Disaster In The Gulf: It Gets Worse, A Potential Doomsday
Scenario
12 June 2010 By Stephen Lendman
As more information surfaces, a
potentially biblical disaster is unfolding,
threatening to make vast parts of the Gulf dead zones,
animals and plant species so contaminated and unsafe
that Gulf communities may face "the total end of
fishing, according to Carl Safina, Blue Water
Institute ocean biologist.
"I don't see how the fish
populations will be able to withstand what has
happened. The basis of their livelihoods is being
destroyed. This is not a temporary issue. Those things
don't come back the day the oil stops," and no end of
it so far is in sight.
On May 30, the UK Independent's
Emily Dugan headlined "Oil spill creates huge undersea
dead zones," according to oceanologists and
toxicologists, saying:
If experts are right, "the sea's
entire food chain could suffer years of devastation,
with almost no marine life in the region escaping its
effects."
Many scientists believe what's
unseen below the surface will have the deadliest
impact because of the combination noxious oil and
toxic dispersants, combined to make a growing disaster
far worse.
Over 8,300 animal and plant
species are at risk. Some may face extinction, but the
true toll won't be known for years.
"In previous spills, oil rose to
the surface and was dealt with there," but hundreds of
thousands of gallons of dispersants used has kept much
of the it submerged, "resulting in unprecedented
underwater damage to organisms in the Gulf."
Once toxins enter the food chain,
none of it escapes harm, and some may be lost forever,
the result of what Marine Environmental Research
Institute director Susan Shaw calls "the biggest
environmental disaster of our time," saying:
She's been diving in damaged
areas and "is horrified by the contamination caused by
BP's continued use of dispersants. They've been used
at such a high volume that it's unprecedented. The
worst of these - Corexit 9527 - is the one (most used.
It) ruptures red blood cells and causes fish to
bleed." With so much in the water over large areas,
"we can only imagine the death that will be caused."
Shaw explained that contaminated
plankton and smaller shrimps will be eaten by larger
fish, passing the deadly mix up the food chain,
"dismantling (it), piece by piece."
On June 8, University of South
Florida's College of Marine Science "confirmed the
(large widespread) presence of distinct layers of
degraded oil (in two deep water plumes) of the
northern Gulf of Mexico many miles from the Deepwater
Horizon explosion site" - based on research it
conducted and continues to pursue. In late May, its
scientists reported one plume 22 miles long and 100
feet thick.
One or more others now exist and
continue getting larger. BP denies they exist, CEO
Tony Hayward saying "The oil is on the surface.
They're aren't any plumes."
According to Harte Research
Institute for the Gulf of Mexico Studies director,
Larry McKinney, "At the depth that these plumes are
at, (vast parts of) the sea will be toxic for God
knows how long."
Tulane University's Ecology and
Evolutionary Biology department Professor, Michael
Blum, warns about mass extinction, saying:
"There are....hundreds of
shorebirds and marine mammals that are acutely
sensitive to oil. You could potentially lose whole
species, have extinction events." Other experts share
that view about a disaster so huge, it's hard
imagining how bad it may get. Some fear the worst -
yet the administration, BP and most major media
reports conceal it, though gradually more information
comes out.
It Gets Worse
Complicit with BP from day one,
Obama's Interior Department falsified results of a
National Incident Command Flow Rate Technical Group
estimate of the oil leaking at from 12,000 - 19,000
barrels daily - its low figure, not the true volume
its scientists feel is "significantly higher."
Indeed so believes University of
California, Santa Barbara, Professor Ira Leifer, a
noted expert at estimating flow rates, saying
satellite data he's examined shows it's been
increasing over time, especially after BP's "top kill"
method failed. Then severing the damaged riser pipe to
install a "top hat" increased the rate far more than
BP's 20% estimate.
At worst, he thinks as much as
100,000 barrels daily are leaking, based on new video
images showing the flow of black oil is unimpeded. He
also said "BP is playing games with us, presumably
under the advice of their legal team."
Indeed so according to a May 26
Reuters report citing a US Clean Water Act clause,
added in 1990 after the Exxon Valdez disaster. Unlike
BP's $75 million liability cap for economic damages,
Washington can assess fines of up to $4,300 for every
barrel spilled.
The basic fine is $1,100 per
barrel. However, if courts rule gross negligence, much
more perhaps is likely. In the past, civil fines were
a modest percent of total cost, but given the size of
this disaster and its unprecedented damage and
outrage, stiffer penalties may result.
Given the best of reliable
estimates, University of Michigan's Environmental Law
program director, Professor David Uhlmann, believes:
"These civil penalties could be
staggeringly high, possibly running into the billions,
(maybe) tens of billions," including clean-up costs,
economic damages, compensatory and punitive ones, and
possible criminal liability.
A late April Bernstein Research
estimate put BP's liability up to $8 billion, but the
figure excluded possible penalties, and didn't
consider a catastrophe this great or its likely
duration - combined, having the potential to bankrupt
the company and very likely get its CEO Tony Hayward
fired, considered damaged goods, perhaps with other
tainted officials sharing responsibility for the cost,
major PR disaster, and criminal negligence, even the
best PR and containment can't conceal.
Initially, BP and the Obama
administration said 1,000 daily barrels, then 5,000,
and now 12,000 - 19,000, much of which is being
recovered according Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen,
repeating what BP tells him, and even now can't admit
the obvious about plumes.
Early amounts captured combined
oil and sea water, likely as true now despite
announced company claims that always are bogus and
can't be believed.
Repeatedly up to now, Harward and
other BP officials lied, suppressed the truth, and
continue to control everything, including clean-up
efforts. At best, they've done little, provided
bare-bones financial compensation, and no other help
to affected residents - the Obama administration
letting them operate secretly and negligently, in
spite of continued bungling, obstruction, and criminal
negligence or worse.
A Potential
Doomsday Scenario
According to University of
Georgia biogeochemist, Samantha Joye, the vast
underwater plumes are "unlike anything else that has
ever been seen anywhere, certainly in human history,
(and they) threaten to wreak havoc on marine life.
(Also unprecedented are) extremely high levels of
methane. It's impossible to know what (its) impacts"
will be, something that will take years to understand.
Besides the enormous damage to the Gulf, Joye's
greatest fear is one or more hurricanes, pushing the
oil ashore, and spreading it through torrential rains
well inland, and contaminating vast crops and farmland
over a vast area.
On June 8, oil expert Matthew
Simmons, on MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan show, said the
enormity of the Gulf disaster has been grossly
underestimated. He believes from 100,000 - 150,000
barrels are spewing out daily, mostly from "an open
hole with no casing in it which sits about seven miles
away from where BP has ben trying to fix these little
tiny leaks in the drilling riser."
After the explosion, 40,000 -
50,000 pounds of pressure per square inch intensified
the fire and popped the blowout preventer like a cork.
Then the casing came out, so "we have an open hole
that's spewing I would guess somewhere between 100 -
150,000 barrels a day of oil which is why you now have
over a 100 mile oil lake at the bottom of the
Gulf....that's apparently 4 - 5,000 feet deep."
"I think (we'll) discover that we
have an open hole with no casing in it," so to contain
the leak, BP is doing "everything wrong. (They are)
trying to patch a little leak in the drilling riser"
when the real problem is an open hole with no casing
in it. If true, as is likely, "the only way we'll shut
it off is either let it (exhaust itself over up to) 30
years....or put a nuclear device down the hole," blow
it up, and encase it in melted rock (a "glassy plug")
- but not without the enormous risk of irradiating the
Gulf and all plant and animal species in it.
According to New York University
Physics Professor Michio Kaku, sealing the Gulf leak(s)
with a nuclear device amounts to a "huge science
experiment, with unintended consequences," including
potentially:
-- releasing "dangerous,
water-soluble chemicals such as radioactive iodine,
strontium, and cesium, which would contaminate the
food chain in the Gulf;
-- the 'seal' created by the
glassified sand is probably unstable; (and)
-- it might actually make the
problem worse, creating many mini leaks on the ocean
floor."
Further, eight or more hurricanes
are predicted. If one or more hit the Gulf, "it means
that seawater several hundred feet below the surface
of the water could be churned up and then deposited
over the South. This seawater, containing oils and
radioactive fission products, would magnify the
environmental problem" hugely. As a result, Kaku
strongly opposes the nuclear option, given the
enormous risks and no way to contain them.
Final Comments
Obama isn't letting the Gulf
disaster slow his offshore drilling support. After the
April 20 explosion, the Interior Department's Minerals
Management Service (MMS) approved 27 more projects, 26
exempted from environmental review, including two for
BP getting the Center for Biological Diversity's
Executive Director, Kieran Suckling to say:
"The MMS has learned absolutely
nothing from this national catastrophe. It is still
illegally exempting dangerous offshore drilling
projects in the Gulf of Mexico from all environmental
review. It is outrageous and unacceptable."
Then on June 7, the Obama
administration announced new safety guidelines ahead
(more cosmetic than with teeth) to expedite dozens of
shallow water operations, besides more deep water ones
once his appointed commission completes its disaster
investigation, sure to produce distortion, obstruction
and whitewash - a topic this writer addressed through
the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/05/obamas-gulf-commission-distortion.html.
He's also promoting the
outlandish cap and trade legislation (through the
House, not the Senate) - promoted as a climate/clean
energy bill that, in fact, will raise energy prices
and enrich Wall Street through a new carbon trading
scam, greater than the housing and derivatives ones
combined, a topic also addressed by this writer
through the following link:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/05/congressional-climate-bills-stealth.html
With an administration and
Congress supporting monied and power interests, most
Americans are on their own and out of luck
economically, politically, and environmentally,
besides their safety, security and well-being, not
important under either party in charge, so it's for
grassroots activism to bring change.
Stephen Lendman lives in
Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site
at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge
discussions with distinguished guests on the
Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio
Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and
Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are
archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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