Pegasus Research Consortium

Greetings:

You're probably wondering how you might have missed this juicy tidbit from the Gulf of Mexico, what with a new season of Dancing With the Stars and Cupcake Wars to keep up with...


Gulf seafood deformities alarm scientists (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/04/201241682318260912.html)




New Orleans, LA -

"The fishermen have never seen anything like this,"

Dr Jim Cowan told Al Jazeera. "And in my 20 years working on red snapper, looking at somewhere between 20 and 30,000 fish, I've never seen anything like this either."

Dr Cowan, with Louisiana State University's Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences started hearing about fish with sores and lesions from fishermen in November 2010.

Cowan's findings replicate those of others living along vast areas of the Gulf Coast that have been impacted by BP's oil and dispersants.

Gulf of Mexico fishermen, scientists and seafood processors have told Al Jazeera they are finding disturbing numbers of mutated shrimp, crab and fish that they believe are deformed by chemicals released during BP's 2010 oil disaster.


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.

QuoteThere's a complete lack of shrimp out there right now. I've never seen it like this before.

Shrimp with deformities, some with rotten tails, no eyes, smashed faces. I've seen some fish that look like they've been dipped in battery acid, some with lesions and livers on their outsides.

Sharks and porpoises are washing up regularly.

Scientists say the killifish—we call them bull minnows—have deformities.

It's just like with Alaska and the Exxon Valdez.

If the fish that keeps everything in balance goes extinct ... none of us know what the hell we will do.

Deep Trouble


Gulf fisheries in decline after oil disaster (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/03/20123571723894800.html)

Nearly two years after BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, fishermen and scientists say things are getting worse.




Two years since oil company BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in a massive oil spill, fishermen in the region are still suffering. Al Jazeera's Dahr Jamail reports.

Now, scientists say they have found deformities among seafood and a great decline in the numbers of marine life.


Government agencies have been inspecting the deformed shrimp but




Right!




Questions to government officials at the FDA and EPA remain largely unanswered.


What a surprise! So they passed the buck to NOAA.


NOAA said it 'couldn't comment because of its involvement in the ongoing lawsuit against BP.'


How convenient.

QuoteNew Orleans, LA - "The fishermen have never seen anything like this," Dr Jim Cowan told Al Jazeera. "And in my 20 years working on red snapper, looking at somewhere between 20 and 30,000 fish, I've never seen anything like this either."

Dr Cowan, with Louisiana State University's Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences started hearing about fish with sores and lesions from fishermen in November 2010.

Cowan's findings replicate those of others living along vast areas of the Gulf Coast that have been impacted by BP's oil and dispersants.

Gulf of Mexico fishermen, scientists and seafood processors have told Al Jazeera they are finding disturbing numbers of mutated shrimp, crab and fish that they believe are deformed by chemicals released during BP's 2010 oil disaster.

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.


Eyeless shrimp

Tracy Kuhns and her husband Mike Roberts, commercial fishers from Barataria, Louisiana, are finding eyeless shrimp.

Quote"At the height of the last white shrimp season, in September, one of our friends caught 400 pounds of these," Kuhns told Al Jazeera while showing a sample of the eyeless shrimp.

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."



Eyeless shrimp, from a catch of 400 pounds of eyeless shrimp, said to be caught September 22, 2011, in Barataria Bay, Louisiana.

Quote"Some shrimpers are catching these out in the open Gulf," 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."

BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/spotlight/bpoilspill/), and began the release of at least 4.9 million barrels of oil. BP then used at least 1.9 million gallons of toxic Corexit dispersants to sink the oil.





Published on Apr 18, 2012 by AssociatedPress

QuoteTwo years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, scientists are finding trouble in the oiled Gulf of Mexico: Fish with lesions and evidence of contamination.

But no link has been found between the sick fish and the oil spill. 

Keath Ladner, a third generation seafood processor in Hancock County, Mississippi, is also disturbed by what he is seeing.

Quote"I've seen the brown shrimp catch drop by two-thirds, and so far the white shrimp have been wiped out," Ladner told Al Jazeera. "The shrimp are immune compromised. We are finding shrimp with tumors on their heads, and are seeing this everyday."

While on a shrimp boat in Mobile Bay with Sidney Schwartz, the fourth-generation fisherman said that he had seen shrimp with defects on their gills, and "their shells missing around their gills and head".

Quote"We've fished here all our lives and have never seen anything like this," he added.

Ladner has also seen crates of blue crabs, all of which were lacking at least one of their claws.

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".



Signs of the impact on the regional ecosystem are ominous - and scientists and fishermen point fingers towards BP's oil as being the cause (photo Keath Ladner)


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."

Rooks, who grew up fishing with her parents, said she had never seen such things in these waters, and her seafood catch last year was "ten per cent what it normally is".

"I've never seen this," he said, a statement Al Jazeera heard from every scientist, fisherman, and seafood processor we spoke with about the seafood deformities.





On April 20, 2010, the United States experienced the beginning of the country's


when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank, flooding the Gulf of Mexico with at least 4.9 million barrels of crude oil over an 87-day period.


Ed Cake, a biological oceanographer, as well as a marine and oyster biologist, has "great concern" about the hundreds of dolphin deaths he has seen in the region since BP's disaster began, which he feels are likely directly related to the BP oil disaster.

Quote"Adult dolphins' systems are picking up whatever is in the system out there, and we know the oil is out there and working its way up the food chain through the food web - and dolphins are at the top of that food chain."

Cake explained: "The chemicals then move into their lipids, fat, and then when they are pregnant, their young rely on this fat, and so it's no wonder dolphins are having developmental issues and still births."

Cake, who lives in Mississippi, added: "It has been more than 33 years since the 1979  IXTOC-1 oil disaster (http://home.versatel.nl/the_sims/rig/ixtoc1.htm) in Mexico's Bay of Campeche, and the oysters, clams, and mangrove forests have still not recovered in their oiled habitats in seaside estuaries of the Yucatan Peninsula.

It has been 23 years since the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil disaster in Alaska, and the herring fishery that failed in the wake of that disaster has still not returned."






In case one does not recall the Sedco/IXTOC (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I) fiasco information, due to the massive contamination caused by the spill from the blowout (by 12 June, the oil slick measured 180km by 80km), nearly 500 aerial missions were flown, spraying dispersants over the water.

Prevailing winds caused extensive damage along the US coast with the Texas coast suffering the greatest.

At the time, the IXTOC I accident was the biggest single spill ever, with an estimated 3.5 million barrels of oil released.




According to which report one tends to believe, between 1 and 2.5 million gallons of Corexit 9527 were applied over a 5-month period near Vera Cruz, Mexico.


Given that the Gulf of Mexico provides more than 40 per cent of all the seafood caught in the continental US, this phenomenon does not bode well for the region, or the country.



An interesting note is that we were warned almost a year ago by, of all agencies, NOAA.


31 May 2011
NOAA warns of sick fish with lesions and discolored skin in Gulf — LSU scientist studying problem "very worried" (http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/noaa-warns-of-sick-fish-with-lesions-and-discolored-skin-in-gulf-lsu-scientist-studying-problem-very-worried/comment-page-1/)

Quote...for the first time [NOAA's] warning anglers that some fish are sick and may pose health problems if handled or eaten raw.

The agency is telling anglers to toss fish that have lesions, fin rot or discolored skin back into the Gulf and to be careful about handling them.

WTF?

As opposed to bringing in the suspect fish for testing, you friggin' moron!


Oops, we're so sorry for the spontaneous outbreak of emotion.

After all, it's NOAA, the same agency that said they don't need to test Alaskan fisheries because NOAA (evidently exclusively) has a detection system that can detect even a SINGLE radiated fish!

Yes, we have the files to prove that, among many other questionable actions by NOAA that some moron was stupid enough to commit to paper... another time.

Back to this reality:

Quote
Jim Cowan Jr., a Louisiana State University Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences scientist studying the sick fish:

   •   For months, fishermen and scientists have been finding sick fish from the mouth of the Mississippi River to Panama City.

   •   Lesions on red snapper found within 20 miles of Orange Beach, Alabama were infected with the bacteria Vibrio vulnificus (http://vibrio%20vulnificus) and Photobacterium damselae (http://photobacterium%20damselae).

Photobacterium damselae could be responsible for a massive fish loss and can pose serious health problems for humans.

   •   "I'm very worried because I've talked to both commercial and recreational fishermen who have been in the business 30 to 40 years and no one has seen anything like this."

   
The truth is out there.



From a fisherperson friend in the GOM:

QuoteI told you guys around 9 months ago all of the deepwater from 5,000 ft to around 1,200 ft is full of oil on the bottom.

Some of my deepwater places I fished in 1,200 to 1,600 ft are dead now.

CBS: LSU professor says BP oil disaster likely cause of Gulf fish with eroded fins and large dark lesions — Almost 50% of snapper had infections in some areas (http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/cbs-lsu-professor-bp-oil-disaster-gulf-fish-eroded-fins-large-dark-lesions-almost-50-snapper-infections-areas-video/)

More than a year after the largest oil spill in U.S. history, researchers studying the Gulf of Mexico are finding that more fish are sick, and they're trying to figure out exactly why.

Quote"I don't think we'll be fishing in five years," (Lucky Russell, a commercial fisherman) said. "Everybody is worried."

The truth has been conveniently buried by the MSM.


BP Oil Spill Victims Sickened and Dying, Local Physicians Clueless




Lisa Nelson of Orange Beach, AL is one of a growing number of people sickened and dying as a result of the BP disaster.

Local physicians have no idea how to diagnose or treat patients who have bee exposed to highly toxic crude/dispersant combination.

Local, State, and Federal agencies continue to cover-up and offer zero assistance.

UPDATE: Very sad; Lisa Nelson passed away today 7 March 2011.

She was an inspiration to all who were fortunate enough to know her and will be dearly missed.

God Bless her beautiful soul.

(a moment of silence and reflection on how fragile life is on our only home, our beautiful planet Earth...)



And then we have this rather disturbing video of "the Spill Children."




MORE about Corexit making people sick:

Corexit Found In Swimming Pool Of Sickened Florida Family (http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/corexit-found-swimming-pool-sickened-)

* Report: BP dispersants are making people sick (http://boingboing.net/2010/10/28/bp-dispersants-are-m.html)

The FDA Won't Test For Corexit In Seafood, Unless 300 Children Die From it Next Week (http://x)

Toxic Corexit: Growing No. of Sick Cleanup Workers (http://x)

Ban Corexit Now: Join Us, Send a Clear Message! (http://x)


More oil reported at BP disaster site — 'Persistent' and 'recurring' sheen

"the so called spill is larger then my town and the town next to me.. its over 3 miles,, 3 miles of plankton.. 3 miles of dolphins,, 3 miles of whales,,birds ,angel fish , sharks,,

and this 3 miles of hell, can travel. so its multiplied by the distance it travels..

it will cover the oceans ..the reefs ,, the home for millions of sea creatures. .. some we have yet to even discover...
it will be swept up in the clouds . and cover the land,, it will oxygen deprive the plant life..

anyone getting the picture??

this is a planet altering event !!"



BP oil spill: an interactive timeline (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2010/jul/08/bp-oil-spill-timeline-interactive)

This timeline tracks attempts to control the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the unfolding environmental disaster and the political fallout.

On 20 April 2010, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig killed 11 men and sent millions of gallons of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

This timeline tracks BP's attempts to control the spill, the unfolding environmental disaster and the political fallout of a bitter confrontation with the Obama administration.






BP oil blow-out: British diplomatic damage control efforts revealed (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/15/bp-oil-spill-british-diplomatic)

British diplomats in Washington made immediate attempts to limit the political damage following the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, documents obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act reveal.

Embassy officials clearly realised – well before the full magnitude of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico became evident – that BP's leaking oil well had the potential for far-reaching political and economic effects in America.




Emails expose BP's attempts to control research into impact of Gulf oil spill (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/15/bp-control-science-gulf-oil-spill)




BP officials tried to take control of a $500m fund pledged by the oil company for independent research into the consequences of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, it has emerged.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show BP officials openly discussing how to influence the work of scientists supported by the fund, which was created by the oil company in May last year.

Russell Putt, a BP environmental expert, wrote in an email to colleagues on 24 June 2010: "Can we 'direct' GRI [Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative] funding to a specific study (as we now see the governor's offices trying to do)? What influence do we have over the vessels/equipment driving the studies vs the questions?".





Endangered turtles injured by the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster – in pictures (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2012/may/09/deepwater-horizon-bp-oil-spill-in-pictures)

Gallery (12 pictures), 9 May 2012: These newly released images of damaged wildlife following the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010 have come to light, in response to a freedom of information request made by Greenpeace asking for details of endangered and threatened Gulf species impacted by the spill.






US law firm urges pension funds to file Deepwater claims against BP (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/06/us-firm-helps-uk-investors-sue-bp)

6 May 2012

Legal representatives from Pomerantz Haudek Grossman & Gross are flying to London to meet City investors

British pension schemes which held investments in BP during the Deepwater Horizon disaster are being urged by a New York law firm to file claims against the oil company to recover "billions of dollars" in compensation.




The Deepwater Horizon disaster spewed 4.9m barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.


BP to start three new Gulf of Mexico oil rigs (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/apr/30/bp-new-gulf-mexico-oil-rigs)

30 Apr 2012

New drilling sites brings number of BP's Gulf rigs to eight – more than it operated before the Deepwater Horizon disaster

BP is planning to start three new oil drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico this year. The launch of the new rigs will bring the number of BP rigs in the Gulf to eight – more than the oil giant had before the devastating Deepwater Horizon disaster three years ago.

Bernard Looney, BP's executive in charge of new wells, said BP is expecting to spend $4bn (£2.5bn) on new developments in the Gulf of Mexico this year and hopes to "invest at least that much every year over the next decade".

"After much soul-searching in the fall of 2010, we concluded it would be wrong to walk away [from the Gulf of Mexico],"

Looney said at an offshore oil conference in Houston, Texas, on Monday.

"We would have been walking away not only from our past, but from a key component of our future."




BP engineer's arrest may force company to reveal internal estimates on Gulf spill (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/25/bp-engineer-arrest-internal-estimates)


25 April 2012

Company disputes government figures but has fought release of its own data on how much oil leaked into Gulf of Mexico in 2010




The unveiling of the first criminal charges in the Gulf of Mexico disaster could force BP to disclose a closely guarded secret – its internal estimate of how much oil actually gushed out of its stricken well.

It's quite literally a billion-dollar question. The justice department, which announced the charges on Tuesday, against a former BP engineer, is also suing the oil company for damages in a civil case.

Those fines under the Clean Water Act will be decided by the amount of oil that flowed into the Gulf, up to $4,300 per barrel if the release is the result of gross negligence.

By the government's account, which estimated the well released more than 4m barrels of oil before it was brought under control, that could mean penalties as high as $17.6 bn.

But BP has always disputed the government figures, and those of independent scientists. It has also fought in court to keep its own internal estimates of the flow rate a secret.

Now the affidavit released on Tuesday suggest that BP knew more oil was coming out of the well in the early days after the explosion on 20 April 2010 than it was reporting to the federal government or the public.

The discrepancy could have sweeping legal implications for the oil company in civil and criminal proceedings arising from the Gulf of Mexico disaster.
A day after the explosion, Kurt Mix, the former engineer charged on Tuesday, began modelling the potential flow rate from the BP well, according to the affidavit. He shared his estimates with an unnamed supervisor, suggesting the well was gushing between 64,000 and 138,000 barrels of oil a day.

At the time, however, BP and the coast guard were telling the public there was as little as 1,000 barrels of oil coming out of the well.

BP gradually raised its estimates in the days and weeks before the well was finally brought under control in July 2010.

However, the oil company refused at the time to even discuss how much oil was coming out of the well, claiming that it was a distraction from efforts to control the well.

The federal government adopted a similar position – much to the frustration of environmentalists and scientists.

"The flow rate has never impacted the response," BP America's chief operating officer, Doug Suttles, told the New Orleans Times Picayune in June 2010.

He went on to say the flow rate was "irrelevant".

no the least doubt, bacteria's outbreak has been directly belong to this $tori€$. + keep in the Mind, Amici, petroleum price is deliberately lowered thanks to molestation of safety measures.

12 September 2012

The BP Gulf Oil Spill Info Blackout And Data Lockdown (http://phoenixrisingfromthegulf.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/the-bp-gulf-oil-spill-info-blackout-and-data-lockdown/)

There has been a tremendous amount of discussion for the past two and one half year about what has really gone on here in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the BP oil spill.


Here's the inside story.


The official response to the BP Gulf Oil Spill has been controlled like no other response in American history to an environmental catastrophe.


The US Government, to include the EPA, NOAA, Energy, Interior, the White House, has colluded with BP et al. to keep the lid on what has really been taking place in our waters, on our beaches and with our seafood.


The information blackout, and especially the choking off of vital data and research studies have occurred through the following deliberate process:

(1) First, the government exerted its total control over all the concerned agencies and departments responsible for any aspect of the oil spill.

Therefore, all of the previously mentioned agencies were immediately co-opted to execute a political agenda in which economics and politics always trumped health and environment.

(2) Next, the government, in collaboration with BP, sought to control all other public institutions like the OSATF (Oil Spill Academic Task Force in Florida).

There are true advocates working in academic bodies like the OSATF; however, once they were included under the BIG UMBRELLA, everyone was expected to fall in line.

Almost everyone did, with a few notable and courageous exceptions.





How it works is that if a geology professor were to break ranks, his department chairman might be contacted about a large pending government grant which 'might' be put into jeopardy. The ways of controlling those who are expert in the relevant academic disciplines are endless, and unfortunately have profoundly compromised the entire information gathering-process regarding the BP oil spill. 


(3) Funding, as you just read, is the oil of all academic and scientific research. Without it, nothing gets done.

Therefore, whoever controls the funding and grant approval process effectively controls the message.

From speaking with many, especially those who function within the relevant institutions, no one has ever seen such a clampdown. It appears that the US Gov't/BP Juggernaut has just about ensured that unless one plays by their rules, no funding will be forthcoming. "YES!", it is that controlled and oppressive.

While this ongoing, multi-institutional dynamic has been operative for many decades, it has now entered a new realm of self-enforcement —>




This has simply forced many truth-speakers to take to the information highway ... with a vengeance.

Here's an example of how BP had allocated the first installment of a $500 million dollar grant program to Florida universities in the amount of $25 million.


USF to receive funds from BP grant (http://uwire.com/2010/06/23/usf-to-receive-funds-from-bp-grant/)




(4) Of course, the absolute control of the mainstream media has been the cornerstone of their strategy to control all information that flows into the public domain. Whereas the media seemed to be on top of the real story in the very beginning, it now seems that occurred for dramatic effect.

As soon as the Macondo well was 'capped', virtually everyone went back to sleep, particularly the Mainstream Media.

(5) As for the alternative and fringe media, there have been major battles going on from day one.

See how BP has saturated the ad space of each and every website and blog with their BP ads claiming they

> have fixed the GOM,

> are fixing the GOM,

> will fix the GOM.




What must be pointed out is the vast amount of financial allocation necessary to run all these ads 24/7 for two (2) years.



BP is expanding its Gulf Coast tourism advertising campaign with new ads highlighting this year's successful tourism season in broadcast markets around the country.




The new television spot, titled "Best Season," is BP's first national ad in a year and is part of the company's ongoing commitment to keep people informed and help support economic restoration along the Gulf Coast. The television spot highlights 2011 as the best tourism season in years – despite a sluggish national economy - and will be part of an integrated television, online and social media campaign. It builds on the successful campaign that kicked off in August with two well-received TV commercials - "Best Place" and "Great Vacation."

Those spots all featured spokespeople from four Gulf States engaging in a spirited discussion of their state's great beaches, fishing and seafood and extending an invitation to vacation along the Gulf Coast. The ads ran in all of BP's retail markets plus the Gulf States and in markets within 500 miles driving distance from the Gulf. The ads reached more than 50 percent of the US population.

The new "Best Season" spot features the same spokespeople, talking about the strong 2011 tourist season along the Gulf Coast and engaging in a light-hearted debate over who had the best season. They go on to invite people to come down to the Gulf for a warm and sunny winter holiday.


Couldn't that money have been much better spent on really fixing the problems instead of paying lip service?
The extraordinary efforts by BP to coverup the ongoing BP oil spill challenges is now legend; their numerous and fierce initiatives to airbrush anything having to do with the cosmetic aspects of this oil spill are likewise unparalleled in modern industrial disaster history.


(6) Data-collecting for even the layperson who resides on the GOM coastline was made extremely difficult because

"BP was given a lead position in the unified command structure authorized by the US Federal Government immediately following the burning and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon.

This transference of authority away from the impacted state governments was unprecedented in US history and created a virtual monopoly over the flow of information from BP to the appropriate authorities, as well as to the public-at-large."




~ Feb. 25th Press Release from GRA entitled :
Conclusive Evidence That BP Misrepresented Gulf Oil Spill Sent To Congress (http://oilandgasleaks.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/conclusive-evidence-that-bp-misrepresented-gulf-oil-spill-sent-to-congress/)

The counties were then subordinated to BP and could forcefully be compelled to control fact-finding citizens and truth-seeking professionals, which they did.

(7) War Between the States
One need not look any further than the citizens tensions between Florida and Louisiana to begin to understand how they can control the information flow. Louisiana is a drill state and has been all about oil for since the 1930s; Florida couldn't be further from that position given the predominance of its tourism, agriculture, boating and fishing.

When two states are operating at cross purposes in regard to such a formidable undertaking as


one can appreciate the many hapless implications of such an unworkable relationship.





Bear in mind that Louisiana politics has been oiled by petrodollars for decades. Almost everyone is connected to the Oil & Gas Industry in some way, shape or form. One almost has to leave the state to get away from the slick and sleazy influence that goes with this territory.

Therefore, much of the official info and data is often tilted and distorted to meet the demands of the hidden agenda of the Oil & Gas Industry.



map source (http://dnr.louisiana.gov/index.cfm?md=pagebuilder&tmp=home&pid=204)


There are many effective citizen advocates in NOLA area who have broken out of this box. Since they are so close to ground zero, they have provided much valuable information and proven to be indispensable info/data resources.

[8] Controlled Opposition: This one is a real challenge because of how many are unwittingly controlled, and don't have a clue.

Many who fall into that category have been used as instruments to undermine the true citizen advocates among us. The degree to which divide and conquer has been utilized with great effect through controlled opposition strategy is quite extraordinary.

Until you have been a victim of such tactics, as the GOSRC has, you really can't imagine the extent to which your environmental or health advocacy can be paralyzed.






As for the Controlled Opposition which may be executed through a formal COINTELPRO Op, an organization must be set up like a CIA special task force where each member executes on a strictly need-to-know-basis and the entire operation is strictly compartmentalized, as well as completely firewalled where it concerns internet services, software and hardware.

Who in the world can ever practically function under such conditions?!


(9) Obama's 'Special' BP Oil Spill White House Response Team: It has since come to light that the Obama Administration quickly created a Response Team that worked secretly and deeply in the bowels of the White House. This group was constituted to perform many functions but particularly one above everything else —



It has now been widely reported that the White House was either giving orders throughout the ongoing 87-day undersea gusher, or blessing every move that BP made.

Therefore, all of the misguided decisions to pollute the GOM with the highly toxic dispersant Corexit ultimately were approved by the White House.

Furthermore, the nonstop PR campaign to convince everyone that the GOM was perfectly okay the day the gusher was capped was also run out of the White House.

What bigger threat to the re-election of Obama could there be but the devastation of the regional economy of the Southeast?



CNN's Anderson Cooper discusses how the Obama administration is limiting access by the media to areas affected by the BP Macondo well spill.


This particular political side of the BP oil spill story gets dirtier in oil the deeper you drill; therefore, the SOTN will issue a dedicated, special report prior to the November, 2012 election.

Gulf Oil Spill Remediation Conference?Submitted: September 12, 2012

1 December 2012

The Gulf of Mexico is Dying (http://phoenixrisingfromthegulf.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/the-gulf-of-mexico-is-dying/)

By Dr. Tom Termotto


It is with deep regret that we publish this report.  We do not take this responsibility lightly, as the consequences of the following observations are of such great import and have such far-reaching ramifications for the entire planet.  Truly, the fate of the oceans of the world hangs in the balance, as does the future of humankind.
The Gulf of Mexico (GOM) does not exist in isolation and is, in fact, connected to the Seven Seas.  Hence, we publish these findings in order that the world community will come together to further contemplate this dire and demanding predicament. 

We also do so with the hope that an appropriate global response will be formulated, and acted upon, for the sake of future generations.




After conducting the Gulf Oil Spill Remediation Conference for over seven months, we can now disseminate the following information with the authority and confidence of those who have thoroughly investigated a crime scene. 

There are many research articles, investigative reports and penetrating exposes archived at the following website.  Particularly those posted from August through November provide a unique body of evidence, many with compelling photo-documentaries, which portray the true state of affairs at the Macondo Prospect in the GOM.






The pictorial evidence tells the whole story.

Especially that the BP narrative is nothing but a corporate-created illusion – a web of fabrication spun in collaboration with the US Federal Government and Mainstream Media. 

Big Oil, as well as the Military-Industrial Complex, have aided and abetted this whole scheme and info blackout because the very future of the Oil & Gas Industry is at stake, as is the future of the US Empire and War-Making Machine which sprawls around the world and requires vast amounts of hydrocarbon fuel.

Should the truth seep out and into the mass consciousness – that the GOM is slowly but surely filling up with oil and gas – certainly many would rightly question the integrity, and sanity, of the whole venture, as well as the entire industry itself. 

And then perhaps the process would begin of transitioning the planet away from the hydrocarbon fuel paradigm altogether.






It's not a pretty picture.

The various pictures, photos and diagrams that fill the many articles at the aforementioned website represent photo-evidence about the true state of affairs on the seafloor surrounding the Macondo Prospect in the Mississippi Canyon, which is located in the Central Planning Area of the northern Gulf of Mexico. 

The very dynamics of the dramatic changes and continuous evolution of the seafloor have been captured in ways that very few have ever seen. 

These snapshots have given us a window of understanding into the true state of the underlying geological formations around the various wells drilled in the Macondo Prospect.

Although our many deductions may be difficult for the layperson to apprehend at first, to the trained eye these are but obvious conclusions which are simply the result of cause and effect. 

In other words there is no dispute concerning the most serious geological changes which have occurred, and continue to occur, in the region around the Macondo wells.  The original predicament (an 87-day gushing well) was extremely serious, as grasped by the entire world, and the existing situation is only going to get progressively worse.

So, just what does this current picture look like.  Please click on the link below to view the relevant diagrams and read the commentary:

An AUTOPSY of the BP Gulf Oil Well at the Macondo Prospect (http://phoenixrisingfromthegulf.wordpress.com/2010/08/03/an-autopsy-of-the-bp-gulf-oil-well-at-the-macondo-prospect/)






As the diagrams clearly indicate, the geology around the well bore has been blown.  This occurred because of drilling contiguous to a salt dome(1), as well as because of the gas explosions which did much damage to the integrity of the well casing, cementing, well bore, well head, and foundation around the well head.  Eighty-seven straight days of gushing hydrocarbon effluent under great pressure only served to further undermine the entire well system. 

Finally, when it was capped, putting the system back under pressure forced the upsurging hydrocarbons to find weaknesses throughout the greater system, which revealed all sorts of compromised, fractured and unsettled geology through which the hydrocarbons could travel all the way to the seafloor and into the GOM.


(1 (http://www.bsee.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Permits/Status-of-Gulf-of-Mexico-Well-Permits.aspx))"The rock beds in the vicinity of a salt dome are highly fractured and permeable due to stress and deformation which occur as the salt dome thrusted upwards." (Per BK Lim, Geohazards Specialist)

We also have faults* to deal with in this scenario of which there are both deep and shallow.  Depending on the current vital stats of the blown out well, especially its actual depth; the number, location and severity of the breaches throughout the well system; the pressure at the wellhead; as well as the type and status of geological formations/strata it has been drilled into, these faults will become prominently configured into the future stability of the whole region. 

Larger faults can open up much greater opportunities for the hydrocarbons to find their way to the seafloor via cracks and crevices, craters and chasms.  In fact the numerous leaks and seeps throughout the seafloor surface, which are quite apparent from various ROV live-feeds, give testimony to sub-seafloor geological formations in great turmoil and undergoing unprecedented flux.

*"Once the oil gets into the shallow faulted zones, we have an uncontrollable situation.  The place where most of the oil and gas is coming out  is at the foot hills of the continental shelf as shown in figure 134-1 in the article "BP continues to dazzle us with their unlimited magic". 

The discovery by WHOI of the 22 mile long river of oil originated from these leaks.  So the leaks will be mainly along the faults where I have marked (shallow) in "What is going on at West Sirius" and deep strike-slip faults (red line)  on fig 134-1." (Per BK Lim, Geohazards Specialist)








Just how bad is this situation?

There are actually three different ongoing disasters – each more grave and challenging than the previous one – which must be considered when assessing the awesome destruction to the GOM by the Oil & Gas Industry.

I.  A single gushing well at 70 – 100,000 barrels per day of hydrocarbon effluent for 87 days into the GOM at the Macondo Prospect along with two smaller rogue wells

II. Numerous leaks and seeps within five to ten square miles of the Macondo well with an aggregate outflow of an unknown amount of hydrocarbon effluent per day into the GOM

III.  Countless small gushers and mini-spills, leaks and seeps, throughout the Gulf of Mexico, where oil drilling has been conducted for many decades, with an aggregate outflow into the GOM that can not even be estimated, but is well in excess of any guesstimate which would ensure its slow and steady demise

(not too unlike the petrochemical cesspool known as the Caspian Sea (http://www.rferl.org/content/History_BP_Oil_Spill_Haunt_Caspian_Sea/2052194.html)).





It is the last scenario which we all face and to which there is no easy or obvious solution. 


The truth be told (http://phoenixrisingfromthegulf.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/gulf-of-mexico-sea-floor-unstable-fractured-spilling-hydrocarbons/), there currently does not exist the technology or machinery or equipment to repair the damage that has been wrought by the process of deep undersea drilling, especially when it is performed in the wrong place.
 
Therefore, wherever the oil and gas find points of entry into the GOM through the seafloor, some of these leaks and seeps will only continue to get worse. 

Here's why:

Methane gas mixed with saltwater and mud makes for a very potent corrosive agent.  Under high pressure it will find every point of egress through the rock and sediment formations all the way up to the seafloor where it will find any point of exit that is available. 

The longer and more forcefully that it flows throughout the fractured area, which is dependent on the volume, temperature and pressure at the source of the hydrocarbons, the more its corrosive effects will widen, broaden and enlarge the channels, cracks and crevices throughout the sub-seafloor geology, thereby creating a predicament that no science, technology or equipment can remedy.





Dire realities of the methane hydrate predicament

The Macondo Prospect in the GOM is just one of many throughout the oceans of the world where the seafloor has beds of methane hydrate locked in place by very high pressure and low temperatures.  Likewise, there are myriad repositories and large "reservoirs" of methane clathrates in the sub-seafloor strata, and especially within the more superficial geological formations, which are being greatly impacted by all oil and gas drilling and extraction activities. 

It does not take much imagination to understand how the upsurging hydrocarbons (very hot oil and gas under high pressure) are quickly converting the frozen methane hydrate to gas, thereby causing innumerable "micro-displacements", the cumulative effect of which will translate to larger "macro-displacements" of rock, sediment and other geological formations.

When you factor in this constant vaporization of methane hydrates/clathrates both sub-seafloor as well as those scattered around the seafloor surface to the existing scenario, this devolving situation becomes that much more difficult to effectively remedy. 

With the resulting shifts and resettling and reconfiguration of the entire seafloor terrain and underlying strata occurring in the wake of these dynamics, we are left with a situation that is not going to get better through the use of even more invasive technology and intrusive machinery.





Question: How many times can you grout a seafloor crack that was caused by an underlying superficial fault after drilling into an old mud volcano?

Answer: "In the attempt to seal the oil from oozing through the faults, BP resorted to high pressure grouting.  Basically it is like cementing the cracks in the rock by injecting grout (cement mixture) at high pressure.

The way they do this is by drilling an injection hole into the shallow rocks and pumping in the grout. The grout in "slurry" state will permeate into the cracks, cure and seal up the cracks. However it is not working because of the presence of gas and oil. It is like super-glue.

You need to clean the surfaces before you apply the glue; otherwise it won't stick and will come off eventually after a few days or weeks. That is why we can see a few blown out craters – shown in my article – Is the last rite for the Macondo Well for real? (http://phoenixrisingfromthegulf.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/it-appears-the-macondo-well-has-had-a-hasty-funeral/)" (Per BK Lim, Geohazards Specialist)

Likewise, how do you fill a newly emerging gash in the seafloor which is caused by a deep fault due to low level seismic activity, or worse, a full blown earthquake?!


Seismic activity in the GOM and the uptick in earthquakes in the Mississippi River Basin and surrounding region




The oil and gas platforms that were in operation throughout the northern Gulf of Mexico in 2006 (per Wikipedia).

We now come to the most serious issue regarding the relentless drilling for oil and gas throughout the Gulf of Mexico. 

The map above clearly illustrates the density of drilling throughout the northern GOM as of 2006.  Likewise, the map below demonstrates the extraordinary and increasing intensity of these very same operations off the coast of Louisiana alone.






Green lines represent active pipes (25,000 miles in all). Yellow dots represent oil rigs.

The map that follows, however, tells a story which demands the attention of every resident of the GOM coastline.  The video link below the map shows the development timeline of the successively deeper wells being drilled during the last decade. 
Of course, with greater depths come much greater risks, as the technology and machinery have not been proportionately upgraded to accommodate the extraordinary demands and unforeseen contingencies of such a speculative and dangerous enterprise*.

*Oil and gas drilling in seawater depths of over 4000 feet, and through 15,000 to 25,000 feet of the earth's crust and mantle, is considered extremely dangerous to those from whom reason and common sense have not yet fled.




Gulf of Mexico Oil Rigs: 1942-2005



A chronology of oil and gas rig installations in the Gulf of Mexico, showing the increased number of rigs and the greater installation depths over time, ending by displaying the location of BP's Deepwater Horizon explosion.


It's critical to understand the location and current activity of the various faults which exist throughout the GOM and how they connect to the New Madrid Fault Line, as well as other major faults at much greater distance. 


There does appear to be a emerging uptick in earthquake activity in the greater Louisiana area, as well as contiguous regions in the GOM as demonstrated by unprecedented, albeit low level earthquakes. (http://www.stevedrinkard.com/archives/150)


Correlations between these earthquakes/seismic activity and major operations at the Macondo Prospect have been alluded to in our previous postings (http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magnitude-3-0-Earthquake-h-by-Chris-Landau-100802-36.html), as well as by many recent articles explaining the inevitable subsidence (http://www.nola.com/coastal/index.ssf/2008/12/part_1_because_of_subsidence_a.html) which occurs when prodigious volumes of oil and gas are removed through drilling in the GOM.

Just how much oil and gas have been removed from the GOM since drilling first began there in the '30s? More significantly, how might substantial movements of the GOM seafloor (due to undersea volcanoes and earthquakes) affect the 28,000+ unmonitored and abandoned wells which are highly concentrated south of the Louisiana coastline (http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/bp-28000-unmonitored-abandoned-wells-gulf/)?

FYI

Over 600 of those abandoned wells belong to BP, reported the Associated Press last year, adding that some of the permanently abandoned wells date back to the 1940s [10 (http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20100707-Gulf-of-Mexico-hides-27-000-1068.ece)].  Amos advises that some of the "temporarily abandoned" wells date back to the 1950s.

"Experts say abandoned wells can repressurize, much like a dormant volcano can awaken. And years of exposure to sea water and underground pressure can cause cementing and piping to corrode and weaken," reports AP.

Leaking abandoned wells pose a significant environmental and economic threat. A three-month EcoHearth investigation revealed that a minimum of 2.5 million abandoned wells in the US and 20-30 million worldwide receive no follow up inspections to ensure they are not leaking.

Worse:
"There is no known technology for securely sealing these tens of millions of abandoned wells.

Many—likely hundreds of thousands—are already hemorrhaging oil, brine and greenhouse gases into the environment. Habitats are being fundamentally altered.

Aquifers are being destroyed. Some of these abandoned wells are explosive, capable of building-leveling, toxin-spreading detonations. And thanks to primitive capping technologies, virtually all are leaking now—or will be." [11 (http://ecohearth.com/eco-zine/green-issues/1609-abandoned-leaking-oil-wells-natural-gas-well-leaks-disaster.html)]

Sealed with cement, adds EcoHearth, "Each abandoned well is an environmental disaster waiting to happen. The triggers include accidents, earthquakes, natural erosion, re-pressurization (either spontaneous or precipitated by fracking) and, simply, time."

As far back as 1994, the Government Accountability Office warned that there was no effective strategy in place to inspect abandoned wells, nor were bonds sufficient to cover the cost of abandonment. Lease abandonment costs estimated at "$4.4 billion in current dollars ... were covered by only $68 million in bonds." [12 (http://archive.gao.gov/t2pbat3/151878.pdf)]





more (http://phoenixrisingfromthegulf.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/the-bp-gulf-oil-spill-info-blackout-and-data-lockdown/)

BP Corexit Scandal: The Sick Keep Getting Sicker in the Gulf (http://bpoil.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/bp-corexit-scandal-the-sick-keep-getting-sicker-in-the-gulf/)


5 January 2011

From the data sheet on Corexit (https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:9ZHnGW4TujcJ:www.lmrk.org/corexit_9500_uscueg.539287.pdf+MSDS,+corexit&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgtK8H00YubTi8Vwn4aplz1xYQfheXOq4FVPiX4o72ZnV1L60Kl2mA5m4gQqwDHLDPkXlgnKw4vJGxAlbQIsTWXGJjLL-_l-2uZPvAypa6HtPOFCDJLXaqDsceaFKfOuYDMXI3x&sig=AHIEtbTS5ePwu1pwCiM013uFevnV2zB_1g):

QuoteHUMAN HEALTH HAZARDS ACUTE

Quote#7. ACCIDENTAL RELEASE MEASURES
ENVIRONMENTAL PRECAUTIONS:
Do not contaminate surface water.

What does this mean in PLAIN ENGLISH?
As usual, the inmates are running the asylum called the United States Congress.





X................Immediate Health Hazard


WTF?


(According to the EPA (http://www.pbtprofiler.net/details.asp), "Bioaccumulation is the process by which the chemical concentration in an aquatic organism achieves a level that exceeds that in the water, as a result of chemical uptake through all possible routes of exposure" ~ so these chemicals move up the food chain and make it into our grocery stores.)

The next time someone from the EPA claims to be "protecting" you from something, remember:




A U.S. Air Force Reserve plane sprays Corexit over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.


Corexit is the chemical dispersant that BP has been saturating the Gulf States with ever since their oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico months ago.

COREXIT: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corexit)

QuoteCorexit[1] (often styled COREXIT)[2] is a product line of oil dispersants used to dissolve oil slicks. It is produced by Nalco Holding Company, which merged with Ecolab in 2011 and is associated with BP and Exxon.[3] Corexit was the most-used dispersant in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, with COREXIT 9527 having been replaced by COREXIT 9500 after the former was deemed unacceptably toxic.[4] Oil that would normally rise to the surface of the water is broken up by the dispersant into small globules that can then remain suspended in the water.[5] In 2012, a study found that Corexit used during the Gulf spill had increased the toxicity of the oil by up to 52 times.[6][7][8]

In 2010, Corexit EC9500A and Corexit EC9527A were used in large quantities in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.[9][10] The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had pre-approved both forms of Corexit for uses in emergencies such as the Gulf oil spill.[11] Corexit 9580 was used during the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster in Alaska.

On May 19, 2010 the EPA gave BP 24 hours to choose less toxic alternatives to Corexit, selected from the list of EPA-approved dispersants on the National Contingency Plan Product Schedule,[12] and begin applying them within 72 hours of EPA approval of their choices; or, if BP could not find an alternative, to provide a report on the alternative dispersants investigated and reasons for their rejection.[13] BP took the latter option, citing safety and availability concerns with alternatives.[14]

BP had used Corexit EC9500A and Corexit EC9527A by late May, applying 800,000 US gallons (3,000,000 l) total,[15] but more accurate estimates run as high as 1,000,000 US gallons (3,800,000 l) underwater.[16] By late April 2010, Nalco, the maker of Corexit, says that it has been deploying only Corexit 9500.[17]

Corexit 9527, considered by the EPA to be an acute health hazard, is stated by its manufacturer to be potentially harmful to red blood cells, the kidneys and the liver, and may irritate eyes and skin. The chemical 2-butoxyethanol, found in Corexit 9527, was identified as having caused lasting health problems in workers involved in the cleanup of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.




According to the Alaska Community Action on Toxics (http://www.akaction.org/), the use of Corexit during the Exxon Valdez oil spill caused people "respiratory, nervous system, liver, kidney and blood disorders". Like 9527, 9500 can cause hemolysis (rupture of blood cells) and may also cause internal bleeding.

According to the EPA, Corexit is more toxic than dispersants made by several competitors and less effective in handling southern Louisiana crude.

On May 20, 2010, the EPA ordered BP to look for less toxic alternatives to Corexit, and later ordered BP to stop spraying dispersants, but BP responded that it thought that Corexit was the best alternative and continued to spray it.


People in the Gulf states are getting sick. Those already sick from the chemical are getting sicker–and still, it continues to be sprayed. Where's the EPA?

IF BP was operating a coal mine, the EPA would have shut it down by now, based on what might happen decades from now. But since people are getting sick immediately, the EPA ignores a toxic chemical being sprayed that's coming into contact with men, women and children civilian populations.





Activist, Mother, and Voice of the Gulf People, Kindra Arnesen sat down with the Project Gulf Impact team, Matt Smith, Heather Rally, and Gavin Garrison recently to reveal shocking new information about the BP oil disaster and why the whole world should be paying attention to the Gulf. A must watch for anyone wanting new information on the Gulf of Mexico, she reveals shocking new information sure to send waves through the country.

To visit Kindra's organization, The Coastal Heritage Society of Louisiana, please visit:
Home - Coastal Heritage Society of Louisiana (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x_20fimRxU&feature=player_embedded)

Project Gulf Impact's YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/ProjectGulfImpact).
MORE about Corexit making people sick:

Corexit Found In Swimming Pool Of Sickened Florida Family (http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/corexit-found-swimming-pool-sickened-)




BP dispersants 'causing sickness' (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2010/10/20101027132136220370.html)

29 October 2010

Injected with at least 4.9 million barrels of oil during the BP oil disaster of last summer, the Gulf has suffered the largest accidental marine oil spill in history. Compounding the problem, BP has admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons of widely banned toxic dispersants (one that has been banned in the UK), which according to chemist Bob Naman,

create an even more toxic substance when mixed with crude oil.



And dispersed, weathered oil continues to flow ashore daily.

Naman, who works at the Analytical Chemical Testing Lab in Mobile, Alabama, has been carrying out studies to search for the chemical markers of the dispersants BP used to both sink and break up its oil.
According to Naman, poly-aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from this toxic mix are making people sick.

PAHs contain compounds that have been identified as carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic.

Fisherman across the four states most heavily affected by the oil disaster - Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida - have reported seeing BP spray dispersants from aircraft and boats offshore.

"The dispersants are being added to the water and are causing chemical compounds to become water soluble, which is then given off into the air, so it is coming down as rain, in addition to being in the water and beaches of these areas of the Gulf," Naman added.

"I'm scared of what I'm finding. These cyclic compounds intermingle with the Corexit [dispersants] and generate other cyclic compounds that aren't good. Many have double bonds, and many are on the EPA's danger list.

Leave the Damn oil in the Ground.... where it is designed to be.

One of the Greatest Lies told on Earth is; "The Oil comes from the dinosaurs" !


Oil has a Function, it plays in the Planet's Make up.


Its NOT there to be taken out of the ground and burnt in different technical
or human scientific ways, such as in "Internal Combustion engines" etc.
or used in pharmaceuticals, synthetics and other Industries.

Oh, I knew there was something evil about Corexit.  Thank You for providing the details, though.  The EPA is bought and paid for, clearly.  With a "rap" sheet like that, no sane individual would have approved that.  Especially when, through earthquakes, oil leaks into the ocean... naturally!

Sick, these MF's are!  Evil, sociopathic, ghastly Individuals that plotted this for the Humans on this planet.  To those who say "ET's would NEVER allow a nuke war..."  Heck.  Why would They allow a chem war on unsuspecting People???

[sigh]  This is the evil I fight.

Amici, some rumors were saying that well's explosion has been the sabotage to prevent separatism in the USA. in other words, $-clans have used bio weapon & so-called non-lethal weapon to reduce population Worldwide. 

Quote from: SarK0Y on June 10, 2013, 02:01:45 AM
Amici, some rumors were saying that well's explosion has been the sabotage to prevent separatism in the USA. in other words, $-clans have used bio weapon & so-called non-lethal weapon to reduce population Worldwide.

Thank you, my friend, for validating the truth - this was no "accident".   :P

Regarding "to prevent separatism in the USA", the jury is still out on that one.

Nice to see that someone still cares enough to be aware.    ;)

As always, regards and thank you for your time, consideration and participation.

Evidence Finds BP Gulf Oil Disaster Causing Widespread Deformities in Fish | EcoWatch (http://ecowatch.com/2014/03/25/bp-gulf-oil-disaster-widespread-deformities-fish/)

25 March 2014

Crude oil from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster causes severe defects in the developing hearts of bluefin (http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/19/tuna-suffer-heart-attacks-bp-oil-spill/) and yellowfin tunas, according to a new study (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/03/19/1320950111.full.pdf+html) by a team of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and academic scientists.

The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the 25th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill (http://ecowatch.com/2014/03/25/25-years-exxon-valdez/), show how the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history may have affected tunas and other species that spawned in oiled offshore habitats in the northern Gulf of Mexico.



Atlantic bluefin tuna, yellowfin tuna and other large predatory fish spawn in the northern Gulf during the spring and summer months, a time that coincided with the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. These fish produce buoyant embryos that float near the ocean surface, potentially in harm's way as crude oil from the damaged wellhead rose from the seafloor to form large surface slicks.

The new study (http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/stories/2014/03/3_24_14oil_spill_effects_large_marine_fish.html) (from NOAA) shows that crude oil exposures adversely affect heart development in the two species of tuna and an amberjack species by slowing the heartbeat or causing an uncoordinated rhythm, which can ultimately lead to heart failure.

"We know from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound that recently spawned fish are especially vulnerable to crude oil toxicity," said Nat Scholz, Ph.D., leader of the ecotoxicology program at NOAA's Northwest Fisheries Science Center (http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/) in Seattle. "That spill taught us to pay close attention to the formation and function of the heart."




"The timing and location of the spill raised immediate concerns for bluefin tuna," said Barbara Block, Ph.D., a study coauthor and professor of biology at Stanford University. (http://www.stanford.edu/) "This spill occurred in prime bluefin spawning habitats, and the new evidence indicates a compromising effect of oil on the physiology and morphology of bluefin embryos and larvae."

Recent studies are increasingly painting a more detailed picture of how oil-derived polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) act on the heart. Earlier this year, the Stanford-NOAA team showed in a related paper published in Science (Brette et al. 343: 772) that Deepwater Horizon crude oil samples block excitation-contraction coupling—vital processes for normal beat-to-beat contraction and pacing of the heart—in individual heart muscle cells isolated from juvenile bluefin and yellowfin tuna.




"We now have a better understanding why crude oil is toxic, and it doesn't bode well for bluefin or yellowfin embryos floating in oiled habitats." said Block. "At the level of a single heart muscle cell, we've found that petroleum acts like a pharmacological drug by blocking key processes that are critical for cardiac cell excitability."

This mechanism explains why the team observed a range of cardiac effects in the developing hearts of intact embryos in the present study. "We directly monitored the beating hearts of living fish embryos exposed to crude oil," said Dr. John Incardona, NOAA research toxicologist and the study's lead author. "The tiny offspring of tunas and other Gulf species are translucent, and we can use digital microscopy to watch the heart develop."

The major difficulty facing the researchers was access to live animals. Tunas are difficult to raise in captivity and few facilities exist worldwide with spawning fish. In the open ocean, fragile fish embryos and larvae are mixed with many other types of plankton, and they usually don't survive the rough conditions in a net towed near the surface. This made it close to impossible to assess developmental cardiotoxicity in samples collected near the Deepwater Horizon surface oil slicks.




To work around this challenge, the international team brought the oil to the fish. Samples of crude oil were collected from the damaged riser pipe and surface skimmers. The samples were then transported to the only land-based hatcheries in the world capable of spawning tunas in captivity.

This approach allowed the scientists to design environmentally relevant crude oil exposures for bluefin tuna and yellowfin tuna at marine research facilities in Australia and Panama, respectively.

Luke Gardner, an Australian native post-doctoral associate from Stanford University and co-author on the PNAS paper, was vital in helping the team investigate the bluefin.

"It is challenging to maintain bluefin in culture and we were privileged to have successfully tested the crude oil in Australian facilities, the only on-land hatchery that has bluefin tuna in culture. This gave us access to tuna embryos and allowed us to study the developmental toxicity of oil," said Gardner. The pioneering effort to develop new testing methods was also led by Martin Grosell, Ph.D., at the University of Miami.

The new research adds to a growing list of fish that are affected by crude oil. "This fits the pattern," said Incardona. "The tunas and the amberjack exposed to Deepwater Horizon crude oil were impacted in much the same way that herring were deformed (http://ecowatch.com/2014/03/24/bp-disaster-recovery-exxon-valdez-oil-spill/) by the Alaska North Slope crude oil spilled in Prince William Sound during the Exxon Valdez accident."


Crude oil is a complex mixture of chemicals (http://ecowatch.com/2013/12/09/10-toxic-ingredients-used-in-coal-oil-gas-production/), some of which are known to be toxic to marine animals. Past research has focused in particular on PAHs, which can also be found in coal tar, creosote, air pollution and stormwater runoff from land. In the aftermath of an oil spill, PAHs can persist for many years in marine habitats and cause a variety of adverse environmental effects.

Developmental abnormalities were evident in bluefin and yellowfin tunas at very low concentrations, in the range of approximately one to 15 parts per billion total PAHs. These levels are below the measured PAH concentrations in many samples collected from the upper water column of the northern Gulf during the active Deepwater Horizon spill phase.




Severely affected fish with heart failure and deformed jaws are likely to have died soon after hatching. However, the NOAA team has shown in previous work that fish surviving transient crude oil exposures with only mild effects on the still-forming heart have permanent changes in heart shape that reduce swimming performance later in life.

"This creates a potential for delayed mortality," said Incardona. "Swimming is everything for these species."

The nature of the injury was very similar for all three pelagic predators, and similar also to the response of other marine fish previously exposed to crude oil from other geologic sources. Given this consistency, the authors suggest there may have been cardiac-related impacts on swordfish, marlin, mackerel and other Gulf species. "If they spawned in proximity to oil, we'd expect these types of effects," said Incardona.

The research was funded by NOAA as part of the on-going Natural Resource Damage

Assessment for the Gulf ecosystem (http://www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov/assessment/) following the April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Contributing to the findings in addition to NOAA and Stanford University were researchers from the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences and the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia.

If you look at the depths of the gulf, it is like a big bath tub with several overflows. So yea it can fill up pretty high before leaking out to sea. It is also the point where they say the asteroid hit us. So I imagine the ground is pretty unstable to begin with. Bottom line, they will never tell us they are after the money they can get and the heck with the rest of us. If the politians did as you say and hid everything away from us, why are they still in office? We keep putting the same crews back in office every year. It is now our own fault for doing that. This will stay this way untill we get real people in there that do a real job or they get rid uf us. Right now you get what you vote for.

The tipping point seems to be death of a nation.

(http://www.thelivingmoon.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10005/oil_slick-640.jpg) (http://www.thelivingmoon.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10005/oil-slick-FULL.jpg)

Visualizing the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill : NOAA Gulf Spill Restoration (http://www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov/2011/09/visualizing-the-deepwater-horizon-oil-spill/)



Visualizing the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
After the Deepwater Horizon spill, oil moved through the water column in a variety of ways. We knew there were several possible scenarios for how it might move into the sediments at the bottom of the ocean. NOAA communicators faced a challenge to clearly describe the different ways oil could move into the sediment layer at the ocean floor.

Using mapping data and discussing the concepts with NOAA scientists, medical and scientific illustrator Kate Sweeney developed a single, striking graphic illustration that clearly encompassed all the most likely possibilities:

(http://www.thelivingmoon.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10005/potential-pathways-logo-640.jpg)

Illustration showing the potential pathways of spilled oil following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Credit: NOAA/Kate Sweeney.  (CLICK TO ENLARGE) (http://www.thelivingmoon.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10005/potential-pathways-logo-1024x716.jpg)



Another of Kate's images was used as part of the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (http://www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov/restoration/whats-a-peis/) public scoping process to illustrate the Gulf ecosystem and potential oil impacts:

(http://www.thelivingmoon.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10005/Credit_NOAA_offshore_system_final_flat1-640.jpg)

Illustration showing the potential impact of oil on the Gulf ecosystem following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Credit: NOAA/Kate Sweeney.  (CLICK TO ENLARGE) (http://www.thelivingmoon.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10005/Credit_NOAA_offshore_system_final_flat1-1024x745.jpg)



In a recent post (http://usresponserestoration.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/how-do-you-picture-science/) on the Office of Response and Restoration's blog. Kate compared the process of creating complex scientific images to telling a story. She has seen demand for her illustrations grow as the expectation for high-quality visuals has increased. Kate said a key component to the process was working collaboratively with the scientists.

The OR&R blog (http://usresponserestoration.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/how-do-you-picture-science/) features posts from scientists and staff discussing how they respond to spills of oil and other hazardous waste. They also delve into what it takes to restore the coastal and marine ecosystems and economies damaged by these spills.

Thor, let me ask this in mother natures way.

The oil in the ground is there, we did not put it there. What would have happened if there were no people around yet, say a half a million years ago and tat area was hit with a huge earth quake that opened up the sea bed. To me I see oil is almost everywhere and sooner or later even the biggest deposits will face tectonic plate submission and what? Get burnt up or get heaved out to sea. This had to happen countless times over the history of the Earth and we are all still here. What is the difference of oil in the water put there by mother nature and humans, The Corexit?

If they had just let it bleed until it stopped would it have been better. Let mother nature deal with it?

What happened to that huge tanker that someone built for this problem that was going to suck all the oil out of the water. And on top of that I thought I read that Someone named JH had gone there and zapped the problem away. Big honking gun that shot love and sounds into the gulf. Didn't that take care of the problem once and for all. We were told it worked.

We had this happen on a very small lake. All of the oil from boats and toss outs eventually settled to the bottom of the lake and created death zones. 0% O2 in the pockets and the pockets began to grow over the years till they filled about 20% of the bottom floor. The basin. Not the volume of the lake.  Any fish or creature that ventured into this area died. And then floated. Don't know if they all floated but many did. At one time I was part of the research team because of my diving abilities and a boat on the lake. We would go out and take samples from different levels and the O2 in the water dropped very fast as we approached the kill zone.

The stuff we dragged up from the bottom was like a slurry of oil and water. And this was a lake that you could drink the water 20 years ago. Now it was death to all. We found out that there were also chemicals in the water that were not natural and they were being dumped there by someone. Maybe a midnight ride to the deep spots and over it goes. Ok, in a bathtub with no drain what happens. It never goes away! I wanted to pump the sludge out on the depths and force the water into the recycle center with the sewage. Guess what, I got rejected. Not because of the idea but because of the water samples we gave them. They would not allow us to dump what they called toxic waste into the sewage lines. What we had was so toxic that we could not get rid of it.

Still to this day nothing has been done about it and the problem get worse every year. My guess is when it finally turn the lake black they will do something. Seeing how the lake was man made with a dam filling over 3 huge ponds with 30 feet of water. They could lower it again to that point and deal with the waste. But how do you empty the Gulf? Build a wall from Florida to Mexico and let it evaporate? If they could burn off 10 million gallons of Oil then why couldn't they pull it off and use it instead?

I feel for the Gulf, The shrimp there was the best in the world. Lots of flavor. The shrimp here has almost none.

In 2007, the U.S. Government allocated $40 BILLION dollars to the Army Corps of Engineers for a project to depopulate the Gulf Coast region of the United States.

This relocation project was first revealed on Jesse Ventura's Conspiracy Theory T.V. show in 2010 and admitted to by then Army Corp of Engineers spokesperson S.I. Rees, whom downplayed the importance of the project.

The projects funding is now classified as part of the National Security mandate.




Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill & Fukushima Disaster Part of World Wide Conspiracy (http://somethgblue.hubpages.com/hub/Deepwater-Horizon-Oil-Spill-Fukishima-Disaster-Part-of-World-Conspiracy#)

by somethgblue

[snip]

Insider Information

According to an article by David Hodges of the Common Sense Show, three years prior to the event (Deepwater Oil Disaster) Goldman Sachs, reorganized Transocean, the owner of the oil rig involved in the explosion, into a Cayman Island corporation. This created a safety buffer from any future investigations by the US Congress.

Then on the morning of the explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, Goldman Sachs instituted a put option on Transocean stock for Transocean insiders. However, only weeks before the disaster, they had doubled their insurance coverage through Lloyds of London, which allowed them to collect $270 million dollars after the explosion.

For those of you unaware of what a put option is I have included a definition from Wikipedia to help clarify the situation. In finance, a put or put option is a stock market device which gives the owner the right, but not the obligation, to sell an asset, at a specified price, by a predetermined date to a given party. Put options are most commonly used in the stock market to protect against the decline of the price of a stock below a specified price.




However the financial aspects of this disaster become even more suspicious when we look at the players involved that got even more rich from dumping their BP stock options prior to the event.

   •   Goldman Sachs sold the majority of their BP stock options in the weeks leading up to this event, according to the above mentioned article 4,680,822.

   •   Wachovia Bank National Association a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs sold over 2,500,000 million options.

   •   Sanders Capital, LLC also got in on the act dumping 1,371,785.

   •   Noted globalist George Soros and PNC Bank sold a little over 1,000,000 million as well.

Also BP CEO Tony Hayward sold 40% of his BP holdings in the weeks before this event allowing him to avoid staggering financial losses and pay off the mortgage for his estate in Kent, England.

Oh, but it gets better or worse as the case may be.

According to a FSB (Financial Stability Board) report, President Obama's (http://investigatingobama.blogspot.com/2010/06/gulf-of-mexico-intended-to-be-algae.html) only asset holder Vanguard I and Vanguard II, sold off over 1.5 million shares just weeks prior to this environmental catastrophe in the Gulf. The FSB publishes on 18 December an annual update on countries' adherence to regulatory and supervisory standards on international cooperation and information exchange.

This might better explain why the White House appointed EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) director Lisa Jackson did not condemn BP for using the least effective and toxic chemical Corexit as an oil dispersant in the cleanup efforts. BP and Goldman Sachs hold the controlling interest in the company Nalco the manufacturer of . . . wait for it . . . Corexit.




Speaking of pond scum, any American conspiracy of global proportions isn't complete without the greedy money sucking parasite we all know and love as Halliburton.

Eleven days before this tragedy, Haliburton of Dick Cheney fame, bought Boots and Coots, the largest oil clean up firm in the world, for a cool $250 million dollars. Coincidentally, Halliburton just so happened to be drilling at the base of the Deepwater Horizon and had much of the Boots and Coots technology on hand, things that make you go . . . Hmmm!

If anyone still thinks censorship on the internet isn't a prevalent theme in today's society, all they need do is consider that six weeks after this huge environmental disaster affecting millions of internet users, the BP Corporation (http://www.examiner.com/article/bp-buys-google-yahoo-search-words-is-it-to-keep-people-from-real-news-on-gulf-oil-spill-disaster) bought both Google and Yahoo search terms allowing them to conceal the truth to this event from the public...

Gulf of Mexico...

Did you know that when the oil spill happened the reason they had so much trouble sealing the hole was because the METHANE PRESSURE was 30-40 times HIGHER than normal in an oil well?

This pressure was responsible for blowing out the repairs and killing off a lot of fishes

Look at some of the numbers here

Dr. Joye knew she had to act fast if she wanted to learn how microbes respond to such a massive methane infusion in the deep sea. By May 5, just two weeks after the spill began, her team was out on the water to collect the first deep-sea water samples from around the wellhead. Along with her colleagues, she collected more than 2,000 water samples on ten research cruises, with the last collected on December 3, 2010, months after the spill was officially over. Back in the lab, her crew measured methane and microbes in each sample to reconstruct methane dynamics in the area around the well. Because the gas was released in cold, deep water under a lot of pressure, it dissolved instead of bubbling to the surface, and formed a cloud-like plume at around 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) depth. Dr. Joye's samples showed that around 70,000-times more methane was present in this plume than in the surrounding water.

Once dissolved, methane is available to be eaten by microbes. Just 11 days after the start of the spill, there were already methane-eating microbes, called methanotrophs, growing in the plume. "This is not an organism that was common or abundant" in the Gulf prior to the spill, said Dr. Joye. "They were there in very low abundance, but when put in the right conditions, they flourished." They grew slowly at first, but once they reached their peak in early June, the microbes were consuming methane at among the fastest rates ever reported for the open ocean—some 60,000-times faster than methanotrophs living at a methane seep.

http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-news/how-methane-fueled-food-web-after-gulf-oil-spill


At approximately 9:45 pm CDT, on 20 April 2010, high-pressure methane gas from the well expanded into the drilling riser and rose into the drilling rig, where it ignited and exploded, engulfing the platform

Yes had BP not been drilling there the leak may not have happened. HOWEVER since the oil and gas IS down there, a shift in the ocean floor or an earthquake could just as easily have released it.

Mother Earth has GAS  Lots of it lately

Why now?  I don't think we know. It may have always been a cycle but we never recorded it. The Methane Blow Holes in Siberia are a perfect example

So I guess we will have to learn to eat Mutated Gulf Shrimp and Nuclear Tuna... or stop eating fish.  It might be hazardous to your health.

::)

(http://thumbpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/funny-fisherman-river-fish-bear-attack1.jpg)

I don't recall seeing this thread before.  I find that disturbing,  but it had nothing to do with Dancing With the Stars or Cupcake Wars.  Maybe I just wasn't supposed to see it until now.

Anyway,  I expect that NOAA still participates in any number of classified operations.  My dad worked for ESSA years ago,  and I know much of his work was classified.   ESSA was the forerunner of NOAA.   I have concluded that even a government official with a butt full of birdshot would deny any connection to the events leading up to the aforementioned butt.

Shasta

The 14-Year-Long Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico No One is Talking About (//http://)

Contrary to what you might have been taught, oil spills are actually quite common. In fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that there are about 70 oil spills each day. In one year, this amounts to approximately 1.3 million gallons (or 4.9 million liters) being spilled into U.S. waters. When a large oil spill occurs, that number can easily be doubled. As frustrating as this present reality is, there is a more substantial oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that has been ignored for 14 years. As a result, it now verges on becoming one of the worst offshore disasters in U.S. history.

The Washington Post reports that 12 miles off the Louisiana coast, between 300 and 700 barrels of oil are spewing into the ocean each day. The spill began in 2004 when an oil-production platform owned by Taylor Energy was damaged during Hurricane Ivan. Because the platform sank into a mudslide, many of the wells were left uncapped.

14 years later, the wells are still leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico. To make matters worse, there is no fix in sight. In fact, federal officials estimate that the spill won't be resolved until the end of this century. Because of this, the Taylor offshore spill is likely to overtake BP's Deepwater Horizon incident as the largest-ever.

Why No One Has Heard About the Taylor Energy Spill
Oil spills are no joke, primarily because they damage a company's reputation. It is for this reason that the Taylor Energy company went to great lengths to keep the spill a secret. Six years after the incident, however, environmental watchdog groups stumbled across the polluted waters with a rainbow-colored oil slick. They were monitoring the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster just a few miles away.

Reportedly, Taylor Energy did alert the U.S. Coast Guard National Response Center (NRC) about the spill. But, rather than conduct an investigation, the NRC used data from the company citing that the spill is leaking only one-to-55 barrels each day. A new analysis conducted by the Justice Department in September reveals the inaccuracy. "There is abundant evidence that supports the fact that these reports from NRC are incorrect," wrote Oscar Garcia-Pineda, a geoscience consultant who specializes in remote sensing of oil spills.  "My conclusion is that NRC reports are not reliable."

The Coast Guard monitored the spill for more than half a decade without making the public fully away of the mess. Then, in July 2008, the Coast Guard informed Taylor Energy that the spill is "a continuous, unsecured crude oil discharge" that poses "a significant threat to the environment," according to a lawsuit between Taylor Energy and its insurer.

Following this development, the company made a deal with federal officials and established a $666 million trust to stop the spill. The Washington Post reports, "Taylor Energy spent a fortune to pluck the deck of the platform from the ocean and plug about a third of the wells. It built a kind of shield to keep the crude from rising." Despite the company's many efforts, however, the oil kept leaking.

In the past decade, legal processes have devastated Taylor Energy. For this reason, the company now seeks to walk away from the problem and sue the Interior Department in federal court to seek "the return of about $450 million left in a trust established with the government to fund its work to recover part of the wreckage and locate wells buried under 100 feet of muck," according to The Washington Post. 

In the 14 years since the spill, government officials still don't know the disaster's full impact on marine life. There is no economic analysis outlining the value of the oil flowing into the sea or potential royalties lost to taxpayers. What activists are demanding is that the oil spill is first contained. Then, an in-depth analysis determining the effect the spill will have (and has had) on marshland and beaches needs to be conducted. 

Taylor Energy spill contained after 14 years: Coast Guard
Posted May 16, 2019

(https://www.nola.com/resizer/Do2aecQLHi4AMgca4K7a0MYeKOI=/600x0/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-advancelocal.s3.amazonaws.com/public/FMBZBW6I3VHUTNBI2XA6Y7ZC2A.jpg)
Oil collected from the Taylor Energy spill site. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard.)

QuoteBy Sara Sneath, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

A long-running oil leak 11 miles south of the Louisiana shoreline is finally being contained, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. More than 30,000 gallons of oil have been captured from the site of the leak and transported to shore.

Taylor Energy is responsible for the spill, which began in 2004 when Hurricane Ivan triggered an underwater mudslide that toppled a platform and damaged 25 connected wells. While several wells were plugged and containment domes were installed, a sheen continued to be seen on the water surface above the downed platform.

A 2018 report based on an independent analysis of satellite imagery by geoscientist Oscar Pineda-Garcia concluded that the leak is in the magnitude of 249 barrels to 697 barrels per day, far exceeding previous estimates. Taylor Energy disputes the report findings. The company has said that the sheen is the result of contaminated sediment on the seafloor, not an active leak.

But after the 2018 report was released, the U.S. Coast Guard ordered Taylor Energy to take action to contain the spill under the Clean Water Act. Arguing that the company failed to do so, the U.S. Coast Guard hired a private contractor based out of Belle Chasse to contain the leak.

The containment device is now fully installed and capturing oil. "After monitoring the system for several weeks we have determined that the system is meeting federal containment standards," Capt. Kristi Luttrell, the Coast Guard's federal on-scene coordinator for the incident, is quoted as saying in a news release. "At this time the system is working and the once predominately large surface sheen has been reduced to barely visible. We will continue to monitor the containment system's performance and make necessary adjustments to maximize containment of the spill."

(https://www.nola.com/resizer/CRnRcg6llgoKCjjHo_Rp6m0m3t0=/600x0/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-advancelocal.s3.amazonaws.com/public/ZAOUJFWLLBCWJFAXSB67CEQLP4.jpg)
A diver works on the containment installation amidst oil plumes at the site of the Taylor Energy spill. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard.)

QuoteTaylor Energy sued the Coast Guard for taking over the spill response and contracting a remediation company to cap the spill. That lawsuit is ongoing.

In a status update submitted to the court on Tuesday (May 15), the Coast Guard said that the containment system has captured more than 30,000 gallons of oil. The oil was pumped out of the containment system and transported to shore, according to the status update.

In light of the success of the containment device, the Coast Guard will ask for a summary judgement, according to the status update. A summary judgement would end the case without a trial.

On Tuesday (May 15), a federal judge granted Healthy Gulf, a New Orleans-based environmental advocacy group, permission to intervene in the lawsuit. As an intervenor, the group can file legal briefs voicing its concern for possible environmental damage caused by the oil leak.

"After 14 years, we are glad the Coast Guard is taking action to contain this runaway oil spill," Dustin Renaud, communications director for Healthy Gulf, is quoted as saying in a news release. "Now we must make sure that they follow through on a permanent solution and ensure a spill like this never goes unchecked again. Rather than relying on industry self-reporting in the future, we must employ independent science and hold companies accountable to the law."

https://www.nola.com/environment/2019/05/taylor-energy-spill-contained-after-14-years-coast-guard.html

Environmental group seeks to intervene in lawsuit over Taylor Energy spill
Posted Mar 28, 2019

(https://www.nola.com/resizer/L4NLNzUVliSRId_ZNVgeYHs9AAQ=/600x0/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-advancelocal.s3.amazonaws.com/public/USU4URF56VEG7GMI3564HQLSHA.jpg)
Taylor Energy's oil production platform at Mississippi Canyon, Block 20, in the Gulf of Mexico before and after Hurricane Ivan. (Images from Taylor Energy documents)

QuoteBy Sara Sneath, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

An environmental group is seeking to intervene in the legal dispute between Taylor Energy Company and the U.S. Coast Guard over the company's handling of a long-running oil leak at a site 10 miles Southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River.

Healthy Gulf, formerly known as Gulf Restoration Network, filed a motion to intervene in the suit, filed by Taylor Energy in response to the Coast Guard's order requiring the company to contain the leak. The environmental group seeks to support the order, said Cynthia Sarthou, executive director of Healthy Gulf.

"Something needs to be done to stop that continuing discharge," she said. "Our job is to protect the natural resources for the Gulf of Mexico. That's what our mission is."

The leak has been ongoing for 14 years. It began in 2004 when Hurricane Ivan triggered an underwater mudslide that toppled a platform and damaged 25 connected wells. Department of Interior regulations required to permanently plug and remove the abandoned offshore lease within one year. But the well bores were buried under 150 feet of mud and sediment in a "tangled web" making it difficult for the company to decommission the site.

As a result, federal officials allowed Taylor Energy more time to explore alternatives for decommissioning the well, according to court documents. Since 2004, nine wells have been plugged and containment domes were placed over three areas that were leaking. But a crude oil sheen has continued to be visible on the ocean surface above the downed platform. The platform remains on the seabed, partially buried and about 550 feet downslope from its original location.

The Coast Guard and Taylor Energy are in disagreement about how much oil is leaking from the site and the source of the leak.

Federal authorities say one or more wells are actively leaking oil and gas, and that the leak could be in the order of hundreds of barrels per day. They base their position on multiple side-scan surveys beginning in 2012 and continuing into 2018, which found plumes flowing from the seafloor near the downed platform, according to court documents. A 2018 report based on an independent analysis of satellite imagery by geoscientist Oscar Pineda-Garcia concluded that the leak is in the magnitude of 249 barrels to 697 barrels per day, far exceeding previous estimates.

https://www.nola.com/environment/2019/03/environmental-group-seeks-to-intervene-in-lawsuit-over-taylor-energy-spill.html

14-year Taylor Energy oil leak could prove larger than BP spill, new research says
Updated Feb 15, 2019; Posted Feb 15, 2019

(https://www.nola.com/resizer/zO_OQBGFCzmyv4u7ZswTTQnJ0Z0=/480x0/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-advancelocal.s3.amazonaws.com/public/JT4BSIP3UFFSXBH3HTY24ZPSLA.png)
Site of the Taylor Energy platform.

QuoteBy Tristan Baurick, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

A toppled oil platform that has been leaking into the Gulf of Mexico for more than 14 years may have released much more oil than recent estimates have indicated, possibly pushing the total volume well beyond BP's Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.

New research indicates 2,100 to 71,400 gallons of oil are escaping each day from the Taylor Energy platform site, about 10 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River. The high estimate of 71,400 gallons per day is more than two times larger than the highest potential rate cited by the Coast Guard when it ordered Taylor to fix the problem late last year.

At the higher rate, and added up over the past 14 years and four months, the Taylor leak could top the 2010 BP disaster by more than 241 million gallons, potentially making it one of the largest – and slowest – oil disasters in history.

University of South Florida marine scientist Shaojie Sun presented the new oil release estimates at the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Conference in New Orleans last week. He stressed that his estimated range is extremely wide. While the total Taylor Energy release could soar as high 375 million gallons, it may also be as low as 11 million gallons.

Either way, the Taylor site has been an unchecked and overlooked problem for far too long, said Ian MacDonald, an oil spill expert and oceanographer at Florida State University.

"There is a significant oil flow from that site," he said. "It doesn't vanish into the ether with no impact."

QuoteThe BP disaster, by comparison, spilled about 134 million gallons into the Gulf over 87 days in 2010. While the Taylor leak could be larger, oil from the Deepwater Horizon platform gushed at a much faster rate over a shorter period of time. It devastated the coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and west Florida, whereas the Taylor leak appears to flow away from the coast due, in part, to its proximity to the Mississippi River, which pushes the oil out to sea.


It's unclear how much ecological harm the Taylor leak has caused.

"We don't know what natural resources have been damaged in any scientific sense or any (economic) sense," MacDonald said. Until recently, much of the research at the site had been led by Taylor, which presented the leak as having a negligible effect on the environment.

Sun's research was limited to assessing the leak's size, and did not explore environmental damage. He based his assessment on more than a decade's worth of satellite imagery of the Taylor site and surrounding area. To calculate the oil's thickness, Sun used a standard estimate of 95 percent "thin" oil and 5 percent "thick" oil used by oil spill responders. Thin oil is about .04 microns, and thick oil is 5 microns. A human hair is about 70 microns in diameter.

The oily discharge has increased over the years, according to Sun's analysis. In 2005, the sheen was visible on about 40 percent of the cloud-free satellite images. Between 2006 and 2011, the sheen was visible 70 percent of the time. The percentage grew to about 80 percent after 2012. On average, the sheen covered 7.7 square miles.

Taylor disputes Sun's discharge estimates.

"They're based on generalities," said Wade Bryant, an environmental scientist hired by Taylor, noting Sun's reliance on standard oil thickness estimates. "They are not directly related to exact measurements at the site."

The wells at the Taylor site were relatively low in pressure. The former platform's production of about 46,000 gallons of oil per day required pressurized gas injections. Christopher Reddy, a marine scientist hired by Taylor to assess the site, has said it's unlikely the platform site could leak at the much higher estimated rates without pressurization.

Taylor's platform, known as MC-20 Saratoga, was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan on Sept. 15, 2004. The storm triggered an underwater mudslide that snapped the 550-foot-tall platform's legs and buried a cluster of wells. Taylor plugged some of the 28 wells and installed three pyramid-shaped oil containment structures.

For much of the past decade, the Coast Guard and other federal agencies have relied on Taylor to track the leak's volume and lead oil containment efforts. That changed late last year after an independent study requested by the federal government estimated the leak at 10,500 to 29,000 gallons per day – a far greater amount than any estimate from Taylor or federal regulators.

The Coast Guard directed Taylor to "eliminate the surface sheen" with a new containment system. When Taylor balked, the Coast Guard went ahead and hired a marine contractor, Belle Chasse-based Couvillion Group, and is billing Taylor for the work.

https://www.nola.com/environment/2019/02/14-year-taylor-energy-oil-leak-could-be-two-times-larger-than-bp-spill-new-research-says.html

Coast Guard and Taylor Energy disagree over source of 14-year Gulf oil leak
Posted Dec 5, 2018

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A U.S. Coast Guard boat floats near an oily sheen floating over the Taylor Energy platform site in the Gulf of Mexico.

QuoteBy Tristan Baurick, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

The U.S. Coast Guard isn't buying Taylor Energy's explanation about what's causing the oil company's 14-year-old leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

Scientists hired by Taylor Energy say an oil-soaked area of seafloor is producing a large sheen that frequently appears on the water's surface near the site of the company's damaged MC-20 Saratoga oil platform. But in a letter sent to Taylor Energy, Coast Guard officials countered that there's not enough oil in the seafloor to produce the tens of thousands of gallons they say are seeping from the site each day. The cause, according to the Coast Guard, is one or more leaky wells that were damaged when Hurricane Ivan toppled the platform in 2004.

The Coast Guard recently ordered Taylor Energy to fix the problem or face fines of up to $40,000 per day. The order was prompted by a new estimate that put the daily release of oil between 10,500 to 29,000 gallons. Added up over 14 years, the platform has produced one of the largest and longest-running oil spills in North America, according to estimates cited by the Coast Guard.

The new leak estimates are far larger than the ones Taylor Energy provided federal authorities over the years, which had characterized the release as little more than a trickle. The Coast Guard had mostly deferred to the oil company until an independent assessment was requested by the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees offshore drilling.

Last month, Taylor Energy President Will Pecue said the new leak amounts cited by the Coast Guard are "ridiculous" and "based on erroneous science." He believes the larger estimates are aimed at bolstering the government's case for a cleanup or containment operation that could cost up to $1 billion.

Christopher Reddy, a marine scientist hired by Taylor Energy, said the wells don't have enough natural pressure to expel the vast quantities of oil. He said oil that had possibly spilled years ago has saturated the mud around the platform site. According to Reddy, it's likely that the surface sheens are produced from oil bubbling out of the seafloor sediment. He cautioned that any cleanup work at the site could release a large quantity of oil. Most sheens are produced when the seafloor is disturbed, Taylor Energy officials say.

After the 2018 report was released, the U.S. Coast Guard ordered Taylor Energy to take action to contain the spill under the Clean Water Act. Arguing that the company failed to do so, the U.S. Coast Guard hired a private contractor based out of Belle Chasse to contain the leak.

But Taylor Energy disputes the 2018 report findings. In a recent news release, the company called information cited by the Coast Guard "junk science." The company maintains that the sheen on the water surface above the downed platform is from contaminated sediment on the seafloor, not an active leak. Taylor Energy argues that containment efforts would cause oil that's currently trapped to be released causing "far more environmental harm than good."

The company has also filed a lawsuit against the contractor hired by the U.S. Coast Guard, Couvillion Group, LLC. Taylor Energy claims that more oil is already being released as a result of Couvillion's work.

"The evidence is already apparent. The observed sheen volumes have spiked higher since the Coast Guard's contractor began work at the site," the company argues in a Taylor Energy website about the dispute. "The Coast Guard is acting recklessly and with unprecedented secrecy, underscoring Taylor Energy's concern for the potential harm to the environment," the website reads.


Taylor Energy did not respond to questions about the lawsuit and containment efforts. Couvillion Group owner Timothy Couvillion said his company has made progress on installing the containment system.

"The majority of the preparations prior to installing the containment equipment have been completed and installation of the components will take place over the next few weeks," Couvillion wrote in an email.

On Friday (March 22), the U.S. Coast Guard challenged Taylor Energy's ability to support some of the claims in the company's lawsuit. In a motion to dismiss parts of Taylor's lawsuit, the Coast Guard argued the company has not provided any information to support its assertion that Couvillion's containment system will cause environmental damage.

The Coast Guard also said Taylor has failed to show how possible damage to the environment would cause injury to Taylor Energy itself. "The ongoing damage to the marine environment will continue unabated without any containment," the Coast Guard's filing reads.

If Healthy Gulf gets intervenor status in the case, the group would be permitted to file legal briefs voicing its concern for possible environmental damage caused by the oil leak, said Chris Eaton, an attorney with Earthjustice acting on behalf of Healthy Gulf.

"It's important to have a voice in this case from the local community to help show the court why the Coast Guard's actions are appropriate and necessary," he said.

https://www.nola.com/environment/2018/12/coast-guard-and-taylor-energy-disagree-over-source-of-14-year-gulf-oil-leak.html

12 years after Gulf oil platform destroyed, feds start investigating environmental damage
Updated Jul 28, 2017;
https://www.nola.com/environment/2017/07/federal_damage_assessment_for.html


Buried oil from Deepwater Horizon disaster still harming wetlands
Updated Jul 20, 2017; Posted Jul 20, 2017
https://www.nola.com/environment/2017/07/buried_oil_from_deepwater_hori.html

BP's final tab for the 2010 Gulf oil spill? $61.6 billion
Updated Jul 14, 2016; Posted Jul 14, 2016
https://www.nola.com/business/2016/07/bp_gulf_oil_spill_cost_estimat.html

Taylor Energy agrees to share Gulf oil leak documents
Updated Sep 22, 2016; Posted Sep 22, 2016
https://www.nola.com/business/2016/09/taylor_energy_agrees_to_share.html

Coast Guard orders Taylor Energy to stop 14-year oil leak
Updated Nov 20, 2018; Posted Nov 20, 2018
https://www.nola.com/environment/2018/12/coast-guard-and-taylor-energy-disagree-over-source-of-14-year-gulf-oil-leak.html

because this area where i live has become a big deal fracking-wise and what they are doing to get pipe lines thur farm land i try to keep up with the subject
and thought you might be interested to read this


https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-and-partners-announce-sunoco-pipeline-and-mid-valley-pipeline-settle-oil-spill

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News Releases from Region 06
EPA and Partners Announce Sunoco Pipeline and Mid-Valley Pipeline Settle Oil Spill Violations with $5M Civil Penalty
01/31/2019
Contact Information:
Jennah Durant or Joe Hubbard (R6Press@epa.gov)

QuoteDALLAS – (Jan. 31, 2019) In the latest joint federal-state Clean Water Act enforcement action, Sunoco Pipeline L.P. has agreed to pay civil penalties and state enforcement costs and to implement corrective measures to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Water Act and state environmental laws by Sunoco and Mid-Valley Pipeline Company stemming from three crude oil spills in 2013, 2014, and 2015, in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.

The Department of Justice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) jointly announced the settlement.

Under a proposed consent decree lodged in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, Sunoco will pay the United States $5 million in federal civil penalties for the Clean Water Act violations and pay LDEQ $436,274.20 for civil penalties and response costs to resolve claims asserted in a complaint filed today. Additionally, Sunoco agreed to take actions to prevent future spills by identifying and remediating the types of problems that caused the prior spills. This includes performing pipeline inspections and repairing pipeline defects that could lead to future spills. Sunoco is also required to take steps to prevent and detect corrosion in pipeline segments that Sunoco is no longer using. Mid-Valley, the owner of the pipeline that spilled oil in Louisiana, is responsible, along with Sunoco, for payment of the civil penalties and state costs relating to the Louisiana spill.

"This settlement holds Sunoco and Mid-Valley accountable for the harms to the environment caused by their oil spills and requires Sunoco to improve its environmental safety compliance for the oil pipelines that it operates in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma," said Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division. "This excellent result shows how a strong federal and state partnership can bring about effective environmental enforcement to protect local communities in these states." 

"My office is committed to protecting Louisiana's environment for the health, well-being, and enjoyment of our citizens," said U.S. Attorney David C. Joseph for the Western District of Louisiana. "This settlement is but one example of my commitment to work with the Environmental Protection Agency and Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality to make Louisiana a cleaner and healthier place to live."

"Our nation relies on the oil and gas sector to meet our energy needs, and we also expect companies to do so while protecting our vital water resources," said EPA Regional Administrator Anne Idsal. "Companies who violate this responsibility must face consequences and assure their future compliance."

"Pipelines are generally a very safe medium for transporting crude oil, but like any other infrastructure, pipelines require maintenance and monitoring. When companies neglect these necessary actions, pipelines can weaken and a spill can occur, which results in damage to the environment," said LDEQ Secretary Dr. Chuck Carr Brown. "LDEQ is committed to pursuing legal action against anyone whose actions cause damage to the environment of the state of Louisiana."

The complaint alleges federal and state claims relating to three crude oil spills: a 2013 spill of 550 barrels in Tyler County, Texas; a 2014 spill of approximately 4,500 barrels in Caddo Parish, near Mooringsport, Louisiana; and a 2015 spill of 40 barrels in Grant County, Oklahoma. The Texas spill affected Russell Creek, which flows to the Neches River. The Louisiana spill—the largest of the three—flowed to Tete Bayou, a tributary of Caddo Lake. The Oklahoma spill flowed into two creeks that flow to the Arkansas River, affecting an area of about a half a mile. All three spills resulted from pipeline corrosion.

The Clean Water Act makes it unlawful to discharge oil or hazardous substances into or upon the navigable waters of the United States or adjoining shorelines in quantities that may be harmful to the environment or public health. The penalty paid to the United States will be deposited in the federal Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund managed by the National Pollution Funds Center. Those funds will be available to pay for federal response activities and to compensate for damages when there is a discharge or substantial threat of discharge of oil or hazardous substances to waters of the United States or adjoining shorelines.

The proposed consent decree is subject to a public comment requirements and court review and approval.  A copy of the consent decree is available on the Department of Justice website at www.justice.gov/enrd/consent-decrees.

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https://www.philly.com/news/pennsylvania/mariner-east-pipeline-sunoco-lawsuit-chester-county-pa-20190410.html

Chester County sues Sunoco over Mariner East pipeline
by Erin McCarthy, Updated: April 10, 2019

(https://www.philly.com/resizer/NDSxmdUsfdzeCWCngJzSDdC1R7I=/1400x932/smart/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-pmn.s3.amazonaws.com/public/TVPEBMAJ3NGHFOQT4FSIX2ORPE.jpg)

QuoteChester County has sued Sunoco over its controversial Mariner East pipelines, asking the court to prohibit the company from starting construction on two county-owned properties, the county commissioners said Wednesday.

This marks the first time county officials have initiated a civil suit over the project, although in February they intervened in an existing legal challenge brought by several residents from Delaware and Chester Counties against Sunoco and its parent company, Energy Transfer Partners, involving safety risks.

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further in the article

QuoteSunoco's $5.1 billion plan is to build three adjacent pipelines, which would transport natural gas liquids such as propane from western Pennsylvania to the Sunoco refinery in Marcus Hook.

Over the last several months, Chester County District Attorney Thomas P. Hogan, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, and Delaware County District Attorney Katayoun M. Copeland have launched criminal investigations into the project's construction, citing environmental risks and safety concerns.

(https://www.philly.com/resizer/TNNekW7kQQzVnHRSexZjiSfIm3w=/1400x0/center/middle/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-pmn.s3.amazonaws.com/public/T4XYXL7BDFA2HO5X6JJCVGFHZE.jpg)



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https://www.ldnews.com/story/news/local/pennsylvania/2019/02/08/energy-transfer-pipeline-construction-permits-stopped-pa/2815229002/

Pa. stops construction permits for pipeline company that runs Mariner East lines
Marc Levy, Associated Press Published 2:57 p.m. ET Feb. 8, 2019

Greetings:

Thank you Zorgon for the Taylor info... I wuz hoping someone would pick up that baton.   :P

And Space Otter, thank you for that Sunoco info.

QuoteSunoco agreed to take actions to prevent future spills by identifying and remediating the types of problems that caused the prior spills. This includes performing pipeline inspections and repairing pipeline defects that could lead to future spills. Sunoco is also required to take steps to prevent and detect corrosion in pipeline segments that Sunoco is no longer using.

Gee whiz... they're finally doing what was supposed to be done in the first place.   :P

It seems as long as there is no attention on the subject the subject is easily forgotten.
As of now if there are any more long term like medical effects from the GOM pollution from Deep Horizon incident the medical data will reflect in the future if there are any traceable effects documented/logged...