Aug 06 2010

When does ‘Mostly Gone’ actually mean, ‘A LOT is still There’?

(2PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

The oil has gone? Tell that to Gulf coast residents

By Rupert Cornwell, independent.co.uk — 6 August 2010

And though only a quarter of the 4.9m barrels reckoned to have leaked is still unaccounted, that represents the equivalent of five Exxon Valdez, the tanker whose spill caused an environmental catastrophe in Alaska in 1989.

“There are still boats out there every day working, finding turtles with oil on them and seeing grass lines with oil in it,” charter boat captain Randy Boggs, of Orange Beach in Alabama, told the Associated Press. “All the oil isn’t accounted for. There are millions of pounds of tar balls and oil on the bottom.”

Turns out, This — TIMES 5 —

IS mostly STILL There! … lurking somewhere, just below the surface …

Drilling down into the recent Good News/Bad News report … on the Disaster Tale in the Gulf … that Tragic Saga that is ‘primed to turn a page’ …

Scientists: Most oil gone from Gulf spill

By Steve Gelsi – Market Pulse, MarketWatch.com — Aug. 4, 2010

A team of scientsts from the federal government said Wednesday that most of the estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil that came from the Deepwater Horizion accident and the ruptured Macondo well has been collected, evaporated or dispersed. The team, led by the Department of the Interior and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said

burning, skimming and direct recovery from the wellhead removed 33% of the oil;

about 25% of the oil evaporated or dissolved,

and 16% was dispersed into microscopic droplets.

33+25+16 = ???

How about a Picture, please?  I hate doing all that math in my head.

OK

How did five million barrels of oil simply disappear?

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs points to a pie chart on the BP oil spill during the Daily White House Press Briefing, Washington, DC.

AFP/ Getty Images

OK there you go — Only about 26% Residual Oil is left.

“Residual” — that’s like “smoke” — like the Morning Fog.

That doesn’t sound so bad. … It should be gone in No Time, right?

Don’t bet on it.

[continuing from previous MarketWatch link]

The rest of the oil, about 26%, is either on or just below the surface as light sheen and weathered tar balls. “Less oil on the surface does not mean that there isn’t oil still in the water column or that our beaches and marshes aren’t still at risk,” said Jane Lubchenco, under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator.

And what does that risk of “oil still in the water column or that our beaches and marshes” really mean, to the locals, who must fish those waters, to make their living?

The oil has gone? Tell that to Gulf coast residents

By Rupert Cornwell, independent.co.uk — 6 August 2010

Harry ‘Cho-cho’ Cherami, a 59-year-old shrimper from grand Isle, Louisiana who grew up on the deck of his father’s shrimp boat, is also skeptical of the good news. “I don’t think we’ve finished with this,” he said in Grand Isle, La. “We haven’t really started to deal with it yet. We don’t know what effect it’s going to have on our seafood in the long run.”

But Science is Science, right?  … Facts is Facts.

Well it turns out there are some Science Reports, that are more “authoritative” than others.  And others, read more like a Press Release:

Looking for the oil? US claims it’s mostly gone

TodayOnline.com Aug 06, 2010

But the amount of oil left is almost five times the amount spilled by the Exxon Valdez in 1989. And National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Administrator Ms Jane Lubchenco stressed that scientists will not be able to determine for a long time the full extent of the damage. The problem, she explained, is that oil is toxic even when it has been broken down into small droplets.

The author of the report, NOAA scientist Bill Lehr, said the calculations are based on direct measurements of a small fraction of the oil spilled and “educated scientific guesses”. That’s what worries some outside scientists. “This is a shaky report … There’s some science here, but mostly, it’s spin,” said Florida State University oceanography professor Ian MacDonald.”

I wonder if that is what they mean by getting your Science Report, “peer reviewed“?

5 TIMES the Exxon Valdez spill

IS.STILL.Mostly.There.

How that qualifies as “mostly gone” is beyond me —

I guess that means, it could’ve been worse.

Well geesh, as with most problems, isn’t that usually the case?

It could’ve been worse … Let’s thank our Lucky Stars!

21 comments

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    • jamess on August 6, 2010 at 03:48
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    Gulf oil spill: White House accused of spinning report

    Scientists say it is ‘just not true’ that the vast majority of oil from the BP spill has gone

    guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 August 2010

    Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent

    White House officials had painted far too optimistic a picture of a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) into the fate of the oil.

    “Recent reports seem to say that about 75% of the oil is taken care of and that is just not true,” said John Kessler, of Texas A&M University, who led a National Science Foundation on-site study of the spill. “The fact is that 50% to 75% of the material that came out of the well is still in the water. It’s just in a dissolved or dispersed form.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/envi…

    • jamess on August 6, 2010 at 16:57
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    Scientists call new gulf spill report ‘ludicrous’

    news.oneindia.in — August 6, 2010

    Washington, Aug 6 (ANI): Scientists have labelled the new U.S. government report that claims it has taken care of the gulf oil spill as ‘ludicrous’.

    Experts are also warning that majority of the oil is trapped under Gulf beaches and could remain there for years.

    […]

    But scientists argue that fluid nature of the ocean means that it’s “exceedingly hard” to track oil.

    According to National Geographic News, to University of South Florida chemical oceanographer David Hollander, the NOAA estimates are “ludicrous.”

    “It’s almost comical,” he said.

    Hollander said that while 25 percent can be accounted for (by burning, skimming etc), 75 percent is still unaccounted for.

    For instance, the report considers all submerged oil to be dispersed and therefore not harmful, but that’s not the case.

    […]

    The mixture of oil and chemical dispersants may be suspended and preserved, causing long-term problems for deep-sea animals, said Texas Tech University ecotoxicologist Ron Kendall.

    NOAA report on Gulf oil spill draws criticism for many assumptions

    Ryan Witt, Political Buzz Examiner — August 5, 2010

    Even with that cautionary note, many experts immediately questioned the findings.  The amount of oil captured is relatively definitive number which can be confirmed, but the amount of oil dispersed, burned or naturally degraded all involves some guesswork.  

    The report gave no detail on how officials determined the amount of oil that evaporated or that was dispersed in the Gulf.  The report assumed that underwater plumes of oil simply do not exist, despite scientific evidence to the contrary.  

    Time quotes Florida State University oceanography professor Ian MacDonald as saying, “This is a shaky report. The more I read it, the less satisfied I am with the thoroughness of the presentation.  There are sweeping assumptions here.”  Even one of the scientists cited in the report said he was uncomfortable with putting definitive percentages on the amount of oil left in the Gulf.

  3. that are passed on to the government to the Big Oil companies, which they can use to lean on their corporate media friends to convince us that up is down?

    “All propaganda must be so popular and on such an intellectual level, that even the most stupid of those toward whom it is directed will understand it… Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.” – Adolf Hitler

    • jamess on August 6, 2010 at 19:47
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    The Ed Show     for Thursday, August 5th, 2010

    transcript to the Thursday show:

    SCHULTZ: But outside experts say the government numbers, hey, folks, this is fuzzy math at best and even if the oil has dispersed in the water, it’s still there.  And still toxic.  It’s just too small to see.  The reaction around the world and from the environmental group Greenpeace was scathing.  “This overstates what they know.  There really isn’t very much data to support this.  It’s somewhere between a wild guess, wishful thinking and spin to make these claims at this point.”

    Joining me now is David Pettit, he’s a senior attorney with the National Resources Defense Council.  Mr. Pettit, good to have you with us tonight.  

    […]

    PETTIT:  Well, I think Greenpeace is right.  The quote that you read from Greenpeace is right on the money.  Even if you take the government’s numbers at face value, the most that this report shows is that about half the oil that was spilled has gone away.  And the other half is still in the water in one form or another.  And the government report also said you know, the oil that’s there, it’s rapidly degrading, don’t worry, be happy, everything’s going to be fine.  That’s not true either.  We have no idea where that oil is and what’s going to happen to it.  And I think in the best reading, there’s still 2.5 million barrels, not gallons but barrels of oil out there waiting to do something, waiting to hit the coast, waiting to kill the sea life that’s in the gulf.  

    […]

    PETTIT:  […] one thing you can do is if you’re interested in finding out of what the truth is, you can go online and look at the report, this oil budget that the government put out.  And if you read it carefully, what it actually says is I think you mentioned earlier that half of the oil is still in the water and when you look at how they got to those numbers, you’ll see there’s really nothing in the way of actual measurements.  What they’re doing is well, they’re relying on older studies, for example, studies of wave action and the like and how that disperses oil.  But here the oil entered the environment 5,000 feet underwater.  It’s not like an “Exxon Valdez” where the oil spilled on the surface.  And so, whether those older studies are applicable to what we’re looking at now is really anybody’s guess and to me that makes all of these numbers unreliable.

     

    http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/…

    • jamess on August 6, 2010 at 19:59
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    help me out

    with my latest attempt

    to wake up the snoozy masses

    Scientists say: The Oil is NOT Gone — even if our Attention spans are

    by jamess — Fri Aug 06, 2010

    thx

  6. Damn,

    I can`t tell you how much I hate being treated like an ignorant schlub.

    The way they report it to the masses, is that there`s no argument, the oil is gone, “Poof”.

  7. Notice how everything “got all better” immediately after Dudley came in?  Why, there’s hardly a trace of oil — job finished, over, done, let’s move on!  Dudley promised a “leaner BP” — uh hummm!

    We are being fed unmitigated BS.  Oil does not evaporate period.  The oil gushed over 100 days and in just a few weeks, it’s all gone?  Everything is being done to snow and bamboozle Americans and the world, once again.  I think BP has attempted to “squash” everything, so they can magically get out from under having to spend much more money in any way, shape or form.  It may also be, too, that they’re afraid of what scientists WILL come up with — then who will be responsible for cleaning that up?  Once found, who?  Of course, BP would deny that it was even the Deepwater Horizon’s oil and demand proof that it was!

    And for anyone doubting the effects of dispersants, here is Dr. Riki Ott, marine biologist and toxicologist:

    I would trust Dr. Ott’s words — she has vast knowledge and experience, particularly, with the Exxon-Valez oil spill!

    And just to make the whole saga sicker yet, BP has stated that it may come back to drill in the same Gulf area again! Exec hints that . . .

    (BTW, posted at DK)

  8. and I apologize for my whacky brainwarp but I just cant take much more.

    The “it could’ve been worse” gang gearing up for the midterm elections just has me gerfunked.

    And re the Gulf… I keep thinking of this movie moment…


  9. NEW ORLEANS – Now that BP appears to have vanquished its ruptured well, authorities are turning their attention to gathering evidence from what could amount to a crime scene at the bottom of the sea. . . .

    Hundreds of investigators can’t wait to get their hands on evidence. The FBI is conducting a criminal investigation, the Coast Guard is seeking the cause of the blast, and lawyers are pursuing millions of dollars in damages for the families of the 11 workers killed, the dozens injured and the thousands whose livelihoods have been damaged. . . .

    In other developments Friday, BP said it might drill again someday into the same lucrative undersea reservoir of oil, which is still believed to hold nearly $4 billion worth of crude. That prospect is unlikely to sit well with Gulf Coast residents furious at the oil giant.

    “There’s lots of oil and gas here,” Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said. “We’re going to have to think about what to do with that at some point.” . . . .

    Is there some way to “kill” this corporation?  (Of course, they probably figure no harm in going back in there — the Gulf is dead!)  Can you imagine the unmitigated temerity of this obscene corporation?

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