The Crime of the Century: What BP and the US Government Don't Want You to Know

[villager]

The Crime of the Century: What BP and the US Government Don't Want You to Know, Part I

The unprecedented disaster caused by the BP oil spill at the Deepwater Horizon Mississippi Canyon 252 site continues to expand even as National Incident Commander Thad Allen and BP assert that the situation is improving, the blown-out source capped and holding steady, the situation well in hand and cleanup operations are being scaled back. The New York Times declared on the front page this past week that the oil was disolving more rapidly than anticipated. Time magazine reported that environmental anti-advocate Rush Limbaugh had a point when he said the spill was a "leak". Thad Allen pointed out in a press conference that boats are still skimming on the surface, a futile gesture when the dispersant Corexit is being used to break down oil on the surface. As the oil is broken down, it mixes with the dispersant and flows under or over any booming operations.

To judge from most media coverage, the beaches are open, the fishing restrictions being lifted and the Gulf resorts open for business in a healthy, safe environment. We, along with Pierre LeBlanc, spent the last few weeks along the Gulf coast from Louisiana to Florida, and the reality is distinctly different. The coastal communities of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida have been inundated by the oil and toxic dispersant Corexit 9500, and the entire region is contaminated. The once pristine white beaches that have been subject to intense cleaning operations now contain the oil/dispersant contamination to an unknown depth. The economic impacts potentially exceed even the devastation of a major hurricane like Katrina, the adverse impacts on health and welfare of human populations are increasing every minute of every day and the long-term effects are potentially life threatening.

Over the Gulf from the Source (official term for the Deepwater Horizon spill site) in to shore there is virtually no sign of life anywhere in the vast areas covered by the dispersed oil and Corexit. This in a region previously abundant with life above and below the ocean's surface in all its diversity. For months now, scientists and environmental organizations have been asking where all the animals are. The reported numbers of marine animals lost from BP fall far short of the observed loss. The water has a heavy appearance and the slightly iridescent greenish yellow color that extends as far as the eye can see.

On two, unrestricted day-long flights, on July 22nd and 23rd, we were fortunate enough to be on with official clearance. We saw a total of four distressed dolphins and three schools of rays on the surface. As the bottom of the ocean is covered with crude and only the oil on the surface broken up by dispersant, the rays are forced up to the surface in a futile attempt to find food and oxygen. Birds are scarce where one would usually find thousands upon thousands. The Gulf of Mexico from the Source into the shore is a giant kill zone.

<snip>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-cope/the-crime-of-the-century_b_662971.html

[midnight]

1. K&R.

[Donnachaidh]

2. k&r n/t

[alsame]

3. A reporter at the presser actually asked Gibbs if the White House

owed Tony Hayward an apology. That says it all about where the media is going with this story.

ETA: Gibbs said a clear "No."

[villager]

4. And it wasn't the Fox reporter?

n/t

[alsame]

5. I don't know who it was, I didn't recognize the voice and couldn't

hear the name Gibbs called.

[BrklynLiberal]

6. Riiight. Just keep walking..Nuthin to see here....Ignore the after-effects of ExxonValdez.

that can't happen here..

Everything is just fine and dandy...eat the fish..swim in the water...keep drilling.

Cor-what?

oh,,and by the way..BP will NOT be paying out all those "claims" by people who were effected by this,
since it was not really so bad....


Magnolia landfill during initial cleanup, courtesy of Press-Register, Connie Baggett

http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/blogs/death-gyre-in-the-gulf

<snip>
According to the latest count of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Daily Collection Report (PDF), only about 4,100 birds, 670 turtles, 70 sea mammals, and 1 snake have died in the Gulf since April 20 (assuming 50 percent mortality of live animals).

It's an astonishingly low number, considering that one of the largest pods of sperm whales in the U.S. resided just miles from the site of the BP Macondo well (aka Deepwater Horizon), a region home to one of the most abundant and biodiverse marine ecosystems in the world.

Compare those small numbers with the Exxon Valdez spill ... Best estimates put the toll of the far smaller oil spill in Alaska at more than 200,000 birds (including hundreds of eagles), more than 3,000 sea mammals, more than 20 whales, and billions of fish eggs. The accident permanently wiped out the herring population of this Alaskan Gulf region. And that was an accident 1/10th the size of the Deepwater Horizon.


<snip>
One would be forgiven then for assuming there should be a far greater body count than what is currently being reported by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the same government office that famously blocked Anderson Cooper from peering past the 10' high barricades that had been put up to enclose a "bird receiving" area. According to the math, the count should be in the hundreds of thousands of dead birds, tens of thousands of sea mammals, and millions upon millions of fish and shellfish. So where were all the dead bodies? We should be seeing something like the mass dolphin kill off the coast of Zanzibar (below) that resulted from a much smaller offshore oil leak.

<snip>
The following three photographs (taken in the first week of June and published here for the first time) document the processing area just prior to commencing operations. A large-scale construction project, which included creating a visual barricade on a 200' long pier, several large cranes adjacent to lined pools at least 50' in length, and a series of large tents alongside a fleet of trucks, gives further credence to the theory that BP, with the help of the U.S. government, was processing some form of waste that they did not want the public to know about:




A team of journalists, including Jerry Cope of the Huffington Post and Charles Hambleton, co-producer of the Academy award-winning documentary "The Cove", went down to the region to investigate. They had some interesting findings -http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-cope/the-crime-of-the-century_b_662971.html - to report and got some great interviews with locals on the mystery of the disappearing dead animals.

You might be wondering about motive. Sure BP probably wanted to keep the full, gruesome reality of their toxic nightmare out of the press as much as possible. But was that enough of a motive to warrant such a massive and expensive operation? Probably not. A greater incentive may have been the fines the company would have incurred if the correct number of dead carcasses had been verifiable. At $50,000 a pop - http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0625/Gulf-oil-spill-s-wildlife-toll-sharks-near-shore-turtles-incinerated - , hundreds of thousands of dead animals could spell B-A-N-K-R-U-P-T-C-Y for BP, and that's something that no one, including the U.S.
government, would have wanted to happen.

It is very, very sad how many folks will buy that wheelbarrow full of crapola.

:mad: :wtf:

[felinetta]

7. Something doesn't sound right. Today, Carol Browner, high WH official said

75% of oil has been removed. If it is that easy to remove,
what was all the outrage about?  Why is Exxon Valdez still
dealing with the oil?  I think all involved want this to go
away. I think the WH knows that the last thing this country
needs is more economic bad news.  So they are trying to get
people working again and the tourism trade back on track. 
Understandable, but dangerous. BP is already moving on and
hoping people will take a one-time settlement.  Why not, if
75% of oil has been removed. And even if true, what about the
other 25%?  Is that miniscule in their minds? I am
reserving judgment on this. I am sure scientists will refute
it, but there is always the chance they will discredit
naysayers by bringing up a scientific paper from their past
that was wrong or some other kind of character assassination. 
We've seen this movie repeatedly.  Earthlings can be so tiring
sometimes.

[BrklynLiberal]

9. We are being lied to..Plain and simple. They think we are all idiots.

[villager]

10. Well, we're certainly complacent...

n/t

[snot]

8. Great article - K&R'd

[earth mom]

11. Crime of the Century-they got that right!

Huge K & R on this one! :kick:

[Uncle Joe]

12. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, villager.