Obama Wants to ‘Hide The Body’

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Tensions between the Obama administration and the scientific community over the gulf oil spill are escalating, with prominent oceanographers accusing the government of failing to conduct an adequate scientific analysis of the damage and of allowing BP to obscure the spill’s true scope.

Tensions between the Obama administration and the scientific community over the gulf oil spill are escalating, with prominent oceanographers accusing the government of failing to conduct an adequate scientific analysis of the damage and of allowing BP to obscure the spill’s true scope.

The scientists point out that in the month since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, the government has failed to make public a single test result on water from the deep ocean. And the scientists say the administration has been too reluctant to demand an accurate analysis of how many gallons of oil are flowing into the sea from the gushing oil well.

“It seems baffling that we don’t know how much oil is being spilled,” Sylvia Earle, a famed oceanographer, said Wednesday on Capitol Hill. “It seems baffling that we don’t know where the oil is in the water column.”

Oceanographers have also criticized the Obama administration over its reluctance to force BP, the oil company responsible for the spill, to permit an accurate calculation of the flow rate from the undersea well. The company has refused to permit scientists to send equipment to the ocean floor that would establish the rate with high accuracy.

Ian MacDonald of Florida State University, an oceanographer who was among the first to question the official estimate of 210,000 gallons a day, said he had come to the conclusion that the oil company was bent on obstructing any accurate calculation. “They want to hide the body,” he said.

The flagship of the NOAA fleet, the research vessel Ronald H. Brown, was off the coast of Africa when the spill occurred on April 20, and according to NOAA tracking logs, it was not redirected until about May 11, three weeks after the disaster began. It is sailing toward the gulf.

From here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05…

Now, of course, independent experts are now saying that the gulf spill is so many times bigger than official estimates, that it’s hard to fathom.  This spill –which was once touted by the government as many times smaller than the Valdez, has eclipsed that spill many times over -maybe even in the first day.

The only spill ever that comes close was 1979’s Pemex “Ixtoc I” which nearly removed the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle from the world– 3 million barrels released over 8 months.  

Worst case scenarios for BP 2010?

18 million. In one month.  

Now, government estimates are much less than that–but clearly they have no credibility at this point at all.  Not when literally all of the independent experts are pointing to much higher figures, and not when they combine with BP to purchase public relations help.