'Obama's Katrina': an Illustrated Timeline

21 April 2010: All 115 workers are evacuated from the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig.

22 April 2010: President Obama delivers a speech on Wall Street to advocate more government intervention in the country's financial sector, but offers no reforms for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which helped precipitate the 2008 meltdown. He also delivers a speech regarding the contributions of Earth Day to environmental awareness.

23 April 2010: President Obama blasts the Arizona governor, state legislators, police officers and residents for backing federal laws that prohibit illegal immigration.

24 April 2010: The president delivers his weekly radio address, which focuses on further regulation of Wall Street. He also calls upon certain segments of his original supporters -- African-Americans, Latinos, Hispanics, and women -- and asks them to mobilize for political action.

24 April 2010: Efforts to contain the spill are hampered by lack of resources and difficult weather.

25 April 2010: President Obama interrupts a weekend getaway to meet with the Rev. Billy Graham in North Carolina.

25 April 2010: Oil spreads across the gulf and heads toward the Louisiana shoreline.

26 April 2010: President Obama appears in a "Vote 2010" video, distributed by his political action wing Organizing for America, which serves as a stark appeal to blacks and Latinos -- specifically -- for their votes in November.

26 April 2010: The Coast Guard warns that the spill could become one of the worst in United States history.

28 April 2010: The President holds a rare, impromptu press conference on Air Force One, addressing "questions on the Arizona immigration law, the financial regulation bill and other issues." Obama also prepared to make his second nomination to the Supreme Court and warns of a "'conservative' brand of judicial activism in which the courts are often not showing appropriate deference to the decisions of lawmakers."

28 April 2010: large pools of oil are spotted close to the Louisiana shore line.

29 April 2010: the White House Flickr Feed is updated with a photo of the President meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and senior administration officials, including National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones, which indicates that they are urgently working the issue of the oil spill.

29 April 2010: Meanwhile, local officials, the Coast Guard and private citizens continue their efforts to prevent damage to the Louisiana coastline.

Perhaps if the oil breached the Louisiana levees, then caught on fire, and then turned New Orleans into a Dresden-like inferno, the President would stop campaigning for a couple of days and actually pay attention to his own, personal Katrina. Even The New York Times has noticed, decrying the President's lackadaisical response. But I'm guessing that somehow, someway, it's all President Bush's fault.

DRUDGE REPORT Saturday 05/29/2010

Latest Attempt by BP to Plug Oil Leak in Gulf of Mexico Fails...
BP now throwing GOLF BALLS into the oil well...
Prepares Backup Plan...
Pelosi blames Bush admin...
Parish President: Obama ‘Chewed Me Out’...
BP Buses In 400 Workers During Obama’s Visit...

Excerpts:

Video: Lousiana Congressman Breaks Down During Hearing About Oil Spill

http://www.breitbart.tv/lousiana-congressman-breaks-down-during-hearing-about-oil-spill/

Day 40 - No end in sight.

WRAPUP 2-No end in sight as Gulf oil spill hits Day 40
BP backs off time estimate to know if ‘Top Kill’ works
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2812765520100529

* Obama under fire for slow response to largest oil spill

* Residents angry about lack of cleanup, fantasize revenge

* BP investors sell shares over top kill delays

(Adds BP spokesman on top kill operation to continue)

By Tom Bergin and Ed Stoddard Sat May 29, 2010 10:05am EDT

[snip]

<>
NY Times
Effort to Plug Gulf Well Faces Another Setback
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS and LESLIE KAUFMAN
Published: May 29, 2010 [See pictures at link]:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us/30spill.html?hp

HOUSTON — BP engineers failed again to plug the gushing oil well on Saturday, a technician working on the project said, representing yet another setback in a series of unsuccessful procedures the company has tried a mile under the sea to stem the flow spreading into the Gulf of Mexico.

BP made a third attempt at what is termed the “junk shot” Friday night, a procedure that involves pumping odds and ends like plastic cubes, knotted rope, and golf balls into the blowout preventer, the five-story safety device atop the well. The maneuver is complementary to the heavily scrutinized effort known as a “top kill,”which began four days ago and involves pumping heavy mud into the well to counteract the push of the escaping oil. If the well is sealed, the company plans to then fill it with cement.

The technician working on the project said Saturday pumping has again been halted and a review of the data so far is under way.

“Right now, I would not be optimistic,” the technician, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly about the effort. But he added, that if another attempt at the junk shot were to succeed, “that would turn things around.”

BP said Saturday it would not comment on the technician’s assertions. Officials have said they will continue the process into Sunday before they declare it a success or failure.

In previous days, BP officials have been more optimistic than not about the effort working. Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive, told CNN on Friday morning that he believes there is a 60 to 70 percent chance this effort to plug the well will succeed And Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer, said Friday that the attempt to plug the gushing oil well is going basically according to plan even though there have been stops and starts to the actual pumping. “We’re going to stay with this as long as we need to,” he said. “We’re not going to rush.”

The top kill remains the company’s best option for stopping the massive leak that is polluting gulf water’s at an estimated 12,000 to 19,000 gallons a day. If it fails, the company has said it will try and build a containment dome again. A first attempt with a containment dome failed earlier this month. Otherwise, it may take until August to drill a relief well, the option experts say is most reliably going to stop the current catastrophe.

President Obama, who visited the Gulf Coast on Friday, spoke broadly about the government’s response to the environmental disaster, saying that “not every judgment we make will be right the first time out.”

He also added, seemingly capturing the mood of engineers working to plug the well: “There are going to be a lot of judgment calls here. There are not going to be silver bullets or perfect answers.”

The technician said that engineers had come up with a variety of theories about why efforts have failed so far, and they were trying different sizes of objects. He said the process required trial and error — and sifting through various theories among engineers in the operation’s control room — about the best way to clog the “internal geometry” of the damaged equipment.

BP said pumping operations resumed around 3:45 p.m. Friday.

The technician said Friday that despite all the injections, at various pressure levels, engineers had been able to keep less than 10 percent of the injection fluids inside the stack of pipes above the well. He said that was barely an improvement on the results Wednesday, when the operation began and was suspended after about 10 hours.

“I won’t say progress was zero, but I don’t know if we can round up enough mud to make it work,” said another technician on the project. “Everyone is disappointed at this time.”

The technician also said that there were disagreements among engineers about why efforts had been unsuccessful so far, but that those disagreements were based on a lack of a clear understanding of what was happening inside the pipes on the sea floor.

Meanwhile, anticipating that the top kill may not succeed, BP began preparations to try to place a second containment vessel over the leak. Mr. Suttles said BP was also preparing to replace the damaged blowout preventer.

In Grand Isle, La., President Obama promised to triple the federal personnel along the most threatened stretches of the coast.

“We’re in this together,” he said, gesturing to the three governors, two Louisiana senators, a congressman and other officials he had just met with for more than two hours.

Even if the leak is stopped, “we face a long-term recovery and restoration effort,” Mr. Obama added. “America has never experienced an event like this before,” he said.

Such sentiment plainly was aimed at answering “the anger and frustration” that Mr. Obama acknowledged many residents and political leaders here are feeling, and at blunting charges that his administration had abandoned them as the Bush administration was accused of doing after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“I ultimately take responsibility for solving this crisis. I’m the president, and the buck stops with me,” Mr. Obama said.

For the president, who has been on the defensive about his and his administration’s role in trying to stop the spill and prevent oil from reaching the coasts, Friday’s trip was his second since the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20.

Clifford Krauss reported from Houston and Leslie Kaufman from New Orleans. Liz Robbins contributed reporting from New York and Jackie Calmes from Grand Isle, La.

Also linked from the Drudge Report on Saturday, 05/29/2010
http://www.drudgereport.com/

...is this story:

Stressed Out or Tone Deaf? Obama Chicago Vacation Raises Eyebrows
Published May 27, 2010 | FOXNews.com [Pictures at link]
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/27/stressed-tone-deaf-obama-chicago-vacation-raises-eyebrows/

Presidents are never really off the clock, even when they go on vacation. But President Obama’s decision to skip the traditional Memorial Day ceremony in Arlington while on his second vacation since the BP oil spill began has some wondering what the schedule says about his priorities.

On “vacation,” Obama still holds staff meetings, occasionally attends local events and often gets his “relaxation” time swallowed up by pressing national and international business — his vacation to Hawaii in December coincided with the attempted Christmas Day airline bombing. The retreat this weekend is marked by a side-trip to Louisiana to inspect the damages from the oil spill.

But some conservatives, still smarting over the criticism George W. Bush fielded for his frequent trips to Crawford, Texas, say Obama’s trip to Chicago over Memorial Day weekend is conspicuously poor in its timing.

Obama, who was headed to Chicago Thursday night, will not be at Arlington National Cemetery for the Memorial Day ceremony — which he attended last year. Instead, the president plans to be at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Ill., while Vice President Biden takes his place in Arlington for the wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Pete Hegseth, director of the conservative Vets for Freedom, said he doesn’t want to “extrapolate too much,” but questioned why a war-time president would not pencil in that ceremony.

“It doesn’t mean he doesn’t care, but I think it is a reflection of priorities,” he said. “We’re still at war ... and he’s not called out to the carpet on that.”

Dana Perino, former Bush White House press secretary, called the decision a “curious choice.”

“I do think that symbolically that probably was not a very good choice,” she told Fox News.

The Arlington visit is a fairly recent tradition. Former President Ronald Reagan attended four of them in his eight years in office, while former President George H.W. Bush sent Vice President Dan Quayle to every one. Former President Bill Clinton, though, attended every year and George W. Bush missed only one, in 2002, when he was in Normandy, France, visiting the American cemetery.

Philip Molfese, a Chicago-based Democratic political consultant, said Obama will still be able to “pay tribute” at the Lincoln National Cemetery. And he dismissed the idea that Obama would somehow be stepping away from the oil spill crisis in the Gulf while in Chicago. The president plans to visit the Gulf coast Friday before returning to the Windy City.

“He’s never really out of touch with what’s happening,” said Molfese, president of the political firm Grainger Terry, Inc. “These guys are never off the clock. ... They’re constantly surrounded by people, they’re constantly getting updates. Whether they’re operating in Chicago or they’re operating in the White House, they’re still going to be getting constant communication.”

The White House has tried to fend off suggestions that it has not acted forcefully enough to mitigate the damage from the oil spill — Obama held a full-scale press conference Thursday afternoon where he spoke extensively about mitigation efforts.

The Obamas have not made an extensive visit to Chicago in more than a year and in a sense are trying to make good on prior pledges to visit their home town more often. But critics point out that the trip is their second since the Gulf oil rig exploded April 20 — the first family traveled to Asheville, N.C., that weekend.

AP: BP Plug/Top Kill Has Failed
AP | 5-29-10
Posted on Saturday, May 29, 2010 4:13:23 PM by My Favorite Headache
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2523811/posts

AP news break via ABC News Radio that the top kill plug has failed and has not worked. Link to follow...

[][][][]

Comments:

I guess daddy still hasn’t plugged the hole.

16 posted on Saturday, May 29, 2010 4:20:12 PM by bwc2221
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2523811/posts?page=16#16

“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” ~ Anti-Bubba182

That’s racist!

238 posted on Saturday, May 29, 2010 9:37:42 PM by coaltrain http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2523811/posts?page=238#238

This can’t be correct.

Didn’t Lord 0haha tell us in his news conference that this worked, and then he went to Chicago to play gangster basketball to honor those who died in our military protecting this country.

Or was that after his $17,600 per seat dinner at the elite massing to fund Barbara Boxer in Gay Frisco?

300 posted on Sunday, May 30, 2010 10:42:47 AM by Grampa Dave http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2523811/posts?page=300#300

“I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and GOOD JOBS TO THE JOBLESS; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our PLANET BEGAN TO HEAL; this was the moment when we ENDED A WAR and SECURED OUR NATION and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals. Thank you, God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.” —Barack Bin Laden.

73 posted on Saturday, May 29, 2010 4:53:13 PM by CommieCutter (Obamanomics :Privatize Gains, Socialize Losses.) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2523811/posts?page=73#73

This is exactly what happens when a bribe taking Chicago pol is mated with a communist street agitator who knows nothing about anything other than, “pay to play” and “go along to get along.”

When all the drillling permits for this well were granrted, BP, the dirtiest, most reckless of the large oil companies, was on probation from a felony conviction based on recklessness that killed 15 people in the 2005 explosion of its Texas City, TX refinery and from a misdemeanor conviction based on an Alaskan oil spill. It got a greenwash by contributing more to the 2008 Obama campaign than it contributed to any other campaign. Then there was a sudden miracle; it was deemed the world’s most responsible corporate good citizen and Obama give it carte blanche to drill this well.

SURPRISE!! The same kind of thing happened that would happen if a local prosecutor was bribed to release a convicted child rapist and allow him to run a child day care center unsupervised. We’re now going to have as much economic damage to the Gulf coast as if the old Soviet Union had dropped an atom bomb on New Orleans.

IMPEACH OBAMA FOR BRIBERY.

79 posted on Saturday, May 29, 2010 4:58:00 PM by libstripper http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2523811/posts?page=79#79

the horse and pony show continues

BP needs to show activity at the wellsite ....they are doing that.....nice feed ...coupla ROV’s switching views .....makes good TV but one sentence sums it up “ relief well , maybe august possibly early September”

here’s how the summer will pan out...

1- Top kill -— shows good activity at wellsite ...good ROV feeds buys a week for BP

2- Junk Shot -— another feel good ....problem is they holes are bigger than the size of the bridging agents they are able to get into the kill and choke like .....you really cant block a basketball net with a tennis ball kinda deal here ...but hey shows activity and has a feel good factor here.....the monster well silenced by a few measly golf balls.

so far the public has had a good time staying glued to the leak wondering if its mud coming out or HC’s.....paying close attention to the color ....again good TV for all

now we get in the part of operations where public will have a hard time looking at the feeds .....cuz the next dog and pony show will be

1- LMRP cap .......another good sounding solution but the HC’s leakage will significantly increase during this process when the riser is cut .....and this will make for very bad TV viewing ....this will actually combine the leaks (rmbr BP has been clever ....no single shot exists anywhere on the MSM which shows all the leaks in a concurrent view .......its always the dang ROV on top of the BOP showing the leaking mud ).....LMRP cap will make for bad TV viewing by combining leaks into a big leak so the perspective on the leak will be better than what BP has show so far.....RMBR BAD TV this process — but buys a week for BP

2- putting another BOP on the existing BOP ....this will make for fantastic TV viewing .....a huge piece of equipment ...many pipes and odd shapes ......beautiful TV right here .....but cannot work since there is no way BP can risk a hot approach on this ....the risk -reward ratios can never be favorable no matter how you dress the figures in this case.....there is DP string in there ...you can bet the horse and the stable BP knows where and how long...excellent TV and buys BP another week

the axis of action here is off -— the solution would be containment until the relief well is sunk .....and not reality TV for public ...the money being spent on the kill mud needs to go for skimming oil, booms, PPE for the workers and other cleanup/containment efforts.....there are atleast 20 boats involved with these horse and pony tricks at the wellsite ....thats 20 boats that could be skimming oil and deploying boom

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6528

133 posted on Saturday, May 29, 2010 5:41:00 PM by mojitojoe http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2523811/posts?page=133#133

Just can’t post this enough:

http://www.wwltv.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/JP-Officials-Presence-of-hundreds-of-cleanup-workers-likely-a-staged-event-95149564.html

163 posted on Saturday, May 29, 2010 6:37:28 PM by Bushbacker1 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2523811/posts?page=163#163

“.. can you explain to me why they are not ‘sucking’ the stuff out, or rerouting and containing the oil into a tanker?”

They are. Here is the best briefing on what is going on at the surface and the well head complete with fantastic graphics and animation. If you view this 13 minute video from BP, you will know more than 99% of MSM.
http://bp.concerts.com/gom/kentwells_update24052010.htm

188 posted on Saturday, May 29, 2010 7:29:50 PM by kabar
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2523811/posts?page=188#188

—5/28/10 11:00 hours. Top Kill is working— Obama states he is in charge to get credit. He has saved the world and can go on Vaca now.

—5/29/10 17:00 hours. Top Kill has failed—BP is solely responsible. Obama has not saved world and remains on Vaca.

—5/30/10 09:00 hours. Lame stream media morning shows regurgitate new DNC talking points.

—5/31/10: 10:00 hours. VP Joe Biden insinuates at Arlington National that it is unknown if the Unknown Soldier was gay, but he was a damn brave warrior, regardless.

—That about sums up the weekend.

197 posted on Saturday, May 29, 2010 7:40:54 PM by Shqipo
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2523811/posts?page=197#197

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpPNQoTlacU

Russians show how to nuke shut a runaway natural gas well. Show this to the nuclear engineers you know and please tell me what they think. As far as ding the same in this case

216 posted on Saturday, May 29, 2010 8:27:40 PM by dennisw (History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid - Gen Eisenhower) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2523811/posts?page=216#216

BP’s corporate, personal ties to White House emerge
BY HELENE COOPER AND JOHN M. BRODER
NEW YORK TIMES
05/30/2010
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/nation/story/B456474AF8527A5186257732001776B4?OpenDocument

WASHINGTON — Three years ago, the national laboratory then headed by Steven Chu received the bulk of a $500 million grant from the British oil giant BP to develop alternative energy sources through a new Energy Biosciences Institute.

Chu received the grant from BP’s chief scientist at the time, Steven E. Koonin, a fellow theoretical physicist whom Chu jocularly described as “my twin brother.” Koonin had selected the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley, over other universities in the United States and Britain, in part because of Chu’s pioneering work in alternative fuels.

Today, Chu is President Barack Obama’s energy secretary, and he spent Tuesday in Houston working with BP officials to try to find a way to stop the flow of oil from the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Koonin, who followed Chu to the Energy Department, is recused from all matters relating to the disaster because of his past ties to BP, said Stephanie Mueller, an Energy Department spokeswoman.

The relationships among Chu, Koonin and BP illustrate the complexity of the ties between the company and the government now playing out along the Gulf Coast as they struggle to cope with one of the nation’s worst environmental disasters. Just as the Pentagon and military contractors develop symbiotic business, technical and political interdependencies, the government in this case needs BP’s offshore drilling technology and well-control equipment; the company needs the government’s logistical and scientific expertise, including that of Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist.

Some critics say the Obama administration has relied too heavily on BP’s assessment of the blowout and its solutions for addressing it. But government officials say that BP is legally responsible for plugging the well and cleaning up the mess. And they acknowledge that the government lacks the know-how to deal with the problem on its own.

There is no evidence that Chu or Koonin have represented BP’s viewpoints in internal deliberations or sought to influence administration policy in a way that would benefit BP. But John Simpson of Consumer Watchdog said: “From what I’ve seen, the Energy Department’s response has been less than rapid to this oil spill. This whole thing just underscores that corporate interests have created, over time, these relationships that give them unfair access to policymakers.”

[][][][]

Chris Horner:
“I hope to elaborate later I’m wrapping up two weeks on the road promoting Power Grab but it seems to me the issue with the recent oil-platform explosion and subsequent leak issue is BP, not offshore drilling.

Offshore drilling has a very good track record in the past few decades and especially recently; BP has a terrible one. The Deepwater Horizon incident is consistent with only one of those track records.

Like Enron and indeed, in close cooperation with Enron on the “global warming” rent-seeking BP got distracted from its core businesses and spent its energies getting into solar ventures and carbon-trading schemes, and otherwise losing the plot of an energy company. The absurd re-branding to “Beyond Petroleum” (really? your balance sheet doesn’t quite agree) speaks volumes.

They thereby also lost focus on these operations and implicitly told their best people that the future did not lie there.

And for a decade we have seen BP facilities blowing up with human and environmental consequences all over the place.

The newsiness of this spill is testimony to its aberrant nature. The issue today isn’t offshore drilling so much as it is the company that, in violation of all laws of probability, continues to be involved in a preponderance of its various industries’ high-profile workplace tragedies.”

http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/
Blame BP [Chris Horner]
05/02 11:00 AM

80 posted on Monday, May 03, 2010 1:14:40 PM by Matchett-PI
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2505164/posts?page=80#80

Scientists warn of unseen deepwater oil disaster
AP ^ | 47 minutes ago 31 May 2010 | MATTHEW BROWN
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iudojq7qxuc_24IJuR8xUED_8PWQD9G1TLHO0
Posted on Monday, May 31, 2010 12:47:52 PM by valkyry1
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2524675/posts

NEW ORLEANS Independent scientists and government officials say there’s a disaster we can’t see in the Gulf of Mexico’s mysterious depths, the ruin of a world inhabited by enormous sperm whales and tiny, invisible plankton.

Researchers have said they have found at least two massive underwater plumes of what appears to be oil, each hundreds of feet deep and stretching for miles. Yet the chief executive of BP PLC which has for weeks downplayed everything from the amount of oil spewing into the Gulf to the environmental impact said there is “no evidence” that huge amounts of oil are suspended undersea.

BP CEO Tony Hayward said the oil naturally gravitates to the surface and any oil below was just making its way up. However, researchers say the disaster in waters where light doesn’t shine through could ripple across the food chain.

“Every fish and invertebrate contacting the oil is probably dying. I have no doubt about that,” said Prosanta Chakrabarty, a Louisiana State University fish biologist.

On the surface, a 24-hour camera fixed on the spewing, blown-out well and the images of dead, oil-soaked birds have been evidence of the calamity. At least 20 million gallons of oil and possibly 43 million gallons have spilled since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and sank in April.

That has far eclipsed the 11 millions gallons released during the Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska’s coast in 1989. But there is no camera to capture what happens in the rest of the vast Gulf, which sprawls across 600,000 square miles and reaches more than 14,000 feet at its deepest point.

Every night, the denizens of the deep make forays to shallower depths to eat and be eaten by other fish, according to marine scientists who describe it as the largest migration on earth.

In turn, several species closest to the surface including red snapper, shrimp and menhaden help drive the Gulf Coast fishing industry. Others such as marlin, cobia and yellowfin tuna sit atop the food chain and are chased by the Gulf’s charter fishing fleet.

Many of those species are now in their annual spawning seasons. Eggs exposed to oil would quickly perish. Those that survived to hatch could starve if the plankton at the base of the food chain suffer. Larger fish are more resilient, but not immune to the toxic effects of oil.

The Gulf’s largest spill was in 1979, when the Ixtoc I platform off Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula blew up and released 140 million gallons of oil. But that was in relatively shallow waters about 160 feet deep and much of the oil stayed on the surface where it broke down and became less toxic by the time it reached the Texas coast.

But last week, a team from the University of South Florida reported a plume was headed toward the continental shelf off the Alabama coastline, waters thick with fish and other marine life.

The researchers said oil in the plumes had dissolved into the water, possibly a result of chemical dispersants used to break up the spill. That makes it more dangerous to fish larvae and creatures that are filter feeders.

Responding to Hayward’s assertion, one researcher noted that scientists from several different universities have come to similar conclusions about the plumes after doing separate testing.

No major fish kills have been reported, but federal officials said the impacts could take years to unfold.

“This is just a giant experiment going on and we’re trying to understand scientifically what this means,” said Roger Helm, a senior official with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In 2009, LSU’s Chakrabarty discovered two new species of bottom-dwelling pancake batfish about 30 miles off the Louisiana coastline right in line with the pathway of the spill caused when the Deepwater Horizon burned and sank April 24.

By the time an article in the Journal of Fish Biology detailing the discovery appears in the August edition, Chakrabarty said, the two species which pull themselves along the seafloor with feet-like fins could be gone or in serious decline.

“There are species out there that haven’t been described, and they’re going to disappear,” he said.

Recent discoveries of endangered sea turtles soaked in oil and 22 dolphins found dead in the spill zone only hint at the scope of a potential calamity that could last years and unravel the Gulf’s food web.

Concerns about damage to the fishery already is turning away potential customers for charter boat captains such as Troy Wetzel of Venice. To get to waters unaffected by the spill, Wetzel said he would have to take his boat 100 miles or more into the Gulf jacking up his fuel costs to where only the wealthiest clients could afford to go fishing.

Significant amounts of crude oil seep naturally from thousands of small rifts in the Gulf’s floor as much as two Exxon Valdez spills every year, according to a 2000 report from government and academic researchers. Microbes that live in the water break down the oil.

The number of microbes that grow in response to the more concentrated BP spill could tip that system out of balance, LSU oceanographer Mark Benfield said.

Too many microbes in the sea could suck oxygen from the water, creating an uninhabitable hypoxic area, or “dead zone.”

Preliminary evidence of increased hypoxia in the Gulf was seen during an early May cruise aboard the R/V Pelican, carrying researchers from the University of Georgia, the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi.

An estimated 910,000 gallons of dispersants enough to fill more than 100 tanker trucks are contributing a new toxin to the mix. Containing petroleum distillates and propylene glycol, the dispersants’ effects on marine life are still unknown.

What is known is that by breaking down oil into smaller droplets, dispersants reduce the oil’s buoyancy, slowing or stalling the crude’s rise to the surface and making it harder to track the spill.

Dispersing the oil lower into the water column protects beaches, but also keeps it in cooler waters where oil does not break down as fast. That could prolong the oil’s potential to poison fish, said Larry McKinney, director of the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.

“There’s a school of thought that says we’ve made it worse because of the dispersants,” he said.

Associated Press writer Jason Dearen contributed to this report from San Francisco.

BP's strange Democrat bedfellows

by Ironman - TheNextRight - Sat, 05/29/2010

Here's something you probably don;t know about the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

[] One of the top media consultants for British Petroleum gave free rent to a politician who became White House Chief of Staff.

And, no, this was not Karl Rove giving a freebie to Andy Card.

No, the recipient of the favor was Rahm Emanuel and the benefactor was Stanley Greenberg.

[] Stanley Greenberg is an interesting guy. He is married to CT Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a close ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

[] Grrenberg is the principal of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a large polling and public relations firm. They do both political campaign work and "corporate communications" work.

[] The DCCC has paid Greenberg's firm in excess of $500,000 during the 2006 and 2008 election cycles. They are also Dick Blumenthal's pollster

But let's look at the corporate side, where Mr. Greenberg promises to "help corporations increase competitiveness and profitability, improve reputation, and take advantage of global trends."

Who are they helping? British Petroleum

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner helped BP plan and evaluate its successful re-branding campaign, focusing the company's branding on energy solutions, including the development of solar and other renewable energy sources.

Real accurate, you think?

[] Let's see what the honest Left thinks about Stan Greenberg's work on behalf of the worst corporate polluter in American history. He's been accused of being one of the top "greenwashers" out there. BP is charged with spending over $200 million on efforts to assert alleged environmental consciousness. (Meantime they cut corners to save money on the Deepwater Horizon) It's been called "greenwashing of epic proportions">/a> Obviously, BP would rather spend money on high priced DC PR consultants than on boring stuff like oil drilling safety.

And Stan Greenberg was the mastermind for BP's faux concern.

[] So when Nancy Pelosi starts pointing fingers about the oil disaster, maybe she can look a little closer to home. Like to her loyal ally Rosa DeLauro and her husband, who profited immensely peddling the fiction BP cared about the environment.

If Nancy Pelosi is serious, she ought to immediately ban the use of Stan Greenberg's polling firm in all Democratic House campaigns. If Richard Blumenthal is serious about blaming BP, he ought to fire Greenberg himself.

And we really ought to ask how credible that "boot on the neck" on BP the Obama White House claims to be applying really is when the Obama Administration's Chief of Staff lived rent-free thanks to the largesse of a BP consultant.

Yep, this is the "most ethical congress ever". Right.

The longer you look at this, I'm not sure what's oilier, the Louisiana coast or the slezoids running the DC Democratic establishment.

bttt

This Oil Disaster in Perspective, and a Reminder of Saddam's Wells

Rush Limbaugh Show - June 1, 2010

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I have something here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. The official climatologist of the EIB Network, Roy Spencer, has sent in a chart of oil spills through the years. The second-to-smallest oil spill through the years since 1991 to present is the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico. A deliberate spill by Iraqi forces 1991-1992 spilled 500 million gallons of oil. Average yearly spills, rigs and tankers, global, every year, 250 million gallons of oil spilled from rigs and tankers. As I keep talking about: In 1979, the Ixtoc 1 rig in the Gulf of Mexico spilled about 140 million gallons. Then the Amoco Cadiz, which is a ship, the English Channel, about 60 million. Torrey Canyon, south England, a ship, about 30 million. The Exxon Valdez was 11 million. And so far we're at about 25 or 30 million gallons; this is assuming 15,000 barrels a day through May at the Deepwater Horizon rig. So it's the second smallest oil spill since 1991 or '92. Not that it isn't bad, don't misunderstand. I'm just trying to put things in perspective..

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Those of you expecting video at the Dittocam, hang on. You're going to see it here in just a second. What I want to do here, I'm going to hold up this chart. Dr. Spencer put together this chart, our official climatologist, from various sources. For of those of you watching on the Dittocam I want you to see the chart. We have a high-definition camera. You will be able to see it. One thing that I want to point out about this is if you look, the deliberate oil spill by Iraqi forces (this from 1991 and '92) was 500 million gallons. That was a deliberate spill by Iraqi forces. If you go through this list, you will see that there are only two oil spills from oil rigs of any consequence since 1991. That's the Ixtoc 1 rig in Mexico and this one, the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico. The others are purposeful or ships like the Exxon Valdez, and this chart does not even include the average or the annual leakage or spillage in Nigeria that we told you about. So, here we go. Where my left index finger is [pointing] is the Deepwater Horizon rig. Number of gallons spilled, that big number as you look at it on your left, the top left-hand column, that's the Iraqi oil spill purposeful 500 million gallons in 1991 and '92. Ixtoc 1 is the third one here. That's from Mexico and that's the largest rig leakage or spill since 1991. All the way down here is ours, the one in the Gulf of Mexico. So we're going to send this thing up to the website, and Koko Jr., who is running the website today, will put it up and you'll be able to see it there, but I wanted to show you this. Now, again, folks, this is not to diminish what's happening in the Gulf of Mexico. It is simply a means of adding or bringing some perspective to this. Five hundred million gallons -- remember those oil fires and Carl Sagan was out predicting nuclear winter, the destruction for part of the world for who knows how many decades? It hasn't happened. Whenever I have the chance to point out how resilient our planet is and how wonderful it is at cleaning up messes, especially when we help, I take the opportunity to do that.

Oil spills are not uncommon. This one is by no means anywhere near the largest. It's not even the largest in the Gulf of Mexico. It's the second largest. That doesn't make it okay. I don't want anybody to misunderstand me here. It's bad as it is, but the planet's still here, people are still alive and animals are still alive where all these things have happened, and that will be the case here as well. It's not going to be easy. There's going to be a tremendous amount of pain, and there ought to be steps being taken now that aren't being taken to plug this well or do something like Jindal wants to do with these sand berms. There are a number of steps that could be taken. We don't need to be sending Eric Holder down there, a lawyer, meeting with prosecutors. We don't need to be sending commissions down there or setting commissions up. We need to find the best and brightest engineers possible in the private sector and get 'em all working on this.

Macon, Georgia, and this is Tom. Great to have you on the program, sir. Glad you waited.

[snipped small talk, etc.]

RUSH: Precisely. Okay, I'm glad you said that. Now I understand. But I think in this case, the "Not Invented Here" means that -- "parochialism" is probably the closest term I can come to it. But what Hofmeister meant was there's all kinds of ideas out there, but they weren't invented here, so we're not considering them. He was talking about the method the Saudis have that you just described of separating the water from the oil, cleansing it, and putting the water back and being able to harvest the oil. Then Fran Townsend followed up by saying, (paraphrasing) "Yeah, I've heard of 'Not Invented Here,' and basically the way it's manifested itself is we're redoing the Katrina plan, which Katrina is a whole different set of circumstances than this oil spill." Now, a couple other things -- again, trying to keep things in perspective, and again to let you know as best you can not to get all hyped up into a frenzy by the media here.

[]When you look at that chart -- if you remember I just showed it to you, those of you watching on the Dittocam -- it is obvious that the number of oil spills from seagoing tankers is much greater than the spills from rigs, which to me, ladies and gentlemen, shows just how much safer and better drilling for oil is at home versus importing it via tankers from all over the world. And you remember (this is interesting) the left, the media, Obama, they want to hang all these executives at BP. They want 'em in jail. Obama is out there today talking about criminal charges, civil charges, liability. Not even the New York Times wanted to hang Saddam for setting off those oil fires in the Kuwait oil fields.

They didn't want to criticize Saddam Hussein. Why, it was just part of war! They were more angry at Bush for going in there. And it's interesting. You mention shut 'em off. Guess who did that? Guess who the brain was that went in there? Red Adair. Red Adair did it. They made a movie about Red Adair. It starred John Wayne. The way Red Adair -- and you experts are going to have to forgive me here for my rudimentary explanation. But Adair's method was to simply go in and set off charges near the rigs, near the wells, that would soak up all the oxygen in the explosion and therefore snuff out the oil fire. Now, I don't know what Adair would have come up with for this, but Red Adair is the guy who everybody turned to to put out the Saddam Hussein-set Kuwaiti oil fires 1991-1992.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, just to put things in perspective even more on this oil spill in the Gulf. Saddam Hussein, setting off all the Kuwait oil wells, putting them on fire. In addition to doing that (I wonder how many people will remember this) Saddam Hussein even put land mines around the wells to retard efforts to put out those fires. Red Adair braved his way through those minefields at age 75 to snuff out all of those oil well fires. But that's not all Hussein did. He opened all the pipelines that he could and all the hulls of oil tankers. He flooded the whole region with oil, tried to set the whole thing on fire, and not one media organization in this country was as outraged by that as they are at British Petroleum. Over the weekend, the environmentalist wackos were going nuts accusing BP of greed. Remember one of the things they first did was to send down a hose-like apparatus to try to siphon some of the oil to the surface into tankers so that they would be able to use it? The wackos were running around all weekend saying, "See? See? They only care about profit! They only care about greed. They're not trying to put out the leak. They just want to profit."

[]They were trying to salvage some of the product! The product is necessary. By salvaging it, it wouldn't foil the Gulf. It was one of the many techniques, but there has been more animus, more anger expressed at BP and their executives than there has been at Saddam Hussein. And what Saddam Hussein did in 1991-'92 with those oil fires? I mean, this doesn't even compare. We're talking about a thimble -- and what Hussein did was on purpose. Those land mines around those oil wells to retard efforts to put out those fires, we've never seen anything like that. He opened all the pipelines, the hulls of oil tankers. He just tried to destroy and put all that oil on fire.

Dave in Roseburg, Oregon. Welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Great to have you here.

[small talk snipped]

CALLER: My comment was on the prognostications of these scientists and how the American people just believe it. You know, if it comes out of the mouth of a "scientist," we believe it. And the one that I was thinking about was Kuwait. Carl Sagan back in the late eighties had developed this theory of the "nuclear winter." If we ever get into the nuclear war, there was going to be so many particles in the atmosphere that it would cool the temperature. It would be the tipping point. We would go into an ice age and that's it for humankind. We're done. And then when Saddam invaded Kuwait, and it looked like there was going to be war, well, he was right out there. "Boy, if we go to war and they fire up all those oil rigs, the same thing is gonna happen: Nuclear winter! We're all dead." So, of course, that happened. And, you know, a lot of people were uneasy about it, but like you said, Red Adair came in, and he did his thing. But a lot of them burnt for a long time, and, you know, the news media were just covering it from the ground and saying, "God, it looks terrible!" You couldn't see. But I think like two or three revolutions of the earth, it was gone. I mean, it wasn't a fart in the wind.

RUSH: Yeah, you're right. I remember Carl Saganon TV, "Billions and billions and billions and billions of molecules!" And you point this stuff out to the wackos today and they just get livid because all these dire predictions never happen. They never do happen, and it's because there's simply no knowledge of or respect for the absolute complexity -- the magnificence, incomprehensible complexity and magnificence -- of our planet, the ecosystem and all this. And again, it boils down to this whole thing of vanity. We human beings tell ourselves -- especially, you're right, when some scientist comes down from the mountaintop saying, "Billions and billions and billions and billions of molecules will be burning fires! Nuclear winter!" We all buy it because everybody is oriented toward disaster. For some reason we human beings are hardwired this way. We want to believe the absolute worst is right around the corner.

Nobody has to go to a library to find a book on how to fail. Nobody has to go to the library and get a book on how to create a crisis because we all know how to do that ourselves with no effort. (You also will not go to the library and find a book, Great Moderates in American History, but that's another thing.) But you do have to go to the library or a bookstore to find stories of how to succeed and how to be positive, because that takes effort. Being negative, pessimistic, oriented to crisis and disaster? Why, we glom onto that. And then somebody like me comes along and starts to pooh-pooh it, "Well, easy for you to say! You don't have to worry about things." No, no, no. I just have a heightened resistance. It's because of my faith and religious beliefs, pure and simple. It's my awe, respect and my absolute knowledge that I haven't the slightest notion of how all this works and that nobody else does, either. Any of them that tell you they do are lying through their teeth. I believe that there are questions that human beings are capable of asking that we will never answer while on this earth -- and I think that's part of the design.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I'll never forget watching this. It was Nightline and Carl Sagan was debating Dr. Fred Singer on the nuclear winter that would happen from the Kuwaiti oil fires. Sagan was citing all these investigations and statistics from a volcanic eruption in 1815, going on and on and on, and Fred is saying, "Naw, naw, naw, naw. The wind and the rain are just going to get rid of the smoke in a matter of days." Who was right? Fred Singer, and he's still on the scene today arguing against man-made global warming. He's called a "denier."

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, one more thing about Saddam Hussein. I love putting all this stuff in perspective because people have forgotten all this. We talked about it at the time it happened. There was a reason besides spite that Saddam Hussein set all those oil wells in Kuwait on fire and another reason besides spite that he set all the pipelines and opened all the hulls of the tankers. He was upset at the Kuwaitis flooding the market with oil. He wanted the price up. He wanted to do something about the supply. Saddam was much closer to Obama and the environmentalist wackos than anybody wants to admit because they want to do the same thing. They want to limit supply; they want to raise the price; they want a lot less used for whatever reasons -- you know, "save the planet," global warming. So it's fascinating to me to point out to you people that the environmentalist wackos (this ought to not surprise anybody) simply chose the environment when the Soviet Union imploded. It was the new home, environmentalism was, for displaced communists. And it makes perfect sense that they would have more in common with a totalitarian dictator than they would with anybody in a democratic regime, democratic country. So Hussein was mad. H e was upset the Kuwaitis would not limit their supply of oil and cut back. He wanted the price raised, so he puts the oil on fire for that reason in addition to spite. Same reasons, same philosophy as the Democrat Party in this country and in the worldwide left.

END TRANSCRIPT

Read the Background Material...

•AP: Feds Open Criminal Probe of Gulf Oil Spill

•NYDN: BP Told Government in 2008 it Could Handle Oil Spill 10 Times the Size of One Plaguing Gulf

• Wall Street Journal: Gulf Oil Spill Clips $100 Billion from Value of Connected Outfits">

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