Tag: Underwater Plumes

I, for one, hope that this is true, and will be further substantiated:

Study: Petroleum-eating microbes significantly reduced gulf oil plume

David Brown, Washington Post Staff Writer — Tue, August 24, 2010

Petroleum-eating bacteria – which had dined for eons on oil seeping naturally through the seafloor – proliferated in the cloud of oil that drifted underwater for months after the April 20 accident. They not only outcompeted fellow microbes, they each ramped up their own internal metabolic machinery to digest the oil as efficiently as possible.

The result was a nature-made cleanup crew capable of reducing that reduced the amount of oil amounts in the undersea “plume” by half about every three days, according to research published online Tuesday by the journal Science.

The findings, by a team of scientists led by Terry C. Hazen of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California […]

Two weeks ago we were being told the majority of the Oil Spilled was “mostly” gone …

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

Now, University of South Florida, Marine Scientists are reporting Science has a different tale, to tell …

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 …

OH  NOES!

Just when you thought the worse was over …

BP to scale back some oil response units, new leader pledges to stay for long haul

by Doug Mouton / Northshore Bureau Chief

wwltv.com — July 30, 2010

How much oil is in the Gulf now is up for debate.  Several Louisiana leaders, including St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis have argued that million of gallons of oil are underwater, waiting to surface.

“We haven’t found that,” [Bob] Dudley [new BP CEO] said.

Dudley said six ships and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are working to locate underwater oil.

“It’s a big hunt going on right now,” Dudley said. “It’s going to keep going on.”

Hey BOB! — MAYBE you haven’t “found it” because of 1.8 Million Gallons of Toxic Dispersants you managed to spray — Kept much of it Underwater, eh?

They’ll find ALL that missing Oil — just give them some more time … that’s all they ask …

Now for a little exercise in News Spin Cycles, vs the Scientific Process …

When the Facts, finally come in, IS Anyone even still Paying Attention?

“What we have learned completely changes the idea of what an oil spill is,” said chemical oceanographer David Hollander, one of three USF researchers credited with the matching samples of oil taken from the water with samples from the BP well. “It has gone from a two-dimensional disaster to a three-dimensional catastrophe.”

[…]

Together, the two studies confirm what in the early days of the spill was denied by BP and viewed skeptically by NOAA’s chief – that much of the crude that gushed from the Deepwater Horizon well stayed beneath the surface of the water.

[link to follow]

BP buys up Gulf scientists for legal defense, roiling academic community

Ben Raines, Press-Register — July 16, 2010

More than one scientist interviewed by the Press-Register described being offered $250 an hour through BP lawyers. At eight hours a week, that amounts to $104,000 a year.

[…]

The contract makes it clear that BP is seeking to add scientists to the legal team that will fight the Natural Resources Damage Assessment lawsuit that the federal government will bring as a result of the Gulf oil spill.

Is it their Scientific Expertise, that they want —

Or their Scientific Silence?

Lab tests confirm underwater layers of oil

Cain Burdeau, AP — June 4, 2010

Laboratory tests confirmed that oil from a spewing Gulf of Mexico well has accumulated in at least two extensive plumes deep under the surface, scientists with the University of South Florida said Friday.

USF researchers at a meeting in Baton Rouge said lab tests showed their initial findings, based on field instruments, were correct. The extensive layers of oil are sitting far beneath the surface miles from the site of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The university is collecting data for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The lab tests are the most conclusive evidence yet in a vigorous scientific debate about where much of the oil from the growing spill in the Gulf of Mexico has ended up.

BP spokesman Mark Proelger said the company was awaiting further analysis of what is in the plumes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“It’s too early to say whether any data indicates the plumes contain oil or not,” Proelger said.

Well then WAKE UP and smell the petro, Mark!