'Not for public': the oil spill may be getting much worse

[hanshan]

When "Czar" is attached to an English word by your government, it should be translated, "We're fucking with you in the ass about _________, but we want you to think we're actually helping you."

It's the stupidest moniker an English speaking country's government can name a figurehead of some unpopular bureaucracy. It has the Z in there. It makes it sound more forceful, only something a ruff n tuff Russian would do. What the fuck ever bomster. Seize the the fucking company and all and mean ALL assets, put the Army Corps on it, nobody gets paid anything until this shit is stopped and never in a million years -- cleaned up. We don't need a fucking "czar". Why not trot out the "drug czar" to tell us they'll be administering benzos, alcohol and muscle relaxants to all Americans so we can drift off silently in the night as we dig up lithium and spill blood in Afghanistan? He is the drug czar. Give us the drugs. I really didn't think this place could get anymore dysfunctional.

President Dwayne Alesandro Mt. Dew Camacho coming up. Mike Judge had it right, as I all along suspected.

Drug Czar? Believe that goes back to Nixon. W/ a follow-up by Reagan. That should tell you
somthin'.

BP: Ship fire halts oil capture from well in Gulf

June 15, 2010

NEW ORLEANS—A bolt of lightning struck the ship capturing oil from a blown-out BP well in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, igniting a fire that halted containment efforts in another setback for the embattled company in its nearly two-month struggle to stop the spill, the company said.

When I first heard that on the radio today, I actually started laughing! I mean, come the fuck on.

yup - hilarious

Ninakat, saw the Costner on A Cooper as well. Lets hope... fyi, Anderson Cooper is going to have Garlan Robinette (local radio guy from WWL) on tonight.
Nunguesser I think will appear again as well.

Re: the oil in Barataria Bay, this is very important. THE OIL IS SINKING. That is- the oil has penetrated the bay, but you cannot see a lot of it. Reporters went there with locals and ran their hands along the bottom. Its all oiled up. Barataria Bay is a major inlet /nursery for shrimp, fish, etc.. It was pretty messed up, and the water on top was clear. This concoction is a subsurface fog of death. Its killing the marsh grass and will stick all over the bottom.

=====


Gov. Bobby Jindal on Gulf of Mexico oil spill: 'We are not winning this war'
After viewing the thick, black crude oil seeping into the state's precious marshes, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Tuesday said that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is a war to save "our way of life."
And at this moment, he added, "We are not winning this war."
After viewing the thick, black crude oil seeping into the state's precious marshes, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Tuesday said that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is a war to save "our way of life."
And at this moment, he added, "We are not winning this war."
Damage has already been done to the water system, said Jindal: "We saw dead crabs, dead fish."
A total of nine barges have been deployed, Jindal said, and another seven are due to join them over the next 24 hours. The vacuums atop the barges have to date picked up 10,350 gallons of oil, said Jindal.
"That should not be the first line of defense," he said. "It should be the fourth or fifth line of defense."
Camardelle pleaded with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to approve his permit requests to begin placing $8 million worth of rocks to begin filling in the five passes around Barataria Bay, including Pass Abel.
"I'm getting the rocks this Saturday," said Camardelle, showing reporters a map of the bay. To place rock in all five passes will cost $30 million, a bill that British Petroleum will pay, he said.
Camardelle said he was dismayed to hear permitting agencies question his plans during such an emergency.
"Leave the bull---- out and let's go to work and protect our people," Camardelle said, responding to fears that the rock will hurt wildlife or permanently block Pass Abel. "They ought to see the eyes of a pelican that is gasping for air and full of oil. This pass has been here before God. We swam across this in high school."

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill ... _mars.html

======

Did you guys see Joseph Cao tell the BP CEO to commit suicide?
How about the story about how US SENATOR David Vitter tried to go with a camera crew to document and they were DENIED entry?

Oh, but the story de jour ? It has to be this one...

Nungesser says BP workers broke eggs, crushed chicks in cleanup

by WWLTV.com
wwltv.com
Posted on June 15, 2010 at 3:29 PM
Updated today at 3:36 PM
PLAQUEMINES, La. -- A Plaquemines Parish cleanup crew discovered broken eggs and crushed chicks on Queen Bess Island on Tuesday, and parish leaders are blaming BP workers cleaning up the oil spill for the damage.
“The people BP sent out to clean up oil trampled the nesting grounds of Brown Pelicans and other birds," said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser.
A parish spokesman said plastic bags containing snare boom found by the Plaquemines Parish Inland Waterways Strike Force were "recklessly placed without consideration for the natural wildlife on the island."
"Pelicans just came off the endangered species list in November of last year. They already have the oil affecting their population during their reproduction time, now we have the so called clean up crews stomping eggs," Nungesser said.
Nungesser called for a more pro-active approach for rescuing wildlife affected by the oil. He wants the Humane Society to come up with a better way to enlist the help of volunteers, saying dozens should be brought in from across the country to help save the wildlife.
"The lack of urgency and general disregard for Louisiana’s wetlands and wildlife is enough to make you sick," Nungesser said.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., and Wayne Pacelle of the U.S. Humane Society joined Nungesser on the trip.




http://www.wwltv.com/news/gulf-oil-spil ... 12644.html

[2012 Countdown]

I can't say I'd let the incompetent clowns in the Army Corps anywhere near this.

I don't think I've ever posted this, but - Levees.Org has been great on this
The Katrina Myth; the Truth about a thoroughly unnatural disaster
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wln_iq5b ... r_embedded
Few people understand what really happened in New Orleans or what caused it. Fewer still realize that they too may be living under a similar or an even greater threat. This video exposes the key myths and misunderstandings about the New Orleans flood.

The Facts
Fact 1
The flooding of New Orleans and nearby St. Bernard parish was a civil engineering disaster, not a weather event. According to a 2007 study by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the majority of the damage from the flooding is due to the levees failing (page 39). “The failure of the levees was the worst engineering disaster in the world since Chernobyl” says Dr. Ray Seed, Geotechnical Engineering, University of California Berkeley.

Fact 2
Responsibility for the design and construction of the flood protection in metro New Orleans belongs solely to the US Army Corps of Engineers as mandated in the Flood Control of 1965.

Fact 3
To look to Congress and the Army Corps to fix what it broke does not reflect on the last administration. The failure of the federally engineered levees was 40 years in the making. The Army Corps squandered hundreds of millions of dollars on a levee system they knew by their own calculations was inadequate.

Fact 4
More than 98% (ninety-eight percent) of the US Army Corps of Engineers are civilian employees. Thus to look to the Army Corps and Congress to fix what it broke does not disparage our young soldiers fighting in foreign wars.

http://levees.org/

===

The LSU professor who exposed the Corps has been SILENCED.

Re: "LSU ousts professor critical of corps, " Page 1, April 10, 2010. Coastal protection and restoration, hurricane preparedness and the accurate provision of hurricane surge information in advance of storms have all suffered a death blow with LSU's cowardly firing of Professor Ivor van Heerden.

I was part of the defense team that represented Sal and Mabel Mangano in the ill-advised St. Rita's Nursing Home prosecution, a case which should never have been brought by former Attorney General Charles Foti.
We approached Professor van Heerden to testify as a defense witness in that case. He initially resisted our efforts to have him testify. He told me that he was afraid for his job and that LSU was attempting to silence him. He had a family to support and could not afford to lose his job. We subpoenaed Professor van Heerden, compelling his testimony.
The professor told the truth on the witness stand as he wrote the truth in his book. That truth is something every Louisianian should know -- that the United States government, the Corps of Engineers in particular, is solely at fault for the death and destructive flooding that destroyed New Orleans and much of South East Louisiana.
Speaking truth to power always carries with it great risk. Professor van Heerden has now paid the price for being truthful, smart, competent and an outspoken advocate for the protection of Louisiana's coast and its citizens.
LSU should be ashamed of itself. Its arbitrary and capricious actions have made all of us less safe as we approach yet another hurricane season.
Academic freedom and intellectual integrity are, at LSU, like two distant cousins who haven't spoken to each other in many, many years.
Flagship university? Please.
James A. Cobb Jr.
Attorney and Professor of Law
Tulane University
New Orleans

http://blog.nola.com/letterstotheeditor ... _scie.html

====

You cannot sue them, and even if you try to tell the truth, you get destroyed.

[Jeff]

[Laodicean]

Carter: "The malaise speech", Obama: "The oil spill Hail Mary prayer speech"

[DoYouEverWonder]

Unfortunately, the best they can do now is to stop these futile attempts to clean up this mess hitting the coastline until the gusher is stopped. Picking up tarballs isn't going to get us anywhere and lot's of people will needlessly be made seriously ill by this.

If they can stop or start to capture most of the oil, then let the stuff on the beaches sit for a few weeks to outgas and it won't be as bad for the people trying to clean this up.

What they really need is every skimmer they can get their hands on to create a barrier in front of the coastline to catch the oil before it hits the beaches. This is nasty and dangerous work and the people working the skimmers should have to wear protective gear. But cleaning up birds and picking up tarballs isn't worth killing yourself for. In the meantime, the surfers need to find another hobby.

[Jeff]

U.S. significantly increases flow estimate of BP spill

June 15 (Reuters) - A team of U.S. scientists significantly increased its estimate of how much oil is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from BP's blown-out well on Tuesday.

The team said the "most likely flow rate of oil today" ranges from 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day.

That's a jump from last week's revision upward to 20,000 to 40,000 barrels per day. (Reporting by Kristen Hays; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSWEN593520100615

Scientists: Oil leaking up to 2.52M gallons daily

By RAY HENRY, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Scientists provided a new estimate for the amount of oil gushing from the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday that indicates it could be leaking up to 2.52 million gallons of crude a day.

A government panel of scientists said that the ruptured well is leaking between 1.47 million and 2.52 million gallons of oil daily. The figures move the government's worst-case estimates more in line with what an independent team had previously thought was the maximum size of the spill.

"This estimate brings together several scientific methodologies and the latest information from the sea floor, and represents a significant step forward in our effort to put a number on the oil that is escaping from BP's well," Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... .DTL&tsp=1


57 days x 2 million gallons (let's be modest) = 114 million, which would rank it the third worst oil "spill" in terms of total volume. Another two weeks and it will surpass Ixtoc 1, which took nearly a year to discharge as much.

[Nordic]

Yeah, and the only reason they "revised" the number is because BP is expected to soon be scooping up 50K barrels a day. Now how would they do that from a gusher that's gushing far less barrels per day than that?

They've all lied to us from the get go. And they continue to.

Meanwhile the seafloor is broken and apparently the truth is that there's an enormous lake of oil sitting down there under the surface that nobody wants to talk about.

[82_28]

Just watched Letterman with Katie Couric a couple of minutes ago. He had her on the whole show and nothing but the oil spill was talked about. Letterman, for a rich celebrity, seems pissed and hates other rich assholes. Couric seems extremely concerned. Honestly, their conversation seemed very real and honest. I was quite surprised, though I have liked Letterman all my life.

[American Dream]

Closing BP's Escape Routes

By Robert Weissman
June 15, 2010


BP generates enough cash to absorb its liabilities from the oil gusher
in the Gulf of Mexico.

But that doesn't mean it will.

One of the benefits of the corporate form is that it gives giant
corporations the ability to escape liability. BP may or may not choose
to capitalize on such escapes, but it would be foolish to presume that
it won't. That's why President Obama's call for the company to establish
a $20 billion escrow account is such a positive and needed -- if still
inadequate -- step.

Consider first the liabilities that BP may face. No one really knows
what the damage from the oil gusher or the overall costs to BP may
ultimately be. Some analysts are now throwing around numbers of $70
billion on the upper end -- but it's not hard to see how the ultimate
cost to BP could rise even higher.

The company faces civil fines of up to $3,000 per barrel of oil
polluting the ocean. If the gusher lasts for four months at 40,000
barrels a day, the fine alone could hit $14 billion. If it is found that
the actual oil flow is double that level, the fine could potentially
approach $30 billion -- more, if the gusher lasts for more than four
months.

Beyond the payments the company is making, it is going to face massive
lawsuits, with damages surely in the billions and quite possibly in the
tens of billions. On top of that, it may face a massive punitive damage
award. Exxon challenged a punitive damages award of $10 billion in the
Valdez case, and succeeded through appeals in dragging out payment for
20 years and lowering the amount to $500 million. But that was $500
million on top of compensatory damages of $500 million.

On top of all this, BP's brand -- just a couple months ago, the most
valued among oil companies -- is now ruined.

Still, as hard as it is to conceptualize, BP can afford to pay $70
billion. The company made $14 billion in profits in 2009, a bad year.
Before the Gulf disaster, it was on track to make much more in 2010.

BP may be able to pay $70 billion, but it surely doesn't want to. Even
as the company pledges again and again to cover all "legitimate" claims,
you can be sure that its attorneys are conjuring a variety of maneuvers
to avoid paying. Here are five approaches they must be considering:

1. The AH Robins/Dalkon Shield Bankruptcy Scam

A.H. Robins, the manufacturer of the defective Dalkon Shield
intrauterine device, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1985. Women who
were victims of the dangerous device received less compensation than
they otherwise would have. Meanwhile, with the company's otherwise
open-ended liability demarcated in the bankruptcy process, Robins' value
shot up. AHP (now part of Wyeth, itself now part of Pfizer) acquired the
company at a premium, with the Robins family making off with hundreds of
millions of dollars.

BP wouldn't follow the Robins' model exactly. The play for BP would not
be to declare bankruptcy for the parent company, but for BP America or
another subsidiary that could be tagged with the liability for the Gulf
of Mexico gusher.

In advance of such a move, BP might try to move assets out of the
designated subsidiary and into other subsidiaries in its vast network.
Such asset shifting is not permissible, and creditors would challenge
any such moves, if they could discover them. But using its labyrinthian
structure, BP might hope to evade the creditors.

Even without the asset shifting effort, bankruptcy for an affiliate
could prove attractive for BP.

2. The Union Carbide Disappearance

Union Carbide was the company responsible for the world's worst
industrial disaster. A gas escape from its chemical facility in Bhopal,
India killed many thousands (likely tens of thousands) and severely
injured tens of thousands more. After settling for a paltry amount with
the Indian government, Union Carbide disappeared as a standalone
company. It is now a subsidiary of Dow Chemical.

Says Dow: "Dow has no responsibility for Bhopal." Moreover, "the former
Bhopal plant was owned and operated by Union Carbide India, Ltd. (UCIL),
an Indian company, with shared ownership by Union Carbide Corporation,
the Indian government, and private investors. Union Carbide sold its
shares in UCIL in 1994, and UCIL was renamed Eveready Industries India,
Ltd., which remains a significant Indian company today."

BP might conceivably be acquired by another oil major. Or, more likely,
it might just sell some or all of its U.S. subsidiaries. If the
liability cap in the Oil Pollution Act works to protect BP from legally
recoverable claims (perhaps less likely than has been reported, since
the cap does not apply to a spill caused by violation of applicable
federal rules), an acquiring company could simply state that it refuses
to make good on the liabilities that BP now says it will voluntarily
accept. A new company would also benefit from operating BP assets with a
new, uninjured brand name.

3. The Shell Company Game

A variant on the Union Carbide Disappearance gambit would involve
selling one or more subsidiaries' assets, but leaving the current
corporate structure in place. Liability would still attach to the old
subsidiaries, but it would be devoid of assets to pay -- if BP could
find a way to move the cash it received for selling assets out of the
subsidiary and out of reach of creditors.

Again, such a move should not be legal. But it would be a mistake to
assume that formal legal rules provide guarantees when billions or tens
of billions of dollars are at stake for a giant, global multinational.

4. The Exxon Hardball Approach

BP's lawyers are undoubtedly considering other, more straightforward
approaches to limit the company's liability.

Under the Exxon Hardball approach, BP would follow its oil company
brethren's approach to the Valdez spill. Drag out compensation payments.
Challenge adverse legal rulings. Rely on a corporate-friendly judiciary
to overturn or scale back any large scale jury verdicts or
government-proposed fines.

5. The Big Tobacco Global Deal

Another approach might be for BP to offer a "global settlement" of all
claims arising from the Gulf Oil gusher. This would follow the precedent
of Big Tobacco, which in 1997 offered to put hundreds of billions of
dollars on the table, and accept some regulatory restraints, to settle
lawsuits for its past misconduct and effectively preclude new
litigation. (This deal was ultimately scuttled.) For BP, the play would
be to put a "shock and awe" amount of money on the table to resolve all
claims and penalties. Its aim would be to eliminate the prospect of
getting hit with outsized punitive damages or fines, and escaping
payment for ecological damage that may not be apparent for many years
--amounts that might vastly exceed what BP pays.

Against this panoply of available maneuvers, public officials have
limited options. The Obama administration is finally doing the right
thing in first, talking about the danger of BP draining company assets
via dividend payments, and, second, demanding the establishment of an
escrow fund. Calling attention to abusive corporate stratagems not yet
underway is one of the best ways to prevent their deployment. And an
escrow fund would establish a guaranteed pool of available money for
victims -- establishing the fund apart from BP's control is at least as
important as ensuring fair and independent handling of victims' claims.

What this and future administrations also need is a way to exert
control over companies facing environmental or other liabilities of the
scale now facing BP -- a kind of receivership to prevent manipulations
of the corporate form to enable corporate goliaths to escape liability.


Forcing corporations to pay for the damage they cause is not sufficient
to prevent them from recklessly endangering people and the planet, but
it is certainly necessary. Permitting them to avoid liability and foist
costs on to others is to ensure more and worse corporate catastrophes.


Robert Weissman is president of Public Citizen, <www.citizen.org>,
which is calling for a BP Boycott <www.beyondbp.org>.



This article is posted at:
<http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2010/000336.html>.

[DoYouEverWonder]

A month after the spill, U.S. to receive foreign aid

June 16. 2010

Four weeks after the nation's worst environmental disaster, the Obama administration saw no need to accept offers of state-of-the-art skimmers, miles of boom or technical assistance from nations around the globe with experience fighting oil spills.

"We'll let BP decide on what expertise they do need," State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid told reporters on May 19. "We are keeping an eye on what supplies we do need. And as we see that our supplies are running low, it may be at that point in time to accept offers from particular governments."

That time has come.

In the past week, the United States submitted its second request to the European Union for any specialized equipment to contain the oil now seeping onto the Gulf of Mexico's marshes and beaches, and it accepted Canada's offer of 9,842 feet of boom. The government is soliciting additional boom and skimmers from nearly two dozen countries and international organizations worldwide.

In late May, the administration accepted Mexico's offer of two skimmers and 13,779 feet of boom; a Dutch offer of three sets of Koseq sweeping arms, which attach to the sides of ships and gather oil; and eight skimming systems offered by Norway.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the United States has received 21 aid offers from 17 countries and four international groups. But some lawmakers and outside experts are questioning whether the administration has been too slow to capitalize on these offers, lulled by BP's estimates on the oil-flow rate and on its capacity to cope with the aftermath of the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig.

"We're clearly behind the curve because BP did not have the game plan to deal with this spill," said Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., who visited Louisiana on Friday.

Sen. George LeMieux and Rep. Jeff Miller want President Obama to waive a law they say is keeping foreign oil skimmers out of the Gulf of Mexico.

The Florida Republicans sent a letter to Obama on Monday and plan to discuss the issue with him Tuesday during the president's visit to Pensacola to assess the BP oil spill in the gulf.

The federal maritime administrator in emergencies can waive the Jones Act that bars foreign ships from carrying cargo and passengers between U.S. ports.

Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, who also was in Pensacola on Monday, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has assured him skimmers from the Netherlands and other European counties are on their way.

The State Department sent letters to some U.S. allies two weeks after the accident, and the Coast Guard initially sought to assess what supplies might be available overseas, but the administration's public posture on aid has been inconsistent. On May 5, Crowley announced that 13 international offers had been received and that decisions on what to accept would be made "in the next day or two." Two weeks later, the State Department said the government saw no reason to accept any of them.

"The coordination on this side of the ocean was not completely clear," said Floris van Hovell, press counselor for the Dutch Embassy in Washington, adding that when a Dutch official was seeking to broker an aid agreement last month, "it was for a long time unclear on where he should go to, and who should take the decision."

According to government sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the matter, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appealed to the White House several weeks ago, suggesting that it needed some foreign aid for practical and diplomatic reasons.

In some cases, the administration rejected offers because they failed to meet U.S. specifications: the private Norwegian consortium that serves as that nation's spill-response team uses a chemical dispersant that the Environmental Protection Agency has not approved.

In other cases, domestic politics are at play. Dutch authorities have worked in Louisiana since Katrina hit and were among the first to offer to help. After some hesitation, BP has obtained the state-of-the-art Dutch skimmers, two of which are in operation. Meanwhile, a massive sand-dredging operation is moving slowly.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's plan to create sand berms to keep oil from reaching the coastline originally came from the marine contractor Van Oord and the research institute Deltares, both in the Netherlands. BP pledged $360 million for the plan, but U.S. dredging companies — which have less than one-fifth of the capacity of Dutch dredging firms — have objected to foreign companies' participation.

Garret Graves, who chairs Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, wrote in an e-mail that state officials "have made it clear to our contractors from the beginning that we want to use American dredges to complete this sand berm as quickly as possible. ... Ultimately, any effort to expedite these berms will be fully considered, but we remain committed to our American companies."

In the meantime, governments around the world are mobilizing help. In addition to boom, Canada has dispatched an aircraft for surveillance flights as well as several technical experts. Japan is still offering to send boom; the Swedish Coast Guard said it can send three ships that can each collect 370 barrels of oil an hour, but it is waiting to hear from the U.S. government or BP.

The Norwegian Coastal Authority has approved sending nearly a third of the nation's spill-response equipment to the gulf if asked.

"We want to help the U.S. with whatever they need," said Espen Myhra, energy counselor at the Norwegian Embassy. "But of course, it's up to the U.S. and BP to decide what they need, and we will respond to that."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2012118082_oilforeign15.html

[hanshan]

A month after the spill, U.S. to receive foreign aid

June 16. 2010

Four weeks after the nation's worst environmental disaster, the Obama administration saw no need to accept offers of state-of-the-art skimmers, miles of boom or technical assistance from nations around the globe with experience fighting oil spills.

"We'll let BP decide on what expertise they do need," State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid told reporters on May 19. "We are keeping an eye on what supplies we do need. And as we see that our supplies are running low, it may be at that point in time to accept offers from particular governments."

That time has come.

In the past week, the United States submitted its second request to the European Union for any specialized equipment to contain the oil now seeping onto the Gulf of Mexico's marshes and beaches, and it accepted Canada's offer of 9,842 feet of boom. The government is soliciting additional boom and skimmers from nearly two dozen countries and international organizations worldwide.

In late May, the administration accepted Mexico's offer of two skimmers and 13,779 feet of boom; a Dutch offer of three sets of Koseq sweeping arms, which attach to the sides of ships and gather oil; and eight skimming systems offered by Norway.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the United States has received 21 aid offers from 17 countries and four international groups. But some lawmakers and outside experts are questioning whether the administration has been too slow to capitalize on these offers, lulled by BP's estimates on the oil-flow rate and on its capacity to cope with the aftermath of the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig.

"We're clearly behind the curve because BP did not have the game plan to deal with this spill," said Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., who visited Louisiana on Friday.

Sen. George LeMieux and Rep. Jeff Miller want President Obama to waive a law they say is keeping foreign oil skimmers out of the Gulf of Mexico.

The Florida Republicans sent a letter to Obama on Monday and plan to discuss the issue with him Tuesday during the president's visit to Pensacola to assess the BP oil spill in the gulf.

The federal maritime administrator in emergencies can waive the Jones Act that bars foreign ships from carrying cargo and passengers between U.S. ports.

Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, who also was in Pensacola on Monday, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has assured him skimmers from the Netherlands and other European counties are on their way.

The State Department sent letters to some U.S. allies two weeks after the accident, and the Coast Guard initially sought to assess what supplies might be available overseas, but the administration's public posture on aid has been inconsistent. On May 5, Crowley announced that 13 international offers had been received and that decisions on what to accept would be made "in the next day or two." Two weeks later, the State Department said the government saw no reason to accept any of them.

"The coordination on this side of the ocean was not completely clear," said Floris van Hovell, press counselor for the Dutch Embassy in Washington, adding that when a Dutch official was seeking to broker an aid agreement last month, "it was for a long time unclear on where he should go to, and who should take the decision."

According to government sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the matter, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appealed to the White House several weeks ago, suggesting that it needed some foreign aid for practical and diplomatic reasons.

In some cases, the administration rejected offers because they failed to meet U.S. specifications: the private Norwegian consortium that serves as that nation's spill-response team uses a chemical dispersant that the Environmental Protection Agency has not approved.

In other cases, domestic politics are at play. Dutch authorities have worked in Louisiana since Katrina hit and were among the first to offer to help. After some hesitation, BP has obtained the state-of-the-art Dutch skimmers, two of which are in operation. Meanwhile, a massive sand-dredging operation is moving slowly.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's plan to create sand berms to keep oil from reaching the coastline originally came from the marine contractor Van Oord and the research institute Deltares, both in the Netherlands. BP pledged $360 million for the plan, but U.S. dredging companies — which have less than one-fifth of the capacity of Dutch dredging firms — have objected to foreign companies' participation.

Garret Graves, who chairs Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, wrote in an e-mail that state officials "have made it clear to our contractors from the beginning that we want to use American dredges to complete this sand berm as quickly as possible. ... Ultimately, any effort to expedite these berms will be fully considered, but we remain committed to our American companies."

In the meantime, governments around the world are mobilizing help. In addition to boom, Canada has dispatched an aircraft for surveillance flights as well as several technical experts. Japan is still offering to send boom; the Swedish Coast Guard said it can send three ships that can each collect 370 barrels of oil an hour, but it is waiting to hear from the U.S. government or BP.

The Norwegian Coastal Authority has approved sending nearly a third of the nation's spill-response equipment to the gulf if asked.

"We want to help the U.S. with whatever they need," said Espen Myhra, energy counselor at the Norwegian Embassy. "But of course, it's up to the U.S. and BP to decide what they need, and we will respond to that."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2012118082_oilforeign15.html

there are a lot of criminals in this toxic soup & profound incompetence


...

[seemslikeadream]

R.C. Hoagland - Oil spill Disaster & Hayabusa's Return part 3/3

[Julia W]

Yeah, and the only reason they "revised" the number is because BP is expected to soon be scooping up 50K barrels a day. Now how would they do that from a gusher that's gushing far less barrels per day than that?

They've all lied to us from the get go. And they continue to.

Meanwhile the seafloor is broken and apparently the truth is that there's an enormous lake of oil sitting down there under the surface that nobody wants to talk about.

With regards to them capturing 90% of the leaking oil (per Obama's speech last night).

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... Yi1ELsOCJo

BP Suspends Recovery of Gulf Oil After Ship Fire (Update2) Share Business ExchangeTwitterFacebook| Email | Print | A A A
By Jim Polson

June 15 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc said it temporarily stopped collecting oil from its leaking well off Louisiana after a fire aboard the collecting vessel, allowing petroleum to again spill unhindered into the Gulf of Mexico.

There was no damage as a result of the fire, which was put out “within a few minutes,” said Robert Wine, a BP spokesman. Oil recovery was shut down as a precaution at about 10:30 a.m. New York time and is expected to resume today after equipment inspection and safety checks, Wine said.

The fire atop the derrick of the drillship Discoverer Enterprise may have been caused by lightning, London-based BP said today in an e-mailed statement. The company said there were no injuries. The National Weather Service had forecast isolated thunderstorms in the area.

“It’s just going to be an interruption,” said Bruce Lanni, a portfolio strategist at Nollenberger Capital Partners Inc. in San Francisco, which manages $1.2 billion. Lanni said he and the company own BP shares. “They are going to obviously adhere to all of the inspections to make sure that they don’t get caught up in an issue on this one, too.”

The drillship had been collecting about 15,000 barrels a day from the well for the past week, and today’s recovery rate will fall an undetermined amount as a result of the shutdown, Wine said. The drillship is capturing oil from a well that began leaking after an April 20 explosion and fire aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf.

Burning Oil

“If that is not bad luck, I don’t know what is,” Fadel Gheit, an analyst with Oppenheimer & Co. in New York, said of the lightning strike. Gheit rates the shares as outperform.

The fire today occurred as crew prepared to begin collecting oil and gas aboard a second vessel, a step aimed at reducing the amount of oil spilling into the Gulf. The rig has been customized to burn all the oil and gas it gathers.

Operations may begin today on the floating rig Q4000, expected to increase the oil-capture capacity more than 50 percent to 28,000 barrels a day, Wine said. The rig wasn’t collecting oil when the Discoverer Enterprise stopped, he said.

A government panel estimated the well was leaking 20,000 barrels to 40,000 barrels a day before the company cut off a kinked pipe on June 3, potentially increasing the flow rate.

The U.S. Coast Guard asked BP to arrange sufficient collection equipment to capture all the oil, and provide back-up systems in the event of a breakdown. The company submitted a plan on June 13 saying it aims to collect as much as 53,000 barrels a day by June 30 and 80,000 barrels a day in mid-July.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Polson in New York at jpolson@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 15, 2010 16:01 EDT

They do seem to be raising recovery rates...

53,000 barrels a day by June 30 and 80,000 barrels a day in mid-July

hmmm...

Summary of "official" leak estimates that have been made public to date:
Initial: 1,000 barrels per day
Next: 5,000 barrels per day
Next: 12,000 to 19,000 barrels per day
As of last week: 20,000 to 40,000 barrels per day
As of yesterday 6/15/2010: 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day

Exxon Valdez spilled approximately 257,000 barrels of the 1,264,155 barrels it was carrying, according to this http://www.evostc.state.ak.us/facts/qanda.cfm

Here's a list of the largest oil spills http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_spills ... oil_spills

Some (Matt Simmons and others, I'm worried they're right) believe its more like 120,000 barrels per day.

120,000 x 57 days = 6,840,000 barrels so far??? That's past the Ixtoc one at around 3,500,000 barrels over a period of ten months, we're almost at the 2 month mark and "The so-called relief well being drilled to intercept and plug the damaged well by mid-August might miss -- as other emergency wells have done before -- requiring more time to make a second, third or fourth try, Dave Rensink, President Elect of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, said." http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... fFTgqayIKY

If 6,840,000 barrels every 2 months, by Christmas that be around 27 million barrels, ~100 times the exxon valdez, ~8 times the Ixtoc...
But the relief wells may not work at all, especially if what Matt Simmons and others are saying (thats there's no casing, its leaking in more than one place, from under the sea floor) is true.


Sorry, I don't know how to insert a picture, but here is a new map
http://www.businessinsider.com/map-of-t ... ick-2010-6

MAP OF THE DAY: Look How Much Worse The Slick Has Now Gotten
Reminder: Here's where we stood May 20th (Onshore)
Source: NOAA

Gregory White | Jun. 16, 2010, 10:52 AM | 8,651 | 11
President Obama made a speech last night intending to quell nerves over the future of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill crisis. And while many didn't feel that was particularly successful, the current oil slick projections are unlikely to help matters. The slick threatens the coasts of Florida more and more everyday.

[Julia W]

Another one...

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-th ... ing-2010-6

Here's The Real Reason BP's Oil Leak Estimate Keeps Increasing

Gus Lubin | Jun. 16, 2010, 8:17 AM | 1,279 | 9
Leak estimates have gone from 1,000 barrels a day to 5,000 bbl to 25,000 bbl to 60,000 bbl. While many take this as evidence of a BP coverup, it could also be that the hole is getting bigger.

The Oil Drum has a great essay on how the leak could be eroding:

[I]ts called erosion, and simply put, the oil and gas that are flowing out of the rock are bringing small amounts of that rock (in the form of sand) out with them. Rocks that contain lots of oil are not that strong and are easily worn away by the flow of fluid through them.

There is thus a very good reason, from the oil in the rock point of view, for the production to have been increasing the way that it has. And for it to increase to the levels that BP are taking precautions to capture. And because they cannot get access to the flow channels to restrain their growth and hold the sand until the relief wells are drilled that increase may well be unavoidable.

The erosion argument is good for BP, which now has a partial explanation for those ridiculously inaccurate early estimates. On the other hand, it means that the leak could keep growing.

[jingofever]

anyone who was unsure about Simmons as a source on all this shit would do well to consider this

Ever wonder who may have been buying up every share of BP stock earlier this week, especially when it plunged to 14 year lows on June 9 amid media frenzy based on a Fortune story in which Simmons & Co.'s CEO Matt Simmons was quoted as saying that BP "has about a month before they declare Chapter 11. " Why, Simmons & Co. itself, of course. In a note released to clients on Friday, Simmons & Co, upgraded BP from Neutral to Overweight, in which Mr. Simmons amusingly notes, "the kitchen sink of headlines have been thrown at BP shares over the past 2 weeks, thereby partially desensitizing the shares to the news." With his dire warnings of an imminent bankruptcy just two days prior to the upgrade, Mr. Simmons surely did his fair share to contribute to kitchen sink.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/bp-sch ... -price-sam

Simmons is resigning from Simmons & Company International.

From a letter they sent out:

Accordingly, we wish to remind industry participants, as well as our clients and friends, that the views of Simmons & Company International are separate and distinct from many of those being currently expressed by our good friend, founder and former Chairman, Matthew R. Simmons.