When you pour more than a million gallons of toxic chemical dispersants on top of an oil spill, it doesn’t just disappear.
In this case, it moves to the atmosphere, where it will travel hundreds, if not thousands of miles from the site of the BP oil spill, in the form of toxic rain.
BP’s oil spill-fighting dispersant of choice is Corexit 9500. It has been banned in Europe for good reason.
Corexit 9500 is one of the most environmentally enduring, toxic chemical dispersants ever created to battle an oil spill.
Add to that the millions of gallons of oil that have been burned, releasing even more toxins into the atmosphere, and you have a recipe for something much worse than acid rain.
One of the millions of oil victims, and so many more are to follow..........
The European Union Times reports "A dire report prepared for President Medvedev by Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources is warning today that the British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico is about to become the worst environmental catastrophe in all of human history threatening the entire eastern half of the North American continent with “total destruction”.
The reports adds, "Russian scientists are basing their apocalyptic destruction assessment due to BP’s use of millions of gallons of the chemical dispersal agent known as Corexit 9500 which is being pumped directly into the leak of this wellhead over a mile under the Gulf of Mexico waters and designed, this report says, to keep hidden from the American public the full, and tragic, extent of this leak that is now estimated to be over 2.9 million gallons a day."
Oil in the environment is toxic at 11 PPM (parts per million). Corexit 9500 is toxic at only 2.61 PPM. But Corexit 9500 has another precarious characteristic; it’s reaction to warm water.
As the water in the Gulf of Mexico heats up, Corexit 9500 goes through a molecular transition. It changes from a liquid to a gas, which is readily absorbed by clouds and released as toxic rain. The chemical-laden rain then falls on crops, reservoirs, animals and of course, people.
It is futile to believe that we can keep ‘Corexit rain’ from occurring since it has already been released and the molecular transformation has begun. We have set off an unprecedented chain of events in nature that we cannot control.
By releasing Pandora’s well from the depths and allowing it bleed into the sea the unimaginable becomes material.
As the water in the Gulf of Mexico heats up, Corexit 9500 goes through a molecular transition. It changes from a liquid to a gas, which is readily absorbed by clouds and released as toxic rain. The chemical-laden rain then falls on crops, reservoirs, animals and of course, people.
It is futile to believe that we can keep ‘Corexit rain’ from occurring since it has already been released and the molecular transformation has begun. We have set off an unprecedented chain of events in nature that we cannot control.
By releasing Pandora’s well from the depths and allowing it bleed into the sea the unimaginable becomes material.
Yet unlike a bad dream, we will not wake up from this nightmare and find it gone. The BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill will be touching millions of earth’s life forms for uncountable years.
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US GULF DRILLING BAN OVERTURNED BY FEDERAL JUDGE
A US federal court judge has blocked President Barack Obama's six-month moratorium on deep water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
The moratorium was put in place in the wake of the massive oil spill triggered by an explosion at a rig in April.
The judge said the lengthy ban was "invalid" and could not be justified, as the negative impact on local businesses was simply too great.
The White House said it would be appealing against the decision.
"An invalid agency decision to suspend drilling of wells in the depths over 500ft simply cannot justify the immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country," judge Martin Feldman said.
The decision to overturn the ban follows vocal protests by the oil industry.
The world does need the oil and the energy that is going to have to come from deep water production going forward
Steve Westwell BP's chief of staff Newfoundland drilling continues, Global deepwater oil production Oil found in deep waters is needed because the world will need 45% more energy by the year 2030, BP's chief of staff, Steve Westwell, told the World National Oil Companies Congress earlier on Tuesday.
Consequently, the world would need new reserves from "new frontiers", he said.
Steven Newman, chief executive of Transocean, which owned and operated the destroyed Deepwater Horizon rig that blew up on 20 April, had attacked the US ban on deep water drilling.
"There are things the [US] administration could implement today that would allow the industry to go back to work tomorrow without an arbitrary six-month time limit," Mr Newman said on the sidelines of the meeting in London a few hours before the ban was overturned by the judge.
A prolonged ban on deep water drilling would also "be a step back for energy security", added Chevron executive Jay Pryor, suggesting it would "constrain supplies for world energy".
Commercially viable
Transocean's chief Newman called for the drilling ban lifted Mr Westwell said BP would re-assess how it balanced risks, but he also insisted that the leak in the Gulf of Mexico would not lead to deep water production being halted.
It would be a mistake, he insisted, to create an environment in which investment in deep water would become impossible.
"The world does need the oil and the energy that is going to have to come from deep water production going forward," he said.
"Therefore, the regulatory framework must still enable that to be a viable commercial position."
And he said "BP will come through", suggesting that most of the flow from the well in the Gulf should be staunched by August.
Judge who overturned drilling moratorium reported owning stock in drilling companies
The federal judge who overturned Barack Obama's offshore drilling moratorium reported owning stock in numerous companies involved in the offshore oil industry — including Transocean, which leased the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to BP prior to its April 20 explosion in the Gulf of Mexico — according to 2008 financial disclosure reports.
U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman issued a preliminary injunction today barring the enforcement of the president's proposed six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling, arguing that the ban is too broad.
According to Feldman's 2008 financial disclosure form, posted online by Judicial Watch [pdf], the judge owned stock in Transocean, as well as five other companies that are either directly or indirectly involved in the offshore drilling business.
It's not surprising that Feldman, who is a judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana, has invested in the offshore drilling business — an Associated Press investigation found earlier this month that more than half the federal judges in the districts affected by the BP spill have financial ties to the oil and gas industry.
The report discloses that in 2008, Judge Feldman held less than $15,000 worth of stock in Transocean, as well as similar amounts (federal rules only require that judges report a range of values ) in Hercules Offshore, ATP Oil and Gas, and Parker Drilling. All of those companies offer contract offshore drilling services and operate offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Judge Feldman also owned between $15,000 and $50,000 in notes offered by Ocean Energy, Inc., a company that offers "concept design and manufacturing design of submersible drilling rigs," according to its website. None of the companies were direct parties to the lawsuit seeking to overturn the ban.
Judge Feldman did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
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The Everglades National Park in Florida and the Padre Island National Seashore in Texas are among 15 "special places" most threatened by the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, says a report today by two environmental groups.
The oil threatens, among other wildlife, brown pelicans, whooping cranes, manatees, bottlenose dolphins and sea turtles that live in these state parks, wildlife refuges and national parks, according to the report.
"This could become America's greatest environmental disaster," says Theo Spencer of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which co-wrote the report, adding it illustrates the dangers of U.S. "over-dependence on fossil fuels."
"Because the potential reach of this catastrophe is so broad, our list certainly cannot include more than a tiny fraction of what is at stake as oil continues to gush into and spread around the Gulf," says Stephen Saunders, president of the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization, the report's other author.
The report picked the following 15 places to show the range of protected public areas and their resources that are vulnerable to contamination:
- Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, Texas
- Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge, Alabama
- Breton National Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana
- Delta National Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana
- Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida
- Everglades National Park, Florida
- Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge, Florida
- Grand Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Mississippi and Alabama
- Gulf Islands National Seashore, Mississippi and Florida
- John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, Florida
- Key West National Wildlife Refuge, Florida
- Padre Island National Seashore, Texas
- Pass a Loutre Wildlife Management Area, Louisiana
- Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana
- St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, Florida
At this is being written, it still is not clear how much oil has already escaped from the BP blowout, when the gush of oil will be stopped, where the Gulf's currents and winds will take the oil, and what may happen if one or more hurricanes enters the Gulf this year. Instead, our list is based on, to begin with, the judgment of the National Park Service (NPS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) that coastal areas they manage are vulnerable all around the Gulf.
It discusses how oil can harm various Gulf wildlife:
The iconic brown pelican, Louisiana's state bird, which feeds by plunging headfirst into waters to grab underwater fish. Their feathers can get fouled by oil to the point that they can no longer fly.
Whooping cranes, one of the world's rarest birds and America's tallest, which
survive primarily in one natural migratory flock that winters on the Texas coast and two introduced flocks that winter on Florida's Gulf Coast. Their seafood prey can be contaminated by oil, poisoning the cranes.
Manatees and bottlenose dolphins, marine mammals which must surface to breathe air. They can inhale oil and chemical dispersants on the surface of the water.
Sea turtles, which return to land only to nest on beaches around the Gulf. They can choke on oil in the water, and their eggs and hatchlings can be contaminated by oil on beaches.
LATEST NEWS:NEW ORLEANS – Tens of thousands of gallons more oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday after an undersea robot bumped a venting system, forcing BP to remove the cap that had been containing some of the crude.
It was yet another setback in the nine-week effort to stop the gusher, and it came as thick pools of oil washed up on Pensacola Beach in Florida and the Obama administration tried to figure out how to resurrect a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling.
When the robot bumped the system just before 10 a.m. Wednesday, gas rose through the vent that carries warm water down to prevent ice-like crystals from forming, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said.
Crews were checking to see if crystals had formed before putting it back on. BP spokesman Bill Salvin could not say how long that might take.
"We're doing it as quickly as possible," he said.
Before the problem with the containment cap, it had collected about 700,000 gallons of oil in 24 hours. That's oil that's now pouring into the Gulf. Another 438,000 gallons was burned on the surface by a different system that was not affected by the issue with the cap.
A similar problem doomed the effort to put a bigger containment device over the blown-out well in May. BP had to abandon the four-story box after the crystals called hydrates clogged it, threatening to make it float away.
The smaller cap, which had worked fine until now, had been in place since early June. To get it there, though, crews had to slice away a section of the leaking pipe, meaning the flow of oil could be stronger now than before.
The current worst-case estimate of what's spewing into the Gulf is about 2.5 million gallons a day. Anywhere from 67 million to 127 million gallons have spilled since the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 workers and blew out the well 5,000 feet underwater. BP PLC was leasing the rig from owner Transocean Ltd.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration plotted its next steps after U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in New Orleans overturned its moratorium on new drilling, saying the government simply assumed that because one rig exploded, the others pose an imminent danger, too.
Feldman, a 1983 appointee of President Ronald Reagan, has reported extensive investments in the oil and gas industry, including owning less than $15,000 of Transocean stock, according to financial disclosure reports for 2008, the most recent available. He did not return calls for comment on his investments.
The White House promised an immediate appeal of his ruling. The Interior Department imposed the moratorium last month in the wake of the BP disaster, halting approval of any new permits for deepwater projects and suspending drilling on 33 exploratory wells.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement that within the next few days he would issue a new order imposing a moratorium that eliminates any doubt it is needed and appropriate.
"It's important that we don't move forward with new drilling until we know it can be done in a safe way," he told a Senate subcommittee Wednesday.
Several companies, including Shell and Marathon Oil, said they would await the outcome of any appeals before they start drilling again.
Asked about it Wednesday on NBC's "Today" show, BP managing director Bob Dudley said his company will "step back" from the issue while it investigates the rig explosion.
BP said Wednesday that Dudley has been appointed to head the new Gulf Coast Restoration Organization, which is in charge of cleaning up the oil spill. He takes over from BP CEO Tony Hayward, who has been widely criticized for his handling of the crisis.
In Florida, dozens of workers used shovels to scoop up pools of oil that washed up overnight, turning the sand orange.
Tar balls have been reported as far west as Panama City, Fla., and heavier oil is predicted to wash ashore further east along the coast line in the coming days. Oil has also washed up on beaches in Alabama and coated wetlands in Louisiana.
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Associated Press Writer Curt Anderson in Miami and Melissa R. Nelson contributed to this report.
See pictures Pensacola beach by Gregg Hall, june 25 2010.
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