Showing posts with label Gulf Coast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gulf Coast. Show all posts

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Gulf Coast Residents are NOT the Problem. So What is?

by jamess


Even though many of us have Disaster Fatigue, for scores of hundreds of local Gulf Residents, this BP Crisis is very much their recurring daily Nightmare.


BP Oil Spill Compensation Fund Not Living Up to Promise
NewsInferno.com, News that matters! -- Sep 10, 2010

In an interview with USA Today, Feinberg promised a better response times as his staff weeds through old claims. "I’ve inherited a huge number of claims that have never been processed that need to be processed, especially business claims," he said. Such claims, he said, were placed on a "side track" by BP when it was handling the process.

According to USA Today, more than 46,000 people have filed claims since Feinberg took charge. By September 8, his staff had paid 10,252 claims for nearly $80 million. Most claims paid are small, with payouts of $5,000 or less, USA Today said.



So Ken Feinberg has inherited an extensive paper trail of bureaucratic procrastination;

While the Gulf Coast Residents, simply keep reaping the BP whirlwind ...



continued at Daily Kos....

Thursday, September 2, 2010

UPDATE: Mariner oil/gas platform explosion in the Gulf

by marabout40

Jesus, I feel like someone just punched me in the gut.

Via AP:

Gulf oil rig explodes off US coast GRAND ISLE, Louisiana (AP) — An offshore oil rig has exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, west of the site of the April blast that caused the massive oil spill. Coast Guard Petty Officer Casey Ranel says the blast was reported by a commercial helicopter company about 9:30 a.m. CDT (1430 GMT) Thursday. Seven helicopters, two airplanes and four boats are en route to the site, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of Vermilion Bay along the central Louisiana coast. Ranel says it hasn't been determined whether the structure is a production platform or a drilling rig or whether workers were aboard. Ranel says smoke was reported but it is unclear whether the rig is still burning.



continued at Daily Kos....

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Updated: NEW Study indicates Microbes ARE rapidly consuming the Gulf Oil

by jamess


I, for one, hope that this is true, and will be further substantiated:


Study: Petroleum-eating microbes significantly reduced gulf oil plume
David Brown, Washington Post Staff Writer -- Tue, August 24, 2010

Petroleum-eating bacteria - which had dined for eons on oil seeping naturally through the seafloor - proliferated in the cloud of oil that drifted underwater for months after the April 20 accident. They not only outcompeted fellow microbes, they each ramped up their own internal metabolic machinery to digest the oil as efficiently as possible.

The result was a nature-made cleanup crew capable of reducing that reduced the amount of oil amounts in the undersea "plume" by half about every three days, according to research published online Tuesday by the journal Science.

The findings, by a team of scientists led by Terry C. Hazen of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California [...]



continued at Daily Kos....

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Dawn Chorus Birdblog: The Virginia Rail And Poetry

by Pam LaPier

A secretive, diminutive bird that seldom vocalizes outside the breeding season, the Virginia Rails are a hard bird to track so its precise status is unknown. One thing is for certain, the oil that has proven so deadly for the other wildlife of the Gulf region will have an impact on these vulnerable creatures.



continued at Daily Kos....

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Gulf Coast Locals, BP Workers, Speaking Out

by jamess


Former BP worker speaks out.

http://www.youtube.com/...


I wonder what he's afraid of, still ?

Apparently, BP runs a tight ship -- perhaps it's best to not cross them ?



continued at Daily Kos....

Friday, August 20, 2010

GULF COAST, New Agenda

by Knucklehead

  As usual, I`m back on Fridays to post my coral reef images & to lend my small support to all the people from the gulf, & for all the plants & animals, above & belowthe surface.
I fear the damage will affect more the denizens of the deep, than the more visible surface land inhabitants.
  As I`m sure you`ll all concur, I believe this was by design, … to minimize the visible surface  damage, at the much greater expense of the out-of-sight underwater damage.
I`m encouraged, albeit minimally, of the renewed pushback against the mantra of “the oil is gone”, a magical feat, (read, pack of lies) akin to the  (mushroom cloud from WMD`S in Iraq).

BP

DSCN9914



continued at Daily Kos....

Sunday, August 15, 2010

24 Hours of Wonder: Gulf Region Nature Photodiary

by matching mole

All the photos in this diary were taken between 5 PM Tuesday and 4 PM Wednesday this past week.  We had guests and we showed them a couple of the local natural wonders: St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge and Wakulla Springs and river - both just to the south of Tallahassee in the Florida panhandle.  We had an unusually fantastic time and I thought I would share some of what we saw.



continued at Daily Kos...

Saturday, August 14, 2010

GULF COAST, NEW DAYS

by Knucklehead

  Lately, I`ve been not so enthused about the progress in the gulf.
I see the ramping up of activism in diaries with multiple posters, that, great unto themselves, the collective impact is much more than the sum of it`s parts.
Here are a few links.

http://www.dailykos.com/... - 295Drill,BP,-DrillBPs-Gulf-Catastrophe

http://www.dailykos.com/...

http://www.dailykos.com/...

OCTOPUSES GARDEN

IRIS BEAUTY flat



continued at Daily Kos...

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

The Death Gyre in the Gulf: What BP Didn't Want People to See

by Ellinorianne

There was a concerted effort to keep the media out of the area when the spill came about, we were kept from seeing the ROV photos, told they didn't exist and told that there was no live feed.

There was.

There have been a lot of corrections over what was available to the public, there were disturbing limitations to the media.

But it's starting to unfold just as BP and NOA are declaring victory, which for me, would be great, I would love that this nightmare be over as easily as they make it seem.  But, it's not I who is saying it's not that simple.



continued at Daily Kos...

Defend the Gulf...in your own home...

by luckydog

This one is easy, folks.

Defend the Gulf...in your own home...on the 5th anniversary of Katrina...

The Gulf Restoration Network will make it easy for you. All you have to do is show a movie in your home. Or anyplace else you've a mind to arrange, in a club, in a school, in a church, in a park, get creative.

Host a "Defend the Gulf" Movie Screening for the 5th Anniversary of Katrina

Or at least attend a screening...Where?...Portland, ME...St. Louis, MO...Slidell, LA...Bartlesville, OK...Palo Alto, CA...Kaneohe, HI...Bay St Louis, MS...Rockwall, TX...San Francisco, CA...Elmont, NY...Lake Worth, FL...Damariscotta, ME...Brun, Germany...and a whole buncha other cities and town across the US...



continued at Daily Kos...

Friday, July 23, 2010

BP Hides Use of Mostly Black Prison Labor For Oil Gusher Cleanup

by Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse

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

Please rec mothership!



continued at Daily Kos...

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Gulf Citizens show their 'Signs of Trouble'

by jamess


Gallery: Signs of trouble
Oil spill victims find an outlet for anger about the crisis and resentment toward BP.

» LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY

A WashingtonPost Photo Gallery ... for many more, Citizen Statements, in art.



continued at Daily Kos....

Worse than the Oilpocalypse

by LaughingPlanet

This will be brief.

As another week slowly passes us by, and another suffocating heat wave breaks, we are still no closer to joining the rest of the developed world when it comes to scientific data.

When science warns of the worst that can happen, that prospect is not to be dismissed and ridiculed. Far from it. In fact, the intelligent plan is this-

Always prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

As a country, and overall, as a species, we are falling woefully short on that crucial 1st part.

So what is worse than having the beaches and wetlands of the south under a few inches of oil and toxic dispersant?

How about being under 20 feet of saltwater?

la_6meter



continued at Daily Kos....

Monday, July 19, 2010

What Happens To All That Oily Sand? You Won't Like The Answer

by Something the Dog Said

Oil is nasty stuff. It is full of various toxic chemicals which  you really don’t want to have on you, your wild life or your beaches. The question is, what do you do with it when you spill an estimated 5.16 million barrels (based on a 60K barrels per day) into an area where there are lots and lots of beaches for it was up on?

Sadly the main concept for dealing with spilled oil is to let it "weather" which means it breaks down into small droplets, gets eaten by bacteria and is generally sent to the bottom of the sea where we can’t see it so we don’t worry about it. This does nothing in terms of getting the toxic chemicals out of the water, but there is a hell of a lot of water in the oceans and there is toxic crap from other sources, so we don’t sweat it as much as we should.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"



continued at Daily Kos....

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Breaking – reports of a seep found near the BP well

by deepsouthdoug

Reuters:

Engineers monitoring BP's damaged well in the Gulf of Mexico detected seepage on the ocean floor that could mean problems with the cap that has stopped oil from gushing into the water, the U.S. government's top oil spill official said on Sunday.

snip

But late on Sunday, the U.S. government released a letter to BP Chief Managing Director Bob Dudley from retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen that referred to seepage near the mile-deep (1.6 km-deep) well as well as "undetermined anomalies at the well head."

"I direct you to provide me a written procedure for opening the choke valve as quickly as possible without damaging the well should hydrocarbon seepage near the well head be confirmed," Allen wrote.



continued at Daily Kos....

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Fishgrease: Booming Feynman's Ghost

by Fishgrease

Boomers! Yesterday! A date which will live in fuckery.

"It has been indeed fuckery most foul."

-- Kossack Onomastic in yesterday's Gulf Watchers ROV liveblog diary.

REC AND SUPPORT THE MOTHERSHIP!!!

Yesterday, Our Government bought in to BP's lies and maneuvering. Yesterday, Our Government approved the Integrity Test. That test is now underway. If anything bad happens, and there are many many bad things that can happen, Our Government will be visited by the Ghost of Richard Feynman.



continued at Daily Kos....

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

"Over"

by Crashing Vor

BP's new well cap is in place and pressure tests have begun, with very appropriate caution. If the tests indicate that the well bore and casings have sufficient integrity to withstand the internal pressures of the well, there is a chance that the spigot may get turned off this week.

As wonderful as that news is, it will bring a chorus of sighs from the media, the government, the oil industry and well-meaning Gulf Coast residents, a chorus singing, "It's over!"

That chorus will echo throughout the mediasphere. And it will be dead wrong.



continued at Daily Kos....

Momentum on BP Respirators!

by Forrest Brown


Good afternoon, I'm Forrest Brown, senior organizing fellow at the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

Since we launched BP Makes Me Sick last Thursday with 35 Gulf partners, we have continued to gain momentum in our campaign to protect Gulf oil spill workers. More than 66,000 people have joined our coalition, and last friday Keith Olbermann featured our coalition on the air.

But to amp up the pressure on BP we need to reach 75,000 signers.

Can you join the coalition? Click here.



continued at Daily Kos....

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

NOAA & BP Keep Key Oil Data from Scientists & Public

by FishOutofWater

Scientists have been refused access to key data that NOAA has given to BP. Data access is necessary to plan research, investigate damage, and assess critical environmental effects. University researchers and other independent scientists have requested data from the government so that they can track the oil and its effects on the water chemistry and ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico, but NOAA has refused to release the data.

Independent scientists, and science bloggers including me, have been strongly questioning the use of dispersants in deep water because dispersed oil in deep water could potentially cause oil plumes dead zones that might last for years. The EPA allowed BP to use dispersants in 5000 ft. deep water despite the lack of data on the effects of dispersing oil in deep water.



continued at Daily Kos....