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Post by preen on Jun 19, 2010 18:03:15 GMT -8
The Slow Death Of The Herons 06/19/2010 Preening with their bills, the oiled birds ingest oil over and over again. birding.typepad.com/gulf/
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Post by preen on Jun 19, 2010 18:06:50 GMT -8
(That was a link btw to Drew Wheelan's blog.)
Grand Isle Beach Madness Sunday, June 13, 2010 - Within minutes of touch-down from a flight I will never forget (more on this later today), my friends, Drew Wheelan of the American Birding Association and LSU PhD candidate James Maley, invited me to tag along on a trip to Elmer's Island.
I still carry no press credentials or security pass and doubted they would allow a freelancer to poke his lens in any direction. At the first checkpoint a police officer, via the air waves, checked James's name against a master clearance list. Drew and I stayed in the car with heads, binos and lens in the low, subservient position. Dutifully following our squad car escort, we drove a mile to the main entrance parking lot.
" You cannot go over the boom .... You cannot go left .... You cannot go right .... Do not talk to any one! " We were alloted twenty minutes to conduct an Oiled Bird Survey in a beaten down parking lot the size of a soccer field. Trailed by a side-armed escort, we smiled and shook our heads in disbelief.
Later that evening Drew Wheelan and I made a very quick visit to the nests of a couple of Least Terns, their newly hatched chicks hanging precariously to life amongst the Grand Isle Madness.
Drews latest blog is a must-read for background information and a well-written account of the beach clean-up, and the sad side effects.
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Post by moabiter on Jul 16, 2010 0:29:44 GMT -8
Ben commented that, "I know the situation is bad, but if it's any consolation, we were just on Raccoon Island (another large colony in Terrebonne Bay), and the situation is much better. There is no oil and there are thousands of Royal terns there that look great."
Unfortunately, when their film crew returned last Wednesday what they found was oil, and oiled birds. ...
Even worse than this discovery is the apparent lack of knowledge of this situation to those in charge of the search and rescue mission here in Louisiana. Terrebonne Parish local and concerned citizen Darlene Eschete, knowing of Raccoon Island's importance to the area's birds recently queried officials on the status of Raccoon Island, "I attended a Deepwater Horizon Response open house last Thursday and asked about this particular island. I was reassured by the Wildlife and Fisheries agents there that they were checking on this island and everything was pristine...no oil." ...
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Post by moabiter on Jul 16, 2010 21:18:40 GMT -8
1- The Q4000 drilling rig operates in the Gulf of Mexico at the site of the Deepwater Horizon disaster Wednesday, June 16, 2010. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)2- James McGee vacuums oil in Barataria Bay on the coast of Louisiana, Sunday, June 20, 2010. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)3- Pelicans are released into the wild Sunday June 20, 2010, at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in to the Saint Charles Bay. Nearly 40 pelicans were brought from to the refuge from the Louisiana shores where they had been covered in oil. (AP Photo/The Caller-Times, Steven Alford) 4- Smoke billows from a controlled burn of spilled oil off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico coast line June 13, 2010. (REUTERS/Sean Gardner)6- (1 of 2) Crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill washes ashore in Orange Beach, Alabama, Saturday, June 12, 2010. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)9- Three oil-coated white ibis sit in marsh grass on a small island in Bay Barataria near Grand Isle, Louisiana June 13, 2010. These birds are being rescued and transported to the Fort Jackson Rehabilitation Center. (REUTERS/Sean Gardner)16- In this June 18, 2010 satellite image provided by NASA, Oil from the Deepwater Horizon rig was visible on the surface of Gulf of Mexico. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite took this picture. The oil appears as varying shades of white, as sunlight is reflected off its surface. (AP Photo/NASA)20- This digitally enhanced satellite image captured by DigitalGlobe on June 15, 2010 and released June 17, 2010 shows part of the oil spill clean up effort in the Gulf of Mexico. This image leverages the different sensor bands of DigitalGlobe's WorldView-2 satellite to highlight the oil and dispersant. (REUTERS/DigitalGlobe) 22- Marc Provencher, a biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and based in Anderson, California, tries to catch a brown pelican covered with oil at Empire Jetty in the Gulf of Mexico, near Venice, Louisiana, June 15, 2010. Birds are caught and then cleaned at the Fort Jackson Oiled Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. (SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)25- Marsh grasses covered in oil are seen in Bay Jimmy, Thursday, June 17, 2010, near Myrtle Grove, Louisiana. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)27- Oil is seen in the deep recesses of marshland in the northern reaches of Barataria Bay, Louisiana, Thursday, June 17, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)33- Fire and smoke rise from a controlled burn of oil on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico near BP's Deepwater Horizon spill source on June 17, 2010. (REUTERS/Daniel Beltra/Greenpeace)35 - Oil covers the surface of the Gulf of Mexico on the vicinity of BP's Deepwater Horizon spill source on June 17, 2010. (REUTERS/Daniel Beltra/Greenpeace)37 photos www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/oil_in_the_gulf_two_months_lat.html
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Post by moabiter on Jul 30, 2010 6:24:20 GMT -8
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Post by moabiter on Jul 30, 2010 6:53:07 GMT -8
Watts Up With That? blog The Gulf oil rig explosion – on the scene photos Posted on May 1, 2010 Regular WUWT commenter Jimmy Haigh, a geologist by trade, sends along a PDF that is a compilation of on the scene photos taken right after the explosion and in the following two days. I’ve converted it to web format. These were taken by people on the scene during the rescue and firefighting operation. There’s also a narrative, done by a person “in the know”. You won’t find this at AP or Reuters. wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/01/the-gulf-oil-rig-explosion-on-the-scene-photos/
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Post by moabiter on Aug 4, 2010 19:53:39 GMT -8
The Crime of the Century: What BP and the US Government Don't Want You to Know, Part I Posted: August 4, 2010 11:46 AM On two, unrestricted day-long flights, on July 22nd and 23rd, we were fortunate enough to be on with official clearance. We saw a total of four distressed dolphins and three schools of rays on the surface. As the bottom of the ocean is covered with crude and only the oil on the surface broken up by dispersant, the rays are forced up to the surface in a futile attempt to find food and oxygen. Birds are scarce where one would usually find thousands upon thousands. The Gulf of Mexico from the Source into the shore is a giant kill zone. "In May, Mother Nature Network blogger K.Burkart received a tip from an anonymous fisherman-turned-BP contractor, a distressed text message, describing a near-apocalyptic sight near the location of the sunken Deepwater Horizon -- fish, dolphins, rays, squid, whales, and thousands of birds -- "as far as the eye can see," dead and dying. According to his statement, which was later confirmed by another report from an individual working in the Gulf, whale carcasses were being shipped to a highly guarded location where they were processed for disposal. CitizenGlobal Gulf News Desk received photos that matched the report and are being published on Karl's blog today. Local fisherman in Alabama report sighting tremendous numbers of dolphins, sharks, and fish moving in towards shore as the initial waves of oil and dispersant approached in June. Scores of animals were fleeing the leading edge of toxic dispersant mixed with oil. Those not either caught in the toxic mixture and killed out at sea, or fortunate enough to be out in safe water beyond the Source, died as the water closed in, and they were left no safe harbor. The numbers of birds, fish, turtles, and mammals killed by the use of Corexit will never be known as the evidence strongly suggests that BP worked with the Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, the FAA, private security contractors, and local law enforcement, all of which cooperated to conceal the operations disposing of the animals from the media and the public. The majority of the disposal operations were carried out under cover of darkness. The areas along the beaches and coastal Islands where the dead animals were collected were closed off by the U.S. Coast Guard. On shore, private contractors and local law enforcement officials kept off limits the areas where the remains of the dead animals were dumped, mainly at the Magnolia Springs landfill by Waste Management where armed guards controlled access." J.Cope: huffingtonpost.com www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-cope/the-crime-of-the-century_b_662971.html
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Post by moabiter on Aug 4, 2010 20:34:21 GMT -8
The Death Gyre in the Gulf: What BP Didn't Want People to See by Ellinorianne Wed Aug 04, 2010 at 01:51:23 PM PDT I know many noted, where are the animals? There were so few photos of dead animals, so few photos of what was happening, although there were reports of many fish, dolphins and sharks swimming much closer to shore than usual in mid June. GULF SHORES, Ala. (AP) - Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water just off the Florida coast. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again. Marine scientists studying the effects of the BP disaster are seeing some strange phenomena... Day by day, scientists in boats tally up dead birds, sea turtles and other animals, but the toll is surprisingly small given the size of the disaster. The latest figures show that 783 birds, 353 turtles and 41 mammals have died - numbers that pale in comparison to what happened after the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska in 1989, when 250,000 birds and 2,800 otters are believed to have died. www.local15tv.com/news/local/story/Dolphins-Sharks-Fish-Spotted-Closer-to-Shore/bxdd4M4ShkeYM1_o7JLsww.cspx
There is an extensive interview with Rikki Ott as well as video (which is posted below), who has been on the scene and who I believe to be a very credible source about this spill from her experience with the Exxon Valdez. Because of fair use, I can't most of it, I encourage you to go read it. Dauphin Island was one of the sites where carcasses of sperm whales were destroyed. The operational end of the island was closed to unauthorized personnel and the airspace closed. The U.S. Coast Guard closed off all access from the Gulf. This picture shows the area as it was prepped to receive the whale carcasses for disposal. JC: There has been a great deal of discussion about the disappearance of the animals and the life in the ocean which seem to have vanished since this incident has occurred. What do you know about this?
RO: Well I have been down in the Gulf since May 3rd. It's pretty consistent what I have heard. First I heard from the offshore workers and the boat captains that were coming in and they would see windrows of dead things piled up on the barrier islands; turtles and birds and dolphins... whales...
JC: Whales?
RO: And whales. There would be stories from boat captains of offshore, we started calling death gyres, where the rips all the different currents sweep the oceans surface, that would be the collection points for hundreds of dolphins and sea turtles and birds and even whales floating. So we got four different times latitudes/longitude coordinates where (this was happening) but by the time we got to these lat/longs which is always a couple of days later there was nothing there.
...
So people offshore were reporting this first and then carcasses started making it onshore. Then I started hearing from people in Alabama a lot and the western half of Florida - a little bit in Mississippi - but mostly what was going on then there was an attempt to keep people off the beaches, cameras off the beaches. I was literally flying in a plane and the FAA boundary changed. It was offshore first with the barrier islands and all of a sudden it just hopped right to shore to Alabama that's where we were flying over and the pilot was just like - he couldn't believe it - he was like look at that and I didn't know what he was looking but then he points at the little red line which had all of sudden grown and he just looked at me and said the only reason that they have done this is so people can't see what is going on. And what that little red line meant was no cameras on shore and three days later the oil came onshore and the carcasses came onshore into Alabama.
JC: That immediately preceded the first wave coming onshore?
RO: Pretty much. That preceded the first wave. It was June 2nd when the line changed and the FAA boundaries increased. Then people would -- I mean you walk beaches here at night it's hot so people walk beaches -- and they would see carcasses like sea turtles, a bird, a little baby dolphin, and immediately they would go over to it and immediately people would approach them, don't touch that if you touch it you will be arrested and within fifteen minutes there would be a white unmarked van that would just come out of nowhere and in would go the carcass and off it would go. They were white unmarked vans at first. We've since heard many other stories from truckers who are trucking carcasses in refrigerated vans to Mexico. Carcasses are just not showing up where they need to which is as body counts for essentially this war on the gulf.
www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-cope/the-crime-of-the-century_b_662971.html
The Huffington Post mentions a post entitled 'Death Gyre' in the Gulf where there are photos of processing facility supposedly for dead animals. But there is not one dead animal in sight. There is an interview and a debunked text that was removed from this diary because it was suspect, I took it out until there is evidence it is authentic. What's most alarming about this is not just the cover up, the fact that the media was kept out from a no fly zone. When something this horrific happens, we expect to see such awful things. This has kept people from getting as upset as they should be, maybe it's kept people from getting more angry, from crying as much as they should have. Maybe it's made them think, "it could have been much worse." Well it was much worse than we could have imagined. But what this has done is it's hurt the ecologists and biologists who want to actually protect these animals from knowing the population numbers harmed in this catastrophe. How can we know how the sperm whale's viability if we have no idea how many perished in this nightmare? How can we know the impact on the endangered sea turtles if we can't get a grasp on how many died. It's not just about liability, it's about our responsibility as conservationists to understand the absolutely vastness of the situation. It just makes everyone's job harder in the long run and as this gets out, it deepens the general mistrust people have for corporate behemoths like BP and their agenda. Protect their image rather than protect the environment, the people and the species that live there as well. And about the corexit, that's coming next from the Huffington Post and the effects on human beings. But the fact that it's gone and not to be found, Tests suggest oil dispersant washing up on Alabama beaches. (Aug. 3 2010) The stained, brown water seen washing up in pockets along Alabama beaches for the last two weeks appears to contain the dispersant widely used on oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill, according to a preliminary analysis...
While heavy oil sheen was visible in the areas where the material was collected, little if any oil was found to be present in the samples, said Overton, who is analyzing oil samples for the federal government.
"We didn't see oil in the analysis we do, but I passed some of these water samples to a colleague who does fluorescence analysis," Overton said. "We saw some preliminary indications that there was a dispersant signal in the sample." blog.al.com/live/2010/08/tests_suggests_oil_dispersant.html
It has yet to be confirmed 100%, they will be doing further testing. www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/4/162320/1815
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Post by moabiter on Aug 4, 2010 20:40:57 GMT -8
Alabama State Troopers Moonlighting as BP Security Guards Written by Wayne Madsen Friday, 25 June 2010 16:53 WMR's sources on the Gulf coast report that BP Security personnel are being augmented by off-duty Alabama state troopers and G4S Wackenhut private security guards. The BP Security personnel ensure that no observers are present on Gulf coast beaches during night time hours when BP contractors scour the beaches and pick up and covertly dispose of dead dolphins, turtles, birds, and other sea animals that wash ashore covered with oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. BP is secretly disposing of the dead animals in order to avoid paying fines and compensation for killing endangered and protected species like turtles, dolphins, and brown pelicans. The sharp drop off in oxygen levels in the Gulf is forcing many sea animals into shallower waters in order to breathe, however, sharks are also following the easier prey into coastal rivers and inlets. oilprice.com/Environment/Oil-Spills/Alabama-State-Troopers-Moonlighting-as-BP-Security-Guards.html
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Post by moabiter on Aug 4, 2010 20:51:05 GMT -8
'Death Gyre' in the Gulf Firsthand accounts and leaked photos of a secret BP processing facility -- possibly for dead animals -- point to a massive cover-up in the Gulf. An exclusive report. Tue, Aug 03 2010 at 11:28 PM EST I have to write this mail on a new cellphone because they have taken our phones off us. people dont know how bad this oil is.. im working in the cleanup operation and we've all has to sign a legal paper that stops us from talking to anyone. im onshore now and cant tell you where but ive just finished a very long shift in the gulf and textin this....fast as i can. the military are watching us dolphins whales, seabirds fish are all floating dead on the surface of the water.. see more.. see more…boats helicopters are scooping them away dead and dying... Whales are being exploded by the military cause they cant be carried. dead bodys as far as the eye can see air smeling of benzene ..weve seen birds fall from the sky. workers falling sick we think some workers have died. my friends are hard oilmen it was ok to at the start but now we cry. dead sea life is as big as genocide you wont imagine The following three photographs (taken in the first week of June and published here for the first time) document the processing area just prior to commencing operations. A large-scale construction project, which included creating a visual barricade on a 200' long pier, several large cranes adjacent to lined pools at least 50' in length, and a series of large tents alongside a fleet of trucks, gives further credence to the theory that BP, with the help of the U.S. government, was processing some form of waste that they did not want the public to know about: You might be wondering about motive. Sure BP probably wanted to keep the full, gruesome reality of their toxic nightmare out of the press as much as possible. But was that enough of a motive to warrant such a massive and expensive operation? Probably not. A greater incentive may have been the fines the company would have incurred if the correct number of dead carcasses had been verifiable. At $50,000 a pop www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0625/Gulf-oil-spill-s-wildlife-toll-sharks-near-shore-turtles-incinerated hundreds of thousands of dead animals could spell B-A-N-K-R-U-P-T-C-Y for BP, and that's something that no one, including the U.S. government, would have wanted to happen. www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/blogs/death-gyre-in-the-gulf
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Post by clone on May 15, 2012 8:13:55 GMT -8
Scientists: Fish are sick where BP's oil spill hit Thu, Apr 19, 2012 BARATARIA BAY, La. (AP) — Two years after the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, scientists say they're finding trouble with sick fish that dwell along offshore reefs and in the deep waters — especially in places where the oil spill hit the hardest. The scientists are unsure what's causing a small percentage of the fish they're catching to have large open sores and strange black streaks. The biggest question is whether contaminants from the BP spill are causing the problems. For now scientists can't say for sure if the spill is the cause or if it's normal to find this number of sick fish. The fish illnesses don't pose an increased health threat to humans, scientists say, but they could be devastating to prized species and the people who make their living catching them. news.yahoo.com/scientists-fish-sick-where-bps-oil-spill-hit-074951853.html
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