From Climate Progress.org

Chemically dispersing oil spills “solves the political problem of visible oil but not the environmental problem,” Robert Brulle, a 20-year Coast Guard veteran and an affiliate professor of public health at Drexel University, told me. These dispersants “do not actually reduce the total amount of oil entering the environment,” as a 2005 National Academy of Sciences report on the subject put it.

——-

I spoke to Carys Mitchelmore, one of the writers of the toxicity chapter for the NAS report. She explained that dispersants are “a molecule that looks like a snake. The head part likes water and the tail part likes oil.” The dispersant “pulls the oil into the water in the form of tiny droplets.”

And that means subsurface creatures – from oysters to coral to larval eggs – that might never have had significant exposure to the oil are now going to get a double whammy, getting hit by the oil and by the dispersants. Worse, the oil droplets are now in a form that looks like food (e.g., the same size as algae) to filter feeders like oysters, which otherwise may only have been exposed to the far lower levels of dissolved oil components found under a typical oil slick. The droplets can also clog up fish gills.

http://climateprogress.org/201…

Ever wondered why BO and BP (the smelly twins) are refusing to admit the real figures on the oil spill?

Just out of sheer spite?

Nope.

(Reuters) – Just how many barrels of oil are gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon spill is a billion dollar question with implications that go beyond the environment. It could also help determine how much BP and others end up paying for the disaster.

GULF OIL SPILL

A clause buried deep in the U.S. Clean Water Act may expose BP and others to civil fines that aren’t limited to any finite cap — unlike a $75 million limit on compensation for economic damages. The Act allows the government to seek civil penalties in court for every drop of oil that spills into U.S. navigable waters, including the area of BP’s leaking well.

As a result, the U.S. government could seek to fine BP or others up to $4,300 for every barrel leaked into the U.S. Gulf, according to legal experts and official documents.

http://www.reuters.com/article…

I’ll bet Kenny Boy will be all over this, to get them to pay up– to the max.

Err, Right?

Not much HOPE of that.

The dispersants are a massive experiment , and most likely a huge crime has been committed on the environment, in order to cover up the oil spill–which was at least an accident.

The Coast Guard and EPA allowing their use is a criminal act. And the use of even the worst one still goes on despite media reports to the contrary.

BP Still Using Dirty Dispersant in the Gulf

– By Kate Sheppard| Sat May. 22, 2010 10:35 AM PDT

BP is continuing to use a toxic oil dispersant in the Gulf, despite the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency directed the company to find a less-dangerous chemical to use on the spill. The company said yesterday that it could not identify a better alternative.

The EPA has a list of other approved dispersants that could be used in the Gulf, many of which are less toxic than Corexit. BP has already dumped at least 670,000 gallons of Corexit at the spill site.

Will the EPA force BP to switch dispersants? That remains unclear. On Friday, EPA spokesperson Adora Andy indicated to ABC News that the agency has not outright barred BP from using their brand of choice. “It’s not that Corexit is banned,” she said. “It’s not that they have to stop using it because they’re using it right now. But it’s just that they need to switch over.”

Beyond Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi. Where’s the oil now, and where is it gonna go?

Here’s a graphic of where it is now from US Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/n…

And, a satellite image, with loop stream superimposed (from the 17th)

http://deepseanews.com/wp-cont…

It kind of looks like some of it at least is starting to spin around and around in the central gulf.

That’s just surface oil though, and due to the dispersants, we don’t know what depth it’s all at.  Speeds, and potential directions are quite different depending on depths:

Fourth, measurements of near-surface current as high as 4 knots [2 m/s] have been recorded in eddies recently detached from the Loop Current. Available data do not indicate that the maximum possible speed in the Loop Current is any less than that figure. Current profiles associated with both the Loop Current and its eddies are highly sheared. These high surface speeds drop to about 1 knot [0.5 m/s] at 650 ft [200 m] and 1/2 knot [0.25 m/s] at 130 ft [400 m] depth. Features with lower surface speeds also have lower speeds at depth.

Current predictions are that the loop may swing further west than normal, threatening the Keys either less, or just a bit later on, and the Dry Tortugas perhaps more.  The Coast Guard claims that tar balls that have washed up in the Keys are not from Deepwater Horizon. You can judge their credibility for yourself.

At some point, though, it hits the Gulf Stream:

The Stream may well act as a barrier keeping the oil on the US side, not so much towards Cuba or the Bahamas. Seems like that’s what’s happening in this huge image (hat tip to Wolverine6)

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa…

As for now the oil is clearly affecting south west FL, the keys and dry tortugas, and then south FL east.  It may be that when it hits the fast, deep, warmer, water of the Stream, it’ll tend to drive it North or back towards Florida.

On April 30, 10 days after the start of the biggest oil spill in history, Obama finally woke up enough to promised to use :

“every single available resource at our disposal”

Since then, here’s what has he accomplished:

1. By May 3rd the armed forces touted that they had deployed 66,000 feet of boom.

Uh, guys, that’s only 12 miles.  

Yes, that includes this:

2. The armed forces assigned two aircraft to spray toxic dispersant.  

Whether they ever did or not is unclear.

3. Twenty federal government agencies, combined with BP to  hire a public relations firm–which started a website, a facebook page, and an account on twitter.

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.”

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 in spots. 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.

Read the whole thing at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05…

According to the AP:

Researchers Vernon Asper and Arne Dierks said in Web posts that the plumes were “perhaps due to the deep injection of dispersants which BP has stated that they are conducting.”

Meanwhile, BP began spraying undersea dispersants at that leak site and said the chemicals appear to have reduced the amount of surface oil.

This unprecedented use of chemical dispersants underwater, and the depth of the leak has created many unknowns regarding environmental impact, and researchers hurriedly worked to chart its effects.

Federal regulators on Friday approved the underwater use of the chemicals, which act like a detergent to break the oil into small globules and allow it to disperse more quickly into the water or air before it comes ashore.

The decision by the Environmental Protection Agency angered state officials and fishermen, who complained that regulators ignored their concerns about the effects on the environment and fish.

“The EPA is conducting a giant experiment with our most productive fisheries by approving the use of these powerful chemicals on a massive, unprecedented scale,” John Williams, executive director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance, said in a news release

Of course, this has not been reported at our government’s and BP’s disinformational website : deepwaterhorizonresponse.com  .  

What a surprise.

Is a restructuring of Greek sovereign debt inevitable? What would restructuring entail? Does the current E.U. plan envision restructuring? Is the current plan more concerned re the health of certain European banks than Greece? – kathaa, West Bloomfield, Mich.

Yves Smith: Yes, it is inevitable. The Greek austerity program is the most daunting in modern times. Argentina defaulted under a much less demanding program. The Greek population also appears to understand intuitively the record of Latin American austerity programs, that they are a transfer from the public to the banks, and they do not appear willing to make the depth of sacrifice demanded of them. Many experts believe the euro zone is wasting valuable firepower and credibility on Greece, when it would have done better to restructure Greece now and use any backstop funds for the other euro zone members under stress.

….Unless a country can engineer a very large increase in exports, which usually happens by depreciating its currency, trying to reduce public- and private-sector debt at the same time results in a big economic contraction. That’s happening now in Ireland, where nominal G.D.P. has fallen over 18 percent. A fall of that magnitude makes it even harder to pay off existing debt.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes….

So, France and Germany are basically paying Greece to pay  their own banks. And contracting the Greek (and soon all of southern Europe) economy.  Remember that one of the conditions Germany placed on bailing out their own auto industry, was that the jobs created/saved would be in Germany-not in Spain or somewhere else. Likewise, their various stimulus packages were local as well. But now they’ve forced Greece to cut jobs, cut entitlements and retirement benefits, and raise taxes.

And of course this:

…Papandreou had recently met Sarkozy and French Prime Minister Francois Fillon in Paris. “Mr Fillon and Mr Sarkozy told Mr Papandreou: ‘We’re going to raise the money to help you, but you are going to have to continue to pay the arms contracts that we have with you’,” Cohn-Bendit said.

“In the past three months we have forced Greece to confirm several billion dollars in arms contracts. French frigates that the Greeks will have to buy for 2.5 billion euros. Helicopters, planes, German submarines.”

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/d…

Excellent News !!!

No Effort Has Been Spared in Massive Operation !

The USS Gravely (DDG-107) an arleigh burk-class guided missile destroyer sits in the Port of Pascagoula, Mississippi surrounded by oil containment booms to prevent oil from the Deepwater Horizon from reaching it’s hull while in port. Deepwater Horizon was an ultra-deepwater oil rig that sank April 22, causing an oil spill threatening the waters near the U.S. Gulf Coast. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class (EXW/SW) Corey Truax/Released)

The USS Gravely is Safe !

Safe I tell you.

What could be better.

I don’t do very many personal essays here, but as some of you here know,back in the day,  I was a gulf of mexico sponge diver,  and boat captain, and at one time the gulf was my backyard  or 2nd home if you will. I would spend most of the summer out there–a week or so at a time, and I’ve seen –and sometimes interacted with– every sort of sea life from the smallest reef dweller to the big pelagics.    

I’ve seen abundant life all over (except in the dead zone, miles off shore from the Crystal River Nuke plant). The kind of stuff recreational divers pay thousand to go see in far off places with better water visibility–and perhaps that’s one reason it remained so good for so long.  And, I’ve spent many peaceful nights out there, watching the stars, far from the light loom of shore.  

Today Greenpeace is reporting this:

I’m down at the oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico – or what for now is the Gulf of Mexico. Rick Steiner, a marine conservationist and oil spill expert, flew over the Gulf Wednesday morning and said, “It’s not the Gulf of Mexico any more. It’s the Gulf of Oil.”

   http://members.greenpeace.org/…

There’s more at the link, about the ‘theatre’ of a fake cleanup effort–booms not even being attended by skimmers, and are therefore useless, and so on.  

But, this disaster is taking away something beautiful, that I know so well, unlike for instance Alaska- where I’ve never been.     I have memories of favorite reefs, I’ve had friends die out there, memories of various storms, of nearly dying myself in diving accidents.  I’ve seen waterspouts – up to 5 at one time (friend on another boat got on the VHF said ‘that job at McDonald’s is looking pretty good right now’) , and lightning, rain and fog, and, way offshore, my dog fell off my boat in a storm.   I got him back.  I’ve made love out there. I’ve watched snowy star trek on a 5″ b&w tv. And I’ve watched the shooting stars pass over. I’ve seen where the shrimp boats have dragged their gear across hard bottom or reef tearing it all to hell,  and probably their gear too, but who cares about that. And I’ve pulled up thousands of sponges from deep and shallow water–wool sponge (bath) , yellow sponge (car wash) , grass and finger (tourist shop) .

Here’s a dead, unbleached wool sponge:

This guy thinks the Exxon Valdez has already been eclipsed:

http://www.gulfbase.org/person…

Ian McDonald, a biological oceanographer, strongly believes that the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill could have already surpassed the Exxon Valdez oil spill. He has categorically denied the estimates of NOAA and BP, which stands at 5000 barrels per day. According to his study and analysis, we are looking at a spill of around 25,000 barrels per day, rather than the 5,000 barrels estimated by BP. If his estimates are accurate, then we are facing a much bigger economical and threat than is currently being predicted.

http://apexnewsnetwork.com/283…

I could f’ing cry.

No surprise to anyone here I suppose, but – the attempt to put a box or dome over the first leak has apparently failed–ice crystals have blocked the whole mess up, and they’ve dropped the thing on the bottom, while they ‘re-assess’.