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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:
The university fleet research vessel Pelican, operated by the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, departed Cocodrie, La., late Tuesday and arrived at the spill source on Wednesday. They will return on Sunday for more supplies, and go back to the site later that week.
The ship had been outfitted and ready to support a different NOAA-funded mission, but it was scrubbed in favor of gathering timely and much-needed data close to the oil spill source.
“This sampling mission is one of many NOAA responses to the oil spill,” acting NOAA assistant administrator for NOAA Research Craig McLean said. “It fills an important gap in researching the interaction of spilled oil and the ocean environment. The samples will help us better understand affected ocean resources.”
“We plan to sample as close to the well head as is safe, reasonable and allowable,” said Ray Highsmith, executive director for NIUST and principal investigator for both the original and revised mission. “We then plan to travel northwestward toward our long-term study site.”
The question now becomes whether the government, in the form of NOAA (which sponsored the research) is merely asking for a pause in order to process data more fully, or if it is putting the lid on a story that shows the oil spill to be far worse than the surface slick would suggest. One way to judge the answer to that question will be to see how quickly the research team is able to find ship time for gathering more data. Here is one of the researchers, Dr. Vernon Asper, speaking with NPR on May 16 with interviewer Guy Raz (in the only post-May 15 interview I’ve been able to find for any of the researchers):
RAZ: Vernon Asper, what will you and the scientists aboard the Pelican be looking at in the coming days and weeks?
Dr. ASPER: The first thing we’re going to do is analyze our data and analyze the samples. And, of course, we’re planning our next cruises. We’re already making inquiries into finding ship time. It turns out that the limiting factor for studying this plume is the availability of research vessels.
The research fleet in the United States for academic purposes has been dwindling over the last few decades, and there just aren’t ships available. So we’re having a hard time getting access to vessels that can take us out there.
If the US government, acting through NOAA, is truly interested in understanding the extent of underwater oil plumes emanating from the Deepwater Horizon spill, then they will be able to arrange access for this team to gather more data aboard the Pelican or another research vessel very soon. On the other hand, if the desire of the government is to divert attention from what could be very disturbing results, then somehow this team just won’t be able to find ship time in the next few months.
In the meantime, we have the first report of tar balls washing ashore in Key West. The material will be analyzed, and if the profile matches the material from the spill, then we will have confirmation that the oil has entered the loop current. Since we don’t see surface oil that far south, how could that oil reach Key West? Perhaps traveling as a plume under the surface?
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But our public servants say we’re over-reacting!
Yeah, we’re just a bunch of worry warts here, aren’t we? Who needs Gulf Coast beaches anyway?
Lubchenco even interrupted Gwen Ifill to parrot the “… all legitimate claims …” qualifier that BP CEO and other execs have been using to describe their perspective on payments for claims resulting from their catastrophe.
Is there a good explanation of why an official from NOAA would interrupt the PBS interviewer to reiterate that point?
Yes, if our government happened to be a wholly owned subsidiary of BigPolluters.
So you think they should pay illegitmate claims?
No, what I think is that an executive of the NOAA, whose job is to focus on the condition of the oceans and atomosphere, is clearly stepping outside of her job description when pro-actively interupting a journalist to correct a basic comment about liability claims.
Lubchenco has no responsibility to represent BP’s interests, so why is she doing that?
So she in a sense agrees with the CEO of BP that said in relation to the size of the oceans the spill is really a tiny event.
It is The Obama Oil Spill. Now it is the Obama Coverup and Conspiracy to protect Oil Companies and their pollution. Incredible.
I have been worried since about the second day that this was going to go worldwide. This could not only turn the Gulf into a dead area, but wipe out the coral reefs in the Florida Keys. If they don’t get this shut down by the end of the week, it could start to wipe out ocean life in all of the oceans. This is not a small blip that will be cleaned up shortly or have no lasting effects. obamarahma and his crew blew it by continuing the lazy non-regulation of the people they were supposed to be regulating; he and his people are hoping that if they can contain the bad news and keep the scientists from speaking, the whole thing will go away.
I was stunned listening to that interview on PBS. I was hoping she was a Bush era holdover because her effort to minimize the damage of the spill was obvious. How discouraging to find out she’s an Obama appointee- more disappointment from our not-so-fearless leader! I saw an interview on Fox (only because it was Shepard Smith would I have paused to listen)from an expert advising that the well should be closed immediately with an explosion, leaving BP with millions in losses but putting a stop to the gushing oil. He asked for intervention by Obama since BP is still trying to salvage something from this mess rather than shut it down. No such interview on CNN or PBS as far as I know.
Corporate pre-emption
What has happened here is that, in this emergency that requires unitary decision-making and action, BP has asserted its sovereign right to pre-empt the actions of the US government. That NOAA research team was a clear and present danger to corporate security, and had to be silenced. They’e lucky that BP held off on suspending their habeas corpus rights.
Amen!
Might have well have done so, I sincerely doubt we’ll be hearing from them again.
Calling David Copperfield make it disappear.
The transparency we were looking for in Government is instead a transparent fraud brought and owned by the big guys, actually he was hired by the big guys.
Is there another rig drilling in deeper water as we write?
If so does it have every permit and are the logs and safety tests up to date?
Is there an inspector on board to monitor our lease parameters i.e allowable depths?
If there is anything missing why isn’t the rig shut down until compliance since we can’t debate drilling in waters to deep for our subs to operate in?
Actually there is another rig drilling even deeper about 100 mi south of the one flowing. I think it is called Atlantic. Whistleblowers have been issuing warnings about similar inadequate safety precautions. So far no one seems to have noticed. I don’t have links at this moment but I heard it on MSNBC, I believe Maddow.
Anderson Cooper gave quite powerful critique of all involved, especially questioning the government shutting out the scientists etc. last night on CNN.
It’s Atlantis, and Jason Leopold first broke that story.
Thanks.
That’s a big wow . . . great link, thanks, missed it first time around!
And great post, too, thanks for all you do Jim . .
Why is it still running??????????????
Run by BPobama no less !!!!!!
Don’t you worry your pretty little head over such details. The oil corps are good people and our President is a fine man. Now please go out and buy lots of plastic crap, a brand new SUV, a 4000 sq ft house you can’t afford with a 2 acre lot serviced by chem-lawn, and lots of petroleum-based fertilized, mono-cultured, proprietary genetically coded, agricultural products. Oh yeah, and support our poor President’s inherited war based on oil hegemony. He’s all about hope, change AND transparency, you know, so cut him some slack: he’s only half way through his term and progress must be measured in microns.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Lubchenco
Of course! BP told them to STFU and that’s who they work for. Them and the rest of the large corporations.
That’s my thought as well. Goldman, which runs the world now, stepped in for their good friends at BP.
This morning on MSNBC, the bubble-headed bleach blonde announced concern the FL’s tourism would “suffer”. MONEY, ya know? So, expect MUCH less “reporting” on this.
Who cares about destroying the Gulf anyway? It’s just a @!$%! body of water!
In China, if a CEO ruins something, they take him out and shoot him. doesn’t sound quite so extreme now, does it?
But in America, turn the earth to sand and still commit no crime _ Moody Blues
Joe Romm, at Climate Progress, writes on the possible effects of using dispersants underwater.
http://climateprogress.org/2010/05/06/bp-dispersants-toxic-corexit-nalco/
Jane Lubchenko’s comments to NPR are irresponsible because she has no way of knowing how much oil has gushed out, how much is continuing to gush out, and when the gusher will stop. BP isn’t allowing scientists access to the well head on the bottom to measure the rate of flow and our worthless president appears to be letting BP call the shots. His mystery team of “top” scientists includes a global warming denier, and that tells me the other three must be Dr. Larry, Dr. Moe, and Dr. Curley who are looking for oil in all the wrong places and can’t find the Gulf of Mexico on a map.
Looks like a massive BP coverup is underway and Obama and Lubchenko are part of it.
Dr Lubchenco is a widely respected scientist. She is considered by many in the environmental community to be one of the smartest appointments Obama made.
It’s hard to jibe her sterling professional reputation with what looks like political hackiness.
She has either sold out (contradicted by her professional life up until now), is hedging until she sees harder data or it’s much worse than we have imagined and they’re massaging the message.
I think she’s following orders to kill this story so Obama has a chance to save his POS climate bill and his presidency.
I’d like to think a woman with her established integrity would quit rather than lie on behalf of the administration. However, perhaps she sees climate change legislation as worth the price. Faustian.
My guess is the only part of the climate bill they really want it the carbon credit exchange because it would be money maker for Wall Street. Since BP is currently capped for $75 million in damages by law the lawyers are going to have to go for the only obvious target left. MMS irresponsibly and malfeasance. Which is why Team Obama, like any good profit minded corporation, has asked for $10 million to lawyer-up. The more they say now the more that information can be used against them later.
Kind of like the good folks at BP.
She is a widely respected scientist and it would surprise me greatly if she had sold out. Some interesting trivia: She attended the same undergrad. school as Ken Salazar. One of her daughters attended CC with Ken Salazar.
Not to cast aspersions on anyone (perhaps in this context that should be “not to cast dispersants on anyone”), but merely to relay my experience, don’t confuse “selling out” with not necessarily knowing how to respond to intense political pressure.
I’ve been involved in big government science where after the findings the word came down from high up in D.C. to change the conclusions (the event in question probably affected everyone reading this). To the scientists involved, the idea that politicians could demand that scientific results be changed (along with the requirement that this change also be defended by the scientists) was shocking and upsetting. It lead to a lot of soul-searching for those involved. In the end, the scientists unhappily gave in to the politicians and the military.
I recount that story because I think rather than simply polarizing into two camps, one that trusts scientists to stand up and do the right thing, and the other that sees them as sellouts, there’s a more adult view that understands most scientists are scientists and not professional politicians. They don’t necessarily have the experience of playing these games at this level of intensity. And so, given the choice between shutting up or losing their entire career (a choice which affects not just them but their families), many people simply blink.
It is regrettable. And of course we out here are responsible for it, in that it’s our elected (heh!) representatives who are applying such pressure. So we need to work to change things rather than just complain about the weakness of those at the affect of our own weakness.
But I think that, at least in situations such as this one, seeing people as either “sell outs” or “not sell outs” misses the complexity and difficulty of the problem.
That someone isn’t necessarily willing to sacrifice their (professional) life, for whatever the cause du jour, isn’t always a moral failing.
Sometimes it’s just the horrible price of being human in the society we’ve created.
Absolutely. What we need to understand here is this catastrophe is not an environmental one, rather, it is one of mis-managed public relations. All we need to do is down-play any real deleterous effects and promote the competency of our President to handle any similar event. That way, as a larger organism, we are more cohesive and able to absorb these types of stresses to our collective psyche. If the truth were to become pervasive, who knows what would happen?
See? I think I’m getting the hang of the dark-side thing.
Dude, the minute those “scientists” changed their results, they DID sacrifice their careers; if not because the truth might not ever be made public, then because they themselves will know their career is a LIE.
It’s rarely as simple as your comments would have it seem.
The demand is almost never to directly falsify results.
The demand is to change how those results are interpreted.
True…just like “the banality of evil”, there’s usually a whole lot less drama in the request than might be imagined.
Regardless, I just don’t understand how the head of NOAA can get out there, stand behind a 5000 barrel/day number when the following are incontrovertibly true:
~~5000 estimate was based on surface methodology for static surface spills and specifically not appropriate for sub-surface spills.
~~This gusher is deep below the surface and release would come up through the water column.
~~Dispersants are being injected directly into the leak at depth.
~~Dispersants operate by entraining oil into water and prevent slick formation.
It’s remarkable to have a “scientist” come out and seek to discredit the Pelican info while still backing this 5000 number as their best guess…on the basis that preliminary findings haven’t been verified. As far as I am concerned, the 5000 barrel/day number has been *proven* wrong as a number as has the calculation methodology (as applied to this situation).
Finally, BP (and it would now seem gov/NOAA) imply that knowing the approximate amount of leak flow isn’t helpful information.
But without that flow info, how can they create their projections of where the oil will go? How can they calculate the rate at which they should inject their dispersant? How can the calculate the conditions inside the pipe they are trying to siphon/plug/cap? …
Gotta disagree, drama or no, these are smart people.
I would say, to rebut EV, the situations are rarely as complicated as people would like to believe they are. That argument is a defense mechanism to justify turning “soul-searching” into a cost-benefit analysis. I guess the abyss does stare back. That’s probably Obama’s excuse too.
Spartakus, thank you for this:
“Finally, BP (and it would now seem, Gov/NOAA) imply that knowing the approximate leak flow isn’t helpful information. But without that flow info, how can they create their projections of where the oil will go? How can they calculate the rate at which they inject their dispersant?”
Thassit; which is why I’ve been going off on SeymourFriendly for saying, repeatedly, that the amount of the gusher is irrelevant.
It’s abject nonsense.
Of course the best use of getting them to say how bad it is, is that it proves what meretricious liars they are, when we find out the truth; that it’s far worse…and then we can give even less credence to their self-serving bullshit.
(Don’t forget, three days after the explosion, the Coast Guard spokeswoman, Rear Admiral Mary Landry, was saying that no oil was leaking out of the wellhead.)
It’s easy to understand. Has there ever been a moment or an event in your life when because of your own preferences to want life to be a certain way you didn’t see things clearly and objectively? A boss you didn’t judge objectively? A lover? A president?
The head of NOAA is behaving no differently than the Obama supporters who believed their own hopes – in the face of the evidence that even long before the election was incontrovertibly true.
That doesn’t mean it’s OK, or should be allowed to continue.
But the only way to get this to stop is to look for where we each do it ourselves and stop that.
NOAA and BP are just doing now what all the Obama supporters did in 2008.
They just inserted a catheter into the pipe and they don’t have an accurate (plus or minus 10%) estimate on the rate of flow?
People are being told to lie. They are lying. They don’t care that they are lying. They are falling on their swords. They are lackeys. They are not working toward fixing this problem, they are working on creating an illusion.
Plus, as of today BP is saying they are sucking up 40% of the leaking oil through the tube. Really? How can they make such a statement? First they said they didn’t know how much was leaking, that there was no way to know. Then they said, OK, 1000 barrels a day. Then that turned into 5000, which BP is sticking by even though oceanic scientists took one look at that film and said 1) yes you can know, in fact we’ll be glad to come out and do measurements for you, and 2) it’s likely 50,000 or even as much as 70,000 barrels per day.
How can they say they are containing 40% of the leaks on the one hand and on the other say, “It doesn’t matter how much is leaking?” It does matter, obviously. 40% of 5,000 is 2,000 barrels. But if the real rate of leak is 70,000 per day, then what they are containing is more like 2%, not 40%.
I’ve been searching today for any current info and all I can find online or anywhere is, “Good news, 40% contained and it’ll be all better by August.” Clearly a BP press release, clearly spin.
Really? Nothing to see here, move along? Seriously? Don’t they realize that when they black out information like this it just makes people freak out even worse? How in the name of Ford can as much as perhaps 70,000 barrels of oil PER DAY be gushing into the Gulf day and yet it is not be the worst corporate disaster ever, not the top news story, not even still an issue already???
When they tamp down info like this I start to get both frightened and very, very angry. Why are the restricting access to information? What are they fearing will happen if the public gets accurate information? What are they hiding? We already know they are lying so what else are they hiding?
Exactly!
The first story I read said 20%. Now they claim it’s 40%, but they still claim they don’t know the gusher’s rate of flow.
Yah, sure. You betcha.
This is exactly why you have the concept of tenure. So that researchers have the security to state their results without being completely subject to getting their chain yanked. Of course, salary and an office doesn’t cover grant money.
Yes. Well said. The decision for the scientists is “will my striving to tell the truth be useful or a wasted career”? One cannot expect a lone voice to appear without some expectation of being taken seriously.
It’s always easier to projectively blame others for not exhibiting the courage we ourselves have not.
One man with courage is a majority.
Thomas Jefferson
And how would you describe those who sit in safety and pass judgment on whether others have acted with sufficient courage?
.
“The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.”
Thomas Jefferson
I don’t know about you, but I was much braver before I became a parent.
Having children gives hostages to the enemy.
Sitting in safety? Few of us are sitting in safety. As far as passing judgement goes, one’s own judgements are usually much harsher than those passed by anyone else (see suicide rates wrt the military). We agree there’s disinformation. I advocate stopping it by calling defending it wrong. You promote it by inferring “What’s an eco-system when compared to my salary and health insurance” is a legitimate excuse to hide under a rock.
I am not trying to be nasty but what are you doing? I need some direction here.
The word that comes to my mind is over-over-rationalization
I’m not sure what you’re asking, and thus what kind of answer to give you. I’m happy to respond specifically if you can give me a little guidance about what you want to know.
I am not intending to blame anyone, especially one with no power. I am only describing the human condition.
The world of black hats and white hats only exists in the movies and such imaginings..
I wasn’t suggesting you were, and I’m sorry if you took it that way. (I generally agree with your comment about simple dichotomies as well.)
I was using your very earlier insightful comment to point out the human tendency to project one’s self-judgment onto others, rather than accept some measure of personal responsibility for the problem in question.
In this specific case, it was the tendency to criticize the scientists at various institutions for not being courageous enough, using these scientists as the convenient scapegoat for all the places we ourselves have chosen not to be as brave as we might otherwise wish.
I’ve found your comments here to be insightful and clear, and again I apologize that the limitations and ambiguities of my attempts in this forum had you think anything else.
More likely she was pressured, leveraged and threatened.
It’s how this stuff gets done, even with the most RESPONSIBLE of professionals.
The pressure is enough to destroy lives, careers, families.
It’s how the bad guys roll, and the bad guys are in the corps and in elected office, and in agencies and in appointments.
I think you have nailed it. I have no doubt the government is responsible for this massive cover up.
The global warming denier is off the team. Should not have been on the team to begin with, however.
Meet the new boss
WORSE than the old boss….
Yep.
All the hope and excitement of Inaugural Day seems long, long, ago.
If you remove Mr. BP you wind up with Mr. DuPont, great just great.
It’s hard to believe that a straightforward desire for the truth to come out is behind those sorts of statements, the squelching of comment by the Pelican scientists and the fact that there are *still* no further updates to estimates of spill rate than the April 28 estimate of 5000 barrels/day based on surface characteristics. So, the official word from NOAA is 5000 barrels/day. Where’s the science behind that one stand at this point?
The unified response center most recent spill fact sheet has zero information about spill rate, but it does talk a lot about # of responding vessels, gallons of dispersant, # volunteers, quantity of oily water recovered…none of that has any meaning if you don’t have a quantity of spilled oil that you are addressing.
To see a “scientific” agency get up and state spill volume estimate (admitted a preliminary number, but that’s what science is, your current best estimate) based only on surface numbers when a major part of your response effort involves subsurface injection of large quantities of despersant is seriously misleading. The *whole point* of dispersant use is to keep the oil from forming surface slicks.
These clowns act like they own the ocean. Yet another measure of their intellectual scope, they are apparently convinced this is something you can cover up like an affair with the babysitter.
So much for Orahma’s eleven-dimensional intellect.
Personally I think it is less political than fear and ignorance. The potential devastation this thing represents is almost incomprehensible and no one knows how to stop it. So they hope to keep it invisible as long as possible.
The results of smaller government is evident in spades here. We have no coherent science and environment organizations, much less policy and know how; leaving it to masters of the free market BP who is rejecting help from other corporations. And the sister corporations providing the detergent who will not reveal the formula for because it is “proprietary information”
The invisible hand is giving the planet a finger.
Smaller gov? I’ve never seen it so big nor so in hand with The Corporation.
Seems more likely, larger government playing musical chairs with corporate jobs in the wings.
As for the detergent, we are being obliged to believe that the government cannot find this out, which is clearly ludicrous. The answer is of course that the parties involved, corporate and government, prefer to keep the great unwashed blissfully oblivious.
Pouring boatloads of chemicals into the worlds oceans can never be proprietary unless the corporations now own them all.
Don’t be silly, the corporations can’t own the OCEANS, just anything of any value that can be extracted from them. The rest is detritus.
What you say is I think is largely true. There is bloat in the money side. But the reality is the government science agencies have been defunded into oblivion. It is smaller government. Bloated patornage.
Problem is:
If/when massive amounts of oil begin drenching shorelines, and large numbers of dead fish, reptiles, and marine mammals begin showing up dead or crippled, it won’t be invisible, and,
If there is any sense of cover-up after massive shoreline destruction and fish and animal death from this oil volcano, this truly will be Obama’s Katrina. Even if he gains a second term he will be, functionally, a lame duck for four years.
I hope you are right.
But I am thinking it may be possible that they keep much of the death at or near the bottom of the Gulf as well as chunks of oil. That is why they are pouring in the detergent. Fish killed by detergent sink. And the reefs are the most sensitive to the oil and dispersants and are largely not visible. I personally think the science community should be exerting more effort to stop the use of these detergents. Let the oil and the death come to the surface. Then we can skim or burn much of it off and — most important — see the extent of the death.
This seems like a stall tactic they hope most of the oil settles at the bottom of the ocean they do not want to feed the story with numbers and pictures.
The oil company and WH Public Relations People, Lawyers and Accountants don’t seem to realize that out of site and mind does not solve the problem.
In fact as the lies are unraveled and the truth comes out much like the war on drugs the government will lose its Cred.
The government will lose its cred?
Thanks for the laugh.
I wonder what Obama sees when he looks in a mirror.
I’m guessing his corporate sponsors and their associated logos.
Loki?
I see Smigel.
http://oneyearbibleimages.com/gollum.jpg
Does that make Rahm Sauron?
An old adage that that keeps coming to mind: Don’t shit where you eat.
Jim, The dispersant that BP is utilizing at the source of the leaks by injecting it (which is preventing the crude from rising to the surface), at the floor of the Gulf are only approximately 50% effective and I believe that effectiveness was measured at 70-80 degree water temp range not at the 35 degree temp (approx) on the Gulf floor.
I have contacted three US government/education research organizations and all have stated that the affects and effectiveness of the dispersant are unknown.
I phoned the EPA to inquire about toxicity at the 5000 ft submerged level. The EPA provided BP’s phone number. Stated all questions should be directed to BP.
FWIW
Sure looks like BP has the lead on this information op, doesn’t it?
Surely does Jim. Thanks for the piece!
In times of ambiguity always defer to the PR people at corporate headquarters.
Liberty, good post.
Could anything be more telling of the shit that we’re in, that the EPA refers questions about the chemicals that BP is using to try to get the oil out of sight, to BP, itself?
Most frustrating and depressing. From a Managerial and Technical observation, Lisa Jackson was a great pick for EPA. She’s an accomplished experienced Chemical Engineer for gosh darn sakes.
From her website: Administrator Lisa P. Jackson leads EPA’s efforts to protect the health and environment for all Americans here
The collusion between W.H. and the Agencies during this incident is beyond manifest.
I’d like every member of congress to setup a nice looking functional salt water aquarium, in their D.C. offices. Then add a a tablespoon of Gulf Crude to it. Leave it sit for a week and observe WTF happens.
Oh, let’s put one in the Oval Office also.
Jim,
Thank you for this important post.
Jane,
If I recall you have some contacts in Hollywood… Might you be able to pull together the following environmentally concerned to buy this group a research vessel?
DiCaprio, Diaz, Redford, Blanchett, Hanks, Pitt, Dillion, Theron, Damon, Roberts, Clooney, Begley, Norton, Hannah, Louis-Dryfus, Ferrell…
This is a global concern of immense proportions.
If these plumes have caught the loop current, even the Atlantic coast tourism will be ruined. This will cause environmental and economic destruction worse than the financial meltdown.
I called Senator Bill Nelson’s Washington office this morning and fed two questions for him to ask Lubchenco in today’s hearing:
1. When the research team was told to stop talking to the press, was this to allow more time for analysis or to stop the spread of damaging information?
2. What is NOAA doing to obtain more research vessel time in the very near future for the team to continue their vital work of mapping and characterizing the subsurface plumes?
If he asks those questions, we’ll try to get video posted quickly.
An appeal to Richard Branson might be another good idea.
Especially since:
Here’s a better question:
WTF do hearings accomplish? Has anything of any consequence come out of ANY hearing we’ve seen in the last twenty years? What happens to the BS artists after they’ve successfully and unabashedly shown their absolute contempt for what those “hearings” are supposed to represent? Our time might be just as well spent watching a Punch and Judy puppet show.
I’m sorry I’m so jaded, but man, is there any justice left in this country?
Government hearings have been incredibly effective – when one understands that the purpose of hearings is to present the appearance of taking action as a means of protecting the guilty and preventing any real change.
I’ve just been seeing it through the wrong lens the entire time!
Now I understand, I just need to embrace the dark side. I feel a calling to run for office.
Human behavior and this disastrous oil spill are very much the same – one can effectively protect the larger environment only when one stops believing one’s own self-defensive PR and starts being willing to see the truth.
I fear that the unknown is not If but when.
Oil slick enters Gulf loop current, tar balls found in Florida Keys
while The chief executive of BP tells Sky News he believes the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill will end up having only a “very, very modest” environmental impact.
I meant that “if” as in “when” or “if it has,” then… Not “if it will”.
Research universities are free to do research and report their findings free from government interference. LSU Professor Ivor van Heerden Files Wrongful Termination Lawsuit Against LSU and University Officials for Campaign of Retaliation for Criticizing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Following Hurricane KatrinaAnother myth proved wrong. It looks more and more like this spill could become Obama’s Katrina.
And don’t forget
Professorformer Prof. Rick Steiner in Alaska, whose money came from and then was pulled by NOAA/NMFS, simply for predicting Shell Oil drilling platforms in Bristol Bay might lead to a leak or spill (imagine that!). Rick has been down in the Gulf, helping Riki Ott.I tried to meet with Dr. Lubchenco last August, while she was in Alaska. Her staff foiled me. I did manage to read a scathing letter to her and Obama’s Ocean Task Force, whose mission was totally at odds with how Obama’s NOAA people are handling this spill/leak.
This isn’t Obama’s Katrina.
This is Obama’s Chernobyl.
I never thought I’d have any interesting stories to tell my grandkids, if I ever have them. Now I know I’ll be able to tell them about the good old days, when beaches were for swimming and public congregation instead of being toxic wastelands and industrial dumping grounds.
Just a comment over a@ the oil drum “the pressure down there is equal to the pressure of working on the surface of Venus.”
It’s a whole different world down there where none of the rules up here apply.
Oh my, there’s ire within the ranks.
They haven’t even done the overhaul and the bosses are disappointed already.
As the regulars on here know, I’ve been arguing with Seymour (mainly) about his take on the GOM gusher and it’s effects.
When he went after the researchers who first published their findings about the plume, questioning their science and, in effect, saying that they were grant-whoring with sensationalized data, I thought that was really wrong, coming from someone who’s spent a lot of post time telling us that we didn’t have and didn’t NEED hard info about the amount of oil going into the gulf.
The researchers who released the info about the plumes are part of the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology; hereafter, NIUST.
They have offices, or are affiliated with, the University of Mississippi and The University of Southern Mississippi.
Here’s their website:
http://www.niust.org/
As you can see, there’s a list of some of their personnel, including their executive director, Dr. Raymond Highsmith, as well as some of their researchers, including Dr. Vernon Asper, as mentioned in Jim’s thread.
Asper, and one of his co-researchers, Dr. Arne Diercks, have written a report on the NIUST site about the research they did on the plumes. You can access it by clicking on the “Oil spill updates” link in the upper right corner.
Right here, I’d like to make two points. Read the report by Asper and Diercks. Seymour talked about the passion and integrity of some of HIS scientist friends at NOAA. If they are any more enthusiastic and passionate about their work than Dr. Asper and Dr. Diercks, etc., WERE, then they are indeed very committed.
Secondly, you might want to file the site, since the way this is going, the report on their sampling for evidence of the plumes might be taken down rather soon.
There is a more that I got involved in, but I don’t want to get anyone I talked to in any trouble, but in my opinion, these people have had their leash yanked on, big time.
I want to say again, that this fight is just beginning. BP and their supporters, up to and including the Obama administration, may be able to keep the photos and clips of dead and dying animals, and of fouled Gulf Coast beaches, off the evening news by using huge amounts of untested chemicals to break the oil down enough to keep the surface effects to a minimum, but it’s still right there, and it, along with the chemicals used on it, are a witch’s brew, environmentally, and the only people we can rely on are the academics and oceanographers at coastal universities, to do the un-bought science that will tell us what’s happening.
The situation with NIUST is just the surfacing tip of a very large iceberg, in terms of the efforts of corporate interests, including our own government, to suppress the truth about this disaster, especially, in the long term.
Just in
Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that an oil slick on your glass of drinking water is not really a health hazard, you just need to penetrate it with a straw to get your drink.
Jim, got a direct email addy for yourself? You won’t be bored.
You have mail.
Got it, Jim. Thanks. :o)
Klynn @44; the “research vessel” lack isn’t the problem.
If the people at NIUST want to keep their jobs (and who can blame them for doing that, these days?) I expect they won’t be going back out for any more sampling, unless the results of it are already determined, to the satisfaction of BP and NOAA.
I suspect a billionaire such as Branson could cover the amount of the research grant and the University could give the gov their $$$ back with the research moving forward on private funds.
Llynn, that would be a good thing, as Martha says.
But I have my doubts that it will happen.
NIUST is funded, at least in part, through NOAA. As I said, and NYT reports, they have had one hell of a yank on their chain.
God, for a whistle-blower that might have caught the conversation between NOAA and NIUST. :o)
I understand. However, if no asks Branson or the others I named above at 44 then no will ever know if their response would be “yes” or “no” in terms of lending $$$ support.
The best they could say is, “Yes we’ll get you a boat and fund you.” The worst they could say is, “No.”
It never hurts to ask. A “No,” simply has us where we are currently.
Remember that NOAA is under Commerce. The word to STFU is most certainly simply flowing through the D.C. Loop Current.
When one starts to look at how the US Government arranges its scientific agencies, literally making science subservient to commerce, the government’s behavior in general and in this disaster specifically becomes quite predictable.
Cover up,cover up you say? why,I don’t believe it,not this WH.
Yeah riiight.This guy is just like the last guy.
They all try to hide their incompetence.
But what has startled me,Is to see people who call ‘emselves progressives in the media try to make excuses for the Prez.Like Ed Shultz,on why the WH has not done diddly since Obama became Prez about moving away from oil consumption,”He has a lot on his plate”.
Maybe he(Obama) shouldn’t be trying to escalate 2 wars,force Americans into servitude of Corporations(Pharma,Health & Wall street),dismantle Miranda rights & continue to spy on Americans.
McGarth, you put your finger on the real problem. It aint Palin-Limbaught-Beck, inc.; who have the power to do something about this; it’s the guy whom we sent to the White House, and the jellyfish herd of democrats with some of the largest dem majorities since FDR.
The asshats with drool coming off their chins are a clown circus.
Obama & Co. have turned out to be a political toxic spill, themselves.
Related:
Deepwater Horizon Springs Another Leak; Scott Horton; 5/18/10
[...] An alert creditor would take action to block Transocean’s efforts to move its assets out of reach. The question is whether the United States is capable of acting like an alert creditor.
just imagine how big a payout the TransOcean execs would get – wonder what their individual stock holdings are. outrageous!
But it also suggests they may well believe the company is going to sink under the costs of their obligations to clean-up and make amends.
“All the hope and excitement of inaugural day seems long, long, ago.”
Jesus, that cuts like a knife. Too true…too poignant.
It was a grand occasion. Poof.
Yep. Brigadoon, or something. :o(
You know, if someone on that research crew wanted to do the right thing; the thing that do the most toward illuminating this and getting to the truth of just what is happening to the GOM, they could be a whistle-blower that wouldn’t whoa, and come forth with how NOAA has shut this down. It would have to be someone high up enough on the team, to be privvy to the actual “message from the Godfather”, and with the credibility to be believed, when they exposed this Mafia coverup.
Diogenes! Over HERE! :o)
EV, with all due respect, Obama was clearly the best of a sorry lot.
McCain was out of the question, as a Bush clone.
Hillary had long since revealed herself as a warpimp for Bush, and with her triangulating tactics of racism and sucking up to the right wing, it made plenty of sense to support a candidate who still looked and sounded like a progressive, as Obama did.
No, we did our part, in putting him in the White House. There is no way we could have known that all of his talk about the changes we need, and all of the hope he engendered, were just so much political dross.
Next time, I think we should practically get in writing what we expect from a candidate, before we support them.
The question was how could people deny the obvious; this illustrates it.
At the time the unabashed cheerleading for Obama certainly didn’t portray him as “the best of a sorry lot.”
Had people been more willing to see things clearly and not give in to their own unfounded hopes (again, the same thing NOAA and BP are rightly castigated for doing now), perhaps we wouldn’t have had to choose from such a sorry lot.
I even take issue with the idea that Obama was “the best of a sorry lot.” I’d say even that is a baseless rationalization. While I’ve written a lot on McCain’s (for example) unsuitability as a leader, it’s also a plausible argument that were someone so unfit appointed President then the resulting stagnation in government would actually be relative progress.
Again (and I say this respectfully, not judgmentally), that’s completely and totally self-defensive rationalization. It’s just like Bush and his supporters claiming they couldn’t have known Iraq didn’t have any WMD’s.
I can say this because I and many others were both saying and writing about Obama’s real nature long before the election.
Those statements and calls to see the truth were met, just like warnings about Bush and Iraq in 2003, with emotional denial and even violent hostility.
So it’s simply false “there is no way we could have known.”
The more truthful and honorable admission would be “We chose not to believe…”
I recall a lot of talking, I don’t recall a lot of evidentiary proofing.
Show me the links. Surely you kept your diaries, have a log or bookmark of threads with your comments. With proof of what you claim you said Obama was.
It just occurred to me that Obama could replace the homophobic global warming denier on his super scientist team with the dude in a German jail whom McChrystal chose to be the mayor of Marja’s government in a box. That gig didn’t work out very well for him since the Taliban is back in charge.
Anybody know Obama’s phone number?
How bad are things when the President of the United States conspires with a foreign corporation to cover-up its misconduct that caused the death of 11 American citizens and its ongoing infliction of incomprehensible environmental damage to the Gulf of Mexico?
We have to impeach him to save what’s left of the country.
Speaking of passing judgments, the people who built this pipe know exactly how much oil is coming out of it. To hint otherwise is absolute horse crap. The engineers who designed it know. They’ve known since the twentienth of April.
That’s a month now.
Some bunch of invisible conference room deities (not that I’m judgemental, mind you) actively decided to try and salvage an investment and RISK the health of the gulf by not collapsing this well. THEY weighed the risks and decided the coarse of action. Mr. Obama, who is in charge here? Who’s doing a heckuva job? Not you.
So who is the ‘Denier’ that’s off the ‘team’ anyhow? I’m sick to death of circle-jerks that won’t say anything new because it violates the frame.Is there intelligent life on this planet that can tell when coverage is being channeled in predirected spin because you have Political Correctness on the one side, corporate bullshit on the other… and the truth is from neither !
Just like reporting on anything else : Imaginary World.
He’s an astrophysicist named Pratt or Platt, something like that. He’s at Washington University in St. Louis, I think.
The NIUST group is composed of oceanographers and they were doing a fine job. BP and Obama didn’t like the truth so they hired a . . . homophobic global warming denier astrophysicist?
That makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?
Must be another example of that fabled bipartisanship thingy.
Well looking at the lastest released
under duressvideos (all over the place now, but also conveniently up here at Michael Whitney’s FDL post), looking at all that excess oil billowing out, it’s hard to accept a 40% or even 20% siphon rate.I see two competing narratives.
Narrative 1. Oil is leaking at 5000 barrels/day; the slick is mostly on top of the ocean and has not entered the loop current; and the 20 tarballs the coast guard found on the Florida coast came from something other than the BP leak.
Narrative 2. Oil is gushing at a rate that’s an order of ten larger than than the official 5000 barrels/day estimate; most of the oil is at various levels of the water column, and only a small fraction has made it to the surface; the tarballs found by the coast guard off the coast of Florida are from the BP spill, having travelled there below the surface in the loop current.
I’d take some pretty serious odds that Narrative 2 is closer to the truth. If so, then any reticence to believe this thing is going to stay in the gulf and not impact the keys, the coral reefs, and the east coast of Fl, GA, and SC would appear to be an exercise in denialism or message control.
Can someone tell me why BP et al. have not fielded more ships like the one at the end of their 2000 barrel/day straw sucking up as much of the slick as possible, separating the oil/goup from the water, and filling tankers with the oil? Compared to the cost of the inevitable impact the oil will have if not contained and removed, seems like a large scale (10 or so ships feeding an equal number of tankers) effort would be much less expensive. Why hasn’t Obama forced this to happen? I’m not learned in the art–there might be a perfectly plausible reason why this is impractical–but I haven’t heard or seen this discussed in any of the media I’ve run across thus far. It seems like a reasonable question to me.
After a bit more research I found that this effort is ongoing. From today’s press release from the The Ongoing Administration-Wide Response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill:
Wouldn’t it be nice to know how much of that 7.6 million gallons (~181k barrels) is oil and how much is water? Then we could compare it to how much oil has gushed and calculate how effective this response has been thus far. But we’d have to know the rate at which oil is being released, which BP says there is no need to measure, because it’s 5000 barrels/day. Trust them.
257 some miles of containment boom, for a coast line of FL to South Texas, or a square mile area of oil ON the surface of a LOT of square miles, many, many many square miles, from the source to Texas up north to east Florida . . .
Well, let’s just say that 257 miles is, a speck. A microscopic speck.
Hilarious reporting, isn’t it . . . it’s not even good PR for that matter . . . this admin continues to sink like crude oil soaked in Corexit 9500.
Well, my biggest fear–which I’m stuck with since we can’t get at as much accurate information as we deserve–is that the reason info is being suppressed is that narrative # 2 (that is, huge leak with oil at many levels under the water as well as on the surface) is the correct one and that it’s so bad that they fear releasing accurate assessments of how bad would result in civil unrest on a massive scale.
People are already pretty mad about a lot of different things, left, right, and in between. Another Katrina or worse could delegitimate this government. And I voted for Obama. And gave money. And volunteered and so on.
But this is crap.
I think you are right about how bad they believe it to be and their fears. Massive damage is going to be done which cannot be prevented and their aim is to hide the extent.
Read the history of the cover up of the extent of Chernobyl deaths. The official count is 56! (including 9 children from thyroid cancer.
I found this:
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/05/why-bp-wont-measure-the-oil-spill/56848/
She makes the same point–that BP is hoping that by adding chemical dispersants that keep the slick below the surface the real extent of the damage will not be seen or remembered.
Dear Barack,
We are pleased to offer you our services in the interest of containing the perimeter of the gulf oil leak. You’ll find we have quite the record of intimidating and otherwise keeping out pesky teams of reporters and researchers and such. We are on stand-by and have actually taken the initiative of flying down several experienced teams.
Sincerely,
BlackwaterXePS The Cheneymeister says to say Hi
Ha ha! Good one, hot dog!
Right, and the conspiracy theorists really believe the government will be able to cover-up all of the alleged environmental damage. The last I heard, it was going to take some TIME for the analysis of the data. Science is not a video game with instant results. Seems some folk here have forgotten that.
Science may not be a video game, but PR sure as hell is.
In response to aardvark@123
Data my ass. Pipe diameter, pressure differential, viscosity and oh yeah, how much flow were we getting before the explosion?
There’s your data. Now mix that with hundreds of thousands of gallons of detergent.
Alleged damage? If a tree falls on your head in the forest and nobody else was there, would it hurt?
BTW, the government isn’t trying to cover up any damage to the environment, they’re much more interested in the damage to their image of being an agency of competency and trust. MAJOR FAIL.
If you are a rational person, you simply cannot presume damage inevitable until it happens. You can infer it most likely, and take the preventive steps which seems reasonable, and indeed hope for the best. The point is that all of the doom and gloom forsayers may well be right; I just don’t think we have enough information to draw any conclusions about what will happen as to what might happen.
One of the few times I went on spring break was to Padre Island in 1974. I was truly amazed at the number of three or four inch diameter globs of congealed oil lying on the beach.
Brilliant retort!
Thanks you.
AA is a known agitator on any side of any issue.
Pressure the stockholders…of which the majority is owned by none other than…The Queen of England.
Here’s Vid Of Coast Guard/BP/CBS Camera Crew
Someone else mentioned it, I asked for linky, I found linky.
As was said by someone in comments somewhere today, since when did fucking BP have sovereign control of US Property? My question is why the reporter and crew didn’t challenge the Coast Guard crew regarding their assertion that they COULD arrest the crew . . . get THAT on the camera and roll for 6pm news!
I wonder if that island near Venice, LA is privately owned or not . . . but I HAVE to believe the Coast Guard does NOT have the right to arrest citizens because BP Contractors tells them to, not on OUR US property.
Some thing stinks here, and it ain’t the oil, tar or gas.
Didn’t President Hopey Changey once say what a fierce advocate he was for transparency? No . . . wait . . . that was for LGBT rights. Or was he fiercely arguing that he would close Gitmo? Hmmmmm, or maybe he was fierce in his intention to stop torture. Or, wasn’t it Obama that was fiercely stating that it is a mistake to give up our civil rights in exchange for the illusion of security? And didn’t the fierce one say that a public option would be part of his health care plan? The guy is so fierce and principled that I can hardly stand it.