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BP Accused of Using Gulf of Mexico as 'Toxic Testing-Ground'
Louisiana officials have accused BP of turning the Gulf of Mexico into a toxic testing-ground after winning permission for experimental chemical methods of fighting the oil slick.
State officials are angry that federal regulators gave the company permission to try out new chemical techniques to break up and hold back the growing tide of oil.
Oil spill: BP accused of using Gulf of Mexico as "toxic testing-ground" Photo: REUTERS Despite registering concerns about the potential implications for the environment, marine life and human health, Governor Bobby Jindal's administration was cut out of deliberations over the use of dispersants that break up the oil, as the Environmental Protection Agency granted BP permission to release large quantities underwater.
"We don't have any data or evidence behind the use of these chemicals in the water. We're now basically using one of the richest ecosysystems in the world as a laboratory," complained Alan Levine, the head of Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals.
Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive officer, told WAFB Channel 9 news station that the chemical has undergone "lots of testing" and is biodegradable. "We believe it's a very effective way of containing this spill until such time as we can eliminate the leak," he added.
But Robert Barham, the state's Secretary of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, stated that it has not been used at such depths before - BP's leak stems from a pipe one mile below the surface - and that its potential impact and consequences are unknown. This includes how it travels through the water over time.
"We're very disappointed in their approach," he said of BP and the EPA. "The federal procedures call for a consensus between federal authorities, the responsible party and the states involved. When we met and expressed our concerns, apparently they decided to go without us."
Efforts to minimise the flow of oil from the ruptured well are continuing today. Technicians stationed on ships anchored above the leaking pipeline - which was sheared off when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and sank on April 20 - have been attempting to insert a second, smaller pipe into the break to divert the flow to tankers on the surface. Over the coming days, they also plan to perform a "junk shot", a procedure in which debris including shredded tyres and broken golf balls will be fired into the well at high pressure to create a plug.
The oil industry is facing a growing backlash over the crisis, with President Barack Obama publicly criticising executives on Friday for creating a "ridiculous spectacle" at congressional hearings into the incident. Officials from BP, which leased the rig, Transocean, which owned it, and Halliburton, which was assisting operations to complete the well when tragedy struck, were guilty of "falling over each other to point the finger of blame at somebody else", he said.
Decrying the "cosy relationship" between the oil industry and the federal body that regulates it, the Minerals Management Service, he vowed changes to a regime under which drilling permits were "too often issued based on little more than assurances of safety from the oil companies."
Environmentalists accused the president of acknowledging his administration's errors too late, accusing the Department of the Interior of having turned the Gulf of Mexico into a "sacrifice area" where Big Oil's profits won priority over marine protection laws.
More than 100 seismic surveys and 300 drilling permits have been issued under Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's watch without the prior environmental consideration that is required under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, according to the Centre for Biological Diversity. The legislation protects marine life such as whales and dolphins by making it inherent on oil companies to prove that they have taken measures to minimise the environmental impact of drilling and other activities.
"The Department of the Interior is well aware of its obligations under the law," said Miyoko, the Centre's ocean's director, "as well of the harm to endangered whales that can occur from oil industry operations, yet it has simply decided it cannot be bothered. You or I have to follow the law, but Interior Secretary Salazar seems to think that he and the oil companies he is supposedly overseeing do not."
Mr Sakashita added: "Under Salazar's watch, the Department of the Interior has treated the Gulf of mexico as a sacrifice area where laws are ignored and wildlife protection takes a back seat to oil company profits."
Mr Salazar will appear before a hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, to face his first grilling since the crisis began.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government reform has also announced that it is opening an investigation into potential oversight lapses at the Minerals Management Service.
Meanwhile questions remained as to how much oil is really spilling into the sea, with a number of scientists and expert analysts stating that the official figure of approximately 5,000 barrels a day (210,000 gallons) is a gross underestimate. Some believe that it could be 10 times that figure, though none have been granted access to the site to take official readings and there has been scepticism over BP's claims not to know.
John Amos of Skytruth, an environmental monitoring group, said: "There are instruments and technologies available to measure this kind of flow on the sea floor."
He added: "On satellite imagery day in and day out we continue to see an oil slick that's several thousand square miles in size out there and the good news is that it hasn't made serious landfall yet. That may be partly down to the response but also down to wind and current conditions. There's an element of luck in there. But I'm not sure how much longer we can get lucky."
43 Comments so far
Show AllMore proof of who is *REALLY* running your country.
And elections, laws, due process and clinical trials mean *nothing* to these Corporate supercitizens.
"...see an oil slick that's several thousand square miles in size out there and the good news is that it hasn't made serious landfall yet."
whether it makes landfall or not is totally irrelevant. the damage is done. the blowout (it is not a 'spill') will never be contained by man-made means. the resulting mess will never be cleaned up. oil will wash ashore for the next 100 years. during hurricanes the oil will wash inland for many, many miles. it will get in the loop and travel all the way to the british isles and beyond. it is a catastrophe.
On a happy note, while the chemicals make the oil sink to the bottom (where it kills the base of the food chain), it also reduces the size of the surface slick which is traditionally used to estimate the size of the spill. By hiding the oil under the surface, BP can say the spill is much less than it really is.
Does anyone still believe that the government is in control?
NPR's ATC Weekend Edition has a couple of news items on the spill:
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=2
Our troubles are over Kevin Costner and his pals have just invented a green technology to recycle the crude in to 99% pure oil right out from the spill.
1-2-3-4
Cretins wanna hop some more
4-5-6-7
All good cretins go to heaven
I saw that on the news. Centrifugal separators sound like they might work on a small scale, but I'm not sure it's feasible with a spill that covers thousands of square miles.
Remember when Obama said that oil rigs don't spill much oil, the technology is safe and lifted the ban on new drilling off the Eastern US coast.
He appoints an Interior Secretary who, as Senator had voted; against fuel mileage standards, against repealing tax breaks for oil companies, for ending limits on offshore drilling off Florida and against requiring the Army Corp to consider global warming effects in their projects.
Obama's anger at the oil companies is the anger of someone whose buddies have made a fool out of him. Now Salazar is supposed to clean up Minerals and Mining, sort of like having Bernie Madoff audit his own company.
Obama is not only the shill of Wall Street and the Health Care industry but also the oil industry ($970k in campaign contributions). He's the biggest Democratic fraud since 1964 when LBJ said," I'll not send Amurican (phonetic spelling) boys off the do what Asian boys ought to do for themselves" and promptly escalated the war after winning the election against arch hawk Goldwater.
If the Republicans weren't such flaming fascists, Ralph Nader would be right.
I remember the LBJ/Goldwater campaign. One of LBJ's ads warned us that if we voted for Goldwater, we would have 500,000 troops in Vietnam within 2 years.
I want to take this opportunity to apologize for causing the Vietnam war. I voted for Goldwater, and sure enough, 2 years later there were 500,000 troops in Vietnam.
I sorta figured BP had already decided it was a toxic pool for the taking,for not taking 100% precaution proof spill containment solutions.So now who else but them can use it?It's become a fire hazard for shippers.
Oil company's are a global monopoly of power in the energy industry, they control everything , inventions,patents, innovation for any competing alternatives that would cut in to their profits, including the United States Government .
Prove me wrong, pull our troops out of the middle east and all contractors , let the oil chips fall where they may, we the tax payers have to pay for all of bigs oils mistakes foreign and domestic policy mistakes and abuses of the middle east.
And now we will pay for the disaster in the gulf. Spraying chemicals into the gulf to disperse the oil to give Americans the impression that the spill is smaller is insane.The chemicals are just as much a threat to the ecosystem.
And , as far as I concerned , the Bush/Reagen crime family is to blame for stagnant wages, reduced benefits, not protecting our economy and jobs, allowing corporations to move manufacturing to cheap labor country's and deregulating the banks and wall street.
The skull and bones crew , including Clinton, have all but destroyed the American middle class to line their pockets.
The Bush republicans have had the White 22 of the last 30 years.
They have been in the Big oil business all their lives, they are from Texas.
The US deficit went from 4 trillion to 10 trillion under Bush, where were the Tea Baggers screaming to get their country back.
When Obama came on the seen , the Republicans used every dirty trick in their books to get McCain elected. Why, because they new the money train for them would end up splitting with democrats in power. Its that simple.
We may have 50 years before real panic sets in for the global battle for oil.
So we can spend all our money for a huge military, and go to war whenever , or we can tell big oil, your on your own, we need to move to solar and wind power and create jobs in America.
Adding Insult to Injury!
The notion that up to 1.5 million gallons of the toxin Corexit has been approved for purchase for "dispersement" near the c(rude) oil catastrophe of BP's making, when at least 2 companies have non-toxic, biodegradable alternatives proven to bind the oil (one solution even makes the recovered oil usable) is beyond folly and remarkably telling.
If one goes so far as to surmise that this approach to "business" is endemic among all cartels, a point that can likely be successfully argued, then what hope have we, really?
May God have mercy on our souls.
"Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive officer, told WAFB Channel 9 news station that the chemical (dispersant) has undergone "lots of testing" and is biodegradable. "We believe it's a very effective way of containing this spill until such time as we can eliminate the leak," he added."
####
That was another pasture pie, straight from from the bowels of the bull.
Here's the update:
By JUSTIN GILLIS, New York Times
updated 8:04 p.m. CT, Sat., May 15, 2010
NEW YORK - Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.
“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”
The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.
####
...for the rest of the incriminating details in this developing story, see:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37171468/ns/us_news-the_new_york_times/
The supposed purpose of the dispersants is to reduce environmental impact. The actual purpose - along with other efforts at perception management - is to conceal or at least postpone revelation of the catastrophic volume of this disaster. The pattern of unremitting criminal failure continues.
This is another Soviet day in the global neighborhood, where deficits, damages and culpability will be dispersed as widely as possible amongst the proletariat and the environment. The Soviet template for managing energy and environmental issues can be quickly understood with a quick web search on "Chernobyl" and "Aral Sea Shrinking", to cite a few of their more spectacular efforts.
In the U.S., the government is little more than an agent of Corporate will. In the USSR, the government was the Corporation. No net difference.
Obfuscate and deny.
The only reason Bobby Jindal cares about this is because it's affecting his constituency. Remember, he's a neocon. This disaster is a direct result of neocon economics, but don't look for any neocons to admit it. If this blow-out were under the arctic ice cap (what's left of it), Bobby Jindal would be supporting efforts to minimize, obfuscate, and deny with all the hypocrisy a politician can muster.
There's no stoppin' the cretins from hoppin'
If this oil is not abiogenic then
Exactly what specific Geological events put biogenic oil 13,000' under the Gulf seabed?
Capitalism operates on the fear of scarcity, if the oil corps are tapping a huge pool of abiogenic mantle oil it is not in their interests or the MIC's to tell you.
Especially if disturbing this mantle oil may result in more earthquakes or altering earth's rotation.
The above is a sincere question
Monsanto is said to be developing oil tolerant fish.
And Stone, whether true or not, you have to know that is the way Monsanto would approach the problem as they are part of the problem, not the solution. Some of the fascist, oil pundits are telling us that shrimp LOVE to eat oil and actually thrive on it! And unfortunately, this is not satire!
PaulRevere, for real?????
That just reminded me of a book from a few years ago. Excellent. I forget who wrote it. "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You". How some government agency tried to spin that idea.
Oh, the same guy, or it may have been two of them also wrote, "Trust Us We're Experts".....
Ready: My sister just came back from Biloxi, Mississippi and she said this was what some of the local pundits are telling the locals. I guess Toxic Shrimp are actually good for you!
I have Toxic Sludge is Good for You (Lies, Damn Lies, and the Public Relations Industry) by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton.
Thanks for the followup, sincerios! Great book.
"Monsanto is said to be developing oil tolerant fish."
And you won't be able to eat them unless you purchase a license under their patents.
And probably submit to bio-genetic engineering to make you not only able to assimilate the oil toxins, but make your survival dependent upon it
And you won't survive eating them without oil-tolerant genes.
"govt. officials?" What they really mean to say Obama has sanctioned chemical agents which will wipe out wild life for years to come and threaten anyone eating tainted seafood.
Apparently Obama has been given a clear pass from his gross mishandling of one of the most egregious environmental problem in modern times. His Admin is now authorizing billions of tons of chemical agents so to sink surface oil into the ocean where it can be out of mind, and sight. Apparently, this is what Obama refers to as a "clean up." This piece of dung ought to be swept out of office and criminal hearings which will hopefully lead to impeachment of this piece of trash.
The massive cover up has begun. Scientists need to keep the pressure on the Feds, the local gov's, and of course BP (Bastards of Petrol). The real nightmare is going on in the depths of the sea. Whatever turns up on the surface and the coastal shores is but a fraction of the cataclysmic damage that will remain in effect for years to come. Let's see how soon the public's short span of attention shifts away from this epochal disaster on to the more trivial and superficial tidbits of curiosity and entertainment spoon-fed to them by the corporate media barons.
Pray For The DOW empirePie May 16th, 2010
Pray for a double dip slide.
High Five it for a high frequency dive
The lack of scarcity has more to hide
like the black tide oops, the double Gulfs gaping gaps
from stolen oil to the to lap dances for lapsed regs
so mercenary Xs can buoy up and man the death boy clowns
with chirpy Apache rounds
for patriot burka wraps, to the pundits pultaceous bile
the guile to clothe ruin in beauty words
in BP, Brackish Plunder pavement of desire words;
while money is for nothing jumps on gold
with grills of rappers also sold
flashing flesh for bounty, butt shaking for gain
yet more honest than our shadow masters
who seize our cash for others pain.
so.......
Pray for a double dip slide.
High Five it for a high frequency dive
It seems like DOW destruction
may be a seemly solution.
There may be much more oil under the surface than on the surface due to fractioning of the oil as well as the use of disperants.
The dispersants might reduce the amount of oil on the surface but are not a solution, and may be adding more toxins.
And from the start, all of the approved sources have underestimated the volume of oil and gas erupting from the Deep Horizon blowout.
A VOLCANO OF OIL ERUPTING
http://pesn.com/2010/05/13/9501651_a_volcano_of_oil_erupting/
excerpts:
"The fact that the spill has reached land clearly states that the size of the spill is probably well above 200,000 barrels per day. Yes, that's BARRELS, not gallons. There are 42 gallons per barrel.
What we are seeing now could be small compared to what may yet unfold if things break apart, as they can do under such circumstances. If this thing blew, it could be like the Yellowstone Caldera, except from below a mile of sea, with a 1/4-mile opening, with up to 150,000 psi of oil and natural gas behind it.
That would be an extinction event.
It is not likely to happen, but it is within the realm of possibilities.
That's the kind of stuff we're playing with here."
and:
"This is the first time humans have encountered a deep ocean leak of this magnitude. We're in uncharted territory here. Volume per volume, it is highly probable that due to this fractioning, this oil blowing into the ocean from a mile down is causing far more ecological trouble than a surface spill of similar size.
It is also certain that the slick volume on the surface is substantially lower than the rising column of oil. This is a key point to bear in mind. Because of this fractioning, what you see from the air on the surface of the water represents maybe just 20% of the volume of the various types of oil in that area. And we're talking an area the size of Maryland (10,000+ square miles) that is on the surface. The remaining 80% is under the surface; and all of it is highly toxic to the living organisms encountered."
I just remembered something i saw last year on youtube and it is quite witty. If someone wants a little laugh right now. Only a couple of minutes.
Two guys who are obviously very popular in Australia. They do faux interviews that are quite good.
This one was about a very large oil spill off the coast of Australia. I believe it was done a few years ago.
Just google, "The Front Fell Off".
Or not.
i needed that laff thanks...............a bit 'not the 9 0'clock news' and 'monty python' rolled into one...........
we should do a similar skit on this fiasco...........
I'm always glad when i can provide a laugh, coco.
There is plenty to do on this one. I read a piece last night that could have been right out of the skit. About the mile law straw like tube that got tangled with the deep ocean robots. It was uncanny.
rita
well, i've been wondering about that mile long pipe and what it is made of........
and that apparently 'lone' tanker up top waiting to take on these gallons of oil....
it reminded me of a documentary i once saw about howard hughs trying to bring up manganese nodules from the seabed with the help of a rope and buckets (don't laff - it's true) and the rope of course got swayed away with the current of the ocean....
but eventually, it wasn't about manganese nodules.........it was a covert operation by the government to retrieve sensitive material/information from a sunken russian submarine.........howard hughs and his quest for stupid manganese nodules was a decoy............
You know, I swear I have heard these actual kind of arguments made here in Canada. And they are routine in the US.
Help.
hey galen, i met a canadian today...........was i disappointed!!!!
If they were from anywhere east of Vancouver, I'm not surprised...
"Experiment" is altogether too complimentary a term. Do we have any evidence of control or an other-than-financial concern for the results?
Last night 60 Minutes ran a piece on a manger aboard the rig. He told a disturbing tale noting that a month before the spill the two primary back up systems that were suppose to trigger to close the well were damaged. In subsequent meetings with BP Executives on the Rig they overrode the engineers who wanted to repair the damage. The BP executives ignored the safety features on the rig to push forward in all due haste thus when the methane gas started to leak and cause the explosion, the back up safety features never triggered to close the well.
It was also noted that this rig was the most advanced platform in the industry and those who built it asserted a spill of this magnitude was not possible prion to the accident. It is also interesting that a few Obamabots were asserting the same thing of "third generation" nuclear plants and defending the Obama Administration and the Senate Climate Bill as good for the Earth. What utter non sense. Some people will forever live their lives with their heads in the sand while spining tall tales, obfuscations, and lies.
Thus we now know this was NOT an accident at all, but rather criminal culpability. 11 men died in the explosion and the spill has created an environmental nightmare: and for what? So BP could maximize their profits?
If the Obama Administration does not proceed with criminal charges against those reponsible and forever close off shore drilling, they are as culpable as BP.
If this criminal activity goes unpunished, then they can get away with anything. They will prosecute an 11 year old black kid who is living in the slums of any American city as an adult for murder. But when it comes to corporate American greed the fat bastards look the other way, sweep it under the rug, and in a few months they are back to doing the same thing. This is outrageous.
Start building Third Parties and vote against these corporate whores like Obama.
Why isn't BP out there vacuming up those massive oill slicks, some are reported to be nine feet thick, in height, 22 miles long and twelve miles wide? This is ridiculous, just get the sludge off the surface of the gulf BP. You are capable of at least that aren't you BP? You are on the hook for all the sea creatures who perish because of your incompetence! It could very well put you out of business if you don't get busy out there, beyond petroleum indeed!
It's really interesting how all the drill, baby, drill crowd is now using what they promoted vociferously for all these years as a club against President Obama. What hypocritical smarmy slime. A month ago they were congratulating the president for finally seeing the light on off shore drilling. You oily Republicans are beyond belief. We are very much looking forward to throwing a whole bunch of the drill, baby, drill crowd out on their arses come november. The American people truly care about their environment you slime. You should be forced to water ski through these massive oil slicks. You will certainly fit right in there.
Regulations have not changed in the oil exploration since 1976 and it has been a government of shrinking and letting the private companies do everything..
BP cannot do the clean up. They are inventing the chemicals to spray on the water-- they refused to measure the oil flowing out of the base of the ocean.
It is all about Reagan saying that we should make the government smaller.
Now the government is run by contractors-- not enough expertese out there
Notice Woods Hole and Sript Institute of Oceanography not even showing up to examine the ocean-- probably the big oil companies pay them off with contracts too. Just guessing but why are they not there????