Deepwater Horizon: Two Years On

 
photo credit James H “Rip” Kirby III/Surfrider Foundation

The 20th of April was likely a familiar date in the minds of many of the readers who frequent this blog.  That morning in 2010, an explosion occurred on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig drilling in the Gulf of Mexico that would lead to largest peacetime marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry.  For five months, crude oil poured into the waters of the Gulf.  Approximately 200 million gallons of oil and two million gallons of the controversial dispersant Corexit flowed into the sea, covering everything it touched - be that plants, animals or cleanup workers.

Two years on, what have we learned about the effects of such a large spill?  To be honest - not much.  British Petroleum (BP) has effectively bought up all the researchers in the area.  Scientists who have joined the research program are forbidden to publish, share or speak about their findings for at least three years.  Fingers crossed for some news next year?

Add to that the fact that the $500 million BP promised for 10 years of research in the area has been mostly absent.  A board of 20 people controls the grant money, and only $40 million has been dolled out - local politicians demanding most of it for their respective areas.

Many scientists feel that the lack of action is allowing precious data to slip away.

"Oil is a moving target; with every day of passing time, we get further and further from the acute effects of the oil and it becomes harder and harder to trace those effects," said Ian MacDonald, a biological oceanographer at Florida State University in Tallahassee.

"A number of people are worried that we are going to miss getting out in the field in the strengths and numbers we need to," adds Christopher D'Elia, dean and professor at Louisiana State University's School of the Coast and Environment.

In regards to fisheries, shellfish populations are still suffering severely.

"Has anyone found a successful spring spat set on their leases yet?  Is there any evidence that the long-awaited oyster industry recovery has begun east of the River or in the Barataria Bay area?" asks Mississippi-based oyster expert Ed Cake

Oyster fisherman Nick Collins added that there is nothing but dead shells in the Louisiana oyster beds - something that was also mentioned last year.

Another group of animals that have been highlighted post-spill are dolphins.  The number of beached dolphins after the BP spill - both alive and dead - has far surpassed the normal number of occurrences in a given year.  Many of those found alive have been underweight and suffering from anemia, lung and liver diseases and stress hormone deficiencies.  The particularly scary point to recognise from this is that dolphins are, like us, mammals, and the afflictions they have been exhibiting may reflect what could happen to humans after long-term exposure.

Let's not forget that the oil is - after all - still there.  BP is paying $179 million in tourism promotion and another $82 million in seafood testing and marketing.

"Many Gulf residents think BP just wants to close the book on the disaster.  That's unlikely to happen until the environmental bill is paid, and funds are set aside to restore Gulf ecosystem."

Tar balls are still being periodically reported on the beaches.  Although being supposedly harmless, a study at Auburn University has found them teeming with the bacteria Vibrio vulnificus, which is in the same family as the bacteria that causes cholera.  This is particularly threatening to individuals with compromised immune systems, diabetes or liver disease.

"Whether or not a specific Vibrio vulnificus is pathogenic matters not to the bacteriologist who is determining the relative levels of that bacterium in molluscan shellfish or in growing waters for management purposes, but it will matter to an at at-risk (immuno-compromised) person who should avoid exposure to V. vulnificus including those strains in BP's tar balls since he or she could find out too late that the strain encountered was, in fact, pathogenic--and deadly," says Cake.

The most recent posting I've seen on the BP catastrophe are the photos (also above) and video of Corexit absorbed into human skin.

"Worse, the toxins in this unholy mix of Corexit and crude actually penetrate wet skin faster than dry skin."

Bad news all around, I'm afraid.  Although BP would like you to believe the spill has been successfully cleaned up, the evidence proves otherwise.

"The herring fishery in Prince William Sound is only now beginning to recover - 22 years after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska...The oyster fishery in Mexico's Terminos Lagoon has not fully recovered 32 year after the 1979  Ixtoc-1 oil spill."

Keep that in mind.

Read more:
Lessons from Gulf spill slipping away
No Sign of Oyster Recovery Two Years After BP Oil Spill
BP's Corexit Oil Tar Sponged Up by Human Skin

BP Holds Gulf Spill Assessment ‘Financially Captive’ - Forbes

photo credit Getty Images

Honestly I really don't understand how this is legal, let alone morally sound. Why do we glorify business over everything else? Anyway...

"BP has been able to delay and deny efforts to assess the damage caused by its 2010 oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico because it controls the funding for those efforts, a Louisiana state official told senators today."

Basically, since BP is supplying the money, BP gets to decide what to do with it. Also - and here's the scary part - BP gets to decide when projects like cleanup and restoration are "done" or need "no further action".

BP's To-Do List (or Not-To-Do List...) includes the following: Leaving anchors in the water from oil booms, designating areas effectively "cleaned up", signing off on projects before they begin and delaying reviews and approvals of projects.

Garrett Graves, chairman of Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, thinks that control should be stripped from BP and given to the public:

“I think that equation needs to be flipped over. I think the public needs to be in the driver’s seat. By being able to control the checkbook, you can control what’s in these workplaces, how the assessments are conducted [and] the timelines of the assessments.”

Full article here (Forbes)

Dolphin Deaths: BP Oil Spill may have had Indirect Role, Researcher says - al.com

photo credit Institute for Marine Mammal Studies Gulfport, MS

I know I've mentioned the dramatic increase in dolphin deaths in the Gulf before - particularly young ones. Evidence is building to suggest the BP spill is playing a role.

Both oil and chemical dispersants could have upset the food web enough to prevent pregnant mothers from building up enough blubber to carry healthy young and insulate them from the cold.

"Worthy says 153 bottlenose dolphins have washed up on Gulf coasts since January, including 65 newborn, infants, stillborn or those born prematurely."

Full article here (al.com)

A Birthday Wish

Hey everyone,

My birthday is on Monday and I'm trying to raise $100 for the Fund for Gulf Coast Restoration. If you love marine biology, the beach, or the environment (or me!) and you're feeling generous, please consider making a small donation to this cause!

Click here! Thank you!! :)


photo credit Cathy Hennessy

***UPDATE***
Thank you to all my friends who helped me reach my goal of $100 for the Fund for Gulf Coast Restoration!! Couldn't have done it without you!

One Year Ago - What has Happened since the Gulf Oil Disaster?

photo credit The Associated Press

It's been a busy week. The numerous religious holidays are upon us, but besides that we've had both Earth Day and the one-year anniversary of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. But don't worry - it hasn't gone unnoticed. So for our dear Mother Earth, let's have a look at what exactly is happening one year after the blowout that led to the greatest environmental disaster in US history.

"As the one-year anniversary of the BP oil spill approaches, some scientists have deemed the health of the Gulf of Mexico as 'nearly back to normal,' though countless workers involved in cleaning up the aftermath of the disaster are reporting mysterious and unexplained illnesses."

The people employed by BP and related agencies to clean up the mess in the Gulf have been consistently reporting symptoms such as severe headaches, nausea, respiratory infections, trouble breathing, dizziness, constant cough, rashes and other ailments. Although BP will be quick to tell you there is no definite correlation between these symptoms and working at the cleanup sites - the trend is clear. People are sick.

"During the hot summer cleanup last summer, Andre [a cleanup responder] says planes would fly overhead spraying chemical dispersants that would drift over the workers, burning people’s skin and making it hard to breathe. Andre says he watched workers collapse from exposure to toxic fumes of the oil. Soon, Andre says he succumbed himself and spent days in the hospital with 'tubes and IV coming out of everyplace in my body.'"

To add insult to injury (literally), when Andre tried to ring BP about the $21,000 in medical costs they agreed to pay for, he found the line had been disconnected.

So where does BP stand on its response program? Ask Ken Feinberg, the man put in charge of dolling out the $20 billion set aside for claims against BP:

"The program is working in terms of money going out the door. We're spent! We're paid out! In the last seven months we're approaching $4 billion, including about $1.7 billion for Louisiana."

The people of Louisiana and other Gulf states, however, are not as satisfied. In a meeting with Mr. Feinberg himself, several voices stood out among the crowd:

"You know, Tony Hayward waned his life back, but everybody in this building wants their life back...You say you've paid so many people in Lafourche [Louisiana]? I don't know one of them."

"What about the people, myself included, that's lost everything that they had? Everything that they've worked for, everything that they took pride in? And you can't get no help from nobody, because there is none. Because ya'll tell everybody that everything's fine in the Gulf of Mexico. Don't worry about nothin'. Everything's gonna be back to normal...When in fact, you're sitting there lying to our faces."

"We had the best [shrimp] product in the world - Now we're known as an oil product!"

And talks of expanding offshore drilling are on the rise! Can you believe it?!

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told reporters "Some of the members of Congress are acting as though the Deepwater Horizon well oil spill never happened."

Says David Yarnold, president of the National Audubon Society, "In the wake of the Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska in 1989, lawmakers passed sweeping new laws raising the financial liability of oil companies, expanding cleanup demands and improving the strength of tanker hulls. This time, they’ve done nothing."

So the effects on the human population of the Gulf of Mexico are pretty clear...but are similar things happening to the marine life? The truth is, science doesn't know - and probably won't know for some time - but the people of the Gulf have their own observations.

"This is Dead...This is Dead...This is Dead..." says Nick Collins as he sorts through his oyster catches. "It's the biggest oyster kill in Louisiana history, probably in the Gulf Coast's history...And I wish I wasn't part of it, I wish I wasn't here."

Dead dolphins and turtles have been washing up on the shores in record numbers. Patches of seabed are smothered and dead. Oil continues to wash ashore. And yet it's been difficult to find data on the long-term effects and environmental impacts. LaTosha Brown, Director of the Gulf Coast Fund, describes it as "The Great Gulf-Coast Experiment" - and she's not half wrong.

So what needs to happen that hasn't happened yet?

"First of all, there has to be an acknowledgement that there hasn't been of the severity of the damage to the ecosystems and to the communities that rely on these ecosystems. Then, number two, if that happens, there has to be meaningful, sustained and community-informed response or decision-making about restoring - to the full extent of that impact - what needs to be done. And neither of those two mandates have been met or are really well on their way to being met," says Derrick Evans, Director of Turkey Creek Community Initiatives.

There is still oil in the Gulf. The disaster isn't over. We're beginning to get a clear idea of what is happening to the human life of the area, but it may still take years to understand the full environmental impacts. Don't let a few news articles or commercials tell you everything in the Gulf of Mexico is "back to normal." We are still fighting this battle. The residents are still fighting this battle. The marine life will continue to fight this battle for a very, very long time. Everything is not okay in the Gulf. A year on, and we've still got a hell of a lot of work to do.

More information & articles:
BBC World Service Assignment: Louisiana Deepwater - BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill
Gulf Oil Spill Cleanup Workers Report Mysterious Illnesses Year After Disaster - Huffington Post
A Year after the BP Spill, Drilling Discussion on the Rise - Miami Herald
Gulf Tides 12: One Year Later - BP Drilling Disaster - April 20, 2011 - Gulf Restoration Network

U.S. Gulf Coast Dolphin Death Toll Rises - Reuters

I haven't written about the spill in a while. Partially because I've been away, and partially because the reporters have been too. It's been almost a year now, and the spill has effectively slid back in the news and is not receiving nearly as much attention as it used to. Of course we all saw this coming, but it's been especially hard to find articles about the science of the spill rather than the business. Besides, Justin Bieber got a new haircut...who CARES about the Gulf Coast?

Anyway.

Dolphins have been dying in large numbers in the Gulf. The remains of 59 dolphins have been recovered from beaches along the coast...and that's not the most heartbreaking part of it. Half of them are babies.

This is about 12 times the normal number of dolphin deaths for this time of year.

"Although none of the carcasses bore outward signs of oil contamination, all were being examined as possible casualties of petrochemicals that fouled the Gulf of Mexico after a BP drilling platform exploded in April 2010, rupturing a wellhead on the sea floor, officials said."

I did read something not so long ago...I believe it was in Leviathan or, The Whale by Philip Hoare (which is a great book by the way), though I can't be sure. Studies have shown that the contamination in adult bottlenosed dolphins along the American coast are so high that most females will lose their first calf due to their own toxicity. Perhaps with the additional contamination the BP oil spill has caused in the Gulf, this statistic is rising even higher? What if no females can give birth to healthy calves this year...then what?

At least 29 of the dead dolphins have been positively identified as bottlenose dolphins.

"The latest wave follows an earlier tally of 89 dead dolphins - virtually all of them adults - reported to have washed ashore in 2010 after the Gulf oil spill.

Results from an examination of those remains, conducted as part of the government's oil spill damage assessment, have not been released, though scientists concluded those dolphins 'died from something environmental during the last year,'" said Blair Mase, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) spokeswoman.

I think it's pretty obvious what they're suggesting.

Full article here (Reuters)

Gulf Seafood With a Side of Oil Dispersant? - National Geographic

photo credit Ali Sanderson/Expedition Blue Planet

A short article with a good quote:

""This is the safest seafood in the world. It's like flying after 9-11," remarked the Lafourche Parish President's husband over dinner with Expedition Blue Planet last Friday night. His reasoning: The catch coming into shore here is probably more thoroughly tested than anything being imported into the state."

Full article here (National Geographic)

Toxic Oil Found Deep on Gulf Seafloor? - National Geographic

photo credit USF

So, we've been hearing that all the oil that was "supposed" to be on the surface has likely been pushed down to smother the seafloor thanks to dispersants like Corexit. This is bad news considering much of bottom life is at or near the base of the food chain and is sedentary, meaning creatures cannot move to a less contaminated environment.

"Tiny deep-sea creatures are showing a "strong toxic response" to hydrocarbons, an ingredient of oil, according to preliminary results released Tuesday by the University of South Florida (USF)."

Sediment samples were taken from an important ecological site near the Deepwater Horizon wellhead.

"By shining ultraviolet light on the samples, the team indirectly detected hydrocarbons in the sample that seem to have the same fluorescent fingerprints as oil from the wellhead, which was capped July 15."

The team also took healthy specimens of bacteria and phytoplankton and exposed them to water samples from the surface and from the deep. The Phytoplankton, which have a slight natural glow, showed "enormous reduction" in light upon exposure to the deep-water samples. The bacteria showed similar results when exposed to the surface samples. It is not yet clear why they show opposite reactions.

"It's possible, for example, that different species have different reactions to the toxic effects of oil and chemical dispersants,” says David Hollander, a USF chemical oceanographer.

Hollander emphasized that his team's observations are preliminary: "I hope they don't get misconstrued as scientific fact."

Full article here (National Geographic)

Allen: 'Our First Goal is to Do No Harm' in Gulf - CNN

There are a lot of things I could say about that, but I just won't.

So, we're still working out to bottom kill, yeah? Figuring out whether we'll remove the blowout preventer and replace it with a new one, or invent a whole new thing to make the current one okay. What a mess...

"Once crews get their marching orders, it will take them about four days to prepare, drill the final 50 feet of a relief well and intercept the main well. Then, the "bottom kill" process of plugging the well from below will begin. Allen said Wednesday cementing will require another several days."

When that's done maybe I'll stop finding gray hairs on my scalp. I'm only 24, sheesh!

Gulf fishing is reopening again, which I think is okay - for now. It's been tested and apparently it's safe to eat. I wouldn't chomp down on jumbo shrimp if you're pregnant or anything, but for the rest of us I think it's proven to be fine - for now. Emphasis on "for now." The thing is, oil still remains in the ecosystem. As we just learned, it's not "mostly cleaned up" as some government officials would have you believe. So, as the oil continues to enter the food chain, the Gulf fish will need to be continually tested for contamination. I have a suspicion we will find that some time from now, the Gulf fish will not be safe to eat. But for now, okay. I'm willing to trust the government assessments on this one - for now.

This is only in the re-opened waters, mind you. Twenty-two percent of federal waters still remain closed due to possible contamination.

In other news, Wednesday was the deadline for people and businesses to submit their damage claims to BP. BP will no longer accept claims (which I think is BS, because we still don't understand the spills impact), but will direct them to Kenneth Feinberg, who is in charge of the $20 billion escrow account (which is better than nothing).

"This facility is going to be much more generous, much more efficient, and much quicker than BP," says Feinberg.

Full article here (CNN)

Gulf Oil Spill: University Study Contradicts Government Estimates, Up To 79% of Oil Could Remain - Huffington Post

photo credit Huffington Post
(I mean really, does it look like it's mostly cleaned up??)

Ahhh, back from my glorious relaxing holiday...back to thinking about the spill. I leave these thoughts at home while I'm away, but they're always there to greet me upon my return!

So remember that post I made before about how the White House energy advisor, Carol Browner, said that the oil spill was mostly cleaned up? Yeah, we knew that was a load of BS, but here's proof.

A group of scientists from the University of Georgia did a study separate from the government's assessment and found that 70-79% of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon event is still present in the ecosystem.

"The research team...said that it is a misinterpretation of data to claim that oil that has dissolved is actually gone or harmless."

"Charles Hopkinson, who helped lead the investigation, claims "the oil is still out there, and it will likely take years to completely degrade." The UGA marine sciences professor, and director of the Georgia Sea Grant, added, "We are still far from a complete understanding of what its impacts are.""

Thank you, and sheesh! Obviously we're not gonna clean up 205 million gallons of oil in 100 days. That would be great - that would be a miracle! - but it didn't happen.

To finish, here's a pretty big quote, but I think it's important:

"Whether a glass is one-quarter full or one-quarter empty isn't exactly a matter of perspective. Why the discrepancy? According to a news release from UGA:

Hopkinson notes that the reports arrive at different conclusions largely because the Sea Grant and UGA scientists estimate that the vast majority of the oil classified as dispersed, dissolved or residual is still present, whereas the NIC report has been interpreted to suggest that only the "residual" form of oil is still present.

Hopkinson said that his group also estimated how much of the oil could have evaporated, degraded or weathered as of the date of the report. Using a range of reasonable evaporation and degradation estimates, the group calculated that 70-79 percent of oil spilled into the Gulf still remains. The group showed that it was impossible for all the dissolved oil to have evaporated because only oil at the surface of the ocean can evaporate into the atmosphere and large plumes of oil are trapped in deep water."

Full article here (Huffington Post)

BP Oil Spill: Obama Administration's Scientists admit Alarm over Chemicals - The Guardian

photo credit Reuters

Scientists are finding that almost two million gallons of Corexit were used to disperse the BP spill. The trouble is that no one knows what the long term effects will be. The EPA has recently come under fire for allowing BP to use such massive quantities of dispersant in the first place, and for allowing the company to ignore their advice to cut dispersant use by 75% back in May.

Says Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat who introduced a ban-on-dispersants bill passed by the House of Representatives last week: "[The EPA] have fallen down on the job very substantially because they allowed BP to use dispersants. Even when they told BP not to use dispersants they allowed BP to ignore their advice."

According to the article, the EPA as a whole wasn't even involved in these decisions.

"Other than a few people in the united command, there is no involvement from the rest of the agency," says Jeff Ruch, the executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. He adds that several toxicologists he has spoken with were deeply concerned, particularly about where the EPA was getting their information. "The concern was the agency appeared to be flying blind and not consulting its own specialists and even the literature that was available," he says.

Reports last week suggest the dispersants have entered both the ecosystem and human food chains via blue crab larvae. But if that's not how the dispersants end up killing us - don't worry. They still will.

Full article here (The Guardian)

BP Buys up Gulf Scientists for Legal Defense, Roiling Academic Community - Alabama Local

Well that ain't good. It still bums me out that scientists go for this crap...I like to think we're better informed people, or more environmentally conscious people...but really we're just people.

"The Press-Register obtained a copy of a contract offered to scientists by BP. It prohibits the scientists from publishing their research, sharing it with other scientists or speaking about the data that they collect for at least the next three years."

This is actually a little scary. The scientists that BP hires cannot testify against them, no matter what their findings. By signing on they agree to silence their research and to take orders from BP's attorneys. The contract plainly states that BP is hiring scientists for the purpose of fighting the Natural Resource Damage Assessment being put forth by the US government in the wake of the spill. Unfortunately, as a result of the recession and major research funding cuts, many university scientists have jumped at the opportunity.

"More than one scientist interviewed by the Press-Register described being offered $250 an hour through BP lawyers. At eight hours a week, that amounts to $104,000 a year."

""It makes me feel like they were more interested in making sure we couldn't testify against them than in having us testify for them," said George Crozier, head of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, who was approached by BP."

The US government will draw heavily from the research being conducted at academic institutions along the Gulf, but if BP hires out most of the scientists we're gonna have a problem. Lawyers and university officials see issues with using publicly owned laboratories to conduct private and confidential research. Scientists who have already signed on with BP were told by federal officials that they could expect to lose their government funding for ongoing research projects.

"BP PLC attempted to hire the entire marine sciences department at one Alabama university, according to scientists involved in discussions with the company's lawyers. The university declined because of confidentiality restrictions that the company sought on any research.
"We told them there was no way we would agree to any kind of restrictions on the data we collect," said Bob Shipp, head of marine sciences at the University of South Alabama. "It was pretty clear we wouldn't be hearing from them again after that.""

Full article here (Alabama Local)

BP has Stopped using Dispersants in the Gulf – For Now - Oceanwire

photo credit Oceanwire

According to the statements released by Unified Command, no further chemical oil dispersants have been used since the cap went on at the Deepwater Horizon site July 15^th.

It has been suggested that oil dispersants are more toxic than the oil itself, so the news of their end of use falls happily on the ears of scientists.

Although use has been halted for now, BP has not said that this will be a permanent move.

Full article here (Oceanwire)

BP Welcomes You to the Apocalypse - Common Dreams

Well, this is interesting...And hilarious in a sick, twisted way - if you're into that.

How bad can the Gulf oil spill get? What is the worst-case scenario? How bad can it be? We've all read about multiple situations that are indeed bad. Some of them are actually coming to life, unfortunately. In this article, Mark Morford has indeed found a worse worst-case scenario. Two, actually.

"I come bearing fabulous news. There is no longer any need to concern yourself with pesky trifles like love, a mortgage, child rearing, planting a garden, dreams, money, shoes, wristwatches, parking spaces, mysterious rashes, foreign policy, baseball, bridge tolls or generally caring about much of anything in particular."

Why?? Well, you'll just have to read the article. :)

Full article here (Common Dreams)

Why the UK Banned Corexit - Clean the Gulf Now!

This article shows the documents from the UK's test of Corexit oil dispersants. Limpets (a type of snail), which were used as the "guinea pigs," were sprayed with either oil or Corexit and the number of snails that lost their adhesion abilities were counted as dead - due to their inability to stick to surfaces and protect themselves. In reality they could have been killed by the oil, dispersants, loss of adhesion abilities or a combination of the three. The test documents' mortality rates show that Corexit alone is twice as lethal as oil.

An update of this article points out that the limpet test does not necessarily extend to other rocky shore animals or animals living in the open sea - which is a good point. Still, the potential damage Corexit may cause cannot be questioned.

Full article here (Clean the Gulf Now!)

Oil Spill Update

I'll get to Obama, not in this post.

It's getting hard to keep up with all the incoming news from different sources, different angles, people with different motivations...It's getting confusing. People are using the spill to push their own agendas and precious data is getting lost in the process. Let's try to figure some of it out.

So, estimates on oil volume spilled/spilling have increased...again. Does anyone see a pattern here? The "new" spill rates are between 40,000 - 50,000 barrels per day, which is what scientists have been suggesting for weeks (hence “new”). Some estimates are even higher. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, widely considered to be a top authority on marine research and education, estimates the flow at 1 - 2.1 million gallons per day.

"But even using other numbers that federal officials and scientists call a more reasonable range would have about 63 million gallons spilling since the rig explosion...By comparison, the Exxon Valdez, the previous worst U.S. oil spill, was just about 11 million gallons. The new figures mean Deepwater Horizon is producing an Exxon Valdez size spill every five to 13 days."

Just in case the cleanup effort didn't have enough setbacks already, the Discoverer Enterprise - the ship currently assigned to capture oil leaking from the well - was struck by lightning yesterday. The ship caught fire and containment efforts were halted, allowing the flow into the Gulf to increase. Discoverer Enterprise has since been able to resume its containment efforts. Worth mentioning, satirical Twitterer BPGlobalPR tweeted: "Lightning struck one of our ships! Come on Planet Earth, what did we ever do to you?!? #bpcares"

Well, I can think of a few things. 1,075 oiled birds have been found, 633 of which were dead. Scientists estimate only 10% of oiled birds are ever found.

""Others sink or they're scavenged," said Rebecca Dunne, of Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research."

As difficult as it is to count frightened oiled birds trying desperately to escape, counting other animals such as turtles and dolphins is nearly impossible. These animals live much farther away from responders and will rarely wash up on shore. Because of this, we will never truly know the full impact of the spill. Other unseen victims are the sedentary life forms at the bottom of the gulf, such as corals and oysters, which cannot move out of the contaminated area and will most likely be smothered by sinking oil or poisoned by dispersants. A website has been set up here keeping tally of the avian, reptilian and mammalian victims of the spill. You can follow these numbers on Twitter at bpdeadbirds.


photo credit France24

What I'm kind of loving is that BP isn't getting any support from fellow oil whores. Sure, it's easy enough to push the bad publicity towards someone else when it makes you look better (I'm looking at you, ExxonMobil), but the fact is that the traditionally strong bonds of support amongst oil companies is beginning to weaken...and that's a good thing. Maybe they're all realizing it could have just as easily been one of them and they're freaking out a little...?

To put it into an insanely immature spoiled brat's perspective:

"“In one sense we feel like kids who have had their recess taken away because of what somebody else did,” Larry Dickerson, CEO of Diamond Offshore Drilling, told CNBC. “This blanket punishment doesn't seem right.”"

Wahh. Cry me a fucking river.


Full articles here:
New Oil Numbers may mean More Environmental Damage (Las Vegas Sun)
Gulf Oil Spill: Lightning-Ignited Fire Halts Oil Collection System (LA Times)
Most Oil-Struck Birds, Marine Life Die Uncounted (France24)
BP Faces Backlash from Big Oil Rivals (MSNBC)

Questions about the Gulf Oil Leak - MNN

Links! Links galore!

As Mr. Gunther says, I've also been "a little overwhelmed at all the news coming out of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico." I think we all have. (I've had an especially hard time keeping up with it, since I have no TV/radio for news!)

A lot of good questions are raised here.

Full article here (MNN)

Diving into the Gulf's Toxic Soup - ABC News

Philippe Cousteau went diving with ABC news into the oil slick spilled by BP's Deepwater Horizon rig.

"This is a nightmare...a nightmare," he said.

He's never seen anything like it. Dispersant COREXIT 9500 has been mixing with the oil and sinking down slowly to the sea floor, where experts say it has already killed a quarter of marine life. There have been reports of oil-dispersant blobs suspended at various depths throughout the affected area. Divers had to don hazmat suits to get a glimpse of the spill that we haven't seen yet. This is a must see!!!

Video here (ABC News)