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justdrew wrote:I don't know, was that filmed by someone who was used to being around that beach? if that was around tide coming in time, it could just be air bubbling up from the previously exposed dry sand and just the crashing of the wave mixes in a lot of air that can bubble around. not necessarily strange.

Nordic wrote:

justdrew wrote:I don't know, was that filmed by someone who was used to being around that beach? if that was around tide coming in time, it could just be air bubbling up from the previously exposed dry sand and just the crashing of the wave mixes in a lot of air that can bubble around. not necessarily strange.

I agree, I don't see anything going on there. I don't get it.

brekin wrote:http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/bp_turtles/?rc=lte

BP is burning endangered sea turtles alive.

News has just emerged from the Gulf Coast that BP is burning endangered sea turtles alive. 1

A boat captain who has been leading efforts to rescue the endangered turtles says BP has blocked his crews from entering the areas where the animals are trapped, effectively shutting down the rescue operation.

BP is using "controlled burns" to contain the oil spill. Shrimp boats create a corral of oil by dragging together fire-resistant booms and then lighting the enclosed "burn box" on fire. If turtles are not removed from the area before the fire is lit, they are literally burned alive.

The sea turtle most affected by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is the Kemp's Ridley2 which is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Parties responsible for killing the endangered turtles are liable for criminal penalties that include prison and civil fines of up to $25,000 per violation.

As a result, BP perversely has a financial incentive to allow the endangered turtles to burn rather than allow rescue crews to cull them from the burn boxes before the containment fires are lit.

"They ran us out of there and then they shut us down, they would not let us get back in there," said turtle rescuer Mike Ellis in an interview with conservation biologist Catherine Craig that was posted on YouTube.com. 3

Tell BP: Stop burning endangered sea turtles alive. And spread the word.

Tom Seslar - 15 June 2010
In this new article in his series from the Gulf, Planet BP reporter Tom Seslar flies with an oil-spotting crew over the Gulf of Mexico and sees a deeper appreciation of the relationship between coast and sea and energy and nature than can be had on the ground or in a boat. It's an experience that he wishes everyone concerned about the crisis could have.
My appreciation for the enormity of the oil industry as an economic contributor in the Gulf of Mexico climbed sharply within minutes after I hitched a ride aboard a helicopter that BP had chartered for a couple of oil hunters.

Those hunters - armed with binoculars and a camera with a large telephoto lens - are women from a global emergency response company hired by BP. Their job is to spot oil that has escaped from the deepwater spill at the MC252 oil well off Louisiana.

A petty officer from the US Coast Guard is along too, his lap piled with maps and instruments to chart any patches of oil that the two women spot on the surface of the Gulf. Then, after we return to shore in a couple of hours, sea vessels will be dispatched to the charted locations to deal with the errant oil.
Two pilots and I make up the rest of the travelers on this early morning flight aboard a 14-seat Sikorsky 76. One of the pilots tells me the trip will be limited to about two hours because the copter carries only enough fuel for about 30 minutes beyond that point.

The panoramic flight above the Gulf is old hat for the pilots, the two oil spotters and the Coast Guard officer. They've been doing this again and again as part of the mammoth response to the April 20 oil spill.

But it's been years since I last visited an offshore oil platform, and that was in the Danish North Sea.

I'm filled with the wonderment of what's happening below our chopper only moments after it lifts off from an airport in Houma, La.

Because we're all wearing headgear to protect our hearing from the roar of long blades whirling overhead, it's strangely peaceful up here - just right for surrendering to some meditation.

For a while, the most noticeable aspect of the scenes below is the presence of huge onshore facilities to supply and support the offshore oilfields. These facilities alone employ thousands, just in this one region of the coast.

Soon the scenes below begin changing, almost as if there's a growing competition between land and water to dominate the landscape. Eventually, the marshes and swamps prevail - wetlands stridently pierced by canals, channels, harbors and causeways and even the last traces of roads that are gradually disappearing into the no-man's land between terra firma and the sea.

From high above, I can clearly see the importance and fragility of sandy wetlands held together by a delicate mesh of vegetation.
Finally, all traces of land recede behind us. But I now have a much better understanding of why the vast wetlands are so important to wildlife and as barriers against hurricanes. These natural fortifications are the shore's last line of defense.

Out here, flying at a height of up to 1,400 feet, the clouds are puffy white and brilliantly lighted but cast dark shadows on the wave-capped water below. We can see to the curvature of the earth (from 1400 feet?!?! Sorry bro .ed) and eventually pass over dozens of the more than 6,000 platforms that the oil and gas industry has built in US Gulf Coast waters during the past 60 some years.

That relatively brief span of development is remarkable. Although there were some primitive attempts at offshore production as far back as the 1890s off Ohio and California, the really big oil boom for the Gulf of Mexico didn't begin until after World War II.

Yet the Gulf now supplies roughly one-fourth of the US oil production and one-fifth of its natural gas.
It's likely there will be no alternative to the Gulf as a key source of American energy for decades to come. That's why it is so essential to protect it. Even the most severe critics of the oil industry tend to accept that reality.

It wasn't always so clear. In the early years, there were lots of questions about drilling in the Gulf - often about how revenues would be divided among the federal and state governments.

Back in 1953, screen actor James Stewart starred in Thunder Bay, the first Hollywood look at the offshore oil business. It basically was an updated twist on the plot that had served up hundreds of western movies. Instead of cowboys vs. sheepherders or grain farmers, now it was Louisiana shrimpers vs. oilmen fighting over the same watery territory.

Stewart, playing an outsider, shows up in town determined to build a storm-proof oil platform. Initially, he is distrusted and opposed by tradition-bound locals who think he will destroy their shrimping businesses and cultural traditions.

After lots of fighting, romancing and hurricane survival, the Stewart character delivers a very happy ending by both striking oil and discovering an abundant new shrimp bed.

In real life, acceptance and accommodation require longer than a two-hour movie.

Thunder Bay was filmed in and near Morgan City, La., where an annual shrimp festival had begun in 1936.

Thirty-one years later, in 1967, the by-then huge festival at last adopted a new name - the Louisiana Shrimp & Petroleum Festival - in recognition of the fact that oil had become a major, permanent part of the region's culture and economy.

The festival, slated this year for Sept. 6-10, says it symbolizes "the unique way in which these two seemingly different industries work hand-in-hand culturally and environmentally."

Not surprisingly, oil's immense role in that big picture seems easier to grasp up here during two hours in a helicopter at 1,400 feet. I wish everyone could share the experience.

Reporter's note: For allowing me to hitch a ride on the helicopter, my thanks go to Brian Verret, aviation coordinator for BP at Lafayette, La.

Normally, when the tide recedes, the sand dries out and water is replaced by air. When the tide comes back in, each wave displaces a little bit of the air in the sand, soaking it as the water rises. Tides on Earth have been repeating this process twice daily every day for the past 4 billion years.

When you inject oil into the sand, the oil acts as both a glue and a water repellent. The oil comes in on one tide and soaks the beaches. The tide recedes, and the water slowly drains out of the sand, replaced by air. The tide comes back in again, BUT the oil changes things. The oil holds the sand together and repels some of the water, trapping much of that newly introduced air beneath the water line. Water pressure will eventually force it all out and start the process over again, but it causes this "bubbling" or "boiling" action behind the water line.

82_28 wrote:"...we are expendable to these people..."

"...the gulf coast must be evacuated..."

Watch this guys! Excellent, infuriating speech here by Venice LA resident, Kindra Arnesen.



You thought it was unimaginably bad yesterday and the day before that and the day before that ad infinitum? It sounds even worse than that.