The Information Super-Frog

What BP Doesn’t Want You to Know About the 2010 Gulf Spill - The 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill was even worse than BP wanted us to know. Daily Beast article


US witness claims BP gas explosion cover-up Al Jazeera video with photos & interview

Links to more new articles on the continuing effects of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.


Mother Jones: BP's Corexit Oil Tar Sponged Up by Human Skin Excerpts:

"Sadly, things aren't getting cleaner faster, according to their results. The Corexit that BP used to "disperse" the oil now appears to be making it tougher for microbes to digest the oil. [...] The persistence of Corexit mixed with crude oil has now weathered to tar, yet is traceable to BP's Deepwater Horizon brew through its chemical fingerprint. [...] Worse, the toxins in this unholy mix of Corexit and crude actually penetrate wet skin faster than dry skin [...] The stuff can't be wiped off. It's absorbed into the skin. And it isn't going away. "

"The use of Corexit is inhibiting the microbial degradation of hydrocarbons in the crude oil and has enabled concentrations of the organic pollutants known as PAH to stay above levels considered carcinogenic by the NIH and OSHA.
26 of 32 sampling sites in Florida and Alabama had PAH concentrations exceeding safe limits.
Only three locations were found free of PAH contamination.
Carcinogenic PAH compounds from the toxic tar are concentrating in surface layers of the beach and from there leaching into lower layers of beach sediment. This could potentially lead to contamination of groundwater sources. "

AlJazeera: Gulf seafood deformities alarm scientists

Eyeless shrimp and fish with lesions are becoming common, with BP oil pollution believed to be the likely cause.

"Along with collapsing fisheries, signs of malignant impact on the regional ecosystem are ominous: horribly mutated shrimp, fish with oozing sores, underdeveloped blue crabs lacking claws, eyeless crabs and shrimp - and interviewees' fingers point towards BP's oil pollution disaster as being the cause.

According to Kuhns, at least 50 per cent of the shrimp caught in that period in Barataria Bay, a popular shrimping area that was heavily impacted by BP's oil and dispersants, were eyeless. Kuhns added: "Disturbingly, not only do the shrimp lack eyes, they even lack eye sockets."

"Some shrimpers are catching these out in the open Gulf [of Mexico]," she added, "They are also catching them in Alabama and Mississippi. We are also finding eyeless crabs, crabs with their shells soft instead of hard, full grown crabs that are one-fifth their normal size, clawless crabs, and crabs with shells that don't have their usual spikes... they look like they've been burned off by chemicals."

Darla Rooks, a lifelong fisherperson from Port Sulfur, Louisiana, told Al Jazeera she is finding crabs "with holes in their shells, shells with all the points burned off so all the spikes on their shells and claws are gone, misshapen shells, and crabs that are dying from within... they are still alive, but you open them up and they smell like they've been dead for a week".

Rooks is also finding eyeless shrimp, shrimp with abnormal growths, female shrimp with their babies still attached to them, and shrimp with oiled gills.

"We also seeing eyeless fish, and fish lacking even eye-sockets, and fish with lesions, fish without covers over their gills, and others with large pink masses hanging off their eyes and gills." "

Gambit Weekly: The oil disaster, two years later: seafood, human health in jeopardy Covers some of the same material plus a couple more details.

Scientists confirm oil on dead dolphins came from BP oil spill

"Biloxi - Scientists have confirmed the discovery of oil on dead dolphins that have been appearing along the US Gulf coast recently, with oil on some of the dead dolphins linked to the BP oil spill, according to a government agency."

AP via Yahoo News: Scientist finds Gulf bottom still oily, dead.

Anyone surprised?

Meanwhile, from the Biloxi Sun-Herald: Infant dolphins dying in high numbers

Baby dolphins, some barely three feet in length, are washing up along the Mississippi and Alabama coastlines at 10 times the normal rate of stillborn and infant deaths, researchers are finding.The Sun Herald has learned that 17 young dolphins, either aborted before they reached maturity or dead soon after birth, have been collected along the shorelines.This is the first birthing season for dolphins since the spill.

Remember that oil spill that was in the national news a few months back? It's not just a memory on the Gulf Coast.

WDSU: Researchers: Thick Oil Coats Gulf Sea Floor

"Far beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, deeper than divers can go, scientists say they are finding oil from the busted BP well on the sea's muddy and mysterious bottom. Oil at least two inches thick was found Sunday night and Monday morning about a mile beneath the surface. Under it was a layer of dead shrimp and other small animals, said University of Georgia researcher Samantha Joye, speaking from the helm of a research vessel in the Gulf."

Times-Picayune: New wave of oil comes ashore west of Mississippi River

"About 16 miles of coastal beaches in Plaquemines Parish from Sandy Point to Chalon Pass were lined with black oil and tar balls. Meanwhile anglers returning to Lafitte told Sidney Bourgeois, of Joe's Landing, that new oil was surfacing on the eastern side of Barataria Bay in the Bay Jimmie, Bay Wilkerson and in Bay Baptiste areas."

Baton Rouge Advocate: An oil wave still possible

"LSU coastal scientist Gregory Stone notes that significant amounts of oil that leaked into the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon disaster is still poised to come into Louisiana’s sensitive coastal marshes."

WWL: Dead whale and thousands of dead fish found near Venice Louisiana shipping canal

WKRG Mobile Pensacola: More Oil Washes Up In Gulf Shores

WLOX Biloxi: Oil still washes up on Hancock County beaches

AP: Scientists: Gulf oil Not Gone, 80 pct Remains Underwater


AP: La. fishermen wrinkle their noses at 'smell tests'

"Even the people who make their living off the seafood-rich waters of Louisiana's St. Bernard Parish have a hard time swallowing the government's assurances that fish harvested in the shallow, muddy waters just offshore must be safe to eat because they don't smell too bad.

"Fresh splotches of chocolate-colored crude, probably globules broken apart by toxic chemical dispersants sprayed by BP with government approval, still wash up almost daily on protective boom and in marshes in reopened fishing grounds east of the Mississippi River."

Biloxi Press-Register: Mississippi Sierra Club chief says oil spill far from over; DMR chief says produce the evidence
"“We had a meeting Wednesday night where we had over 150 shrimpers… who are saying there is oil out there and these underwater plumes are varying in size and shape. This stuff is obviously moving around out there,” Louie Miller, state director of the Mississippi Sierra Club, said to the Press-Register.

"William Walker, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources responded, “Quit talking about it without any evidence what you are saying is true.” [...] “I have no confidence in Bill Walker whatsoever. He might as well be working for BP. He is not protecting the resources of Mississippi… By doing all this, they have put us in a situation where the claims are going to be very limited and more easily contested by BP.”"

TruthOut: Uncovering the Lies That Are Sinking the Oil

Times-Picayune: Oil spill plugged, but more oiled birds than ever are being found

"Before BP plugged the well with a temporary cap on July 15, an average of 37 oiled birds were being collected dead or alive each day. Since then, the figure has nearly doubled to 71 per day, according to a Times-Picayune review of daily wildlife rescue reports.

"The figures for sea turtles have climbed even higher, with more oiled turtles recovered in the past 10 days than during the spill's first three months."

CNN: In the Gulf, scientific questions still lurk beneath the surface

"When Ed Overton looks at the remains of what's happened to the Gulf of Mexico over the past few months, he sees a stale, unsolved crime scene.

""We can see the beaches; we can see the dead animals; we can get a count on turtles and whales and all this stuff -- and all of that is eye-level observation," said Overton, a professor emeritus at Louisiana State University and a veteran of oil-spill science. "What we don't know is what damage is done ... to little creatures down below the surface -- or just at the surface -- that we never see."

"If the larvae of a vulnerable fish species like the bluefin tuna are completely wiped it, it may not matter that many of the adults appear to have survived."

Huffington Post: Scientists Find Evidence That Oil And Dispersant Mix Is Making Its Way Into The Foodchain

"We're looking at long-term ecological effects of having this oil in contact with marine organisms."

"Dispersant doesn't make the oil go away, it just puts it from one part of the ecosystem into another. The decision was to keep as much of the oil subsurface as possible. As a result, the immediate impact on coastal wildlife was mitigated. But the effects on ocean life are less clear -- in part because there's less known about ocean ecosystems than coastal ones."

Tampa Tribune: Beach beauty is skin-deep

"University of South Florida professor estimates cleanup work along Panhandle beaches and elsewhere across the Gulf Coast has removed only about 25 percent of the oil that has stained the shorelines."

Florida Panhandle officials notice "what looks like a congealed glob of Vaseline that is hovering just offshore".

Veterans Today: Disappearing Oil and Gulf Seafood: Passing the Sniff Test

HuffPost: Oilgate! BP and All the President's Men (Except One) Seek to Contain Truth of Leak in the Gulf

BK Kim, Newsvine: Why is BP's Macondo blowout so disastrous & Beyond Patch-up.

Deepwater Horizon Response:26 July Press Briefing
According to Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen, "we're going to have tar balls and other kind of impacts are going to go on for a long, long time."

Picayune:Tuesday's list of oiled locations in Louisiana

Example details: St. Bernard Parish fighting tar balls, patch of oil near Chandeleur Islands
"Oil skimmers have been dispatched to fight a large band of tar balls discovered near Comfort Island in St. Bernard Parish, St. Bernard Parish government said today. The patch of tar balls, three to four miles long and about three miles wide, was detected today." "A flyover conducted today also discovered a 10-mile long, quarter-mile wide streamer of emulsified oil about three miles off the northern tip of the Chandeleur Islands" "Also today, the Louisiana National Guard collected 28 bags, about 700 pounds, of oily debris on the recently-constructed berm at the Chandeleur Island chain".

Not all officially reported? CNN short video via YouTube:St. Bernard Parish President Taffaro says new oil coming in to Parish marshes every day

Picayune: BP working to increase its ability to contain oil even as plans for 'static kill' move forward

Meanwhile:

WWL: Tug vessel hits abandoned gas well in Barataria Waterway
"A mix of natural gas, contaminated water and light crude oil is spewing 100 feet in the air."

Examiner:BP says top kill mud was toxic: Tony Hayward testimony may now be perjury

Summary of story thus far on Alabama Live: Oil spill Day 100: The Gulf disaster, day by day

Perspective from Roger Ebert: BP's tree fell on my lawn

Good news; former TS Bonnie is fizzling out as a minor depression. Picayune

Meanwhile:

Palm Beach Post: Deep sea plume in Gulf 'changes concept' of an oil spill

"micro-droplets of oil, too small for the human eye, have streamed out from the spill site in plumes, adding a third dimension beyond the smelly slick and glumpy tarballs spreading across the map. [...] University of South Florida researchers said they confirmed that the invisible plumes they detected in May, 50 miles from the well, near the DeSoto Canyon that ferries nutrient-rich deep-sea water to Florida's western shore, did indeed come from the BP spill site."

"At the deepest level, the USF researchers found oil at about 0.75 parts per million. That's less than the 1 part per million that's commonly considered acutely toxic, Hollander said, but he cautioned that exposure time also matters. Some sealife have likely been exposed to those levels of oil for months, potentially making it as damaging as more concentrated oil, he added. The oil droplets could coat fish gills, be eaten by larval fish, or kill fish eggs, he said. As a result, the dispersed oil could have a long-term impact on the Gulf's marine life, he said, a picture that may not be fully understood for years."

Alternet/The Nation: BP Hides Use of Black Prison Labor For Oil Gusher Cleanup

"When the BP oil gusher mess first began, BP hired prison labor in order to reap tax benefits instead of hiring coastal residents whose livelihoods crashed with the explosion of the wellhead. When the community expressed their outrage, BP did not stop the practice of using prison labor. No, apparently BP simply tried to literally cover-up the use of prison labor by changing the clothing worn by the inmates to give the appearance of a civilian workforce."


And on the how the disaster was allowed to happen in the first place front:

Bloomberg: Alarms Were Disabled on Transocean's Gulf Oil Rig

WDSU:'People Are Getting Sick,' Cleanup Worker Says, Had No Protective Gear

"The work to cleanup the millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf can be hazardous, and one spill worker told WDSU that he has witnessed illness, injury and unsafe working conditions. Jarred Bourgeois is the engineer on a crew ship that carries personnel and supplies to workers out in the Gulf, a far different job than he had when the spill first started."

""It's a lot thicker then you see on TV. It's a lot worse. It's everywhere. The smell is outrageous. People are getting sick all the time. They don't really tell you what it is, why people are getting sick, but they were MedEvac-ing people left and right," Bourgeois said. "I have personally dealt with headaches and feeling bad. It's a lot different then what you see sitting at the house.""

St. Petersburg FL Times:Scientists from St. Petersburg find high methane readings near oil disaster site

Times-Picayune:Gas seeps not necessarily a problem, because pressure in oil well rising, officials say

Buried lede seeps up 12 paragraphs down:

"Berkeley engineering professor Bob Bea, has very little confidence in what's been said publicly about the seeps. He's troubled that we're just now hearing about seeps three kilometers away, because a survey of the seabed conducted before BP drilled its well didn't indicate anything like that. "There was nothing that indicated the presence of such a seep," Bea said."

WDSU:Group Says EPA Air Tests Not Good Enough - Louisiana Bucket Brigade Finds Fault With Oil Spill Air Quality Tests

AOL News:Why Would BP Photoshop Its Crisis Command Center?

Gizmodo:BP Photoshops Another Official Image Terribly

Picayune:BP suspends relief well work to avoid risk of storm interruption

Picayune:Byproducts of Gulf of Mexico oil spill cleanup are themselves a concern

"Beyond the oil itself, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is producing an array of oily waste in need of disposal, and at least one environmental group has concerns about how it's being handled. The waste comes from a variety of sources: shoreline clean up, oil containment, boat decontamination."
[...]
"Darryl Malek-Wiley of the Sierra Club questioned the system. While none of the waste has been deemed hazardous -- either by BP or in independent tests by the EPA -- Malek-Wiley is skeptical.

"He noted that the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which governs the handling of such materials, exempts certain oil and gas exploration and production wastes from being regulated as hazardous waste.

"So by law, they are not hazardous. In physical reality, they are," Malek-Wiley said."