Dying Gulf Coast Marine Life
[Guest post by DRJ]
The New York Daily News reports on the dying marine life:
“Here’s what President Obama didn’t see when he visited the Gulf Coast: a dead dolphin rotting in the shore weeds.
“When we found this dolphin it was filled with oil. Oil was just pouring out of it. It was the saddest darn thing to look at,” said a BP contract worker who took the Daily News on a surreptitious tour of the wildlife disaster unfolding in Louisiana.
His motive: simple outrage.
“There is a lot of coverup for BP. They specifically informed us that they don’t want these pictures of the dead animals. They know the ocean will wipe away most of the evidence. It’s important to me that people know the truth about what’s going on here,” the contractor said.
“The things I’ve seen: They just aren’t right. All the life out here is just full of oil. I’m going to show you what BP never showed the President.”
***
BP’s central role in the disaster cleanup has apparently given the company a lot of latitude in keeping the press away from beaches where the oil is thickest.On Monday, a Daily News team was escorted away from a public beach on Elmer’s Island bycops who said they were taking orders from BP.
BP spokesman Toby Odone denied the company is trying to hide the environmental damage; he noted BP has organized press visits to the spill zone and said BP cannot tell cops what to do.”
Unfortunately the leak may continue for months. Current efforts to stop the flow have hit a snag — the blade cutting the riser is stuck — while the oil is drifting toward the beaches of the Florida Panhandle.
— DRJ
This thing has been leaking for 6 weeks(?) now. IF the Gulf stream current average even just 2 knots an hour thats 170 miles a week or over 1000 miles or way out to sea.
Some portions of the current are considerably faster than that so this huge mass of oil (which given the math is not much of anything) is scary but not really a sheen is a few millimeters thick and soon will be absorbed
EricPWJohnson (cedf1d) — 6/2/2010 @ 11:31 amWhen we found this dolphin it was filled with oil. Oil was just pouring out of it.
I’m sure there are some dead animals, but I’m a little suspicious about reports of “oil pouring out” of a dead dolphin. Am I to believe the dolphin sucked in gallons of oil through its blowhole, only for it “pour out” at the moment this person saw it.
If we take the worst reports and the best reports, the truth is probably somewhere in between.
MD in Philly (cb8efe) — 6/2/2010 @ 11:49 am#2 MD in Philly:
That sounds about right. Last time I looked (which has been a while), I think it was projected that it would take several months of spillage to equal the annual natural seepage in the Gulf. And the spillage is a point source, where the seepage isn’t, so localized damage will be greater. But when I hear things like
I’m kind of nonplussed.
Isn’t that just about the ideal solution? But of course, if that happens, there isn’t any reason for
EW1(SG) (edc268) — 6/2/2010 @ 1:10 pmI hope they verified that the ‘BP Contract Worker’ was actually working for BP, and not some leftist activist pretending to work for BP for maximum emotional impact. And that they verified his claims that BP was hiding this stuff, and not the fumbling feds. And that his claims that ‘when we found it, it was worse’ are not exaggerations. These are all leftist tactics used in the past to manipulate media coverage of similar events.
starboardhelm (94c0da) — 6/2/2010 @ 2:51 pmTwo things to remember:
1) this year is predicted to be an especially active hurricane season. There have been past years where that prediction was made and then turned out wrong, but we’ve already had one named storm before the official start of the season.
2) there is, I believe, an average of one or two storms a year which affect the northern Gulf. Some years, there are none. Most years there is at least one, some years two or more (for instance, Katrina and Rita both occurred in the same season, and followed paths that brought them near the site of the Horizon rig). A storm that came close but not too close might be helpful in dispersing the oil but would disrupt any efforts at cleanup and containment while it was progressing along; a storm that came very close would not only cause the same or more disruption but might push much of the oil onshore as part of the storm surge, making even more of a mess.
Cheerful thought, isn’t it?
BTW, there is no need to suspect leftie agitators here. Many, if not most, of these “contractors” are local folks; the feedback I’m getting from people I know indicates that lots of people up there are intensely angry with BP, and the fishing folks in that area, and the locals that make money from them, are facing the possibility that Louisiana waters may not be commercially fishable for at least several years. In other words, this could very well be a local man who is pissed at BP because he believes he’s permanently lost his livelihood as a result of the Horizon spill.
kishnevi (feba14) — 6/2/2010 @ 5:53 pm