NOAA's Peer Reviewers: "Dude, We Never Reviewed the Report"

[nashville_brook]

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/08/was-noaa-report-independently-evaluated

LINK to MoJo's massive BP Cover-up Special Reporting:
http://motherjones.com/special-reports/2010/09/bp-oceans




NOAA's Supposed Peer Reviewers: We Never Reviewed the Report
— By Kate Sheppard| Fri Aug. 20, 2010 2:46 PM PDT


The federal government is facing mounting criticism over the oil budget report released on August 4 that has been characterized as painting an overly rosy picture of the situation in the Gulf. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has defended its release and claimed that the document was in fact reviewed by outside experts. But was it?

"The report and the calculations that went into it were reviewed by independent scientists," NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco told reporters Thursday, indicating that those independent experts were listed at the end of the report. Yet the scientists listed as consultants (at least the ones that I have been able to contact; will update as I am able reach more of them) have said that they did not review the final five-page document before it was released earlier this month.

"I didn't review the final product," said Alan Allen, who runs the Washington state-based oil spill consulting firm Spiltec. Allen says he gave input on controlled burns and how they would affect the amount of oil, but did not see the final report before it was released. Ed Overton, a professor emeritus of environmental sciences at Louisiana State University, balked at the idea that the document had been peer reviewed. "To a scientist, peer review means something," he said. "Clearly it wasn't a peer review from a scientific perspective."

(snip)

Administration officials had indicated, however, that the document had undergone thorough scientific review by outside experts. White House climate and energy adviser Carol Browner said that the report had "been subjected to a scientific protocol, which means you peer review, peer review and peer review." Lubchenco also stated that there had been "peer review of the calculations that went into this by both other federal and non-federal scientists."

[EFerrari]

1. TG for the unembedded media. K&R

[nashville_brook]

2. it sure is nice to get truth every now and then.

:evilgrin:

[another saigon]

3. does obama need a katrina type dvd

like bush watched to get a clue as to the real tragedy and continued travesty? To be listening to BP PR peeps and politicos before scientists is unconscionable.

[nashville_brook]

4. who is able to get their message in front of the president is a HUGE concern.

BP and all the other oil companies with a $$ stake in this have a million times more access than your average low country fisherman.

[flyarm]

5. Government :Lehr testified that the report hadn't yet been peer-reviewed

I posted this yesterday.

Understand "Consulted" is not peer review!
.........................................................

Government :Lehr testified that the report hadn't yet been peer-reviewed

Edited on Fri Aug-20-10 11:40 AM by flyarm
http://news.morningstar.com/newsnet/ViewNews.aspx?artic...


3rd UPDATE: Rep. Markey: Oil Spill Report Gives 'False Confidence'

Markey's comments represent an unusual break with the administration by one of its closest allies in Congress on environmental issues. They came at a hearing where Bill Lehr, a senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, sought to explain the government's findings that only a quarter of the oil remained.



Lehr testified that the report hadn't yet been peer-reviewed because "our priority was to get an answer as quickly as possible to incident command." He expressed frustration with Markey, saying that a peer review had been "delayed by a week because I'm having to come here. We're hoping to get it out in two months."

"That's not timely enough, doctor," replied Markey. "That's the problem, that's what we're trying to get at right here."

At a White House news conference earlier this month, Obama's top adviser on energy issues, Carol Browner, said the report had "been subjected to a scientific protocol, which means you peer review, peer review and peer review.".

On Thursday, administration officials pointed out that the NOAA report lists 11 "independent scientists" whom it said "were consulted on the oil budget calculations, contributed field data, suggested formulas, analysis methods or reviewed the algorithms used" to calculate the amount of oil that had been cleaned up or broken down.



Read that again..the Government is hoping to get a real report in TWO MONTHS!!!!..and by real report i mean one what has gone under the correct protocol for such a report..PEER REVIEWED

so a certain group of people here at Du have said repeatedly that the Governments report had been.. peer reviewed.. when indeed it had not! And still has not! The government's real report with facts and fact checked with a peer review... will not be available for at least 2 months!

[sad sally]

8. Congressman Markey's hearing on Thursday was interesting.

When Rep Markey asked whether testing for heavy metals (like mercury and arsnic) from the oil staying in the seafood had been done - and why his letter of three weeks ago hadn't been answered asking this - the NOAA guy deferred to the EPA guy who deferred to the FDA guy who in turn said FDA counted on NOAA's testing.

[bvar22]

6. K&R for the Science & Transparency Administration.

"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for,
at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them."
--- Paul Wellstone

[alarimer]

38. This is probably the biggest beef I have with Obama

The complete and utter lack of the promised transparency in anything. I think this guy might just be the biggest liar I have ever voted for. Very disappointing.

[SOS]

7. NOAA scientist backpedals, oil still there

"A senior U.S. government scientist on Thursday admitted that three-quarters of the oil that was released into the Gulf of Mexico after BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill was still there, contradicting his earlier claim that the worst of the spill had passed, the Guardian reported."

"Bill Lehr, senior scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), presented a radically different picture than the one the White House had presented to the public earlier this month. He contradicted his own reports from two weeks ago that suggested that the majority of the oil had been captured or broken down. “I would say most of that is still in the environment,” Lehr told the House energy and commerce committee."

[nashville_brook]

9. "contradicted his own reports" -- man, this is messed up.

i know what it's like to deal with intellectual conflict in the corporate workplace. it's completely demoralizing. imagine how shitty it would be to have this level of disinformation happening on enormous matters of public importance. these guys must be pulling their hair out.

[sad sally]

11. Didn't see Mr. Lehr pulling at his hair, but he sure got shifty-eyed during his testimony

[jpak]

47. NOAA never backpedaled - they always said most of the oil is still out there

sometimes it's hard to hear or read through tinfoil

[SOS]

58. "NOAA: 74% of oil in Gulf gone"

Even with tinfoil, 26% does not equal "most".

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/100006104.html

[jpak]

60. No - NOAA said that that 17% was recovered, the rest was dispersed, on shore or at sea

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100804_oil.html



The vast majority of the oil from the BP oil spill has either evaporated or been burned, skimmed, recovered from the wellhead or dispersed much of which is in the process of being degraded. A significant amount of this is the direct result of the robust federal response efforts.

A third (33 percent) of the total amount of oil released in the Deepwater Horizon/BP spill was captured or mitigated by the Unified Command recovery operations, including burning, skimming, chemical dispersion and direct recovery from the wellhead, according to a federal science report released today.

An additional 25 percent of the total oil naturally evaporated or dissolved, and 16 percent was dispersed naturally into microscopic droplets. The residual amount, just over one quarter (26 percent), is either on or just below the surface as residue and weathered tarballs, has washed ashore or been collected from the shore, or is buried in sand and sediments. Dispersed and residual oil remain in the system until they degrade through a number of natural processes. Early indications are that the oil is degrading quickly.

These estimates were derived by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of the Interior (DOI), who jointly developed what is known as an Oil Budget Calculator, to provide measurements and best estimates of what happened to the spilled oil.

<more>

they never said it was gone.

tinfoil fail

again

[SOS]

66. That chart and report have been repudiated by the author

Bill Lehr, a senior scientist at the NOAA, appeared before Congress to repudiate an earlier report he wrote, which suggested the majority of the oil had been captured.

http://www.cwwa2009.com/climate-change/noaas-bill-lehr-says-three-quarters-of-the-oil-that-gushed-from-the-deepwater-horizon-rig-is-still-in-the-gulf-environment-while-scientists-identify-22-mile-plume-in-ocean-depths/

[Poboy]

10. K&R! -nt

[neverforget]

12. Here's a thread from when the original report was released.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x390850

[nashville_brook]

13. wow -- thanks for the blast from the past...the comments are priceless!

[neverforget]

14. No kidding. When it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

[nashville_brook]

15. that's what my mother always said -- :)

[neverforget]

32. I wonder where those posters that were catapulting that bogus report

are now or how they feel about it?

[flyarm]

33. If they can't stop these threads being obnoxious, they are avoiding these threads like the plague!

[nashville_brook]

35. we can't measure every news item for it's relative value to the President's approval rating...

that's where the absurd catapulting came from, and it's a serious malformation of reason.

[bvar22]

42. LOL...Thanks for the link.

"By their works you will know them."

[flyarm]

16. Government used "Skewed " Numbers!

The Georgia study said the government's numbers were skewed for several reasons.

First, because 800,000 barrels of oil were collected from the well before it could spill into the Gulf, the Georgia researchers said a total of 4.1 million barrels spilled into the water. But other factors mean more of that oil remains in the water, they said.

In addition, the Georgia researchers used a fundamentally different definition of when oil is "gone" from the water.

"One major misconception is that oil that has dissolved into water is gone and, therefore, harmless," Hopkinson said. "The oil is still out there, and it will likely take years to completely degrade."


http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/08/17/gulf.oil.disaster/...

[jpak]

46. If you read the report - The UGA group clearly stated that the MEDIA misrepresented the data

The UGA scientists agreed with the FSR - the oil is still there.

That is what NOAA has said the whole time.

People need to read these reports.

ugh

[flyarm]

17. Plumes of Gulf oil spreading east on sea floor

Plumes of Gulf oil spreading east on sea floor
Source: CNN

CNN) -- A new report set to be released Tuesday renews concerns about the long-term environmental impact of the Gulf Coast oil disaster, and efforts to permanently plug the ruptured BP oil well have been delayed again.

Researchers at the University of South Florida have concluded that oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill may have settled to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico further east than previously suspected -- and at levels toxic to marine life.

Initial findings from a new survey of the Gulf conclude that dispersants may have sent droplets of crude to the ocean floor, where it has turned up at the bottom of an undersea canyon within 40 miles of the Florida Panhandle. The results are scheduled to be released Tuesday, but CNN obtained a summary of the initial conclusions Monday night.

Plankton and other organisms at the base of the food chain showed a "strong toxic response" to the crude, and the oil could well up onto the continental shelf and resurface later, according to researchers


Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/08/17/gulf.oil.disaster /...

[nashville_brook]

19. there seems to be an attitude that "the ocean floor" is some inert swimming pool bottom.

if you've ever had an aquarium, you know that this is where all action is. in terms of the health of the system, if your bottom is sick, everything is sick.

[flyarm]

22. Understand many of the Big Fish and shellfish , Grouper, Tuna , and shrimp are bottom dwellers!

I would not eat it if it was the last thing I ate...not if it came from the Gulf.

[jpak]

49. Tuna are not bottom dwellers

ugh

[nashville_brook]

55. actually, a large part of the Yellowfin Tuna diet is bottom-dwelling crustaceans

one of the really cool things about this species is their ability to dive really deep for food. so while they don't "live" at the bottom, per se, they do feed there.

[jpak]

50. Tuna are not bottom dwellers

ugh

[flyarm]

18. "The dispersant is moving the oil down out of the surface and into the deeper waters

"The dispersant is moving the oil down out of the surface and into the deeper waters
"The dispersant is moving the oil down out of the surface and into the deeper waters, where it can affect phytoplankton and other marine life," said John Paul, a marine microbiologist at the University of South Florida.

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/08/17/gulf.oil.disaster /...

snip:


"One major misconception is that oil that has dissolved into water is gone and, therefore, harmless," Hopkinson said. "The oil is still out there, and it will likely take years to completely degrade."

And that oil is a lot harder to see than the huge clumps that dotted the Gulf's face like black and brown acne weeks ago. Samantha Joye, another professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia, said that naturally dispersed oil was forming plumes in the water -- but "not black, not brown, turbid sea water. You don't need a river of oil. It's oil that's dissolved in water."

Joye stressed that the government also had completely omitted a crucial component of the environmental pollution from its statistics.

She said NOAA did not measure a third of the hydrocarbons because it did not measure gas emission, which she says are "mostly still in water floating somewhere out there. ... Methane and other gases aren't being documented."

[TheKentuckian]

20. Science is back baby! Fucking lying crooks

[flyarm]

21. How much Oil is left in the Gulf???????? Video

How much Oil is left in the Gulf???????? Video
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/08/18/ac.how.m...

August 19, 2010
With conflicting numbers being released, how are we to know how much oil has actually been removed from the Gulf?

..................................................................

Scientists: Toxic organisms, oil found on Gulf floor

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/17/scientists-toxic-o... /

John Paul says, at first, he couldn't believe his own scientific data showing toxic microscopic marine organisms in the Gulf of Mexico. He repeated the field test. A colleague did his own test. All the results came back the same: toxic.

It was the first time Paul and other University of South Florida scientists had made such a finding since they started investigating the environmental damage from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The preliminary results, the scientists believe, show that oil that has settled on the floor is contaminating small sea organisms.
Paul is a marine microbiologist with the University of South Florida. He and 13 other researchers were in the middle of a 10-day research mission that began August 6 in the Gulf of Mexico when they made the toxic discovery.

snip:

The researchers found micro-droplets of oil scattered across the ocean floor and they also found those droplets moving up through a part of the Gulf called the DeSoto Canyon, a channel which funnels water and nutrients into the popular commercial and recreational waters along the Florida Gulf Coast.
The scientists say even though it's getting harder to see the oil the Gulf is still not safe.

"This whole concept of submerged oil and the application of dispersants in the subsurface and what are the impacts that it could have, have changed the paradigm of what an oil spill is from a 2-dimensional surface disaster to a 3-dimensional catastrophe," said David Hollander, a chemical oceanographer and one of the lead scientists on the recent USF mission.

[flyarm]

23. BP's efforts to "buy up" scientists in Gulf states

Chris Kromm: Blacklash Grows Against BP Efforts to "Buy Up" Gulf ...Jul 30, 2010 ... BP's efforts to "buy up" scientists in Gulf states was first revealed by ... BP attempted to hire the entire Marine Science Department at the University .... http://just-me-in-t.blogspot.com/2010/07/whats-for-dinn ... ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/.../blacklash-grows-against-b_b_... - Cached

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://coto2.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/bp-and-noaa-buy-s ... /

BP and NOAA buy scientific silence

By Ben Raines
Press-Register

BP has been offering signing bonuses and lucrative pay to prominent scientists from public universities around the Gulf Coast with contracts that ban them from publishing their research. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is offering a similarly restrictive contract according to scientists, refusing to provide the media with a copy of its contract, reports Ben Raines.

For the last few weeks, BP has been offering signing bonuses and lucrative pay to prominent scientists from public universities around the Gulf Coast to aid its defense against spill litigation. BP PLC attempted to hire the entire marine sciences department at one Alabama university, according to scientists involved in discussions with the company’s lawyers. The university declined because of confidentiality restrictions that the company sought on any research.

The Press-Register obtained a copy of a contract offered to scientists by BP. It prohibits the scientists from publishing their research, sharing it with other scientists or speaking about the data that they collect for at least the next three years.


go ahead google it up yourself...I dare you........google this up.......

"BP buys up scientists in the Gulf of Mexico"


...........................................................

Government to Oil Plume Discovery Team: Shut Up | The Seminal

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/48816#

Government to Oil Plume Discovery Team: Shut Up
By: Jim White Tuesday May 18, 2010 6:06 am


The research vessel Pelican. (photo: Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium)

On Saturday, the New York Times brought the world’s attention to the discovery by a team of researchers on the the vessel Pelican that there are large underwater plumes of oil emanating from the Deepwater Horizon spill. Remarkably, the response of the government to the attention focused on this discovery has been to tell the researchers to stop granting interviews with the press. At the same time, the blog on which the researchers had been providing updates has also fallen silent since Saturday.

Pensacola television station WEAR filed a report (video at the link) on the oil plume and broke the news about the scientists being muzzled by the government:

Over the weekend, a research crew from the University of Southern Mississippi found evidence that there are 3 to 5 plumes… About 5 miles wide, 10 miles long and 3 hundred feet in depth.

But after giving that information to the press, the lead researcher now says he has been asked by the federal government… Which funds his research… To quit giving interviews until further testing is done.

What an interesting change of course for the government. Even the government’s website on the Deepwater Horizon response had been touting the mission of the Pelican as recently as May 6:

[flyarm]

56. new link for above story old link broken..

Chris Kromm: Blacklash Grows Against BP Efforts to "Buy Up" Gulf scientists

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kromm/blacklash-grows-against-b_b_665621.html

Chris Kromm
Director, Institute for Southern Studies

Posted: July 30, 2010 05:22 PM

Blacklash Grows Against BP Efforts to "Buy Up" Gulf scientists

On July 1, a video appeared on BP's website featuring renegade scientist Ivor van Heerden -- a marine specialist who was fired from LSU in 2009 when he blamed the flooding of New Orleans after Katrina on the Army Corps of Engineers' shoddy levees.

snip;

All of which could be debated by reasonable scientists, but is suspect coming from van Heerden given one crucial fact: He now works for Polaris Applied Sciences, a company contracted by BP -- a relationship which a growing chorus of scholars says not only puts his impartiality in question, but also symbolizes a growing threat to academic freedom when the insights of scholars are needed most.


BP's efforts to "buy up" scientists in Gulf states was first revealed by Ben Raines of the Mobile Press-Register, who found that "BP has been offering signing bonuses and lucrative pay to prominent scientists" at coastal public universities, mostly to help the company fend off a slew of post-spill lawsuits.


In one shocking example, BP attempted to hire the entire Marine Science Department at the University of Alabama -- an offer they declined due to a host of restrictions the oil company wanted to place on the school's research.


What kind of restrictions? In a copy of the BP contract obtained by Raines, contracted scientists are forbidden from "publishing their research, sharing it with other scientists or speaking about the data that they collect for at least the next three years" (unless, presumably, it looks good on a BP video).
But the lure of $250-an-hour contracting fees proved too tempting for scientists at Louisiana State University, University of Southern Mississippi and Texas A&M, where BP contracts have reportedly been accepted.In a follow-up dispatch, Inside Higher Ed confirmed that while Southern Miss. had "ruled out" a campus-wide commitment -- "we don't want to become the University of BP," said one official -- three of the school's researchers had been approved to do work for the energy giant.


xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/07/bp_buys_up_gulf_scientists_for.html

BP buys up Gulf scientists for legal defense, roiling academic community

Published: Friday, July 16, 2010, 5:00 AM

Updated: Monday, July 19, 2010, 3:49 PM

Ben Raines, Press-Register


For the last few weeks, BP has been offering signing bonuses and lucrative pay to prominent scientists from public universities around the Gulf Coast to aid its defense against spill litigation.

BP PLC attempted to hire the entire marine sciences department at one Alabama university, according to scientists involved in discussions with the company's lawyers. The university declined because of confidentiality restrictions that the company sought on any research.

The Press-Register obtained a copy of a contract offered to scientists by BP. It prohibits the scientists from publishing their research, sharing it with other scientists or speaking about the data that they collect for at least the next three years.

"We told them there was no way we would agree to any kind of restrictions on the data we collect. It was pretty clear we wouldn't be hearing from them again after that," said Bob Shipp, head of marine sciences at the University of South Alabama. "We didn't like the perception of the university representing BP in any fashion."
BP officials declined to answer the newspaper's questions about the matter. Among the questions: how many scientists and universities have been approached, how many are under contract, how much will they be paid, and why the company imposed confidentiality restrictions on scientific data gathered on its behalf.
Shipp said he can't prohibit scientists in his department from signing on with BP because, like most universities, the staff is allowed to do outside consultation for up to eight hours a week.
More than one scientist interviewed by the Press-Register described being offered $250 an hour through BP lawyers. At eight hours a week, that amounts to $104,000 a year.

[flyarm]

24. BP accused of withholding 'critical' spill data

BP accused of withholding 'critical' spill data

By DINA CAPPIELLO and HARRY R. WEBER – 1 hour ago

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gIXWY...

WASHINGTON — The company that owned the oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico is accusing BP of withholding critical evidence needed to investigate the cause of the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, according to a confidential document obtained by The Associated Press. BP called the claims a publicity stunt.

The new complaint by Transocean follows similar complaints by U.S. lawmakers about difficulties obtaining necessary information from BP in their investigations.

snip:

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee had a "stare down" with BP over some of the data it was seeking, said Bill Wicker, a spokesman for committee chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M.

BP requested that congressional staffers sign a nondisclosure agreement. The committee refused, telling the company that it would send all BP's information back. Since then, BP has been forthcoming with data, Wicker said.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass, chair of the House's energy and environment subcommittee, said his staff has also had difficulty "prying information" out of BP.

"I am not surprised Transocean — which may end up in litigation against BP in the future — is encountering similar difficulties," Markey said.

[flyarm]

25. NOAA Tried to Silence Reports of Undersea Oil Plumes | Mother Jones

NOAA Tried to Silence Reports of Undersea Oil Plumes | Mother Jones

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/08/noaa-tried-h...

NOAA Tried to Silence Reports of Undersea Oil Plumes

— By Kate Sheppard

| Tue Aug. 10, 2010 8:04 AM PDT
SNIP: In the St. Petersburg Times, Craig Pittman has this scathing report on how the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration attempted to silence scientists who discovered the vast undersea plumes of dispersed oil in the Gulf:

A month after the Deepwater Horizon disaster began, scientists from the University of South Florida made a startling announcement. They had found signs that the oil spewing from the well had formed a 6-mile-wide plume snaking along in the deepest recesses of the gulf.
The reaction that USF announcement received from the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agencies that sponsored their research: Shut up.
"I got lambasted by the Coast Guard and NOAA when we said there was undersea oil," USF marine sciences dean William Hogarth said. Some officials even told him to retract USF's public announcement, he said, comparing it to being "beat up" by federal officials.
It gets worse; NOAA's top brass confirmed that they tried to keep the reports quiet:

NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, in comments she made to reporters in May, expressed strong skepticism about the existence of undersea oil plumes - as did BP's then-CEO, Tony Hayward.
"She basically called us inept idiots," Asper said. "We took that very personally."

[flyarm]

26. Camilli, also a Woods Hole scientist, said colder temperatures at the plume's extreme depths inhibit

Camilli, also a Woods Hole scientist, said colder temperatures at the plume's extreme depths inhibited the degradation properties of oil.Microbes act more slowly on the subsea oil than on surface oil because of lower temperatures, he said. If all other conditions were equal, microbes would eat up the plume's subsea oil about 10 times more slowly, Camilli said.


Researchers say they saw 22-mile hydrocarbon plume in Gulf - CNN.com

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/19/gulf.oil.plume/index.h...

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: Report author: hydrocarbons have likely moved elsewhere
NEW: Oil is slower to degrade at plume's extreme depths
Researchers say hydrocarbon plume in Gulf of Mexico was at least 22 miles long
Two recent studies arrived at more grave findings about the remaining oil

snip:

Camilli, also a Woods Hole scientist, said colder temperatures at the plume's extreme depths inhibited the degradation properties of oil.

Microbes act more slowly on the subsea oil than on surface oil because of lower temperatures, he said. If all other conditions were equal, microbes would eat up the plume's subsea oil about 10 times more slowly, Camilli said.

Meanwhile, Thad Allen, the government's point man for the oil disaster, responded Thursday on CNN to two recent studies that appeared to contradict the government's estimate that about 75 percent of the oil has been cleaned up.

Researchers at the University of South Florida have concluded that oil may have settled at the bottom of the Gulf farther east than previously suspected -- and at levels toxic to marine life. In addition, a team from Georgia Sea Grant and the University of Georgia released a report that estimates that 70 to 79 percent of the oil that gushed from the well "has not been recovered and remains a threat to the ecosystem," the university said in a release.

[nashville_brook]

41. that's a damn good point. the ocean is not one big pool of water -- there's a multitude of

ecosystems depending on depth, temperature, current and geology.

i've been wondering why researchers have been so slow to discuss...or rather, that the media has been so slow to present this...because it's high school-level stuff. physics changes with pressure and temperature as does bacterial behavior. and yet, the narrative has been developed as if we're talking about 70-degree water in a bathtub.

[Forkboy]

27. I expect a pron filled response to this.

[Igel]

34. Probably not.

At some point you realize that nobody's listening.

I reached the point where somebody argued that when the NOAA said the oil was dissolved or dispersed, that meant something completely different from the much more reliable report released in the last couple of days that said the oil was dissolved or dispersed.

I mean, obviously. I'm not falling for the clever ruse that "dispersed" means "dispersed" or "dissolved" means "dissolved." Only an idiot could possibly think such a thing.

:crazy:

[nashville_brook]

37. i know, right? the day that story was making the rounds, that's all we heard...it was sooooo

Alice Through The Looking Glass. "Silly girl, you're reading it wrong. Dispersed means gone, means not-gone, means...Look over there! A BUNNY!"

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

43. Which part of the report do you think is false, Forkboy?

And what evidence do you have to prove it's false?

[flyarm]

48. the part of the report that was ALL OF IT!!!!!!!!!

Senior U.S. scientist rescinds previous claim that 3/4 of oil from spill is gone, says most is still there

"A senior U.S. government scientist on Thursday admitted that three-quarters of the oil that was released into the Gulf of Mexico after BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill was still there, contradicting his earlier claim that the worst of the spill had passed, the Guardian reported."

"Bill Lehr, senior scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), presented a radically different picture than the one the White House had presented to the public earlier this month. He contradicted his own reports from two weeks ago that suggested that the majority of the oil had been captured or broken down. “I would say most of that is still in the environment,” Lehr told the House energy and commerce committee."

http://wireupdate.com/wires/8833/senior-u-s-scientist-r... /

August 19th:

WASHINGTON – A 22-mile-long invisible mist of oil is meandering far below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, where it will probably loiter for months or more, scientists reported Thursday in the first conclusive evidence of an underwater plume from the BP spill.
The most worrisome part is the slow pace at which the oil is breaking down in the cold, 40-degree water, making it a long-lasting but unseen threat to vulnerable marine life, experts said.
Earlier this month, top federal officials declared the oil in the spill was mostly "gone," and it is gone in the sense you can't see it. But the chemical ingredients of the oil persist more than a half-mile beneath the surface, researchers found.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100819/ap_on_sc/us_sci_gul...

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

the fucking report that NOAA and our government released and said 3/4 of the oil was gone..was a big pile of horse manure..

IT WAS NEVER PEER REVIEWED..WHICH MEANS IT WAS A PILE OF SHIT!

THIS AS PER CONGRESSMAN MARKEY'S HEARING THURSDAY...........

Government :Lehr testified that the report hadn't yet been peer-reviewed


edit to add: Understand "Consulted" is not peer review!
.........................................................

Government :Lehr testified that the report hadn't yet been peer-reviewed

Edited on Fri Aug-20-10 11:40 AM by flyarm
http://news.morningstar.com/newsnet/ViewNews.aspx?artic ...


3rd UPDATE: Rep. Markey: Oil Spill Report Gives 'False Confidence'

Markey's comments represent an unusual break with the administration by one of its closest allies in Congress on environmental issues. They came at a hearing where Bill Lehr, a senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, sought to explain the government's findings that only a quarter of the oil remained.



Lehr testified that the report hadn't yet been peer-reviewed because "our priority was to get an answer as quickly as possible to incident command." He expressed frustration with Markey, saying that a peer review had been "delayed by a week because I'm having to come here. We're hoping to get it out in two months."

"That's not timely enough, doctor," replied Markey. "That's the problem, that's what we're trying to get at right here."

At a White House news conference earlier this month, Obama's top adviser on energy issues, Carol Browner, said the report had "been subjected to a scientific protocol, which means you peer review, peer review and peer review.".

On Thursday, administration officials pointed out that the NOAA report lists 11 "independent scientists" whom it said "were consulted on the oil budget calculations, contributed field data, suggested formulas, analysis methods or reviewed the algorithms used" to calculate the amount of oil that had been cleaned up or broken down.

....................................

Read that again..the Government is hoping to get a real report in TWO MONTHS!!!!..and by real report i mean one what has gone under the correct protocol for such a report..PEER REVIEWED

so a certain group of people here at Du have said repeatedly that the Governments report had been.. peer reviewed.. when indeed it had not! And still has not! The government's real report with facts and fact checked with a peer review... will not be available for at least 2 months!

PROBLEM NOW IS SOME OF THESE 11 SCIENTISTS..HAVE SAID THEY WERE NEVER CONTACTED REGARDING THE GOVERNMENTS NUMBERS !!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

THEN OF COURSE THIS ADMINISTRATION HAS THIS PROBLEM..THAT MOST OF US ON THE GULF ARE WELL AWARE OF!!


BP's efforts to "buy up" scientists in Gulf states
Chris Kromm: Blacklash Grows Against BP Efforts to "Buy Up" Gulf ...Jul 30, 2010 ... BP's efforts to "buy up" scientists in Gulf states was first revealed by ... BP attempted to hire the entire Marine Science Department at the University .... http://just-me-in-t.blogspot.com/2010/07/whats-for-dinn ... ...
www.huffingtonpost.com/.../blacklash-grows-against-b_b_... - Cached

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://coto2.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/bp-and-noaa-buy-s ... /

BP and NOAA buy scientific silence

By Ben Raines
Press-Register

BP has been offering signing bonuses and lucrative pay to prominent scientists from public universities around the Gulf Coast with contracts that ban them from publishing their research. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is offering a similarly restrictive contract according to scientists, refusing to provide the media with a copy of its contract, reports Ben Raines.

For the last few weeks, BP has been offering signing bonuses and lucrative pay to prominent scientists from public universities around the Gulf Coast to aid its defense against spill litigation. BP PLC attempted to hire the entire marine sciences department at one Alabama university, according to scientists involved in discussions with the company’s lawyers. The university declined because of confidentiality restrictions that the company sought on any research.

The Press-Register obtained a copy of a contract offered to scientists by BP. It prohibits the scientists from publishing their research, sharing it with other scientists or speaking about the data that they collect for at least the next three years.


go ahead google it up yourself...I dare you........google this up.......

"BP buys up scientists in the Gulf of Mexico"


...........................................................


Government to Oil Plume Discovery Team: Shut Up | The Seminal

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/48816#

Government to Oil Plume Discovery Team: Shut Up
By: Jim White Tuesday May 18, 2010 6:06 am


The research vessel Pelican. (photo: Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium)

On Saturday, the New York Times brought the world’s attention to the discovery by a team of researchers on the the vessel Pelican that there are large underwater plumes of oil emanating from the Deepwater Horizon spill. Remarkably, the response of the government to the attention focused on this discovery has been to tell the researchers to stop granting interviews with the press. At the same time, the blog on which the researchers had been providing updates has also fallen silent since Saturday.

Pensacola television station WEAR filed a report (video at the link) on the oil plume and broke the news about the scientists being muzzled by the government:

Over the weekend, a research crew from the University of Southern Mississippi found evidence that there are 3 to 5 plumes… About 5 miles wide, 10 miles long and 3 hundred feet in depth.

But after giving that information to the press, the lead researcher now says he has been asked by the federal government… Which funds his research… To quit giving interviews until further testing is done.

What an interesting change of course for the government. Even the government’s website on the Deepwater Horizon response had been touting the mission of the Pelican as recently as May 6:

[jpak]

51. Nonsense - the Federal Science Report (FSR) never claimed that 75% of the oil "disappeared"

The UGA review of the FSR clearly stated that the MEDIA misrepresented the FSR.

The UGA group vindicated the FSR.

Both reports clearly state that most of the oil released into the Gulf is still there.

If anyone actually bothered to read these things, they would not post hysterical nonsense.

yup

[flyarm]

52. stop your cherry picking and your nonsense you are making a fool of yourself!

stop the parsing..just stop the bullshit!

I will not play your silly little games..I live on the gulf..and the bullshit will not work with me!

got that????????

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

54. There's the pot calling the kettle black.

:crazy:

[jpak]

59. I've read those reports - you have not - I am not the fool here

I am not cherry picking those reports - both explicitly state that most of the oil remains in the Gulf.

If you live on the Gulf, you well know that since the wellhead was capped, the threat of large masses of floating unweathered crude ("mousse") coming ashore has greatly diminished. This is the result of evaporation, photo-oxidation, dispersal and microbial oxidation.

Tarballs and the dissolved and dispersed oil are still there - just as the FSR and UGA reports concluded.

You should read these reports before you post hysterical baseless tinfoil nonsense.

There is no government coverup.

yup

[flyarm]

62. Did the UGA say the White House misrepresented the story? here..from the WH web site.

the White House reported this..the White House..so did they misrepresent the Report?????????? did they??????????????????????


http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/08/04/new-report-74-oil-bp-deepwater-horizon-oil-spill-has-been-contained-or-mitigated

The White House Blog


New Report: 74% of Oil in BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill has been Contained or Mitigated

Posted by Heather Zichal on August 04, 2010 at 05:59 PM EDT

Today, a panel of government scientists released a report which said that the vast majority of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has either evaporated or been burned, skimmed, recovered from the wellhead or dispersed much of which is in the process of being degraded. A significant amount of this is the direct result of the federal government’s aggressive response to the spill.

The chart below outlines the breakdown of what has happened to the oil released into the Gulf of Mexico since the oil spill began in April:

see the chart the WHITE HOUSE USED on Aug 4th 2010.. ( edit to add :( not the media but the White House!!!)

These interagency findings were generated using a scientific tool called the Oil Budget Calculator, which employs a combination of direct measurements and the best scientific estimates available. The calculator is based on 4.9 million barrels of oil released into the Gulf, the government’s latest estimates of the flow rate from Monday. More than 25 of the best government and independent scientists contributed to or reviewed the calculator and its calculation methods. Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy (DOE), as well as academic scientists are continuing to work to refine these calculations.

While we welcome the news contained in this report, we continue to be extremely concerned about what this oil spill means for the health of the Gulf ecosystem and the millions of people who depend on the Gulf for their livelihoods and enjoyment. To that end, our response effort will continue until the well is killed, the oil is cleaned up and until all of the people are made whole again.

For more information about the ongoing Administration-wide response to BP Oil Spill, visit RestoreTheGulf.gov.

Heather Zichal is the Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


now lets look at the White House press briefing..shall we..this is from the White House's own web site..and the official transcript!! So is the White House brieifing now considered the Media screwing up the story???????????

• Briefing Room • Press Briefings The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release August 04, 2010
Press Briefing by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Admiral Thad Allen, Carol Browner, and Dr. Lubchenco, 8/4/2010
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
Resources that were mentioned in the briefing can be found below.

1:20 P.M. EDT


http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/press-briefing-press-secretary-robert-gibbs-admiral-thad-allen-carol-browner-and-dr

DR. LUBCHENCO: Okay, Vanna. (Laughter.) About a quarter of the oil has been evaporated or dissolved. This is about 1.2 million barrels. That happens naturally. That’s a natural process. And much of that happened as the oil was being released day to day.

Moving around, let’s go to the upper right, Robert. About 17 percent, or -- I’m sorry, 827,000 barrels were recovered directly from the well site. So we know we’ve got that number measured directly. An additional 5 percent was burned. Another 3 percent was skimmed.

In addition to that, 8 percent of the oil that was released has been chemically dispersed both with dispersants at the surface, as well as subsea. And so if you total up those five pie charts -- direct recovery, burned, skimmed and chemically dispersed -- that gives you a sense of what the results of the federal effort have been. And it totals about a third of the total amount of oil that has been released.

Naturally dispersed oil is also -- accounts for 16 percent. As oil was being released from the wellhead or from the riser pipe, it naturally becomes mixed in turbulent conditions and broken up into small, microscopic droplets that remain -- if they are small enough, they remain below the surface of the water. And so 16 percent naturally dispersed; 8 percent chemically dispersed. That oil is in very, very dilute clouds of microscopic droplets beneath the surface. That is in the process of being very rapidly degraded naturally. And so Mother Nature is assisting here considerably.

So the pieces of the pie chart that we have looked at directly now account for those things that we can measure directly or have very good estimates for.

The residual, which is the upper left part of the pie chart, is 26 percent. And that’s a combination of oil that is in light sheen at the surface, or in tar balls, or has been washed ashore. And much of that has been recovered by federal cleanup efforts and state cleanup efforts.

About 37,000 tons of material have been removed from the beaches already and we’ll continue to do so. So I think the bottom line here is that the -- we can account for all but about 26 percent. And of that, much of that is being -- in the process of being degraded and cleaned up on the shore.

I think it’s important to point out that at least 50 percent of the oil that was released is now completely gone from the system. And most of the remainder is degrading rapidly or is being removed from the beaches.

I want to also point out simply that we continue to have a very aggressive effort to understand more about where the oil was and what its fate has been. A large number of research vessels continue to be active in the Gulf, and they’re underway to understand the concentrations of subsurface oil and exactly what -- the rate at which it is being biodegraded.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

53. What you posted doesn't contradict the report.

[flyarm]

57. Recinding the report doesn't contradict the report? are you on Gibb's drugs?

August 19th:
Senior U.S. scientist rescinds previous claim that 3/4 of oil from spill is gone, says most is still there

"A senior U.S. government scientist on Thursday admitted that three-quarters of the oil that was released into the Gulf of Mexico after BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill was still there, contradicting his earlier claim that the worst of the spill had passed, the Guardian reported."

"Bill Lehr, senior scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), presented a radically different picture than the one the White House had presented to the public earlier this month. He contradicted his own reports from two weeks ago that suggested that the majority of the oil had been captured or broken down. “I would say most of that is still in the environment,” Lehr told the House energy and commerce committee."

http://wireupdate.com/wires/8833/senior-u-s-scientist-r... /

August 19th:

WASHINGTON – A 22-mile-long invisible mist of oil is meandering far below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, where it will probably loiter for months or more, scientists reported Thursday in the first conclusive evidence of an underwater plume from the BP spill.
The most worrisome part is the slow pace at which the oil is breaking down in the cold, 40-degree water, making it a long-lasting but unseen threat to vulnerable marine life, experts said.
Earlier this month, top federal officials declared the oil in the spill was mostly "gone," and it is gone in the sense you can't see it. But the chemical ingredients of the oil persist more than a half-mile beneath the surface, researchers found.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100819/ap_on_sc/us_sci_gul...




......................................................

and BP paying off scientists????????


Chris Kromm: Blacklash Grows Against BP Efforts to "Buy Up" Gulf scientists

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-kromm/blacklash-grows-against-b_b_665621.html

BP's efforts to "buy up" scientists in Gulf states was first revealed by Ben Raines of the Mobile Press-Register, who found that "BP has been offering signing bonuses and lucrative pay to prominent scientists" at coastal public universities, mostly to help the company fend off a slew of post-spill lawsuits.


In one shocking example, BP attempted to hire the entire Marine Science Department at the University of Alabama -- an offer they declined due to a host of restrictions the oil company wanted to place on the school's research.


What kind of restrictions? In a copy of the BP contract obtained by Raines, contracted scientists are forbidden from "publishing their research, sharing it with other scientists or speaking about the data that they collect for at least the next three years" (unless, presumably, it looks good on a BP video).


But the lure of $250-an-hour contracting fees proved too tempting for scientists at Louisiana State University, University of Southern Mississippi and Texas A&M, where BP contracts have reportedly been accepted.


In a follow-up dispatch, Inside Higher Ed confirmed that while Southern Miss. had "ruled out" a campus-wide commitment -- "we don't want to become the University of BP," said one official -- three of the school's researchers had been approved to do work for the energy giant.


..............................................

BP buys up Gulf scientists for legal defense, roiling academic community

Published: Friday, July 16, 2010, 5:00 AM

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/07/bp_buys_up_gulf_scientists_for.html

Ben Raines, Press-Register

"We told them there was no way we would agree to any kind of restrictions on the data we collect. It was pretty clear we wouldn't be hearing from them again after that," said Bob Shipp, head of marine sciences at the University of South Alabama. "We didn't like the perception of the university representing BP in any fashion."

BP officials declined to answer the newspaper's questions about the matter. Among the questions: how many scientists and universities have been approached, how many are under contract, how much will they be paid, and why the company imposed confidentiality restrictions on scientific data gathered on its behalf.

Shipp said he can't prohibit scientists in his department from signing on with BP because, like most universities, the staff is allowed to do outside consultation for up to eight hours a week.

More than one scientist interviewed by the Press-Register described being offered $250 an hour through BP lawyers. At eight hours a week, that amounts to $104,000 a year.


..........................................................

USF says government tried to squelch their oil plume findings - St. Petersburg Times

http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/article1114225.ece

USF says government tried to squelch their oil plume findings

By Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Tuesday, August 10, 2010



A month after the Deepwater Horizon disaster began, scientists from the University of South Florida made a startling announcement. They had found signs that the oil spewing from the well had formed a 6-mile-wide plume snaking along in the deepest recesses of the gulf.

The reaction that USF announcement received from the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agencies that sponsored their research:

Shut up.

"I got lambasted by the Coast Guard and NOAA when we said there was undersea oil," USF marine sciences dean William Hogarth said. Some officials even told him to retract USF's public announcement, he said, comparing it to being "beat up" by federal officials.

The USF scientists weren't alone. Vernon Asper, an oceanographer at the University of Southern Mississippi, was part of a similar effort that met with a similar reaction. "We expected that NOAA would be pleased because we found something very, very interesting," Asper said. "NOAA instead responded by trying to discredit us. It was just a shock to us."

NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, in comments she made to reporters in May, expressed strong skepticism about the existence of undersea oil plumes — as did BP's then-CEO, Tony Hayward.

"She basically called us inept idiots," Asper said. "We took that very personally."


...................................................


NOAA Tried to Silence Reports of Undersea Oil Plumes | Mother Jones

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/08/noaa-tried-h ...

NOAA Tried to Silence Reports of Undersea Oil Plumes

— By Kate Sheppard

| Tue Aug. 10, 2010 8:04 AM PDT
SNIP: In the St. Petersburg Times, Craig Pittman has this scathing report on how the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration attempted to silence scientists who discovered the vast undersea plumes of dispersed oil in the Gulf:

A month after the Deepwater Horizon disaster began, scientists from the University of South Florida made a startling announcement. They had found signs that the oil spewing from the well had formed a 6-mile-wide plume snaking along in the deepest recesses of the gulf.
The reaction that USF announcement received from the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agencies that sponsored their research: Shut up.
"I got lambasted by the Coast Guard and NOAA when we said there was undersea oil," USF marine sciences dean William Hogarth said. Some officials even told him to retract USF's public announcement, he said, comparing it to being "beat up" by federal officials.
It gets worse; NOAA's top brass confirmed that they tried to keep the reports quiet:

NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, in comments she made to reporters in May, expressed strong skepticism about the existence of undersea oil plumes - as did BP's then-CEO, Tony Hayward.
"She basically called us inept idiots," Asper said. "We took that very personally."



who else is being paid off..anyone YOU KNOW??????????????????????????/

[jpak]

61. There was nothing to rescind

[flyarm]

64. really now..really???????????? how about the White House reporting it???????

the White House reported this..the White House..so did they misrepresent the Report?????????? did they??????????????????????


http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/08/04/new-report-74...

The White House Blog


New Report: 74% of Oil in BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill has been Contained or Mitigated

Posted by Heather Zichal on August 04, 2010 at 05:59 PM EDT

Today, a panel of government scientists released a report which said that the vast majority of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has either evaporated or been burned, skimmed, recovered from the wellhead or dispersed much of which is in the process of being degraded. A significant amount of this is the direct result of the federal government’s aggressive response to the spill.

The chart below outlines the breakdown of what has happened to the oil released into the Gulf of Mexico since the oil spill began in April:

see the chart the WHITE HOUSE USED on Aug 4th 2010.. ( edit to add not the media but the White House!!!)

These interagency findings were generated using a scientific tool called the Oil Budget Calculator, which employs a combination of direct measurements and the best scientific estimates available. The calculator is based on 4.9 million barrels of oil released into the Gulf, the government’s latest estimates of the flow rate from Monday. More than 25 of the best government and independent scientists contributed to or reviewed the calculator and its calculation methods. Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy (DOE), as well as academic scientists are continuing to work to refine these calculations.

While we welcome the news contained in this report, we continue to be extremely concerned about what this oil spill means for the health of the Gulf ecosystem and the millions of people who depend on the Gulf for their livelihoods and enjoyment. To that end, our response effort will continue until the well is killed, the oil is cleaned up and until all of the people are made whole again.

For more information about the ongoing Administration-wide response to BP Oil Spill, visit RestoreTheGulf.gov.

Heather Zichal is the Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


now lets look at the White House press briefing..shall we..this is from the White House's own web site..and the official transcript!! So is the White House brieifing now considered the Media screwing up the story???????????

• Briefing Room • Press Briefings The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release August 04, 2010
Press Briefing by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Admiral Thad Allen, Carol Browner, and Dr. Lubchenco, 8/4/2010
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
Resources that were mentioned in the briefing can be found below.

1:20 P.M. EDT


http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/press-briefi...

DR. LUBCHENCO: Okay, Vanna. (Laughter.) About a quarter of the oil has been evaporated or dissolved. This is about 1.2 million barrels. That happens naturally. That’s a natural process. And much of that happened as the oil was being released day to day.

Moving around, let’s go to the upper right, Robert. About 17 percent, or -- I’m sorry, 827,000 barrels were recovered directly from the well site. So we know we’ve got that number measured directly. An additional 5 percent was burned. Another 3 percent was skimmed.

In addition to that, 8 percent of the oil that was released has been chemically dispersed both with dispersants at the surface, as well as subsea. And so if you total up those five pie charts -- direct recovery, burned, skimmed and chemically dispersed -- that gives you a sense of what the results of the federal effort have been. And it totals about a third of the total amount of oil that has been released.

Naturally dispersed oil is also -- accounts for 16 percent. As oil was being released from the wellhead or from the riser pipe, it naturally becomes mixed in turbulent conditions and broken up into small, microscopic droplets that remain -- if they are small enough, they remain below the surface of the water. And so 16 percent naturally dispersed; 8 percent chemically dispersed. That oil is in very, very dilute clouds of microscopic droplets beneath the surface. That is in the process of being very rapidly degraded naturally. And so Mother Nature is assisting here considerably.

So the pieces of the pie chart that we have looked at directly now account for those things that we can measure directly or have very good estimates for.

The residual, which is the upper left part of the pie chart, is 26 percent. And that’s a combination of oil that is in light sheen at the surface, or in tar balls, or has been washed ashore. And much of that has been recovered by federal cleanup efforts and state cleanup efforts.

About 37,000 tons of material have been removed from the beaches already and we’ll continue to do so. So I think the bottom line here is that the -- we can account for all but about 26 percent. And of that, much of that is being -- in the process of being degraded and cleaned up on the shore.

I think it’s important to point out that at least 50 percent of the oil that was released is now completely gone from the system..
And most of the remainder is degrading rapidly or is being removed from the beaches.

I want to also point out simply that we continue to have a very aggressive effort to understand more about where the oil was and what its fate has been. A large number of research vessels continue to be active in the Gulf, and they’re underway to understand the concentrations of subsurface oil and exactly what -- the rate at which it is being biodegraded.

......................................


None of this report was ever Peer Reviewed!!!!!!!! Now this pile of bullshit is being recinded..

oh and by the way..the oil is not degrading rapidly!

[flyarm]

28. Calls for better seafood testing as Gulf fishing begins anew ( video must see!)[/

Calls for better seafood testing as Gulf fishing begins anew ( video must see!)


http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/17/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html?hpt=T2


By the CNN Wire Staff
August 17, 2010 3:33 p.m. EDT

Gulf Coast Oil Spill
BP
Deepwater Horizon
University of South Florida


CNN) -- A day after fall shrimping season began in the Gulf of Mexico and the state of Alabama reopened coastal waters to fishing, a major environmental watchdog group called for more stringent testing of seafood.
The National Resources Defense Council released a statement Tuesday saying it sent letters to the Food and Drug Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, co-signed by almost two dozen Gulf coast groups, asking the government agencies to:

-- ensure that there is comprehensive monitoring of seafood contamination.

-- ensure public disclosure of all seafood monitoring data and methods.

-- ensure that fishery re-opening criteria protect the most vulnerable populations, including children, pregnant women and subsistence fishing communities.

"With the opening of shrimping season and near-daily reopening of fishing areas, seafood safety is a major issue right now," Dr. Gina Solomon, a senior scientist with the National Resources Defense Council, said in the statement. "The government needs to show it is putting strong safety criteria and testing standards in place to ensure that the seafood from the Gulf will be safe to eat in the months and years to come."

[nashville_brook]

44. i'm on my way to Publix...i'm gonna ask my butcher about if they're carrying Gulf shrimp

my butcher LOVES me...i don't know why...he might be flirting.

[flyarm]

29. must see this Video!!

Fishermen find oil and dispersants on Mississippi shrimping and oyster grounds

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x497468

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxAUGiIXMwU&feature=player_embedded

[flyarm]

30. can someone or ones copy what i have posted here..and keep posting them ..

I am going to be away from computer for a bit , but this info needs to be posted so everyone can see this info!

over and over again if nessesary!!

thanks!

[nashville_brook]

36. i'm totally on this flyarm will combine with new info too -- thanks for links and vids!

[flyarm]

31. Scientists skeptical of Obama claims BP's spill doesn't threat Gulf

"Much of the dispersed oil is in the process of relatively rapid degradation."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20100804/sc_mcclatchy...
Scientists skeptical of Obama claims BP's spill doesn't threat Gulf
see next link..

see story here:..it has been scrubbed in most US papers..since yesterday!!
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Scientists+skeptical+Obama+claims+spill+doesn+threat+Gulf/3357850/story.html


Wed Aug 4, 7:31 pm ET
WASHINGTON — Many scientists say they're skeptical of a widely publicized government report Wednesday that concludes much of the oil that gushed from BP's leaking well is gone and poses little threat to the Gulf of Mexico .

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , the "vast majority" of the 4.9 million barrels released into the Gulf has either evaporated "or been burned, skimmed, and recovered from the wellhead, or dispersed."



This is the Government report..click link and see the chart..the same Chart seen in the following story I have posted here that shows Gibbs in the press room showing the same chart!


http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/posted/2931/Oil...

BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Budget:
What Happened To the Oil?
The National Incident Command (NIC) assembled a number of interagency expert scientific teams to estimate the quantity of BP Deepwater Horizon oil that has been released from the well and the fate of that oil. The expertise of government scientists serving on these teams is complemented by nongovernmental and governmental specialists reviewing the calculations and conclusions. One team calculated the flow rate and total oil released. Led by Energy Secretary Steven Chu and United States Geological Survey (USGS) Director Marcia McNutt, this team announced on August 2, 2010, that it estimates that a total of 4.9 million barrels of oil has been released from the BP Deepwater Horizon well. A second interagency team, led by the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) developed a tool called the Oil Budget Calculator to determine what happened to the oil. The calculator uses the 4.9 million barrel estimate as its input and uses both direct measurements and the best scientific estimates available to date, to determine what has happened to the oil. The interagency scientific report below builds upon the calculator and summarizes the disposition of the oil to date.
In summary, it is estimated that burning, skimming and direct recovery from the wellhead removed one quarter (25%) of the oil released from the wellhead. One quarter (25%) of the total oil naturally evaporated or dissolved, and just less than one quarter (24%) was dispersed (either naturally or as a result of operations) as microscopic droplets into Gulf waters. The residual amount — just over one quarter (26%) — is either on or just below the surface as light sheen and weathered tar balls, has washed ashore or been collected from the shore, or is buried in sand and sediments. Oil in the residual and dispersed categories is in the process of being degraded. The report below describes each of these categories and calculations. These estimates will continue to be refined as additional information becomes available.


*****See same chart as Gibbs shows it to the press!************

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/...

Positive report on Gulf of Mexico oil spill has local officials, environmentalists wary

Published: Wednesday, August 04, 2010, 9:00 PM

A federal report released Wednesday indicating that most of the oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill is no longer in the water was met with skepticism from environmentalists and local officials wary after federal officials grossly underestimated how much oil was spilled in the first place.


"I hate not to trust my government, but they haven't always been truthful through this whole thing," Nungesser said, citing initial low-ball federal estimates on how much oil was gushing from BP's ruptured well. "There's still a lot of distrust there."

The National Incident Command report said just 26 percent of the spilled oil remains in the Gulf, primarily as a light sheen or weathered tar balls.

The rest of the oil from the 200-million-gallon spill was either burned, skimmed, dispersed or piped from the wellhead to ships, according to the report compiled by government scientists from several agencies.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the report indicates the worst fears about the spill's potential impact won't materialize.

"I think it is fairly safe to say that because of the environmental effects of Mother Nature, the warm waters of the Gulf, and the federal response, that many of the doomsday scenarios that were talked about and repeated a lot have not and will not come to fruition because of that," Gibbs said during a news conference in Washington.

[nashville_brook]

39. holy hell -- this is an awesome collection of stories!!

when DU is at its best, it's doing this -- super powerful research repository.

[Poboy]

40. Kicking for truth. =nt

[jpak]

45. The data that went into the FSR Oil Budget report WERE reviewed by independent scientists

University of Georgia scientists reviewed the FSR and agreed with the FSR report.

The oil is still there.

There is no cover up

tinfoil fail

again

[TheKentuckian]

63. You know damn well there was an effort to give the impression that most of the oil was "taken care

of"

That is why they willfully conflated recovered, burned off, captured, and dispersed.

They knew what they were doing and implying and so do you.

Every possible impression that microbes had digested this mess or that it was in other ways dealt with and miracle of miracles only about a quarter of the oil was meaningfully in the mix and that everyone had their knickers in a twist for nothing.

[laughingliberal]

65. K & R nt