E PLURIBUS OILUM
First Atlantic Invest, 90L is here oil now 350 miles west of Key West~Jeff Masters, Wunderblog
~This low has the potential to develop into the season's first named storm--Alex--and could be a threat to the Southeast U.S. coast by Tuesday.
Hurricane, Oil Spill Could Be Troubling Mix~NPR
Experts testify on grim ecological fallout from BP Oil Disaster
~The damaging effects of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will be felt all the way to Europe and the Arctic, a top scientist told a congressional panel Friday.
Cleaning oil-soaked wetlands may be impossible
~Hundreds of miles of bayous and man-made canals crisscross the coast's exterior, offering numerous entry points for the crude.
~Editilla Notellas~We posted that quote because AP is grossly incorrect here. Rather than "hundreds", there are currently 10 major navigation canals and 9,300 miles of pipelines in coastal Louisiana serving about 50,000 oil and gas production facilities. These canals, which are perpendicular to the coast, have created new open water areas, drowning wetlands and allowing salt-water intrusion into freshwater ecosystems. The result—land loss hot spots. “There is also evidence,” the report says, “that extraction of large volumes of oil and gas has exacerbated the problems of inundation and saltwater intrusion”—that is, withdrawing oil and gas along geologic faults seems to exacerbate subsidence in coastal Louisiana.
BP / Gulf Oil Spill - Deeper Into Loop Current (??) ~SkyTruth
No Phil those are not lawn mower parts washing ashore in Biloxi ~slabbed
Nungesser says Corps has rejected state’s plea for dredged oil barriers ~The Lens
Sand barrier idea faces bureaucratic delays, ecological questions
30 Days After: BP flounders while local community takes action~Humid Beings
An Irreplaceable National Treasure~Paul Harrison
~Hat Tip~LaCoastPost
Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator's Office LOSCO Data Catalog
We Love Garland, wear him out with Pride!
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Rep. Ed Markey: BP’s lying
More Than Just an Oil Spill
~Bob Herbert
BP, the Oil Flow and the Public Trust~In a column on The Times Op-Ed page, four scientists from a team of specialists independently assessing the volume of oil gushing from BP’s destroyed seabed well provide more evidence that the company cannot be trusted to put the public interest ahead of its corporate interests as this disaster continues to unfold. Here’s the researchers’ bottom line, followed by the full list of those involved in this effort, all of whom said they endorse today’s column: …Our assessments suggest that BP’s stated worst-case estimate of 60,000 barrels [a day] has been occurring all along. What matters most is that we take the steps to find out if it has. Starting now, BP and the government must begin using the best possible means to measure this spill, while preserving all records of events. On the ocean floor, we recommend acoustic velocimeters, high-rate video cameras and imaging sonar. For the underwater oil, sonobuoys could detect layers of oil, and undersea gliders could follow them autonomously. On the surface, military drone aircraft could find and track patches of oil headed for shore as well as conduct surveillance over this now gigantic spill. Like the methods we have used, these are all readily available solutions. No surgeon in an operating room would neglect an unvarnished assessment of a bleeding patient. In this disaster, an accurate measurement of the oil spill is no less important.
~Editilla Notellas~You will not find one single person from LSU on this list of esteemed scientists who have stepped up to get the truth straight. We wonder why. Could it be the funding that LSU receives from BP? Oh Snap! We wondered where they got all those robot submarines: SERPENT (Scientific and Environmental ROV Partnership using Existing iNdustrial Technology) is a unique collaboration between the oil industry and the world of science. Since inception in 2002 by founding partners National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, Subsea 7, BP, and Transocean the working partnership has grown steadily to include a number of worldwide organisations including a large number of academic institutes. The latest being LSU (Louisiana State University) School of the Coast and Environment.
~Funding for ethanol research at Audubon Sugar Institute has come from several sources. This year, the U.S. Department of Energy provided a grant of $980,000, and BP has given an additional $400,000.
Now we start to see why scientists like Ivor van Heerden make Industry Think Tanks like LSU such a nervous dull boy.
LSU Hawking "Spill Go-To Guy"
Next Up: David Letterman Show
In a fit to distract from the Bad Publicity over their being sued this week for the Wrongful Termination of renowned coastal scientist and rurricane herollero Ivor van Heerden --complete with the Judge unhesitatingly issuing a Physical Restraining Order against the university-- LSU seems intent on Swinging Out the Counter-PR! Ashley Berthelot, science and research editor for LSU Media Relations, said her office has been inundated with requests for interviews with Ed Overton. “He’s the guy,” she said.
“The international media are coming to LSU researchers to explain this situation, which shows we have internally renowned experts.” On Monday, Overton is scheduled to be a guest on “Late Night with David Letterman.”
Oh now that will be so fun! What will LSU do to Overton if his research leads him to another Big Funding Source: BP?
Faggetaboutit.. given his own deptartement's funding sources. (Please search "Sponsors Alphabetical")
How'bout MMS: $13,283,730 or Corps of Engineers: $392,494?
Actually, the more I search this LSU site the sicker I get. You will also find Irv Mendelssohn, who was an absolute appeasement idiot this week on NPR. LSU is just rolling them out to the National Media. Everyone has wondered what "funding" was threatened by Ivor van Heerden nailing the Corps of Engineers. Here you have it in spades. No, the Corps "doesn't lobby"...
---but all their friends sure as hell do.
Professor swept up in oil disaster
James Carville Takes On Obama On Oil Spill: He's 'Risking Everything' With 'Go Along With BP Strategy'~"I think they actually believe that BP has some kind of a good motivation here," he said.
"They're naive! BP is trying to save money, save everything they can... They won't tell us anything, and oddly enough, the government seems to be going along with it! Somebody has got to, like shake them and say, 'These people don't wish you well! They're going to take you down!'"
Month after oil spill, why is BP still in charge?
~"Still, as simple as it may seem for the government to just take over, the law prevents it." ~Double Triple Rear Admiral Incident Commandant Thad "All Hands"Allen fey demurred.
Perhaps Big Thad should read his Coast Guard's Mission Statement, before he tries to wash his hands like Pontius Pilate:
"The United States Coast Guard is the nation's primary maritime operating agency. We protect life and property at sea, enforce federal laws and treaties, preserve marine natural resources, and promote national security interests. Well?
As one of the nation's five Armed Forces, it is our military character--our organization and discipline, our command, control and communications structure, and our multi-mission surface and air capabilities-- which enables us to perform our civil duties within the Department of Transportation, as well as function in the Department of the Navy when Congress or the President so directs. The Coast Guard hallmark is quality service to the public." Well?
The Coast Guard carries out that mission statement in the performance of four main roles: maritime safety, maritime law enforcement, marine environmental protection, and national defense. Well?
What part of Fey Demure do you not understand, Admiral?
~Limits to government on plugging Gulf oil leak
BP Tells EPA No New Dispersant says to Feds Go Suck Yourselves
~Company wants to stay with its own product, COREXIT 9500 and COREXIT 9527A, though more toxic and less effective than safer alternatives. Basically BP feels it must show the US Government that its Preter'National Corporation is Beyond US Law, and as such is not required to take our representative demands seriously. Indeed, just see how they command our US Coast Guard to protect them and their run-a-way oil well --while they threaten to arrest our US Journalists covering BP's Oil Crime on our US Soil and ripping off our American Fishing Industry all along our US Coasts. Thanks US Coast Guard!
Why not change the name to BP Right Guard?
BP rejects EPA ban on 2-butoxyethanol; Imprison them
~Coto Report
EPA Officials Weigh Sanctions Against BP’s U.S. Operations ~ProPublica
BP not named to task force that will figure Gulf oil spill's size
Graham, Reilly to lead investigation of oil spill
~Oh, Reilly was head of GHW Bush's EPA! Holy Roller, Batman!
News of the appointments came late in a day when a senior official of the BP oil company said that it was siphoning far less oil from the Gulf of Mexico than other officials had said a day earlier, while Louisiana officials gave voice to rising frustration over the pace of the cleanup operation.
Collecting Data Before BP Oil Spill Hits~Brian Piazza
~Bryan Piazza is the Atchafalaya program manager for The Nature Conservancy in Louisiana. He is a wetland ecologist with a Ph.D. in oceanography and coastal sciences from Louisiana State University; his specialties are coastal wetland ecology and restoration as well as the ecology of large river systems.
Exxon Valdez Chief Litigant Brian O’Neill Considering Taking On BP Gulf Spill... not jumping up and down about it either
What’s your take on criminal prosecutions in these kinds of cases? “Nothing serious happens,” O’Neill says.
Could it have been different on the criminal side with Exxon?
“Not with that administration. Those were the Dan Quayle years.
They didn’t have the stomach for it.”
Gulf Aid concert was a huge success, raising $300,088.65 for the Gulf Relief Foundation!
Tim Robbins joins Roots of Music ~Gambit
Bayou Boogaloo!
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Brandon Franklin's Homegoing RIP Tribute ~Red Cotton
~There is a reason that people Live and Die in New Orleans. But that reason is rarely evidenced until you watch and hear their friends say good bye when they send their loved ones home.
4 comments:
The hell of it is that we're stuck with BP.
I watched National Geographic scientist the other day -- one of of those people with such an absence of charisma that you knew she didn't have an axe to grind. She was asked what could be done to stop the spill; her answer was -- essentially -- nothing. According to her, we put the inmates in charge of the asylum a long time ago, and that all of the technology and know-how to deal with this lies with the oil companies. For example, not only does the federal government -- including the navy -- not have a submarine that can navigate a mile deep on the ocean floor, only four other countries do.
We've never invested in building any expertise in deep-sea spill analysis and cleanup -- that's been left to the oil companies. People believed them when they said this couldn't happen because, after all, they were wildly successful businesses who must know what they're talking about. Even now, we have the spectacle of candidate for the senate saying that criticism of BP is un-American because it's criticism of business, which I guess is the apex of Americanism.
What the Gulf Coast is suffering through now is the fruits of laissez-faire, small government, no taxes ideology. I've never found much inspiration in the Bible, but there's an element of reaping what you sow at work here.
K, you know I love'ya but...
we are "stuck with BP" only as long as we continue to allow them to come in our mouth.
Your charismaless source is either a fool or a BP Plant. (And, btw, would you call G. Gordon Liddy a paragon of Charisma? Admiral Poindexter? George W. Bush? Goebbels?)
She is wrong wrong about Navy Deep Submersibles. Completely wrong about the US Navy Submarine Corps in general. (We would stand a good chance at collapsing that well and sealing it with 10,000lbs of properly placed high-explosive.)
(And, Obama could Nationalize BP Assets with a stroke of his pen. But he won't. He would rather appoint GHW Bush's EPA Director to head the Task Force investigating this.)(Holy Fuck Me, Batman!)
(And please don't get me started on Obama. He handed BP his balls in Louisiana and gave them another 2 weeks to work the media. It has gotten to the point now that when Obama opens his mouth my fucking skin crawls.)
But on the subject of deep water, it turns out (posted above) that the robotic subs working the crime scene now were funded by BP and Transocean, and at that lately though LSU.
~~SERPENT (Scientific and Environmental ROV Partnership using Existing iNdustrial Technology) is a unique collaboration between the oil industry and the world of science. Since inception in 2002 by founding partners National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, Subsea 7, BP, and Transocean the working partnership has grown steadily to include a number of worldwide organizations including a large number of academic institutes. The latest being LSU (Louisiana State University) School of the Coast and Environment.
This of course bolsters your argument on gov funding of higher education, because as we can see the private sector is more than ready to step in --provided the Universities play ball. See: Ivor van Heerden.
For example: MMS: $13,283,730 in LSU funding for just one school.
But lest we forget, Bill MFK Clinton gave us NAFTA back when he used subsidized Rice and Wheat to destroy Haiti's ability to grow enough food to feed itself. At least he had the guts to admit his mistakes for what that is worth.
Lastly, the Bible ripped of that Reaper saying from the Pagans.
I prefer the metaphor of Chickens Coming Home To Die.
Please do not take offense at my attitude here. I don't mean to be rude to you. I just have lost all patience with progressive naivete. It strikes me as like Political Alzheimer's. How soon we forget that Politics really has less to do with good government and more to do with Business.
She's from National Geographic.
I don't know if I'm being naive, realistic, or cynical, but when it's down to throwing golf balls into a gaping hole a mile deep in the ocean, neither BP nor the federal government nor Hugo Chavez nor anyone else is going to plug it. The only hope left is the relief wells, and they're at least 30-60 days away.
People don't want to hear that something can't be done, but this is just flat out of control.
You got dat'right, K.
The Aussies had to try 5 times to "hit the vein" with a relief well last year:
[The Australian accident, known as the Montara spill, began Aug. 21 with a blowout of high-pressure oil similar to the one in the gulf. With the well spewing 17,000 to 85,000 gallons per day, precious weeks passed before the relief wells were started. When efforts got under way, the first four attempts — drilled on Oct. 6, 13, 17 and 24 — missed the original well.]
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/03/us/03montara.html
I'm just as sick over Obama.
I really really used to like him and he has consistently let me down. I really don't think Obama can do The President Thing.
I have come to believe he is a Narcissist who doesn't get it past his own reflection.
And we had a real problem on our hands April 20th, yet he handed his balls and this country's family jewels to BP.
I didn't vote for Big Pharma.
I didn't vote for Wall Street Investors.
And I damn sure didn't vote for BP.
Yet they have all Won Big at the expense of the American Tax Payer.
Unless Hillary Clinton decides to start running for President, like now, I really don't see us having a Dem in the White House after 2012.
It will probably be Barbour/Paul.
Obama is gone and everyone knows it now, even James Carville.
It's just sad.
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