Marine Life Affected:
WHAT OIL SPILLS WILL DO TO MARINE WILDLIFE:
TO DOLPHINS:
Unlike most animals, oil does not stick to a Dolphin’s skin because their skin is smooth, and hairless. That’s good. One less thing to worry about in the heap of other problems that BP has made for these highly intelligent mammals. The dolphins of the Gulf of Mexico will encounter problems such as inhaling oil and oil vapor (which they do very well). This will inevitably damage the animals’ airways, lungs, and mucous membranes. This, in turn, can lead to death. It’s the circle of life, BP style, and the dolphins are panicking their way in circles to death. Oh yeah, just so you know, they can increase their exposure to oil harm if they’re stressed or panicking. Wonderful.
– A dolphin’s eyesight is also sensitive to oil exposure.
– It is also possible that oil pollution impairs a dolphin’s immune system and causes secondary bacterial and fungal infections.
– The transfer of petroleum hydrocarbons through the mothers milk to suckling young is another way oil affects dolphins and may affect not only current dolphin populations, but future generations.
– Dolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and are carnivores, mostly eating fish and squid. They might consume oil-affected food or may even starve due to the lack of available food given that in the gulf area they are pretty much at the top of the food chain.
TO MANATEES:
Manatees may be affected by inhaling volatile hydrocarbons while they are breathing on the surface, and it is very likely that exposure to petroleum will irritate sensitive mucous membranes and eyes. Those adorable little eyes. The young are the most at risk (read: manatee pups). Nursing pups may be injured due to ingestion of oil from contaminated teats. There may be long-term chronic effects as a result of migration through oil-contaminated waters, and there is a substantial possibility of consuming contaminated plant material and other incidental organisms that may affect GENERATIONS of manatees (much like the dolphins)
– fully aquatic, mostly herbivorous marine mammals sometimes known as ‘sea cows’. They’re well-known for their friendly nature and paddle-like flippers.
– Hair color is brownish gray and they have thick, wrinkled skin, often with coarse hair, or “whiskers.” This adorable big guy spends half the day sleeping.
– Are capable of understanding discriminatory tasks and show signs of complex thought associated with learning and advanced long-term memory.
– Inhabit the shallow, marshy coastal areas and rivers of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as other regions with warmer water. Diet includes mangrove leaves, turtle grass, and types of algae, all of which will be filled/covered with a layer of oil due to this last spill.
TO YOUNG HERON:
Impair reproduction. Studies have shown that ‘microliter’ quantities of fresh oil applied to the eggshell surface will cause death of the embryo. Birds exposed to sublethal quantities of oil during the nesting season can transfer oil onto their feathers, and then to their eggs, causing failure of the eggs to hatch.
– Underneath Mangrove, just inside the coast of Lousiana. The is home to hundreds of herons, brown pelicans, terns, gulls and roseate spoonbills.
– Almost all of these species are associated with water, they are essentially non-swimming waterbirds that feed on the margins of lakes, rivers, swamps, ponds and the sea.
– Majority found in tropics
– The diet includes a wide variety of aquatic animals, including fish, reptiles, amphibians, crustaceans, molluscs and aquatic insects
TO SEA TURTLES:
– Sea turtles such as loggerheads and leatherbacks can be impacted as they swim to shore for nesting activities. Turtle nest eggs may be damaged if an oiled adult lies on the nest. All species of sea turtles are listed as threatened or endangered.
– Dr. Solangi’s center recovered 13 sea turtles that had washed ashore, said to be the first victims of the BP oil spill.
– Inhabitants in all areas of the ocean and beach/dunes, except the arctic. A lifespan of 80 years is feasible for sea turtles. Sea turtles play 2 critical roles in ecosystem types – oceans and beaches/dunes. Green sea turtles eat sea grass that grows at the bottom of the ocean. Sea grass must be kept short in order to remain healthy, and beds of healthy sea grass are essential in areas of breeding and development for species of fish and marine life; making sea turtles (in jeopardy now more than ever) an INTEGRAL part of the ecosystem in the Gulf.
– Beach dunes depend on vegetation to protect against erosion, and turtle eggs that fail make it to the ocean, hatched or not, are nutrient sources for vegetation. If sea turtles become extinct, there will be a negative impact in both marine and human life.
TO LEAST TURNS:
– There is a potential for the oil spill to wipe out the entire population of Least Terns.
– Terns were once plentiful in Biloxi, Mississippi with 12,000 species living. Now there are only 2,000.
– Right now, least tern eggs are at a critical point in their life cycle because they’re the most vulnerable to the oil. It takes about 20 days for least terns eggs to hatch, and another 20 days to leave the nest.
– http://cbs5.com/national/gulf.oil.spill.2.1674709.html
– A species of tern that breeds in North America and locally in northern South America. Sea birds have a high risk of contact to spilled oil due to the amount of time they spend on or near the surface of the sea and on oil affected foreshores.
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Least_Tern
TO SHARKS:
-Given the amount of time whale sharks spend in, and at the surface of the water, there is potential harm or possible death of these mammals from direct exposure to the oil as well as contamination, typically from oiling or clogging of their gills, and consumption of oil-contaminated preys. Most of these animals spend a large percentage of their time filter feeding, so the impact of the spill will be tremendous.
-The process being used to ‘break up’ the oil will significantly increase the potential for exposure of sharks throughout the water.
-Although it is unclear whether or not sharks have the ability to detect the oil in the water, we can only hope that they will avoid these affected areas.
-Whale sharks are considered ‘vulnerable’ species because of their slow growth rate, late age maturity and low number of off springs. The oil spill will definitely impact the wildlife of Whale sharks in the Gulf of Mexico. If the BP oil spill causes the shark population to decline, there will be a slow recovery within the shark colony.
TO WHOOPING CRANE:
– Birds can be exposed to oil as they float on the water or dive for fish through oil-slicked water. Oiled birds can lose the ability to fly and can ingest the oil while preening.
– This bird feeds on various crustaceans, mollusks, fish, berries, small reptiles and aquatic plants. Potential foods of breeding birds in summer include frogs, small rodents, smaller birds, fish, aquatic insects, crayfish, clams, snails, aquatic tubers and, berries. Waste grain, including wheat and barley, is an important food for migratory birds such as the whooping crane. All affected (INfected) by this oil spill.
– These devastating outcomes give the creatures nothing to whoop about — if they CAN even whoop anymore without oil spouting out their throats or choking them them to death.
– The tallest North American bird, the Whooping Crane is an endangered crane species named for its whooping sound and call.
– The whooping crane is endangered mainly as a result of habitat loss. Breeding populations winter along the Gulf coast of Texas, as well as other areas with lakes. They nest on the ground, usually on a raised area in a marsh. Female is more likely to directly tend to the young.
TO SNOWY PLOVER:
– The snowy plover is possibly the most adorable bird to be affected by the oil spill. It has been designated to a watch-list and is considered an endangered species in the West Coast. Snowy plovers would be severely affected by oil on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico.
– Read more: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/birds-gulf-oil-spill-0519#ixzz0pNdhw0Nf
– Plovers have already stopped nesting as a result of the oil spill.
– Often found at or near beaches. In many parts of the world, it has become difficult for this species to breed on beaches because of disturbance from the activities of humans or their animals.
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_Plover
TO PELICANS:
Some brown pelicans couldn’t fly away this Memorial Day weekend’s Sunday. All they could do was hobble; their beautiful brown and white feathers now covered in jet black oil.
– The pelicans struggled to clean the crude from their bodies, splashing in the water and trying to preen themselves and their young. One stood at the edge of an island with its wings lifted slightly, its head drooping — so encrusted in oil it couldn’t fly.
– Pelicans are especially vulnerable to oil. Not only could they eat tainted fish and feed it to their young, but they could die of hypothermia or drown if they’re soaked in oil and rendered immobile.
– A pelican is a large water bird with a large throat pouch, belonging to the bird family Pelecanidae. They’re birds of inland and coastal waters, mostly found in warm regions.
TO CRABS:
– An accumulation of toxins in small organisms, such as snails and mole crabs, could hamper their reproduction. A decline in what blue crabs are eating could then hinder their own growth and survival. Contaminated food could also affect blue crab reproduction, thereby impacting the next generation.
– If they ingest tainted food, female blue crabs will inadvertently put the viability of their eggs and stored sperm at risk, resulting in an inordinate number of eggs being laid that aren’t fertile, endangering a very important crab for the U.S., Louisiana and the ecosystem.
– The United States is the world’s most important blue crab fishery. Its top producing state is Louisiana. Oil that’s been broken up bydispersants will affect all crabs’ food source, which consists primarily of snails and mole crabs
EVIL, EVIL: RECAPS OF BP EVIL:
Here are some recaps of the evil things from BP:
BP is now burning dead marine life at night to cover up the damage.
- From the start, Obama administration and BP officials lied and deceived the public about the Gulf spill’s severity, BP CEO Tony Hayward saying (on May 18) its environmental effect will be “very modest,” when, in fact, it’s already catastrophic, spreading, causing long-term or permanent ecological destruction over a vast area, will likely persist for months, and, according to some experts perhaps years if nothing tried to stop it works.
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- Initially, BP reported a 1,000 barrels per day leak, then 5,000 after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) estimate, while independent analysis of company supplied video and satellite imagery suggest somewhere between 50 – 100,000 barrels, the consensus settling on 70,000 or an Exxon Valdez equivalent every 3.5 days – by far, America’s greatest ever environmental disaster, worsening daily.
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- On May 19, McClatchy Newspapers Marisa Taylor and Renee Schoof headlined, “BP Withholds Oil Spill Facts – and Government Lets It,” saying:
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- It “hasn’t publicly divulged the results of tests on the extent of workers’ exposure to evaporating oil or from the burning of crude….even though researchers say that data is crucial in determining whether the conditions are safe.”
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- Further, BP isn’t monitoring conditions or releasing videos, and the Obama administration isn’t pressing it despite experts, like University of Miami’s fisheries biologist Peter Ortner saying “We have been screaming from day one for” it.
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- Meanwhile, University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science’s satellite imagery analysis reported on May 18 that the spill covers 7,500 square miles, or about the size of New Jersey. Other accounts say 10,000 square miles or a Maryland equivalent. Either way, it’s huge.
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- On May 19, McClatchy Newspaper writers Renee Schoof and Lauren French headlined, “Gulf oil spill may be 19 times bigger than originally thought,” saying:
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- New video footage “indicates that around 95,000 barrels, or 4 million gallons, a day of crude oil may be spewing from the leaking wellhead,” according to Purdue University’s Professor Steve Wereley’s May 19 testimony to the House Commerce and Energy Committee. He based his calculation on BP video, saying the spill could be from 76,000 – 104,000 barrels daily, but wants more footage over a longer period for a more precise calculation, what BP hasn’t released up to now and won’t, absent Interior Department pressure to do it.
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- Yet if the wellhead fails completely, these figures potentially could double, begging the question about how long Washington, BP, and the major media can deny the peril, pretending it’s minor.
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- Wereley said the “media keeps using the 5,000 (figure), but there is scientifically” no basis for its accuracy. “BP’s estimate is nowhere near correct. It is certainly larger.” He sees no “possibility (under) any scenario (that the publicized) number is accurate,” imagine how much less so under a worst case scenario.
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- On May 14, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) “filed a formal notice of intent to sue Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for ignoring marine-mammal protection laws when approving offshore drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico.”
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- Salazar’s Interior Department approved “three lease sales, more than 100 seismic surveys, and more than 300 drilling operations without permits required by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.”
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- According to CBD’s oceans director, Miyoko Sakashita:
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- On Salazar’s watch, the Gulf was treated “as a sacrifice area where laws are ignored and wildlife protection takes a backseat to oil-company profits.” The Interior Department “is well aware of its obligations under the law….yet it has simply decided it cannot be bothered. You and I have to follow the law, but Interior Secretary Salazar seems to think that he and the oil companies he is supposedly overseeing do not. That is unacceptable.”
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- CBD is suing Salazar and the Minerals Management Service (MMS) for flagrantly violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act. Hundreds of individual and class action ones have begun coming against BP, Transocean, Halliburton and their complicit corporate partners for compensatory and punitive damages, but whatever their resolutions, they’ll never compensate for lost livelihoods, destroyed lives, and environmental devastation that courts can’t redress.
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- Of course, the problem goes back decades and was extreme under the Bush-Cheney White House, run by former oil men who cared only about profits, and didn’t give a damn about the environment. Neither does Obama and his corporate-controlled administration.
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- In 2007, Bush’s Interior Department sold BP the affected lease under its 2007 – 2012 Five-Year Offshore Oil Drilling Plan. In April 2009, the Obama administration approved exploratory drilling, after which CBD and its allies won a court order vacating the Bush Five-Year Plan.
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- Rather than seek an alternative, Interior Secretary Salazar filed a special motion to exempt approved Gulf sites, identifying BP’s as one to be allowed. In July 2009, the court agreed, despite BP having the worst environmental and safety records of any company operating in America.
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- No matter. It downplayed a spill possibility, saying it was unlikely or virtually impossible.MMS then rubber-stamped its exploration plan with no environmental consideration. In other words, it should never deter business or stand in the way of profits – the same attitude shown Wall Street, corporate health providers, and other corporate favorites given generous legislative or direct handouts.
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- As a result, regular large and smaller spills are assured, heavy oil from this one having reached the fragile Louisiana marshlands – nurseries for shrimp, oysters, crabs, and fish that make Louisiana America’s leading commercial seafood producer and a favorite tourist destination for recreational anglers.
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- Oil also now affects the South Pass Mississippi River entrance, the Mississippi delta, Gulf Shores and Dauphin Island, Alabama, Whiskey Island on the Chandeleur Islands south end, the protected bird breeding sanctuary Raccoon Island, and the Loop Current, a powerful clockwise conveyor belt heading it toward Florida, up the East Coast, and into the Atlantic, threatening Western Europe and perhaps West Africa. The potential devastation is incalculable but at minimum will be huge.
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- According to European Space Agency satellite images, visible proof shows its position, suggesting it’ll reach the Keys around May 25, America’s only living coral barrier reef – the world’s third most productive marine ecosystem with its patch and bank reefs, seagrass meadows, soft and hard bottom communities, and coastal mangroves. They support one of North America’s most biologically diverse amounts of marine life, endangering them, according to Dr. Hu Chuamin, executive director of the Institute for Marine Remote Sensing (IMaRS) at the University of South Florida.
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- An optical oceanographic expert, he says there’s “no doubt that (oil) will reach the Florida Keys. (Advancing about 100 miles a day), we know that (Mississippi Rivers waters are heading for) the Florida Straits and will impact the Keys.” Once there, major damage is likely to an ecosystem providing shelter, food and breeding sites for many plants and animals as well as coastal storm protection. According to Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection, reefs also help the state’s economy through millions of dollars annually from recreational and commercial fishing.
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- No one knows the potential damage, but if oil flows over the reef, the amount will depend on whether it stays on the surface. According to Eugene Shinn, recently retired US Geologic Service reef ecology expert, “Under no circumstances should dispersants be used on an oil slick in the vicinity of a coral reef.” They would cause oil droplets to sink and potentially destroy tiny coral polyps.
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- Worse still, the Loop Current joins the Gulf Stream, North America’s most important ocean current system, sparking fears about oil entering it and traveling up the entire East Coast into the Atlantic. En route, it could foul beaches, mangroves, sea-grass, and coral reefs, vital to area wildlife, local economies and human health, besides crossing the Atlantic for more damage.
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- Earlier, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) head ,JaneLubchenco, told reporters that an “unprecedented and dynamic” slick was on course to sweep along Florida’s coastline, was “increasingly likely” to reach the powerful Gulf Loop, then be carried to the Keys and beyond.
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- No doubt to prevent his congressional testimony, MMS associate director of Offshore Energy and Minerals Management, Chris Oynes, will take an accelerated retirement May 31. He got his position despite being key to an offshore leasing foul-up, costing taxpayers an estimated $10 billion in lost revenue – the Interior Department’s inspector general calling his mismanagement “a jaw-dropping example of bureaucratic bungling.”
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- So bad, in fact, he got a better job to rubber-stamp BP’s right to operate recklessly, wreck the environment, and reward its shareholders with billions in profits. Maybe a new high-paying job as well, the usual revolving door payoff for allies leaving government service.
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- BP’s Criminal Negligence
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- Besides lying, covering up, and deceiving all along, BP knew the vital blowout preventer was damaged weeks before the spill, yet did nothing to fix it, according to a May 17 Judith Evans Timesonline report headlined, “BP pressured rig disaster workers to drill faster,” saying:
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- According to chief electronics technician Mike Williams, one of the last workers to leave the doomed platform, the blowout preventer was “damaged when a crewman accidently moved a joystick, applying hundreds of thousands of pounds of force. Pieces of rubber were found in the drilling fluid, which he said implied damage to a crucial seal. But a supervisor declared the find to be ‘not a big deal.’ “
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- Engineering Professor Bob Bea disagreed, telling 60 Minutes that inaccurate pressure readings followed. The real situation was concealed. The rig no longer was safe, and without blowout preventer protection, “a catastrophic accident like the Gulf oil spill” might happen.
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- Bea also said BP ignored an even more critical safety measure, ordering the rig operator to remove the “drilling mud,” the heavy liquid used before the well was sealed to keep oil and gas from escaping.
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- MMS drilling engineer Frank Patton calls drilling mud “the most important thing in safety for your well.” Explosion eyewitnesses, including nearby fishermen, saw it being extracted beforehand. BP told rig workers that “things” were plugged when, in fact, final cementing wasn’t in place. Without it and the drilling mud, an operable blowout preventer was the last line of defense. Drilling without it was willful criminal negligence.
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- So wasn’t the whole operation, approved by Obama’s Interior Department, including EPA’s authorizing the use of toxic dispersants, causing more problems than solutions to the environment, wildlife, affected residents, and fishermen hired as first responders, already getting sick.
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- BP said respirators and other special protections weren’t needed, despite strong hydrocarbon vapors and massive toxic chemical amounts dumped on the slick to make it more water soluble.
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- As a result, fishermen report bad headaches, burning eyes, persistent coughs, sore throats, stuffy sinuses, nausea, and dizziness – unsurprising based on EPA monitored unsafe airborne levels of dangerous hydrogen sulfide, benzene and other toxins, way exceeding acceptable standards for humans and wildlife.
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- BP and Washington ignore them, risking chemical poisoning to show up later in long-term illnesses, disabilities and deaths, what happened to Exxon Valdez and 9/11 first responders, never told of the dangers they faced. Again, expediency and corporate interests trump environmental considerations, public health, worker safety, and common sense – swept aside by Washington-BP collusion.
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- On May 20, with over 600,000 gallons of surface dispersants used and another 55,000 underwater, the EPA told BP officials to choose less toxic ones in 24 hours, submit a list of alternatives, then begin using them within 72 hours.
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- According to Washington Post writer Juliet Eilperin (on May 20) in her article titled, “EPA demands less-toxic dispersant:”
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- An unnamed administration official said “Dispersants have never been used in this volume before,” let alone ones as toxic as Nalco’s Corexit 9500A and 9527A.
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- Nalco is well-connected, having formed a joint venture with Exxon Chemical in 1994, has oil-industry insiders on its board, including an 11-year BP board member. No wonder Defenders of Wildlife’s senior policy advisor, Richard Charter, calls Corexit “a chemical that the oil industry makes to sell to itself, basically.” Only profits matter, not long-term harm to people, wildlife and the environment.
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- Washington Coverup of a Massive Underwater Oil Blob
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- According to investigative journalist Wayne Madsen in his May 20 article headlined, “White House Covers Up Menacing Oil ‘Blob:’ “
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- FEMA and US Army Corps of Engineer sources say that “US Navy submarines (in the Gulf and Atlantic off the Florida coast) have detected (and are tracking) what amounts to a frozen oil blob….at depths of between 3,000 to 4,000 feet. (It’s now) transiting the Florida Straits between Florida and Cuba (and parts of it) are breaking off into smaller tar balls that are now washing ashore in the environmentally-sensitive Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas.”
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- Lies and coverup try to hide it, Madsen saying NOAA operates as a “virtual public relations arm for BP,” and the Coast Guard is “lying in order to protect the Obama administration” to limit its damaged image.
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- Six months ago, without federally required permits, the BP/Transocean/Halliburton troika drilled a 35,000 foot well, causing “a major catastrophic event that required the firms’ oil rig personnel to quickly pull up the drill and close (its) hole.”
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- Even so, BP “re-sank the drill (causing) another, more destructive chain of events following the (Deepwater Horizon) explosion….When (it) blew up, (it) also ‘blew down,’ cracking the sub-seabed pipe” as deep as 30,000 feet, “again, without a government permit.”
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- BP also wants to recover “as much oil as possible from the (site) rather than simply plugging and capping (it), which would then place it off-limits to further drilling.”
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- Company officials are deceiving the Obama administration and public about their so-called “kill shot” or “top kill” plan to permanently seal the well. Instead, they intend “to shoot cement into the pipe in an attempt to cap” it temporarily, later hoping to dig “a trench for side drilling (to) recover as much oil as possible,” no matter the risk of an even greater disaster that won’t deter their quest for profits.
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- The Exxon Valdez Connection
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- Greg Palast’s Exxon Valdez fraud investigations found BP mostly to blame, a topic his May 5 Truthout.org article explained, titled “Slick Operator: The BP I’ve Known Too Well.”
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- What the company did to Alaska, it’s now doing to the Gulf, and a vastly greater ecosystem under a worst case scenario. “Tankers run aground, wells blow out, pipes burst. It shouldn’t happen, but it does (after which) the name of the game is containment,” coverup, and spending the least amount possible for cleanup and restitution.
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- In Alaska and today, BP “was charged with carrying out the Oil Spill Response Plans (it)drafted….filed with the government, and is handling the same way by “l(ying),prevaricat(ing), fabricat(ing) and obfuscat(ing).”
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- Spills are contained with “lot(‘s) of rubber, long skirts of it called a ‘boom’ (used to) surround (them), then pump (them) out into skimmers, or disperse it, sink it or burn it.”
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- However, “booms” have to be ready to respond like a fire department’s equipment and personnel to operate it. In Alaska, it was BP’s job as principal Alyeska pipeline consortium owner – its same job in the Gulf as principal Deepwater Horizon lessee.
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- In 1989, Alyeska claimed that equipment and response crews were in place with trained Alaskan natives ready if needed. It also “certified in writing that a containment barge with equipment was within five hours sailing of any point in the Prince William Sound, (and that) it had plenty of boom and equipment cached on Bligh Island, where the Exxon Valdez hitBligh Reef.
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- In fact, it had nothing there, and Alyeska earlier fired Alaskan workers, “replacing them with phantom crews, lists of untrained employees with no idea how to control a spill. And the containment barge (in fact was) laid up in a drydock in Cordova, locked under ice, 12 hours away.” Instead of containing the spill, 1,200 miles of shoreline were wrecked, contaminated enough to remain so for decades at minimum.
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- For a company with the worst safety and environmental record in the industry “here we go again. Valdez goes Cajun” with contagion enough to contaminate vast parts of the Gulf, Florida Keys, fragile ecosystems, and the entire US East coast and beyond.
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- This goes way beyond BP and its decades of criminal negligence. It’s a regulatory problem for lack of it; a government one for no oversight, public or environmental concern; and a long-term systemic one giving business free reign to plunder and pollute without limit, then when caught call it an accident, paper it over, and repeat again because complicit government officials allow it.
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- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
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- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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How do you stop oil from spewing from a chasm the size of Mount Everest? This Mega-Disaster is being hidden from the American people, otherwise, there would be panic in the cities and states who WILL feel the immediate effect. NEXT, hurricane storms can and will dump this oil in internal fresh water in these states.
It also appears the Obama administration, who is conspiring with BP, could Nationalize BP and put a ceiling on claims for damages.
Please read this entire article for more information on what is happening and what they are trying to do to stop. It appears it cannot be stopped, at this time.
There are 30,000 other rigs with the same potential for erupting. Lack of inspections and lax regulations to increase profits. Their arrogance will cause the worst oil disaster in the history of the world.
Plans must be made to evacuate people with respiratory conditions when they attempt to burn off the oil. The smell has already reached land, and if you didn’t have breathing problems before, you will once this is over, and that could be the least of the cause-and-effect outcomes.
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WMR has been informed by sources in the US Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Florida Department of Environmental Protection that the Obama White House and British Petroleum (BP), which pumped $71,000 into Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign — more than John McCain or Hillary Clinton–, are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP’s liability for damage caused by what can be called a “mega-disaster.”
There is other satellite imagery being withheld by the Obama administration that shows what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be around the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public, according to our sources.
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The Cover-up – BP’s Crude Politics and the Looming Environmental Mega-Disaster
By Wayne Madsen for Global Research
WMR has been informed by sources in the US Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Florida Department of Environmental Protection that the Obama White House and British Petroleum (BP), which pumped $71,000 into Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign — more than John McCain or Hillary Clinton–, are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP’s liability for damage caused by what can be called a “mega-disaster.”
Obama and his senior White House staff, as well as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, are working with BP’s chief executive officer Tony Hayward on legislation that would raise the cap on liability for damage claims from those affected by the oil disaster from $75 million to $10 billion. However, WMR’s federal and Gulf state sources are reporting the disaster has the real potential cost of at least $1 trillion. Critics of the deal being worked out between Obama and Hayward point out that $10 billion is a mere drop in the bucket for a trillion dollar disaster but also note that BP, if its assets were nationalized, could fetch almost a trillion dollars for compensation purposes. There is talk in some government circles, including FEMA, of the need to nationalize BP in order to compensate those who will ultimately be affected by the worst oil disaster in the history of the world.
Plans by BP to sink a 4-story containment dome over the oil gushing from a gaping chasm one kilometer below the surface of the Gulf, where the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and killed 11 workers on April 20, and reports that one of the leaks has been contained is pure public relations disinformation designed to avoid panic and demands for greater action by the Obama administration, according to FEMA and Corps of Engineers sources. Sources within these agencies say the White House has been resisting releasing any “damaging information” about the oil disaster. They add that if the ocean oil geyser is not stopped within 90 days, there will be irreversible damage to the marine eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico, north Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. At best, some Corps of Engineers experts say it could take two years to cement the chasm on the floor of the Gulf.
Only after the magnitude of the disaster became evident did Obama order Homeland Security Secretary JanetNapolitano to declare the oil disaster a “national security issue.” Although the Coast Guard and FEMA are part of her department, Napolitano’s actual reasoning for invoking national security was to block media coverage of the immensity of the disaster that is unfolding for the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and their coastlines.
From the Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the Environmental Protection Agency, Coast Guard, and Gulf state environmental protection agencies, the message is the same: “we’ve never dealt with anything like this before.”
The Obama administration also conspired with BP to fudge the extent of the oil leak, according to our federal and state sources. After the oil rig exploded and sank, the government stated that 42,000 gallons per day was gushing from the seabed chasm. Five days later, the federal government upped the leakage to 210,000 gallons a day.
However, WMR has been informed that submersibles that are monitoring the escaping oil from the Gulf seabed are viewing television pictures of what is a “volcanic-like” eruption of oil. Moreover, when the Army Corps of Engineers first attempted to obtain NASA imagery of the Gulf oil slick — which is larger than that being reported by the media — it was turned down. However, National Geographic managed to obtain the satellite imagery shots of the extent of the disaster and posted them on their web site.
There is other satellite imagery being withheld by the Obama administration that shows what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be around the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public, according to our sources.
The Corps and Engineers and FEMA are quietly critical of the lack of support for quick action after the oil disaster by the Obama White House and the US Coast Guard. Only recently, has the Coast Guard understood the magnitude of the disaster, dispatching nearly 70 vessels to the affected area. WMR has also learned that inspections of off-shore rigs’ shut-off valves by the Minerals Management Service during the Bush administration were merely rubber-stamp operations, resulting from criminal collusion between Halliburton and the Interior Department’s service, and that the potential for similar disasters exists with the other 30,000 off-shore rigs that use the same shut-off valves.
The impact of the disaster became known to the Corps of Engineers and FEMA even before the White House began to take the magnitude of the impending catastrophe seriously. The first casualty of the disaster is the seafood industy, with not just fishermen, oystermen, crabbers, and shrimpers losing their jobs, but all those involved in the restaurant industry, from truckers to waitresses, facing lay-offs.
The invasion of crude oil into estuaries like the oyster-rich Apalachicola Bay in Florida spell disaster for the seafood industry. However, the biggest threat is to Florida’s Everglades, which federal and state experts fear will be turned into a “dead zone” if the oil continues to gush forth from the Gulf chasm. There are also expectations that the oil slick will be caught up in the Gulf stream off the eastern seaboard of the United States, fouling beaches and estuaries like the Chesapeake Bay, and ultimately target the rich fishing grounds of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland.
WMR has also learned that 36 urban areas on the Gulf of Mexico are expecting to be confronted with a major disaster from the oil volcano in the next few days. Although protective water surface boons are being laid to protect such sensitive areas as Alabama’s Dauphin Island, the mouth of the Mississippi River, and Florida’s Apalachicola Bay, Florida, there is only 16 miles of boons available for the protection of 2,276 miles of tidal shoreline in the state of Florida.
Emergency preparations in dealing with the expanding oil menace are now being made for cities and towns from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Houston, New Orleans, Gulfport, Mobile, Pensacola, Tampa-St.Petersburg-Clearwater,Sarasota-Bradenton, Naples, and Key West. Some 36 FEMA-funded contracts between cities, towns, and counties and emergency workers are due to be invoked within days, if not hours, according to WMR’s FEMA sources.
There are plans to evacuate people with respiratory problems, especially those among the retired senior population along the west coast of Florida, before officials begin burning surface oil as it begins to near the coastline.
There is another major threat looming for inland towns and cities. With hurricane season in effect, there is a potential for ocean oil to be picked up by hurricane-driven rains and dropped into fresh water lakes and rivers, far from the ocean, thus adding to the pollution of water supplies and eco-systems.
How do you stop oil from spewing from a chasm the size of Mount Everest? This Mega-Disaster is being hidden from the American people, otherwise, there would be panic in the cities and states who WILL feel the immediate effect. NEXT, hurricane storms can and will dump this oil in internal fresh water in these states.
It also appears the Obama administration, who is conspiring with BP, could Nationalize BP and put a ceiling on claims for damages.
Please read this entire article for more information on what is happening and what they are trying to do to stop. It appears it cannot be stopped, at this time.
There are 30,000 other rigs with the same potential for erupting. Lack of inspections and lax regulations to increase profits. Their arrogance will cause the worst oil disaster in the history of the world.
Plans must be made to evacuate people with respiratory conditions when they attempt to burn off the oil. The smell has already reached land, and if you didn’t have breathing problems before, you will once this is over, and that could be the least of the cause-and-effect outcomes.
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WMR has been informed by sources in the US Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Florida Department of Environmental Protection that the Obama White House and British Petroleum (BP), which pumped $71,000 into Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign — more than John McCain or Hillary Clinton–, are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP’s liability for damage caused by what can be called a “mega-disaster.”
There is other satellite imagery being withheld by the Obama administration that shows what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be around the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public, according to our sources.
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The Cover-up – BP’s Crude Politics and the Looming Environmental Mega-Disaster
By Wayne Madsen for Global Research
WMR has been informed by sources in the US Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Florida Department of Environmental Protection that the Obama White House and British Petroleum (BP), which pumped $71,000 into Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign — more than John McCain or Hillary Clinton–, are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP’s liability for damage caused by what can be called a “mega-disaster.”
Obama and his senior White House staff, as well as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, are working with BP’s chief executive officer Tony Hayward on legislation that would raise the cap on liability for damage claims from those affected by the oil disaster from $75 million to $10 billion. However, WMR’s federal and Gulf state sources are reporting the disaster has the real potential cost of at least $1 trillion. Critics of the deal being worked out between Obama and Hayward point out that $10 billion is a mere drop in the bucket for a trillion dollar disaster but also note that BP, if its assets were nationalized, could fetch almost a trillion dollars for compensation purposes. There is talk in some government circles, including FEMA, of the need to nationalize BP in order to compensate those who will ultimately be affected by the worst oil disaster in the history of the world.
Plans by BP to sink a 4-story containment dome over the oil gushing from a gaping chasm one kilometer below the surface of the Gulf, where the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and killed 11 workers on April 20, and reports that one of the leaks has been contained is pure public relations disinformation designed to avoid panic and demands for greater action by the Obama administration, according to FEMA and Corps of Engineers sources. Sources within these agencies say the White House has been resisting releasing any “damaging information” about the oil disaster. They add that if the ocean oil geyser is not stopped within 90 days, there will be irreversible damage to the marine eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico, north Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. At best, some Corps of Engineers experts say it could take two years to cement the chasm on the floor of the Gulf.
Only after the magnitude of the disaster became evident did Obama order Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to declare the oil disaster a “national security issue.” Although the Coast Guard and FEMA are part of her department, Napolitano’s actual reasoning for invoking national security was to block media coverage of the immensity of the disaster that is unfolding for the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and their coastlines.
From the Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the Environmental Protection Agency, Coast Guard, and Gulf state environmental protection agencies, the message is the same: “we’ve never dealt with anything like this before.”
The Obama administration also conspired with BP to fudge the extent of the oil leak, according to our federal and state sources. After the oil rig exploded and sank, the government stated that 42,000 gallons per day was gushing from the seabed chasm. Five days later, the federal government upped the leakage to 210,000 gallons a day.
However, WMR has been informed that submersibles that are monitoring the escaping oil from the Gulf seabed are viewing television pictures of what is a “volcanic-like” eruption of oil. Moreover, when the Army Corps of Engineers first attempted to obtain NASA imagery of the Gulf oil slick — which is larger than that being reported by the media — it was turned down. However, National Geographic managed to obtain the satellite imagery shots of the extent of the disaster and posted them on their web site.
There is other satellite imagery being withheld by the Obama administration that shows what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be around the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public, according to our sources.
The Corps and Engineers and FEMA are quietly critical of the lack of support for quick action after the oil disaster by the Obama White House and the US Coast Guard. Only recently, has the Coast Guard understood the magnitude of the disaster, dispatching nearly 70 vessels to the affected area. WMR has also learned that inspections of off-shore rigs’ shut-off valves by the Minerals Management Service during the Bush administration were merely rubber-stamp operations, resulting from criminal collusion between Halliburton and the Interior Department’s service, and that the potential for similar disasters exists with the other 30,000 off-shore rigs that use the same shut-off valves.
The impact of the disaster became known to the Corps of Engineers and FEMA even before the White House began to take the magnitude of the impending catastrophe seriously. The first casualty of the disaster is the seafood industy, with not just fishermen, oystermen, crabbers, and shrimpers losing their jobs, but all those involved in the restaurant industry, from truckers to waitresses, facing lay-offs.
The invasion of crude oil into estuaries like the oyster-rich Apalachicola Bay in Florida spell disaster for the seafood industry. However, the biggest threat is to Florida’s Everglades, which federal and state experts fear will be turned into a “dead zone” if the oil continues to gush forth from the Gulf chasm. There are also expectations that the oil slick will be caught up in the Gulf stream off the eastern seaboard of the United States, fouling beaches and estuaries like the Chesapeake Bay, and ultimately target the rich fishing grounds of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland.
WMR has also learned that 36 urban areas on the Gulf of Mexico are expecting to be confronted with a major disaster from the oil volcano in the next few days. Although protective water surface boons are being laid to protect such sensitive areas as Alabama’s Dauphin Island, the mouth of the Mississippi River, and Florida’s Apalachicola Bay, Florida, there is only 16 miles of boons available for the protection of 2,276 miles of tidal shoreline in the state of Florida.
Emergency preparations in dealing with the expanding oil menace are now being made for cities and towns from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Houston, New Orleans, Gulfport, Mobile, Pensacola, Tampa-St.Petersburg-Clearwater, Sarasota-Bradenton, Naples, and Key West. Some 36 FEMA-funded contracts between cities, towns, and counties and emergency workers are due to be invoked within days, if not hours, according to WMR’s FEMA sources.
There are plans to evacuate people with respiratory problems, especially those among the retired senior population along the west coast of Florida, before officials begin burning surface oil as it begins to near the coastline.
There is another major threat looming for inland towns and cities. With hurricane season in effect, there is a potential for ocean oil to be picked up by hurricane-driven rains and dropped into fresh water lakes and rivers, far from the ocean, thus adding to the pollution of water supplies and eco-systems.
BP THINKING OF DRILLING ON ARCTIC:
As if it weren’t busy enough dealing with the greatest environmental disaster this country has ever seen, in the Gulf of Mexico, BP is planning to drill brand new ultra-extended-reach wells in the Arctic this year. What’s more, Secretary Ken Salazar’s Interior Department has done nothing to stop it.
In the hopes of drilling what would be the longest horizontal wells ever drilled, BP has built the most powerful drillship in the world and shipped it up to the Arctic for its latest project, which it dubs “Liberty.” Like the ultra-deepwater well in the Gulf that led to the catastrophe there, BP’s proposed Liberty project requires dangerous, untested technology that is far from foolproof. And as in the Gulf, the federal agency charged with overseeing oil activities has been too cozy with the oil companies in Alaska. In fact, it has recently come to light that the Interior Department allowed BP to write much of the environmental review for the Liberty project.
If something were to go wrong in the Arctic, BP simply could not deal with it. BP and the federal government have their hands completely tied trying to deal with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It would make absolutely no sense to allow the company to launch new, untested technology in the Arctic while it is still struggling to stop, contain and clean up the massive oil spill in the Gulf. A wide variety of species found nowhere but the Arctic make their home near BP’s Liberty project, including polar bears, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act because of the drastic loss of their sea-ice habitat. A Gulf-sized oil spill in the Arctic could spell disaster for struggling polar bears and other Arctic species.
“The thrills of drilling, the hazards and rewards as you bring in your own …”
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