Free Republic

Moments like the one we live in now come along from time to time, providing the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the past. For instance, key takeaways from the Deepwater Horizon incident of April 2010 and how they apply to today are clear except to those who deny them. On Apr. 20, 2010, an explosion occurred on the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico. The explosion, which killed 11 men, caused the rig to sink into the deep and started a devastating oil leak from the well. Prior to it being capped three months afterward,...

New details involving a military pilot UAP incident over the Gulf of Mexico revealed by a U.S. Representative last summer have come to light, following the release of documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The incident, first described by Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) last year during a widely viewed Congressional hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena, reportedly occurred on January 26, 2023, during a test mission operated out of Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. Now, additional confirmation of the incident has been obtained by Abbas Michael Dharamsey through documents he obtained through a FOIA request, copies...

Former President Donald Trump said recently that "windmills are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before."(Illustration by The Epoch Times)His comments, made at a campaign rally in South Carolina, were quickly ground through the fact-checking mills of legacy media outlets such as The Guardian and the BBC."They’re washing up ashore. I saw it this weekend, three of them came up. You wouldn’t see it once a year. Now they’re coming up on a weekly basis," President Trump said.The Guardian called his allegation a "lengthy and largely baseless attack on wind turbines for causing large numbers of whales to...

The archeological remains of a 19th century hospital and cemetery have been found on a submerged island near Garden Key, the second-largest island in the Dry Tortugas National Park near Key West, Florida. The hospital served as a 19th century quarantine and cemetery for yellow fever patients between 1890 and 1900, according to the National Parks Service. Historical records indicate that dozens of people, mostly U.S. soldiers stationed at Fort Jefferson, may have been buried at the cemetery, according to the NPS. Dozens of people were interred in the Fort Jefferson Post Cemetery -- most of them were military members...

Archeologists have found the remains of a 19th century quarantine hospital and cemetery on a submerged island in Florida's Dry Tortugas National Park in the Gulf of Mexico. While only one grave has been identified, historical records indicate dozens of people — mostly U.S. soldiers stationed at Fort Jefferson — may have been buried at the site in waters west of Key West, Florida, park officials said in a news release Monday. A group that included park cultural resources staff, the National Park Service’s Submerged Resources Center, the Southeast Archeological Center, and a University of Miami graduate student, made the...

A quahog clam found at Florida's Alligator Point was determined by researchers to be about 214 years old. Photo courtesy of the Gulf Specimen Marine Lab/Facebook Feb. 27 (UPI) -- A 2.6-pound quahog claim that made a rare visit to the Florida coast is believed by researchers to be 214 years old. Blaine Parker said he was collecting shellfish to make chowder at Alligator Point, on St. James Island in Franklin County when he found the gigantic quahog clam, an Atlantic species found most often north of North Carolina. "We were just going to eat it, but we thought about...

(KXAN) - A new study has found that surface waters in the Gulf of Mexico have warmed approximately twice as fast as the global ocean over the last 50 years. The study, published last month in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate and conducted by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Northern Gulf Institute (NGI), found “significant warming” of the Gulf’s sea surface temperature - a 1.8°F jump between 1970-2020. This works out to 0.34°F of warming per decade, equating to roughly twice the rate of warming observed in the global ocean as a...

The Biden administration has quietly approved plans to build a new crude oil terminal in the Gulf of Mexico off Texas, seemingly in contradiction to the president’s climate agenda.The Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration approved the application (pdf) for Enterprise’s Sea Port Oil Terminal, one of four proposed offshore oil export terminals, on Monday.According to the application, the port will be located offshore of Freeport, Texas. It will have 4.8 million barrels of storage capacity and add 2 million barrels per day to the U.S. oil export capacity.In its 94-page decision (pdf), the Maritime Administration said that it had approved...

Details match those of 1813 privateer The mystery surrounding the wreckage of a ship at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico may have moved a few steps closer Monday toward being solved. Details that investigators have been able to piece together about the vessel match those of a ship that capsized in the Gulf in November 1813 after being chased by a British ship that was part of a naval blockade during the War of 1812, said Jack Irion, a marine archaeologist with the federal Minerals Management Service. In that incident, all eight crewmen were rescued by the British...

Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan may have tanked his approval ratings, but record inflation and soaring gas prices kept them underwater. As fuel prices reached historic highs, Biden stubbornly refused to do anything that would increase domestic supply, opting instead to buy fuel from overseas before eventually raiding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It was a foolish thing to do, and while gas prices have gone down, the impact of raiding the reserves is debatable. But one thing is for sure: Biden depleted the reserves, which are now at a 37-year low, to boost his poll numbers. Now that Hurricane Ian...

Some of the Democrats who have been spiking the ball in the end zone after the passage of the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” probably didn’t read all of the finer details in the bill. They’ve been celebrating its passage along with Joe Biden as the “biggest climate legislation” to ever be passed. They have also been grudgingly thanking West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin for getting the bill over the finish line. But it turns out that Manchin snuck in a few items that haven’t drawn many headlines yet and the climate warriors aren’t going to be very happy about them....

U.S. taps 50 million barrels of oil from reserves in an attempt to tamper spiking costs at the gas pump.. resident Biden’s move to tap the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is expected to supply Chinese and Indian oil needs as gas demands have led to global shortages.. The White House said the Department of Energy will release 50 million barrels of oil held in U.S. reserves — 18 million of which have already been congressionally approved for sale. China and India have been actively purchasing U.S. sour crude oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico ... U.S.-produced sour crude oil...

The Biden administration auctioned off over 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil drilling Wednesday despite a campaign promise to ban new oil and gas leasing, the Boston Globe reported. The auction is the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in the United States, according to the Boston Globe. The new leases will produce 1.1 billion barrels of oil and 4.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to a Department of the Interior estimate, the Globe reported.

A still of an adult bigfin squid caught on camera. (NOAA Ocean Exploration) A ghostly squid with huge, iridescent fins and funky, elbow-like bends in its tentacles is rarely seen, but scientists recently captured stunning footage of the elusive animal during an expedition in the Gulf of Mexico. To date, there have been fewer than 20 confirmed sightings of this deep-sea cephalopod, known as a bigfin squid (Magnapinna), and this recent sighting adds one more to the list, according to a statement from NOAA Ocean Exploration. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists spotted the elusive squid on their recent...

The Biden administration is preparing to sell off more than 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling companies in the largest federal offshore drilling auction in U.S. history—less than a week after the UN climate change conference COP26, where nearly 200 nations promised to reduce fossil fuel emissions. The annual Gulf of Mexico lease sale is planned for November 17 in New Orleans. The 80 million acres on sale is expected to produce around 1.12 billion barrels of oil and 4.2 cubic feet of natural gas over the next 50 years. The controversial auction...

administration has produced a clownish energy policy. It is simultaneously suppressing petroleum production in the U.S. and begging Saudi Arabia and Russia to produce more. This is idiotic, but Jennifer Granholm apparently thinks it’s funny. You might think the administration’s energy policies couldn’t possibly get worse. But now the New York Times reports: “Biden Administration Plans Wind Farms Along Nearly the Entire U.S. Coastline.” The Biden administration announced on Wednesday a plan to develop large-scale wind farms along nearly the entire coastline of the United States, the first long-term strategy from the government to produce electricity from offshore turbines. Speaking...

Reuters) - A weather system forming over the western Gulf of Mexico has a 40% chance of becoming a cyclone in the next 48 hours, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Friday. "Regardless of development, the system could produce heavy rainfall over portions of southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana during the next few days," it said.

A new species of whale has been discovered in the Gulf of Mexico — but scientists warn the animal is critically endangered. The newly-identified species of baleen whale has been dubbed “Rice’s whale” after American biologist Dale Rice, who was the first to recognize the mammal. Researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) previously thought the whales were a subspecies of the Bryde’s whale, however, the agency announced that it was actually a new species entirely in a paper published in Marine Mammal Science.

MAERSK offshore supply tug attacked in Gulf of Mexico Erofey Schkvarkin News April 15, 2020 1:51 pm Offshore tug, supply ship MAERSK TRANSPORTER was attacked and boarded by armed pirates at night Apr 12 in Gulf of Mexico off Cuidad Del Carmen, Mexico, roughly in the same area where 3 days earlier Italian supply ship REMAS was attacked. Attack was carried out in same manner, too. http://www.maritimebulletin.net/2020/04/14/italian-offshore-ship-boarded-by-armed-pirates-in-mexico-waters-video/ Pirates took several crew as hostages and looted the ship, taking with valuable items. Crew luckily, weren’t hurt. Offshore tug, supply ship MAERSK TRANSPORTER, IMO 9388649, GT 4678, built 2009, flag Denmark, manager...

Contrary to their own scientific intuition, Cornell researchers found that the body size of intertidal oysters didn’t change after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. This offers evidence that either the mollusks recovered rapidly or that the accident lacked the severity to affect growth. After the initial explosion April 20, 2010, which sank the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible rig, about 3.2 million barrels of oil poured into the northern Gulf of Mexico until the well was capped July 15. The scientists believe that the travel distance of the oil gave it time to degrade, and bacterial...