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

[seemslikeadream]

Fishermen Report Illness From BP Chemicals

Toxicologist Says Chemicals Harmful, Can Lead To Death


LAFITTE, La. --

More and more stories about sick fishermen are beginning to surface after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The fishermen are working out in the Gulf -- many of them all day, every day -- to clean up the spill. They said they blame their ailments on the chemicals that BP is using.
One fisherman said he felt like he was going to die over the weekend.
"I've been coughing up stuff," Gary Burris said. "Your lungs fill up."
Burris, a longtime fisherman who has worked across the Gulf Coast, said he woke up Sunday night feeling drugged and disoriented.
"It was like sniffing gasoline or something, and my ears are still popping," Burris said. "I'm coughing up stuff. I feel real weak, tingling feelings."
Marine toxicologist Riki Ott said the chemicals used by BP can wreak havoc on a person's body and even lead to death.
"The volatile, organic carbons, they act like a narcotic on the brain," Ott said. "At high concentrations, what we learned in Exxon Valdez from carcasses of harbor seals and sea otters, it actually fried the brain, (and there were) brain lesions."
Rep. Charlie Melancon said he wants something done. He sent a letter to President Barack Obama's administration calling for temporary health care clinics to be set up in the area.
"There can be immediate attention to any people who feel they have adverse problems caused by the inhalation or exposure to the oil," Melancon said.
According to Burris, some equipment was donated to workers in Lafitte, but as far as he can tell BP hasn't added anything to the mix. He said a lot of fishermen are working sick, and they're afraid to speak out because it could cost them.
"You've got a woman with a baby in the oven, bills due and fishing's closed down," he said. "You're going to do whatever you have to do to look after your family."
Burris said that when he went to a doctor after feeling ill on Sunday, the doctor told him his lungs looked like those of a three-pack-a-day smoker, and Burris said he has never smoked

[82_28]

Let's get this party started!

Syrupy oil washes into La. marshes for first time

GRAND ISLE, La.—The spectacle many had feared for a month finally began unfolding as gooey, rust-colored oil washed into the marshes at the mouth of the Mississippi for the first time, stoking public anger and frustration with both BP and the government.

The sense of gloom deepened as BP conceded what some scientists have been saying for weeks: that the oil leak at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico is bigger than the company previously estimated.

Up to now, only tar balls and a sheen of oil had come ashore. But on Wednesday, chocolate brown and vivid orange globs, sheets and ribbons of foul-smelling oil the consistency of latex paint began coating the reeds and grasses of Louisiana's wetlands, home to rare birds, mammals
Workers construct a damn to keep oil, bottom left, from entering wetlands on Elmer's Island in Grand Isle, La., Thursday, May 20, 2010. Oil from last month's Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico has started drifting ashore along the Louisiana coast.

There were no immediate reports of any mass die-offs of wildlife or large numbers of creatures wriggling in oil, as seen after the Exxon Valdez disaster, but that was the fear.

Billy Nungesser, president of Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish, toured the oil-fouled marshes Wednesday and said: "Had you fallen off that boat yesterday and come up breathing that stuff, you probably wouldn't be here."

A live video feed of the underwater gusher, posted online Thursday after lawmakers exerted pressure on BP, is sure to fuel the anger.

It shows what appears to be a large plume of oil and gas still spewing into the water next to the stopper-and-tube combination that BP inserted to carry some of the crude to the surface. The House committee website where the video was posted promptly crashed because so many people were trying to view it.

"These videos stand as a scalding, blistering indictment of BP's inattention to the scope and size of the greatest environmental catastrophe in the history of the United States," said Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass.

At least 6 million gallons have gushed into the Gulf—more than half the amount the Exxon Valdez tanker spilled in Alaska in 1989—since the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded 50 miles off the coast April 20. Eleven workers were killed.

The slow-motion disaster could become far wider. Government scientists said a small portion of the slick had entered the so-called loop current, a stream of fast-moving water that could carry the mess into the Florida Keys and up the state's Atlantic Coast, damaging coral reefs and fouling beaches.

"It's anger that the people who are supposed to be driving the ship don't have any idea what's going on," E.J. Boles, a musician from Big Pine Key, Fla., said of both BP and the government. "Why wouldn't they have any contingency plan? I'm not a genius, and even I would have thought of that."

BP spokesman Mark Proegler told The Associated Press that the mile-long tube inserted into the leaking well pipe over the weekend is capturing 210,000 gallons of oil a day—the total amount the company and the Coast Guard had estimated was gushing into the sea—but that some is still escaping. He would not say how much.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said an interagency team using ships and planes is working on a new estimate of how much oil is gushing from the well. Agency officials would not speculate on how big the leak might be.

Washington, meanwhile, turned up the pressure on BP.

The Obama administration asked the company to be more open with the public by sharing such information as measurements of the leak and the trajectory of the spill. BP has been accused of covering up the magnitude of the disaster.

Also, the Environmental Protection Agency directed BP to employ a less toxic form of the chemical dispersants it has been using to break up the oil and keep it from reaching the surface.

BP is marshaling equipment for an attempt as early as Sunday at a "top kill," which involves pumping heavy mud into the top of the blown-out well to try to plug the gusher. A top kill has been used before above ground, but like other methods BP is exploring, it has never been attempted 5,000 feet underwater.

If it doesn't work, the backup plans include a "junk shot"—shooting golf balls, shredded tires, knotted rope and other material into the well to clog it up.

But Chris Roberts, a member of Louisiana's Jefferson Parish Council, complained bitterly: "We don't have time for BP to use the Gulf of Mexico as an experiment."

BP officials have said repeatedly that no one could have predicted or prepared for such a disaster. But some lawmakers and others aren't buying it.

Commercial fisherman Pete Gerica of New Orleans, a member of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, said the oil industry "needed to have a better tool box." As for the government, he said, "The watchdog people failed us miserably."

In Washington, environmental groups urged the government to take greater control of the situation from BP.

"The Gulf of Mexico is a crime scene," said Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation, "and the perpetrator cannot be left in charge of assessing the damage."

Can't wait for the JUNK SHOT. BP must be seized in full. As I said last night, this country can seize an entire country with tens of millions of inhabitants, but is powerless to seize and invade a measly company that has literally destroyed at least 1/4 of it? Oh, come now.

[2012 Countdown]

That article about the Cajun French shrimpers is so true. It will be a really big loss. They were the keepers of the unique language here. If they go, all we will have left are the Acadians, over in Lafayette.

Well, Congressman Markey got the video released! It goes 'live' sometime soon...

Video: Live feed of spewing well head on Gulf floor
A live video feed that shows the oil gushing from the blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico is now available online.

WARNING: The video link is very slow to load, due to apparently very high online demand.
The video shows a large plume of oil and gas still spewing next to the tube that's carrying some of it to the surface.
Congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts pushed BP PLC to make the video available to the public. It's now posted on the Web site of the Select Committee on Energy Independent and Global Warming.
BP was leasing the rig Deepwater Horizon when it exploded and sank a month ago off Louisiana. The company has been trying ever since to stop the oil spewing from the well.
BP says a mile-long tube is capturing 210,000 gallons of oil a day, but some is still escaping. The company initially estimated 210,000 gallons was the total amount of the spill.
To view the video feed, CLICK HERE
http://globalwarming.house.gov/spillcam/

------------


They were forced to release it and THEN say, 'oh, by the way, maybe it is a bit more than 5000 gallons per"... well, thats why we made you release it, YOU LYING PIECES OF SHIT.

[Nordic]

From the LA Times article:

Washington, meanwhile, turned up the pressure on BP.

The Obama administration asked the company to be more open with the public by sharing such information as measurements of the leak and the trajectory of the spill. BP has been accused of covering up the magnitude of the disaster.

Also, the Environmental Protection Agency directed BP to employ a less toxic form of the chemical dispersants it has been using to break up the oil and keep it from reaching the surface.

That's what they consider "turning up the pressure" on BP? What's next, a sternly worded letter?

Jesus fucking christ.

[DoYouEverWonder]

From the LA Times article:

Washington, meanwhile, turned up the pressure on BP.

The Obama administration asked the company to be more open with the public by sharing such information as measurements of the leak and the trajectory of the spill. BP has been accused of covering up the magnitude of the disaster.

Also, the Environmental Protection Agency directed BP to employ a less toxic form of the chemical dispersants it has been using to break up the oil and keep it from reaching the surface.

That's what they consider "turning up the pressure" on BP? What's next, a sternly worded letter?

Jesus fucking christ.

I'm starting to get the feeling their incompetence is deliberate.

[Jeff]

I'm starting to get the feeling their incompetence is deliberate.

I don't see that. High offices are competently covering for their corporate masters. You know the one about the US military outsourcing to mercenaries? It's really the other way around. The military is the armed wing of international oil. And they got this.

BP's incompetence, drilling at depths and pressures beyond their grasp, would make a great hubris myth. Maybe it will.

[82_28]

From BoingBoing with a good quote:

BP Disaster: Oil reaches Louisiana marshlands

"As a friend said, this thing isn't a "spill," it's a fossil-fuel Chernobyl, unfolding in slow motion, thousands of gallons a day."

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/20/bp ... -reac.html

[The Consul]

The lies are coming out and will gush harder as time goes by. This is hard to plug in more ways than one. Predict it will come out that there were ways to cap that BP did not initiate because they would have lost access to the oil. It will be soundly denied as a tin foil hat conspiracy theory. But people are going to be pissed. Real pissed. The butcher said to me yesterday....handing me my cod....this isn't about religion or politics or any of that bullshit....this is about survival. He is normally a very soft spoken, mild manered guy. The woman in front of me got him going....she had to be mid 70's. "I don't know what you poor kids are going to do. I fear for the future of my grandchildren. These criminals are going to kill everything."

[DrVolin]

Oil threatens French-speaking Cajuns, native Choctaw

by Clement Sabourin Clement Sabourin – Thu May 20, 10:00 am ET

For two weeks, Clifton Hendon has been unable to go out to sea to harvest the oyster beds -- his only source of income.

Fishing has been banned in the area

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100520/ts ... lturecajun

Well isn't that terribly convenient.

[justdrew]

Predict it will come out that there were ways to cap that BP did not initiate because they would have lost access to the oil.

yeah, I've been wondering what they're not trying because they hope to be able to use this well again.

I do think drilling a hole nearby down about a mile and set off a smallish nuke down there is the best bet. Should have been done weeks ago.

There's a lot of people who deeply deserve to pay dearly for this gross negligence.

Costly, time-consuming test of cement linings in Deepwater Horizon rig was omitted, spokesman says
By David Hammer, The Times-Picayune
May 19, 2010, 10:30PM
BP hired a top oilfield service company to test the strength of cement linings on the Deepwater Horizon's well, but sent the firm's workers home 11 hours before the rig exploded April 20 without performing a final check that a top cementing company executive called "the only test that can really determine the actual effectiveness" of the well's seal.

Find who decided to send the testing team away and arrest them. No doubt this rush was all about having the well producing for the executives on-board little party. Arrest every one of those executives.

[SanDiegoBuffGuy]

Does anyone have a match?

[Nordic]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... -explosion

For Davis, the events of that night, when the rig exploded killing 11 of the 126 crew, was only the beginning of his ordeal. He says he and other survivors were to spend the next 40 hours in isolation – barred from phoning their families – while his lawyers believe Transocean, the owners of the rig, readied its legal defences.

By Davis's estimate, it took 12-15 minutes to get from the rig to the work boat, but it would take another 36-40 hours before they were to return to shore – even though there were dozens of boats in the area and Coast Guard helicopters airlifting the most severely injured to hospital.

Some of the men were openly furious, while others, like Davis, were just numb. He says they were denied access to the onboard satellite phone or radio to call their families.

When the ship finally did move, it did not head for shore directly, stopping at two more rigs to collect and drop off engineers and coast guard crew before arriving at Port Fourchon, Louisiana.

The company was ready for the men then, with portable toilets lined up at the dock for drug tests. The men were loaded on to buses, given a change of clothing and boxes of sandwiches, and taken to a hotel in Kenner, Louisiana, where finally they were reunited with their families.

Lawyers say the isolation was deliberate and that Transocean was trying to wear the men down so they would sign statements denying that they had been hurt or that they had witnessed the explosion that destroyed the rig.

"These men are told they have to sign these statements or they can't go home," said Buzbee. "I think it's pretty callous, but I'm not surprised by it."

Davis had been awake nonstop for about 50 hours by that point. He signed. Buzbee says most of the men did.

Holy shit.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Seriously I'm running out of patience with these cunts.

[Jeff]

The Oil Debacle = Return of the Repressed

Jamey Hecht
May 21

...

The oil gusher disaster is the return of the repressed. It is the outbreak of the deep past, raging into the present like the suppurating narcissistic wounds of childhood busting upward from the unconscious in the form of somaticized neurotic symptoms--a facial palsy, a tic, a paralysis, an addiction, or a tremor, or poor dear Fairbairn's inability to urinate--and plenty of mental symptoms into the bargain. The somatic symptoms are like the wrecking of the biosphere; the mental symptoms are like the mounting ecological anxiety of the culture, together with its two major defenses--denial and hysteria.

The oil is the deep past; it's the intolerable & heartbreaking message of extinction, not only because the popular mind associates the origins of oil with the dinosaurs, but because in reality petroleum is the product of two enormous algae-blooms from 150 m.y.a. and 90 m.y.a. (long before the meteorite that vaporized the last Tyrannosaurus Rex).

The algae was alive an unthinkably long time ago, a length of time which utterly dwarfs not only the timescale of a human life (102 years), but even the timescale scale of the entire human species' tenure on Earth (~2 x 106 years). The older of the two algae-blooms was 1.5 x 108 years ago. It has been totally transformed into hydrocarbons, whose amazing level of energy storage evokes the vast size of the ancient blooms, the vast energy of the incident sunlight they captured, and the vast aeons it took to "ferment" their myriad microscopic corpses into petroleum.

We call it "rock oil," as though it were as inorganic as stone; in reality, it is liquid death, the "excrement of the devil," which ruins every country in which it's discovered. How? By bringing a cloud of corporate vultures who will kill anybody whose priorities differ from those of capital. Oil brings in The Man, to do what Shell did to the Ogoni in Nigeria. With its easy wealth, it also erases the folkways of traditional expertise; by the time the exportable oil runs out, nobody is left who's old enough to remember how to grow food without it. Pretty soon, there's not even adequate supply for domestic consumption, and things get sticky, as they've begun to do in Britain since the North Sea petro-bonanza ended, sinking Maggie Thatcher's star below the horizon.

Now we're confronted daily with the bizarre spectacle of apparent abundance--a gusher like Spindletop, right out of 1901--but this time even CNN realizes we are only out there drilling deepwater because all the conventional giant fields are in decline, from Ghawar to Cantarell, depleting at about 14% per year. It's a weird tableau of abundance and scarcity.

The oil is precious; human beings busted their asses and risked their blood and treasure to get at it; it is all going to waste; it is toxic and flammable, intensely concentrated liquid power; it is time and sunshine made tangible; it's the materialization of Sun light, that life-giving, life-taking mindless force of the blazing thermonuclear furnace to which we owe our existence; it ruins everything it touches; it is invading the ecosystems of the Gulf and an ever-greater portion of the coastal United States.

BP is behaving like a typical corporation--utterly amoral, hubristic, venal--lying through its teeth, hoarding information, treating the rest of the human community with utter contempt. That's not news; they always do that. The news is that this time, a non-trivial minority of Americans actually know something about Peak Oil; they know about the appalling fragility of the biosphere, and that when it crashes, we all perish; they know the whole industrial food empire runs on cheap & abundant fossil fuels which are rapidly becoming gone things. They even know that before the "spill," the ocean was afflicted with gigantic dead zones and islands of floating trash the size of various New England states.

....

The gusher at the bottom of the ocean is a wound. It is too deep under water to repair. The pressurized oil comes from an even deeper place, below the surface of the ocean floor (in that regard, it's a bit like the balrog that slept underneath the mines of Moria; holla back, my nerd homies); depth under depth. It represents all the bitter self-knowledge we cannot yet tolerate, but which is blasting up out of the unconscious and into the blogs, the press, the conversations (remember those?) at a rate of 95 million barrels per day.

That inexorable black plume is the unfinished business of America's drunken dream. It means we are coming to the point where our systems of food, transportation, and economic exchange are going to start failing. Only then will a majority of people be forced to break the law and squat in properties they don't own, hoping for the best until the werewolves of the law come knocking; growing their own food and raising their own animals in the hope that the zoning laws won't kick them into the street; walking and biking after the cars just die in the driveway and stay there. Digging up the pavement to plant corn, and hoping it isn't loaded with cadmium and lead. And so on. Meanwhile there's this other little problem of the hottest year on record, with all the nasty consequences for crop yields.

It's as if the planet is saying, "You want oil? I'll give you oil..."

...

link

[tazmic]

It's as if the planet is saying, "You want oil? I'll give you oil..."

Ted Turner: Is God speaking in Gulf Coast spill?