Scuzzbucket of the Week

Sportscaster Chris Myers. He just can't give it up, five years after Katrina.
Here's a wrapup of his story from mediamatters.org



As you probably heard, Myers stepped in it big time when he recently guest hosted a nationally syndicated sports radio show and ridiculed Katrina survivors. Specifically, Myers, in a heartless gesture, compared the hurricane survivors of New Orleans with the recent flood survivors in Nashville, and announced the Midwestern, water-logged victims were better; even vaguely more American:

It's a great country here. We have disasters issues when people pull together and help themselves and I thought the people in Tennessee, unlike -- I'm not going to name names -- when a natural disaster hits people weren't standing on a rooftop trying to blame the government, okay. They helped each other out through this.

Here's the thing, Myers was riffing off a dreadful essay that right-wing country picker Charlie Daniels wrote last week, in which he compared New Orleans and Nashville victims, and concluded the Midwestern ones were better, and vaguely more American. (More religious, too.)

What I want to write about is the people of Tennessee and the true volunteer spirit of the Volunteer State. In the limited coverage given the flood by the national media did you see anybody on a rooftop waiting for a coast guard chopper to pick them up?



h/t nolafemmes dot com

Needed Levity

NOLA blogger Michael Homan has created a short flick about the oil spill that - in true Louisiana fashion - will make you laugh instead of cry in these disasterous times. Thanks Mike!

Oil Spill Events - May 19, 2010

By The Associated Press (AP) – 16 hours ago

Events May 19, Day 30 of a Gulf of Mexico oil spill that began with an explosion and fire April 20 on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, owned by Transocean Ltd. and leased by BP PLC, which is in charge of cleanup and containment. The blast killed 11 workers. Since then, oil has been pouring into the Gulf from a blown-out undersea well at a rate of at least 210,000 gallons per day.

THE BLAME GAME

Leading Republicans including John Mica of Florida sought to pin blame for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on President Barack Obama's administration. During a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing Wednesday, Mica cited Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's acknowledgment Tuesday that his agency could have more aggressively monitored the offshore drilling industry. Mica said the administration failed to heed warnings about the need for more regulation and issued "a carte blanche" for disaster when it approved drilling for dozens of wells including the Deepwater Horizon site leased by oil giant BP PLC. Committee Chairman James Oberstar, D-Minn., called that inflammatory and wrong. He said the drilling was approved early in the Obama administration, by career officials.

NEXT SHOT

BP said it hopes to begin shooting a mixture known as drilling mud into the blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico by Sunday. The "top kill" method involves shooting heavy mud into crippled equipment on top of the well, then aiming cement at the well to permanently keep down the oil. Even if it works it could take several weeks to complete.

TAR BALLS

Tar balls that floated ashore in the Florida Keys were not linked to the oil spill, the Coast Guard said Wednesday. That did little to soothe fears the blown-out well gushing a mile underwater could spread damage along the coast from Louisiana to Florida.

WHERE IS IT GOING?

Thousands of barrels of oil are still pouring into open waters every day, and some of it has washed ashore as far east as Alabama. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists said a small part of the oil slick from the blown-out well has reached a powerful current that could take it to Florida. They said diluted oil could appear in isolated locations in Florida if persistent winds push the current toward it, but that oil could evaporate before reaching the coast.

CUBA

U.S and Cuban officials are holding "working level" talks on how to respond to the oil spill, a State Department official told The Associated Press. The talks add to signs of concern that strong currents could carry the slick far from the spill's origin off Louisiana, possibly threatening the Florida Keys and pristine white beaches along Cuba's northern coast. The talks mark a rare moment of cooperation between two countries locked in conflict for more than half a century.

HOW MUCH?

Questions remained about just how much oil is spilling from the well. New underwater video released by BP showed oil and gas erupting under pressure in large, dark clouds from its crippled blowout preventer on the ocean floor. The leaks resembled a geyser on land.

SUGGESTIONS

A suggestion box or publicity stunt? BP has received thousands of ideas from the public on how to stop the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but some inventors are complaining that their efforts are getting ignored. Oil-eating bacteria, bombs and a device that resembles a giant shower curtain are among the 10,000 fixes people have proposed to counter the growing environmental threat. BP is taking a closer look at 700 of the ideas, but has yet to use any of them nearly a month after the deadly explosion that caused the leak.

BP has fielded some 60,000 calls from the public that led to 10,000 tips. About 2,500 people sent in forms spelling out their ideas in greater detail, and BP advanced 700 to the next phase.

MONITORING

Environmental groups are asking the federal government to take over all monitoring and testing related to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. In remarks prepared for congressional testimony, National Wildlife Federation President Larry Schweiger says BP is keeping too much information from the public.

INSPECTIONS

Senate Democrats are calling for the Obama administration to improve inspections of deepwater oil rigs such as the one that exploded last month in the Gulf of Mexico. The lawmakers said oil companies should pay for the emergency inspections, not taxpayers.

In a letter Wednesday to President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats urged immediate and enhanced inspections of all offshore drilling rigs and platforms that could pose a significant environmental threat.

LAWSUITS

More than 100 lawsuits against BP and other companies involved in the vast Gulf of Mexico oil spill should be combined quickly in one federal court to avoid legal chaos and delayed payment of billions of dollars in damages, an attorney said Wednesday. Louisiana lawyer Daniel Becnel wants lawsuits pending in five Gulf Coast states consolidated in federal court in New Orleans or elsewhere in Louisiana, the state hit hardest so far.

TURTLE

Officials say the first sea turtle to be rescued from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is being cared for in New Orleans. Audubon Aquarium spokeswoman Meghan Calhoun says the endangered Kemp's ridley turtle was found by a biologist looking for oiled animals in the slick. The baby turtle arrived in New Orleans Tuesday night. Calhoun says the turtle has been bathed from the inside of its mouth to the tips of its flippers and stubby tail. It will have several more baths.

PROFESSOR

A St. Louis scientist who was among a select group picked by the Obama administration to pursue solutions to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has been dropped because of controversial writings on his website. The Energy Department confirmed Wednesday that Washington University physics professor Jonathan Katz was removed because his previous writings had "become a distraction." Katz's website includes articles defending homophobia and questioning the value of diversity efforts. He did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

source google news

Corexit is out

The EPA is "demanding" that BP use a less toxic dispersant.

Gee, thanks, EPA. They've been spraying corexit from the air and injecting it 5,000 feet under water at the well break for 30 days now. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?????

Wonder if BP's going to listen to the EPA or just go on doing what they've been doing.

I wonder if BP's going to look into the alternative methods of sucking up the pollutants that they've spoiled our beautiful Gulf of Mexico waters with. Or will they go again with Nalco and choose another poison to stir into the water?

Here's a list of Nalco Holding's Board of Directors:

Listed below are the members of the committees of Nalco Holding Company's Board of Directors.
Audit Committee
Mr. Richard B. Marchese - Chairman
Mr. Rodney F. Chase former Deputy Group Chief Executive and Managing Director, from 1992 to 2003, of BP
Mr. Douglas A. Pertz
Ms. Mary M. VanDeWeghe
Compensation Committee
Mr. Douglas A. Pertz - Chairman
Mr. Paul J. Norris
Mr. Daniel S. Sanders retired in 2004 as President of ExxonMobil Chemical Company
Nominating And Corporate Governance Committee
Mr. Rodney F. Chase - Chairman
Mr. Carl M. Casale
Mr. Richard B. Marchese
Ms. Mary M. VanDeWeghe
Safety Health And Environment Committee
Mr. Daniel S. Sanders retired in 2004 as President of ExxonMobil Chemical Company
Mr. Carl M. Casale
Mr. Paul J. Norris

Oil on Elmer's Island

The nightmare just keeps getting worse.

from nola dot com


May 20, 2010, 10:57AM
Oil is washing up on Elmer's Island off lower Jefferson Parish, a wildlife refuge and popular spot for bird-watching and beach camping, a Jefferson Parish official said.

Councilman Tom Capella said this morning that oil from the BP rig explosion has washed up on the island just west of Grand Isle.

Capella was traveling to the island to attend a 12:30 p.m. news conference with Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Jindal declared the island a wildlife refuge in 2008 and reopened it for public use for the first time since 2002, when a private access road was closed.

A six-mile stretch of beach, sand dunes and marsh ponds between Fourchon Beach and Caminada Pass, Elmer's Island had been prized for decades as one of the few road-accessible beaches in eastern Louisiana.


Update: Deano Bonnano - Chief of Homeland Security in Jefferson Parish - stated on WWL that during a surveillance trip over Elmer's Island a few days ago they spotted an oil slick and gave the GPS coordinates to BP and BP did not respond. They're thumbing their noses at everyone.

I have such fond memories of camping out on the beach at Elmer's Island. This is just sickening.

time for this to stop

From a WWL radio interview at 7:20 AM 5/20/2010 (one month after the disaster that is killing our coast):

 

Billy Nungesser detailing all the run around he's been getting from BP, the Coast Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers

 

It's an emergency, we've lost 25 miles of marsh this week. 

We called this in on Monday morning, 6 o'clock; as of this day, no one is out there cleaning up the marsh.

It doesn't take 3 days to get a crew out there.

 

The oil in Pass a Loutre is 1" in the surface, in the canes.  Nothing will survive. Within 5 days everything will be dead.  Its the

only thing holding the marsh together.  25 miles of marsh is dead.

 

If we would have started this 10 days ago (when we requested "permission" to build the berm)  -  if it was really considered an emergency - we'd be picking this oil  off the berm.  The Federal Gov't has us wrapped up in red tape.

 

If we don't stop it coming into the marsh, we won't need the offshore money. This marsh will

deteriorate so fast that the Grand Isle fisning rodeo will be held in Baton Rouge in a few years.

 

They want me up in DC Tuesday to testify.  I replied in a letter saying I will testify about everything and I'm not

sure you want to hear from me.  We'll talk about everything, not just what you want to hear. 

Not expecting to get a return invitation.

 

BP has an opportunity to step up to the plate and authorize this berm today.  There were a couple of birds

that landed in the cane while we were out there.  They're dead.  Everything in that area is dead or

dying, it won't survive.  I pulled out one of the canes from the roots, it was already turning brown.

You can write it off.

 

The corps not equipped to tell us how to build our levees and flood walls.  It's a crime to go  thru these

procedures and we know what has to be done.

 

 

Oil Spill Coverup

From the huffington post:

When CBS tried to film a beach with heavy oil on the shore in South Pass, Louisiana, a boat of BP contractors, and two Coast Guard officers, told them to turn around, or be arrested.

"This is BP's rules, it's not ours," someone aboard the boat said. Coast Guard officials told CBS that they're looking into it.

 

here's the link to the story and a video:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/19/bp-coast-guard-officers-b_n_581779.html

 

 

Oilspill Events May 18, 2010

Events May 18, Day 29 of a Gulf of Mexico oil spill that began with an explosion and fire April 20 on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, owned by Transocean Ltd. and leased by BP PLC, which is in charge of cleanup and containment. The blast killed 11 workers. Since then, oil has been pouring into the Gulf from a blown-out undersea well at a rate of at least 210,000 gallons per day.

INQUIRIES

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar caught sharp criticism from lawmakers Tuesday over the government's failures in overseeing offshore oil drilling. And he acknowledged his department had been lax in holding industry accountable. Salazar, in his first appearance before Congress since the April 20 accident that unleashed a massive Gulf oil spill, promised an overhaul of the agency that regulates offshore oil drilling to give it "more tools, more resources, more independence and greater authority."

Three Senate committees held hearings Tuesday. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen were also testifying.

COLLECTING THE OIL

BP says its mile-long tube siphoning oil from a blown-out well is bringing more crude to the surface. In a news release Tuesday, BP PLC says the narrow tube is now drawing 84,000 gallons a day for collection in a tanker — double the amount drawn when it started operation Sunday. BP — which puts the leak at 210,000 gallons — has said it hopes to draw about half the leaking oil. Scientists who have studied video of the leak say the amount could be significantly more.

FISHING SHUT DOWN

Federal regulators nearly tripled the federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico where fishing is shut down because of the spill. They had already shut down fishing from the Mississippi River to the Florida Panhandle, about 7 percent of federal waters were affected. Now nearly 46,000 square miles, or about 19 percent of federal waters, will be shut under the expanded ban.

WILDLIFE

Federal officials say 189 dead sea turtles, birds and other animals have been found along Gulf of Mexico coastlines since a massive oil spill started last month. The total includes 154 sea turtles, primarily the endangered Kemp's ridley variety, 12 dolphins and 23 birds. What they don't know is how many were killed by oil or chemical dispersants. Acting U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Rowan Gould says the spill's effects could be felt for decades and may never be fully known because so many affected creatures live far offshore.

WHERE IS IT GOING?

Government scientists are surveying the Gulf of Mexico to determine if oil from the spill has entered a powerful current that could take it to Florida. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Administrator Jane Lubchenco says aerial surveys show some tendrils of light oil close to or already in the loop current, which circulates in the Gulf and takes water south to the Florida Keys and the Gulf Stream. But most oil is dozens of miles away from the current. Lubchenco says it will take about eight to 10 days after oil enters the current before it begins to reach Florida. But scientists from the University of South Florida are forecasting it could reach Key West by Sunday.

NATIVE AMERICANS

Like many American Indians on the bayou, Emary Billiot blames oil companies for ruining his ancestral marsh over the decades. Still, he's always been able to fish — but now even that is not a certainty. The oil spill has closed bays and lakes in Louisiana's bountiful delta, including fishing grounds that feed the last American-Indian villages in three parishes. It is a bitter blow for the tribes of south Louisiana, who charge that drilling has already destroyed their swamps and that oil and land companies illegally grabbed vast areas.

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

Miami's top federal prosecutor says the Justice Department is closely monitoring the Gulf oil spill but currently there is no criminal investigation of BP or the other companies involved. U.S. Attorney Willy Ferrer said the federal government's focus now is on stopping the oil leak and cleaning up the mess.

Heartbreaking picture

Oil in Pass a Loutre wildlife refuge.



BP you suck.

Too much coverup going on

An exerpt from website bellona dot org

Wildlife taking a beating before oil hits mainland
National Park Service Ranger Jody Lyle told Bellona Web that one oil covered gannet had been discovered and rescued on Ship Island earlier Saturday. She also said that, more generally along the gulf coast from the Florida panhandle to Mississippi, 10 oily Pelicans had been found alive over the past several days, and that five had been found dead. Two had been cleaned and treated and released back into the environment.

But Rangers from the National Park Service insisted to Below the Surface, that both the turtle and the dolphin carcasses had washed up on Ship Island more than a week ago. Reporters from Bellona Web, however, who had visited the exact site where the carcasses now lie last Saturday, contradicted that for Crisculo.


Barbara Groves for Bellona Web

The National Park Service has an agenda of its own – dead animals on protected beaches, and the spill at sea, mean a lean summer. But even larger environmental and scientific institutes on the Gulf coast are reluctant to draw any connection between the Dolphin, bird and turtle deaths and the spill.

Are dispersants killing the animals?
These deaths would not have to result from oil, say many environmental scientists. BP has poured some 400,000 gallons of highly toxic Corexit chemical dispersant on the spill. Though EPA reports on the use of oil dispersants remain inconclusive, especially at depth, BP announced that it will from Saturday forward continue to dump dispersants on the spill 24 hours a day both from boats and planes.

Those who have studied oil spills and cleanup efforts, like Defenders of Wildlife’s oil drilling specialist Richard Charter and Riki Ott, an oil spill expert and author of “Sound Truth and Corporate Myth$: The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill,” say mixing dispersant and oil creates a substance more toxic than the oil itself.

Why they're not using bagasse or anything else

From the American Zombie blog:

Corexit is manufactured by Nalco of Naperville, Illinois, and its board is packed with several retired BP and Exxon executives. With that in mind, there simply isn’t enough money to be made off of biodegradable solvents that actually devour the oil, a source close to Nalco told Bellona Web. Corexit creates sludge, and hence sweetheart trucking deals to haul it off.

Listed below are the members of the committees of Nalco Holding Company's Board of Directors.
Audit Committee
Mr. Richard B. Marchese - Chairman
Mr. Rodney F. Chase former Deputy Group Chief Executive and Managing Director, from 1992 to 2003, of BP
Mr. Douglas A. Pertz
Ms. Mary M. VanDeWeghe
Compensation Committee
Mr. Douglas A. Pertz - Chairman
Mr. Paul J. Norris
Mr. Daniel S. Sanders retired in 2004 as President of ExxonMobil Chemical Company
Nominating And Corporate Governance Committee
Mr. Rodney F. Chase - Chairman
Mr. Carl M. Casale
Mr. Richard B. Marchese
Ms. Mary M. VanDeWeghe
Safety Health And Environment Committee
Mr. Daniel S. Sanders retired in 2004 as President of ExxonMobil Chemical Company
Mr. Carl M. Casale
Mr. Paul J. Norris


I'm very, very sick and angry right now.

From nola dot com:

Inventors say BP is ignoring their oil spill ideas


Oil-eating bacteria, bombs and a device that resembles a giant shower curtain are among the 10,000 fixes people have proposed to counter the growing environmental threat. BP is taking a closer look at 700 of the ideas, but the oil company has yet to use any of them nearly a month after the deadly explosion that caused the leak.

"They're clearly out of ideas, and there's a whole world of people willing to do this free of charge," said Dwayne Spradlin, CEO of InnoCentive Inc., which has created an online network of experts to solve problems.

BP spokesman Mark Salt said the company wants the public's help, but that considering proposed fixes takes time.

BULLSHIT.