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While those who monitor the live feed of the oil spill are debating (see especially the comment thread for this diary by Mason) whether the flow worsened on Sunday, the sad reality of what Gulf residents now face is driven home by the fact that along with weather forecasts, forecasts of the oil spread are now a daily event. Television station WKRG in Mobile, Alabama now hosts the spill live web cam, but also is posting a daily "Oil Forecast". Here is the most recent:
Note especially how large the area inside the "uncertain" line is in the forecast. This zone seems to be taking on the shape of the Mississippi, Alabama and Florida coastlines it now threatens, and although it remains far offshore, extends well south of Tampa.
Here is a look at the live feed, also from WKRG:
wkrg_oil_spill on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free
As the oil continues to invade the marshes along the coast of Louisiana, wildlife rescue becomes a priority. The International Bird Rescue Research Center is claiming some success in cleaning oiled brown pelicans, and has posted this before and after photo on Flickr, with the caption "Before and After oiled Brown Pelican washed at the Fort Jackson, LA Oiled Wildlife Center. May 14, 2010":
28 Comments
You’d think this kind of forecast would be in the Onion.
Yes, but it just so sad to realize that this amounts to a death watch for the beaches and marshes. Once the oil comes ashore, those areas are dead.
So right Jim,they have destroyed the gulf for generations
The only thing the weather report can do is tell us where
next.It is incredibly tragic that 5000 Dolphins are having their calves
now!
Another piece of my heart, Jim.
Thanks for your update.
It’s now 9:25 Left Coast time and not a sign of what happened down there.
MonkeyFister, and Mason (diary at Seminal early on) got it.
But not a single phookin word about it all since.
And I got nothing but tears for the reality of the fishermen/women and those on shore suffering from something, and the obvious dead or dying species coming ashore.
Nothing but tears, fearing this is gonna get Much, Much Worse, still.
Sigh.
What do they do with the wildlife after the cleaning? It seems obvious they can’t just turn them loose to have it happen all over again. Can they?
Good question. I tried linking to the IBRRC website, but it asked for a password, so I assume they don’t have a public home page.
from a post of theirs (ibrrc) last week, I learned they have released some of the birds to a sancuary in florida….
Audubon FAQ
All part of the normalization of what should be a situation and a company greeted with all the hostility short of violence…
I read elsewhere that 110 species of nontropical migratory birds (including songbirds that we are all familiar with) make their way through the area now threatened by the spill, at exactly this time of year. That source said as many as twenty five million birds pass through the marshes every DAY.
There’s not enough Dawn dishwashing detergent on the planet, or trained volunteers, to de-gunk all those birds if they get fouled.
Teddy, I don’t have it at fingertip, but I read it’s thousands of species coming thru The Gulf, and millions of birds DAILY in migration or in propogation and migration.
My bro and his wife are birders. Been to Texas for spring birding,
Millions, upon millions of birds, of thousands of species.
As I’ve been told by them.
Welcome to my world (New Orleans)! At least the first twenty minutes (which includes a good portion of the weather forecast) is basically an update on the Oil Spill. It includes which fishing areas are now closed off and a ton of phone lines on where to report debris and dead animals. Where the oil spill is going. At least 10 minutes of ranting by local officials about their experiences with BP, the federal government, and the Coast Guard. Most of the commercials these days are from lawyers trying to get clients for the coming law suits.
If any one is interested, this is where I’m sending any of my friends and students that want to help or volunteer. I’ve also volunteered. Right now, we’re trying to clean the Atchafalaya basin of debris so there’s less chance it will hold oil.
http://www.lagulfresponse.org/
“In the wake of the BP Oil Spill that is threatening our coast, local, regional and national conservation organizations are coordinating volunteers to assist in local, state and federal recovery efforts in Louisiana.
Our organizations – including the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, the National Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Federation and The Nature Conservancy – are established, active advocates for the preservation and restoration of coastal Louisiana.
We are organizations with a history of on-the-ground work in Louisiana, and we are combining efforts and experience to implement an effective volunteer response and make a real difference in the BP Oil Spill recovery efforts.”
My heart goes out you folks who have been subjected to more federal government neglect in just a few years than most regions have had since becoming a part of the country. Local organizing of the response is clearly the best route–thanks so much for sharing that information with us. If you have the time, I’d encourage you to post a diary with that information and more of your descriptions of the local experience.
*weepsforyouandthemall*
And hopes.
I read somewhere that the average life expectancy of a de-oiled, released bird is 6 days. That aside, I agree: the shore areas that eventually become coated/engulfed by the spreading slick (and what about the plume?) will not be salvageable.
All the talk of ‘clean-up’ steams me, as if people really think human beings can fix any old mess they make by getting out there with money, elbow grease and industrial gadgets. As if we are all-powerful and can fix mother nature. Like those schemes to add iron filings to the ocean so it will absorb more of our waste CO2 from burning oil so we can live in denial of nature.
I think the ‘clean-up’ mantra is meant as a distraction from the deeply obvious fact that this is a giant ecological catastrophe which won’t be fixed, and will cause trillions in economic damage and displacement of large populations, for which there will be no effort made to fix these people’s lives and livelihoods. Instead, I wouldn’t doubt that TPTB take advantage of this to impose shock therapy to further enrich the oil companies, you know, to compensate them for the loss of this well. I think I read somewhere that the lease didn’t even require BP to pay royalties on this oil.
The technology to safely drill into this deep oil didn’t even exist 10 years ago, and apparently doesn’t exist now. I have a hunch that the amount of methane hydrates involved are way more than can be handled by the current technology, exerting pressure way higher than can be forced back in efforts to plug the well.
It’s scary to think that the oil companies will be permitted to drill in the Arctic ocean with no better technology , EISs or plans to mitigate disaster.
I don’t know if anyone else caught this at todays presser but the military dude said his airplanes are busy spraying dispersants. I am sure this is the same dispersant the EPA told BP to stop using. But the military, our military, is violating an EPA directive? WTF?
BP refused EPA’s order. See Marcy here. Don’t you get it? BP is in charge of everything…
I don’t understand why the Federal Gubmint hasn’t taken charge of this situation. Is it that we don’t have the equipment? The expertise?
I’m with you. I would have moved BP aside and brought in an all start team from their competitors very quickly.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/24/gulf-oil-spill-obama-admi_n_587681.html
This says it all because they can’t and won’t help
If the USAF IS spraying then there’s got to be some HUGE concern for human life forms on shore and out in the ocean.
Cuz that shit is toxic. CorecxIt 9500 and any of its cousins. Toxic.
I can’t FUCKING believe the USAF is aerial spraying?
If that’s true, then there’s a PR circus to keep that oil out of site (to sink it), and it’s a fucking joke, to aerial spray that shit. Fuck, what will that aerial mist do to flying birds of a thousand species as they cruise in and nest and lay? In both open water and on land?
Pure madness. I lose words to describe why it’s madness . . . .
Maybe we can scare bids and fish away with noise for fish the sound of Killer whales and seals for birds the sound of hungry hawks? I’m not sure what might work on birds. Under water speakers and above ground speakers mounted on buoys could do the trick just ring the oil spill with them and keep moving them as the oil spill expands.
Last night I found myself thinking along these lines —if there were only some way to warn them off.
Might be worth running it by some wildlife people to see what they say.
For oil we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.
Thank the Lord for the richest 1 % whom you adore so much and so do we.
So lets say the gushing oil well blow out @ 25,000 barrels a day X 42 gallon a barrel == 1,000,000+/- gallons a day blowing out compared to a river twenty times that that we consume DAILY. What do we blow on the projection of power with our department of death 3/4/5 million a day ?
What gives this generation the right to remove mountain tops and drill three miles to the molten core or damn close for a Stupid stinking dollar? Does anyone of the richest top 1/10 of top 1% have a clue since we have staked our very existence on their decisions.
From Discovery:
I’m wondering if anyone has reverse engineered BP’s numbers for dispersant usage to see how much oil BP internally thinks is spewing. It would seem with BP rejecting other dispersants besides Corexit based on there allegedly being an insufficient supply, that would also indirectly tell you what BP and Obama have been so unwilling to discuss. From what I can tell is that dispersants are used in spraying at the rate of 2-10 gallons per acre, but what I don’t know is how to calculate the oil per acre from that and I also don’t know how to calculate the estimated oil with how much BP is putting underwater. BP’s claims that they need a whole bunch of dispersant should be turned against them so that on one hand say that the spill isn’t that bad whiled on the other hand indirectly say it is that bad.
wanna bet those folks will now want eastern liberal money to clean up this mess.
the no more gov folks will beg for gov money.
the free market folks will beg for tax money.
the south drains more out of the federal budget then they put in.
they are a drain on america.
but at least they raise their kids to fight in our wars for profits.
give them that.
we are witnessing the self destruction of capitalism but not before it turns america into the third world nation.
americans keep up your love affair with capitalism.
the capitalists love you for it. they smile all the way to the bank.
americans ever hear of a social democracy? I thought not.