Gulf Oil Platform Explosion and Spill

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/08/25/breaking-news-oil-leak-in-gulf-confirmed-from-the-bp-gulf-oil-spill-macondo-well-65471/

OIL LEAK IN GULF CONFIRMED FROM THE BP GULF OIL SPILL MACONDO WELL!

BP Gulf Oil Spill: Leaking Again?
AUGUST 20, 2011

I noted on Thursday that billion dollar verdict winner trial attorney Stuart Smith alleges that his contacts say BP's Deepwater Horizon oil well is leaking again.

Smith notes today:
Hours after we posted our initial report on Wednesday, the Associated Press in London ran a story that BP admitted to “investigating a new sheen in the Gulf of Mexico,” but that it was not near “any existing BP operations.”

Only hours after the AP story hit, the Times-Picayune out of New Orleans (my home town) ran an article stating BP’s outright denial. From Mark Schleifstein’s article (posted Aug. 18 at 1:47 p.m.):

No oil is leaking from the capped Macondo well that blew out last year, destroying the Deepwater Horizon floating platform and killing 11 workers, a BP spokesman said Thursday.

BP also has not hired any vessels to clean up any oil in that area of the Gulf of Mexico, said spokesman Daren Beaudo.

A report in a blog written by trial lawyer Stuart Smith of New Orleans on Wednesday claimed that the well was leaking and that BP had hired 40 boats to clean the mess.

A flurry of allegations and denials ensued. “None of this is true,” BP said in a statement. “We inspected our operations and our assets and didn’t find anything,” said BP spokesman Daren Beaudo.

We knew better than to expect any sort of candid response from BP or the Coast Guard who after all denied oil was leaking for a full week after the DH rig sank last year, so we were very pleased when Bonny Schumaker from the California-based nonprofit On Wings of Care (see link to website below) agreed to do a flyover. She took a four-hour flight out to the Deepwater Horizon site yesterday (Aug. 19) with Gulf Restoration Network (GRN) photographers Jonathan Henderson and Tarik Zawia.

They spotted oil – lots of it. So we now have damning photos of oil in the water at the “exact location” of the Deepwater Horizon. Clearly, BP has some explaining to do.

oilslick1a 20110819 7379

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMtGwGyDt7g&feature=player_embedded


oilslick2b 20110819 7483

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcNKRghwDzA&feature=player_embedded


read on : http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/08/photos-oil-at-bps-deepwater-horizon.html

Giant Oil Production Ship Back In Area

Also suspicious, a giant oil production ship is back at the scene of the oil spill.

Smith reports:

The Helix Producer I, a massive oil production vessel, is back in the area where the Deepwater Horizon rig sank to the sea floor – roughly 170 miles northeast of where BP officially lists its location. Perhaps you recall that the Helix, with the capacity to process 45,000 barrels of oil a day, helped capture oil spewing from the runaway Macondo Well last summer.

***

So why is there an enormous oil production vessel currently parked atop the Macondo field? What’s it doing if there’s no leak and no oil?

more at the link: http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/08/photos-oil-at-bps-deepwater-horizon.html

Love Always
mudra

Oil Still Gushing from BP Well in Gulf (02 September 2011) "Never Stopped"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciU4lCQ8gzE


Love Always
mudra

The Gulf of Mexico disaster has not gone away. In fact, it has grown exponentially since the main stream media stopped talking about it. According to the Gulf Rescue Alliance, an organization composed of scientists, medical professionals and seafood industry professionals, among others, the problem cannot be simplified to the damage already caused by the oil spill. It is worse, much worse.

Pools of crude oil float on the surface of Gulf of Mexico waters at the site of the sunken BP/Transocean oil drill the Deepwater Horizon on April 27, 2010. Getty Images
The Real Agenda received exclusive information regarding the current state of the ongoing emergency in the Gulf of Mexico. The latest assessment performed by the Gulf Rescue Alliance reveals not only that the oil spill is still happening, but also that the Gulf of Mexico’s sea floor grew more unstable since the explosion in 2010. Additionally, analysis provided by experts like BK Lim, shows that the geohazards developed that derive from the rolling leakage of toxic matter, combined with the on-going use of the highly toxic chemical dispersant called Corexit will most likely result in the permanent decline of marine life, while posing out-of-control public health risks, just as it did after the Exxon Valdez spill where the same chemical dispersants were used resulting in a rapid decline of the marine life until, for example, the Herring industry completely collapsed and has never recovered since then.
Read more at link above.


Current Situation
The following reports are compiled in an effort to raise awareness about the factual current condition of the Gulf of Mexico as a direct result of the Deepwater Horizon oil blowout, the destructive and inadequate cleanup response which infused toxic chemical dispersants in the Gulf’s delicate eco systems, and its impact upon the public’s health, the marine life, wildlife, environment and economy. http://gulfrescuealliance.webs.com/currentsituation.htm


Questioning EPA Fraud http://gulfrescuealliance.webs.com/currentsituation.htm#753210979

Fresh Oil in the Gulf http://gulfrescuealliance.webs.com/currentsituation.htm#753211424

Public Health Crisis in the Gulf http://gulfrescuealliance.webs.com/currentsituation.htm#753211862

The Gulf of Mexico - A Crisis that Must be Resolved http://gulfrescuealliance.webs.com/currentsituation.htm#753212371

BP’s Gulf Coast Legacy: More Sick Children than We’ve Ever seen before

Children on the Gulf Coast are falling ill in record numbers. Children who never had health problems before the BP oil spill are suffering from an array of debilitating ailments from chronic bronchitis to staph infections to acute sinusitis to mysterious “stomach viruses.” The ranks of the sick continue to climb, overwhelming doctors and clinics up and down the Gulf Coast. And to make matters worse, few treatments and medications – like antibiotics – seem to be working, so symptoms persist. Local doctors are baffled. Parents are panicked, frustrated and knee-deep in medical bills. But, of course, it’s the children who are suffering the most.

As we approach the second anniversary of the worst environmental disaster in our nation’s history, coastal communities on the Gulf of Mexico are in the grips of a spiraling health crisis. Symptoms consistent with chemical poisoning are becoming increasingly common – particularly among children – and lack of medical training and resources is exacerbating an already dire situation.

A new video from the nonprofit Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN), which is going viral this week, does a superb job of documenting this forgotten chapter in the tragic story of the Gulf oil spill.

read on: http://www.stuarthsmith.com/bps-gulf-coast-legacy-more-sick-children-than-weve-ever-seen-before

Gulf Coast Children Experiencing Health Challenges

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vVZ51XAUXA&list=UU_ssES4yL7LH8OmHtOT5Tdg


Love Always
mudra

THE BIG FIX - SHOCKING Interview by Ken Spector

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il5GYFEDJfk


Love Always
mudra

Thank you Mudra for bringing this documentary to my attention...and the video of stricken children. It really is quite shocking when you think how far reaching this stuff will go into the food chain...for e.g. those little fishies menuhadin from the Gulf that go into the feed of chickens which are sold in grocery chains across the Americas...raise your own chickens or buy free range.

______________________________________

Gulf of Mexico Blue Plague Roundtable with Michael Edward 3/04/12

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdbfW2VAIIA


Love Always
mudra

Gulf of Mexico Open Forum - Spring Break Dead Zone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n_xSuqFjTo


Love Always
mudra

Gulf seafood deformities alarm scientists

http://bigwobblenews.blogspot.com/2012/04/gulf-seafood-deformities-alarm.html

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

Video and more at the link .

Love Always
mudra

Two years later: the impact of the BP oil spill on the ecosystem

Several links covering this subject here :
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=30395

Love Always
mudra

BP oil spill 2 years later

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkEYtsUkFRY


Love Always
mudra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPnJT5DQikU
BLACK TEARS - THE SADDEST VIDEO IN THE WORLD - BP KILLED THE GULF OF MEXICO








This is the saddest video I ever made. I cried through the whole thing and will probably never watch it again. Crude oil has been GUSHING into our Gulf at the rate of 800,000 gallons per day.
What follows is the news story that accompanied these pictures.

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."
The day was 85 degrees, the blue sky almost white with sunshine, the air fresh with salt tang.
After checking that he was unobserved, he motored out to Queen Bess barrier island, known to the locals as Bird Island.
The grasses by the shore were littered with tarred marine life, some dead and others struggling under a thick coating of crude.
"When you see some of the things I've seen, it would make you sick," the contractor said. "No living creature should endure that kind of suffering."
Queen Bess Island was the first place where fledglings were born when the beloved, endangered Louisiana brown pelicans were reintroduced in the 1970s. Their population rebounded and was finally declared stabilized in 2002.
Now their future is once again in doubt. In what had been such an important hatchery, hundreds of pelicans - their white heads stained black - stood sentinel. They seemed slow and lethargic.
"Those pelicans are supposed to have white heads. The black is from the oil. Most of them won't survive," the contractor said.
"They keep trying to clean themselves. They try and they try, but they can't do it."
The contractor has been attempting to save birds and turtles.
"I saw a pelican under water with only its wing sticking out," he said. "I grabbed it and lifted it out of the water. It was just covered in oil. It was struggling so hard to survive. We did what we could for it.
"Nature is cruel, but what's happening here is crueler."
The uninhabited barrier islands are surrounded by yellow floating booms, also stained black, that are supposed to keep the oil out. It's not working.
"That grass was green a few weeks ago," the contractor said. "Now look. ... This whole island is destroyed. How do you write a check for something like this?"
He said he recently found five turtles drowning in oil.
"Three turtles were dead. Two were dying and not dead yet. They will be," he said.
As the boat headed back amid the choppy waves, a pod of dolphins showed up to swim with the vessel and guide it to land.
"They know they are in trouble. We are all in trouble," the contractor said.
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.
The contractor for BP said the public needs to see the truth.
"BP is going to say the deaths of these animals wasn't oil-related," he said. "We know the truth. I hope these pictures get to the right people - to someone who can do something."


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/06/02/2010-06-02_the_hidden_dea...

http://gothamist.com/2010/06/04/wildlife_dying_in_oil_obama_heads_t.php?galle...



_____________________________________

As below so above; As above so below

Jenetta wrote:
This is the saddest video I ever made. I cried through the whole thing and will probably never watch it again. Crude oil has been GUSHING into our Gulf at the rate of 800,000 gallons per day.

That's how bad and sad it is each time we hear of an oil spill taking place .
This is so criminal to our ecosystem that I hardly understand people around
the globe haven't gathered yet to do everything possible to stop these liabilities.
When there will only be a dead planet to buy what will that big money that is driving
the few Heartless ones be good for ?

Love from me
mudra

BP Spill Resurfaces on Louisiana Beaches

In Louisiana, remnants of the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill are washing up on shore in the form of tarballs that are heavily laced with Corexit.
A representative from the Louisiana state Wildlife and Fisheries Department remarked that there was a “large mat of tar on one beach and concentrations of tar balls on adjacent beaches.”
Researchers from the UN-sponsored Greenpeace have taken samples along the affected beaches in the Bin Secour National Wildlife Refuge in Alabama.
It is estimated that 1 million barrels of oil remain on the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico, left behind by the BPDH oil spill.
This re-emergence of the prior disaster has prompted officials in Washington, DC to request that federal agencies reassess the Gulf region’s safety as residents are continuously being exposed to Corexit and remnants of the oil spill.

read on: http://theintelhub.com/2012/09/06/bp-spill-resurfaces-on-louisiana-beaches-as-gulf-depopulation-agenda-looms-in-the-distance/

Love Always
mudra

May be out of sight and for many out of mind. But it is all still there. Corexit and all. The death toll will not be known for years, but it will be high.

The Exxon Valdez cleanup is testiment of the effects of corexit. I feel bad for the cleanup crews and residents that have been exposed.

NEW 4-Mile Long Oil Slick Near BP's Gulf Oil Well (October 4, 2012

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsmIGrJRbYE


Love Always
mudra

Thanks for keeping this thread alive Micjer.
This disaster is leaving many traces. One can't hide the obvious,
only minimize it or pretend it's not there as BP did all along!

Three Years After the BP Spill, Tar Balls and Oil Sheen Blight Gulf Coast

The rest of the U.S. may have moved on, but along the coast where oil drifted to shore, residents are still waiting for some kind of closure.

Julie Dermansky Apr 20 2013,

April 20 marks the three-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which took the lives of 11 men and resulted in the largest oil spill in American history. BP, along with Transocean and Halliburton, are still in the midst of a civil trial held in New Orleans federal court over liability for the catastrophe.

The extent of the damage and the long-term effects from the spill remain impossible to determine. Some scientific evidence -- for example, that collected by NOAA's Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program, which includes the results of necropsies of dead sea turtles and dolphins -- is not available, since it is being used as evidence in the trial. Yet even three years later, the residual effects of the oil spill are still apparent on the Gulf Coast. I covered the BP oil spill from the start, and have gone on documenting the effects of the hardest-hit areas in Louisiana and Mississippi, revisiting those areas over the last week. Below are some of the photos I have taken. Along the Mississippi coast one can still find tar balls. In Louisiana I observed, among other disturbing signs of the spill, oil sheen along a coastal marsh, and erosion on an island in Barataria Bay sped up by the death of mangrove trees and marsh grass.



read on: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/04/three-years-after-the-bp-spill-tar-balls-and-oil-sheen-blight-gulf-coast/275139/

Love Always
mudra

Fourth Anniversary of Gulf Oil Spill: Wildlife Is Still Suffering from Toxic Cover Up



BP and the Government Decided to Temporarily Hide the Oil by Sinking It with Toxic Chemicals … The Gulf Ecosystem Is Now Paying the Price

As we noted at the time, and on the first (and here), second and third anniversaries of BP’s Gulf oil spill, BP and the government made the spill much worse by dumping toxic dispersant in the water in an attempt to to sink – and so temporarily hide – the oil.

In addition, adding dispersant makes oil 52 times more toxic than it would normally be.

EPA whistleblowers tried to warn us…

Gulf toxicologist Susan Shaw told us last year:

Covering up the [Gulf] oil spill with Corexit was a deadly action … what happened in the Gulf was a political act, an act of cowardice and greed.

(60 Minutes did a fantastic exposé on the whole shenanigan.)

And the cover up went beyond adding toxic dispersant. BP and the government went so far as hiding dead animals and keeping scientists and reporters away from the spill so they couldn’t document what was really happening.

As the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) notes in a new report, the wildlife is still suffering from this toxic cover up.

NWF reports:

Some 900 bottlenose dolphins of all ages—the vast majority of them dead—have been reported stranded in the northern Gulf between April 2010 and March 2014. In 2013, bottlenose dolphins were found dead or stranded at more than three times average rates before the spill. In 2011, dead infant or stillborn dolphins were found at nearly seven times the historical average and these strandings have remained higher than normal in subsequent years. NOAA has been investigating this ongoing wave of bottlenose dolphin strandings across the northern Gulf of Mexico since February 2010, before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded. This is the longest period of above-average strandings in the past two decades and it includes the greatest number of stranded dolphins ever found in the Gulf of Mexico. In December 2013, NOAA published results of a study looking at the health of dolphins in a heavily-oiled section of the Louisiana coast. This researchers found strong evidence that the ill health of the dolphins in Louisiana’s Barataria Bay was related to oil exposure.

***

Dolphins in Barataria Bay showed evidence of adrenal problems, as has been previously reported in mammals exposed to oil.4 Barataria Bay dolphins also were five times more likely than dolphins from unoiled areas to have moderate-to-severe lung disease. Nearly half the dolphins studied were very ill; 17% of the dolphins were not expected to survive. The study concludes that health effects seen in Barataria Bay dolphins are significant and likely will lead to reduced survival and ability to reproduce.

NWF found many other species have also been harmed by the dispersant-oil mixture:

Roughly 500 stranded sea turtles have been found in the area affected by the spill every year from 2011 to 2013. This is a dramatic increase over the numbers found before the disaster. Other teams of scientists have reported negative impacts of oil on a number of species of fish, including tuna red snapper and mahi-mahi. As we have learned from previous spills far smaller than the 2010 event, it has taken years to understand the full effects on the environment. In some cases, recovery is not complete even decades later. Twenty-five years after the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound, clams, mussels, and killer whales are still considered “recovering,” and the Pacific herring population, commercially harvested before the spill, is showing few signs of recovery. [One of the main ingredients in Corexit - 2-butoxyethanol - was also used in the Valdez spill] … the full scope of the Deepwater Horizon disaster on the Gulf ecosystem will likely unfold for years or even decades to come.

***

The Atlantic bluefin tuna is one of the largest fish in the Gulf, reaching average lengths of 6.5 feet and weighing about 550 lbs. A single fish can sell for tens of thousands of dollars.… The Deepwater Horizon rig exploded while the April-May breeding season in the northern Gulf was underway. In 2011, NOAA researchers estimated that as many as 20% of larval fish could have been exposed to oil, with a potential reduction in future populations of about 4%.

***

A more recent study shows that a chemical in oil from the spill can cause irregular heartbeats in bluefin and yellowfin tuna that can lead to heart attacks, or even death. The effects are believed to be particularly problematic for fish embryos and larvae, as heartbeat changes could affect development of other organs. The researchers suggest that other vertebrate species in the Gulf of Mexico could have been similarly affected. Scientists found that four additional species of large predatory fish—blackfin tuna, blue marlin, mahi-mahi and sailfish—all had fewer larvae in the year of the oil spill than any of the three previous years.

***

The Deepwater Horizon spill occurred during the blue crab spawning season, when female crabs were migrating out of estuaries into deeper waters of the Gulf to release their eggs.

***

[Reports indicate problems with crabs.] Blue crabs provide evidence of oil tainting Gulf food web. 2. Alabama Local News. 2013. Blue crab stock declines are concern for Gulf Coast fishermen. 3. Houma Today. 2013. Locals say blue crab catches plummeting. 4. Louisiana Seafood News. 2013. Lack of Crabs in Pontchartrain Basin Leads to Unanswered Questions. 5. Tampa Bay Times. 2013. Gulf oil spill’s effects still have seafood industry nervous. 6. Presentation at the 2014 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill & Ecosystem Science Conference. The Effects of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill on Blue Crab Megalopal Settlement: A Field Study.

***

Marine life associated with the deep sea corals also showed visible signs of impact from the oil. In a laboratory study, coral larvae that had been exposed to oil, a chemical dispersant, and an oil/ dispersant mixture all had lower survival rates than the control larvae in clean seawater.

***

According to a recently published federal report, oyster eggs, sperm and larvae were exposed to oil and dispersants during the 2010 oil spill. Oil compounds known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) can be lethal to oyster

***

In the fall of 2010, even after the Macondo well was capped, oyster larvae were rare or absent in many of the water samples collected across the northern Gulf of Mexico.

***

There are nearly 1000 known species of foraminifera in the Gulf of Mexico. These small marine creatures form part of the base of the marine food web, serving as a food source for marine snails, sand dollars and fish. Previous research has shown that these sediment-dwelling microorganisms are sensitive to oil damage. Rapid accumulation of oiled sediment on parts of the Gulf floor between late 2010 and early 2011 contributed to a dramatic die-off of foraminifera. Researchers found a significant difference in community structure and abundance during and after the Deepwater Horizon event at sites located from 100-1200 meters deep in the Desoto Canyon, nearly 100 kilometers south-southwest of Pensacola, Florida. Deep sea foraminifera had not recovered in diversity a year and a half after the spill.

***

read on:   http://www.globalresearch.ca/fourth-anniversary-of-gulf-oil-spill-wildlife-is-still-suffering-from-toxic-cover-up/5377749

Love Always
mudra

Bring Your Own Doc : THE GREAT INVISIBLE, SXSW Grand Jury Prize Documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC4nLCI6JSw


THE GREAT INVISIBLE, the documentary on the gulf oil spill, has won the SXSW Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, and we talk to director Margaret Brown about the stunning film that illuminates the lives of those affected by the disaster.

Love Always
mudra

800,000 and Counting: The Soaring Deepwater Horizon Bird Death Count,

Posted On May 22, 2014 by Alexis Baldera

According to a new study, scientists estimate that between 600,000 and 800,000 coastal seabirds died because of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, a number far greater than any previous estimate. Understanding the ripple effect of 800,000 coastal birds dying in the Gulf of Mexico is critical to the recovery of this special place. These findings come from a study to be released this summer in Marine Ecology Progress Series, which was recently reported in the New York Times.This new estimate for bird deaths in the Gulf is unprecedented for an oil disaster. For context, the estimate of dead birds following the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill was around 300,000.What are the ecosystem effects of 800,000 birds dying?In response to the study results, BP has released statements refuting the methodology and objectivity of the authors. Many of the studies that BP cites as counter arguments have not been shared with the public, and as far as we know, have not been peer reviewed. BP’s veil of confidentiality prevents the public from understanding their methodology and results. This is an obvious double standard, and we must ask ourselves:  who has more to gain from discrediting these findings and underestimating bird mortality than BP?In order to increase transparency and have an accurate discussion about how to best estimate bird mortality or other impacts, it is necessary for all of the data and methods be on the table. This is critical information that managers and scientists need in order to know the full extent of the injury. And BP is blocking this information because they’re in the middle of a legal battle over the oil disaster.

Read on: http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2014/05/22/800000-and-counting-the-soaring-deepwater-horizon-bird-death-count/

Love always
mudra