over the broken blowout preventer, a structure at the top of the well on the ocean floor, to try to stop the oil flow. It would attempt this in the next three or four days.

It is still unclear how much oil is flowing from the well, but it is already shaping up to be the worst oil spill in U.S. history and a long-term threat to a rich ecosystem.

The oil's destruction of critical habitats continued to spread, with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal saying that more than 100 miles of the state's 400-mile coastline were now affected.

A BP statement said the top kill action began at 1 p.m. CST after the U.S. Coast Guard approved the operation, the most ambitious effort to date to cap the well.

PIVOTAL DAYS FOR OBAMA, BP

These days may be critical for the London-based energy giant and Obama.

BP's reputation and its big presence in the United States is at stake and investors, who have wiped $50 billion off BP's market value since the start of the spill, will watch closely to see whether the latest attempt to seal the well works.

BP shares seesawed in London trading, with investors boosting the share price about 2.6 percent at one point before it closed up 1.4 percent. BP's announcement that it had launched the new operation came after London markets had closed.

If the effort fails, Obama may have no choice but to take charge of the response. He has so far deflected calls for the government to take a more direct role and said BP has legal responsibility for fixing the mess.

What he can do is unclear because the government does not have its own deepwater tools and technology and will have to rely on BP.

But even with Obama applying constant pressure on the company, polls show that nearly half of Americans are unhappy with how he has handled it. That sentiment could play into the November elections that are widely expected to erode his Democratic Party's control of the U.S. Congress.

Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson said if BP failed to plug the leak this week, Obama must seize personal control of the effort immediately.

"If this thing doesn't work then the president ought to turn this over to the military. It has the command structure to bring in all the civilian agencies," said Nelson.

LOST COASTLINE EXASPERATES LOCALS

Residents of the Gulf region are particularly concerned about the impact of spreading oil on wildlife and area shorelines, home to a lucrative fishing and tourism business.

Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, one of the worst affected Louisiana coastal districts so far, sharply criticized BP executives and Coast Guard leaders, saying they had no comprehensive plan to defend the coast from the oil.

"We will lose more coastline from this catastrophe than from all four hurricanes -- Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike," said Nungesser.

Commercial fishing, shrimping and oyster harvests have been shut down for weeks along much of the Gulf coast, home to a $6.5 billion seafood industry.

BP said it had appointed an independent mediator to oversee damage claims. More than 26,000 claims have been submitted so far, resulting in payments of more than $36 million.

BP has estimated that about 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons/795,000 liters) have been leaking every day, although some scientists have given much higher numbers for the size of the leak -- up to 20 times more.

The head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Jane Lubchenco, told a congressional hearing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would provide a new estimate within two weeks on the amount of oil leaking from the well.

"It's only been in the last couple of days that we have gotten video that was high enough resolution, long enough length and fast enough shutter speed to really do credible calculations," Lubchenco said.

The Source (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6430AR20100527?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F +US+%2F+Top+News%29)

Spang

05-26-2010, 11:55 PM

BP: Appears only drilling mud flowing from well

(Reuters) - BP Plc Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said on Wednesday it appears drilling mud, not oil, was gushing from a ruptured undersea well six hours into an effort to halt a growing oil spill.

"What you've been observing coming out of the top of that riser is most likely mud," Suttles said at a news conference broadcast from a Louisiana command center. "We can't fully confirm that because we can't sample it. And the way we know we've been successful is it stops flowing."

Residents along the Gulf Coast have been watching video of the leaking well since the "top kill" began about 1 p.m. CDT (2 p.m. EDT). The effort involves pumping tons of drilling mud down the well bore to overcome the oil and gas flowing out.

Suttles and U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Mary Landry said they were cautiously optimistic about the effort to stop the leak that began with a drilling rig explosion April 20. The leak threatens the ecology of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and the economies of four U.S. states.

"We've all been here a long time and been trying a lot of things and ridden a roller coaster," Suttles told reporters in Robert, Louisiana, and listening over the phone and Internet. "I think we just need to take the next 24 hours and see what the results are."

The goal is to halt the flow of oil long enough so cement can be pumped in to shut it off.

The mud, a substance specially created for the oil drilling industry and used in all wells drilled, weighs twice as much as water and is being pumped in by 30,000 horsepower compressors.

"Ultimately, what we need to see is that the well can't flow to surface," Suttles said. "That will be the way we know it's successful."

The mile-deep underwater gusher began flowing after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20, claiming the live of 11 workers.

The Source (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64Q0CO20100527?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F +US+%2F+Top+News%29)

Spang

05-27-2010, 05:09 PM

(No Nudity)

Tybee

05-27-2010, 06:04 PM

(No Nudity) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE9Wjgc_Teg&feature=player_embedded)

They must be from the Tea Party, they look like evil white people....

Spang

05-27-2010, 06:21 PM

Setback Delays ‘Top Kill’ Effort to Seal Leaking Oil Well in Gulf

HOUSTON — BP had to halt its ambitious effort to plug its stricken oil well in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday afternoon when engineers saw that too much of the drilling fluid they were injecting into the well was escaping along with the leaking crude oil.

A technician at the BP command center said that pumping of the fluid had to be stopped temporarily while engineers were revising their plans, and that the company hoped to resume pumping by midnight, if federal officials approved.

The technician, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters, said the problem was not seen as serious. “We’re still quite optimistic,” he said, but cautioned: “It is not assured and its not a done deal yet. All of this will require some time.”

The news of yet another delay in capping the well came on a day of rapid-fire developments from Louisiana to Washington.

A report from government experts, who said that the flow of oil from the well, which has been gushing since an explosion and fire wrecked a drilling rig in late April, had been several times worse than the preliminary estimate by BP.

If these new estimates prove to be accurate, the spill would be far bigger than the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 and the worst in United States history.

As frustration and criticism surged over the Obama administration’s handling of the crisis, the head of the agency that oversees offshore oil drilling, S. Elizabeth Birnbaum, resigned under pressure on Thursday after only 10 months in the job.

Hours later, in a lengthy news conference, President Obama defended his administration’s response to the spill, while acknowledging some shortcomings in estimating the flow of oil.

“Those who think we were either slow on the response or lacked urgency, don’t know the facts,” Mr. Obama said. “This has been our highest priority.”

He acknowledged that his administration could have pressed BP sooner to produce a better estimate of the flow of oil leaking from the well. A panel of experts said Thursday that the well has been spewing 12,000 to 19,000 barrels of oil a day, far more than the company’s previous estimate of 5,000 barrels a day. .

In response to several questions about Ms. Birnbaum’s resignation on Thursday, Mr. Obama said he had not had a chance yet to discuss the matter with Ken Salazar, the interior secretary, who was testifying at Congressional hearings most of the morning.

Even as BP watched the progress of its well-plugging measure and Mr. Obama spoke about the government’s role in managing the crisis, oil continued to find its way ashore in Louisiana’s coastal wetlands.

Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen on Thursday approved portions of Louisiana’s $350 million plan to use walls of sand in an effort to protect vulnerable sections of coastline. The approved portion involves a two-mile sand berm to be built off Scofield Island in Plaquemines Parish, La. — one of six immediate projects proposed by Gov. Bobby Jindal. “What Admiral Allen told us today is that if the first one is effective, then they will consider moving on to the next one,” Mr. Jindal said at an afternoon news conference in Fourchon, La.

“We know this is going to work, and we’re calling on our federal government to make BP build the next five,” he added. “Now it’s clear from the task force that there’s even more oil that’s in the water. That shows the urgency to get this built to protect our wetlands, our marshlands.”

Early indications on Thursday were positive for the well-plugging measure, known as a top kill. Crews were injecting heavy drilling fluid deep into the well in hopes of stemming the relentless flow of gas and oil, which has devastated commercial fishing in the Gulf for five weeks, fouled miles of coastline and put the company and federal regulators at the center of a political firestorm. Several previous attempts to stop the leak had failed.

BP warned when it began the top kill on Wednesday that success was not guaranteed and that it could still fail at any moment. BP was guarded in its official statements on Thursday morning, saying only that the top kill was proceeding and that there were “no significant events” to report.

Still, there were indications Thursday morning that the heavy fluid, called mud, was slowly building up within the well bore, as engineers hoped it would when they began pumping it from surface ships through pipes on the sea floor.

At first, most of the mud was carried away by the oil and gas streaming up through the well at high pressure, but with enough mud being pumped in at a fast enough rate, it started accumulating inside the well. The hope is that eventually enough mud will accumulate to overcome the upward pressure of oil.

The technician working on the measure said early on Thursday that the vast amount of data collected had been initially positive. Planning had already begun for cementing the well, the next step in sealing it after the flow of oil and gas is stopped by the drilling mud, but that step would not be undertaken until the injection of fluid had “completely killed the well,” and the oil flow had stopped. Then approval will be needed from the Coast Guard and federal agencies to move forward, the technician said.

A panel of experts assessing the rate of flow of the oil since the disaster began gave a best estimate on Thursday that was 2.4 to 3.8 times the estimate of 5,000 barrels a day offered for weeks by BP. The company had warned that its estimate was preliminary and not very reliable, and Dr. Marcia McNutt, director of the United States Geological Survey, said that the new range also remained uncertain.

The estimated flow rate was based in part on observations that as of May 17th, there was already probably between 130,000 and 270,000 barrels of oil at the surface of the gulf, with about the same amount burned, skimmed, dispersed or evaporated from the surface. A separate team measured the plume of oil as it flowed from the break and came up with a similar estimate of the rate of flow.

The Source (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/us/28spill.html)

Laura Cereta

05-27-2010, 06:57 PM

USF researchers confirm massive underwater plume from gulf oil spill (http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/water/article1098093.ece)
27 May 2010, St. Pete Times

The sight of an oil slick spreading across the surface of the Gulf of Mexico is bad enough. But now scientists from the University of South of Florida have found signs that a six-mile-wide plume of oil is snaking along beneath the surface, in the deepest recesses of the gulf.

A news release from USF's College of Marine Sciences refers to it as "a wide area with elevated levels of dissolved hydrocarbons throughout the water column."

The thickest concentration, they found, was more than 2 miles beneath the surface — deeper than where the Deepwater Horizon well has been spewing oil for the past month — and about 20 miles northeast of the collapsed rig. "Our concern regarding these contaminants is they have the potential to be incorporated in the food web," said David Hollander, a USF chemical oceanographer who is a lead investigator in the research mission.Continues @ link...

Suzan

05-27-2010, 07:02 PM

Yeah, this is horrific and based on what I heard on one of the cable news channels yesterday, it may have been caused by the dispersant that BP used against DOI's orders. The dispersant, if that's the right word, took the oil under the surface enough that it couldn't be seen and therefore the disaster didn't look as bad.

Spang

05-27-2010, 07:30 PM

Need to report Gulf spill issues? There’s an App for that

WASHINGTON — A team of software developers has created a free iPhone program that allows members of the public to report the presence of oil from the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico.

"Oil Reporter" was developed by CrisisCommons, an international volunteer network of technical and business professionals which has also created tools to help with relief efforts following the Haiti earthquake.

"Oil Reporter enables people to help with the recovery effort by using real-time check-ins to report what they're seeing on the ground," CrisisCommons said.

"Users can upload photos and videos, report oil sightings, harmed wildlife sightings and much more," CrisisCommons said in a statement.

CrisisCommons, which has set up a website at Oilreporter.org, said the data collected using the application will be mapped and managed by San Diego State University's Visualization Center.

"We want people to share what they see and to allow that information to be shared with everyone," CrisisCommons said. "We believe that if people share what they see and that information can be placed on a map, it can help organizations and communities with their response efforts."

The Oil Reporter application, which is also available for mobile phones running Google's Android operating system, provides phone numbers on where to report oiled beaches, wildlife as well as volunteer information links.

Google-owned YouTube, meanwhile, was urging users of the video-sharing website to upload their suggestions on how to stop the flow of oil from the well and clean up the damage left by the disaster.

As of Thursday afternoon, more than 15,300 people had submitted more than 7,300 suggestions.

BP was attempting to plug the well on Thursday as new data showed it was the worst oil spill in US history, surpassing the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska.

The Source (http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0527/iphone-application-report-oil-gulf-spill/)

Valin

05-27-2010, 10:01 PM

Contention: Weak Leak (http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/greenwald/302551)
Abe Greenwald
05.27.2010

If it’s remotely possible, let’s inject some sanity into the oil leak that’s stopped the world from spinning. In 1991, as Saddam Hussein’s forces retreated from Kuwait, they dumped 8 million barrels of oil into the Persian Gulf. That still stands as the biggest oil spill in history. So, what were the lasting catastrophic effects? According to this New York Times article, written just two years later (http://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/18/world/gulf-found-to-recover-from-war-s-oil-spill.html), there were none:

The vast amount of oil that Iraqi occupation forces in Kuwait dumped into the Persian Gulf during the 1991 war did little long-term damage, international researchers say. …

“Given the phenomenal quantities of oil that were spilled into the Gulf, the results were rather cheering,” Chidi Ibe, of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission at Unesco, said in a statement today.

Coral reefs studied in early 1992 “appeared to be in good condition,” while fisheries showed “few unequivocal oil pollution effects attributable solely to the 1991 oil spills,” the study found.

Even if you take the highest estimates, the current spill would have to last for nearly a year before it did that kind of nonexistent ecological damage.

Spang

05-27-2010, 10:14 PM

Coast Guard Grounds Ships Involved in Spill Cleanup After 7 Fall Ill; BP Reportedly Preventing Fishermen from Wearing Respirators

At least seven fishermen involved in the cleanup of the BP oil spill were hospitalized on Wednesday after reporting nausea, dizziness, headaches and chest pains. The fishermen were likely exposed to both the leaked oil and chemical dispersants. As a precautionary measure, the Coast Guard has ordered all 125 commercial ships helping with the cleanup to return to land. For weeks, cleanup crews hired by BP have been reporting health issues, but their complaints have largely been ignored. We speak to Clint Guidry, president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, and Albert Huang, an environmental justice attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The Source (http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/27/coast_guard_grounds_ships_involved_in#oilspill2010 )

Spang

05-28-2010, 10:18 AM

BP Spill Officially Worst In US History

Now that we know that the BP's gushing well has likely dumped somewhere between 18.6 million and and 39 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the disaster certifiably tops the list as the worst in US history, eclipsing the Exxon Valdez.

It may even make it to the ranks of the worst oil spills in human history. Exxon Valdez didn't even make that list; as bad as that was, there have been 33 larger spills around the would. The idea that this Gulf spill might not even qualify for that list is perhaps the most scary prospect.

EnviroKnow's Josh Nelson put together a chart showing how this spill stacks up to the other notable oil incidents of the past:

http://motherjones.com/files/images/spillchart_0.jpg

The Source (http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/05/bp-spill-officially-worst-us-history)

Spang

05-28-2010, 11:41 PM

Feds weigh a criminal probe of BP

The focus is on whether the oil company skirted safety regulations and misled the U.S. government about its ability to respond to a blowout.

Reporting from Washington
A team of top federal prosecutors and investigators has taken the first steps toward a formal criminal investigation into oil giant BP's actions before and after the drilling rig disaster off Louisiana.

The investigators, who have been quietly gathering evidence in Louisiana over the last three weeks, are focusing on whether BP skirted federal safety regulations and misled the U.S. government by saying it could quickly clean up an environmental accident.

The team has met with U.S. attorneys and state officials in the Gulf Coast region and has sent letters to executives of BP and Transocean Ltd., the drilling rig owner, warning them against destroying documents or other internal records.

Underscoring the gravity of the inquiry, the team is headed by Assistant Atty. Gen. Ignacia Moreno of the environment and natural resources division and Assistant Atty. Gen. Tony West, who heads the Justice Department's civil division.

The move by federal prosecutors represents an escalation in the government's involvement in the oil spill — from coordinating the environmental cleanup to searching for possible criminal violations.

The Justice Department's inquiry is a standard preliminary step taken to determine whether a formal investigation is warranted. But even in this early stage, it has the earmarks of one of the largest investigative undertakings of the Obama administration.

In one sign of its potential scope, the Obama administration has asked for $10 million to be set aside to pay for the investigation. President Obama, in a letter May 12 to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D- San Francisco), said the funding was needed "to hold BP, and other responsible parties in this spill, accountable for the crisis."

Oil company officials said they were conducting an internal review and had been sharing information with the government. The companies also have pledged to help clean up the oil spreading along the gulf and pay for damages.

"I understand people want a simple answer about why this happened and who is to blame," said BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward.

Assistant Atty. Gen. Ronald Welch said federal investigators were pushing ahead with their inquiries.

"The Department of Justice will take all necessary and appropriate steps to ensure that those responsible for this tragic series of events are held fully accountable," Welch said in a letter Tuesday to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Welch said the team had put the companies on notice about the investigation.

"The department has sent formal demands to British Petroleum, Transocean and other companies to ensure the preservation of potentially relevant information," he said. "These letters invoke federal requirements for preserving evidence in anticipation of litigation."

He said the team had spoken with attorneys for BP and Transocean "to ensure they are complying with these demands."

Welch was responding to concerns from Boxer after she said testimony and evidence presented to her committee suggested possible "illicit activities" involving the oil spill.

In a May 17 letter to Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., Boxer asked him and his department to "review this matter with respect to civil and criminal laws related to false statements to the federal government."

In describing the oversight work of her committee, Boxer said the panel had uncovered statements by BP that now appeared to be "false and misleading."

As an example, she identified a February 2009 document from BP to the federal Minerals Management Service. In it, she said, BP evaluated the company's ability to respond to a blowout.

BP said in the document that an oil spill would have little or no effect on fish habitats because the company would use "proven equipment and technology" to respond to a blowout and spill and quickly contain the damage, Boxer said.

"In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill," Boxer wrote in her letter to Holder, "it does not in any way appear that there was 'proven equipment and technology' to respond to the spill, which could have tragic consequences for local economies and the natural resources of the Gulf of Mexico."

She also noted that after the oil rig explosion, BP said in a May 10 statement that all of its techniques underway to stop the spill "involve significant uncertainties because they have not been tested in these conditions before."

"BP said they were ready for this spill if it occurred," Boxer said in a committee statement. "Clearly they were unprepared — and dangerously so."

On Thursday, one of BP's top officials on the rig on the day of the explosion, Robert Kaluza, invoked the 5th Amendment against self-incrimination and refused to testify at a separate Coast Guard inquiry in Louisiana.

The company defended Kaluza, saying in a statement: "Bob is a dedicated, hardworking, conscientious man. Bob did no wrong on the Deepwater Horizon, and we will make damn sure that this comes out at the appropriate time."

The Source (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-investigation-20100529,0,3427456.story)

Spang

05-29-2010, 12:18 AM

The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill in 35 Days

Laura Cereta

05-29-2010, 09:34 AM

http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/7182/slide_7182_94837_large.jpg?1275136190908

Link (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/28/gulf-oil-spill-photos-hor_n_594045.html#s94837)

http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/7182/slide_7182_94838_large.jpg?1275136290215

Link (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/28/gulf-oil-spill-photos-hor_n_594045.html#s94838)

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/170280/thumbs/r-BEFITTING-PUNISHMENT-huge.jpg (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-investigation-20100529,0,3427456.story)

BP Oil Spill Protest At Gas Station In New York City (VIDEO) (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/28/bp-oil-spill-protest-at-g_n_594225.html)

Protesters in New York City descended on a BP gas station in SoHo on Friday and demanded a boycott of the oil company.

The group condemned BP for its response to the oil spill and the damage company is causing to the environment. Some carried protest signs and covered themselves with chocolate syrup and black food coloring to mimick the crude that's washing up along the Gulf Coast.Video @ link...

Kelle

05-29-2010, 11:42 AM

Spang,

Thanks for keeping us posted on this important story.

Here's hoping for some substantial good news real soon.

kel

Spang

05-29-2010, 05:01 PM

BP says top kill has not stopped Gulf oil leak and now considering other options

A BP executive says the company has yet to stop the oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico and is considering other ways to plug the leak.

A source told The Times-Picayune that officials would announce the failure of the top kill option at a 4 p.m. Saturday briefing in Robert .

BP is expected to announce that it will move on to its next option, known as LMRP. The procedure involves cutting off the failed, leaking riser at the top of the Lower Marine Riser Package on the blowout preventer to get a clean-cut surface on the pipe.

Then the company will install a cap with a sealing grommet that would be connected to a new riser from the Discoverer Enterprise drillship, with the hopes of capturing most of the oil and gas flowing from the well.

BP began a risky operation known as "top kill" on Wednesday. The procedure involves pumping heavy drilling mud into the crippled well in a bid to stop the oil. It's never been tried in 5,000 feet of water.

The oil spill began after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded last month, killing 11 people. It's the worst spill in U.S. history, dumping between 18 million and 40 million gallons into the Gulf.

The Source (http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/bp_now_says_top_kill_has_yet_t.html)

Spang

05-29-2010, 07:21 PM

Spang,

Thanks for keeping us posted on this important story.

You're welcome. Also,

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/32022_120904864613480_1000008190076.jpg

Spang

05-29-2010, 09:50 PM

Compliments of BP:

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/3JFae.jpg

Suzan

05-29-2010, 11:58 PM

Disaster unfolds slowly in the Gulf of Mexico

In the three weeks since the April 20th explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, and the start of the subsequent massive (and ongoing) oil leak, many attempts have been made to contain and control the scale of the environmental disaster. Oil dispersants are being sprayed, containment booms erected, protective barriers built, controlled burns undertaken, and devices are being lowered to the sea floor to try and cap the leaks, with little success to date. While tracking the volume of the continued flow of oil is difficult, an estimated 5,000 barrels of oil (possibly much more) continues to pour into the gulf every day. While visible damage to shorelines has been minimal to date as the oil has spread slowly, the scene remains, in the words of President Obama, a "potentially unprecedented environmental disaster." (40 photos total).

http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/oilspill_05_12/o01_23334333.jpg

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/

Spang

05-30-2010, 07:31 AM

Congressmen Investigate Gulf Emergency Response Plans

With oil still gushing into the Gulf and the ability of BP to respond to the environmental devastation it has unleashed in question, congressional investigators are now taking a closer look at the company's emergency response plans. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) have requested information from four companies that provided services or consultation for emergency response to BP and rig owner Transocean.

The congressmen sent letters to the heads of the National Response Corporation and the Marine Spill Response Corporation, two companies that had service agreements with BP. They also sent inquiries to the Marine Preservation Association, which funds the Marine Spill Response Corporation, and the O'Brien's Response Management Inc., which served as a consultant on emergency response issues to both BP and Transocean. The congressmen request all information related to the companies' response plans for an emergency at the Macondo well site, correspondence with the companies, and "all documents relating to failure to control an oil well on the seabed."

More attention is being paid to how much, if at all, these companies paid to emergency response planning. Clearly not enough, as we're seeing very clearly in the Gulf. Numerous attempts to stop the well have failed, and the company has been unable to control or contain the oil gushing into the ocean. On paper, the company's plan might be funny if the company's failure to anticipate this kind of situation wasn't so tragic.

A Senate committee has also asked the Department of Justice to look into whether BP made false claims about its ability to respond to a disaster in plans submitted to the government. The DOJ says it is "examining the full range of affirmative legal options that may be available to the United States" in dealing with the companies found to be at fault in the Gulf.

The Source (http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/05/congressmen-investigate-gulf-emergency-response-plans?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+motherjones%2FTheBlueMarble+% 28Mother+Jones+|+The+Blue+Marble%29)

CGP

05-30-2010, 11:42 AM

YouTube- Top Kill Fails; BP Trying Other Options

YouTube- BP's Top Kill Effort Fails to Plug Leak

CGP

05-30-2010, 12:30 PM

YouTube- Obama On BP Fail: 'Heartbreaking'

LadyLazarus

05-30-2010, 12:39 PM

Dowd's column today. She resorts to calling Obama "Barry" and accuses him of either lacking feeling or being unable to show it regarding the oil spill. And then actually suggests he should offer Bill Clinton a job as "feeler in chief."

Once More, With Feeling
By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

President Spock’s behavior is illogical.

Once more, he has willfully and inexplicably resisted fulfilling a signal part of his job: being a prism in moments of fear and pride, reflecting what Americans feel so they know he gets it.

“This president needs to tell BP, ’I’m your daddy,’ “ scolded James Carville, a New Orleans resident, as he called Barack Obama’s response to Louisiana’s new watery heartbreak “lackadaisical.”

At a press conference, Obama said Malia had asked him, as he shaved, “Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?” (That hole should be plugged with a junk-shot of Glenn Beck, who crudely mocked the adorable Malia.) Oddly, the good father who wrote so poignantly about growing up without a daddy scorns the paternal aspect of the presidency.

In the campaign, Obama’s fight flagged to the point that his donors openly upbraided him. In the Oval, he waited too long to express outrage and offer leadership on A.I.G., the banks, the bonuses, the job loss and mortgage fears, the Christmas underwear bomber, the death panel scare tactics, the ugly name-calling of Tea Party protesters.

Too often it feels as though Barry is watching from a balcony, reluctant to enter the fray until the clamor of the crowd forces him to come down. The pattern is perverse. The man whose presidency is rooted in his ability to inspire withholds that inspiration when it is most needed.

Oblivious to warnings about Osama hitting the U.S. and Katrina hitting New Orleans, W. often seemed more absorbed in workouts than work. Obama, by contrast, does his homework; he conveys a rare and impressive grasp of difficult subjects when he at last deigns to talk to the news media and reassure those whose lives are overturned by disaster.

The wound-tight, travel-light Obama has a distaste for the adversarial and the random. But if you stick too rigidly to a No Drama rule in the White House, you risk keeping reality at bay. Presidencies are always about crisis management.

Obama invented himself against all odds and repeated parental abandonment, and he worked hard to regiment his emotions. But now that can come across as imperviousness and inflexibility. He wants to run the agenda; he doesn’t want the agenda to run him. Once you become president, though, there’s no way to predict what your crises will be.

F.D.R. achieved greatness not by means of imposing his temperament and intellect on the world but by reacting to what the world threw at him.

For five weeks, it looked as though Obama considered the gushing that became the worst oil spill in U.S. history a distraction, like a fire alarm going off in the middle of a law seminar he was teaching. He’ll deal with it, but he’s annoyed because it’s not on his syllabus.

Even if Obama doesn’t watch “Treme” on HBO, it’s strange that he would not have a more spontaneous emotional response to another horrendous hit for Louisiana, with residents and lawmakers crying on the news and dead pelicans washing up on shore. But then, he didn’t make his first-ever visit to New Orleans until nearly a year after Katrina hit. “I never had occasion to be here,” he told The Times’s Jeff Zeleny, then at The Chicago Tribune.

Just as President Clinton once protested to reporters that he was still “relevant,” President Obama had to protest to reporters last week that he has feelings.

He seemed to tune out a bit after the exhausting battle over health care, with the air of someone who says to himself: “Oh, man, that was a heavy lift. I’m taking a break.”

He’s spending the holiday weekend in Chicago when he should be commemorating Memorial Day here with the families of troops killed in battle and with veterans at Arlington Cemetery.

Republican senators who had a contentious lunch with the president last week described him as whiny, thin-skinned and in over his head, and there was extreme Democratic angst at the White House’s dilatory and deferential attitude on the spill.

Even more than with the greedy financiers and arrogant carmakers, it was important to offend and slap back the deceptive malefactors at BP.

Obama and top aides who believe in his divinity make a mistake to dismiss complaints of his aloofness as Washington white noise. He treats the press as a nuisance rather than examining his own inability to encapsulate Americans’ feelings.

“The media may get tired of the story, but we will not,” he told Gulf Coast residents when he visited on Friday. Actually, if it weren’t for the media, the president would probably never have woken up from his torpor and flown down there.

Instead of getting Bill Clinton to offer Joe Sestak a job, Obama should be offering Clinton one. Bill would certainly know how to gush at a gusher gone haywire. Let him resume a cameo role as Feeler in Chief. The post is open.

Kelle

05-30-2010, 06:16 PM

Here's the ad for the clean up workers.

I don't quite know what to make of it being posted on a page of the Terrebonne Parish government site.

(3/27/2010)Clean Up Positions (Terrebonne Parish)
Terrebonne Parish Administration
Thursday, May 27, 2010http://www.tpcg.org/view.php?f=main&p=news&i=192
Ashland Services, LLC needs 500 workers to assist with the oil spill cleanup in Grand Isle. Recruitment is taking place today, Thursday, May 27, 2010 only at 7528 Main Street (old unemployment office).

Workers will be paid $12.00 per hour and are expected to work 14 hour days 7 days a week. Transportation to Grand Isle, breakfast and lunch will be provided daily. All required safety gear will be provided by Ashland Services, LLC.

kel

Spang

05-30-2010, 07:04 PM

If you have any ideas to help BP get un-******, you can call them at this number:

+1 281 366 5511 (http://www.bp.com/bodycopyarticle.do?categoryId=1&contentId=7052055)

foxyladi

05-30-2010, 07:09 PM

Contention: Weak Leak (http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/greenwald/302551)
Abe Greenwald
05.27.2010

that is beginning to look like a real possibility.

VotingHillary

05-30-2010, 11:46 PM

President Spock’s behavior is illogical.

Once more, he has willfully and inexplicably resisted fulfilling a signal part of his job: being a prism in moments of fear and pride, reflecting what Americans feel so they know he gets it.

“This president needs to tell BP, ’I’m your daddy,’ “ scolded James Carville, a New Orleans resident, as he called Barack Obama’s response to Louisiana’s new watery heartbreak “lackadaisical.”

At a press conference, Obama said Malia had asked him, as he shaved, “Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?” (That hole should be plugged with a junk-shot of Glenn Beck, who crudely mocked the adorable Malia.) Oddly, the good father who wrote so poignantly about growing up without a daddy scorns the paternal aspect of the presidency.

In the campaign, Obama’s fight flagged to the point that his donors openly upbraided him. In the Oval, he waited too long to express outrage and offer leadership on A.I.G., the banks, the bonuses, the job loss and mortgage fears, the Christmas underwear bomber, the death panel scare tactics, the ugly name-calling of Tea Party protesters.

Too often it feels as though Barry is watching from a balcony, reluctant to enter the fray until the clamor of the crowd forces him to come down. The pattern is perverse. The man whose presidency is rooted in his ability to inspire withholds that inspiration when it is most needed.

Oblivious to warnings about Osama hitting the U.S. and Katrina hitting New Orleans, W. often seemed more absorbed in workouts than work. Obama, by contrast, does his homework; he conveys a rare and impressive grasp of difficult subjects when he at last deigns to talk to the news media and reassure those whose lives are overturned by disaster.

The wound-tight, travel-light Obama has a distaste for the adversarial and the random. But if you stick too rigidly to a No Drama rule in the White House, you risk keeping reality at bay. Presidencies are always about crisis management.

Obama invented himself against all odds and repeated parental abandonment, and he worked hard to regiment his emotions. But now that can come across as imperviousness and inflexibility. He wants to run the agenda; he doesn’t want the agenda to run him. Once you become president, though, there’s no way to predict what your crises will be.

F.D.R. achieved greatness not by means of imposing his temperament and intellect on the world but by reacting to what the world threw at him.

For five weeks, it looked as though Obama considered the gushing that became the worst oil spill in U.S. history a distraction, like a fire alarm going off in the middle of a law seminar he was teaching. He’ll deal with it, but he’s annoyed because it’s not on his syllabus.

Even if Obama doesn’t watch “Treme” on HBO, it’s strange that he would not have a more spontaneous emotional response to another horrendous hit for Louisiana, with residents and lawmakers crying on the news and dead pelicans washing up on shore. But then, he didn’t make his first-ever visit to New Orleans until nearly a year after Katrina hit. “I never had occasion to be here,” he told The Times’s Jeff Zeleny, then at The Chicago Tribune.

Just as President Clinton once protested to reporters that he was still “relevant,” President Obama had to protest to reporters last week that he has feelings.

He seemed to tune out a bit after the exhausting battle over health care, with the air of someone who says to himself: “Oh, man, that was a heavy lift. I’m taking a break.”

He’s spending the holiday weekend in Chicago when he should be commemorating Memorial Day here with the families of troops killed in battle and with veterans at Arlington Cemetery.

Republican senators who had a contentious lunch with the president last week described him as whiny, thin-skinned and in over his head, and there was extreme Democratic angst at the White House’s dilatory and deferential attitude on the spill.

Even more than with the greedy financiers and arrogant carmakers, it was important to offend and slap back the deceptive malefactors at BP.

Obama and top aides who believe in his divinity make a mistake to dismiss complaints of his aloofness as Washington white noise. He treats the press as a nuisance rather than examining his own inability to encapsulate Americans’ feelings.

“The media may get tired of the story, but we will not,” he told Gulf Coast residents when he visited on Friday. Actually, if it weren’t for the media, the president would probably never have woken up from his torpor and flown down there.

Instead of getting Bill Clinton to offer Joe Sestak a job, Obama should be offering Clinton one. Bill would certainly know how to gush at a gusher gone haywire. Let him resume a cameo role as Feeler in Chief. The post is open.

Oh, my....the thrill is gone even for Dowd.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/opinion/30dowd.html?ref=opinion

LadyLazarus

05-31-2010, 12:04 AM

VotingHillary

05-31-2010, 12:10 AM

I'm not sure if this thread should be merged with the BP oil disaster thread because I already posted this article there. See post #131. (http://www.commongroundpolitics.net/discussion/showpost.php?p=732022&postcount=131)

Boy, you know Dowd's pissed when she resorts to "Barry."

LL, I am so sorry. I didn't see you posted this. I think it should be separate because it isn't just about the oil leak crisis, but about Obama's overall crisis-handling capabilities.

And let's face it, this is also about Obama's greatest "swooner" falling out of love with Obama in a big way.

I was really surprised even she called him out for not laying the wreath at Arlington.

I will leave this to the mods, but again LL, my apologies.

Laura Cereta

05-31-2010, 03:22 AM

^Well, upon conferring, we can't decide, lol, so I guess it's staying put for now.

jlynne

05-31-2010, 03:54 AM

I will chime in and say I like it as a separate thread. Quiet frankly, I only read the oil spill thread when I can cuss without bothering someone else.

I've been trying to figure out Dowd for awhile now, especially given her Kagan articles, and this just adds to the list of things that make me shake my head in bewilderment.

Wasn't she one of the people lauding Obama because he was cerebral? Now she sees that characteristic as a detriment?

It all goes back to Hillary's 3 a.m. commercial. I wonder how many people still see it, wrongly IMHO, as racist now that there is an emergency in the Gulf and Obama has been called on to fix the crisis.

WASTRIC

05-31-2010, 04:17 AM

Rather than Carteresque He is becoming more Chamberlinesque as the days go by.
I hope a Churchill steps forward as we need one.

Spang

05-31-2010, 04:42 AM

BP: The media’s Katrina

The President and the media can’t help BP rush through the unpleasantness of poisoning the ocean quickly enough. First, the government (starting with Bush, but extending through Obama’s reign) staffed the MMS with incompetents, who apparently alternated between allowing oil and gas company workers to fill out their own inspection forms, accepting Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl tickets from offshore drilling companies, and smoking crystal meth.

What I’m trying to say is, the MMS was extremely busy, which is probably why they didn’t notice BP’s blowout preventer had a dead battery in its control pod, leaks in its hydraulic system, a “useless” test version of a key component and a cutting tool that wasn’t strong enough to shear through steel joints in the well pipe and stop the flow of oil in the event of a fiery explosion, which by the way, totally happened. But who has time to check superfluous stuff like a blowout preventer? I mean, that meth isn’t going to smoke itself.

BP has shown a desire to cover its own ass by allegedly forbidding clean-up crews to wear respirators so as to avoid future negligence lawsuits even as it continues to dump toxic dispersants, which have been banned in the UK, ignoring the EPA’s pleas to find a less toxic (and extremely available) version.

The government obviously needs to accept a substantial part of the blame for the Deepwater Horizon disaster, but it was very odd that President Obama asked the media to throw all the blame his way. Yes, the administration failed (as did the Bush administration,) but so did BP.

Certain media players are also demonstrating a strange fixation on assisting BP through this particularly difficult time now that every “solution” proposed by the company has failed, including the latest Top Kill efforts. Candy Crowley’s State Of The Union featured an interview with Brian Dobson, the head of a public relations company called Dobson Communications, Inc., about the best strategy BP should adopt in order to mend its public image.

At a time when the coastal fishing industry and ecosystem face the possibility of total destruction, Obama and Candy are wading into the ocean with Tony Hayward and sawing off the heads of dolphins. Figuratively speaking, of course.

Candy, especially, seemed self-conscious about this segment, possibly because it looks really, super bad.

CROWLEY: Thanks, Susan Candiotti. Let me go briefly back to our panel. Not that we actually at this point really care about BP’s image, that’s kind of BP’s problem. Nonetheless, it has very deep pockets, and it can monetarily, so far, survive this.

No, CNN totally doesn’t care about BP’s image, which is why it just devoted an entire segment to advice for the corporation to repair its image — for FREE!

In addition to playing corporate aide, the media has been playing an odd game with assigning blame for BP’s **** up. Some Very Serious And Intelligent individuals’ diagnoses appear to be that Obama is acting like effeminate secret Frenchman (inspiring Peggy Noonan to declare the end of the Obama presidency for the 6,349th time,) and he needs to — I dunno — call in the National Guard to shoot at oil patches, or something. But these “no nonsense” tough talkers only appear to flex their muscles and jerk off to fantasies of President John Wayne post-catastrophe.

When it comes time to have a grown-up conversation about regulation and accountability, very serious people say we shouldn’t investigate into possible crimes because “some life has to be mysterious,” and it’s important to “just keep walking.”

While it’s fashionable, the media gnashes its teeth and foams at the mouth over big, bad BP, even as the company quietly attempts to pull the same deregulation con in Canada, which of course will only be a story when the high drama of oil-soaked birds and ruined fishermen officially kick in.

Surely, there is a happy medium between calling Obama gay for not ripping out Tony Hayward’s heart, and totally ignoring the quieter, less interesting aspects of defensive governance. The media is supposed to shine before and after the storm, and not just while the hurricane rages. Deregulation has been a problem for a long, long time, and the problem won’t vanish overnight even if the cap on BP’s liability is lifted, and the victims of this horror are properly compensated.

BP is now saying oil may rush into the Gulf until August, a dire estimate made worse if one considers the quickly approaching hurricane season. If interest in this story wanes, fatigue, and depression set in, and in a frenzy to move on, the media declares BP has “done enough” to make amends, this disaster really will become another Katrina.

As much as I hate to say this, Louisiana will feel the effects of this for generations, especially when considering the toll these toxins will take on the environment and the mating habits of birds and sea life. I want to give CNN some praise for being one of the first news outlets to cover the Corexit story, and for the network’s reports on the issue of sick workers (there are more reports of workers being hospitalized after falling ill on clean-up jobs). However, just as CNN had some excellent reporting on Katrina in the juicy ratings window immediately after the storm, we are now experiencing “peak interest” time in the BP story.

Two year ago, the media was euphemistically calling New Orleans’s recovery from Katrina “uneven.” A year ago, Brookings reported the city faced “major challenges.” The state was not yet recovered from the last time the government failed it, and now the nation’s president is shielding BP from its part of the blame, while the media sweeps up behind the company — even offering free PR advice in the meantime.

The few bright moments of the media’s performance should be highlighted and praised. But when the interest fades, the cameras may leave, and in that case, Louisiana will once again be abandoned by the nation.

The Source (http://allisonkilkenny.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/bp-the-medias-katrina/)

kyforhillary

05-31-2010, 07:39 AM

Can You HEAR US NOW? WE TOLD YOU SO..........over and over and over.

Kbentleyis

05-31-2010, 08:55 AM

jlynne, I could never figure her out either. Tried watching her, but always flipped to another channel after a few minutes.

I thought BHO mentioning his daughter's "Did you plug the hole yet daddy?" thing was just as phony as all his other staged news events. I don't believe a word that comes out of his mouth. HE MUST always play the victim or try to associate himself as an everyday joe.

He and his fellow morons can't hide behind a racist excuse anymore. Incompetence overwhelms this administration and divisiveness isn't working for them.

Amy Dugan

05-31-2010, 09:24 AM

must say reading Barry in the purple box confused me, thought that was your summary until i read Dowd actually called him Barry like Rush does.

i know Obama loves Lincoln as his favorite president and maybe that is why he is going to Lincoln's grave today instead of coming to DC

Laura Cereta

05-31-2010, 09:34 AM

^Well, upon conferring, we can't decide, lol, so I guess it's staying put for now.

Alright, my decision making faculties have returned and I merged it. On its own, it was turning into an "Obama sucks" thread and we have plenty of those. It would probably be more productive to discuss how Obama specifically sucks (or not) in relation to his handling of this crisis. :p

BTW, this doesn't surprise me from Dowd: she's an equal opportunity hater, which is exactly why people keep coming back for more. It's hard to resist seeing who her new victim is.

Laura Cereta

05-31-2010, 09:35 AM

http://blogs.tampabay.com/.a/6a00d83451b05569e20134819d5664970c-900wi

http://blogs.tampabay.com/.a/6a00d83451b05569e20133ee2f67ca970b-900wi

Source (http://blogs.tampabay.com/photo/gulf-oil-spill/)

Laura Cereta

05-31-2010, 09:38 AM

Putting aside oil for holiday (http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/tourism/article1098910.ece)

http://www.tampabay.com/multimedia/archive/00124/destin_124122a.jpg

After weeks of fears of an economic disaster in northwest Florida because of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the crowds are back this Memorial Day weekend, which kicks off the summer tourist season on the Emerald Coast.

Laura Cereta

05-31-2010, 10:03 AM

For five weeks, it looked as though Obama considered the gushing that became the worst oil spill in U.S. history a distraction, like a fire alarm going off in the middle of a law seminar he was teaching. He’ll deal with it, but he’s annoyed because it’s not on his syllabus.
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/170355/thumbs/s-OBAMA-GULF-OIL-SPILL-large300.jpg (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/29/obama-gulf-oil-spill-enraging_n_594632.html?ir=Politics)

Laura Cereta

05-31-2010, 10:08 AM

Oil spill taking toll on BP's credibility — and the government's (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/29/95064/oil-spill-is-taking-a-toll-on.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_term=news)

Video @ link..

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/170343/thumbs/s-GULF-OIL-SPILL-BP-GOVERNMENT-large300.jpg (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/29/95064/oil-spill-is-taking-a-toll-on.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_term=news)

A litany of half-truths, withholding crucial video, blocking media access to the site and a failure to share timely and complete information about efforts to contain the largest oil spill in U.S. history have created the widespread impression that BP is withholding information about the April 20 oilrig blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, if not misleading the public and the government.

The government has been little better, for weeks blindly accepting BP's estimates of the size of the spill, all but powerless to force the company to curb its use of toxic chemical dispersants and ignoring warnings from its own officials about possible worker safety violations.

Most damning, say members of Congress, was BP's failure to release video that would help measure how much oil is being released from the broken well — a number that will be key evidence when federal investigators and perhaps juries consider what damages BP should pay.

A government task force last week found that twice BP's original estimate — and possibly much more — has been spewing out of the well each day.
"What's clear is that BP has had an interest in low-balling the size of their accident, since every barrel spilled increases how much they could be fined by the government," said Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who led the push to force the company to make its video feed publicly available.

His administration should have pushed harder and sooner for the video information, President Barack Obama acknowledged in a press conference Thursday. It's "a legitimate concern to question whether BP's interests in being fully forthcoming about the extent of the damage is aligned with the public interest," he said, adding: "We have to verify whatever it is they say about the damage."Read more...

Spang

05-31-2010, 02:37 PM

How about shutting them all down?

SARAH PALIN thinks Barack Obama has taken too "doggone long to get in there". James Carville wants Mr Obama to "put somebody in charge of this thing and get this moving." Maureen Dowd doinked Mr Obama Saturday with her silly-straw-like wit, faulting his "inability to encapsulate Americans' feelings." Yeah, you know who would've killed as the president facing a deep-sea oil blowout? Philip Seymour Hoffman. Or maybe Meryl Streep. Did you see them in "Doubt"?

Ms Dowd's involvement is fitting, as this may be the sorriest spectacle of content-free public hyperventilation since Al Gore's earth tones. The difference is that in this case the issue is deadly serious; it's the public discourse that is puerile. There is plenty of room for substantive critique of the flaws in governance and policy uncovered by the Deepwater Horizon blowout. You could talk about regulatory failure. You could talk about corporate impunity. You could talk about blithely ignoring the tail-end risk of going ahead with deepwater drilling without any capacity to cope with catastrophic blowouts. Precisely none of these subjects are evident in the arguments our pundit class is having. Instead we have empty-headed squawking over what the catastrophe is doing to Barack Obama's image.

Who's raising concrete critiques of administration policy? Chiefly Mr Obama. Last Thursday he laid out a series of mistakes he felt he had made. Chief among them was taking oil companies at their word when they claimed to have the capability to cope with worst-case deep-sea drilling catastrophes. Now, if we feel that the president has failed to act aggressively enough on this issue, both before and since the accident, then what course of action should we now be calling on him to take? One logical step might be for the government to immediately shut down every offshore drilling rig in proximity to America's coasts, pending the development of redundant, fail-safe capacity for capping and remediating catastrophic blowouts. Is this a good idea? I don't know. But if you wanted to argue concretely that the administration had not been acting aggressively enough in this crisis, then this is the sort of more-aggressive action you might be calling for.

But how would the American people actually feel about that? Would that really "encapsulate their feelings", as Ms Dowd puts it? Or do their feelings actually contain a bit of a soft spot for low gasoline prices? Might such a performance fail to adequately interpret the deep ambiguities of the American people's helpless crush on those handsome bad boys in the oil industry?

And how would Mr Obama's chief critics feel about shutting down offshore oil rigs until the government has the capacity to stop blowouts and clean up massive spills? Presumably the same way they reacted to his six-month moratorium on new wells and suspension of drilling on 33 exploratory wells in the Gulf.

"I take issue with the President's decision to extend the moratorium on deepwater drilling should it be used to indefinitely suspend offshore drilling," Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in a statement. "The BP spill in the Gulf is a tragedy and there is no question we must conduct a thorough investigation into what led to this devastating spill, and we must take every step to stop and contain the leak. But with the needed safety measures in place, domestic drilling should be continued and encouraged."

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said the plan could mean "effectively killing Shell's participation in Alaska," the Associated Press reports. "That's not acceptable to me or Alaska."

What we're seeing here is a perfect circus of media nothingball: people aggressively criticising the administration for not acting aggressively enough while aggressively ignoring the fact that they oppose anything aggressive the administration does.

But he should get on in there and put somebody in charge! What's taking him so doggone long?

The Source (http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/05/deepwater_horizon_1)

Spang

05-31-2010, 07:58 PM

"NOAA expands closed fisheries; now 26 percent of Gulf off limits." - Kate Sheppard

CGP

05-31-2010, 08:08 PM

BP oil spill: death and devastation – and it's just the start (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/31/bp-oil-spill-death-impact)
(5/31/10, The Guardian)

The White House says the BP oil spill is probably the greatest environmental disaster the US has faced, but the true impact on surrounding ecosystems could take months or even years to emerge. Experts say the unprecedented depth of the spill, combined with the use of chemicals that broke the oil down before it reached the surface, pose an unknown threat.

"It's difficult to marshal resources to do a thorough job of charting what the impacts are," Jeffrey Short, an environmental chemist who worked on the effects of the Exxon Valdez spill, told Nature magazine. "It's especially difficult when weird things happen to catch the scientific community bysurprise. That's clearly the case here."

Louisiana, the nearest state to the leaking well, some 42 miles offshore, has been the most impacted. The state's governor, Bobby Jindal, said more than 100 miles of its 400-mile coast had so far been polluted.

State officials have reported sheets of oil soiling wetlands and seeping into marine and bird nurseries, leaving a stain of sticky crude on cane that binds the marshes together. Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines parish, said he had seen dying cane and "no life" in parts of Pass-a-Loutre wildlife refuge.

Continues at the link...

CGP

05-31-2010, 08:45 PM

U.S. Coast Guard pilot Larry Chambers describes what it's like to fly over the Gulf of Mexico and see the oil fouling the water. (May 31)

YouTube- First Person: Seeing Gulf Oil 'Stops Your Heart'

Kelle

06-01-2010, 12:44 AM

(5/31/2010) Gergen: Mr. President, take command (CNN)
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/05/30/gergen.oil.spill/index.html

Editor's Note: David Gergen is a senior political analyst for CNN and has served as an adviser to four U.S. presidents. He is a professor of public service and the director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School.

(CNN) -- Enough is enough! After the latest failure by BP to plug the gaping hole, it is time for President Obama to take full command of this growing national catastrophe. Immediately!

The president in his press conference this past Thursday assured the nation that he and his administration were already in charge and he has manfully taken personal responsibility -- "the buck stops here," he said, echoing Harry Truman. Well, it may be true that BP has been acting all along under the oversight of the federal government, but that supervision has been loose and ineffective.

To the world, it has been apparent that the government has been riding shotgun and BP has been at the wheel. It's time for the White House to get in the driver's seat and get us to safety -- fast.

First off, who can now trust BP to do the job right? From the beginning, it has appeared to be more interested in shoring up its stock price than in playing straight and solving the problem. It took reckless short cuts in opening up the rig, had no serious plan in place for a disaster, low-balled early estimates of the spill, has high-balled its chances of stopping the leak and has kept both the government and the public too much in the dark. And its efforts on shore are increasingly pathetic -- can it really have failed to protect the safety of beach workers and have stage managed the clean-up when Obama was there, as reported? It was a mistake to leave our fate in the hands of this company as long as we have.

Second, even if BP were reliable, the problem has clearly become too big for it to handle, as Colin Powell is now arguing on television. We have been told for days that the top kill procedure was BP's best hope for stopping the leak and if that failed, we would likely have to wait until BP drilled new wells which might be as late as August. We can't wait that long. BP is especially not up to the task of protecting our precious shorelines and cleaning up the beaches. For that, we need the organizational strength of the U.S. military.

Third, this catastrophe is increasingly threatening the nation's welfare. With a potentially dangerous storm season just around the corner, a continuing gush of oil will not only pose huge, long-term damage to the Gulf region but could easily wash the oil around the tip of Florida and up the East Coast. The loss to livelihoods, the economy and to ways of life would be immeasurable. It would be worse than Katrina and Exxon Valdez put together. Unless we solve this soon, this spill could do to off-shore drilling what Three Mile Island did to nuclear power -- darn near kill it. Obama is right that it is a wake-up call to end our addiction to oil, but we need some forms of off-shore oil as a bridge to that future.

Finally, Obama's leadership is increasingly at stake in this emergency. I thought Peggy Noonan was premature in arguing in the Wall Street Journal this weekend that the spill has already broken his presidency, but her column certainly gave pause. The cameras down at the bottom of the sea give us vivid reminders that this oil is spewing forth day after day after day -- almost like the daily television reminders we had of how long our hostages were held in Teheran while Jimmy Carter sat helplessly in the White House, the authority leaking out of his presidency.

What can the White House do? For starters:

-- Set up a daily command center in Washington where a presidentially appointed leader runs the show, calls the shots, coordinates the overall effort, briefs the president and briefs the country

-- Have two deputies, one to direct the leak-stoppage and the other to direct the clean-up. Ex-CEOs and generals would be excellent candidates

-- Summon all the major oil and drilling companies to the White House for emergency efforts to get the hole plugged

-- Get BP out of the picture for clean-up; just send it the bill. If it is still needed for hole-plugging, okay, but ensure that it answers every day to directions from the government. If BP needs new internal leadership, figure out how to get that done

-- Employ the U.S. military for organizational coordination and where needed, for anything else such as clean-up

-- Make more aggressive efforts to tap the best minds in the world for help

-- Provide the country with the kind of daily briefings that the military has mastered for wartime -- bring in people who are smart, straight and tough

-- Ensure that economic assistance is provided to families, small businesses and communities that need it with dispatch and generosity

-- Call off the finger pointing until we get out of this mess

-- And finally, very importantly, exercise the powers of leadership every day from the Oval Office

The whole country now has a keen interest in the White House now taking full command. Mr. President, it's your move. The nation cannot afford to wait that long -- the government needs to summon all the big oil and drilling companies to the White House on an emergency basis and seek faster answers.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Gergen.

kel

Laura Cereta

06-01-2010, 01:56 AM

YouTube- HILLARY CLINTON PROVES HER POINT ON OBAMA - SARAH PALIN & THE BP OIL SPILL DISASTER

Kelle

06-01-2010, 02:56 AM

Wow. Powerful video.

It's interesting to hear Obama criticize Bush's handling of Katrina.

(2/7/08) Barack Obama To Lay Out Program To Rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast Region

(Organizing For America)
http://www.barackobama.com/2008/02/07/barack_obama_to_lay_out_progra.php

To confront these challenges we have to understand that Katrina may have battered these shores - but it also exposed silent storms that have ravaged parts of this city and our country for far too long. The storms of poverty and joblessness; inequality and injustice.

When I was down in Houston visiting evacuees a few days after Katrina, I met a woman in the Reliant Center who had long known these storms in her life.

She told me, "We had nothing before the hurricane. Now we got less than nothing."

We had nothing before the hurricane. Now we got less than nothing. I think about her sometimes. I think about how America left her behind. And I wonder where she is today.

America failed that woman long before that failure showed up on our television screens. We failed her again during Katrina. And - tragically - we are failing her for a third time. That needs to change. It's time for us to restore our trust with her; it's time for America to rebuild trust with the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

When I am President, I will start by restoring that most basic trust - that your government will do what it takes to keep you safe.

The words "never again" - spoken so often in those weeks after Katrina - must not fade to a whisper. The Army Corps of Engineers has rebuilt levees that were most damaged by the storm, but funding has sometimes stalled, and New Orleans remains unprotected.

We can't gamble every hurricane season. When I am President, we will finish building a system of levees that can withstand a 100-year storm by 2011, with the goal of expanding that protection to defend against a Category 5 storm. We also have to restore nature's barriers - the wetlands, marshes and barrier islands that can take the first blows and protect the people of the Gulf Coast.

If catastrophe comes, the American people must be able to call on a competent government. When I am President, the days of dysfunction and cronyism in Washington will be over. The director of FEMA will report to me. He or she will have the highest qualifications in emergency management. And I won't just tell you that I'll insulate that office from politics - I'll guarantee it, by giving my FEMA director a fixed term like the director of the Federal Reserve. I don't want FEMA to be thinking for one minute about the politics of a crisis. I want FEMA to do its job, which is protecting the American people - not protecting a President's politics.

And as soon as we take office, my FEMA director will work with emergency management officials in all fifty states to create a National Response Plan. Because we need to know - before disaster comes - who will be in charge; and how the federal, state and local governments will work together to respond.

But putting up defenses is not sufficient. Because renewing trust with the people of New Orleans is not just about stronger levees and pumping systems - it's about people.

So many of us live a life that is ordered, with comforts we can count on. Somewhere, we know, there are people who don't have a house with a sturdy roof; who have nowhere to go when they can't make rent; who don't have a car to drive to another city when a storm is coming; who can't get care when they're sick, or get the education that would give them a chance at their dreams.

But too often, we lose our sense of common destiny; that understanding that we are all tied together; that when a woman has less than nothing in this country, that makes us all poorer.

That is why the second thing we need to do is to make sure that reconstruction is making a real difference in peoples' lives.

Across this city, we see the evidence that George Bush's promises were empty. It's not acceptable that federal money is not reaching communities that need it, or that Louisiana officials have filled out millions of forms to get reconstruction funds. When I am President, the federal rebuilding coordinator will report directly to me, and we will ensure that resources show results. It's time to cut the red tape, so that the federal government is a partner - not an opponent - in getting things done.

No wonder Carville is peeved.

kel

Spang

06-01-2010, 03:00 AM

Spang

06-01-2010, 04:25 AM

Our Epic Foolishness

If a bank is too big to fail, it’s way too big to exist. If an oil well is too far beneath the sea to be plugged when something goes wrong, it’s too deep to be drilled in the first place.

When are we going to stop behaving so stupidly? We nearly wrecked the economy and we’re all but buried in debt. But we can’t break up the biggest banks, and we can’t raise taxes. Now we’re fouling the magnificent Gulf of Mexico and ruining entire communities along the southern Louisiana Coast.

And, by the way, we’re still fighting a futile war in Afghanistan that we’ve been fighting with nonstop futility for nearly a decade. (I’m sure the troops saddled with this thankless task were thrilled to see fans and teams demonstrating their undying support for their efforts by wearing fancy baseball caps on Memorial Day.)

For a nation that can’t stop bragging about how great and powerful it is, we’ve become shockingly helpless in the face of the many challenges confronting us. Our can-do spirit was put on hold many moons ago, and here we are now unable to defeat the Taliban, or rein in the likes of BP and the biggest banks, or stop the oil gushing furiously from the bowels of earth like a warning from Hades about the hubris and ignorance that is threatening to destroy us.

BP and the Obama administration have been equally clueless about halting the millions of gallons of oil that have flowed into the gulf since the Deepwater Horizon explosion more than a month ago. President Obama’s top adviser on energy policy, Carol Browner, unintentionally underscored the monumental futility of the response in a comment she made on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

“This is obviously a difficult situation,” said Ms. Browner, “but it’s important for people to understand that from the beginning, the government has been in charge.”

Got that? No one has been able to bring the crisis under control, and no one expects it to be brought under control soon, but the important thing for us to know is that the government has been in charge of this epic failure all along.

However and whenever the well gets capped, what we really need is leadership that calls on the American public to begin coping in a serious and sustained way with an energy crisis that we’ve been warned about for decades. If the worst environmental disaster in the country’s history is not enough to bring about a reversal of our epic foolishness on the energy front, then nothing will.

The first thing we can do is conserve more. That’s the low-hanging fruit in any clean-energy strategy.

It’s fast, cheap and easy. It’s something that all Americans, young and old, can be asked to participate in immediately. In that sense, it’s a way of combating the pervasive feelings of helplessness that have become so demoralizing and so destructive to our long-term interests.

People have talked about energy conservation for the longest time. But we have dawdled on making vehicles more fuel-efficient and weatherizing our homes and insisting that commercial buildings be more energy efficient, and so on. Turn those thermostats down a couple of degrees in the winter and up in the summer. Figure out ways to have a little fun while doing it.

We also need a carbon tax. The current crisis is the perfect opportunity for our political leaders to explain to the public why this is so important and what benefits would come from it.

Above all, I’d like to see the creation of a second Manhattan Project that would lead us in a few years to an environment in which alternative fuels are abundant, effective and affordable. We are a pathetically weak player in that game right now.

Instead of staring mesmerized at the tragedy in the gulf, like spectators at a train wreck, we should be trying to regain that innovative can-do spirit that made America the greatest of nations.

All around us is the wreckage of our failure to master the challenges confronting us. We see it in the many millions of Americans who remain out of work and whose hopes are not rising despite all the talk of economic recovery. We see it in the schools where teachers are walking the plank by the scores of thousands because of state and local budget problems.

We see it in the shrinking middle class and in the black community where depressionlike conditions are fostering not just a sense of helplessness, but despair.

What’s needed is dynamic leadership (it doesn’t have to come from the top) to reinvigorate the spirit of America and turn that sense of helplessness around.

The Source (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/opinion/01herbert.html?hp)

foxyladi

06-01-2010, 11:10 AM

we used to be a nation of use it up wear it out then fix it and wear it out again.
today we live in a disposable society.
some folks throw away things that i can't even afford to buy in the first place.
so conserving is a good place to start..:thumbsup:

Kelle

06-01-2010, 01:02 PM

It's difficult to rebuild the Gulf Coast when major corporations are ******* it up. It's also difficult to do anything about the catastrophe when a federal organization to combat the problem doesn't exist.

What did you think of Gergen's suggested plan of action?

What can the White House do? For starters:

-- Set up a daily command center in Washington where a presidentially appointed leader runs the show, calls the shots, coordinates the overall effort, briefs the president and briefs the country

-- Have two deputies, one to direct the leak-stoppage and the other to direct the clean-up. Ex-CEOs and generals would be excellent candidates

-- Summon all the major oil and drilling companies to the White House for emergency efforts to get the hole plugged

-- Get BP out of the picture for clean-up; just send it the bill. If it is still needed for hole-plugging, okay, but ensure that it answers every day to directions from the government. If BP needs new internal leadership, figure out how to get that done

-- Employ the U.S. military for organizational coordination and where needed, for anything else such as clean-up

-- Make more aggressive efforts to tap the best minds in the world for help

-- Provide the country with the kind of daily briefings that the military has mastered for wartime -- bring in people who are smart, straight and tough

-- Ensure that economic assistance is provided to families, small businesses and communities that need it with dispatch and generosity

-- Call off the finger pointing until we get out of this mess

-- And finally, very importantly, exercise the powers of leadership every day from the Oval Office

The whole country now has a keen interest in the White House now taking full command. Mr. President, it's your move. The nation cannot afford to wait that long -- the government needs to summon all the big oil and drilling companies to the White House on an emergency basis and seek faster answers.

Of course it's not easy. That's why it's called leadership.

Either BP has genuinely been able to BS Obama and his administration or they knew/know that they are being BS'ed and it's easier to go with the flow and cross their fingers than it is to demand better answers and something resembling accountability.

That's why the symbolism in those 400 workers showing up for Obama's visit is so compelling. Were they back the next day? If not, why not.

The most compelling point Gergen makes is for the government taking over the clean up and sending BP the bill. The only good reason not to do that is it could be difficult to get the money back later. But that has to be weighed against the fact that the longer you wait the harder and more expensive the clean up is.

Of course the deficit spending is already unconscionable and arguably that's Obama's fault, at least in major part. So if money (or the lack thereof) is an impediment to getting this catastrophe under control then that reflects poorly on Obama as well.

kel

Spang

06-01-2010, 02:35 PM

BP hires Cheney spokeswoman to lead PR effort

As if the water wasn't deep -- or oily -- enough around British Petroleum's public relations, the company has hired a former spokeswoman for Vice President Dick Cheney to be its public face for the disaster.

Anne Womack Kolton, former head of public affairs at the Department of Energy and Cheney's onetime campaign press secretary, will take the baton from BP this week.

While at Cheney's side, Kolton defended the secrecy of the Vice President's Energy task force, a group which held secretive meetings with energy company executives. When the General Accounting Office -- the research arm of Congress -- sued the Administraton for records relating to Cheney's meetings, Kolton (then Womack) was at his side.

"We are ready to defend our principles in court," she said. "This goes to the heart of the presidency and to the ability of the president and vice president to receive candid, discreet advice."

A blogger at the liberal web site Daily Kos notes that BP was reportedly among one of the companies that Cheney met with.

In 2004, Womack Kolton also drew attention from the left after Cheney made comments suggesting a Democratic victory would precipitate a terrorist attack.

“Whoever is elected in November,” she said, “face[s] the prospect of another terrorist attack. The question is whether or not the right policies are in place to best protect our country. That‘s what the Vice President was saying.”

A Department of Energy press release notes that "Ms. Kolton joined the Bush administration in January 2001 as Assistant Press Secretary in the White House Press Office after serving on the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign as Assistant Press Secretary to then Vice Presidential candidate Dick Cheney."

"Before joining Bush-Cheney 2000," the release continues, "Ms. Kolton was Washington Liaison for Texas Attorney General John Cornyn."

Kolton also appeared in the news when asked for a response about Cheney's apparent difference of opinion with President George W. Bush on the anti-gay marriage amendment.

"The vice president respects the president's right to make that decision," she said.

The Source (http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0601/bp-hires-cheney-spokeswoman-lead-pr-effort/)

Spang

06-01-2010, 02:45 PM

Mississippi Beaches: The Last Beautiful Day?

Mississippi coast, Memorial Day. The NOAA surface oil forecast is calling for the slick to come ashore on the Mississippi and Alabamba coasts sometime within the next 72 hours, so we head out that way today to see if anything was arriving early. And also to see just what is at stake when the oil does make landfall.

The Complete Article (http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/05/last-beautiful-day)

Spang

06-01-2010, 04:14 PM

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/109318103-00977520fbba3694409917a7f.jpg

Spang

06-01-2010, 05:19 PM

U.S. attorney general opens criminal probe of Gulf oil spill, nation's worst

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - The U.S. government has launched a criminal probe into BP Plc's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday.

Federal agencies, including the FBI, are participating in the probe and "if we find evidence of illegal behavior, we will be forceful in our response," Holder told reporters after meeting with state and federal prosecutors in New Orleans.

The Source (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/06/us-attorney-general-opens-crim.html)

Spang

06-01-2010, 07:15 PM

BP Oil Spill Hits Alabama, Mississippi Beaches

Oil from the BP Gulf of Mexico gusher hit beaches in Alabama and Mississippi for the first time Tuesday. It's definitely not the kind of news the states wanted to deliver with the start of the summer beach season newly underway.

The news isn't unexpected, given the volume of oil that's been released into the gulf. Still, until not Alabama and Mississippi had been able to tell tourists their beaches were unaffected. It will be harder to make that case with headlines that oil has turned up on their shores.

The Source (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/06/bp_oil_spill_hits_alabama_miss.html?ft=1&f=103943429&sc=tw&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter)

Tybee

06-01-2010, 07:23 PM

Does anyone here really want the government handling the oil spill? Yeah, I'm ticked off about this as well, but I can't imagine that BP is dragging their feet on fixing this. But, IMO, oil people have to be the ones that handle this, not the government. What would they do, send a lawyer??

Tybee

06-01-2010, 07:26 PM

The Source (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/06/us-attorney-general-opens-crim.html)

Shouldn't that wait till this is resolved? I mean let BP give all their attention to the oil spill till it's fixed. I think since Obama has gotten bad press about doing nothing, he thinks siccing lawyers on em is doing something.

Spang

06-01-2010, 08:02 PM

"Even on the beach we're allowed on, there are tar piles big as a 5-yr-old. And this beach was already cleaned today." - Mac McClelland

Spang

06-02-2010, 12:01 AM

BP succeeds in cutting Gulf well’s riser pipe, creating ‘fresh spew of oil’

A remote controlled submarine successfully cut into the Deepwater Horizon's riser pipe on Tuesday, creating a fresh oil gusher that BP hopes to fit with a cap once a diamond saw can be used to ensure the cut is perfectly clean.

The dramatic scene played out on live streamed video, watched by thousands all over the world.

"When the robot submarines cut into the undersea well's riser pipe, a fresh spew of oil temporarily obscured the view of the mechanical arm," CNN reported. "The cut was a first step toward placing a cap over the well that has spewed hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every day since late April."

BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles told the network the fresh attempt to plug the oil gusher could succeed as early as Thursday. The company plans to fit a long tube onto the cap and funnel the gushing oil into a tanker ship.

The risk of the maneuver, CNN added, is that it could increase the flow of oil by 20 percent.

The British oil giant is also drilling two relief wells to relieve pressure on either side of the gusher, both of which won't be completed until at least August, BP said.

President Obama on Tuesday demanded a "full and vigorous accounting" of the facts, which may lead to criminal prosecutions of those responsible for the disaster.

The oil gusher has been jetting up to an estimated 120,000 barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico every day since May 22 and BP's repeated efforts to stem the tide have all failed.

BP claims it has spent nearly $1 billion on spill cleanup. The company has also lost $63 billion in value since the late-April disaster, the Associated Press noted.

The Source (http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0601/bp-succeeds-cutting-gulf-wells-riser-pipe-creating-fresh-gusher/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed)

Spang

06-02-2010, 12:48 AM

"If BP can't stop the leak, maybe they can make it look better by putting one of those floppy used car lot balloon men over it." - Stephen Colbert

Spang

06-02-2010, 01:36 AM

…While the Oil Gushes

The term “deep water” usually means you’re in trouble and “horizon” is what lies ahead. So the ill-fated drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, is aptly named.

Doom has arrived on our shores and our prospects are tacky with tar balls.

The geyser of crude, a mile down in the Gulf of Mexico, exposed America for what it is: bent over a barrel of oil.

The party that defiantly and happily chanted “drill, baby, drill” at their 2008 convention has been content to obsess about the Joe Sestak job offer story in lieu of drilling, baby, drilling. Why aren’t they defending their bumper sticker? With glee they’ve been chasing the hope something illegal happened in the White House so they can pounce on possible political gain in the middle of a the potential loss of our Southern shoreline to sludge. Republicans, with their 30-year menagerie of sound bites railing against government interference with business, have not surprisingly stayed away from direct action on this front. Except for Governor Bobby Jindal, who now publicly wants federal help instead of shaking his fist against the stimulus and then posing in photos handing out those government checks.

That size-of-South-Carolina amorphous blob of crude is the realization of Republican values: no regulations for drilling our way out of an energy crisis. It’s the rainbow connection!

Then the new darling of the right-wing, Rand Paul “shrugged” and said accidents happen and criticized President Obama for being “un-American” for coming down too harshly on BP. Then the old darling of the right-wing, Sarah Palin, whose husband worked for BP for 18 years, didn’t recuse herself from discussing the issue as a paid Fox News contributor because of a potential conflict of interest. Instead she accused Obama of being the one in bed with the oil companies. Which is so ridiculous it’s like Sarah Palin being the person to accuse Obama of being in bed with the oil companies.

Overnight, on Day 39, cable news put up neon graphics that it’s Day 39! Now the press is paying attention. CNN ran stories about how this spill is going to hurt BP’s image as a green company. Because this spill is a PR issue like terminal cancer is a problem with morale.

Suddenly 25 times more oil is coming out of the blown well than BP initially reported. Suddenly the press needs someone to blame. BP, Transocean and Halliburton get passed up for the government response. There is no response that would have saved the Gulf. But context doesn’t matter. We need a bullhorn moment to broadcast. That’s Obama’s failing: no bullhorn. Bush’s bullhorn was…well bull (Osama Bin Laden will die of old age). But we need to see the leader of the free world not being thoughtful – we need action. We need Obama to clean off some tar-covered birds! Why isn’t he in a flight suit err wetsuit!? He’s clearly not doing enough!

The oil companies in this snap shot are in arrested development. In the 1930’s some estimated we’d run out of oil in 10 years. Yet here we are. They’ve innovated to find more oil and effectively kept innovation from making them obsolete. It’s a marvel of modern lobbying, marketing and engineering. But are we out on the streets protesting them? No, we’re having a Tea Party about government tyranny.

The BP spill exposed that we’re still commuting in eight cylinder singly occupied vehicles, hopped up on plastic goods and scoffing at high-speed rail projects. Our government is representative – we haven’t clamored to get off oil. If anything we’ve threatened to riot for having to pay too much at the pump. Because of our myopic need to not alter our way of life – the Deepwater Horizon has altered our way of life. There’s a state-sized slurry of death floating around in the ocean and it’s just the price of doing business.

Calls for more drilling in the wake of the BP Oil Spill are as sound as a junkie shooting up into an abscess.

Louisiana Congressman Charlie Melancon said that these are not just Louisiana’s wetlands but America’s wetlands. And I would add that it’s not just endangered pelicans covered in debilitating oil – we all are covered in debilitating oil.

The Source (http://trueslant.com/tinadupuy/2010/06/01/%E2%80%A6while-the-oil-gushes/)

Spang

06-02-2010, 01:42 AM

Vitter and BP

What happens when you're a small government, pro-business conservative and your state gets pummeled by one of the worst man made disasters ever – not five years after getting pummeled by one of the worst natural disasters (Hurricane Katrina)? If you're Louisiana Senator David Vitter, you double down on offshore drilling and push for a liability cap for BP.

Doubling down on drilling is not particularly surprising. Much of Louisiana's much-needed revenue comes from off-shore drilling leases. “By the same token, after every plane crash, you and I should both oppose plane travel,” Vitter quipped on Sunday to CNN's Candy Crowley. “I don't think that is rational.” Even Vitter's Democratic challenger, Rep. Charlie Melancon, reiterated his support for expanded drilling in the wake of the disaster.

But it's Vitter's early support of a liability cap – he introduced legislation that he promoted in last weekend's weekly GOP radio address – that's landing the son of a Chevron petroleum engineer in trouble. Local and national Democrats have been pounding Vitter for seeking to limit the amount of legal damages BP would be responsible for to the last four quarters of profit. “Unlike Republicans, Democrats are not going to protect BP – and given their track record, we are certainly not going to rely on BP's word as the only thing ensuring that taxpayers are not left on the hook to pay for the disaster they caused,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a statement.

Vitter's been courting his conservative base since July 2007 when it was revealed that he had been a client of “DC Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Vitter held a press conference, his wife by his side, where he admitted to “a very serious sin,” though he didn't detail the sin. In the years since he's slowly and steadily rebuilt his conservative credentials. He passed an amendment to bar funding for organizations that advocate international gun control policies. He attempted to deny family planning funds to organizations that perform abortions but that failed the Senate 52-41. And he sponsored legislation to require all states to collect DNA samples from convicted felons. Vitter's also been a strong advocate for President Bush's tax cuts and, when he ran in 2004 he tied himself closely to Bush – images that are sure to come back to haunt him.

But he's also practical: Louisiana is not Oklahoma (Coburn) or South Carolina (DeMint). There's an expectation that every politician – even the first Republican in 121 years to represent The Bayou State in the Senate – bring home the bacon. In fact, when Vitter first ran for his congressional seat, replacing Bob Livingston, he argued that a younger man should be elected – one that can build up Livingston's seniority over the years. And Vitter has worked hard to bring the state Katrina recovery funds, even sending Bush a hostile letter co-signed by 22 other GOP senators when the President threatened to veto a water resources bill with nearly $3 billion in wetlands and levy funds earmarked for Louisiana.

Vitter leads Melancon comfortably in polls and he's nearly quadrupled Melcancon's $2.5 million fundraising haul. But he must now find a way to explain to angry constituents why he wants to limit the damages they might claim from the oil giant in the wake of the growing disaster – a political crack Democrats in Louisiana are looking to force open. After all, in this climate the only thing worse than being on the side of Washington is being on the side of big oil.

The Source (http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/06/01/vitter-and-bp/)

foxyladi

06-02-2010, 11:10 AM

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/oil-spill-investigation-could-lead-to-criminal-charges-against-industry-execs/19499542

foxyladi

06-02-2010, 11:11 AM

stock dropping .if i had any i would have already dumped it:eek:

foxyladi

06-02-2010, 12:09 PM

BP's headquarters, a 20-story office block in west Houston, houses the firm's permanent crisis center, which handles the response to things like hurricanes. There are now between 500 and 600 people, including staff from Exxon, Shell, Anadarko and Chevron, working in the center, which operates around the clock. Shifts last 12 hours, though a handover period means most are at least 13.

Interesting report.

Steffi

06-02-2010, 02:44 PM

You're welcome. Also,

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/32022_120904864613480_1000008190076.jpg

Over here many people unfortunately don't even know that they are BP customers because they look like that here: :rolleyes:

http://invidis.mittelstandswiki.de/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/2009-06-aral.jpg

Spang

06-02-2010, 03:25 PM

Oil from Gulf of Mexico spill 'nears Florida beaches'

A sheen of oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill is reportedly nearing the white sand beaches of northwest Florida.

Officials said a sheen containing thousands of tar balls had been seen nine miles (15 kilometres) from Pensacola on the Florida "panhandle".

"It's inevitable that we will see it on the beaches," said Keith Wilkins, an Escambia County official.

Meanwhile, BP's efforts to cap the leaking well hit a snag as a saw became stuck in a thick pipe on the sea bed.

The company's is attempting to contain the spill from the well by cutting off the fractured pipe and sealing it with a cap.

Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said crews were shooting chemical dispersants at the oil now leaking out of the new cut, and hoped to make another attempt on the pipe later on Wednesday.

"I don't think the issue is whether or not we can make the second cut. It's about how fine we can make it, how smooth we can make it," Adm Allen said.

BP share prices continued to plummet in trading on the London stock exchange on Wednesday, amid news the US justice department has opened several civil and criminal inquiries into the Gulf spill.

BP estimates that the disaster has so far cost the company approximately $990m (£674m) in clean-up costs, but has refused to speculate on future expenses.
'Dangerous short-cuts'

The BBC's North America editor Mark Mardell, in Washington, says there is a growing sense of frustration that all BP's efforts have come to nought, and things could get worse for the company.

Excerpts from a speech President Barack Obama is to give in Pennsylvania on Wednesday suggest he will say that the leak may be down to "corporations taking dangerous short-cuts that compromised safety".

"But we have to acknowledge that there are inherent risks to drilling four miles beneath the surface of the Earth - risks that are bound to increase the harder oil extraction becomes," the president is expected to say.

The oil began leaking into the Gulf of Mexico on 20 April when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, leased to BP, exploded, killing 11 workers.

BP is drilling two relief wells to permanently plug the leak but they are not expected to be completed until August.

A "top kill" procedure, which had been considered the best hope for plugging the leak, failed over the weekend when engineers were unable to pump enough heavy mud into the well to staunch the oil flow.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist said the oil sheen observed off the state's northwest coast contained thousands of tar balls, heavy globs of decayed oil.

"The goal is to remove that oil from near shore waters and prevent or minimize any potential impacts on our state," he told reporters.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/47971000/gif/_47971066__47965679_oil_spills_comp_466-1.gif

The Source (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10217739.stm)

Laura Cereta

06-02-2010, 03:49 PM

A sheen of oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill is reportedly nearing the white sand beaches of northwest Florida.

Officials said a sheen containing thousands of tar balls had been seen nine miles (15 kilometres) from Pensacola on the Florida "panhandle".

:atwitsend:

Well, from an environmental perspective we're screwed anyway. Economically speaking, at least the heavy tourism season is over now. Memorial Day tends to be the last of it. Most people don't want to be in FL during the summer months because it's like a sauna 24/7.

Spang

06-02-2010, 04:35 PM

BP Bars Photos of Dead Wildlife as Bodies Pile Up

BP is apparently barring cleanup workers from sharing photos of dead animals that have washed ashore. But whether we're seeing them or not, the bodies are starting to add up.

Late last week, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other responders issued a tally of the animals collected as of Friday in oil-impacted regions of Alabama, Florida , Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas—dead and alive. Those stats are shocking: 444 dead birds, 222 dead sea turtles, and 24 mammals (including dolphins). I sent a request to the Unified Command office last week asking for data on wildlife collected over a normal time period, pre-oil-disaster, for comparison. I haven't received a reply.

National Wildlife Federation senior scientist Doug Inkley has compiled some of the data on dolphins and sea turtles found stranded so far—meaning both dead and living animals that have clearly been harmed by their exposure to oil. He reports that the 244 sea turtles they found stranded by the spill is between six to nine times the average rate. The 29 stranded dolphins are between two and six times the normal rate for the region. The number of dead and dying critters, Inkley says, is "certainly higher" than usual.

But even these staggering totals might not be anywhere near the real figures. For starters, they don't include the dead animals who may never be counted. Following the Exxon Valdez spill, scientists noted that many carcasses sunk and were never found, meaning the estimated deaths were probably far too low.

The Source (http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/bp-bars-photos-dead-wildlife-bodies-pile)

foxyladi

06-02-2010, 04:39 PM

Soon they may not need drilling at all, just suck up the ocean, remove salt and dead animals and voila!:eek:

Spang

06-02-2010, 05:23 PM

I renamed the BP Oil Spill to Operation Oil Leaking Freedom.

Laura Cereta

06-02-2010, 06:20 PM

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/171262/thumbs/r-BP-large.jpg (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/02/bp-media-clampdown-no-pho_n_598119.html)

foxyladi

06-02-2010, 06:56 PM

gonna be in your front yard soon Laura..

Kelle

06-02-2010, 07:23 PM

BP Bars Photos of Dead Wildlife as Bodies Pile Up

If the federal government is in charge maybe they should insist that BP workers be allowed to take these pictures.

Or maybe they should just take over the clean up themselves.

I'd bet you dollars to donuts that the government wouldn't let them take the pictures either.

kel

Spang

06-02-2010, 07:27 PM

Or maybe they should just take over the clean up themselves.

Why should they? This is BP's chicken. BP is 100% responsible for all this shit.

jlynne

06-02-2010, 07:43 PM

Why should they? This is BP's chicken. BP is 100% responsible for all this shit.

The government is blameless? When the government approved the well and approved the grossly inadequate spill cleanup plan? Surely you don't mean that. Surely you don't think the government regulations worked like they were supposed to or were enforced like they were supposed to be?

Spang

06-02-2010, 07:50 PM

Surely you don't think the government regulations worked like they were supposed to or were enforced like they were supposed to be?

So, a major corporation conducts business in such an unsafe manner that the rig explodes, killing 11 people, leaking 500,000 gallons of oil a day, destroying the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf Coast, killing thousands of animals and putting a bunch of fishermen out of work, and businesses that depend on fishermen catching seafood that isn't coated in crude, pretty much out of business. And you want to blame the government?

Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

Laura Cereta

06-02-2010, 10:10 PM

gonna be in your front yard soon Laura..

I hope not! :eek: That would get me in trouble, lol.

Laura Cereta

06-02-2010, 11:43 PM

http://www.tampabay.com/multimedia/archive/00124/thurscartoon_124659a.jpg

Spang

06-02-2010, 11:48 PM

Florida doesn't get those kind of waves.

Laura Cereta

06-02-2010, 11:53 PM

Florida doesn't get those kind of waves.

Only when the hurricanes come.

Spang

06-03-2010, 03:32 AM

Oil, Tar and Feathers

Yes, the oil spill sucks. And yes, it's a giant headache not only for Obama (gee, ya think that offshore drilling expansion was tragically timed?) but also for Dems. No one wants to look like they're dropping the ball, that they're doing a heckavajob (Brownie), when, in fact, it's only getting worse. Is this Obama's Waterloo? Does this make him a one-term President? No one knows the answers to these questions and won't for years and breathless speculation over it only distracts from the underlying problem.

There's a buck to stop somewhere in the Interior Department – well over Elizabeth Birnbaum's head. The Administration had 18 months to figure out that the Minerals Management Service was handing out deep sea oil drilling licenses like candy to kids – only candy comes with more warnings these days (thank you Michelle Obama and Jamie Oliver). Someone somewhere is tracking Ken Salazar's career at Interior with an egg timer. Environmental groups have been screaming for his scalp since he suggested that BP's liability might be capped at $10 billion (Credit Suisse today estimated BP's now on the hook for at least $37 billion). Salazar's always been a moderate – a bit of a tradition at Interior – but given the climate, moderate's becoming a dirty word. Even MoveOn.org is turning against the President these days. And is there any doubt that some kind of oil czar -- who is not Salazar -- is going to have to be appointed to oversee the clean up?

But what I don't get is why Obama is taking blame for the botched stemming of the spill and for a clean up that under the 1990 Oil Pollution Act, passed in the wake of the Exxon Valdez, makes it clearly the responsibility – nay, jurisdiction – of the company. By hugging the gooey tar close and making it his own, Obama has invited the angry mob to come forth with feathers. Only now, belatedly, is the Administration, in the form of Attorney General Eric Holder, pointing fingers at BP. That should've been their mantra the entire time. Clearly, someone took a poll (you have to love the way DC works as polling results usually come in Wednesday nights and therefore big Thursday announcements are often the result of some panicked course correction) and last Thursday Obama went on tv and accepted the blame for, well, everything. Only for the mess of the last 43 days, he isn't really to blame: BP is. The hyperbolic guys with the feathers, and the President himself, would do well to remember that.

The Source (http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/06/02/oil-tar-and-feathers/)

Spang

06-03-2010, 02:03 PM

BP Oil: Coming to a Beach Near You in Summer 2010

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) just released this horrifying animation of how ocean currents may carry all the oil in the Gulf of Mexico. According to their computer modeling of currents and the oil, the spill "might soon extend along thousands of miles of the Atlantic coast and open ocean as early as this summer."

"I've had a lot of people ask me, 'Will the oil reach Florida?'" says NCAR scientist Synte Peacock in a statement accompanying the animation, which he worked on. "Actually, our best knowledge says the scope of this environmental disaster is likely to reach far beyond Florida, with impacts that have yet to be understood."

The models show oil hitting Florida's Atlantic coast within weeks, then moving north as far as about Cape Hatteras, NC before turning east.

(No Nudity)

The Source (http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/bp-oil-coming-beach-near-you-summer-2010)

Spang

06-03-2010, 02:53 PM

Spill Workers Get Sick, Chemicals Get a Pass

Last week, seven oil-spill clean-up workers were hospitalized after reporting nausea, headaches, dizziness, and chest pains. Doctors said the symptoms could have been caused by airborne chemical exposure while cleaning up oil slicks. The workers' families have blamed chemicals in the dispersants being used to break up the oil. However, BP has said that air quality tests done at the clean-up sites before the workers fell ill found nothing unusual; it first blamed the workers' condition on fatigue and sun exposure. BP CEO Tony Hayward has since chalked up the workers’ conditions to food poisoning: "I am sure they were genuinely ill, but whether it was anything to do with dispersants and oil, whether it was food poisoning or some other reason for them being ill, you know, there's a—food poisoning is surely a big issue when you've got a concentration of this number of people in temporary camps, temporary accommodations."

The possibility that the clean-up workers’ were suffering from chemical exposure is a reminder of just how weak our chemical regulations are. Last month, the President’s Cancer Panel reported that more than 80,000 industrial chemicals are used in the United States and about 700 new ones are introduced annually—yet very few are tested for potential health or environmental impacts before they hit the market. The panel found that those most vulnerable to chemical exposure are migrant workers, children, and blue collar workers—like those cleaning up BP’s mess in the Gulf.

The panel suggested that the US adopt a precautionary approach similar to the one employed by the European Union, which tries to screen out dangerous chemicals before they hit the market. Under our current system, chemicals are considered innocent until proven guilty. Laws protecting trade secrets prevent access to important information that might determine if a chemical is harmful. And if a chemical does appear to pose a risk, the burden of proof is on the EPA, which often has its hands tied. In April, Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) introduced a bill that would amend the archaic Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976 to be more precautionary than reactionary. "America's system for regulating industrial chemicals is broken," he said. The bill is hanging out in the Committee on Environment and Public Works, awaiting further action.

The Source (http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/chemical-regulation-gulf-workers-sickness)

Kbentleyis

06-03-2010, 03:14 PM

A few words from a person who has experienced disaster.
Giuliani Rips Obama’s Handling of Oil Spill

Newsmax.com

By: Theodore Kettle

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Guiliani, whose tireless leadership in the days and weeks after 9/11 made him a national hero, has accused President Obama of doing everything wrong in his handling of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

“It couldn’t be worse,” Guiliani said Wednesday when asked by Fox News’ Sean Hannity to rate Obama’s performance.

“I mean, this would be an example, if you’re taught ‘Leadership 101,’ of exactly what not to do: minimize it at first; two days after or three days after it happened, go on vacation,” said Giuliani, who ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2008.

“He’s been on vacation more often than he has, by far, been to Louisiana or Mississippi, or any of the places affected,” Giuliani added.

And in a particularly stinging comment, the Empire State’s best-known Republican alluded to the criticism President Obama has been getting from one of the Democratic Party’s best-known strategists.

“He gives the sense that he’s very nonchalant and very lackadaisical about it – which I think are the words of Jim Carville, ‘lackadaisical,’” Giuliani said. Louisiana native Carville, famed as the “Ragin’ Cajun,” was the architect of Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 quest for the presidency.

Carville went into a near frenzy last week during an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” angry about Obama not spending more time in the Gulf Coast areas affected by the spill, which the White House concedes is the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

“I have no idea of why their attitude was so hands-offy here,” Carville said. “The President of the United States could’ve come down here,” he charged. “He could’ve been involved with the families of these 11 people” killed in the rig explosion on April 20 that triggered the massive oil gusher.

“He could be commandeering tankers and making BP bring tankers in and clean this up. They could be deploying people to the coast right now,” Carville said. “He could be with the Corps of Engineers and the Coast Guard...doing something about these regulations.”

An exasperated Carville, whose wife is Republican strategist Mary Matalin, said of Louisianans, “These people are crying. They’re begging for something down here, and he just looks like he’s not involved in this.”

Apparently addressing Obama directly, Carville exclaimed, “Man, you gotta get down here and take control of this! Put somebody in charge of this thing and get this thing moving! We're about to die down here!”

According to Giuliani, the president’s nonchalance delivers a “signal right into the entire bureaucracy, that they’re also very lackadaisical about it. But one of the things you understand as a leader is: your actions are going to energize your bureaucracy to do the best it can.”

The ex-NYC mayor charged that Obama exhibited a similar lack of leadership in the case of the Christmas Day botched airliner bombing last year, with a negative ripple effect as the result.

“He did the same thing on the Christmas Day bombing,” Giuliani told Hannity. “He stays on vacation for 11 days. So the other guys go on vacation.” That’s a clear reference to National Counterterrorism Center director Michael Leiter not cutting short a ski trip after the December 25 near-destruction of a Detroit-bound passenger jet.

“The reality is that the administration has made every mistake it could possibly make, right down to this criminal investigation of BP,” Giuliani complained.

“Why are you criminally investigating them until this is over?” he asked “Are you gonna distract them from the job of what they’re supposed to be doing? And if they’re being criminally investigated, then why are we allowing them to do it? If we’ve got a bunch of criminals doing it, they why are we allowing them to do it?” Giuliani wondered.

So far, as much as 45 million gallons of oil may now be in Gulf waters, already contaminating 125 miles of Louisiana’s coast, as well as coastline in Alabama and Mississippi, and currently within seven miles of the beaches of Pensacola, Florida.

Spang

06-03-2010, 04:22 PM

These people are ******* morons. There's not a goddamn thing Obama can do to combat this corporate disaster. No government agency exists that can un-**** this **** up.

Tybee

06-03-2010, 05:39 PM

It took almost 10 months to cap the well when Ixtoc happened. I can't find anything that states any lasting effects from that spill and it was second largest ever. The US government had two months to prepare booms to protect major inlets. How much time wasted by the government on this BP oil disaster?

Spang

06-03-2010, 06:11 PM

Good song...

foxyladi

06-03-2010, 06:26 PM

and about that dispercent
http://bayouchild.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/bombshell-expose-the-real-reason-the-oil-still-flows-into-the-gulf-of-mexico/

Spang

06-03-2010, 06:40 PM

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/o01_23681845.jpg

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/o02_23681001.jpg

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/o05_23681817.jpg

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/o06_23680647.jpg

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/o07_23681799.jpg

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/o08_23682039.jpg

More photos here (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/caught_in_the_oil.html)

Spang

06-04-2010, 01:55 AM

BP Mole Tells All About Forbidden Island

BP's got a mole working on its cleanup team. The company might be able to keep the press from getting to oiled-up Elmer's Island Wildlife Refuge, but as long as people have cell phones, it's going to have a hell of a time keeping Elmer's Island from getting to the press.

Late Wednesday night I talked to a spill worker involved in the efforts to clean up South Louisiana's barrier islands. Let's call him Elmer, because we spoke under strict condition of confidentiality. Though he hasn't signed one of the BP contracts that bars workers from communicating with reporters, he has been told "500 times" that if he talks, he's fired. He certainly didn't contact me because his politics are so similar to mine and my employer's. "George Bush was too liberal for me," he explained. But: "I like the media. The country couldn't run without it, and it's important to have media from both the left and right."

He also called because on Tuesday BP told me (again) that I couldn't go to Elmer's Island with a producer from PBS's Need to Know because the road to it "needed more gravel." This wasn't just a dick move, but also a lie: "Everyone else," Elmer said, "is driving on that road"—about 20 cars and vans going up and down a day, and the re-graveling had happened the day before we arrived. Since BP was making my job so much harder, Elmer wanted to make it a little easier.

BP's got good reason for wanting to keep insiders like Elmer away from reporters. Elmer says that last Thursday, when the Coast Guard was announcing that the top kill seemed to be working, the cleanup supervisors on Grand Isle had already been informed it was a failure—which, of course, was not publicly announced until several days later.

And as more and more oil continues to deluge Louisiana shores, the cleanup efforts are slowing down. Workers have spent inordinate amounts of time sitting around waiting to be utilized, a frustration echoed by other workers who talked to friends of mine who were on a day trip to the beach. The workers are also upset because last Friday, many of them weren't paid as scheduled. According to Elmer, the mostly white foremen (whom he welcomed me to picture as stereotypical gristly union-boss types) told their mostly black subordinates that they didn't want to hear any bitching about it and that if they had a problem they could go home. Such unpleasant work in such an unpleasant environment and for such low pay (as little as $10 an hour) is, not surprisingly, leading to superhigh attrition. Last week, there were 110 workers on Elmer's Island. Right now, there are only 60 cleaning up the 1,700-acre home to fish, shrimp, and crab nurseries. (I tried to call the subcontractor running the cleanup show, ES&H, for comment on the above issues, but it only has one person who comments to the media, and that person was not available for comment today.)

Elmer's Island was already in bad shape when I was there two weeks ago, but the fire chief of nearby Grand Isle told me yesterday that a massive slick of concentrated oil had been seen just offshore. This morning, Elmer emailed me an update about the forbidden island. "I thought you might be interested to know," he wrote, "there's a LOT more oil out on the beach now."

The Source (http://motherjones.com/rights-stuff/2010/06/BP-spill-worker-elmers-island)

Spang

06-04-2010, 02:27 AM

Obama sends BP a bill for $69 million

The White House announced Thursday the federal government was sending BP a bill for $69 million to reimburse the government for costs of cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the bill represents the total cost to the federal government so far. He noted that President Barack Obama has devoted unprecedented resources to what could be the worst environmental disaster in the nation's history.

And future demands for payment could be forthcoming.

"To provide full transparency of the ongoing efforts and to ensure that the American public is not held accountable for the costs of response and recovery activities, the federal government will bill BP and the other responsible parties periodically for costs incurred by the federal on-scene coordinator to support federal, state and local response efforts," the administration said.

A statement said the government expects "prompt payment."

Obama is scheduled to make his third trip to the Gulf on Friday since the spill began.

The Source (http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/101323-obama-sends-bp-a-bill-for-69-million)

Speedy

06-04-2010, 02:37 AM

The Source (http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/101323-obama-sends-bp-a-bill-for-69-million)

:thumbsup: There we go. Bankrupt those suckers if that's what it takes to clean this shit up without wasting anymore tax payer's money.

Spang

06-04-2010, 04:50 AM

Tybee

06-04-2010, 05:02 AM

:thumbsup: There we go. Bankrupt those suckers if that's what it takes to clean this shit up without wasting anymore tax payer's money.

Yeah, since BP did this on purpose with their hidden agenda, that'll help jobs, the economy, keep gas prices down for those evil people who have to drive to work or drive for a living. Screw anyone that works for BP, get in the unemployment lines with the rest of them. Our taxes will go down if BP bankrupts. /cheers

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

Kelle

06-04-2010, 02:15 PM

Has anyone posted the link to MSNBC's live video feed of the oil geyser?

The clarity of the picture is unbelievable.

6/4/2010 MSNBC Front Page - Live Coverage, video feed of the geyser
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

kel

Kelle

06-04-2010, 02:54 PM

Originally Posted by Kelle
Or maybe they should just take over the clean up themselves.

Why should they? This is BP's chicken. BP is 100% responsible for all this shit.

Under ordinary circumstances I would agree with you.

However, notwithstanding the "enlightened self-interest" theory on why BP wants this cleaned up more than anyone else, the sad fact is that pretending to do a good job and merely doing a half-a**ed or 1/4 a**ed job may be way more cost effective than tackling the problem(s) proactively and aggressively.

Now if Rachel Maddow's recent reporting is accurate, then the government may be hiding some bad news from us as well, and frankly I'm not sure I trust them much more than I do BP. On the other hand, if the government were to take over the clean up then it would be harder for them to play point the finger come election time.

I'm tired of the bazillion dollar who's on first routine. It's like something out of a Family Circus cartoon. The bewildered parent asks "who broke the vase" and the kids blame it on the ghostly figures with names such as "Ida Know" and "Not Me". Only in this case we know who broke it. The question at this point is who is going to fix it. Sadly the answer seems to be "They Doh'know".

Meanwhile Pelicans are gurgling oil, fisheries are dying, and Louisana workers are losing jobs as I type.

The bottom line is that if your friendly neighborhood septic clean out company punched a hole in a mainline and it was gushing *hit into your back yard, and they weren't taking aggressive measures to keep it from seeping into your basement and fouling your house, then the prudent thing to do would be to mitigate and remediate the damage yourself --or pay someone to do it-- and send the bill to the responsible party(ies). (For the sake of simplicity this hypothetical assumes there is no homeowner's insurance coverage).

Because ultimately the damage could be much worse if you don't and in the case of the oil spill, how much do you charge for a dead pelican and who gets the money? And how do you know how many dead pelicans there are if the responsible party is more interested in cover up than clean up?

And how do you show which jobs were lost because of BP as opposed to the *rappy economy in general? It's much better to avoid as much damage as possible in the first place, and avoiding the "accounting" issues later: take care of the clean up yourself, thoroughly document the damages (in part perhaps by encouraging the workers to take pictures of the dead and dying animals), put a dollar amount on it, and send BP the bill.

The only good reason not to would be if you just - don't - have the money.

Obviously with a $3 trillion dollar healthcare bill and unquantifiable deficit spending, arguably we can't afford the clean up. Of course, the Obama administration can't say that to the struggling Louisiana fisherman, tour companies, restaurants, hotels, etc.

Instead it would appear that Obama kept a low profile until it was abundantly clear that the problem wasn't going away. And then in a belated effort to seem presidential, postponed the Indonesian/Australian visits previously postponed due to the healthcare debacle, er, I mean bill.

JMO, although I suspect a fair number of other people agree with me.

kel

Spang

06-04-2010, 03:04 PM

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4061/4666514820_07a2e10e24_b.jpg

Spang

06-04-2010, 04:27 PM

Native Americans Fear their Future in the Oil Zone

Check out this Natural Resources Defense Council OnEarth magazine video about the impacts of the oil spill on the Native American Atakapa-Ishak people who call Louisiana's Grand Bayou home. For generations the Philippe family has relied on these lands and waters for fish, shrimp, crabs, and oysters. Now they don't know what they're going to do.

(No Nudity)

The Source (http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/native-americans-fear-their-future-oil-zone)

foxyladi

06-04-2010, 04:27 PM

"the muck stops here :eek:

Spang

06-04-2010, 06:48 PM

Defense Secretary Robert Gates Declares Gulf Oil Spill Beyond Military's Expertise

SINGAPORE — U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is rejecting a more forceful role for the military in plugging the Gulf of Mexico oil leak.

Gates says the deep-water disaster is beyond the military's expertise.

Oil company BP is using its own equipment to try to stop the leak – equipment the U.S. military does not have.

Speaking in Singapore, where he is meeting with Asian defense officials, Gates said Friday that the U.S. military is ready to do whatever it can to respond. But he also said there isn't much the military can do beyond providing some manpower.

There is a growing call for some kind of federal takeover of the spill, which has now been gushing for six weeks.

The Source (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/04/robert-gates-gulf-oil-spi_n_600528.html)

Spang

06-04-2010, 06:49 PM

(No Nudity)

Spang

06-04-2010, 07:38 PM

Oil Tar Balls Wash Up On Local Beaches

GULF SHORES, AL - Gooey tar blobs are washing on the white sands of Gulf Coast beaches Friday, as a slick from the BP spill drifts closer.

The Source (http://www.wkrg.com/gulf_oil_spill/article/oil-tar-balls-wash-up-on-local-beaches/893170/Jun-04-2010_5-21-pm/)

Spang

06-05-2010, 12:25 AM

BP capturing oil from Gulf gushe

Louisiana (Reuters) - BP began capturing some oil spewing from its ruptured Gulf of Mexico well on Friday as President Barack Obama warned the company against skimping on compensation to residents and businesses hurt by the 46-day-old spill.

With tar balls washing ashore in Florida and political pressure mounting on BP Plc to free up cash for damages, company executives told investors they were putting off a decision on whether to suspend the next quarterly dividend.

"Future decisions on the quarterly dividend will be made by the Board, as they always have been, on the basis of the circumstances at the time," the British energy giant said in a statement. Its annual dividend totals $10.5 billion.

BP CEO Tony Hayward said the company had plenty of money to meet its obligations, including $5 billion in cash and additional credit lines it could tap. It has already spent well over $1 billion on its oil spill response.

Obama, facing a monumental test of his presidency amid criticism he has failed to demonstrate leadership or emotion in the crisis, showed a flash of anger as he seized on the dividend issue in a meeting with state and local officials in Kenner, Louisiana.

"They say they want to make it right. That's part of their advertising campaign. Well, we want them to make it right," Obama said, criticizing BP for spending lavishly on television ads to burnish its corporate image while the company considers the dividend payout.

"What I don't want to hear is, when they're spending that kind of money on their shareholders and spending that kind of money on TV advertising, that they're nickel and diming fishermen or small businesses here in the Gulf," he said.

LIMITED PROGRESS

It was Obama's third trip to the region since the April 20 rig explosion that killed 11 workers and unleashed the worst oil spill in U.S. history. In an interview on Thursday, he said he was "furious" at the disaster, which threatens fishing and tourism, two of the cornerstones of the local economy.

BP made progress late on Thursday when it was able to attach a containment cap atop the ruptured well, which came after several failed attempts to choke off or curtail the oil flow. It will take a few days for the operation to reach optimum performance, at which point the company hoped to be able to siphon off 90 percent of the leaking oil.

The U.S. Coast Guard said the containment cap placed atop the gusher a mile beneath the Gulf's surface was collecting about 1,000 barrels a day. That amounts to just over 5 percent of the 19,000 barrels per day the U.S. government has estimated could be gushing from the well.

BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles told U.S. television networks that the containment cap "should work" by capturing upward of 90 percent of the gushing crude.

U.S. officials cautioned against being too optimistic, though Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen told reporters the volume of captured oil should increase as BP closes vents on the containment apparatus to trap more of the discharge.

BP does not expect to be able to fully halt the oil flow until August, when two relief wells are to be completed.

In the meantime, Hayward vowed BP will "stand by our obligations."

"We will halt this spill and put right the damage that has been done," he said.

BP's share price, which has fallen sharply since the beginning of the crisis, gyrated in London and New York. Standard & Poor's cut BP's credit rating to AA-minus from AA, following the example of two other rating agencies on Thursday.

The cost of credit default swaps insuring the debt of companies affected in the oil spill also fell on Friday. BP's debt protection costs fell 27 basis points to 218 basis points, or $218,000 per year for five years to insure $10 million in debt, according to Markit Intraday.

But analyst Alan Sinclair of Seymour Pierce said, "My take on the underlying message is that the dividend is safe ..."

FLORIDA BRACES

Networks continued to televise images of oil lapping into fragile marshlands and coating sea birds, mostly along the hard-hit Louisiana coast.

Oil sheen and tar balls washed up along a stretch shoreline crowded with beachgoers in northwest Florida in what appeared to be the spill's first impact on that state.

"You see shells and jellyfish and trash, but I've never seen oil here. It's crazy," said Anthony Cross, while walking along Pensacola Beach with his three daughters, holding a child's fishing net full of tar.

Florida, the so-called Sunshine State with a $60 billion-a-year tourism industry, has been bracing this week for the forecasted arrival of the spilled oil, which has already hit Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama shores to the west.

The BP CEO had to apologize after angering Gulf residents by saying last weekend that "I'd like my life back."

The region's frustration with the company and the government was apparent on Friday at a free hamburger and hot dog lunch for out-of-work fisherman at the city hall in Lafitte, Louisiana.

"It's all up in the air right now," said Jerry Perrin, who has harvested crabs and shrimp for 60 years in Louisiana's waters. "The government needs to start spending more money now."

Obama is confronting one of his biggest political tests as his party girds for tough congressional elections in November. He called off a trip to Australia and Indonesia set for this month to focus on the spill, amid criticism over his handling of the crisis.

Neither Obama nor BP fared well in a new CBS public opinion poll, which found an overwhelming majority of Americans believing that both the president and the firm should be doing more to clean up the spill.

But the disapproval ratings for both Obama and BP's spill response -- 44 percent disapproved of the U.S. leader's handling of it versus 68 percent for BP -- were little changed from a similar poll last week.

The Source (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65204220100605?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FtopNews+%28News+%2F +US+%2F+Top+News%29)

Laura Cereta

06-05-2010, 11:57 AM

Caught in the oil (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/caught_in_the_oil.html)
3 June 2010, Boston Globe

***WARNING: Extremely disturbing, graphic pictures of animals @ link

CGP

06-05-2010, 02:17 PM

BP collects 6,000 barrels from well, but oil still flows in Gulf (http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/06/05/gulf.oil.spill/?hpt=Sbin)
(6/5/10, CNN)

BP has collected 6,000 barrels of oil in the first 24 hours of pumping it from a ruptured well up to a drill ship, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the federal government's response manager, said Saturday.

But video taken Saturday still shows a stream of crude escaping into the Gulf of Mexico.

After many failed attempts, BP was able to place the cap on the well and siphon oil Friday from the well to the surface, where it flowed onto the awaiting drill ship Discover Enterprise. The 6,000 barrels is about 252,000 gallons.

By Friday afternoon, the company said on its website that it had collected 76,020 gallons of oil in the first 12 hours after it put the cap on the well, which is less than 10 percent of the 798,000 gallons of oil federal authorities estimate is pouring into the Gulf daily.

Spang

06-06-2010, 01:05 AM

BP Pays for Oiled Bird Cleaning

By now, some of you have probably seen the same heartwrenching pictures of oil-slicked birds that I have. These creatures are so bogged down by brown gunk that they can barely move. To counter those images (which have been stuck on repeat in my head) I present the picture at left: the same brown pelican before and after cleaning, showing that although an oiled animal may look awful, recovery is possible. As our reporter Mac McClelland has told us (along with other sources) Audubon is on the scene in Louisiana, as is the International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRRC) and the Delaware Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research. The agencies are working to capture, clean, and rehabilitate birds who can no longer swim or fly due to oily feathers, and many of whom are sick from ingesting the toxic crude. IBRRC has a 20-person team at the scene. Head Jay Holcomb wrote today:

"I am sure by now you have all seen the pictures of the oiled birds that were captured in Grande Isle, Louisiana. We are busy today with those birds... Please know that we are all doing well here, unhappy like you that this is happening, but we have a great master plan to offset as much damage to the birds as we can... I also want you all to understand that this entire oiled bird rehabilitation effort is being paid for by BP. This is appropriate as they are the Responsible Party for this spill."

The process of cleaning a bird seems fairly straightforward, but laborious. First, animals must be identified, treated for immediate health concerns, tagged, and stabilized. Birds (already stressed from the oil) do not like being handled, so the cleaning process itself is stressful for them. After an initial medical examination is made, the birds are usually rehydrated manually through a rubber tube. (As a former wildlife volunteer, I can tell you that this rubber tube business usually goes smoothly: you pry open the beak and gently guide the tube down the throat into the stomach. But the birds do not like it, and when they bite, they bite hard.)

After all this, the cleaning can finally begin. Using a solution of Dawn dishwashing soap and warm water, workers put birds through a series of baths, using attachments to "aerate" the solution through the feathers. After one bath gets dirty, they move the bird to the next one and do the process again. IBRRC says that using 10 to 15 tubs is "not uncommon." After the oil is finally off, the bird is rinsed thoroughly and put under special air-dryers. After that, it's off to the water pools where the bird can paddle around, and experts can observe it before release.

To hear what the process is like for humans, you can read this interview with Louisiana's Audubon director of bird conservation Melanie Driscoll. Or to see part of the process yourself, see the video below (courtesy the Miami Herald) featuring the IBRRC's bird rehab center.

(No Nudity)

The Source (http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/bp-pays-oiled-bird-cleaning?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+motherjones%2FTheBlueMarble+% 28Mother+Jones+|+The+Blue+Marble%29)

CGP

06-06-2010, 12:21 PM

James Boyce: BP spill reveals urgent necessity to stop digging up poison and burning it for fuel

YouTube- Capping the 'truth spill'

CGP

06-06-2010, 12:24 PM

The wildlife nightmare that everyone has feared for weeks along the Gulf Coast is fast becoming a reality. Saturday, a group of biologists and fish and wildlife agents were out on the water trying to rescue oil-covered birds. (June 5)

YouTube- Rescuers Try To Help Oil-Covered Birds

Laura Cereta

06-06-2010, 12:25 PM

http://www.tampabay.com/multimedia/archive/00125/sundaycartoonweb_125122a.jpg

Phil K

06-06-2010, 03:04 PM

will this be the end of B.P. oil?????

Considering the number of times yank oil companies have done as much damage in other countries...
Or how about Union Carbide's killing spree in India ?
And how little they did to put their horrors right ?

Suzan

06-06-2010, 03:32 PM

Considering the number of times yank oil companies have done as much damage in other countries...
Or how about Union Carbide's killing spree in India ?
And how little they did to put their horrors right ?

Hi Phil K! Welcome to the forum.

If you need help finding your way around, you can click on Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) just below the Navigator Bar at the top of the page, or send a PM to a moderater. Also, if you'd like, you can introduce yourself here. (http://www.commongroundpolitics.net/discussion/showthread.php?t=47418)

Spang

06-07-2010, 12:21 AM

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/x2_18d1822.jpg

Kelle

06-07-2010, 12:30 AM

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b35/Loompy/x2_18d1822.jpg

:rotfl: :laughing:

kel

Spang

06-07-2010, 01:24 AM

The Ongoing Administration-Wide Response to the Deepwater BP Oil Spill
Prepared by the Joint Information Center
UPDATED June 6, 2010 7 PM

In the Past 24 Hours

BP Continues to Capture Some Oil and Gas Using Containment Device
BP continues to capture some oil and burn some gas at the surface using its containment dome technique, which is being executed under the federal government’s direction. After cutting off a portion of the riser, BP placed a containment device over it in order to capture oil at its source.

Survey Flights to Locate Impacted Wildlife Continue
Survey crews conducted three cycles of flights to locate impacted birds and other wildlife. These pilots fly over impacted areas and report oiled pelicans and any other wildlife back to response command centers to guide the response actions of rescue and rehabilitation teams.

SCAT Teams Dispatched in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida
Five shoreline cleanup assessment technique (SCAT) teams—federal, state and BP officials working to assess and determine how cleanup will be conducted, and oversee cleanup operations—have been dispatched across Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.

In addition, federal resource advisors—responsible for ensuring workers follow the proper clean-up methodologies and provide them with vital information—have been reassigned to areas across the Gulf Coast where oil is beginning to appear on shore. Additional resource advisors are being recruited. The Department of the Interior currently has more than 700 personnel working in the area as part of the administration’s all-hands-on-deck response.

Administration Continues to Oversee BP’s Claims Process
The administration will continue to hold the responsible parties accountable for repairing the damage, and repaying Americans who’ve suffered a financial loss as a result of the BP oil spill. BP reports that 37,193 claims have been opened, from which more than $48.4 million have been disbursed. No claims have been denied to date. There are 514 claims adjusters on the ground. To file a claim, visit www.bp.com/claims or call BP’s helpline at 1-800-440-0858. Those who have already pursued the BP claims process and are not satisfied with BP’s resolution can call the Coast Guard at (800) 280-7118.

By the Numbers to Date:

* The administration has authorized 17,500 National Guard troops from Gulf Coast states to participate in the response to the BP oil spill.
* More than 20,000 personnel are currently responding to protect the shoreline and wildlife and cleanup vital coastlines.
* More than 2.700 vessels are responding on site, including skimmers, tugs, barges, and recovery vessels to assist in containment and cleanup efforts—in addition to dozens of aircraft, remotely operated vehicles, and multiple mobile offshore drilling units.
* Approximately 2.16 million feet of containment boom and 2.39 million feet of sorbent boom have been deployed to contain the spill—and approximately 682,000 feet of containment boom and 2.4 million feet of sorbent boom are available.
* Approximately 15.5 million gallons of an oil-water mix have been recovered.
* Approximately 1.08 million gallons of total dispersant have been deployed—779,000 on the surface and 303,000 subsea. More than 240,000 gallons are available.
* 125 controlled burns have been conducted, efficiently removing a total of more than 3.2 million gallons of oil from the open water in an effort to protect shoreline and wildlife.
* 17 staging areas are in place and ready to protect sensitive shorelines, including: Dauphin Island, Ala., Orange Beach, Ala., Theodore, Ala., Panama City, Fla., Pensacola, Fla., Port St. Joe, Fla., St. Marks, Fla., Amelia, La., Cocodrie, La., Grand Isle, La., Shell Beach, La., Slidell, La., St. Mary, La.; Venice, La., Biloxi, Miss., Pascagoula, Miss., and Pass Christian, Miss.

The Ongoing Administration-Wide Response to the Deepwater BP Oil Spill
Prepared by the Joint Information Center
UPDATED June 5, 2010 7 PM

In the Past 24 Hours

Admiral Allen Provides Operational Update for Unified Area Command
National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen today provided a briefing to inform the American public and answer questions on the progress of the administration-wide response to the BP oil spill at the Theodore Staging Area in Theodore, Ala. A transcript is available here.

BP Places Containment Device Over Wellhead; Currently Capturing Some Oil and Gas Under the federal government’s direction, BP cut off a portion of the riser before attempting to place a containment device over it in order to capture the leaking oil. BP has placed the containment cap over the source of the leak. The cap has allowed BP to capture some oil and burn some gas at the surface.

At his briefing this morning, Admiral Allen was cautiously optimistic about this new development, saying that the goal is to increase the amount of oil captured and “hopefully take the pressure off the well and hopefully start to reduce the oil that is coming out through the vents.”

Administrator Jackson Hosts Meeting With Experts on Coastal Protection and Cleanup
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and the National Incident Command in Houma, La., today convened a meeting of science and technology experts to explore new ideas and methods for coastal protection and clean up technologies—part of continued efforts to engage the brightest minds from across the federal government, academia and the private sector in the ongoing response to the BP oil spill.

These experts, many of whom have years of experience and expertise on oil spill clean up operations, are examining and analyzing both traditional and innovative approaches to marsh and wetlands oil clean up and remediation in order to identify the most promising alternatives and facilitate ongoing collaborations for both short- and long-term response.

Administration Continues to Oversee BP’s Claims Process
The administration will continue to hold the responsible parties accountable for repairing the damage, and repaying Americans who’ve suffered a financial loss as a result of the BP oil spill. BP reports that 35,591 claims have been opened, from which more than $48.1 million have been disbursed. No claims have been denied to date. There are 514 claims adjusters on the ground. To file a claim, visit www.bp.com/claims or call BP’s helpline at 1-800-440-0858. Those who have already pursued the BP claims process and are not satisfied with BP’s resolution can call the Coast Guard at (800) 280-7118.

The National Incident Command has established the Deepwater Integrated Services Team to coordinate interagency support services for individuals and small businesses impacted by the BP oil spill—designed to provide residents with full, streamlined access to all available assistance programs. In addition, www.disasterassistance.gov has been enhanced to provide a one-stop shop for information on how to file a claim with BP and access additional assistance—available in English and Spanish.

SBA Economic Injury Assistance Loans Approved for Louisiana
SBA has approved 36 economic injury assistance loans to date, totaling $1,257,000, for small businesses in Louisiana impacted by the BP oil spill. Additionally, the agency has granted deferments on 272 existing SBA disaster loans in the Gulf Coast region, totaling $1,123,300 per month in payments. For information on assistance loans for affected businesses, visit the SBA’s Web site at www.sba.gov/services/disasterassistance, call (800) 659-2955 (800-877-8339 for the hearing impaired), or email disastercustomerservice@sba.gov.

Shoreline Cleanup and Wildlife Rescue Crews Increased in Louisiana
Additional shoreline cleanup and wildlife rescue crews today were committed to Grand Isle, La., due to heavy oil hitting along a 12.5-mile stretch of coastline. Nineteen contract biologists were sent to supplement the U.S. Fish and Wildlife personnel in the area.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fish (DWF) reported that as of today 78 percent of all bird sightings have resulted in rescue. However, operators of bird rehabilitation facilities report that they are experiencing difficulties when cleaning the more heavily oiled birds.

Fishing Restrictions Increase by One Percent; 67 Percent Remains Open
Today, NOAA added 565 square miles to the fishing closed area—located at the northeast edge of the closed area and encompassing the projected movement of oil toward Panama City Beach, Florida. This federal closure does not apply to any state waters. The closed area now represents 78,603 square miles, which is approximately 33 percent of Gulf of Mexico federal waters. This leaves more than 67 percent of Gulf federal waters available for fishing. Closing fishing in these areas is a precautionary measure to ensure that seafood from the Gulf will remain safe for consumers. Details can be found at http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/.

By the Numbers to Date:

* The administration has authorized 17,500 National Guard troops from Gulf Coast states to participate in the response to the BP oil spill.
* More than 20,000 personnel are currently responding to protect the shoreline and wildlife and cleanup vital coastlines.
* More than 2,600 vessels are responding on site, including skimmers, tugs, barges, and recovery vessels to assist in containment and cleanup efforts—in addition to dozens of aircraft, remotely operated vehicles, and multiple mobile offshore drilling units.
* Approximately 2.1 million feet of containment boom and 2.35 million feet of sorbent boom have been deployed to contain the spill—and approximately 695,000 feet of containment boom and 2.2 million feet of sorbent boom are available.
* Approximately 15.2 million gallons of an oil-water mix have been recovered.
* Approximately 1.05 million gallons of total dispersant have been deployed—779,000 on the surface and 270,000 subsea. More than 450,000 gallons are available.
* 125 controlled burns have been conducted, efficiently removing a total of more than 3.2 million gallons of oil from the open water in an effort to protect shoreline and wildlife.
* 17 staging areas are in place and ready to protect sensitive shorelines, including: Dauphin Island, Ala., Orange Beach, Ala., Theodore, Ala., Panama City, Fla., Pensacola, Fla., Port St. Joe, Fla., St. Marks, Fla., Amelia, La., Cocodrie, La., Grand Isle, La., Shell Beach, La., Slidell, La., St. Mary, La.; Venice, La., Biloxi, Miss., Pascagoula, Miss., and Pass Christian, Miss.

The Source (http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/06/ongoing-administration-wide-response-deepwater-bp-oil-spill-june-5-and-june-6-2010)

Spang

06-07-2010, 01:46 AM

Dead, oiled birds reported for first time in Texas

ROBERT, La. - Federal authorities responding to the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill say dead birds with oil on them have been reported for the first time in Texas.

A wildlife report issued Sunday by the government command center in Robert, La., says that two dead birds with visible oil were found in Texas, along with at least 36 dead birds that didn't appear to have oil on them. The report did not say where in Texas the birds were found.

The previous day's wildlife report didn't list any dead birds in Texas.

Officials at the command center could not immediately comment on the numbers in the report late Sunday.

The worst oil spill in U.S. history has created an environmental crisis in the Gulf region. Millions of gallons of oil have spilled since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana on April 20, killing 11 workers.

The Source (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37546371)

Laura Cereta

06-07-2010, 01:39 PM

Nelson: If oil continues to gush, no beach will be unaffected (http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/101707-nelson-if-oil-continues-to-gush-no-beach-will-be-unaffected)
7 June 2010, The Hill

No coastal area or beach may be left unaffected by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a key Florida senator said Monday.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D) asserted that worst-case scenarios could see oil wash all the way up the East Coast, contrasting assertions by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) that coastlines are relatively clear in his state right now.

"The worst news is going to be that if they don't get the well cap capped and it gushes all summer, it's going to fill up the Gulf and there's not going to be anybody's beach that's going to be spared, including the East Coast of the United States when it gets in the loop current and goes around the keys and up the East Coast," Nelson said this morning during an appearance on CNN.

Oil has begun to make its way onshore in Pensacola, in Nelson's home state. But with oil continuing to spew into the Gulf, despite a successful effort to cap and redirect some of the flow, Nelson feared that coastal currents could carry the oil much further than has been previously projected.

Nelson said a Coast Guard flotilla to deploy booms and skimmers of oil might help contain the spread of oil before they hit beaches.

The still-clear beaches led Barbour on Sunday to declare his state's beaches oil-free, and a victim of negative media coverage.

"The truth is we have had virtually no oil," Barbour said. "The biggest negative impact for us has been the news coverage."

Nelson said, though, that the ecological disaster would continue to grow in scope and magnitude if the cap doesn't work well.

Continues @ link...

Spang

06-07-2010, 06:01 PM

ICE Running Immigration Raids on Oil-Spill Workers

Sigh. This special report from Feet in 2 Worlds just in:

Federal immigration officials have been visiting command centers on the Gulf Coast to check the immigration status of response workers hired by BP and its contractors to clean up the immense oil spill.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Louisiana confirmed that its agents had visited two large command centers—which are staging areas for the response efforts and are sealed off to the public—to verify that the workers there were legal residents.

"We visited just to ensure that people who are legally here can compete for those jobs—those people who are having so many problems," said Temple H. Black, a spokesman for ICE in Louisiana.

Granted, undocumented work is illegal and all, and Black is just echoing a popular sentiment in Southern Louisiana, where some people harbor resentment toward the Hispanic laborers who stayed after they'd come to help clean up after Katrina, and some people put up signs like this:

http://motherjones.com/files/images/illegal_alien_small.jpg

But it seems like it might be time to prioritize. As do many crisis-management operations, the Deepwater Horizon response has its share of miscommunication, chain-of-command confusion, counterproductive bureaucracy, and general clusterfuckery. Federal agents rounding everybody up and checking IDs isn't going to help things.

And that's not the only distraction from keeping eyes on the cleanup prize. As I've reported, there are only 60 workers cleaning up Elmer's Island, Louisiana, a wildlife refuge inundated by crude, and many are already disgruntled about being mistreated or not getting paid. Then, last week, they were required to undergo drug testing. According to workers based on the island, out of the first 50 employees tested, 46 failed and 2 refused, resulting in 48 firings in one day. (BP hasn't said anything about the tests.) Elmer the BP mole, who is in a position to know this but I can't tell you what that position is because he'd get fired, says that these guys are definitely not junkies and crackheads. If they're testing positive for drugs, he says, it's likely for pot.

Cleaning up the largest oil spill in the nation's history sort of seems more pressing than whether the people who get paid $10 an hour to rake toxic oil-sludge sand into piles, under Southern sun so grueling that shifts are 20 minutes on and 40 minutes off, have recently smoked weed. It also seems like a possible reason to not send in ICE agents to do a job that goes way beyond their normal (arguably more important) duties. As ICE spokesman Temple H. Black told Feet in 2 Worlds, "We don't normally go and check people's papers—we're mostly focused on transnational gangs, predators, drugs. This was a special circumstance because of the oil spill."

That sentence wins today's prize for Spokesperson Statement That's Supposed to Be More Comforting Than Alarming But Is Actually the Opposite. (First runner-up is Black's assertion that any undocumented workers "would have been detained on the spot and taken to Orleans Parish Prison"— whose conditions the Justice Department has called unconstitutional and which has a history of losing track of or not providing lawyers to thousands of indigent prisoners in its care.)

"It's like, 'round everybody up and leave the oil on the beach,'" Darlene Kattan, director of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Louisiana, told the authors of the special report on the ICE raids. "In a catastrophic situation like this, I think we should be more well-reasoned."

The Source (http://motherjones.com/rights-stuff/2010/06/ice-immigration-raids-oil-spill-workers)

Spang

06-07-2010, 08:24 PM

(No Nudity)

Kelle

06-07-2010, 08:48 PM

(No Nudity) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jld0FNo_5lQ&feature=player_embedded)

Floridians to Obama, when are you going to make BP send clean-up crews?

kel

Spang

06-07-2010, 08:53 PM

Floridians to Obama, when are you going to make BP send clean-up crews?

Wait, is a President supposed to tell major corporations what to do now? My how times have changed. I remember a long time ago, way back in 2009, Obama told certain banks, and insurance companies and automobile companies what to do and there was much outrage. There was this whole "movement" that was pissed off about it. Some kind of beverage siesta or something.

Kelle

06-07-2010, 09:31 PM

Wait, is a President supposed to tell major corporations what to do now? ...

If you believe Thad Allen, the government has the authority "to tell BP what to do, and such orders carry the force of law." It seems a simple thing to tell a polluter to clean up their s***, when they would happily tell BP what to pay their executives.

(5/24/2010) 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
Government can't push BP aside from oil spill response, Thad Allen of Coast Guard says

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/government_cant_push_bp_aside.html (Nola.com)

The Obama administration's point man on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill rejected the notion of removing BP and taking over the crisis Monday, saying the government has neither the company's expertise nor its deep-sea equipment.

...

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar suggested over the weekend that the government could intervene aggressively if BP wasn't delivering. "If we find that they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing, we'll push them out of the way appropriately," he said.

But asked about that comment Monday, Allen said: "That's more of a metaphor."

Allen said BP and the government are working closely together, with the government holding veto power and adopting an "inquisitorial" stand toward the company's ideas. The commandant also said the government has the authority to tell BP what to do, and such orders carry the force of law.

kel

Spang

06-07-2010, 09:59 PM

If you believe Thad Allen, the government has the authority "to tell BP what to do, and such orders carry the force of law." It seems a simple thing to tell a polluter to clean up their s***, when they would happily tell BP what to pay their executives.

Oh, I agree, but the tea party people will be outraged. At least they were the last time Obama tried to tell a major corporation what to do.

Kelle

06-07-2010, 10:21 PM

Oh, I agree, but the tea party people will be outraged. At least they were the last time Obama tried to tell a major corporation what to do.

The difference being that in this case, if Thad Allen is correct, the government actually has the authority to tell BP what to do.

I can almost understand deferring to BP on how to fix the leak (although you could make a compelling case for the government being more actively involved there as well) but repairing the pipe is not mutually exclusive of clean-up. Obama has repeatedly said that it's his job to hold BP accountable, containing the damage is the most efficient way to do that. Simply put, it limits the amount of damages.

kel

Kelle

06-07-2010, 11:43 PM

Good news. Obama is looking for an a** to kick, but it looks like the collective delicate posteriors of his administration are safe:

(6/7/2010) Gulf oil disaster cleanup to take years, Allen sayshttp://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/07/gulf.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=T2
(CNN)

...

President Obama, who was briefed by Allen on Monday, later warned that "even if we are successful in containing some or much" of the oil, the problem of the leak will not be solved until a relief well is completed -- a process that will take "several months."

The president also expressed concern for the health of workers now trying to clean up the spill. Scientists are "not seeing huge elevations of toxins in the air or on the water" near shore, he said. "But that may not be the case out where people are actually doing the work."

He later bluntly defended his administration's response to the spill, telling an interviewer he has met with experts to learn "whose ass to kick."

...

Even as the administration has tried to distance itself from BP in recent days -- with the Justice Department launching both criminal and civil investigations into the spill -- it has not been enough to temper the frustration seething among residents along the coastline.

Florida Sen. George LeMieux, a Republican, demanded that BP donate $1 billion for a cleanup fund for the five Gulf states and said that Obama "needs to push them to do that.

...

Overall, however, Allen said the federal government is in charge of making sure BP is carrying out its cleanup responsibilities.

kel

Spang

06-07-2010, 11:52 PM

The difference being that in this case, if Thad Allen is correct, the government actually has the authority to tell BP what to do.

Tea party people don't give a shit about facts. They just don't like it when someone who isn't white is running things. They'll let a dumbass white guy do whatever the **** he wants, but if a black guy wants to run things, there will be some outrage.

Tybee

06-08-2010, 07:51 AM

Caught in the oil (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/caught_in_the_oil.html)
3 June 2010, Boston Globe

***WARNING: Extremely disturbing, graphic pictures of animals @ link

Same warning here:

YouTube- Cat Captures, Tortures, and Kills a Cardinal (bird)

Here too:

YouTube- Bird killed by green energy

Tybee

06-08-2010, 07:52 AM

Tea party people don't give a shit about facts. They just don't like it when someone who isn't white is running things. They'll let a dumbass white guy do whatever the **** he wants, but if a black guy wants to run things, there will be some outrage.

SCREAM RACISM ... when you can't win a fight.

Spang

06-08-2010, 05:45 PM

NOAA: Under water oil plumes confirmed

WASHINGTON – The government says water tests have confirmed underwater oil plumes from the BP oil spill, but that concentrations are "very low."

NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said that the tests conducted at three sites by a University of South Florida research vessel confirmed oil as far as 3,300 feet below the surface 42 miles northeast of the well site. Oil also was found in a sub-surface sample 142 miles southeast of the spill, but further tests showed that oil is "not consistent" with oil from the spill.

Lubchenco said the water analysis "indicate there is definitely oil sub surface. It's in very low concentrations" of less than 0.5 parts per million. Additional samples from another research vessel are being tested, she said.

"We remain concerned about the location of oil on the surface and under the sea," said Lubchenco.

BP had questioned whether oil actually was forming below water.

The Source (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100608/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_gulf_oil_spill_plumes)

Spang

06-08-2010, 05:52 PM

Rig survivors: BP ordered shortcut on day of blast

(CNN) -- The morning the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, a BP executive and a Transocean official argued over how to proceed with the drilling, rig survivors told CNN's Anderson Cooper in an exclusive interview.

The survivors' account paints perhaps the most detailed picture yet of what happened on the deepwater rig -- and the possible causes of the April 20 explosion.

The BP official wanted workers to replace heavy mud, used to keep the well's pressure down, with lighter seawater to help speed a process that was costing an estimated $750,000 a day and was already running five weeks late, rig survivors told CNN.

BP won the argument, said Doug Brown, the rig's chief mechanic. "He basically said, 'Well, this is how it's gonna be.' "

"That's what the big argument was about," added Daniel Barron III.

Shortly after the exchange, chief driller Dewey Revette expressed concern and opposition too, the workers said, and on the drilling floor, they chatted among themselves.

"I don't ever remember doing this," they said, according to Barron.

"I think that's why Dewey was so reluctant to try to do it," Barron said, "because he didn't feel it was the right way to have things done."

Revette was among the 11 workers killed when the rig exploded that night.

In the CNN interviews, the workers described a corporate culture of cutting staff and ignoring warning signs ahead of the blast. They said BP routinely cut corners and pushed ahead despite concerns about safety.

The rig survivors also said it was always understood that you could get fired if you raised safety concerns that might delay drilling. Some co-workers had been fired for speaking out, they said.

It can cost up to $1 million a day to operate a deepwater rig, according to industry experts.

Safety was "almost used as a crutch by the company," Barron said. He said he was once scolded for standing on a bucket on the rig, yet the next day, Transocean ordered a crane to continue operating amid high winds, against its own policies. "It's like they used it against us -- the safety policies -- you know, to their advantage.

"I don't think there was ever a plan set in place, because no one ever thought this was gonna ever happen," he added.

BP spokesman Robert Wine would not comment on specific allegations, saying the company has to "wait for the investigations to be completed. We can't prejudge them."

"BP's priority is always safety," he said.

Transocean, the world's largest offshore drilling contractor, said its top priority is safety.

"There is no scenario or circumstance under which it will be compromised," the company said in a written statement. "So critical is safety at Transocean that every crew member has stop-work authority, a real-time method by which all work is halted should any employee suspect an unsafe situation or operation."

In Washington on Tuesday, Rep. Nick Rahall, the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, sought more answers. In a letter to Transocean, he said records from the rig indicate "zero engineers, electricians, mechanics or subsea supervisors" on duty the night of the explosion. He added that payroll records show seven of the 11 men who died had worked a 24-hour shift six days before the explosion.

The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into the massive oil spill that has spewed as much as 798,000 gallons (19,000 barrels) of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every day.

The rig workers have filed a negligence suit against BP, Transocean, oil field services contractor Halliburton and other companies involved with the deepwater rig.

"I've seen gross negligence, and this conduct is criminal," said Steve Gordon, the lawyer representing the men. "There's a crime scene sitting 5,000 feet below the water."

Brown, the rig's mechanic, had traveled with the rig from South Korea, where it was made nearly a decade ago. He had seen the mechanical crew get downsized over the years. Yet as the rig aged, the engines began having more problems.

"It became overwhelming," he said. "We couldn't keep up with the flow of it. ... We constantly over the years kept telling them, 'Hey, we need more help back here.'

"They pretty much just said, 'Well, we'll look into it.' "

About nine months ago, Brown said, he got an additional first engineer, yet the crew was still overloaded with work.

Even more alarming, the rig survivors said, was the amount of resistance the well was giving them. "We had problems with it from the day we got on," Matthew Jacobs said.

Nearly every day, Jacobs said, "we had problems with that well."

Barron said it was like an eerie cloud hung over the well being dug 5,000 feet into the sea.

"There was always like an ominous feeling," he said. "This well did not want to be drilled. ... It just seemed like we were messing with Mother Nature."

At times, the drill got stuck. Many times, it "kicked," meaning gas was shooting back through the mud at an alarming rate.

"I've seen a lot of gas coming up from muds on different wells, and the highest I've ever seen in my 11 years was 1,500 units. And this well gave us 3,000," Brown said. "I've never been on a well with that high of gas coming out of the mud. That was kind of letting me know this well was something to be reckoned with."

It all came to a head at 9:56 p.m., when the first of three explosions rocked Deepwater Horizon, 52 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana, with 126 people aboard. Tiles fell from the ceiling, walls collapsed, and people ran for their lives. It reminded Matt Jacobs of the movie "Titanic."

"It looked like you was looking at the face of death," he said. "You could hear it, see it, smell it."

He scrambled to the lifeboat deck. Jacobs had been trained to fight fires aboard the rig. But when he looked at the flames shooting 150 feet into the air, he knew there was nothing they could do. "There is no way we can put that fire out," he thought.

Jacobs hopped in a lifeboat. He screamed for co-workers to jump aboard. A second explosion rocked the rig. The lifeboat, still suspended in the air, went into a free fall of about 3 feet.

"Here I am on a lifeboat that's supposed to help me get off this rig," Jacobs thought. "And I'm gonna wind up dying."

He bowed his head and prayed.

Now, 50 days later, the survivors are telling their stories. It's become part of their everyday lives. They can't shake what happened that day, even when they close their eyes at night.

"It's like being in a neverending nightmare," Brown said. "You dream about it. You see it in your sleep. Then, we wake up in the morning, and we realize it's not a dream. It's real. ... It doesn't end for us."

The Source (http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/06/08/oil.rig.warning.signs/index.html?eref=edition&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=cnni)

Spang

06-08-2010, 06:01 PM

Egregious Citations Issued to BP

http://flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/yapb_cache/underload_221.8cayzou503cww4044co44kko8.hcjovh1zwf ksw0kw4skcow8g.th.png

BP processes about 1.5 million barrels of crude oil per day, across six refineries in the United States. In total, 150 refineries in the United States process just under 18 million barrels per day, so BP processes about 8.5 percent of it. However, as reported by the Center for Public Integrity, 97 percent of the most dangerous violations found by OSHA were on BP properties.

There are several levels of citations. The most dangerous are egregious willful and willful, in that order. Egregious citations are flagrant violations and willful citations are intentional disregard for employee safety and health.

Between June 2007 and February 2010, there were 761 egregious citations issued in total. All but one of them were issued to BP. In the same time period, 69 of the 91 willful citations also belonged to BP.

Most citations for other companies were in the serious category, meaning there was "substantial probability" of death or serious injury. There were 1,521 serious citations issued to non-BP refineries, versus BP's thirty. However, if we take into account barrels of oil processed by the rest, we get an even worse image of BP. Really, it's bad no matter how you look at it:

http://flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/underload-22norm2.gif

The Source (http://flowingdata.com/2010/06/06/egregious-citations-issued-to-bp/)

mack20

06-08-2010, 06:19 PM

Same warning here:

YouTube- Cat Captures, Tortures, and Kills a Cardinal (bird) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPOEEsj7Dxo)

Here too:

YouTube- Bird killed by green energy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwVz5hdAMGU&feature=related)

You guys, it's totally cool that animals are dying painful deaths in the gulf because animals die in nature all the time! Let's make sure we completely ignore the sea turtles and dolphins and fish and birds washing up dead on shore barely even resembling what they once were because then people might get the crazy idea that this oil spill was a bad thing. I mean, according to Rush oil spills naturally into the oceans all the time! Never mind that it happens at a significantly lower rate over a longer period of time in a greater area, facts are just pesky things that you can brush aside to further your agenda. And that agenda is drill, baby, drill! Yessiree.

Spang

06-08-2010, 06:25 PM

BP Contractor: Dolphin “was filled with oil. Oil was just pouring out of it.”

Here’s what President Obama didn’t see when he visited the Gulf Coast: a dead dolphin rotting in the shore weeds.

“When we found this dolphin it was filled with oil. Oil was just pouring out of it. It was the saddest darn thing to look at,” said a BP contract worker who took the Daily News on a surreptitious tour of the wildlife disaster unfolding in Louisiana.

His motive: simple outrage.

“There is a lot of coverup for BP. They specifically informed us that they don’t want these pictures of the dead animals. They know the ocean will wipe away most of the evidence. It’s important to me that people know the truth about what’s going on here,” the contractor said.

“The things I’ve seen: They just aren’t right. All the life out here is just full of oil. I’m going to show you what BP never showed the President.” …

The grasses by the shore were littered with tarred marine life, some dead and others struggling under a thick coating of crude.

“When you see some of the things I’ve seen, it would make you sick,” the contractor said. “No living creature should endure that kind of suffering.”

Queen Bess Island was the first place where fledglings were born when the beloved, endangered Louisiana brown pelicans were reintroduced in the 1970s. Their population rebounded and was finally declared stabilized in 2002.

Now their future is once again in doubt. In what had been such an important hatchery, hundreds of pelicans – their white heads stained black – stood sentinel. They seemed slow and lethargic.

“Those pelicans are supposed to have white heads. The black is from the oil. Most of them won’t survive,” the contractor said.

“They keep trying to clean themselves. They try and they try, but they can’t do it.”

The contractor has been attempting to save birds and turtles.

“I saw a pelican under water with only its wing sticking out,” he said. “I grabbed it and lifted it out of the water. It was just covered in oil. It was struggling so hard to survive. We did what we could for it.

“Nature is cruel, but what’s happening here is crueler.”

The uninhabited barrier islands are surrounded by yellow floating booms, also stained black, that are supposed to keep the oil out. It’s not working.

“That grass was green a few weeks ago,” the contractor said. “Now look. … This whole island is destroyed. How do you write a check for something like this?”

He said he recently found five turtles drowning in oil.

“Three turtles were dead. Two were dying and not dead yet. They will be,” he said.

As the boat headed back amid the choppy waves, a pod of dolphins showed up to swim with the vessel and guide it to land.

“They know they are in trouble. We are all in trouble,” the contractor said. …

On Monday, a Daily News team was escorted away from a public beach on Elmer’s Island bycops who said they were taking orders from BP. …

“BP is going to say the deaths of these animals wasn’t oil-related,” he said. “We know the truth. I hope these pictures get to the right people – to someone who can do something.”

The Source (http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/bp-contractor-dolphin-was-filled-with-oil-oil-was-just-puring-out-of-it)