The Information Super-Frog

WDSU: Slidell Resident Reports Dead Fish In Lake Pontchartrain

Similarly Times-Picayune: Lake Pontchartrain fish kill reported

Click2Houston.com:Tar Mats Discovered In Galveston

"There are two big, black globs of tar scattered along the sand dunes on the west end of Galveston"

Picayune:NOAA seafood assessors are key part of effort to keep tainted fish from consumers

Testing for oil. "Dispersants will also be tested, but only based on the smell and taste tests."

Huffington Post: BP, Governments Downplay Public Health Risk From Oil and Dispersants

Huffington Post:BP Named The Fourth Most Profitable Company In The World

Examiner.com:BP payouts are Keeping Officials Quiet: Hear no Evil, See no Evil

APF: Oil spill claims arriving faster than BP can pay them

AP:EPA: Moderate health concerns with Gulf air

"The EPA says recent air sampling shows a moderate health risk in Venice and Grand Isle, two Louisiana towns about 50 miles from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill site."

Picayune: Discovery of second pipe in Deepwater Horizon riser stirs debate among experts

Editorial by Jarvis DeBerry:In Louisiana, politics keeps getting in the way of science

Re the tarballs in Lake Pontchartrain (my previous post)


Times-Picayune:Nearly 1,700 pounds of oil captured in Lake Pontchartrain

In the scale of this disaster, that's "minor". Thus far. As to what the oil had to get past to get that far, in addition to twists and turns of geography:

Picayune: System in place to try to minimize impact of oil in Lake Pontchartrain

"Floating barriers stretch across the Rigolets and Chef Menteur Pass, the deep waterways that connect lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne. And closer to Lake Pontchartrain, huge barges sit across those passes, forming imposing walls."

There wasn't just some amateurishly laid string of boom, this was multiple barriers including a wall of barges, at some 10 feet above the water level and 6 to 8 feet below the water level, blocking the paths to Pontchartrain. The tar apparently got under them.

One of proposed and debated possible options is construction of rock barriers and/or sand berms. I don't know enough about the science to evaluate. Unfortunately the debate seems to be getting highly politicized.

N.Y. Times:Louisiana and Scientists Spar Over How to Stop Oil

Picayune: Sand berms a dubious solution: A guest column by Len Bahr


On the cleanup side, BP's figures "massively wrong, by a factor of over 100":

Reuters: Truth and lies in oil-skimming statistics

"[before the blowout] a March report from BP said that it had the capacity to skim and remove 491,721 barrels of oil per day. Even after the explosion, BP was still insisting that it had “skimming capacity of more than 171,000 barrels per day, with more available if needed.” So far, it has managed to skim less than 900 barrels per day. Add burn-offs, and you get to just over 300,000 barrels in total, over 77 days — that’s less than 4,000 barrels per day."

Editorial in the Picayune: Is the Coast Guard working for the public or BP?

Times-Picayune: 1979's Ixtoc oil well blowout in Gulf of Mexico has startling parallels to current disaster

A look back at what is now the 2nd worst oil disaster in the history of the Gulf.

(By the way, the name is Yucatec Maya, and is pronounced "Eesh-TOK", not "ICKS-tok". Sheesh, broadcast media, you've only had 30 years to learn that.)

CS Monitor: Methane's hidden impact in Gulf oil spill

UGA Scientist: Too Little Research on Gases at Oil Disaster Site in Gulf

WKRG Mobile/Pensacola: Submerged Oil Confirmed On Seabed Off Ala. Coast

"Alabama officials have found oil on the seabed just off the state's coast, confirming fears that the Gulf oil spill could be doing more damage than is readily apparent from the surface."

Times-Picayune: Media, boaters could face criminal penalties by entering oil cleanup 'safety zone'

Reporters barred from "safety zone" around oil damaged and response sites and even places with barriers and booms; can face "a civil penalty of up to $40,000, and could be classified as a Class D felony."

"Photographers have had similar problems viewing the oil's impacts from the air. Photographer Ted Jackson of The Times-Picayune was trying to charter a flight with Southern Seaplane in late May to photograph oil coming ashore on Grand Isle, but the pilot was told that no media flights could go below 3,000 feet, due to restrictions from the Federal Aviation Administration.

"Often the general guise of 'safety' is used as a blanket excuse to limit the media's access, and it's been done before"

Project on Government Oversight: Interior Starts to Fine BP

"In another move to demonstrate that it's more than just a name change at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM, formerly the Minerals Management Service, or MMS), BOEM Director Michael Bromwich announced at this morning's House Natural Resources Committee hearing that the Interior Department was imposing a $5.2 million fine against BP America for "false, inaccurate, or misleading" reports for energy production that occurred on Southern Ute Indian Tribal lands in southwestern Colorado. In the hearing, he noted that not only did Interior find that statements were false and misleading, but that they were willfully so.

"This is a big deal. POGO investigations and a review by ProPublica have found MMS enforcement actions against companies for royalty under-payments have been few and far between".

Editorial by Harry Shearer: A Word to BP Shareholders

"BP shareholders: You benefited through the years from the profits generated by the company which accumulated 97 precent of the fines levied against oil companies for safety and environmental violations (not counting Exxon Valdez compensation). You gained financially from the damage your company inflicted on its workers and its surroundings. Now your company, following those same policies, has created enormous economic and ecological damage, and you are concerned about the impact that unlimited liability for that damage would have on your dividend and on the ability of your company to avoid bankruptcy. Question: how many of you complained to management about the policies and practices from which you benefited all these years? Or do you just complain when these policies and practices inflict profound economic and other costs on others, for which your company may be held responsible? Did you complain when management obviously low-balled flow estimates out of the well for at least a month, so as to minimize damage perceived by the potential jury pool?

"Or, as seems more likely, are you happy to privatize the gains and socialize the losses?"

Boston Globe Big Pictures:Oil in the Gulf, two months later

Tedxoilspill.com: TedX Oil Spill Expedition

Independent "week-long project to document the current situation in the Gulf of Mexico". Account richly illustrated with a wealth of photos and description.

Excerpts (hat tip to jwz):

"Flying from the Source directly to the coastal area of eastern Alabama, the team discovered the shocking fact: the flow of oil from the Source was a constant slick all the way to the shore of Alabama. Slow and steady, a mixture of dispersant and crude oil was yards from beach lines that had people sunbathing in beach chairs. The most shocking realization was that everyone had bits and pieces of information, but really no one had any idea where it was going, when it was going to hit and who was safe. [...]

"One of the ways BP controlled the media coverage of the oil spill was booking up virtually every available seaplane hour in the Gulf coast area. Luckily, our seaplane captain Dickie was fed up with how BP was trying to control the airways. A lucky situation arose which gave this rogue pilot complete flight clearance, even to the `Source'. Dickie and his seaplane was a rare find for the Gulf Coast during this time. [...]

"When we departed the Deepwater site and Dickie communicated to the Orion (call sign "Omaha 99") our intent, the controller came back quite quickly saying, "You've created a hell of a ruckus with your flight today. We've got flights in and out of this airspace and you've been interfering with them." We got chewed out for several minutes straight. The funny thing is that we hadn't been given any advisories or instructions by the controllers the entire time we were orbiting the site. Furthermore, there were no other flights that came or left the immediate area while we were there. We'd have photographs of them if there were. Something tells me that we weren't quite welcome there and our presence was merely tolerated. [...]

"The shed was deserted. A small sign read "Come see the truth. I will take you there. Boat trips for photographers and journalists. Call Al at..." I called Al.

""I switched to the other side. I work for BP now. Sorry, I can't take you out or talk to you."

"Apparently this isn't an isolated incident. BP's buying up every boat and every boat captain they can lay their hands on. It makes our jobs a lot harder."

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APNewsBreak: BP Giving Financial Help To Stations

My comment: This is an indication that the consumer boycott of BP brands is having an effect. Good.

Yahoo News: BP spent roughly 0% of profit on safety research

The Lens: BP bankruptcy is a real fear

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Unfoundedly wild & pessimistic... I hope

I think we don't really need to concoct hypothetical nightmare scenarios. Properly understood, what is verifiably known to be happening IS a nightmare scenario.

"Oil rain" catastrophe scenarios have been holding traction on the internet. Most of it I've seen seem to trace back to a story of a report said to have been by Russia's Ministry of Natural Resources in May:

EU Times article: Toxic Oil Spill Rains Warned Could Destroy North America

I don't have the expertise and data to evaluate this stuff myself, but from what I can tell it's pretty dubious.

Which is not to say that certain compounds and pollutants can't evaporate and find their way into rainwater. Despite the continuing pre-industrial folk conception of rain water as being inherently clean, pollutants in rain water has been well documented for decades (example: Acid deposition in rain, fog, and mist).

More recently there have been anecdotal accounts of oily rain from Louisiana to Tampa.

Mother Jones: Cloudy With a Chance of Tarballs?

I don't know, and given the unique scale and environment of the disaster, I'm not sure anyone else knows what the secondary environmental effects are going to be either. It seems to me that BP has already disproved the old adage that oil and water can't mix; apparently put enough oil under enough pressure mixed with enough COREXIT and you can create a long term suspended mixture not seen before.

And here's an alternative nightmare for y'all:

D.K. Matai, Huffington Post: Gulf Oil Gusher: Danger of Tsunamis From Methane?

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Kindra Arnesen video

Video from Plaquemines Parish: Kindra Arnesen: Venice Louisiana Needs to be Evacuated

Mixed with emotional personal comments, a local eye witness account of BP doing things more for PR show than to actually work to mitigate the disaster, along with multiple anecdotal accounts of health problems -- she says the fumes are so bad in lower Plaquemines that the area should be evacuated.

AP: Pensacola Beach is closed after oil from Gulf spill washes ashore

"Lifeguard Collin Cobia wore a red handkerchief over his nose and mouth to block the oil smell. "It's enough to knock you down," he said."

Pictures on the news or web can show what the oiled water or beach look like, but they don't convey what's in the air.

Note as well, major efforts to clean up all the tar that washes up on to a beach doesn't mean it's good as new.

St. Petersburg FL Times:USF scientists find long line of oil 6 inches under the sand at Pensacola Beach

"PENSACOLA BEACH — The sugar-sand beach here appeared cleaner Thursday, after workers picked up tar balls overnight with shovels and nets. By noon they had collected 44,955 pounds of tar balls and oil material, according to the Escambia County Emergency Operations Center.

"But a University of South Florida geologist made a grim discovery Thursday morning, 24 hours after the worst oil onslaught in Florida so far. [...] A dark, contiguous vein of oil, about 6 inches beneath the surface of the sand. [...] "It's a continuous layer" [up to the wave high tide line] "The problem is they're only cleaning up the top of the beach. [...] The beach is not going to be the same for a long time.""

CS Monitor: In Gulf oil spill 'war,' cleanup foot soldiers threaten mutiny

"The main problem, they say, is the confusing command structure, which to them seems to have too many generals and not enough battlefield commanders, thus gumming up the ability of local leaders to react to approaching oil.

""How can you fight a war when you don't let the people on the ground make decisions," says Escambia County Commission Chairman Grover Robinson. "You're going to lose that war.""

Times-Picayune:Shoddy disposal work mars Gulf oil spill cleanup from Mississippi to Florida

"There's no point in collecting this stuff if they're just going to spread it around."

Elsevier Global Medical Network: BP’s $20 Billion: Not A Single Dollar For Health

Times-Picayune: Monitoring health of residents affected by Gulf oil spill is urged by experts

Times-Picayune: Gulf of Mexico oil spill health concerns take center stage at open house

"Residents worried about the public health effects of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico pressed officials from BP, the Coast Guard and even New Orleans City Hall on Wednesday about the use of chemical dispersants, the long-term availability of medical care for spill victims and other answers they said are not readily available."

[...] "Another woman wanted a commitment from BP spokesman Larry Thomas that the company will continue to pay for medical services "20 years from now, when people have cancer" and when children who live near the spill zone may experience post-traumatic stress disorder"."

Background; BP has long history of lousy safety and ecological spoilage:

Huffington Post:BP: Come for the Gulf Disaster, Stay for the Great Lakes Pollution

"British Petroleum didn't just fall out of the sky one day and decide to start polluting the Gulf of Mexico with the worst oil disaster in United States history. Oh no, they've been at this a while and their exploits are not confined to destroying important ocean ecosystems with risky, unsafe technology."

Mercola.com: Just a Few Things BP Does NOT Want You to Know

More for anyone who hasn't had a bad news overdose yet, including such tidbits as "the average age at the time of death of workers who cleaned up after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill was 51".

Monbiot in The Guardian: Don't cry for investors burned by BP. They were warned loud and clear

WWL short video on YouTube: TOXIC ALERT BP Death Clouds Have Come Onshore Benzene 3400ppb Hyrdrogen Sulfide 1200ppb

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser facebook comment: "We toured Barataria Bay at first light this morning. Upon returning to the staging area in Myrtle Grove around 9:45 am, dozens of workers were lounging around on boats and in the containers stocked with boom. When asked why they weren’t deployed, they said they were on a stand down. When asked who issued the stand down, no one knew. When asked who was in charge, they said they didn’t know and it changes daily. This is infuriating. This is the reason why I’ve called for a change in leadership. I’m going to send this to the White House so they know what’s happening on the ground. There’s no sense of urgency. The oil is in Barataria Bay destroying our marshes and no one seems to care."

Another oyster bucket of BPocalypse links.

Boston Globe Big Pictures: Scenes from the Gulf of Mexico


McClatchy Newspapers: Health fears over BP plan to burn huge amounts of oil

CNN editorial by James Carville: Louisiana demands justice, not charity

Special historical bonus:

YouTube video: 1960 American Petroleum Institute "informative" film about oyster farmers in Louisiana who are angry at the oil drilling industry. Well, guess what? The oil isn't hurting the oysters. In fact, they love oily water.

And if you can swallow them erstas, no doubt you believe everything Tony Hayward has been saying too.

Note that the Petroleum Institute funded "research" is conducted at Texas A & M; insert Aggie joke here.

Picayune: Scientists warn of unseen deepwater oil disaster

"Independent scientists and government officials say there's an aspect to the oil spill disaster we can't see, hidden in the Gulf of Mexico's mysterious depths; the ruin of a world inhabited by enormous sperm whales and tiny, invisible plankton."

"Every fish and invertebrate contacting the oil is probably dying. I have no doubt about that"

If I were just a bit more cynical, I'd say that Big Oil's plot to make the Gulf of Mexico unfit for all those pesky alternative uses other than drilling oil is succeeding.
[edit: Driftglass goes there: BP's "GULF KILL" Procedure ]

Again: Like seafood? Enjoy it now.

"There's a school of thought that says we've made it worse because of the dispersants"

Ya think?

CNN: Fisherman files restraining order against BP

"A fisherman who was hospitalized after becoming ill while cleaning up oil in the Gulf of Mexico has filed a temporary restraining order in federal court against oil company BP.

"John Wunstell Jr., is asking BP to give the workers masks and not harass workers who publicly voice their health concerns."


BP CEO Tony Hayward has been speaking up. UPI story

"As far as I'm concerned, a cup of oil on the beach is a failure," Hayward said.

Fair enough. If one spilled cup is a "failure", how would you classify, say, 10 million gallons (to use one of the most conservative non-BP estimates)?

"There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back," Hayward said.

Mr. Hayward: Rather than an extended diatribe comparing your situation with those of the people who have for generations made their living in South East Louisiana, I'll keep my reply short and simple: FY, YFF.

Huffington Post: Gulf Oil Spill: Media Access 'Slowly Being Strangled Off'

They don't want to let people know how bad its getting.

And remember, this is still just beginning.