Oil too close to home

Shrimp boat sits idle at Rigolets marina. #oilspill sheen and... on Twitpic

Oil Advances Into Lake Pontchartrain

Oil Advances Into Lake Pontchartrain

nunguesser calls out coast guard

Plaquemines Parish president Billy Nungesser venting to WWL radio. Coast Guard/BP conspiracy going on....I believe it.

Reporting on the oilspill

Well written article about the oilspill from someone who doesn't live here.

It'll make you sad, but worth the read.

Excerpt:

It's all being driven by money and fear. That's what had made the out-of-uniform cop in the oil port of Fourchon, on the edge of the marsh, erupt from his police car and scream that if I didn't leave now he would arrest me for trespassing ... for driving on a public road toward the shoreline.

That's what made everyone keep subdividing, compartmentalizing, seeing only his link.

That's what made the oil company try to hide the carnage and send the oil underwater.

That's what made all the marsh dwellers scream about the moratorium on deepwater drilling, even though that was the very thing that had just shattered their way of life.

That's what kept their leaders from doing what they knew must be done, and their countrymen from demanding it: the conversion to energy that didn't poison the water or land or keep us mired in expensive wars when the national bank was broke.

BP's Texas City Chemical Release

From Propublica dot org, an article about
a BP-owned Texas City Refinery released thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into the air because of BP's decision to keep producing gasoline while they repaired faulty equipment that caused the leaks.

"The company now estimates that 538,000 pounds of chemicals escaped from the refinery while it was replacing the equipment. These included 17,000 pounds of benzene, a known carcinogen; 37,000 pounds of nitrogen oxides, which contribute to respiratory problems; and 186,000 pounds of carbon monoxide."

Their blatant disregard for the environment and human beings is painfully stunning to me.

Findings on White House's response to the Oil Spill

Here's a link to a just published report on the White House Public Relations Campaign on the Oil Spill. The report was done by U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

An excerpt:
Findings
Committee staff has discovered the following based upon witness interviews and
documents provided by federal and state entities:
• Officials on the ground dispute key White House assertions about the number and
timeliness of assets deployed in the Gulf. Local officials describe White House
outreach efforts as more focused on stopping bad press than on addressing the
disaster at hand;

• The White House’s assurances that there are adequate resources are at odds with the
reality on the ground, where those on the frontline of the spill express significant
frustration over the lack of assets. Local complaints are supported by the fact that the White House waited until Day 70 of the oil spill to accept critical offers of
international assistance. Local workers and boats could have been assisting more
with the clean-up if the Federal government had provided them with needed supplies
and equipment;

• While the White House has tried to use the delay in finding a visible leak to explain its early silence on the oil spill, Transocean officials and Coast Guard documents from the scene of the oil spill reveal clear and early indications of a substantial oil leak days earlier than White House accounts;

• The failure of Administration officials to quickly waive laws preventing necessary
foreign assets from reaching the Gulf and other regulations are hampering efforts to
clean-up and limit damage from the oil spill. Local officials feel the federal
government is making the perfect the enemy of the good in cleanup efforts;

• Local officials strongly dispute President Obama’s insistence that the federal
government – and not BP – has been in control since day one. One Coast Guard
Admiral told congressional investigators that decisions on the ground are made
through a “consensus-based” process with BP. In practice, the Federal Government is
not in charge of oil spill response efforts through a command-and-control approach;

• Local officials strongly believe the President’s call for a drilling moratorium will significantly compound the economic damage caused by the oil spill and will actually increase risk associated with future offshore drilling projects.

Top Chefs on Gulf Seafood

A tour of oil skimmer "A Whale"

Independence from Oil - a history

An Energy-Independent Future

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Another Endangered Species Endangered

From Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — Whale sharks, the huge fish that feed by vacuuming the sea surface, have been seen in heavy oil a few miles from BP's spewing well in the Gulf of Mexico, a scientist said.

The University of Southern Mississippi researcher who's studied their migratory habits in the Gulf says the question now is how many of the creatures are dying in the oil.

"Taking mouthfuls of thick oil is not conducive to them surviving," said Eric Hoffmayer of the USM Gulf Coast Research Lab.

Oil could clog the cartilage filter pads that direct food to their throats and could coat their gills.

Hoffmayer said three of the sharks, the world's largest fish, were spotted within four miles of the spill site on Monday. They migrate north in late spring from waters near the Yucatan to feed off the mouth of the Mississippi River. The Deepwater Horizon site is about 40 miles southeast of the river.

"That basically confirms our worst fear: these animals do not know to stay away from the oil," Hoffmayer said.

They're easy to recognize, up to about 40 feet long and black with rows of white spots.

But there won't be any way to tell how many die. Sharks don't float.

"If they do die from the oil, they're going to sink to the bottom," Hoffmayer said.

News of whale sharks in the oil came less than a week after a huge group was spotted elsewhere off the Louisiana coast where oil had not yet been found. One aerial photograph showed dozens of them.

"It blew my mind. There were probably more than a hundred sharks," he said.

The group seen June 22 was about 70 miles southwest of Port Fourchon, and about 60 miles from the western edge of the spill as shown on a federal map, he said.

Hoffmayer said it was hard to say whether the three seen Monday were from that group because the animals can travel more than 60 miles in a day.

"I've got a feeling that until whatever the food source they found disappears, they're not going to want to go," he said.

Nobody knows just how many whale sharks exist. They're on the World Conservation Union's "red list" of threatened species.

Hoffmayer said the animals can dive a mile deep, and could escape any effort to herd them away from the oil.

Last week's spotting came as part of a two-day excursion organized by the director of a documentary being filmed about marine biologist Sylvia Earle, creator of the Mission Blue Foundation.

Hoffmayer said four of the sharks were tagged.