All Entries in the "Environment" Category

Michigan Oil Spill Damages Wildlife, Forces Residents To Evacuate

On Monday, a disastrous leak in one of the world’s largest pipeline systems gushed over 1 million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River, located in southwest Michigan. Already, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has declared the area a disaster zone, quickly activating State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) to ensure all state resources are devoted to oil spill response. “From my perspective, the response has been anemic,” Granholm said. Spill workers and volunteers have been hard at work, cleaning the horrifyingly oily water:

This is not the first failure of Enbridge Inc., the Canadian energy company responsible for the spill. Michigan Messenger’s Todd Heywood reports that, “documents from the agency show that Enbridge Energy pipelines have leaked oil on 12 different occasions in Michigan since 2002.” Furthermore, documents obtained by the Detroit Free Press and other news outlets indicate Enbridge Inc. was “notified twice this year of potential problems involving old pipe prone to rupturing and an inadequate system for monitoring internal corrosion.” While this is one of the biggest threats to a pipeline, it is currently unclear whether Enbridge addressed the notices or if “the concerns played any role in the leak.”

Video at link:

Full Story: Think Progress » Michigan Oil Spill Damages Wildlife, Forces Residents To Evacuate.

NOAA – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – NOAA: Past Decade Warmest on Record According to Scientists in 48 Countries

The 2009 State of the Climate report released today draws on data for 10 key climate indicators that all point to the same finding: the scientific evidence that our world is warming is unmistakable. More than 300 scientists from 160 research groups in 48 countries contributed to the report, which confirms that the past decade was the warmest on record and that the Earth has been growing warmer over the last 50 years.

Based on comprehensive data from multiple sources, the report defines 10 measurable planet-wide features used to gauge global temperature changes. The relative movement of each of these indicators proves consistent with a warming world. Seven indicators are rising: air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, air temperature over oceans, sea level, ocean heat, humidity and tropospheric temperature in the “active-weather” layer of the atmosphere closest to the Earth’s surface. Three indicators are declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern hemisphere.

“For the first time, and in a single compelling comparison, the analysis brings together multiple observational records from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the ocean,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “The records come from many institutions worldwide. They use data collected from diverse sources, including satellites, weather balloons, weather stations, ships, buoys and field surveys. These independently produced lines of evidence all point to the same conclusion: our planet is warming,”

Full Story: NOAA – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – NOAA: Past Decade Warmest on Record According to Scientists in 48 Countries.

EPA: 1M gallons of oil may be in Mich. river

EPA says 1 million gallons of oil may have spilled in Mich. river, governor criticizes cleanup.

Federal officials now estimate that more than 1 million gallons of oil may have spilled into a major river in southern Michigan, and the governor is sharply criticizing clean-up efforts as “wholly inadequate.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the update Wednesday night, shortly after Gov. Jennifer Granholm lambasted attempts to contain the oil flowing down the Kalamazoo River. She warned of a “tragedy of historic proportions” if the oil reaches Lake Michigan, which is still at least 80 miles downstream from where oil has been seen.

Granholm called on the federal government for more help, saying resources being marshaled by the EPA and Enbridge Inc., which owns the pipeline that leaked the oil, were “wholly inadequate.”

Full Story: EPA: 1M gallons of oil may be in Mich. river | Raw Story.

Michigan Oil Spill: Oil Halfway To Lake Michigan, Mayor Daley Responds

Oil from a pipeline spill in Michigan early this week has been on the move through area waterways in recent days–and some fear that it could enter Lake Michigan.

The trouble began about 9 p.m. Sunday, when an oil pipeline owned by Enbridge Liquids Pipelines sprung a leak in Marshall Township. The pipeline was shut down–but not before it leaked an estimated one million gallons of oil that began flowing down the Kalamazoo River.

The oil is now about 80 miles from Lake Michigan and moving toward the lake, the Chicago Tribune reports. During a Thursday press conference, Mayor Daley said the oil spill threatens the Midwest’s drinking water. The Tribune reports:

Full Story: Michigan Oil Spill: Oil Halfway To Lake Michigan, Mayor Daley Responds.

Assault on America: A Decade of Petroleum Company Disaster, Pollution, and Profit

New report shows how today’s oil and gas industry threatens Americans in countless ways.

Introduction

The BP catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, with its tragic loss of life and devastating impact on the Gulf Coast economy, has brought the risk and high cost of oil development to the public’s attention. Predictably a round of oil industry executives have testified before Congress offering countless apologies and empty assurances that such an incident will never happen again. But this is the fourth major oil spill in 33 years on North America.

Full Story: Assault on America: A Decade of Petroleum Company Disaster, Pollution, and Profit – National Wildlife Federation.

Met Office report: global warming evidence is ‘unmistakable’

A new climate change report from the Met Office and its US equivalent has provided the “greatest evidence we have ever had” that the world is warming.

Full Story: Met Office report: global warming evidence is ‘unmistakable’ – Telegraph.

Toxic Black Rain Falling In The Gulf

A toxic black rain is now falling in the Gulf and the EPA and BP are doing everything to deny its existence but the truth is slowly emerging as millions of GulfCoast residents are now becoming sick because of the lethal effects of oil and dispersants: Allen L Roland

It’s day 96 of the toxic Gulfdeep water oil gusher ( not spill ). The huge toxic slow-moving plumes beneath the surface have finally been confirmed but the toxic airplumesare still being denied by the Government and BP ~ but there is plenty of evidence thatthey arenot only there but causing significant health and environmental damage.

Full Story: OpEdNews – Article: Toxic Black Rain Falling In The Gulf.

Global warming: NASA says it’s the hottest year on record

Worldwide, 2010 is on track to become the warmest year on record.

Scientists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies reported recently that the average global temperature was higher over the past 12 months than during any other 12-month period in history. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released corroborating data, adding that the past four months, including June, have each individually been the hottest on record as well.

The NASA findings were based on data from 5,000 weather stations around the world, said scientist Reto Ruedy, co-author of the study. Scientists used temperature anomalies, or departures from the baseline, rather than absolute measurements to account for differences in the instruments of individual stations.

The average global temperature, computed over a 12-month period, reached a new record in May and held steady for the month of June, he said. This was despite the recent minimum in solar activity, which should have had a cooling effect on Earth.

Full Story: Global warming: NASA says it’s the hottest year on record | McClatchy.

Officials: Battle Creek oil spill among largest in Midwest history

As much as 1 million gallons of oil may have leaked into the Kalamazoo River near Battle Creek in what could be one of the largest oil spills in Midwest history, officials say.

U.S. Rep Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek, called it the “largest oil spill in the history of the Midwest” in a description to President Barack Obama this afternoon prior to a conference call with the media.

“According to EPA officials, this is the largest oil spill ever in the Midwest,” he said. “The EPA is estimating 1 million gallons (spilled). … This feels like déjÀ vu all over again with regard to what happened in the Gulf.”

The oil spilled into Talmadge Creek, which flows northwest into the Kalamazoo River. The site is in Calhoun County’s Marshall Township near Battle Creek and about 60 miles southeast of Grand Rapids. The pipe may have been leaking for many hours before it was originally reported to have burst Monday morning. Marshall Township fire officials responded to complaints of an oily smell from residents.

More than 20 homes have been evacuated

Full Story: Officials: Battle Creek oil spill among largest in Midwest history | detnews.com | The Detroit News.

Who Cooked the Planet?

Paul Krugman:

Never say that the gods lack a sense of humor. I bet they’re still chuckling on Olympus over the decision to make the first half of 2010 — the year in which all hope of action to limit climate change died — the hottest such stretch on record.

Of course, you can’t infer trends in global temperatures from one year’s experience. But ignoring that fact has long been one of the favorite tricks of climate-change deniers: they point to an unusually warm year in the past, and say “See, the planet has been cooling, not warming, since 1998!” Actually, 2005, not 1998, was the warmest year to date — but the point is that the record-breaking temperatures we’re currently experiencing have made a nonsense argument even more nonsensical; at this point it doesn’t work even on its own terms.

But will any of the deniers say “O.K., I guess I was wrong,” and support climate action? No. And the planet will continue to cook.

Full Story: Op-Ed Columnist – Who Cooked the Planet? – NYTimes.com.

Dam fails in eastern Iowa, causing massive flooding

A dam on an eastern Iowa lake suffered a “catastrophic” failure Saturday, sending a massive amount of water into nearby communities and forcing residents to flee, officials said.

The Lake Delhi dam, about 45 miles north of Cedar Rapids, failed as a result of “massive rain — a very unusually high amount this season,” according to Jim Flansburg, communications director for Gov. Chet Culver.

Culver told CNN that nearly 10 inches of rain had recently fallen in a 12-hour period in the area and was “too much water for the dam to hold.”

The roads on either side of the dam — which were part of the cement dam’s containment measures — apparently gave out as a result of the rainfall, Flansburg told CNN.

Full Story: Dam fails in eastern Iowa, causing massive flooding – CNN.com.

Researchers confirm subsea Gulf oil plumes are from BP well

Through a chemical fingerprinting process, University of South Florida researchers have definitively linked clouds of underwater oil in the northern Gulf of Mexico to BP’s runaway Deepwater Horizon well – the first direct scientific link between the subsurface oil clouds commonly known as “plumes” and the BP oil spill, USF officials said Friday.

Until now, scientists had circumstantial evidence, but lacked that definitive scientific link.

The announcement came on the same day that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that its researchers have confirmed the existence of the subsea plumes at depths of 3,300 to 4,300 feet below the surface of the Gulf. NOAA said its detection equipment also implicated the BP well in the plumes’ creation.

Together, the two studies confirm what in the early days of the spill was denied by BP and viewed skeptically by NOAA’s chief – that much of the crude that gushed from the Deepwater Horizon well stayed beneath the surface of the water.

Full Story: Researchers confirm subsea Gulf oil plumes are from BP well – Nation and World – TheSunNews.com.

LSU researchers study impacts of oil spill on people, marine life

Two groups of LSU researchers are examining effects of the BP well that has spewed massive amounts of oil into the Gulf of Mexico from two vastly different points of view.

The ongoing studies, funded by the National Science Foundation, seek to determine how people affected by the disaster cope with it and what effect the oil will have on bacteria that naturally grow in oyster beds. The two studies are among numerous projects involving researchers from across the country.

The coping study comes on the heels of another LSU survey that found that high stress levels and concern for their future among residents of the affected coastal areas resulted in an elevated rate of headaches and other physical illnesses.

LSU sociology professors Matthew Lee and Troy Blanchard conducted a survey of the health impacts the ongoing Deepwater Horizon disaster is having on people living in Louisiana’s coastal communities.

Full Story: LSU researchers study impacts of oil spill on people, marine life | thetowntalk.com | The Town Talk.

Gulf of Mexico Loop Current Broken!! Risk of Global Climate Change By BP Oil Spill!

Factual satellite images in the past several weeks are showing that the Gulf Loop Current is broken and may cease to function entirely! This will result in massive climate change and possibly an ice age for Europe! Major trouble brewing?? More freakish weather on its way??

Abstract: BP Oil Spill may cause an irreparable damage to the Gulf Stream global climate thermoregulation activity.

The Gulf Stream importance in the global climate thermoregulation processes is well assessed. The latest real time satellite … data maps of May-June 2010 processed by CCAR (Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research), checked at Frascati Laboratories by the means of the SHT congruent calculus and compared with past years data, show for the first time a direct evidence of the rapid breaking of the Loop Current, a warm ocean current, crucial part of the Gulf Stream. As displayed both by the sea surface velocity maps and the sea surface height maps, the Loop Current broke down for the first time around May 18th generated a clock wise eddy, which is still active (see Fig. 1).

Full Story: Gulf of Mexico Loop Current Broken!! Risk of Global Climate Change By BP Oil Spill! — Signs of the Times News.

Official: ‘Severe threat’ as China oil spill grows

China’s largest reported oil spill more than doubled in size to 165 sq. miles (430 sq. kilometers) by Wednesday, forcing nearby beaches to close and prompting one official to warn of a “severe threat” to sea life and water quality.

The oil slick started spreading five days ago when a pipeline at a busy northeastern port exploded, sparking a massive fire that took more than 15 hours to contain. Hundreds of boats have been deployed to help with the cleanup.

At least one person has been killed in those efforts, a 25-year-old firefighter, Zhang Liang, who drowned Tuesday after a wave threw him from a vessel and pushed him out to sea, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. Another man who also fell in was rescued.

Beaches near Dalian, once named China’s most livable city, were closing as oil started reaching their shores, Xinhua reported.

Full Story: Official: ‘Severe threat’ as China oil spill grows | Raw Story.

Weighing Safety of Weed Killer in Drinking Water, EPA Relies Heavily on Industry-Backed Studies

Companies with a financial interest in a weed-killer sometimes found in drinking water paid for thousands of studies federal regulators are using to assess the herbicide’s health risks, records of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show. Many of these industry-funded studies, which largely support atrazine’s safety, have never been published or subjected to an independent scientific peer review.

Meanwhile, some independent studies documenting potentially harmful effects on animals and humans are not included in the body of research the EPA deems relevant to its safety review, the Huffington Post Investigative Fund has found. These studies include many that have been published in respected scientific journals.

Even so, the EPA says that it would be “very difficult for someone to put a thumb on the scale” to slant the outcome.

Atrazine is one of the most widely used herbicides in the U.S. An estimated 76 million pounds of the chemical are sprayed on corn and other fields in the U.S. each year, sometimes ending up in rivers, streams, and drinking water supplies. It has been the focus of intense scientific debate over its potential to cause cancer, birth defects, and hormonal and reproductive problems. As the Huffington Post Investigative Fund reported in a series of articles last fall, the EPA failed to warn the public that the weed-killer had been found at levels above federal safety limits in drinking water in at least four states. Some water utilities are suing Syngenta to have it pay their costs of filtering the chemical.

Full Story: Weighing Safety of Weed Killer in Drinking Water, EPA Relies Heavily on Industry-Backed Studies | The Huffington Post Investigative Fund.

Official: Seep found near BP’s blown out oil well

A federal official says scientists are concerned about a seep and possible methane near BP’s busted oil well in the Gulf of Mexico

Both could be signs there are leaks in the well that’s been capped off for three days.

The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Sunday because an announcement about the next steps had not been made yet.

The official is familiar with the spill oversight but would not clarify what is seeping near the well. The official says BP is not complying with the government’s demand for more monitoring.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

Full Story: The Associated Press: Official: Seep found near BP’s blown out oil well.

Earth’s Upper Atmosphere Collapses – Nobody Knows Why

The thermosphere recently collapsed in an unexpectedly large contraction, the sheer size of which has scientists scratching their heads.

An upper layer of Earth’s atmosphere recently collapsed in an unexpectedly large contraction, the sheer size of which has scientists scratching their heads, NASA announced Thursday.

The layer of gas – called the thermosphere – is now rebounding again. This type of collapse is not rare, but its magnitude shocked scientists.

“This is the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years,” said John Emmert of the Naval Research Lab, lead author of a paper announcing the finding in the June 19 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters. “It’s a Space Age record.”

The collapse occurred during a period of relative solar inactivity – called a solar minimum from 2008 to 2009. These minimums are known to cool and contract the thermosphere, however, the recent collapse was two to three times greater than low solar activity could explain.

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | Earth’s Upper Atmosphere Collapses – Nobody Knows Why.

Doomsday: How BP Gulf disaster may have triggered a world-killing event

Thank God the devastating 2010 Deepwater Horizon Spill has finally been capped. While the media focuses our attention on cleanup of 219 million gallons of crude oil [1], the real doomsday trigger was that unleashed with the oil goes largely unnoticed. A catastrophic legacy that we leave behind for future generations, with far greater long term danger to life on Earth than the leaked oil, is the impacts of the leaked methane from the failed 2010 Deepwater Horizon Spill.

Not to diminish in anyway the tragedy of the Exxon Valdez, but we learned from the Exxon Valdez that it takes about 20 years for an environment to largely recover from the oil damage, admittedly with some heartbreaking consequences [2]. Sadly, some animals did not recover and local economies based upon fishing and tourism needed to change.

The media has reported that vast amounts of methane in Gulf spill pose a threat to life in the ocean [3], but they missed the most important point, methane’s role as the doomsday trigger. Even at great ocean pressures oil cannot be compressed [4], the amount of oil that exited the pipe at the sea floor is roughly equal to the oil that pollutes the environment at sea level.   However that oil was mixed with 40% methane [5] and the situation with methane is dreadful.  As methane exited the pipe it expanded many times its volume as it moved up from the ocean depths and pressure on it was reduced.  This explains why scientists are measuring as much as one million times the normal level of methane near the ocean surface water [6].

Normally, the high pressure and cold temperature keep methane gas stable beneath the ocean floor, locked up with water in a form called methane hydrate [7], but the oil spill has released vast amounts of that trapped methane into our environment. Then the methane hydrates at the bottom of the ocean expands approximately 3,000 times its volume when they are eventually released into the atmosphere as methane [8]. And to make matters even worse, Methane is ten times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide [9].

Full Story: Doomsday: How BP Gulf disaster may have triggered a world-killing event – by Dave Nocera – Helium.

Comparative photos of Mount Everest ‘confirm ice loss’

Photos taken by a mountaineer on Everest from the same spot where similar pictures were taken in 1921 have revealed an “alarming” ice loss.

The Asia Society (AS) arranged for the pictures to be taken in exactly the same place where British climber George Mallory took photos in 1921.

“The photographs reveal a startling truth: the ice of the Himalaya is disappearing,” an AS statement said.

“They reveal an alarming loss in ice mass over an 89-year period.”

Full Story: BBC News – Comparative photos of Mount Everest ‘confirm ice loss’.

MSNBC July 15: Matt Simmons still says BP covering up MASSIVE HOLE miles away, cap test is “absurd”

Also mentions how they located the BOP with casing stuck through it.

You can learn more about the oil spill by visiting:

http://floridaoilspilllaw.com

Last month was the hottest June recorded worldwide, figures show

US government climate data suggests 2010 on course to be warmest year since records began

Last month was the hottest June ever recorded worldwide and the fourth consecutive month that the combined global land and sea temperature records have been broken, according to the US government’s climate data centre.

The figures released last night by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) suggest that 2010 is now on course to be the warmest year since records began in 1880.

The trend to a warmer world is now incontrovertible. According to NOAA, June was the 304th consecutive month with a combined global land and surface temperature above the 20th-century average. The last month with below-average temperatures was February 1985. Each of the 10 warmest average global temperatures recorded since 1880 have occurred in the last 15 years with the previous warmest first half of a year in 1998.

Full Story: Last month was the hottest June recorded worldwide, figures show | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

Expert suspects BP has ulterior motive behind oil well cap

Since a blowout preventer cap was placed over BP’s damaged oil well in the Gulf of Mexico last weekend, there have been repeated delays in the so-called “well integrity tests” to determine whether the cap can be effective in holding back the oil.

On Tuesday, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen delayed the tests for 24 hours out of fears that they would lead to “irreversible leakage” if it was found that the well bore had been damaged below the sea floor. After a White House review, BP was told on Wednesday that it could proceed with the test, but a leak in a line leading from the cap then forced an additional one-day delay for repairs.

Oil industry expert Bob Cavnar isn’t buying the official story. He told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on Wednesday that the repeated missteps cast doubt on BP’s explanation for why the cap was necessary in the first place.

Full Story: Expert suspects BP has ulterior motive behind oil well cap | Raw Story.

DIRE REALITIES OF THE METHANE PREDICAMENT IN THE GULF OF MEXICO

Methane Gas, Methane Hydrate & Methane Clathrate Formations and Behavior

There has been a spate of articles recently throughout the MSM and alternative media depicting the methane gas predicament associated with the BP Gulf Oil Spill. Many of these perspectives portray an alarming state of affairs concerning extremely high concentrations of methane that have accumulated in numerous areas in the Gulf of Mexico. The two primary issues of concern are the methane effects in the aquatic environment and the methane gas accumulations in the atmosphere above the Gulf and within contiguous land masses. In regard to the latter, the weather patterns will reign supreme. Once methane rises above the surface of the Gulf, where it goes, how it accumulates and what its toxic effects on life will be, is going to be dictated to a great extent by the weather.

“How’s the weather down there?” When we ask each other this question, aren’t we really asking, “How are the elements (elementals) treating us?” Well this question will never be more important to the residents rimming the Gulf of Mexico as we gear up for a long, hot, deep south summer with its likely share of hurricanes

, tropical storms and depressions. Which, by the way, can be a good or bad thing for “natural” oil spill remediation depending on a numerous factors and circumstances.

Back to the methane issue and the volumes of gas that are currently pouring into the Gulf by way of the gushing well, as well as the many leaks and seeps, cracks and fissures, which have provided entry into the water from a growing area around the wellhead. Some who are privy to authoritative info have pointed directly to a large gash, as well as other smaller gashes, which have opened up in the seafloor throughout the area since the wellhead first blew. The current flow of oil out of the riser is approximately 35% of the total volume of outflow. Much of the remaining composition is methane, some of which may be burned off by the flames which appear on a screenshot from the live feed. Click on link below:

Full Story: DIRE REALITIES OF THE METHANE PREDICAMENT IN THE GULF OF MEXICO by Dr. Tom Termotto | Before It’s News.

A human right Canada rejects: Access to clean water – thestar.com

Contary to what Ottawa says, UN convention would not compel exports to U.S.

On June 17, Pablo Solon, the Bolivian ambassador to the United Nations, presented a draft resolution declaring the human right to “available, safe, acceptable, accessible and affordable water and sanitation” to a closed-door consultation at the UN General Assembly that will be dealt with over the next several weeks. This is the first time the General Assembly has been asked directly to deal with this issue and it presents a huge test for the world and for Canada.

When the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights was written, no one could foresee a day when water would be a contested area. But in 2010, it is not an exaggeration to say that the lack of access to clean water is the greatest human rights violation in the world.

Nearly 2 billion people live in water-stressed areas of the world and 3 billion have no running water within a kilometre of their homes. Every eight seconds, a child dies of water-borne disease, in every case preventable if their parents had money to pay for water.

Full Story: A human right Canada rejects: Access to clean water – thestar.com.

NOAA Hoarding Key Data On Oil Spill Damage

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is hoarding vast amounts of raw data that independent marine researchers say could help both the public and scientists better understand the extent of the damage being caused by the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

In most cases, NOAA insists on putting the data through a ponderous, many-weeks-long vetting process before making it public.

In other cases, NOAA actually intended to keep the data secret indefinitely. But officials told the Huffington Post on Tuesday that they have now decided to release it — though when remains unclear.

Full Story: NOAA Hoarding Key Data On Oil Spill Damage.

Eco warrior’s Pacific journey shows how ‘dumb plastic’ is killing our seas

David de Rothschild set out on a mammoth ocean crossing aboard his recycled yacht to highlight pollution of Earth’s waters – but even he was shocked by what he found

“After 100 days at sea,” David de Rothschild suggests, “you realise that it should be called planet Ocean rather than planet Earth.” De Rothschild is speaking from the island of New Caledonia – “an odd little bit of France in the South Seas” – the night before his boat, the Plastiki, embarks on the final leg of a voyage that should finish in Sydney harbour in a fortnight.

The Plastiki, a revolutionary catamaran, is kept afloat by 12,500 plastic bottles in its hulls; the “eco-adventure” has been designed to draw attention to our systematic pollution and over-fishing of oceans. In the three and a half months since De Rothschild, the refusenik 31-year-old son of the banking dynasty, and his crew of five set out from San Francisco they have discovered many things, but mainly, he says, they have learned about the sea, about its power and about its fragility.

The power was amply demonstrated on the leg of the journey just completed, the 1,700 miles from Samoa, during which the vessel’s unconventional construction was rigorously tested by 13ft swells and 35-knot winds for days on end. It is hard not to be reminded of your insignificance in the universe, De Rothschild says, when hanging off the side of a yacht made partly of plastic bottles, 1,000 miles from land in the pitch dark, while the Pacific breaks over you.

Full Story: Eco warrior’s Pacific journey shows how ‘dumb plastic’ is killing our seas | Environment | The Observer.

Former Contractor: ‘Cutthroat’ BP ‘Not Worried About Cleaning Up That Spill’

A former contractor has come forward to denounce foreign oil giant BP and the “cutthroat individuals” running the oil disaster response. On Friday, contractor-turned-whistleblower Adam Dillon told New Orleans television station WDSU he was fired “after taking photos that he believes were related to the use of dispersants and to the cleanup of the oil.” As a BP liaison, he had rebuffed reporters’ attempts to observe cleanup operations in Grand Isle, LA, in June, before being promoted to the BP Command Center near Houma, LA. At the command center BP manages the private contractors running practically every aspect of the spill response. Dillon, a former U.S. Army Special Operations soldier, “has lost faith in the company in charge”:

There are some very great, hardworking individuals in there. But the bottom line is just about money. There are some very cutthroat individuals. They’re not worried about cleaning up that spill as it is. . . .

I will never have loyalty to this company. I will always have loyalty to my country. And my country comes first. What this company is doing to this country right now is just wrong.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Former Contractor: ‘Cutthroat’ BP ‘Not Worried About Cleaning Up That Spill’.

Britain facing food crisis as world’s soil ‘vanishes in 60 years’

British farming soil could run out within 60 years, leading to a catastrophic food crisis and drastically higher prices for consumers, scientists warn.

Full Story: Britain facing food crisis as world’s soil ‘vanishes in 60 years’ – Telegraph.

Rising sea drives Panama islanders to mainland

• Long-settled islands in Panama to be abandoned
• Climate change, coral mining blamed
• Many low-lying islands around the world threatened

CARTI SUGDUB, Panama, June 12 (Reuters) – Rising seas from global warming, coming after years of coral reef destruction, are forcing thousands of indigenous Panamanians to leave their ancestral homes on low-lying Caribbean islands.

Seasonal winds, storms and high tides combine to submerge the tiny islands, crowded with huts of yellow cane and faded palm fronds, leaving them ankle-deep in emerald water for days on end.

Pablo Preciado, leader of the island of Carti Sugdub, remembers that in his childhood floods were rare, brief and barely wetted his toes. “Now it’s something else. It’s serious,” he said.

The increase of a few inches in flood depth is consistent with a global sea level rise over Preciado’s 64 years of life and has been made worse by coral mining by the islanders that reduced a buffer against the waves

Full Story: FEATURE-Rising sea drives Panama islanders to mainland | Energy & Oil | Reuters.

Kevin Costner’s Oil Spill Cleanup Machine Now At Work In The Gulf (PHOTOS)

Kevin Costner’s company has sent an oil-skimming vessel to help clean some of the crude that has fouled the Gulf of Mexico.

The actor told workers and visitors Thursday who had come to see the latest in the fight against the oil spill that “the machine I once dreamed of is here to help you.”

The Ella G, now one of the Vessels of Opportunity, was retrofitted to receive oil and water from the skimmer, separate the oil and place it in storage tanks, and return the cleaned water to the Gulf. It had once been an offshore supply barge.

Full Story: Kevin Costner’s Oil Spill Cleanup Machine Now At Work In The Gulf (PHOTOS).

Residents outraged: BP dumping oily waste in Gulf landfills

The Gulf area may have to live with oil long after the beaches have been cleaned. Some residents are outraged that BP has been dumping oily waste in landfills in their areas.

After BP crews scoop up the oil off Gulf beaches, the waste is transported to Mississippi’s Pecan Grove landfill. Even workers’ protective suits, gloves, shovels, rakes and anything else that touches oil is buried there.

The Board of Supervisors in Harrison, Mississippi passed a resolution saying they don’t want any BP waste in their community but there is little they can do. BP has cut deals with Waste Management, the owners of the landfill. They answer to the state instead of local county government.

Full Story: Residents outraged: BP dumping oily waste in Gulf landfills | Raw Story.

Really scary video: BP oil gusher sludge could reach US east coast in one year

The volcanic BP oil gusher is beginning its rapid spread advancing across the Gulf of Mexico. It won’t be long before the toxic sludge reaches the Atlantic Ocean and spreads all the way up to middle of the US Eastern shores and pollute a significant portion of the Atlantic.

Is this crazy or what? Oil on the Hudson River? It may only be a model but it’s possible.

According to University of Hawaii researchers Axel Timmermann and Fabian Schloesser the ocean’s currents predicts how the oil gusher’s sludge flows could spread over a year.

Full Story: City Brights: Yobie Benjamin : Really scary video: BP oil gusher sludge could reach US east coast in one year.

Methane in the Gulf: Toxic Popsicle or Extinction Event?

Tar balls have hit Galveston now, observations from Monday show patches of oil south of Vermillion Bay, Lousiana, half way between New Orleans and Texas, but poor observation conditions due to rough seas may be hampering the identification of oil.

The oil spread models for the Gulf south of Western Louisiana and Eastern Texas show that strong southeast winds have set up a strong westward current that could result in impacts to Texas.

NOAA says there is a 60% chance that Miami Beach will be hit, and although the models show the oil ejecting far out into the North Atlantic on the Gulf Stream, NOAA is saying that it is increasingly unlikely that anything north of North Carolina will be affected.

Full Story: The Rag Blog: Gulf Oil Spill : Toxic Popsicle or Extinction Event?.

Oil containment effort facing 2 key moments

The battle to contain BP’s massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is approaching two critical junctures in coming days that could affect how the months-long catastrophe ends.

The first will happen for sure: the connection of a third ship to the jury-rigged containment system through which BP has been capturing about 24,000 barrels of oil per day since early June. That may take place as soon as this weekend, depending on how rough the seas are, and it would raise the amount of oil that BP can collect from the well to as much as 53,000 barrels per day. That’s 88 percent of the 60,000 barrels per day that the government says is the current best guess of the maximum amount that’s gushing from the well.

The second may not happen: replacing the “top hat” component of that containment system with a new cap that would fit more snugly but whose installation would require that the well be uncapped for as long as 10 days, allowing tens of thousands of additional barrels of crude to spew into the Gulf.

Full Story: Oil containment effort facing 2 key moments | McClatchy.

The real oil spill exposed.

Thom Hartmann talks with John Wathen

..”no one has ever tried to stop a flow like this once it’s started…”

Scientists Beg For A Chance To Take Basic Measurements

A group of independent scientists, frustrated and dumbfounded by the continued lack of the most basic data about the 77-day-old BP oil disaster, has put together a crash project intended to definitively measure how much oil has spilled and where and how it is spreading throughout the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

An all-star team of top oceanographers, chemists, engineers and other scientists could be ready to head out to the well site on two fully-equipped research vessels on about a week’s notice. But they need to get the go-ahead — and about $8.4 million — from BP or the federal government or both. And that does not appear imminent.

The test is designed to provide responders to future deep-sea oil catastrophes with valuable information. But, to be blunt, it would also fill an enormous gap in the response to this one.

Full Story: Gulf Oil Spill: Scientists Beg For A Chance To Take Basic Measurements.

Dramatic increase in leakage of methane gas from the Arctic seabed.

Scientists have uncovered what appears to be a further dramatic increase in the leakage of methane gas that is seeping from the Arctic seabed.

Methane is about 20 times more potent than CO2 in trapping solar heat.

The findings come from measurements of carbon fluxes around the north of Russia, led by Igor Semiletov from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.

“Methane release from the East Siberian Shelf is underway and it looks stronger than it was supposed [to be],” he said.

Professor Semiletov has been studying methane seepage in the region for the last few decades, and leads the International Siberian Shelf Study (ISSS), which has launched multiple expeditions to the Arctic Ocean.

The preliminary findings of ISSS 2009 are now being prepared for publication, he told BBC News.

Methane seepage recorded last summer was already the highest ever measured in the Arctic Ocean.

Full Story: Dramatic increase in leakage of methane gas from the Arctic seabed..

What Happens If It Doesn’t Stop Gusher?

BP’s Relief Wells Might Not Stop Oil Gusher:

As engineers bore deeper into the seafloor toward the source of the oil still spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, BP PLC is growing more confident that the relief well it expects to complete in August will succeed where all previous efforts to contain or kill the gusher have failed.

But what if it doesn’t work?

At the very least, oil would continue to spill while workers try something else.

That proposition would surely bring more misery for the people who live, work and play along the shores from Louisiana to Florida.

Full Story: BP Oil Spill Relief Well Scenarios: What Happens If It Doesn’t Stop Gusher?.

Rain Damage to Plants in Ohio a Result from Gulf Oil Spill?

Is the damage to these plants located in Ohio a result from the gulf oil spill? The oil and the dispersants mixed in the ocean evaporates into the atmosphere and later falls back to earth as acid rain. This could also enter water systems. The damage to these plants look similar to the plant damage reported from states south of Ohio.

OPS: you be the judge

Fake Sand BP is Bringing Onto Beaches

You’ll have to see this one for yourself.

Wyoming threatens to sell prime Grand Teton land

For Sale: Two square miles of Grand Teton National Park.

Majestic views of the Teton Range. Prime location for luxury resort, home development. Pristine habitat for moose, elk, wolves, grizzlies.

Price: $125 million. Call: Gov. Dave Freudenthal.

Wyoming is trying to force the Interior Department to trade land, minerals or mineral royalties for 1,366 acres it owns within the majestic park. If the foot-dragging feds don’t agree to a deal – soon – Freudenthal threatens to put a For Sale sign on the property.

Full Story: News from The Associated Press.

BP Texas Refinery Had Huge Toxic Release Just Before Gulf Blowout

Two weeks before the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, the huge, trouble-plagued BP refinery in this coastal town spewed tens of thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into the skies.

The release from the BP facility here began April 6 and lasted 40 days. It stemmed from the company’s decision to keep producing and selling gasoline while it attempted repairs on a key piece of equipment, according to BP officials and Texas regulators.

BP says it failed to detect the extent of the emissions for several weeks. It discovered the scope of the problem only after analyzing data from a monitor that measures emissions from a flare 300 feet above the ground that was supposed to incinerate the toxic chemicals.

Full Story: On The Hill: BP Texas Refinery Had Huge Toxic Release Just Before Gulf Blowout.

EPA chief: I wouldn’t swim off Panhandle

The nation’s top environmental regulator said she would not swim in the waters off an oil- and tar-saturated beach at a Panhandle park and advised beachgoers to trust their noses and eyes when deciding whether to plunge into the gulf.

“I haven’t gone over to the water but based on the facts of this beach and the oil, no, I would not go into the water today,” said U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson. She spent about an hour touring Gulf Islands National Seashore on Santa Rosa Island near Pensacola Beach on Saturday.

Jackson later met with Florida and Alabama officials to discuss strategy about beach safety. She also responded to accusations by local government workers who had accused her of failing to issue water quality standards they need to decide whether to ban swimming.

Full Story: EPA chief: I wouldn’t swim off Panhandle.

It’s not just BP’s oil in the Gulf that threatens world’s oceans

click to enlarge

A sobering new report warns that the oceans face a “fundamental and irreversible ecological transformation” not seen in millions of years as greenhouse gases and climate change already have affected temperature, acidity, sea and oxygen levels, the food chain and possibly major currents that could alter global weather.

The report, in Science magazine, brings together dozens of studies that collectively paint a dismal picture of deteriorating ocean health.

“This is further evidence we are well on our way to the next great extinction event,” said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, the director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland in Australia and a co-author of the report.

Full Story: It’s not just BP’s oil in the Gulf that threatens world’s oceans | McClatchy.

‘A Whale’, World’s Largest Oil Skimmer, Being Tested In Gulf Oil Spill

Gulf of Mexico cleanup crews working to block millions of gallons of oil from reaching land may soon have a giant on their side, if a weekend test of a new skimmer goes well.

The Taiwanese vessel dubbed “A Whale,” which its owners describe as the largest oil skimmer in the world, began showing its capabilities on Saturday just north of the Macondo Deepwater well site. An April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig there killed 11 workers and began what is now the largest oil spill in Gulf history.

The vessel will cruise a 25-square-mile test site through Sunday, according to TMT Shipping, the company that created A Whale by retrofitting an oil tanker after the explosion sent millions of gallons of crude spilling into the Gulf.

Full Story: ‘A Whale’, World’s Largest Oil Skimmer, Being Tested In Gulf Oil Spill.

BP Oil Disaster WORST CASE SCENARIO w/ Kindra Arnesen, BP Community Liaison

Kindra Arnesen tells team @PrjGulfImpact about the possible outcomes for the BP Oil Disaster including her worst case scenarios, why she is moving, and her fears for the next 60 days.

Oil Spills Boost Arsenic Levels in Ocean: Study

Oil Spills Up Arsenic Levels, Create ‘Toxic Ticking Time Bombs’

PARIS – Oil spills can boost levels of arsenic in seawater by suppressing a natural filter mechanism on the sea bed, according to a study published on Friday in a specialist journal.

The research was conducted in a laboratory before the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, but its authors say the findings highlight the worrying long-term impact from such disasters.

Scientists at Imperial College London found that sea floor sediment bonds with arsenic. The captured toxic element is then covered by subsequent layers of sediment, which helps explain why concentrations of arsenic in the ocean are low.

But, the researchers found, crude oil acts rather like a sticky blanket, clogging the sediment and preventing it from bonding to arsenic.

Full Story: Oil Spills Boost Arsenic Levels in Ocean: Study | CommonDreams.org.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan Warned Nixon To Act On Global Warming, New Documents Show

Documents released Friday by the Nixon Presidential Library show members of President Richard Nixon’s inner circle discussing the possibilities of global warming more than 30 years ago.

Adviser Daniel Patrick Moynihan, notable as a Democrat in the administration, urged the administration to initiate a worldwide system of monitoring carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, decades before the issue of global warming came to the public’s attention.

There is widespread agreement that carbon dioxide content will rise 25 percent by 2000, Moynihan wrote in a September 1969 memo.

Full Story: Daniel Patrick Moynihan Warned Nixon To Act On Global Warming, New Documents Show.

The Plight of the Sea Turtles

The seemingly endless oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is killing countless sea animals and sea birds, large and small. But there is no story as tragic as the plight of the sea turtles.

These magnificent, graceful, creatures are particularly vulnerable to the effects of oil in the water, which weakens their eggs, chokes and poisons their young, and leaves adults addled and starving.

In the case of the most endangered species, the Kemp’s ridley turtle, hatchlings leaving their nests in Mexico this season are swimming right into the heart of the spill area, where their instinct to seek shelter and prey among floating vegetation is betraying them by leading them straight to thick clots of oil and oil-soaked seaweed.

There, instead of finding security and food, they are getting poisoned, trapped and asphyxiated.

And if that weren’t tragic enough, it turns out that shrimp boats hired by BP to corral floating oil with booms and set it on fire have been burning hundreds if not thousands of the young turtles alive.

Full Story: Gulf Oil Spill: The Plight of the Sea Turtles.

Miami, Florida Keys Face Up to 80% Chance of BP Oil, U.S. Says

Miami and the Florida Keys face a 61 percent to 80 percent chance of being hit with tar balls from BP Plc’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to U.S. projections.

Shorelines with the greatest chance of being soiled by oil, 81 percent to 100 percent, stretch from the Mississippi River Delta to the western Panhandle of Florida, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said today in a statement on its projection for the next four months.

Much of Florida’s west coast has a “low probability” of “oiling” from the leak that began with an explosion on a BP- leased drilling rig on April 20, the agency said.

Full Story: Miami, Florida Keys Face Up to 80% Chance of BP Oil, U.S. Says – Bloomberg.

Oil found in Gulf crabs raises new food chain fears

University scientists have spotted the first indications oil is entering the Gulf seafood chain — in crab larvae — and one expert warns the effect on fisheries could last “years, probably not a matter of months” and affect many species.

Scientists with the University of Southern Mississippi and Tulane University in New Orleans have found droplets of oil in the larvae of blue crabs and fiddler crabs sampled from Louisiana to Pensacola, Fla. The news comes as blobs of oil and tar continue to wash ashore in Mississippi in patches, with crews in chartreuse vests out cleaning beaches all along the coast on Thursday, and as state and federal fisheries from Louisiana to Florida are closed by the BP oil disaster.

“I think we will see this enter the food chain in a lot of ways — for plankton feeders, like menhaden, they are going to just actively take it in,” said Harriet Perry, director of the Center for Fisheries Research and Development at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. “Fish are going to feed on (crab larvae). We have also just started seeing it on the fins of small, larval fish — their fins were encased in oil. That limits their mobility, so that makes them easy prey for other species. The oil’s going to get into the food chain in a lot of ways.”

Full Story: Oil found in Gulf crabs raises new food chain fears | McClatchy.

BP using dispersants so oil hits “beaches for 10 or 15 years”; To benefit from long-term amortization of costs

Dallas, Texas – Fred McCallister, an investment banker with Allegiance Capital Corporation, will testify tomorrow before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee in a hearing titled “The Deepwater Horizon Tragedy: Holding Industry Accountable”. For weeks, McCallister has labored to pierce the red tape involved in bringing oil skimmers and other equipment from Europe to the Gulf of Mexico to assist in cleanup efforts.

“We submitted proposals for oil skimming vessels to BP on Monday June 14th – 25 million gallons of oil ago – and were promised they would be reviewed on an expedited basis. To date we have received no meaningful response,” said McCallister.

On June 22, McCallister gained assistance from Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) in requesting a waiver from the Jones Act, which prevents foreign-flagged vessels from cleaning the BP oil spill and protecting the U.S. coastline from the onslaught of oil. To date, neither Senator Cornyn’s office nor Allegiance Capital has received a response regarding the waiver. McCallister’s first request for a waiver was sent to Admiral Thad Allen on June 16.

McCallister believes there may be an underlying issue affecting BP’s resistance to bringing all available oil skimming equipment to the Gulf.

Full Story: BP using dispersants so oil hits “beaches for 10 or 15 years”; To benefit from long-term amortization of costs — Signs of the Times News.

Climate Scientist Cleared of Altering Data

An American scientist accused of manipulating research findings on climate science was cleared of that charge by his university on Thursday, the latest in a string of reports to find little substance in the allegations known as Climategate.

An investigative panel at Pennsylvania State University, weighing the question of whether the scientist, Michael E. Mann, had “seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting or reporting research or other scholarly activities,” declared that he had not.

Dr. Mann said he was gratified by the findings, the second report from Penn State to clear him. An earlier report had exonerated him of related charges that he suppressed or falsified data, destroyed e-mail and misused confidential information.

Full Story: Climate Scientist Cleared of Altering Data – NYTimes.com.

Ancient Fossils Show Arctic Now Near Climate Tipping Point

Current levels of Earth’s atmospheric carbon dioxide may be high enough to bring about “irreversible” shifts in Arctic ecosystems, according to new research published today by scientists from the United States, Canada and The Netherlands.

The Arctic climate system is more sensitive to greenhouse warming than previously known said the researchers, who gathered evidence on what is now Ellesmere Island in Canada’s High Arctic from a time period 2.6 to 5.3 million years ago. This period, known as the Pliocene Epoch, occurred shortly before Earth was plunged into an ice age.

“Our findings indicate that CO2 levels of approximately 400 parts per million are sufficient to produce mean annual temperatures in the High Arctic of approximately zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees F),” said lead author Ashley Ballantyne of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

“As temperatures approach zero degrees Celsius, it becomes exceedingly difficult to maintain permanent sea and glacial ice in the Arctic. Thus current levels of CO2 in the atmosphere of approximately 390 parts per million may be approaching a tipping point for irreversible ice-free conditions in the Arctic,” Dr. Ballantyne warned.

Full Story: Ancient Fossils Show Arctic Now Near Climate Tipping Point.

How bad is the oil spill? Flight sheds light on magnitude of disaster

Author David Helvarg takes a flight from the shores of Alabama to the site of the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion. What he finds is disturbing

Full Story: BP Slick.

Whale sharks unable to avoid oil spill (with video)

Last week, scientists cheered the discovery of one of the largest groups of whale sharks ever sighted in the northern Gulf of Mexico — about 100 animals feeding on the surface over a deepwater feature off Louisiana called the Ewing Bank.

This week’s report: Three whale sharks swimming in heavy oil four miles from the gushing Deepwater Horizon wellhead.

“Our worst fears are realized. They are not avoiding the spill area,” said Eric Hoffmayer, the University of Southern Mississippi scientist who found the large aggregation last week. “Those animals are going to succumb. Taking mouthfuls of oil is not good. It is not the toxicity that will kill them. It’s that oil is going to be sticking to their gills and everything else.”

Full Story: Whale sharks unable to avoid oil spill (with video) | al.com.

‘A Whale’ Of A Skimmer Offers Up Its Services

A massive, newly-retooled supertanker that its owner claims could skim millions of gallons of oily water a day is now in the Gulf of Mexico, where government and BP officials intend to run tests shortly to see if it actually works.

With residents of four states complaining about the dearth of skimming vessels off their shores, the 10-story tall, 372-yard long Taiwanese-owned behemoth — called A Whale — could be an enormous boon to the region.

Or it could be a really, really big disappointment.

Nobu Su, the CEO and founder of Taiwan Maritime Transport (TMT), told reporters in Norfolk on Friday that on account of the special holes he had cut in its sides, his vessel would roll across the Gulf “like a lawn mower cutting the grass.”

Full Story: Gulf Oil Spill: ‘A Whale’ Of A Skimmer Offers Up Its Services.

BP’s toxic acids make Pensacola Beach boil and bubble | – video

The view is atrocious with a large amount of oil slick and dirt spread all over the beach as far as the eye can see. Now the toxic acids and the chemical reaction between Methane and Corexit9500 reach the shores with the surf.

The chemical compounds are evaporating directly in the air which makes the entire environment unsafe and hazardous when inhaled. Exposure to the mixture and specifically Corexit9500 and Corexit9527 will cause permanent damage to red blood cells, known as Hemolysis, as well as liver and kidneys.

Full Story: BP’s toxic acids make Pensacola Beach boil and bubble | HULI….

Marine Toxicologist Susan Shaw Dives Into Gulf Spill, Talks Dispersants and Food Web Damage

When marine toxicologist Susan Shaw set out to investigate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, she didn’t do it from behind a desk.

Late in May, a few miles offshore of Louisiana’s Pass a Loutre marshlands, Shaw donned a wetsuit, coated her exposed skin with a protective coat of petroleum jelly, and dove into the oil slick. “What I witnessed was a surreal, sickening scene beyond anything I could have imagined,” Shaw wrote a few days later in The New York Times:

There were patches of oil on the gulf’s surface. In some places, the oil has mixed with an orange-brown pudding-like material, some of the 700,000 gallons of a chemical dispersant called Corexit 9500 that BP has sprayed on the spreading oil…

[O]nly a few meters down, the nutrient-rich water became murky, but it was possible to make out tiny wisps of phytoplankton, zooplankton and shrimp enveloped in dark oily droplets. These are essential food sources for fish like the herring I could see feeding with gaping mouths on the oil and dispersant.

Full Story: Marine Toxicologist Susan Shaw Dives Into Gulf Spill, Talks Dispersants and Food Web Damage – OnEarth Magazine.

“Unprecedented” fish kill in Jacksonville for past two weeks “isn’t related to annual cycle”; “Lesions in the brain… points to toxicity” (PHOTOS)

Fish kill in St. Johns isn’t related to annual cycle

There’s no easy solution for the puzzling fish kill in St. Johns, Jacksonville Times-Union, June 26, 2010:

CAPTION: Dead red fish litter the bank of the St. Johns River north of the Buckman Bridge [in Jacksonville] Monday, June 7, 2010. A multitude of dead red fish have been reported for the past two weeks with the cause being unknow [sic] at present.

Jacksonville Times-Union

If you think the… fish kill on the St. Johns River is an annual event that just came early this year — think again.

That’s the message that two men with close ties to the river want you to know. …

“This kill is unprecedented,” he said. He explained that fish kills due to low oxygen levels are typically confined to smaller areas, not as widespread as the problem has become. …

Fish continue to die in an area from roughly the Buckman Bridge [in Jacksonville] south to Lake George…

[Quinton White, the executive director of the marine science institute at Jacksonville University] said that last week the St. Pete lab sent staff to Jacksonville University to sample more recently killed fish. “They did necropsies on site,” he said.

He said they found lesions in the brains of some redfish. “I’m not sure what else,” White said.

via “Unprecedented” fish kill in Jacksonville for past two weeks “isn’t related to annual cycle”; “Lesions in the brain… points to toxicity” (PHOTOS) | Florida Oil Spill Law.

Scientists forecast large gulf ‘dead zone’

The Gulf of Mexico’s oxygen-starved “dead zone” will be larger than average this year and threatens the region’s $659 million fishing industry, scientists say.

The 2010 dead zone could be between 6,500 and 7,800 square miles, an area roughly the size of Lake Ontario, says a forecast released Monday by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The average size of the zone over the past five years has been 6,000 square miles, NOAA said.

via Scientists forecast large gulf ‘dead zone’ – UPI.com.

The Coming Gulf Coast Firestorm: How the BP oil catastrophe could destroy a major U.S. city

It’s hurricane season in the Atlantic, and that means Mother Nature could be whipping up fierce storms and sending them charging into the Gulf Coast any day now. In a normal hurricane season, that’s bad enough all by itself… remember Katrina? But now there’s something even more worrisome in the recipe: There’s oil in the water.

So what happens when a Katrina-class hurricane comes along and picks up a few million gallons of oil, then drops that volatile liquid on a major U.S. city like Galveston or New Orleans?

Now, before we pursue this line of thinking any further, let’s dismiss the skeptics out there who think oil can’t drop from the sky because oil doesn’t evaporate. Actually, if you look at the history of hurricanes and storms, you’ll find thousands of accounts of lots of things that don’t evaporate nonetheless falling out of the sky. The phrase “raining cats and dogs” it’s entirely metaphor, you know: There are documented accounts of all sorts of things raining down from the sky: Fish, frogs, large balls of ice, and so on.

via The Coming Gulf Coast Firestorm: How the BP oil catastrophe could destroy a major U.S. city.

BP oil spill Corexit dispersants suspected in widespread crop damage

Last May 24, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson promised, “We will conduct our own tests to determine the least toxic, most effective dispersant available in the volumes necessary for a crisis of this magnitude… I am not satisfied that BP has done an extensive enough analysis of other dispersant options.”

As of today, those tests have not been completed, according to the EPA. In the meantime, BP has dumped 1.4 million gallons of Corexit on the gulf. Next week, we could have a hurricane pushing Corexit inland.

Full Story: City Brights: Yobie Benjamin : BP oil spill Corexit dispersants suspected in widespread crop damage.

‘No playbook’ if storm displaces oil onto land

Tropical Storm Alex expected to churn toward Gulf of Mexico

A potentially dangerous tropical storm named Alex that experts say could complicate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill clean-up formed Saturday in the Caribbean Sea.

At 0900 GMT, the eye of the storm, which packed sustained winds of 40 miles (65 kilometers) an hour, was located 220 miles (355 kilometers) east of Belize City, according to the Miami-based US National Hurricane Center.

A tropical storm warning was in effect on the east coast of Belize, Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and on the coastal islands in Honduras.

But after dropping rain on the Central American nations, the storm was expected to turn toward the Gulf of Mexico.

“A gradual turn toward the northeast and an increase in forward speed are expected in the next 48 hours,” the government-controlled center said in an advisory.

Full Story: Tropical Storm Alex expected to churn toward Gulf of Mexico | Media In Politics.

Costner cleanup device gets high marks from BP

It was treated as an oddball twist in the otherwise wrenching saga of the BP oil spill when Kevin Costner stepped forward to promote a device he said could work wonders in containing the spill’s damage. But as Henry Fountain explains in the New York Times, the gadget in question — an oil-separating centrifuge — marks a major breakthrough in spill cleanup technology. And BP, after trial runs with the device, is ordering 32 more of the Costner-endorsed centrifuges to aid the Gulf cleanup.

The “Waterworld” actor has invested some $20 million and spent the past 15 years in developing the centrifuges. He helped found a manufacturing company, Ocean Therapy Solutions, to advance his brother’s research in spill cleanup technology. In testimony before Congress this month, Costner walked through the device’s operation—explaining how it spins oil-contaminated water at a rapid speed, so as to separate out the oil and capture it in a containment tank:

Full Story: Costner cleanup device gets high marks from BP – Yahoo! News.

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Satellite Timelapse April 20 – May 24 2010

The MODIS instrument, on board NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites, is capturing images of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The spill began on April 20, 2010 with the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. This short video reveals a space-based view of the burning oil rig and, later, the ensuing oil spill through May 24, 2010. The oil slick appears grayish-beige in the images and changes due to changing weather, ocean currents, and the use of oil dispersing chemicals. Images in the video time series were selected that show the spill most clearly. The full image archive is available on the MODIS Rapid Response Web site .

Oil Industry Lobbied Against Blow-Out Preventer

Len Hart,

Five hundred grand is chicken feed for the likes of BP/HALLIBURTON. That’s how much a blow-out preventer would have cost BP. But the U.S. oil industry ‘lobbied’ against laws mandating their use.

In psychotic denial, BP asserts its innocence; oil giants remain united against regulations of any type requiring that they be responsible, regulations that would in fact require them to pay damages as a result of incompetence, greed or indifference! This record is unconscionable and follows from a lie called “corporate personhood’ –an evil, pernicious doctrine recently espoused and ‘made law’ by the U.S. Supreme Court.

If ‘corporations’ were truly ‘persons’ as the ‘Supreme’ court has said they are, then BP and Halliburton would have already been arrested, charged, jailed and awaiting trial on numerous charges. Perhaps it is not too late to lock them all up –board chairman, members of the board, voting stockholders! Lock them all up!

Full Story: The Existentialist Cowboy: Oil Industry Lobbied Against Blow-Out Preventer.

Biologist: Ocean pollution ‘threatening the human food supply’

Sperm whales feeding even in the most remote reaches of Earth’s oceans have built up stunningly high levels of toxic and heavy metals, according to American scientists who say the findings spell danger not only for marine life but for the millions of humans who depend on seafood.

A report released Thursday noted high levels of cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury and titanium in tissue samples taken by dart gun from nearly 1,000 whales over five years. From polar areas to equatorial waters, the whales ingested pollutants that may have been produced by humans thousands of miles away, the researchers said.

“These contaminants, I think, are threatening the human food supply. They certainly are threatening the whales and the other animals that live in the ocean,” said biologist Roger Payne, founder and president of Ocean Alliance, the research and conservation group that produced the report.

Full Story: Biologist: Ocean pollution ‘threatening the human food supply’ | Raw Story.

BP dumps gravel in Alaska sea; gets exempt from offshore drilling ban

BP’s “Liberty” project is exempted as regulators have granted it status as an “onshore” project even though it is about three miles off the coast in the Beaufort Sea. The reason: it sits on an artificial island — a 31-acre pile of gravel in about 22 feet of water — built by BP. Regulators and BP say likelihood of spill is very remote. [Sound familiar?] They also assert that BP’s spill response plan would be able to handle a worst case — which BP estimated as a spill of 20,000 barrels per day. [Again, sound familiar?]

The future of BP’s offshore oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico has been thrown into doubt by the recent drilling disaster and court wrangling over a moratorium.

But about three miles off the coast of Alaska, BP is moving ahead with a controversial and potentially record-setting project to drill two miles under the sea and then six to eight miles horizontally to reach what is believed to be a 100-million-barrel reservoir of oil under federal waters.

All other new projects in the Arctic have been halted by the Obama administration’s moratorium on offshore drilling, including more traditional projects like Shell Oil’s plans to drill three wells in the Chukchi Sea and two in the Beaufort.

Full Story: BP dumps gravel in Alaska sea; gets exempt from offshore drilling ban « COTO Report.

Over 50 Lawmakers ask USDA to deny Monsanto GMO alfalfa

* U.S. lawmakers call for continued ban on biotech alfalfa

* Say USDA has “ignored” regulatory authority

* Say U.S. organic dairy industry threatened

* Related sugarbeet court case delayed

(Releads, Adds details, delay in sugarbeet case, Monsanto comments)

KANSAS CITY, June 23 (Reuters) – More than 50 U.S. lawmakers are calling on the U.S. Agriculture Department to keep Monsanto’s biotech alfalfa out of farm fields, despite a Supreme Court ruling this week that cleared the way for limited planting pending environmental reviews.

The lawmakers said the biotech alfalfa presents too great a risk to conventional and organic agriculture to ever allow it.

“We believe that the broad regulatory authority available to you has been ignored, in order to justify deregulation of a biotech crop that has limited utility to anyone except the manufacturer,” the letter addressed to Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack said.

Full Story: Over 50 Lawmakers ask USDA to deny Monsanto GMO alfalfa « Food Freedom.

Raining Oil In Louisiana? (VIDEO)

This shocking video shows what appears to be the aftermath of oily rain, filmed in River Ridge — just outside New Orleans. The filmmaker captures the clearly visible sheen in the gathering puddles, and describes the remaining substance as “thick” and “foamy,” noting that it not only looks but also smells like the oil they witnessed the day before on Gulf beaches from the spill.

According to Tampa Bay’s 10Connects.com,

National Weather Service Science and Operations Officer Charlie Paxton says while it’s always possible a water spout could pick up some oil and carry it a short distance, the notion of black rain is just not possible. Paxton says that’s because oil does not evaporate. As a result, talk of black rain is just a myth.

Jalapnik.com mentions, however that “under normal environmental temperatures, oil does not evaporate, however with the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the effects of seawater emulsification and the introduction of BP’s dispersant of choice, Corexit 9500, may be allowing some degree of evaporation into the water cycle.”

WATCH Louisiana raining oil:

Full Story: Raining Oil In Louisiana? (VIDEO).

BP yanks containment cap after problem, oil flows unimpeded into the Gulf

LIVE STREAM OF BP OIL SPILL FOLLOWS: BP CLAIMS PROBLEM IS ‘TEMPORARY’….ALSO, TWO CLEANUP WORKERS ARE FOUND DEAD (SEE BELOW)

Oil gushed unchecked Wednesday from the leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico after BP’s containment system was removed for repairs when a robotic submarine crashed into it, US officials said.

“We had an incident earlier today, they noticed that there was some kind of a gas rising,” said Admiral Thad Allen, the US official coordinating the response to the disaster.

Full Story: BP yanks containment cap after problem, oil flows unimpeded into the Gulf | Raw Story.

Methane in water soars around spill

As much as 1 million times the normal level of methane gas has been found in some regions near the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, enough to potentially deplete oxygen and create a dead zone, US scientists said today.

Texas A&M University oceanography professor John Kessler, just back from a 10-day research expedition near the BP oil spill in the gulf, says methane gas levels in some areas are “astonishingly high.”

Kessler’s crew took measurements of both surface and deep water within a 5-mile (8 kilometre) radius of BP’s broken wellhead.

“There is an incredible amount of methane in there,” Kessler told reporters in a telephone briefing.

In some areas, the crew of 12 scientists found concentrations that were 100,000 times higher than normal.

Full Story: Methane in water soars around spill – Upstream Online.

Fracking Tales: Stories From the Frontlines of Gas Drilling

Since we launched, we’ve been reporting on the environmental threats of drilling in natural gas reserves around the country. (Here’s a good primer on the process of hydraulic fracking that is used to release the gas.) The potential risks of hydro-facking have been gaining attention, and we wanted to point to two on-the-ground stories that have recently come out.

This month’s Vanity Fair has a long piece, “A Colossal Fracking Mess,” on the human and environmental effects of the drilling. It follows Dimock, a town in northeastern Pennsylvania, where residents are fighting the hydraulic fracking that they say has contaminated the town’s aquifer. The story reports that the water supply is so harmful that the town is “now known as the place where, over the past two years, people’s water started turning brown and making them sick, one woman’s water well spontaneously combusted, and horses and pets mysteriously began to lose their hair.” We reported on Dimock multiple times last year. Our lead reporter on gas drilling, Abrahm Lustgarten, wrote that Dimock was “ground zero for drilling the Marcellus Shale, a prized deposit of natural gas that is increasingly touted as one of the country’s most abundant and cleanest alternatives to oil.”

Full Story: On The Hill: Fracking Tales: Stories From the Frontlines of Gas Drilling.

Bee decline could be down to chemical cocktail interfering with brains

£10m Insect Pollinators Initiative will look at the multiple reasons thought to be behind devastation of bees, moths and hoverflies

A cocktail of chemicals from pesticides could be damaging the brains of British bees, according to scientists about to embark on a study into why the populations of the insects have dropped so rapidly in recent decades. By affecting the way bees’ brains work, the pesticides might be affecting the ability of bees to find food or communicate with others in their colonies.

Neuroscientists at Dundee University, Royal Holloway and University College London will investigate the hypothesis as part of a £10m research programme launched today aimed at finding ways to stop the decline in the numbers of bees and other insect pollinators in the UK.

Insects such as bees, moths and hoverflies pollinate around a third of the agricultural crops grown around the world. If all of the UK’s insect pollinators were wiped out, the drop in crop production would cost the UK economy up to £440m a year, equivalent to around 13% of the UK’s income from farming.

Full Story: Bee decline could be down to chemical cocktail interfering with brains | Environment | The Guardian.

USF model projects oil spill will expand further southward toward loop current

Oil reported just offshore Cuba; Forecast “clearly shows the oil moving southeastward”

A high pressure system centered over the Gulf of Mexico will bring light northwesterly winds to the oil spill area over the next few days.

As a result, models that attempt to predict the future track of the spill are suggesting that the oil will head back toward the southeast and closer to the loop current.

With mainly light winds in place, the heating of the surface by the sun will play a major role in the wind direction over the spill area. During the early morning hours winds will blow lightly out of the northwest. This pushes the oil away from the coast and toward the southeast out to sea.

As the land heats up during the afternoon hours, a sea breeze develops causing the wind to back to the SSW and blowing the oil back toward the shore. Later in the evening, as the air cools, the winds once again turn to the northwest. The overall affect this will have is to force the oil further toward the southeast and closer to the loop current.

Full Story: USF model projects oil spill will expand further southward toward loop current | Tampa Bay, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Sarasota | WTSP.com 10 Connects.

A Colossal Fracking Mess

The dirty truth behind the new natural gas. Related: A V.F. video look at a town transformed by fracking.

Early on a spring morning in the town of Damascus, in northeastern Pennsylvania, the fog on the Delaware River rises to form a mist that hangs above the tree-covered hills on either side. A buzzard swoops in from the northern hills to join a flock ensconced in an evergreen on the river’s southern bank.

Stretching some 400 miles, the Delaware is one of the cleanest free-flowing rivers in the United States, home to some of the best fly-fishing in the country. More than 15 million people, including residents of New York City and Philadelphia, get their water from its pristine watershed. To regard its unspoiled beauty on a spring morning, you might be led to believe that the river is safely off limits from the destructive effects of industrialization. Unfortunately, you’d be mistaken. The Delaware is now the most endangered river in the country, according to the conservation group American Rivers.

Full Story: A Colossal Fracking Mess | Business | Vanity Fair.

Monsanto Wins Supreme Court Case: Genetically Modified Alfalfa Ban Lifted

The Supreme Court on Monday lifted a nationwide ban on the planting of genetically engineered alfalfa seeds, despite claims they might harm the environment.

In a 7-1 vote Monday, the court reversed a federal appeals court ruling that had prohibited Monsanto Co. from selling alfalfa seeds because are resistant to the popular weed killer Roundup.

The U.S. Agriculture Department must now decide whether to allow the genetically-modified seeds to be planted. It had earlier approved the seeds, but courts in California and Oregon said USDA did not look hard enough at whether the seeds would eventually share their genes with other crops.

Full Story: Monsanto Wins Supreme Court Case: Genetically Modified Alfalfa Ban Lifted.

‘Gasland’ Documentary Shows Water That Burns, Toxic Effects Of Natural Gas Drilling (VIDEO)

What do you do when a gas company offers nearly $100,000 for the right to drill on your land?

If you’re Josh Fox, you refuse the money – then make an award-winning documentary portraying the natural gas industry as an environmental menace that ruins water, air and lives.

In “Gasland,” premiering Monday at 9 p.m. EDT on HBO, Fox presents a frightening scenario in which tens of thousands of drilling rigs take over the landscape, gas companies exploit legal loopholes to inject toxins into the ground and residents living nearby contract severe, unexplained illnesses.

This isn’t some dystopian nightmare, Fox says, but the harsh reality in communities from Texas to Colorado to Pennsylvania. “People are feeling completely upended,” the 37-year-old filmmaker said in an interview at his woodland home near the Pennsylvania-New York border, where gas companies have been leasing thousands of acres of pristine watershed land in anticipation of a drilling boom.

Full Story: ‘Gasland’ Documentary Shows Water That Burns, Toxic Effects Of Natural Gas Drilling (VIDEO).

DR. TOM TERMOTTO PROPOSES GULF OIL SPILL SOLUTION IN AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

Dr. Tom Termotto, National Coordinator of International Citizens´ Initiative – Gulf Oil Spill Remediation, has proposed quite significant solution to the worst ongoing environmental disaster of our times in the US, and may be, even the worst man-made calamity on the face of the earth. I am urging everyone to read diligently Dr.Tom Termotto ´s open letter to President Obama as his insights and wisdom can truly make a big difference in this nation and worldwide.

PRESS RELEASE 2010

Re: Gulf Oil Spill Solution

Dear President Obama,

We write this letter concerning the worst man-made, and ongoing, environmental catastrophe of the modern era, and perhaps the worst calamity the entire hemisphere has ever seen.

We are truly perplexed why the US Federal Government has not taken complete command and control of the disaster area known as the Gulf of Mexico. It is, after all, full of oil and dispersants and corpses of every sort and kind. A foreign multi-national corporation (BP) was allowed to conduct the most risky and highly experimental deep-sea drilling for oil and gas without proper permits, federal oversight and regulatory regime that would have prevented this avoidable event.

Full Story: Pennsylvania Chronicle | DR. TOM TERMOTTO PROPOSES GULF OIL SPILL SOLUTION IN AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA.

Stop Global Food Security Act Promoting GMOs

Biotech corporations and mega-charities are promoting the GMO agenda as US foreign policy, and it must be stopped.

The GM clause to food security

The US Global Food Security Act of 2009 (S. 384) sponsored by Richard Lugar (Indiana, Republican), Robert Casey (Pennsylvania, Democrat) and seven other US Senators in February 2009 is [1, 2] “A bill to authorize appropriations for fiscal years 2010 through 2014 to provide assistance to foreign countries to promote food security, to stimulate rural economies, and to improve emergency response to food crises, to amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, and for other purposes.”

However, the proposed amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of 1961 has proven controversial. It would “include research on biotechnological advances appropriate to local ecological conditions, including genetically modified technology.”

The bill is supported by the US land grant colleges as well as InterAction (American Council for Voluntary International Action) and its 26 member organizations including WWF, Oxfam, Bread for the World CARE, Save the Children, and ONE [3]. The bill was passed through the Senate foreign Relations Committee on 31 March 2009, and the Senate is expected to vote on it soon in 2010.

Full Story: Stop Global Food Security Act Promoting GMOs « Wake-up Call.

The Leak cannot be stopped: Video

ROV films oil leak coming from rock cracks on seafloor.

Starts off slow – but gets NASTY! ROV films oil leak coming from cracks in a ROCK on the sea floor.

BP denies that oil or gas are leaking from cracks in the sea floor on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

This is just one of many videos that may prove otherwise.

The video here seems to skip frames so here are two slow motion clips that show that this is definitely not silt being kicked up by the ROV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6-fPw…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2J2yn…

If your still not convinced check out 2:47 in the video and watch the globs of oil float across the screen.

Follow this story here:

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2010…

This video was recorded from the Viking Poseidon — ROV 1 on June 13th, 2010 at 2:58 AM EST.

Location of the sea floor crack leaking:

N:10431633.05

E: 1202852.27

Some things to point out:

After rewinding it a few times you can see the clear progression of oil coming from the rocks:

At 2:45 coagulated oil rises from the cracks pretty much confirming this is oil and not mud.

Toward the end of the video you see bubbles of gas and can clearly see this a rock formation on the sea floor.

My calculations indicate:

The ROV is 19.11 feet north and 55.75 feet west of the leak point.

The ROV is 58.93 feet away from the leak point.

Toxic Oil Spill Rains Could Destroy North America

A  report prepared  by Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources is warning that the BP oil and gas leak is about to become the worst environmental catastrophe in human history threatening the entire eastern half of the North American

A dire report prepared for President Medvedev by Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources is warning today that the British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico is about to become the worst environmental catastrophe in all of human history threatening the entire eastern half of the North American continent with “total destruction”.

Russian scientists are basing their apocalyptic destruction assessment due to BP’s use of millions of gallons of the chemical dispersal agent known as Corexit 9500 which is being pumped directly into the leak of this wellhead over a mile under the Gulf of Mexico waters and designed, this report says, to keep hidden from the American public the full, and tragic, extent of this leak that is now estimated to be over 2.9 million gallons a day.

The dispersal agent Corexit 9500 is a solvent originally developed by Exxon and now manufactured by the Nalco Holding Company of Naperville, Illinois that is four times more toxic than oil (oil is toxic at 11 ppm (parts per million), Corexit 9500 at only 2.61ppm). In a report written by Anita George-Ares and James R. Clark for Exxon Biomedical Sciences, Inc. titled “Acute Aquatic Toxicity of Three Corexit Products: An Overview” Corexit 9500 was found to be one of the most toxic dispersal agents ever developed. Even worse, according to this report, with higher water temperatures, like those now occurring in the Gulf of Mexico, its toxicity grows.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in discovering BP’s use of this dangerous dispersal agent ordered BP to stop using it, but BP refused stating that their only alternative to Corexit 9500 was an even more dangerous dispersal agent known as Sea Brat 4.

Full Story: Toxic Oil Spill Rains Warned Could Destroy North America | EUTimes.net.

USDA opens public comments on Monsanto’s H1-7 GM beet

No-GMO campaigns won victories recently in Bolivia, Luxembourg, and Japan (at least temporarily), while Bulgaria saw the introduction of a bill to clearly label all genetically modified products and to ban distribution of GM food to children. We’re not so lucky here in the States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has deregulated over 79 GM products – the most recent being a genetically engineered (GE) soybean line developed by Pioneer Hi-Bred International. Now, APHIS seeks public input on deregulating Monsanto’s GE sugar beet known as H1-7.

You know you have something to say. You have until June 28 to do so. At this link, you can read the Notice and submit a comment.

The USDA finds GE beets just fine and safe. It unscientifically refuses to acknowledge crop contamination, mass bee and butterfly die-off from pesticides, and an explosion in obesity, diabetes and food allergies in the US since the introduction of GE foods. When the government says “science-based,’ in plain speak that means profit-based. Some multinational corporation stands to make a fantastic fortune.

Full Story: USDA opens public comments on Monsanto’s H1-7 GM beet « Food Freedom.

North America faces years of toxic oil rain from BP oil spill chemical dispersants

North America will be facing years of toxic rain becuase of the poisonous chemical dispersants BP is using to control the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

When you pour more than a million gallons of toxic chemical dispersants on top of an oil spill, it doesn’t just disappear. In this case, it moves to the atmosphere, where it will travel hundreds, if not thousands of miles from the site of the BP oil spill, in the form of toxic rain.

BP’s oil spill-fighting dispersant of choice is Corexit 9500. It has been banned in Europe for good reason. Corexit 9500 is one of the most environmentally enduring, toxic chemical dispersants ever created to battle an oil spill.  Add to that the millions of gallons of oil that have been burned, releasing even more toxins into the atmosphere, and you have a recipe for something much worse than acid rain.

Oil in the environment is toxic at 11 PPM (parts per million). Corexit 9500 is toxic at only 2.61 PPM. But Corexit 9500 has another precarious characteristic; it’s reaction to warm water.

Full Story: North America faces years of toxic oil rain from BP oil spill chemical dispersants.

Methane is newest BP oil spill threat for Gulf of Mexico

All eyes have been on the continuous outflow of oil in the Gulf of Mexico but a new and less known threat has surfaced. Methane gas keeps being released in the gulf waters and threatens the natural habitat of sea creatures.

The “flow team” of the US Geological Survey estimates that 2,900 cubit feet of methane gas is being released into the gulf waters with every barrel of oil. The constant flow of 20,000 barrels of crude oil would place the total daily amount of methane at roughly 5.8 million cubic feet.

Methane gas depletes the natural oxygen levels found in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico which are crucial for the survival of plankton and other sea creatures in the natural food chain. The high concentration of methane is now threatening to suffocate the seafood population.

Full Story: Methane is newest BP oil spill threat for Gulf of Mexico | HULIQ.

Matt Simmons Revises Leak Estimate to 120,000 Barrels Per Day, Believes Oil Covers 40% of Gulf Beneath the Surface

Matt Simmons was on Bloomberg earlier, adding some additional perspective to his original appearance on the station, in which he initially endorsed the nuclear option as the only viable way to resolve the oil spill. Simmons refutes even the latest oil spill estimate of 45,000-60,000 barrels per day, and in quoting research by the Thomas Jefferson research vessel which was compiled late on Sunday, quantifies the leak at 120,000 bpd. What is scarier is that according to the Jefferson, the oil lake underneath the surface of the water could be covering up to 40% of the entire Gulf of Mexico. Simmons also says that as the leak has no casing, a relief well will not work, and the only possible resolution is, as he said previously, to use a small nuclear explosion to convert the rock to glass. Simmons concludes that as punishment for BP’s arrogance and stupidity the government “will take all their cash.” Now if only our own administration could tell us the truth about what is really happening in the gulf…

video at link

Full Story: Matt Simmons Revises Leak Estimate to 120,000 Barrels Per Day, Believes Oil Covers 40% of Gulf Beneath the Surface — Signs of the Times News.

Chevron Vows To Pay

Salt Lake City attorneys expect Chevron Corp. will quickly agree to a financial settlement related to last weekend’s pipeline spill that dumped 33,000 gallons of crude oil into city waterways, a spokeswoman for Mayor Ralph Becker said Friday.

Becker has vowed to make Chevron pay for the cleanup, and the company has repeatedly pledged to cover the city’s expenses, as well as damage or reimbursement claims from others.

A deal could be announced next week, said Lisa Harrison Smith, the mayor’s spokeswoman.

“We won’t be satisfied until it’s done,” she said.

Full Story: Utah Oil Spill: Chevron Vows To Pay.

BP Blocks Attempt to Save Endangered Sea Turtles from Oil Spill – video

A shrimp boat captain in Louisiana hired by BP was blocked from rescuing juvenile Kemp’s ridleys that were covered in oil in the Gulf waters. He was captured on video saying that the turtles are being collected in the clean-up efforts and burned up like so much ocean debris with other marine life gathering along tide lines where oil also congregates.

He witnessed BP workers burning turtles caught in the oil booms. Rescue efforts are being ended tomorrow.

STRP’s Gulf Director Carole Allen responded to the news by saying “The burning of boom and oil when even one sea turtle was seen in the water is a despicable crime.”

Full Story: Sea Turtle Restoration Project : BP Blocks Attempt to Save Endangered Sea Turtles from Oil Spill.

Kucinich: What if the BP Gusher in the Gulf is Unstoppable?

Kucinich Addresses the Floor regarding the BP oil spill

Climate Change : Ten Times Faster than Predicted

It takes 196,000 pounds of plants to produce a gallon of gasoline. It takes 40 acres of plants, roots, stalks, and leaves, to go 20 miles in the average car. This is how much ancient plant matter had to be buried millions of years ago to produce one gallon of gas. It is just incredible how much buried sunshine, how many fossilized photons it takes to make up a little bit of oil.

Dr. Jeff Dukes published the paper from which these numbers are taken back in 2003 in the journal Climatic Change. This ancient solar energy is normally emitted back into the environment over tens, or even hundreds of millions of years. Mankind is literally releasing this carbon millions of times faster than it is naturally released.

Since 1983 Dr. James Hansen has been the Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). GISS is the United States’ foremost climate modeling agency. Hansen, who National Public Radio suggests is “almost universally regarded as the preeminent climate scientist of our time,” says that mankind is causing the carbon dioxide concentration in our atmosphere to increase 10,000 times faster than at any time in the last 65 million years — since the giant asteroid struck the Yucatan Peninsula and the dinosaurs went extinct

Full Story: The Rag Blog: Climate Change : Ten Times Faster than Predicted.

Is Using Dispersants on the BP Gulf Oil Spill Fighting Pollution with Pollution?

Scientific American:  “…massive, uncontrolled experiment being run in the Gulf of Mexico…”

It remains unclear what impact chemical dispersants will have on sea life–and only the massive, uncontrolled experiment being run in the Gulf of Mexico will tell

Roughly five million liters of dispersants have now been used to break up the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, making this the largest use of such chemicals in U.S. history. If it continues for 10 months, as long as Mexico’s Ixtoc 1 blowout in 1979 in the same region, the Macondo well disaster has a good chance of achieving the largest global use of these chemicals, surpassing 10 million liters.

And there is no doubt that dispersants are toxic: Both types of the dispersal compound COREXIT used in the Gulf so far are capable of killing or depressing the growth of a wide range of aquatic species, ranging from phytoplankton to fish. “It’s a trade-off decision to lessen the overall environmental impact,” explained marine biologist Jane Lubchenco, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), at a press conference on May 12. “When an oil spill occurs, there are no good outcomes.”

The trade-off in this case is the addition of toxic chemicals in a bid to protect the marshes of Louisiana and the beaches of Florida. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for one, has become concerned about the toxicity of the most-used dispersant at the Gulf of Mexico spill—COREXIT 9500—and ordered BP to look at alternatives. (COREXIT 9527 was used earlier during the spill, but it was discontinued because it was considered too toxic.)

Full Story: Is Using Dispersants on the BP Gulf Oil Spill Fighting Pollution with Pollution?: Scientific American.

BP’s Secret Army Of Oil Disaster Contractors

The true story of the BP disaster is how private contractors, not the government, are handling the response. Of the 25,000 people responding to the greatest environmental catastrophe in the history of the nation, 21,000 are under contract to the foreign oil giant BP. This private army includes workers shipped in from California making $10 an hour to clean the beaches, ex-military public relations experts, and submarine robotics companies. There are no contractors working directly for the government. The Center for American Progress — like many other outside observers — recommends that the government take over operational control from BP, to resolve conflicts of interest between the foreign corporation’s shareholders and public health and safety.

BP has been notoriously secretive about the network of companies working to run practically every aspect of the Deepwater Horizon response, including claims processing, hazardous material cleanup, boom deployment, scientific monitoring, and call centers. BP has ignored the state of Louisiana’s request on May 7 for a list of contractors and subcontractors.

On June 3, the Wonk Room called the Unified Command number and talked with USCG officer Rachel Polish, who told me that BP would have to answer my questions. Later that day, a BP subcontractor contacted this reporter, but would only identify himself as “Les.” On June 4, the Wonk Room asked National Incident Commander Thad Allen in the daily briefing for a list of contractors, which he promised to address. USCG officer J. R. Hoeft followed up by email to say he would start working on it.

Full Story: Wonk Room » BP’s Secret Army Of Oil Disaster Contractors.

Army Corps of Engineers Suspends Nationwide Permit for Mountaintop Removal Mining

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers today suspended the use of a fast-track nationwide permit, Nationwide Permit 21, for mountaintop removal mining operations in the six states of the Appalachian region.

Now, proposed surface coal mining projects that involve discharges of dredged or fill material into waters of the United States will have to go through the individual permit process to obtain Department of the Army authorization under the Clean Water Act.

The individual permit evaluation procedure provides increased public involvement in the permit evaluation process, including an opportunity for public comment on individual projects.

Full Story: Army Corps of Engineers Suspends Nationwide Permit for Mountaintop Removal Mining.

Kevin Costner’s oil-water separation machines help with clean-up

The devices, developed with a team including his scientist brother, leave water 99% free of crude

As Robin Hood, Kevin Costner stole from the rich to give to the poor. As an unnamed, be-gilled seafarer in Waterworld, he fought with outlaw “smokers” for a greater cause.

The actor’s latest role, as saviour of the Gulf of Mexico, goes some way towards combining the two, after his oil-water separation machines, in which he has personally invested $20m (£13.5m), were contracted by BP to help in the Gulf clear-up effort.

The 32 centrifuge machines, which a Costner-funded team of scientists have spent the past 15 years developing, are to be deployed to help tackle the spill, now believed to be gushing 40,000 barrels a day into the Gulf.

Full Story: BP oil spill: Kevin Costner’s oil-water separation machines help with clean-up | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

Oil Spill on Track to Reach Atlantic No Later Than October

Oil gushing from the Deepwater Horizon site in the Gulf of Mexico will reach the Atlantic Ocean within six months, says oceanographer Synte Peacock. Exactly when is all down to an eddy that broke off of the infamous Loop Current southwest of Florida on June 12.

Peacock, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, usually studies how the ocean’s water absorbs atmospheric gases. But after the Deepwater Horizon platform exploded April 20, she realized her computer models could be used to follow where the oil gushing from the seafloor might end up.

Her simulations, announced in a press release June 3, made headlines worldwide. No surprise: The simulations suggested that, once the oil became caught up in the Loop Current, it would be funneled into the Atlantic within weeks.

Talking with reporters at NCAR on June 14, Peacock explained how some news outlets misrepresented her work by glossing over a few major caveats. Most important, the work simulated the movement of dye (not viscous oil) injected in the upper layers of the ocean (not the deep seafloor) for a total of two months (not the ongoing no-end-in-sight disaster).

Full Story: Oil Spill on Track to Reach Atlantic No Later Than October | Wired Science | Wired.com.

How the ultimate BP Gulf disaster could kill millions

Warnings were raised  a year ago that the area of seabed chosen by the BP geologists might be unstable, or worse, inherently dangerous.

—–

Disturbing evidence is mounting that something frightening is happening deep under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico—something far worse than the BP oil gusher.

Warnings were raised as long as a year before the Deepwater Horizon disaster that the area of seabed chosen by the BP geologists might be unstable, or worse, inherently dangerous.

What makes the location that Transocean chose potentially far riskier than other potential oil deposits located at other regions of the Gulf? It can be summed up with two words: methane gas.

Full Story: How the ultimate BP Gulf disaster could kill millions – by Terrence Aym – Helium.

OPS:  Additional Info: History Channel Mega Disasters – Methane Explosion (6 min video)

Did the BP Oil Well Really Blow Out in February, Instead of April?

The Deepwater Horizon blew up on April 20th, and sank a couple of days later. BP has been criticized for failing to report on the seriousness of the blow out for several weeks.

However, as a whistleblower previously told 60 Minutes, there was an accident at the rig a month or more prior to the April 20th explosion:

[Mike Williams, the chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon, and one of the last workers to leave the doomed rig] said they were told it would take 21 days; according to him, it actually took six weeks.

With the schedule slipping, Williams says a BP manager ordered a faster pace.

“And he requested to the driller, ‘Hey, let’s bump it up. Let’s bump it up.’ And what he was talking about there is he’s bumping up the rate of penetration. How fast the drill bit is going down,” Williams said.

Washington’s Blog.

Sea creatures flee oil spill, gather near shore

Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water just off the Florida coast. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again.

Marine scientists studying the effects of the BP disaster are seeing some strange phenomena.

Fish and other wildlife seem to be fleeing the oil out in the Gulf and clustering in cleaner waters along the coast in a trend that some researchers see as a potentially troubling sign.

The animals' presence close to shore means their usual habitat is badly polluted, and the crowding could result in mass die-offs as fish run out of oxygen. Also, the animals could easily get devoured by predators.

“A parallel would be: Why are the wildlife running to the edge of a forest on fire? There will be a lot of fish, sharks, turtles trying to get out of this water they detect is not suitable,” said Larry Crowder, a Duke University marine biologist.

Full Story: The Associated Press: Sea creatures flee oil spill, gather near shore.