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I don’t know whether this is good or bad news. Last weekend, the New York Times quoted several ocean scientists collecting samples in the area of the BP oil disaster to the effect that there could be large plumes of oil at various depths below the Gulf surface.
Today, however, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a disclaimer, stating they had no confirmation and claiming "media reports" were "misleading." From the NOAA press release:
"Media reports related to the research work conducted aboard the R/V Pelican included information that was misleading, premature and, in some cases, inaccurate. Yesterday the independent scientists clarified three important points:
1. No definitive conclusions have been reached by this research team about the composition of the undersea layers they discovered. Characterization of these layers will require analysis of samples and calibration of key instruments. The hypothesis that the layers consist of oil remains to be verified.
2. While oxygen levels detected in the layers were somewhat below normal, they are not low enough to be a source of concern at this time.
3. Although their initial interest in searching for subsurface oil was motivated by consideration of subsurface use of dispersants, there is no information to connect use of dispersants to the subsurface layers they discovered.
NOAA thanks the Pelican scientists and crew for repurposing their previously scheduled mission to gather information about possible impacts of the BP oil spill. We eagerly await results from their analyses and share with them the goal of disseminating accurate information.
NOAA continues to work closely with EPA and the federal response team to monitor the presence of oil and the use of surface and sub-surface dispersants. As we have emphasized, dispersants are not a silver bullet. They are used to move us towards the lesser of two environmental outcomes. Until the flow of oil is stemmed, we must take every responsible action to reduce the impact of the oil.”
Well, great. We either have a group of irresponsible scientists who are the only ones reporting and possibly the only ones in the region doing onsite research on the possible composition of plumes near the well, or we have a very politically compromised NOAA trying to manage public concerns. Because if you read the Times story, the "media reports" being blamed here consisted of quotes from the scientists.
What the NOAA statement doesn’t tell us:
1. What, if any, direct collection of under/deep-water samples in the vicinity have been taken or are being taken? What do those samples, show? Who is doing this?
2. If NOAA is still waiting to see analysis of the scientists’ test samples, what is the basis for NOAA’s claims that levels of oxygen are not low enough to be a basis for concern?
3. What is the basis for the EPA/NOAA assumption that massive use of deepwater dispersants is an acceptable tradeoff against impacts from surface levels?
4. Is it true that the dispersants EPA permitted BP to use have been shown to have worse toxicity and less effectiveness than available alternative dispersants, and if so, why is the BP choice accepted under any rational environmental regime? Has BP’s corporate relationship with the chosen dispersant manufacturer played a role in allowing this choice?
5. What steps is NOAA or anyone else within US government taking to account for the huge discrepancies between the "official" estimates of the flow rates and the much larger rates estimated by several different, independent scientists? Is there a large quantity of oil "missing" and unaccounted for, or isn’t there? And what is the government doing to sort that out?
It may be that NOAA is one of the more trusted entities is this saga, and that all we have here is an effort to make sure the media does not get ahead of the known facts. Fine. But government oversight of a powerful industry has clearly failed because of pervasive industry capture, and that failure has embarrassed the Administration and undermined it’s announced pro-industry policies. "Trust us" doesn’t get it, and it never should.
156 Comments
My question, also unanswered in their press release, is: Will NOAA extend the Pelican funding?
Wow, what a read, thanks SC.
NOAA is part of Dept Of Commerce.
I was under the impression THEY had been using sat imaging and more to develop thoughts about oil gushed, etc.
THIS statement causes me to fear that NOAA has been usurped and is plugging corporate/government platitudes into the MSM.
Why do I have a feeling that no matter HOW long this all drags out (the disaster) and regardless of the damage that WILL ultimately (is being done) be done it still won’t change things (stop off shore drilling, corrupted contracting, etc.) and we the people will be fed a continuous cycle of disingenuous misinformation that bounces all over the place like rotating Villians And Heroes.
All the while as each corporate entity and elected official involved continue to profit from business as usual.
LeSigh.
Without data, documentation and reproducibility there is no science.
ASAP, both the Pelican crew/PI and NOAA must show their findings, which must then be confirmed by additional in-field science (measurements, assays, etc). There is no legitimate reason for this not to occur with all haste!
If, by next week say, there are no research vessels out there mapping the Gulf Blob and the Pelican reports remain “unanalyzed” I’ll be hard pressed to keep my tinfoil mankini in the closet.
So basically, I hope the Pelican PI/crew realize that they have toed-into a game with some Big Boys…
A lot of oil spilled out that pipe, and although there is alot on the surface it just seem there should be more. So common sense might tell one that those plumes may be true.
Oil floats on water because it’s lighter than water and it’s viscosity.
Change the viscosity with dispersants, and maybe instead of breaking up into small particals as we were told it would do. Instead it globbed up, but became lighter than water and is hanging in huge plumes.
No matter the case, trusting scientists and especially scientists paid by our Government, seems almost insane.
I don’t agree that trusting scientists is “insane” — whom else would you trust? — but I prefer those with a reputation of doing good analysis independent of those with a financial or political interest in the outcome.
And you would be correct.
NOAA is playing with science in their news release, too. Saying
isn’t comforting without a full-scale effort to backstop and repeat the observations by the Pelican crew. Of course their hypothesis needs verification; what is NOAA doing to verify it?
NOAA’s response sounds like:
1) Their staff is reacting as if their territory – scientific measurement surrounding the oil spill – is being trampled on by the outside measurement teams.
2) Their staff is reacting to the sensationalist reporting of the outside measurement teams first results and speculations as to the real spill rate, underwater columns, etc.
An ounce of caution is highly advised in cases where scientific research teams are competing with each other to be the first to announce that an oil spill is much bigger than anyone thought. There is a lot at stake for these guys in terms of prestige and funding.
That said, the true ogre here is BP: they need to open up the leak site and all their resources to outside measurement teams at once. The Federal government should use its law enforcement and emergency response authorities to force any immediate response or action from BP needed in order to get open measurements of the leak and spill extents.
The question is what data does the government have? What data is it looking for? What “accurate” information has it been disseminating?
We all know now that the White House sat on the tape showing the oil spewing from the leak for 3 weeks. Why did government not analyze that and make its findings public? How is it that EPA, NOAA, the Coast Guard, and the Navy are not spread out through the Gulf taking measurements?
It all seems like the government not only doesn’t have good info it has been studiously avoiding acquiring any, and this nearly a month after the rig blew up.
Wouldn’t Navy sonar read these plumes ?
At 2 billion for the death department can we expect the best effort?
NOAA is probably asking for access to instrumentation etc on the Pelican for the purposes of review. This is a good thing. The goal is to get sound measurements widely reviewed and agreed upon by multiple different parties. This is a good thing.
BP says NO. SO ?
It’s not just the size of the plumes, but their composition. The water column has to be sampled and measured in a very controlled, methodical way where these plumes are found, in order to know exactly what they are.
The scientists aren’t the ones writing the press releases. As a result, I am far more likely to trust statements from the scientists themselves than an agency press release. That said, I am well aware that what a scientist says to a reporter often loses something in translation.
I hope the scientists make their preliminary data available asap with the caveat that the final data may be somewhat different. I would not expect it to be vastly different, so the preliminary data should give us a pretty good idea of what’s up.
Some quick plots of O2 versus depth for example and another plot or two of the chemical tracers they use for the oil and/or dispersants should quickly resolve whether the NOAA press release or the initial report from the scientists was more valid.
I disagree with you completely: trusting scientists is not insane. In fact, it is the only option and the best option.
What need is multiple measurements taken of various targets – plumes, the two leak points themselves, surface oil – and these measurements must be reviewed openly and rectified against each other.
NOAA is not a problem here. BP – and the idiotic refusal of the White House to send a high-level DOJ and FBI team over to BP headquarters to explain directly that further non-cooperation with outside measurement teams is not an option – are the problems.
In the very least that data set would need to include a baseline or control of a non-plume column sampling taken very close to the extent of a plume.
This would be defensible if NOAA and other government agencies were actively engaged, if this weren’t an emergency, and if it wasn’t nearly a month into the crisis. We don’t even know if NOAA has a timeline on this. What are they going to do? Review the Pelican data and get back to them in 6 months?
What makes you think that NOAA is not actively engaged, and has not been? They have been a core part of the response team and have produced a lot of the general information we have been relying on. What they are probably asking for is access to specific instrumentation – and raw data – that is on the Pelican and elsewhere. As far as timeline is concerned I imagine all parties are thinking “as soon as possible”.
What their press release translates to, it looks to me, is: “The media have sensationalized a number of early findings and measurements made by isolated research and measurement teams. We are one of the biggest ocean research organizations on Planet Earth, we are intimately involved with this problem, and we insist on reviewing the methods and data coming from the Pelican and other teams.”
If this Pelican cruise was a NOAA sponsored cruise, then they already know the scientists involved, their instruments, and the analytical methods. That is how the proposal system works. They should be able to turn around preliminary data very quickly.
Yes, we all want to know: “Where is the Dark Oil?”
The problem is that the independent research teams, while they are doing something very useful, are being fundamentally opportunistic: they get ‘mad props’ in their communities (which translates into more grant money) if they are the ace team that proves all previous estimates wrong and pegs new ones. The independent teams in a sense have as much stake in the oil spill being much huger than thought as BP does in the spill turning out to be smaller than these new estimates. I’ll take the scientific research teams’ motivations and tendency to look for a mammoth spill over BP and its desire to hide and downplay the problem – the true ogre in this context – but an organization like NOAA is probably closer to being neutral.
NOAA is an organization that we rely on for, just for example, a whole lot of climate change data, and ocean acidification data, and a vast range of other data showing us the health of the marine and ocean environments. NOAA is not a PR instrument in the service of BP, nor is NOAA’s functioning scientific leadership probably interested in producing an image of a smaller oil spill than really exists because of political ideology. NOAA is not going to get a spanking if they agree that the spill is along the lines being suggested by these independent groups. NOAA is different than MMS.
If they are urging caution and review they are probably trying to get the sensationalism calmed down for a while so the truth can be rationally determined.
One can only hope that they review quickly!
Disagree if You must.
I said scientists paid by our Government. Did You notice that.
As to scientists in general. Few really do much. All of the things that seem so great weren’t developed by people sometimes called scientists
but in the employ of big companies.
So basically they were more paid whores than actual scientists.
We have some good ones but few and far between.
Most of the great inovations we enjoy today came about not from scientists, but from engineers and researchers not classed as scientists.
More from smart people in their garages than from scietists in fancy Government paid for laboratories.
How did you get to be so familiar with government scientists to hold them in such high regard?
Whoa! Without the science there is nothing to see, nothing to talk about, just the Edict From Authority!
There should be a flotilla of top researchers out there right now, sampling and measuring. Just as we should have BP deliver video, pressure and leak flow data for public dissemination. Now, no, yesterday.
This lingering lack of data transparency is almost as distressing as the ecological damage caused by the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Without data, PR and spin rule and there is no future at all in such a world.
We need more measurement, open-sourced. BP’s secrecy and noncompliance is beyond negligent, it’s criminal. For them to say they’ve started to capture “some” of the leaking oil in their stoppered-pipe and gotten “some” of the oil mixture to a surface ship is unacceptable.
We need metrics for “some.” All the metrics for the continuing spill.
Snoopy.
Disagree if You must.
You want to know something?
It doesn’t matter how much, or what kind of tests You make, or calulations you come up with, unless you can fix the problem after You know how big the problem is.
TO DATE science has not found a way to make spilled oil just disappear, and it’s doubtful they will in the next couple weeks.
I agree. I may have been the first at fdl to write about the new head of NOAA, Jane Lunchenco, before she was appointed. I’ve become pretty skeptical of some NOAA actions since the beginning of her term, particularly on the continued privatization of offshore fisheries stocks from part of the commons to becoming private property in perpetuity – catch shares.
NOAA is playing right along with Shell Oil and other companies gearing up for big exploration operations over the course of this coming summer in the Chukcki and Beaufort Seas. And, as one commenter observed above, NOAA is part of Commerce, not Interior or Agriculture, or …
We’ll see how long it takes for today’s NOAA statement to gain some context, and for the actual peer review process to come into play, as the oil hits the wider circles of currents outside the Mississippi Canyon.
I didn’t, but have been watching for somekind of results.
Where are they? Name some Please.
So You think we need scientists to tell us there is oil in the water, how much is there, where it’s at, how much is spilling out, how much BP is capturing, and then tell us they haven’t a clue on what to do to fix it.
Boy You must be the head of the scientific union or something.
Name me one problem or disaster in the world that scientists saved us from, fixed, or cleaned up after.
Thanks for that link back to your post on Lubchenco — she was on PBS News Hour tonight, discussing a range of related issues, including this one.
NOAA –The National Aironautics and Space Administration
Boy I’m sure they know alot about oil in the water HEY.
A history of how NOAA and NMFS and all these things are tied together with stretchy glue, bubble gm, baling wire and duct tape, might make a good read. Rube Goldberg couldn’t have designed a machine with more weird parts that aren’t meant to fit together.
Veddy interesting…I have a friend who’s been saying that NOAA is, in substantial measure, in the pocket of the conservatives and their corporate world-view. I’m not knowledgable about it, to offer any specifics, and he didn’t either, in the brief conversation we had.
But I have to say, low-balling the amounts of oil, and it’s effects, has been a priority for the shitheads who are responsible for it, including, but not limited to, Bush and his sweetheart regulations for Big Oil, and Obama, for sustaining and (He hoped…) increasing offshore oil drilling.
Your ignorance is showing.
NOAA is National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
What do they know about oceans? A great deal.
I’m with Seymour, this appears to be NOAA saying they need to verify data and methodology, so far there have been popular accounts of what the Pelican expedition found, but popular accounts are often sensationalized. Is there good chemical analysis of samples taken from the reported plumes? What are they showing?
Good job. Scarecrow. We need knowledgeable people like you holding the erstwhile “experts’” feet to the fire, ’cause we all know how little trust they and their cronies (MMS, BP, et. al.) inspire.
Keep it up. Your experience is much appreciated.
–Carol Anne
I agree completely.
Most of us trust the Government and all these agencies to be the last word. All while not knowing what the agencies do, who is in charge, and what we are paying for.
If someone comes out and says for example the head of NOAA says this, we just assume He is the head scientist at NOAA. When in truth He is probably a political hack appointed the head of NOAA, and has to ask his underlings for everything because He knows little Himself.
People actually get mad at Me when I try to explain that all is not as we see it. Even after, “Your doing a great job Brownie,” the people didn’t learn, and still trust who runs all of this.
It is interesting that various scientific groups have asked for greater access to the information and been denied by PB and probably others. Perhaps to avoid confusion or possibly to assist in damage control. Sadly we all know that some government agencies are compromised so we are stuck trying to figure out if NOAA is a part of the problem as well. What we do know is that a company, BP, with a history of failure, compounded recently, seems to be in control of decisions that are not theirs to make.
Team Obama still seems to think that failing to lead is the same thing as not having to accept responsibility.
Not sure why you want to be so obtuse about this.
BP, via its behavior, has demonstrated that independent confirmation of its paltry data releases is necessary. Since, at least for the moment, the official US government appears to be going along with much of the BP-provided gospel this verification is doubly important.
It’s obvious that there is oil in the water, what is not clear is how much, how it is distributed, how it may be interacting with seawater and the organisms therein, and where it might be headed. That must be measured and assayed in order to for effective protections and cleanup to proceed. The people who will do that work will mostly be scientists and technicians. Many of those people will be paid out of NSF and other government grants. Much of basic science in the US is dependent upon such patronage.
There is no instant-fix pixie dust, not for cancer, not for climate change and not for a massive blob of oil-toxin blurbing around the Gulf. Like it or not, science takes time to understand and even more time to manipulate and engineer.
And while we humans rely on a vast accumulated playbook of scientific-medical-ethical knowledge, an instant fix for an arbitrary problem may not be at hand whenever needed. Like when a dodgy Big Oil endeavor frakks up massively and profoundly damages the Gulf of Mexico.
Your ignorant bias is showing. Using your logic, we should just execute all the scientists as social leaches.
In fact, I can think of SEVERAL things scientists have successfully done:
1. They’ve significantly improved the safety, durability and efficiency of automobiles (Oh, you don’t drive?)
2. They’ve created numerous wonderous products that extinguish forest fires (not necessary started by man, but extinguished by man using scientific inventions).
3. They’ve made nuclear energy safe (and, when scientists are not consulted, like at Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, catastrophe ensues).
Not all science is good (the folks who made that less-effective and more damaging dispersant being used in the Gulf for a company owned by Exxon and BP, so they can reap the profits from their own catastrophes are probably scientists who don’t deserve the title). But, to claim that virtually no catastrophe has been averted or resolved by scientists is bigotry.
“Trusting scientists is not insane…”
Seymour Friendly, dragging red-herrings across oil gushers…
I trust the scientists who are telling us that they have good math to indicate that BP and the Coast Guard were low-balling the hell out of the amount of oil that was coming out of the wrecked wellhead.
As I recall, you were NOT trusting of them, in your posts on other threads.
Which leaves us with the question of which scientists we should trust; the ones who are part of the same government which allowed all of the shortcuts on drilling safety, and whose associate director for the MMS gave BP a “safety” award for DeepWater Horizon (and who has just been thrown under the bus by the Obama administration…) or the scientists who have no connection with BP or Big Oil, or the Obama Administration which had signed off on more coastal drilling a month befort this catastrophe?
Hint: I’ll go with the un-paid-for geeks. The track record for BP; it’s “information”, and the flacks who are pimping for them, already sucks and is getting worse with every passing day.
It is entirely unfortunate, but inevitable, that with so much money at stake the science is being politicized.
Last Wednesday May 12th, Secretaries Chu and Salazar Lead Administration Team Offering Federal Scientific and Technological Support to BP Engineers
On that team is Dr. Jonathan I. Katz, professor of physics at Washington University. And via Americablog, Katz is a “proud homophobe” and turns out he is also a climate change denier.
The perfect person to be on the Administration’s Lead Team to solve this problem. /s
I thought BP wasn’t “allowing” scientists to study this leak?
in any case, it’s starting to head around the tip of FL…it’s gotten into the Gulf Stream.
Here’s food for thought: Reports show NOAA knew Gulf of Mexico drilling operations were illegal
Who do you love, who do you love?
BTW, Seymour, pissing and moaning about “Grant money” for independent scientists somehow corrupting their judgement about this disaster, while you pimp for BP and the oil industry, with the gigajillions they spend to buy senators, congressmen and women, their wholly-owned scientists, etc., kinds blows out your wellhead.
That’s what I read in multiple stories as well. Probably makes it easier to widely disclaim any conclusions they don’t like. Certainly seems to show that BP is in charge and the government is apparently acting as unpaid gopher.
You must be reading alternate universe FDL.
If you can characterize Seymour’s coverage as being a “pimp for BP and the oil industry” we are not reading the same articles.
Absolutely the perfect choice for the administration to use. Each time they jump up to the plate they surprise to the downside.
What makes you think that when you “hear from NOAA” that you’re hearing from the scientists at NOAA?
I worked at a government agency for years. When you heard from that agency, you never heard from me.
You’re hearing from Barry.
Maybe we aren’t, Kelly.
In most of the posts from him that I’ve read, he’s been very diligent in supporting BP’s claims for the amounts of oil that have been released, and in questioning independent claims that a lot more is gushing out.
For that, and for saying that some independent scientists’ opinions of this disaster are corrupted by considerations of grant money, considering that the oil industry, itself, with it’s huge profits and giant lobbying operation, is at some risk, he makes the cut for a petro-pimp.
Your mileage may vary.
While I’m at it, here’s BP’s track record, or, some of it:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011791796_bpalaska06m.html
Well, here’s a list of his posts and recent and notable among them is:
Whistleblower: BP Falsified Tests on Its Blowout Preventers
Just saying.
The fact that NOAA is part of…taaadaaaa…the COMMERCE department, alone, is worth an Exxon-Valdez full of skepticism, when they start “distancing themselves” from independent science which is pointing to a far worse situation than PB has admitted to.
The question of whom to believe, is simple; just ask yourself who has been right, so far; British Petroleum and it’s adherents and defenders, or the people who were saying that this was much worse than BP was saying, and was getting worse by the day?
Boy You think scientists are employed by the Automobile industry. What have You been smokin?
The cemicals used to put out forest fires were developed by chemical companies in kahoots with the oil companies.
They made nuclear energy and showed how to use it, but both the booboo’s in the nuclear industry were because it was left to people other than the scientists to run, because the scientists assure everybody they had designed all the safe guards needed.
Now just for one minute stop and think about dispersants. These don’t make the oil disappear they make it blend into the water. So next time You want a bath pour some dispersed oil in and see how clean you get.
This was the actual worst thing they could do because now there is no way to seperate the oil from the water. They could have sucked it up and it naturally would have seperated before they sprayed the dispersants, now it’s there unless mother nature and some micro’s save the day.
I think Seymour is doing a great job. I don’t trust NOAA. The scientists, yes. The mouthpieces, no.
Yeah, Kelly, now and then he straddles the fence. But given BP’s track record, and given how hard Seymour has gone after the people who have been saying all along that this is already a catastrophe, and who have been pointing out BP’s
dishonesty a lot more persistently and effectively than the sop you put up, it’s his token ecological wind break.
Agree. My brother in law is an Climate Scientist, and works on many NOAA projects. He’s doing most excellent work in carbon sequestration and carbon audits, and a lot of it is funded out of NOAA.
Scientists good – mouthpieces, not so much.
Yes, kudos for all the great work Seymour has done keeping up with this.
Thing is. The “estimate” that has been the default number thrown (by gov and BP) around since the almost beginning (5000 barrels), is NOAA’s, and it is based on surface sheen characteristics only, which is an approach that is not appropriate for estimating subsurface ongoIng leaks on the open ocean.
For that reason, it’s pretty tough to stomach comments like the ones they made here.
Yup. I’ve worked with NOAA scientists at the NOAA/NCAR facility in Boulder. The scientists are dedicated to truth.
Spokepeople are just hacks.
The people that passed on early information from the Pelican aren’t likely to be scientists. Saying be skeptical at this point sounds like a scientist, not a hack.
Yep – brother in law works with the Boulder group. I think we’re having a shared experience there.
maybe people will listen to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhqcEvOeCKg
I agree the 5,000 barrel a day estimate is PR.
The methodology to get 70,000 barrels a day hasn’t been validated though. 70,000 barrels a day is about 5% of total production of all US offshore oil in the gulf. Plausible, but a bit on the high side of plausible.
iremember @54;
From their viewpoint, it’s not the worst thing. Out of sight is out of mind. The worst-case scenario for BP and Big Oil, is lots of photos of dead and dying birds and fish, and swaths of formerly pristine beaches reduced to tar-soaked dead zones.
ANYTHING that they can do to avoid that, they will do. “Dispersing” the oil is a great idea for them. It means that it goes into small particles amd merges with the water and eventually winds up on the bottom, where it can work it’s way into the food chain without making the evening news on CNN, etc.
BTW, Mother Jones had a good piece up on how BP has purchased more than a third of the world’s existing supply of dispersants.
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/05/what-heck-bp-putting-gulf
If Seymour or anyone else thinks this is evidence of BP’s stricken conscience, I have Captain Nemo’s submarine anchored a mile down in the GOM, for sale, cheap.
Did we know that the oil companies aren’t required to disclose the ingredients in their “dispersants”, because they’re considered to be “trade secrets”?
I didn’t, until I read this piece.
I couldn’t agree more! One of the points I made in a diary over a week ago was that focusing so heavily on the volume alone doesn’t leave room for the true issue – which is we could know to the milligram how much oil has been leaked, and that would not change the fact that the combined weight of the Federal government and the American oil industry has not stopped these leaks, and cannot take the oil back out of the water.
Bearing in mind that NOAA is a major player in environmental and oceanic research in general, I have trouble believing that the agency will ever simply be a pawn of or in league with the oil industry. A good chunk of their scientific and related staff would revolt, as would a damn good number of their grantees who are very frequently hardcore pro-environment academic researchers.
You got the point.
Barry is hiding.
“Saying be skeptical at this point sounds like a scientist.”
You mean the scientists at BP who were telling us that it was only leaking 5,000 gallons a day?
Or the scientists who were already skeptical of that modest and comfy little assessment?
I feel that we now have (sorry to keep using this…) an Ultra-Large-Crude-Carrier…ULCC…full of reasons to be skeptical of anything that any organization or person who was associated with the original low-balling of this misery is still saying. The same goes for the people who are carping about the high numbers and encouraging us to be skeptical of them, when we now know that they were, and are, a hell of a lot closer to the truth, than the corporate-ass-covering skeptics, now advising us to be skeptical of independent scientists on the make for juicy grants.
Wait a second. You’re not getting this.
The political hacks at NOAA are stating that we can’t know anything for sure because — ready? — we can’t know anything for sure because — ready? — Barry isn’t taking any steps to ensure that we know anything for sure.
Hi, Buzz. Good to hear your voice.
he’s been hiding for 16 months. :o(
Earth to Barry: The Gulf does not belong to BP.
We can’t take film of what is going on at the site of the leak? Because BP says so? Give me a fucking break.
Did You ever see a LAVA lamp and how those globs just rise and fall in the other liquid.
It’s because of the difference in their viscosity.
Dispersants change the viscosity of oil. We were told that it would break it up into tiny particals and it would eventually go to the bottom.
Oil is not all the same and even from different wells in the same area can be different. So there is no guarantee that that oil from this well all will react as they say.
The plumes discribed sound an awful lot like those globs in the lava lamp, and if so they could be more catistrofic than just plain old oil would have been.
Imagine a Hurricane slapping these huge globs up on the land. The BLOB might live again.
Thanks for correcting iremember54′s error. You beat me to it.
Y’all need to remember that NOAA recommended against resuming offshore drilling, but Obama ignored their recommendation. I don’t know if Jane Lubchenco was in charge of NOAA at that time, but I do know that politics is driving this major league clusterfuck at this point with Obama’s political survival at stake.
The New York Times reported that NOAA was backing the Pelican expedition, so I think it was expecting to receive and review the findings before deciding what, if anything to do.
I suspect the White House ordered Lubchenko to kill this story and that’s the basis of the NOAA putdown.
Yes, the data collected by the scientists on board the Pelican must be confirmed, and I’m sure they agree and intended to do that all along. What they found scared the shit out of them, however, and they leaked the story because the Gulf is in danger and action must be taken now to save it.
If I was pimping, I’d sure pick a better whore to sell than BP.
To be completely blunt with you, there is nothing I have written which is in any way, shape, or form tolerant of BP. I seem to recall within the last two weeks declaring my continuing belief that this disaster should in principle result one way or another in the company’s bankruptcy.
I’ll try to answer the core of what you wrote to me:
You seem to think that the only technical and scientific entities involved here are either BP/MMS or “unpaid for geeks”. This is seriously wrong.
For example, the Pelican? The research team is currently functioning … under a grant from NOAA.
All I’ve said is that we need the normal process of peer review on these measurements, independent confirmation of these measurements via other techniques, and rectification with current known estimates that explain the differences.
This is how science works. This basic process was explained to me in my undergraduate scientific degree program as it is explained to everyone.
With respect to NOAA, they simply appear to be trying to get access to the Pelican team’s data. The Pelican team did a no-no: they took preliminary data which indicated something is likely very incomplete with NOAA’s findings, and AFAIK, rather than first share this information with NOAA, they simply called up the New York Times. AFAIK.
If you were an expert currently deployed as the front line responder to a massive national disaster, and you were making public the best information you had, and someone in your community found different information that he then sent to the New York Times before he showed it you for review, you’d probably issue a press release too. In particular if the New York Times started printing this new unreviewed information from a tiny little team with limited resources as if it is automatically gospel truth, under a sensational headline.
Glad that got put in there, because it may indeed be the case.
NOAA is in a bit of a bind here …if they say nothing they take heat for hiding something, and if they lend credence to the independent reports before they have verified them under their own microscope, so to speak, and the reports turn out to be error-filled then they’ll get pilloried for that.
I’m a pissed off as anyone on the planet about BP’s comportment in this and other disasters, and with their political lickspittles, but we have to be cautious about leaping to conclusions over every blog entry.
This is a complicated situation, even if the proximate causes are straightforward corruption and greed. The NOAA boffins need to verify everything firsthand before going public with anything definitive.
If it turns out they’re crooked too, it will show soon enough.
Being skeptical of BP is appropriate.
Why do you take a 70,000 barrel a day estimate as accurate? Please explain to me the methodology behind that. One exploration well is leaking 5% of all the oil the US is pumping elsewhere in the Gulf according to that estimate. That seems a bit high to me; it’s plausible but not proven.
I am not straddling any fences. I have been complete in my condemnation of BP and MMS. I think that you simply don’t understand my position, which is the position of not believing immediately every sensational claim that makes it into mass media the moment it hits the net.
Here’s the actual real truth about the volume of oil in this spill: noone will ever know for sure exactly how much oil has been spilled.
The list goes on and on. Absolutely, we need measurements, and BP is the ogre for trying to stop these measurements. I’ve written in comments now multiple times that I fault the Federal government for not sending a DOJ and FBI team to Houston to “explain” to BP just how unacceptable non-cooperation is at this point. I don’t see any “straddling of fences” or “pimping for BP”.
Finally, if you can’t address me civilly, I am not going to respond to you.
OK, fine – you are aware that NOAA is one of the world’s premiere environmental research organizations?
That’s right, this sold-out Commerce Department agency which is really just a front for the oil industry anyway has produced research on everything from the global carbon cycle through the ozone layer depletion.
It is one of the biggest environmental research organizations on Earth, and it has provided a simply huge dollar amount of environmental research grants for a very long time.
With all due respect, Seymour, I think you’re leaving out something here: The heavy politicization of science that occurred under Shrub. Now you may think NOAA is different. Some here don’t. You may think Barry is different. Some here are not so sure.
And if this “normal process of peer review on these measurements, independent confirmation of these measurements via other techniques, and rectification with current known estimates that explain the differences” takes a long time, you have to forgive the more skeptical among us that something stinks to high heaven.
I mean we know that BP’s estimates can’t be right, correct? I mean, if they’re right, it would be, like the “Immaculate Conception” or something. A rapacious company freely telling us how much damage they will ultimately be responsible for?
Well put.
Without question.
We have enough inaction to levy accusations for complicity and coverup to deny the truth.
Your list must be growing by leaps and bounds on this one . . . and thanks for all you do.
Differences in density, not viscosity are what leads blobs in a lava lamp to rise and fall. the heat from the lamp causes the blob to expand and become less dense, it floats. As it moves away from the heat it cools and contracts. There are interesting surface tension effects as well.
Viscosity does enter into how fluids flow; higher viscosity is less prone to turbulence, flow is laminar rather than turbulent. In general fluid flow is not well understood physics – the governing mathematics has been an active area of research for half a century (Navier Stokes equations). Add in that you have mulitple streams of different fluids with different physical and chemical properties, and BP is altering these ad-hoc using “dispersants” to further alter the physics and chemistry… It’s very hard science.
A proper EIS should be required. Which would entail detailed mitigation plans in the event of the kind of failures seen.
Right, but that’s neither the fault of the scientists producing actual science, the mouthpieces proclaiming anything, nor Seymour producing journalism.
Threading the political needle isn’t what Seymour is doing.
I’ve not been anything other than condemning of Obama with the singular exception of his announcement that MMS will be divided into two agencies. And as far as the “politicization” goes I repeat: if NOAA’s administration-appointed political leadership attempted to suppress information about this oil leak to help BP look better the agency would face a revolt from a large chunk of its research staff and grantees. The scandal would not only cost the appointees their jobs – none of their subordinates or their subordinates’ subordinates would ever respect the appointees again – but the scandal would rock the environmental research world.
It’s not just a “government agency”. It’s foot soldier research staff and academic grantees are often hardcore environmentalists.
So why bother studying it then? What is the purpose to be served by the efforts of the Pelican or anyone at NOAA, EPA, NASA, etc. if there is nothing to be done as you suggest? Perhaps I am mistaken, I had thought you considered the efforts of the Pelican et al. worthwhile.
No one has any basis here to attack Seymour Friendly for supposedly shilling for BP and that specifically includes you, tanbark.
Back off and apologize because you are making a fool out of yourself, or forever be known as an asshole!
Uh, the lack of any real data and info to date a month after the original explosion on DeepWater?
Duh? NOAA has capacity and influence to do what they want. That they haven’t, means they are pawned, owned, and controlled. I don’t care about their legacy and history, since BushCo, NO one is exempt from a suspicion of being complicit in the worst of things . . . no one, not NOAA.
Ah crap, my comment @39 was supposed to be a reply to iremember54 @30
I should remember to refrain from blogging at work…
Why don’t you allow a few days more to pass before concluding that, obviously, one of the world’s preeminent environmental research organizations which also FYI has been devoting a lot of its resources to the emergency response to the disaster, is politically corrupt and trying to downplay critical data in the service of BP? These new estimates began emerging only days ago. Unfortunately, the process of physically processing and then applying models to a large amount of data – this stuff isn’t exactly stored in one guy’s lab notebook – takes time. It’s not just a matter of taking some measurements out on a boat and then sharing them with the New York Times.
The Pelican was repurposed from its original intended mission. See http://x-journals.com/2010/research-expedition-diverted-to-collect-oil-spill-samples. According to the article, they did sample from control sites to provide a baseline.
Hang on – there’s a difference between the scientific arm and the PR arm of organizations.
We have a standing directive at my telco, and every telco or bank I’ve ever worked for:
If the media attempts to interview, decline and refer them to XYZ person.
Media spin is controlled by the top of an outfit, not by the middle or bottom, except for whistleblowers. Whose companies then fire them.
The fact that this has been going on for a month and we have not been able to assess the size of the leak, presumably because BP won’t let us, is a disgrace. It should be relatively easy for scientists to estimate at least a range, say, from 10,000 to 20,000 barrels if they were allowed to observe first hand.
The fact that we are still arguing over the size of something that has already happened is not a scientific problem. It is a political problem.
Hang on there – it’s still ongoing! It’s not over yet. It’s not finite, it’s not bound, it’s not done yet.
Which is exactly why measurement is important.
Tell Me! Tell Me! I”m dying to here it.
Agree. I have no quarrel with the great job Seymour is doing. I have 30 years experience working with government agencies that sponsor research. Over that time, the Ds have been nearly as bad as the Rs in politicizing science. NOAA may be one of the better examples. But we are still in the dark over really basic stuff here. I mean, measuring the flow is not rocket science.
Forgive me, I was frustrated with tanbark and what I wrote could be misunderstood as you indicate – I was simply telling him/her – a person who really doesn’t seem to understand some things – that the full truth can’t be known anyway. That in my mind is just another aspect of this disaster, that we can’t even know exactly how much oil has been leaked. I wrote in a previous diary, in fact, that one of the biggest questions to ask is the question of how it is that a half-billion dollar oil rig could be allowed to start drilling under a mile of water with no technical capability to, say, measure a leaky pipe exactly.
Obviously every effort must be expended trying to know what has happened, including the spill rate. I think that blowout preventer should be raised (at any cost to BP) and forensically examined. I think that, in addition to the executives at BP, MMS officials who owned the safety inspections for Deepwater Horizon should be in front of the Senate – right now – explaining and explaining and explaining. I think they should all be fired. I think the executive management of BP should only be allowed work removing oil from tainted marshlands using primitive hand tools that they should be required to manufacture themselves.
I did not indicate that “nothing can be done”, though what I wrote could have been taken to mean that, absolutely, what I was indicating is that, in a context where not enough can ever be done, part of the travesty at hand is that we can’t know the whole truth about how much oil got spilled.
And that is just another charge to place at the feet of BP/MMS.
Hope that clarifies.
You’re preaching to the choir. I meant that we don’t even know how much damage has already been done, for god’s sake.
Another article – by one of the scientists aboard the Pelican: http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2010/05/oil_spill_science_the_jellyfis.html
Everybody take a breath, we’re in a tight packed canoe heading to the falls
with a hell of a challenging subject but the end point is common.
Gotcha.
Do the well in before it does us in. It’s time and past time.
Let me get this straight… NOAA is “distancing itself” from a publication put out by the journal NATURE. Nature.com. Nature Publishing Group
from wikipedia “Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is an international publishing company that publishes scientific journals. It is a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd, which in turn is owned by the Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. NPG’s flagship title is Nature, a weekly multidisciplinary journal first published in 1869. Other publications include Nature, the Nature research journals, the Nature Reviews series, the Nature Clinical Practice series, and a range of academic journals, including society-owned publications.”
These reports…
“Oil spill science: Mission’s end – May 16, 2010
Science journalist Mark Schrope is aboard the research vessel Pelican, which is spending the week studying the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Check back to The Great Beyond for daily mission updates.
Earlier today the Environmental Protection Agency approved application of dispersant at the wellhead. During tests of this new technique over the past few days, BP added over 100,000 litres of dispersant at depth. So, it’s not clear whether the NIUST plume, assuming tests confirm it’s oil, is strictly dispersed oil from these tests or whether some portion of it is heavier components of the crude oil that separated as the oil spread and rose to the surface. Or the answer may be somewhere in between….”
Those reports?!?
Those reports are on a nature.com blog The Great Beyond.
So NOAA is trying to “distance itself” from the most prestigious scientific publication in the world. Nature Publishing Group has not pulled any of the reports about the research done on the Pelican.
Hey I won’t argue cause You sound like You know what Your talking about, and I don’t know it all.
What You are saying is that although proven science that we can’t be sure of the outcome if we don’t exactly know what BP used and how.
If they mixed something cheaper with the dispersant to make it go farther, all the science in the world can’t guess at the results. RIGHT?
Would You trust them to use it with the instruction on the container?
If those plumes of oil are there and floating way below the surface as indicated something didn’t work the way it was supposed to.
Because oil floats on water. Or are scientists going to tell me it doesn’t.
link…
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2010/05/oil_spill_science_missions_end.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+news%2Frss%2Fthe_great_beyond+%28The+Great+Beyond+-+Blog+Posts%29
Part of grad school for me took place in an ocean/maritime research building. I met and interacted with a number of NOAA grantees and environmental researchers – these are people who will saw their own legs, suffer divorces due to work schedules, etc., just to have an opportunity to get out on a boat for a few weeks or months and make a round of ocean measurements because they really, really believe the world’s ocean environment is in deep trouble and they want to be part of the cure. I agree with you completely about the politicization of science and NOAA assuredly is run by political appointees at the high level just please keep in mind any time you tell a climate change denier or similar that they are wrong you are able to do so in part because NOAA has funded and sometimes directly performed critical, difficult research.
Again, if there was some sort of political movement at a high level to use NOAA to help out BP’s image or hide entire parts of the oil spill, this would produce a very big problem for the agency’s political appointee leadership. Basically, nobody who actually works for a living at the agency would have any respect at all for the political appointees again. They’d face an ongoing mutiny.
In my somewhat limited and perhaps undistinguished experience, the argument that “we just can’t be sure” has been used more often to stifle progress than any other argument I can think of.
In the case of environmental disasters which could have impossible-to-comprehend consequences, I don’t think the “let scientific method play out” argument is valid. I think we have to assume the worst, and force folks — especially political hacks — to prove we are wrong.
In this case, hyperbole aside, I think there is enough evidence to assume that we may be in for a very, very rough time ahead.
The fact that Nature is paying attention only indicates the importance of the subject issue at hand. You did not cite the quintessential “Nature paper” that is a hallmark of excellence in peer-reviewed research. All you are pointing out is that Nature understands the importance of the scientific work being done to address the Horizon spill and has a reporter involved with the research team.
I understand and agree. My question is simply: Who are we hearing from? The scientists or Barry?
As someone noted above, I think if some of the discrepancies are quickly resolved, then I will have more faith in what comes out of NOAA in regard to this.
You can read the way they got there. From the first article in series that was posted Monday…
“Oil spill science: The mission begins – May 10, 2010
Science journalist Mark Schrope is aboard the research vessel Pelican, which is spending the week studying the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Check back to The Great Beyond for daily mission updates.
I’m on my way to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill zone, some 220 kilometres southeast of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico, aboard the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium’s 35-metre research vessel Pelican, part of the US research fleet.
P1060774.jpg
The seven scientists aboard, from the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology, a NOAA-funded cooperative effort based at the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi, had originally been scheduled to study and map formations where methane seeps from the seafloor, and historically significant shipwrecks with funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. After the disaster they decided to put that work on hold so they could study the spill….
Actually, you don’t want political hacks trying to prove anything. That falls into the category of “playing politics with science” which is by definition all that political hacks do. If you demand that the Obama administration and its allies and its enemies produce a picture for you of the facts surrounding this spill, you’ll get exactly what you don’t want.
There is no reason that the Pelican team’s results should not be peer-reviewed and verified by the broad community of parties involved – which assuredly includes NOAA. In a situation like this one party by itself will never get the whole picture right.
I don’t think we’re hearing from Barry, or, at least, I hope not. Barry needs to be spending his time ditching Ken, sending a team from the DOJ and the FBI over to BP’s Houston site to explain that non-cooperation is no longer an option for BP, that their new line with outside parties is “mi casa es su casa” or else, he needs to expedite the divorcing of MMS into two agencies, he needed to demanded the Senate hurry and get the MMS officials who oversaw the safety testing for the Horizon in front testifying so that they can get done testifying so that he can fire them, etc, etc. -
Reading that press release looked to me like NOAA researchers and staff involved intimately with the response to the oil spill disaster are pretty pissed off that the Pelican team and a few other parties who basically just showed up last week, took the fastest measurements they could and then emailed them to the New York Times and any other reporter who would listen. There is probably some butting of heads over turf going on which is bad, but the real issue is that mass media is now broadcasting a picture of the oil spill disaster which hasn’t been peer reviewed.
Sadly, yes. See my comment @ #42
Actually I said “disprove.” Big difference, Seymour.
Last comment on this, I promise.
NOAA is the Obama administration.
Here is oil slick mapping from NOAA’s data.
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/gulf_of_mexico_oil_spill_anima.html
Here is a different one.
http://ocg6.marine.usf.edu/~liu/Drifters/latest_roms.htm
No forgiveness needed : ) You’ve been doing outstanding work on this story. I was genuinely puzzled and hoping for clarification and you provided it. Thank you : )
Oil floats at STP (standard temperature and pressure). That is oil is less dense than water at STP.
At 5,000 feet conditions are not STP. Pressure is 150 atmospheres. Even at room temperature common substances don’t show the characteristics we expect – Carbon dioxide is a liquid at that pressure for example. Expecting oil will float to the surface might not be correct under those conditions.
Now bear in mind we’re not talking about just oil, there are also dissolved gases. And the mixture is coming out of the ground in what amounts to a nozzle, albeit one that doesn’t have known geometry. So there are a lot of things that make it hard to understand.
I’m not actively involved in analyzing this. I’m just expounding on things where I’m reasonably well informed and speculating about how one would analyze the problem.
Anyway, we got a wanker in the oval office sitting on his ass trying to look the other way while this goes down. WTF do we hire a resident for, if not deal with shit like this?
Oh. Right. BP hired him.
A lot of people don’t immediately understand what 5,000 feet of water means in terms of the impact on the phase state of any material gas or liquid at STP. The pressure at that depth is way beyond the atmospheric pressure on the surface of Venus and effectively a mile down, the ocean is a different planet than the one you and I experience every day.
There will be an investigation but in the final report don’t be surprised to see the phrase “no one could have anticipated” at least once.
dottyoliver’s diary is upstairs!
The Mistress of the Misunderstood and the Sea Captain: Day 6 & 7
Yes, NOAA is part of the Obama administration and he disregarded its advice when he decided to lift the ban on offshore drilling to get Republican support for his POS climate bill. Therefore, he owns the BP disaster and suppressing evidence of its scope and damage is likely more important to him than anything else right now. He’s leaning on NOAA to suppress the truth to save his political career.
The scientists on board the Pelican know what they’re talking about and the scientists at NOAA who sent them to do the study know that. They should have reported to NOAA first, but they supposedly didn’t.
The interesting question to me is whether NOAA scientists encouraged them to go public because the White House is pressuring NOAA’s political hack leadership to cover up the underwater plumes?
I’ll bet the answer is yes.
Time to quit drilling offshore and drill in ANWAR!
My fear is this is yet another place where WObama F’d up, and didn’t Clean House when he came in — he didn’t remove ALL the W political appointees at this agency, any more than he, or Salazar, did at MMS.
But then, mister, “we can’t look back; we can’t use today to even acknowledge the mistakes of the past, let alone correct them!” — restoring Habeus Corpus, being just one very prime example — would have none of that! That, that would involve too much accountability, and Lord knows, if we introduce that, then somebody, someday, someplace might hold us accountable!!
WObama is more like W than not, and this whole thing demonstrates that SO very vividly, I can’t imagine a whole lot more that would do so more effectively!
The scientists and technical folks at NOAA are honorable, just like at NASA — read Hansen’s book about storms and his grandkids (aka global warming.)
The folks I don’t trust are all the POLITICAL appointees — especially those appointed by W, with ties to industries like mineral exploration or such, and companies like BP!!
THEY are the (at least potential) problem!
If this turns out badly enough, we ought to have a Crimes Against Humanity tribunal, like Nuremberg, and prosecute the heads of BP, TransOcean and Haliburton, and ALL POLITICAL appointees and elected officials who aided or abetted this disaster occurring, delaying the cleanup and proper resolution of it, or deliberately misinformed the Sovereign American People about the state of the disaster and/or cleanup.
Do remember what we (America) did to the German generals … if you succeed in killing enough of life on Earth, a similar fate should await the “generals” of this one!
Meanwhile, for the corporate persons, we have them share the same fatal sentence: total dissolution! We liquidate them utterly, and put all the proceeds into a fund to use to help compensate the damages for the next 100 years, or until it fully recovers, if ever.
I understand everything Your saying.
That oil isn’t at 5000ft. it’s floating from the surface down to 300ft. so the extreme pressure can’t be in a factor.
In blowing gas wells I saw alot of differences in the oil and gas just from different wells in the same field. When blowing a well oil, gas, water and mud was blown out to clear the well and was mixed. To clear the wells we dropped soap sticks which loosened these things and allowed them to be blown out. When first ejected the stuff was a froth but always the oil came eventually to the top. It never floated in blobs with water around it.
From what were told this is light sweet crude which is not the heavy bunker C tar like crude from the Middle East nor the sweet green crude found in the North East. All seem to float and spread out and I can’t remember ever an account of it floating in plumes down to a depth of 300ft.
Maybe some scientist will give us all the answers on this.
watertiger is upstairs!
Late Night: If Wishes Were Horses, Then Giuliani Would Be a Dressage Expert
ny times reported Sunday that independent scientists, with specific expertise in the relevant areas, were told by BP to stay away from the spill; the scientists wanted to use state of the art equipment to measure the true spillage, which they estimate to be up to 80,000 barrels a day. BP said no.
This is unfathomable. How can Obama allow this?
Now we read that Obama has ammassed a team of “the best and brightest” scientists, to head to the spill to brainstorm.
Only we learn one of these, recently resigned from said team, was Jon Katz, an astrophysicist who admitted no expertise. This person was also a global climate change denier, so much for “best and brightest.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/us/16oil.html?scp=1&sq=oil%20plume&st=cse
There ya go, thanks for confirming the NOAA Shuffle Shifting . . .
Knew there was something smelly about all this besides the riding methane.
;-)
Howdy hoss . . .
NOAA is in the hands of the Dept Of Commerce, who is in the hands of the PTB.
I’d think it’s clear it don’t take a radical commie lovin socialist mofo pinko ***** person to figger out who NOAA is led thru the nose by.
That anyone would dispute the nose ring and anal tether is. Well, regrettable.
Yeah, it’s regrettable. That’s what it is. ;-)
~~~ModNote: surely we can do better than that.~~~
Once again, as usual over a few years now, I’m with ya hoss, top to finish.
NOAA or BP Science, I think were all adult enough to know when someone is wanking our species hard on.
And why.
I trust NOTHING government based, including NOAA, nor anything corporate based.
I can masturbate myself often enough to feel good about the science that makes sense to me.
And I don’t mind doing so, either.
Anyone else wanna try and jerk me off? Or the planet, and see what’s being spewed?
Tan, always a pleasure to see ya out and about . . . I sure miss ya and yer sardonic.
*G*
Hmm, did you leave out the part of corporate greed, government complicity, fascism, and screwing the masses?
Just askin . . . ;-)
Did I already suggest I appreciate your inputs and insights?
And how you phrase them?
WTF, I’ve always been redundant, again. Still.
Ouch.
And ya know, there have been times when SF was on top of this game, and fully cognizant and believable in his postulations . . .
No really, Tan, he was once one of the good guys before he began dancing for the corps.
There’s been a few like that, here, at FDL and Seminal.
It takes a while to sort them out, but they always out theyselves in the end run.
While SF was one of those at the beginning of this oil disaster who linked up to Truthsky, OilDrum dot com, and used their comments and postings to make what were then, good comments and diaries he posted.
Lately, I’m not sure of him, or many others . . . Tan, ya came along just in time to save me from this maddening crown. Er, crowd. *G*
Actually, Brother Kelly, Tan’s got a point . . . I’ll let it play out, but don’t dismiss Tan.
Not out of hand, hoss. Hang on, hang in, and please, give me room to give Tan some bonafides, we go back a long ways . . . I’m with him like I’m with you . . . give Tan some time . . . he can scorch a topic and those who besmirch a topic.
*G*
Kelly, ya see?
I’ve read all those hoss . . . I could be persuaded.
But Tan, he’s got a point. Give him more rope and time, Kelly.
You two are cut of similar cloth, scathing, biting, spot on and to the quick.
Just watch. ;-)
Oh c’mon now yer just farting around . . . .
Damn I hate missin your best stuff . . I’m always late to the game . . sigh.
Lemme know, oncit a while, will ya, yer gonna stir it up? So I can play, too?
Ya Raht Bastid.
;-)
Methadolagy?
WTF is that?
Tiber Field is basically composed of 6 Billion Barrels or more of oil, half that of gas, and it’s fucking 30,000 feet below the ocean floor at 5,000 feet below the surface of The Fucking Gulf.,
These things, we pretty much know to be true, along with Tiber Field being hundreds of square miles under The Gulf. And we can pretty well assume at this point that BP exceeded it’s permit in drilling PAST 11K feet, which was the original permit (oil drum dot com).
And some velocity flows have been calculated by the vids finally released by BP, that indicate 25K Barrels per day at minimum, of oil (not forgetting the GAS fuckin flows coming up from Tiber Field, at HUGE PSI’s).
We know that MMS gave out permits for 18K foot drilling, not 30K drilling.
We know that the PSI at 30K foot depth of earth crust is huge, and that shit that comes out of it, be it gas or crude oil, is under HUGE pressure, and will rise and gush with great fucking vigor.
What’s yer phuckin point regarding the gushing flow, and volume released, daily, from this disaster?
It’s a minimum 1 million barrels a day!
Do you have a point yer makin?
Oil and gas are leaking, likely in HISTORIC amounts, and threaten the Gulf, and the Oceans. Gushing from one of the BIGGEST fields of oil and gas on the planet.
Hurting the Gulf, and our atmosphere and more.
This is bad, do you have a point to fuckin make that it’s NOT bad?
That it’s NOT harmful to our species, or other species, as this shit spreads, the longer this shit leaks?
Do you HAVE a point?
~~Less heat, more light, please.~~~
The Oil Drum dot com has lots of articles and comments on Corexit, the production monopoly of it, and the buyout of it from those (BP) using it on this spill. Said articles also discuss another product that’s HALF as harmful and twice as effecient in oil clean ups as Corexit is.
But it’s not contracted to BP.
Yep, this shit is all about deals, not solutions or best practices for our species or other species.
All this has been posted here at FDL/Seminal in the past month.
None of it is ever revisited from these folks who seem to complain about BP, but still, don’t look to solving the problems.
Funny.
“Don’t fuck with The Turks.”
*G*
Sorry, just had to get some Gilliard in there . . . truth to power, and all that.
;-)
So, what are you saying? I’ve liked your stuff, your creds, but in the face of Tan’s comments and questions, a lot of you folks are faltering . .
So, my friend, what part of pawned, owned, controlled and abused did I miss?
*G*
It’s BEEN argued, from 5K barrels per day to more than 25K barrels per day, up to 80K barrels per day.
Where you been? We’re way ahead of yas on the volumes . . .
AGREED! ABSOLUTELY!
Sorry, weak snark. Very weak.
This shit came up from 30K feet or more into the earth’s crust, out of the Tiber Field. Under 5K feet of ocean.
You wanna discount pressure, somehow?
All the reasoned voices fly out the door tonight for some reason.
I can’t figger it . . . . all y’all are killin me, though.
This morning, we have tar balls off Key West.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/17/tar-balls-key-west_n_579660.html
However, we need years more study of this situation, since they could have been put there by publicity-and-grant-seeking scientists, who, unlike the people from BP, have an agenda.
Mason@90…
I think that trying to cut the legs off the people who have been saying, and saying accurately, that this is far worse than what BP and the government have been telling us, by saying that the OTHER scientists, have an agenda of trying to get juicy grants, instantly puts Seymour into the category of flacking for the low-ballers.
Not only that, but he’s also stated, several times, that the amount of oil being gushed into the GOM, is “irrelevant”. I underestand that he’s saying it in the context of this is so bad that numbers don’t matter, but when he says it, he makes my point for me, which is that BP has lied and bullshitted about the numbers from the gitgo, and they’re still doing it.
Seymour is trying to cover their asses for doing it by saying that the numbers don’t matter. I say they matter a lot, since they are the clearest indicator of how little we should trust the perpertrators of this environmental atrocity, or, anyone who is attempting to low-ball it…no matter that they’re alternately on one side of the fence, and then the other. Which Seymour demonstrably is.
As for his protestations about the passion and integrity of his friends at NOAA, I can only say that if they were that diligent and emotionally committed to the truth, why would they be working for “mouthpieces” who are hacks, according to some of Seymour’s defenders on here?
Again, your mileage may vary.
To the lurking mod:
Is calling someone an asshole, heat or light? Just askin’… :o)
BTW, Mason, the white house may well be pressuring NOAA to cover up the seriousness of the gusher. I wouldn’t be surprised, given all that’s at stake in this misery, but have you got a link detailing the pressure?
Larue, the bottom line is, this greasy cat is out of the bag.
The GOM bed has been thoroughly shit in, and there aint gonna be no unshitting it, no matter how badly the people low-balling it want to smear the independent scientists who have been calling “bullshit” on BP.
What we’re going to see is a running fight, kind of like the last spastic twitches of Lee’s army after Grant forced the issue at Richmond.
Now, the battle is going to be between the scientists who are either directly or indirectly, bought and paid for, and the scientists who have no agenda except trying to find the truth.
As this point, with the Exxon-Valdez full of bullshit that BP and their friends have been spreading from the beginning, anyone that has any doubt about which group deserves skepticism, is part of the problem, not the solution.
My point is that skepticism is worthwhile on both the BP claim of 5,000 barrels a day and high end claims of 70,000 barrels a day.
Pumping and injecting water into all US wells in the Gulf amounts to about 1,260,000 barrels of oil production per day. This is actively pumped, not pushed by oil field pressure. One hole into this field is going to leak 5.5% of that (70,000 barrels is 5.5% of total production). That estimate is on the high side of plausible.
A million barrels a day is hyperbole that goes beyond the pale – one well is going to push out almost as much oil as all the US wells pumping in the Gulf?
Numbers aren’t your strong point, that’s pretty clear.
This leak is a very bad accident. Cleaning it up is going to take a lot of hard work by people that aren’t just screaming about how awful it is. As the Mod suggested more light, less heat.