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WLOX...
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Injured pelicans, other birds, rescued in Waveland
Posted: Sep 05, 2011 5:04 PM PDT
Updated: Sep 05, 2011 5:24 PM PDT
By Steve Phillips
WAVELAND, MS (WLOX) -
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A wildlife rescue team is working to save young pelicans and other birds injured by the tropical storm. Strong winds and pounding waves from the storm system washed ashore several birds that were either injured or exhausted.
With a net in hand, wildlife rescue volunteer Randy Hines captures a young pelican on the beach in Waveland Monday. The bird shows signs of storm trauma: Bruised feet and swollen joints.
"They're bruised from all the paddling they've had to do when getting blown off their islands," Hines said.
Tropical Storm Lee's wind and waves pushed baby pelicans off their nesting grounds.
"The Chandelier Island chain in Louisiana have a lot of rookeries, pelican rookeries out there. And we had the same problem happen in Gustav in 2008, where a lot of them were washed in from those rookeries off of the islands," said Allison Sharpe with the Wildlife Care & Rescue Center.
Healthy pelicans fly off as Hines approaches with the net. The remaining bird, an injured juvenile, was frightened, but unable to fly away.
Anyone who stumbles across an injured pelican should not attempt such a rescue.
"First of all, people have to understand these are federally protected birds and they're not supposed to touch them. We've been receiving calls since late yesterday afternoon about a lot of the birds down here on the beaches with injuries to their wings."
And it's not just pelicans. The group picked up an injured seagull at the Pass Christian Harbor. They also found an exhausted northern gannet is also a storm rescue bird.
"They dive into the water, just like our pelicans, to catch their meal."
The goal is the same for all rescued bird: Nurse them back to health, and return them to where they belong.
"Try to get them re-hydrated, get some food into them, get them where they're old enough to start flying by themselves and to obviously release them."
Again, if you find an injured pelican or other sea bird, you should call the professionals rather than attempt a rescue yourself. You can reach the Wildlife Care and Rescue Center at (228) 669-2737.
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Injured pelicans, other birds, rescued in Waveland
Posted: Sep... more
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PART ONE...
CNN...
Japan dumps thousands of tons of radioactive water into sea
By the CNN Wire Staff
April 4, 2011 9:47 a.m. EDT
A Tokyo Electric Power Company picture from April 2 shows water gushing from the cracked concrete shaft.
Tokyo (CNN) -- Japan began dumping thousands of tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean on Monday, an emergency move officials said was needed to curtail a worse leak from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
In all, about 11,500 tons of radioactive water that has collected at the nuclear facility will be dumped into the sea, officials said Monday, as workers also try to deal with a crack that has been a conduit for contamination.
The radiation levels were highest in the water that was being drained from reactor No. 6, the officials said.
These are the latest but hardly the only challenges facing workers at the embattled power plant and its six reactors, which have been in constant crisis since last month's ruinous earthquake and tsunami.
Officials with Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs the plant, proposed the release of excess water that has pooled in and around the Nos. 5 and 6 reactors into the sea. But most of the dumped water -- 10,000 tons -- will come from the plant's central waste treatment facility, which will then be used to store highly radioactive water from the No. 2 unit, an official with the power company said.
The water in reactors Nos. 5 and 6 is coming from a subdrain and wasn't inside the building itself, officials said. Tests suggest that groundwater is the source of the contamination in these two units, but they are not certain.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano called the dumping "unavoidable." The liquid was most likely contaminated in the process of trying to cool nuclear fuel rods.
The scope of the dump was staggering.
"For an idea about how much is 11,500 tons, one metric ton is 1,000 kilograms or about 2,200 pounds, which is close to an English ton. Water is about 8.5 pounds per gallon, so one ton is about 260 gallons," said Gary Was, a professor of nuclear engineering at the University of Michigan. "So 11,500 tons is about 3 million gallons. A spent fuel pool holds around 300,000 gallons. So this amount of water is equivalent to the volume of roughly 10 (spent fuel pools)."
It could take 50 hours to dump all the water, Tokyo Electric said.
The dumping of so much radioactive water into the ocean conjures fears of mutated sea life and contamination of the human food chain, but one expert said the radiation will be quickly diluted, minimizing risk.
"What we have to watch is how these materials accumulate in food products and then could be consumed by people," something that can be monitored, said John Till, president of Risk Assessment Corp.
"The ocean is so vast that this material would dilute very rapidly and I wouldn't see any lasting effects at all," he said.
The build-up of water could cause problems around the nuclear facility, which is 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Tokyo, Edano said Monday.
Authorities have made a priority of dealing with water from the No. 2 unit, some of which has been gushing into the sea through a crack in a concrete shaft.
"The radioactivity level is very high near the No. 2 reactor, and we know this. We have to stop the leak as early as possible to prevent this from going into the sea," Edano said. "The radioactivity level is much less in the water from the Nos. 3 and 4 units."
Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency officials said Monday night that the hope is that pumping out the No. 2 reactor turbine plant will lower the water level enough that contaminated liquid won't be able to reach the sea.
"I am not able to say for certain whether or not this will be the last discharge, but we certainly would like to avoid releasing any such water into the sea as much as possible," agency spokesman Hidehiko Nishiyama said.
Officials were still awaiting test results to confirm the water pouring into the ocean is leaking from the highly radioactive No. 2 reactor.
"We don't know clearly, but we feel it is somehow leaking from Unit 2," Nishiyama said. Even if the water is confirmed to have come from the reactor, neither Tokyo Electric nor government officials know how it is making its way from the reactor to the leaking pit, he said.
Once the water is pumped out of the waste treatment reservoir, the agency believes it can safely transfer the water from the basement of the No. 2 turbine plant to the reservoir without further leaks, he said.
Though Japanese officials say the water being discharged is less radioactive than the water now leaking into the sea, its top concentration of radioactive iodine-131 is 20 becquerels per cubic centimeter, or 200,000 becquerels per kilogram. That's 10 times the level of radioactivity permitted in food. But since it's being dumped into the Pacific, it will be quickly diluted, according to Dr. James Cox, a radiation oncologist at Houston's MD Anderson Cancer Center and a CNN consultant.
Reactors No. 1 and No. 3, which have lower levels of water, need to be drained as well. Tokyo Electric's plan is to pump that water to other storage tanks, including some that still need to be set up.
Attempts to fill the 20-centimeter (8-inch) crack outside the No. 2 reactor's turbine building -- on Saturday by pouring in concrete, then Sunday by using a chemical compound mixed with sawdust and newspaper -- were not successful.
CONTINUED...PART ONE...
CNN...
Japan dumps thousands of tons of radioactive water into... more
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Gulf journals: Accounts of a tragedy
Since April 20, millions of barrels of oil have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, devastating Gulf Coast communities and ecosystems. Here are nine stories from the people affected by the disaster.
Gulf journals: Documenting a disaster
July 28, 2010 1:54 p.m. EDT
(CNN) -- Wednesday marks the 100th day of the worst oil disaster in U.S. history. Since April 20, the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon explosion has allowed millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, devastating many communities of the Gulf Coast and its ecosystem.
CNN iReport quickly realized that we had a unique opportunity to profile and share the stories of concerned Gulf residents. As the oil disaster continued to worsen, we received dozens of heartbreaking stories with photos and videos of oil-covered beaches and wildlife.
Once the threat of oil became a serious reality to Gulf Coast residents, we started to showcase both the powerful images and stories together on our blog, through a series of profiles of iReporters on the forefront of the disaster. We've heard stories from tattoo artists in Grand Isle, Louisiana, a lifelong Pensacola, Florida, resident, and a woman who's driven hundreds of miles to tell the story of a suffering Louisiana town.
These stories help us look into the lives of the hardworking people of the Gulf as they watch this disaster take its toll. Click through the gallery to read nine personal accounts of this catastrophe, and visit the iReport blog for a complete archive.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/IREPORT/07/28/gulf.journals.irpt/index.html?hpt=C1Gulf journals: Accounts of a tragedy
Since April 20, millions of barrels of oil... more
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There's more to caring for sea birds affected by the Gulf oil disaster than tossing them fish.
CNN's Rob Marciano introduces us to people helping nurse pelicans back to health.
Watch "Rescue: Saving the Gulf" tonight at 8 ET.There's more to caring for sea birds affected by the Gulf oil disaster than... more
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Hundreds of penguins wash up on Brazilian coast
Also, numerous other sea birds, five dolphins and three giant sea turtles
By Mariano Castillo, CNN
July 22, 2010 11:19 a.m. EDT
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(CNN) -- Biologists suspect that unusually cold waters off the coast of Brazil were responsible for the deaths of more than 550 penguins that washed up on shore in the past 10 days.
Since July 11, about 556 dead penguins have appeared on beaches, Thiago do Nascimento, a biologist at the Peruibe Aquarium, told CNN.
At the beach of Praia Grande alone, on the Sao Paulo coast, more than 170 penguins have washed up on shore since Friday, according to the local government.
It is not unusual for penguins to show up on the Brazilian coast during their migration, but most of the time, they are alive, said another biologist, Isabelle Nunes.
Necropsies performed on many of the penguins show that they had no food in their stomachs and probably starved to death, Nascimento said, adding that cold weather probably contributed to their deaths.
Nunes said it is possible that the cold waters, brought on by a regional cold front, made the fish that the penguins eat seek other waters.
More tests are being conducted, Nunes said.
Farther north, on the famous beaches of Rio de Janeiro, penguin appearances and rescues have become common in recent years.
It's normal for Magellan penguins to leave their colonies in the Antarctic in an annual migration in search of fish, following the plankton-rich, frigid water currents traveling north along the coast of South America. What has changed is that they are increasingly unable to return home because they get sick, weak or disoriented for reasons that have yet to be determined.
Climate change, overfishing and pollution of the water all could contribute to the penguins becoming lost.
The Niteroi Zoo, near Rio de Janeiro, first began receiving penguins for rescue in 1999. Since then, they have received an increasing number of the birds, peaking with 1,000 penguins in 2008.
CNN's Rafael Romo contributed to this report.
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/WORLD/americas/07/21/brazil.dead.penguins/story.penguin.cnn.jpgHundreds of penguins wash up on Brazilian coast
Also, numerous other sea birds,... more
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By Tom Foreman, CNN
June 23, 2010 10:43 a.m. EDT
Fairhope, Alabama (CNN) -- Mark Castlow and Jimbo Meador have a solution for saving the oil-covered birds in the Gulf of Mexico. However, they also have a problem.
I saw the solution firsthand during a quick ride through a Gulf inlet, near Meador's home of Fairhope, Alabama, about a 20-minute drive outside Mobile.
The two co-owners of Florida-based Dragonfly Boatworks have been working at a breakneck pace for weeks to modify the design of their shallow draft fishing boats, turning them into mobile triage units for pelicans, seagulls, and pretty much any kind of critter caught in the catastrophe.
Their concern on the 65th day of the underwater gusher is deep rooted. Castlow, who says he has "salt water in his blood," grew up surfing off Miami and the Keys. Meador, a former shrimper, was raised along Alabama's Gulf shores.
They're keenly aware that each day adds to the death toll of birds and other animals dying in pockets of oil that invade their natural habitat.
"We have to do everything we can to take care of them," said Meador, who said he has a serious interest in the "birding world." "We want to do try to do what's right to help them because they can't help themselves."
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Unlike more traditional boats, which have deep keels that bog down when they push into shallow marshlands, the custom Dragonfly boats can operate in less than a foot of water.
Their broad hulls create very little wake that might further alarm wildlife; and they've even been painted a light green color to blend better with their surroundings.
On board, Castlow and Meador have added a whole set of tools to help wildlife rescuers: a large, skid-proof worktable for crews to handle animals, an adjustable shade canopy which can be easily lowered to slip beneath bayou tree branches, fine mist nozzles to cool the scorching summer temperatures for workers and critters. The oil won't hamper the boat's engines, thanks to a special cleaning solution.
The men consulted wildlife biologists and other scientists as they rushed to make the improvements, and they've found big donors, like Florida musician Jimmy Buffett, who are willing to help them make the boats available to rescuers free of charge.
The vessels will be outfitted with wireless Internet access, and plans are in the works to team up with Google Earth to enable anyone to track the boats online in real time. Onboard Web cameras donated by a group in Houston, Texas, will allow classrooms or anyone else to watch rescuers in action.
So far, Buffett has funded construction of one prototype boat, according to the duo. The plan is to produce a new boat every seven days from here on out. After the cleanup, the animal rescue groups will be allowed to keep the boats for use in research projects.
No one will make money off of the deal, but the animals could benefit immensely, including brown pelicans, a species native to the eastern Gulf which has fallen victim to the oil. Brown pelicans spent almost 40 years on the endangered species list until last year.
Salvaging just a few of the birds is so vital to the survival of the species, said Lee Hollingsworth, a wildlife adviser with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Wales. "Something has got to be done, and of course, it's worth saving the bird."
Every day adds to the death toll of the region's birds and other animals. According to a June 22 report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, rescue officials have collected 1,746 birds along the coastline from Louisiana to Florida. Of those, 749 were alive and "visibly oiled." Another 997 were found dead, and 265 of those were visibly oiled. Birds that were found alive and then euthanized numbered 143. The report states BP's Deepwater Horizon spill is not responsible for all dead birds.
Although the vessels have been praised by wildlife experts, including marine biologists at the University of Southern Mississippi, Castlow and Meador say they've run into dead ends trying to get their boats into the hands of animal rescuers.
They've called federal authorities and BP too, but they say no one seems able to willing to tell them how and when the boats might be put to work.
Castlow and Meador call their support network the DEA, the Dragonfly Environmental Army, which is made up of those who have extended a helping hand, which include suppliers, donors and volunteers. They're hoping the combined forces of their group can break through the bureaucracy and get their boats in the hands of animal rescuers.
It is frustrating to both men, but they say they've been so encouraged by wildlife experts who have universally praised their innovation, that they're pressing on, convinced that no less than the lives of thousands of birds are at stake, and the future of their beloved Gulf too.
"And we're going to get all of these people, and we are going to break that ceiling," said Castlow. "And we will go through it -- because it's our livelihood."
CNN's Katie Ross and Eliott C. McLaughlin contributed to this reportBy Tom Foreman, CNN
June 23, 2010 10:43 a.m. EDT
Fairhope, Alabama (CNN) -- Mark... more
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In less than a week, the rescue center at Fort Jackson has received more than five times as many oiled birds as it received in the previous six weeks since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill began.
A report Wednesday from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows that the Louisiana center has reported 415 birds since the BP PLC well blew wild in April. Sixty-six of those had been reported by last Thursday. The number since then is 349, with 61 of them added since Tuesday.
In addition, 14 birds have been brought to the Alabama center, 12 in Florida and one in Mississippi.
Since the start of the spill, bird rescue crews have found 633 dead birds -- about one in six VISIBLY oiled.
A total of 32 sea turtles have been rescued, 28 of them in the Gulf of Mexico. http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/06/oiled_birds_arriving_at_rescue.html
NOTE: Thses numbers do not include the number of sea turtles (dolphins, seahorses or other wildlife) found dead due to the oil spill or toxic dispersant.In less than a week, the rescue center at Fort Jackson has received more than five... more
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New oil plume evidence uncovered
By John Couwels, CNN
June 7, 2010 1:38 a.m. EDT
St. Petersburg, Florida (CNN) -- As if the pictures of birds, fish and animals killed by floating oil in the Gulf of Mexico is not disturbing enough, scientists now say they have found evidence of another danger lurking underwater.
The University of South Florida recently discovered a second oil plume in the northeastern gulf. The first plume was found by Mississippi universities in early May.
USF has concluded microscopic oil droplets are forming deep water oil plumes. After a weeklong analysis of water samples, USF scientists found more oil in deeper water.
"These hydrocarbons are from depth and not associated with sinking degraded oil but associated with the source of the Deep Horizon well head," said USF Chemical Oceanographer David Hollander.
Through isotopic or microscopic fingerprinting, Hollander and his USF crew were able to show the oil in the plume came from BP's blown out oil well. The surface oil's so-called fingerprint matched the tiny underwater droplet's fingerprint.
"We've taken molecular isotopic approaches which is like a fingerprint on a smoking gun," Hollander said.
BP has not commented on the latest development but in the past denied underwater oil plumes exist.
"The oil is on the surface," said BP's Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward. "There aren't any plumes."
Yet BP's Managing Director Bob Dudley said recently, "We're all absolutely taking these ideas seriously and looking at them."
Scientists on board the university's research vessel Weatherbird II were not able to find the dissolved hydrocarbon or oil by sight. Instead the crew received sensor signatures from the equipment deployed into the water since the plumes appear to be clear.
USF is unsure on the exact size of the plumes.
"There are indications this is fairly wide spread," said the USF oceanographer. "There is probably more than one leg of this plume."
Scientist are concerned what effect the oil, not to mention the dissolvents used to break up the oil, will have on marine life.
Laboratory tests show bacteria has begun eating some elements of the dissolved hydrocarbons. But the effect on fish "is what needs to be understood," said Hollander. "We are in unchartered territory."
Water samples collected by USF were sent to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration labs. NOAA has yet to comment on their conclusions.
NOAA and USF will hold a joint press conference Tuesday morning at the university's S.t Petersburg's campus to release their final findings.New oil plume evidence uncovered
By John Couwels, CNN
June 7, 2010 1:38 a.m. EDT... more
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Photo: Crews worked Saturday on the failed top kill effort to stanch the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. BP will try another strategy.
May 29, 2010
BP Prepares to Take New Tack on Leak After ‘Top Kill’ Fails
By LESLIE KAUFMAN and CLIFFORD KRAUSS
NEW ORLEANS — In another serious setback in the effort to stem the flow of oil gushing from a well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico, BP engineers said Saturday that the “top kill” technique had failed and, after consultation with government officials, they had decided to move on to another strategy.
Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer for exploration and production, said at a news conference that the engineers would try once again to solve the problem with a containment cap and that it could take four to seven days for the device to be in place.
“After three full days of attempting top kill, we now believe it is time to move on to the next of our options,” Mr. Suttles said.
The abandonment of the top kill technique, the most ambitious effort yet to plug the well, was the latest in a series of failures. First, BP failed in efforts to repair a blowout preventer with submarine robots. Then its initial efforts to cap the well with a containment dome failed when it became clogged with a frothy mix of frigid water and gas. Efforts to use a hose to gather escaping oil have managed to catch only a fraction of the spill.
BP has started work on two relief wells, but officials have said that they will not be completed until August — further contributing to what is already the worst oil spill in United States history.
The latest failure will undoubtedly put more pressure — both politically and from the public — on the Obama administration to take some sort of action, perhaps taking control of the repair effort completely from BP.
President Obama, who is spending the Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, issued a statement Saturday evening on the decision to abandon the top kill.
“While we initially received optimistic reports about the procedure, it is now clear that it has not worked,” Mr. Obama said.
He said that Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry of the Coast Guard had “directed BP to launch a new procedure whereby the riser pipe will be cut and a containment structure fitted over the leak.”
“This approach is not without risk and has never been attempted before at this depth,” Mr. Obama said. “That is why it was not activated until other methods had been exhausted.”
The president continued, “We will continue to pursue any and all responsible means of stopping this leak until the completion of the two relief wells currently being drilled.”
For BP, the besieged British company, the failure could mean billions of dollars of additional liabilities, as the spill potentially worsens in the weeks and months ahead.
“I am disappointed that this operation did not work,” Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, said in a statement. “We remain committed to doing everything we can to make this situation right.”
A technician who has been working on the project to stem the oil leak said Saturday that neither the top kill nor the “junk shot” came close to succeeding because the pressure of oil and gas escaping from the well was simply too powerful to overcome. He added that engineers never had a complete enough understanding of the inner workings of drill pipe casing or blowout preventer mechanisms to make the efforts work.
“Simply too much of what we pumped in was escaping,” said the technician, who spoke on condition of remaining unnamed because he is not authorized to speak publicly for the company.
“The engineers are disappointed, and management is upset,” said the technician. “Nothing is good, nothing is good.”
The spill began after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 people. Since then, it has dumped an estimated 18 million to 40 million gallons into the gulf.
After the announcement Saturday, the disappointment was palpable along the Louisiana shoreline, where the oil has increasingly washed up in sticky, rusty globs.
Michel Claudet, the president of Terrebonne Parish, 60 miles southwest of New Orleans, said that when he heard the news, he felt “sorrow, despair and like this ordeal will never finish. If you go around the parish, it is all our folks talk about.”
Mr. Claudet said that he was trying to remain hopeful, but that it was increasingly difficult. “As every item fails,” he said, “I am less and less optimistic.”
In New Orleans, Margaret Shockey, 67, a retired teacher, said, “One thing’s for sure, this is the last city that deserved this.”
Last week, BP described the top kill — which was an effort to pump heavy mud into the well to counter the flow of oil — as its best hope for stopping the spill. During the course of the operation, BP officials had often expressed optimism that it would work.
But on Saturday, Mr. Suttles said the operation had pumped 30,000 barrels of mud into the well and yet failed to stop it from flowing.
Admiral Landry called the failure “very disappointing.”
The new strategy is to smoothly cut the riser from which the oil is leaking and then place a cap over it. Pipes attached to the cap would take the oil to a storage boat on the surface.
Though a first effort at a containment dome failed, Mr. Suttles said BP had learned from that experience and now believed that this cap, which is custom fitted to the riser, would be more successful.
He said it would capture most but not all of the oil leaking from the well, which is believed to be gushing 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day.
He would not give odds for the operation’s success, but said he had “a lot of confidence” that it would work.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Suttles said preparations for such an alternative plan were already under way, just in case. “That equipment is on stage and ready to go,” he said. Equipment is being deployed on land and on the seabed, he said.
If the new cap is not successful, the company has said it will look into attaching another blowout preventer to the one that already exists at the wellhead and has not functioned.
But officials emphasized that the real solution to the spill was the relief well. They said one of the relief wells was currently proceeding ahead of schedule, but was still at least a month away.
“It’s like a bad movie that just won’t end,” said Billy Altman, 45, a mechanic in New Orleans. “You know, you think they finally killed the bad guy, and then he comes back to life. It’s crazy.”
Clifford Krauss reported from Houston, and Leslie Kaufman from New Orleans. Robbie Brown contributed from New Orleans, and Sarah Wheaton from New York.Photo: Crews worked Saturday on the failed top kill effort to stanch the leaking oil... more
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BP's "top kill" attempt to stop the flow of oil from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico failed, the company's chief operating officer said Saturday.
The oil giant has tried for days to stop the the largest oil spill in U.S. history by pumping heavy, mudlike drilling fluid into a ruptured oil well, a method known as "top kill."
The next option is to place a custom-built cap known as the "lower marine riser package" over the leak, the company's chief operating officer, Doug Suttles said. BP crews were working Saturday to ready the materials for that option should it become necessary, he said.
"We've been prepping that all along in case we need to move to that option," he said. "People want to know which technique is going to work, and I don't know."
And if "lower marine riser package" were to fail, he said, BP engineers would try placing a second blowout preventer on top of the first, which failed to cut of the oil flow after the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig. The failed blowout preventer is a 48-foot-tall, 450-ton apparatus that sits atop the well 5,000 feet underwater.
Meanwhile, teams in Louisiana were working Saturday on a clean-up project aimed at protecting coastal marshes while BP continues its efforts to stop oil from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.
Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser has said that machines would suck oil out of marshes Saturday after crews determined where to deploy them.
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"We will begin to clean up some of those areas that fell by the wayside for the last couple weeks," he said.
Oil giant BP's focus has been trying to put a stop to what officials say is the largest oil spill in U.S. history, with as many as 19,000 barrels of crude gushing into the ocean daily.
By Sunday morning the company could know whether the "top kill" procedure -- pumping heavy drilling mud into the breached oil well at high pressure -- is working, said Robert Dudley, BP's managing director.
"It's like an arm-wrestling match of two equally strong forces," he said.
Government scientists on Thursday said as many as 19,000 barrels (798,000 gallons) of oil were spewing into the ocean every day, making this disaster perhaps twice the size of the Exxon Valdez incident.
Previously, BP officials and government scientists had said 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) of crude were flowing out daily.
"This is clearly an environmental catastrophe," BP CEO Tony Hayward said Friday. "There's no two ways about it."
Under intense political pressure to take control of the situation, President Obama toured the region on Friday.
"We want to stop the leak, we want to contain and clean up the oil and we want to help the people in this region return to their lives and livelihoods as soon as possible," the president told reporters.
About 25 percent of the Gulf of Mexico exclusive economic zone has been put off limits, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and fishermen are worried the gushing oil will take a more serious toll than Hurricane Katrina did in 2005.
"Katrina was nothing but rain, water and wind. This is poison. It's gas," oysterman Arthur Etienne said.
Obama said Friday that federal officials were prepared to authorize moving forward with "a portion of" an idea proposed by local officials, who want the Army Corps of Engineers to build a "sand boom" offshore to keep the water from getting into the fragile marshlands.
That did not satisfy Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who has advocated immediate construction of the booms. Noting in a written statement that 107 miles of the state's coast have been oiled, he said, "We continue to ask federal officials to approve our entire sand-boom plan from the northern Chandeleurs to the Isle Dernieres chain."
Obama said he has directed federal officials to triple the manpower in places where oil has hit shore or appears within a day of doing so.BP's "top kill" attempt to stop the flow of oil from a ruptured well in... more
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By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
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”.
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.
The dispersal agent Corexit 9500 is a solvent originally developed by Exxon and now manufactured by the Nalco Holding Company of Naperville, Illinois that is four times more toxic than oil (oil is toxic at 11 ppm (parts per million), Corexit 9500 at only 2.61ppm). In a report written by Anita George-Ares and James R. Clark for Exxon Biomedical Sciences, Inc. titled “Acute Aquatic Toxicity of Three Corexit Products: An Overview” Corexit 9500 was found to be one of the most toxic dispersal agents ever developed. Even worse, according to this report, with higher water temperatures, like those now occurring in the Gulf of Mexico, its toxicity grows.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in discovering BP’s use of this dangerous dispersal agent ordered BP to stop using it, but BP refused stating that their only alternative to Corexit 9500 was an even more dangerous dispersal agent known as Sea Brat 4.
The main differences between Corexit 9500 and Sea Brat 4 lie in how long these dangerous chemicals take to degrade into their constituent organic compounds, which for Corexit 9500 is 28 days. Sea Brat 4, on the other hand, degrades into an organic chemical called Nonylphenol that is toxic to aquatic life and can persist in the environment for years.
A greater danger involving Corexit 9500, and as outlined by Russian scientists in this report, is that with its 2.61ppm toxicity level, and when combined with the heating Gulf of Mexico waters, its molecules will be able to “phase transition” from their present liquid to a gaseous state allowing them to be absorbed into clouds and allowing their release as “toxic rain” upon all of Eastern North America.
Even worse, should a Katrina like tropical hurricane form in the Gulf of Mexico while tens of millions of gallons of Corexit 9500 are sitting on, or near, its surface the resulting “toxic rain” falling upon the North American continent could “theoretically” destroy all microbial life to any depth it reaches resulting in an “unimaginable environmental catastrophe” destroying all life forms from the “bottom of the evolutionary chart to the top”.
Note: For molecules of a liquid to evaporate, they must be located near the surface, be moving in the proper direction, and have sufficient kinetic energy to overcome liquid-phase intermolecular forces. Only a small proportion of the molecules meet these criteria, so the rate of evaporation is limited. Since the kinetic energy of a molecule is proportional to its temperature, evaporation proceeds more quickly at higher temperatures.
As over 50 miles of the US State of Louisiana’s coastline has already been destroyed by this spill, American scientists are warning that the damage may be impossible to repair, and as we can read as reported by the Associated Press News Service:
“The gooey oil washing into the maze of marshes along the Gulf Coast could prove impossible to remove, leaving a toxic stew lethal to fish and wildlife, government officials and independent scientists said. Officials are considering some drastic and risky solutions: They could set the wetlands on fire or flood areas in hopes of floating out the oil. They warn an aggressive cleanup could ruin the marshes and do more harm than good.”
And to understand the full import of this catastrophe it must be remembered that this disaster is occurring in what is described as the “biologically richest waters in America” with the greatest amount of oil and toxic Corexit 9500 set to come ashore in the coming days and weeks to destroy it completely for decades to come.
Reports are also coming from the United States that their government is secretly preparing to evacuate tens-of-millions of their citizens from their Gulf of Mexico States should the most dire of these scientific warnings start to come true.
To the greatest lesson to be learned by these Americans is that their government-oil industry cabal has been just as destructive to them as their government-banking one, both of which have done more to destroy the United States these past couple of years than any foreign enemy could dare dream was possible.
But to their greatest enemy the Americans need look no further than their nearest mirror as they are the ones who allowed these monsters to rule over them in the first place.
www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1374.htm
© May 23, 2010 EU and US all rights reserved
[Ed. Note: Western governments and their intelligence services actively campaign against the information found in these reports so as not to alarm their citizens about the many catastrophic Earth changes and events to come, a stance that the Sisters of Sorcha Faal strongly disagrees with in believing that it is every human beings right to know the truth. Due to our missions conflicts with that of those governments, the responses of their ‘agents’ against us has been a longstanding misinformation/misdirection campaign designed to discredit and which is addressed in the report “Who Is Sorcha Faal?”.]By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
A dire report prepared... more
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Pictures of the extent of this ecocide as the oil continues to gush out of the well 31 days after the Deepwater Horizon blew... THIRTY ONE DAYS. Scientists estimate that it could well be 100,000 gallons not 5000 gallons per day escaping from this well, which surely explains how it has now created subsurface plumes and become a part of the current loop that will in time more than likely carry it up the East Coast to spread its cancer.
You cannot look at the photos of these animals and not be emotionally struck by them. Our very biodiversity and the ecosystems they and we depend on to live are now in great danger. And yet, all we get from BP are lies, coverups, and one failed attempt after another to plug this well and aggressively seek to save the wildlife and sealife that inhabits this once beautiful part of our country. And all we get from this government is a reshuffling of the incompetence that aided in it and feigned outrage as BP's stock price actually rises.
There is no way to recover the moral conscience lost in regards to this gash that now
bleeds our planet. It is an open wound that reveals to all the price paid when what is less important is given a false value over those things whose value is immeasurable.
I really don't know how much more I can watch of this unfolding. Water is what gives us life, and we are killing it... and my heart is aching. I do know this, however. I know that as someone like so many who cares for the sustainability of this planet and the future of our children, I will not rest until those responsible for this pay.Pictures of the extent of this ecocide as the oil continues to gush out of the well 31... more
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"It looks very scary. It's not good. I really feel... not good about that." That's what the International Space Station Commander, cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, says about the Gulf's oil disaster. This is the last satellite image. Update: New image added.
Captured by NASA's Aqua satellite, the image shows only part of the oil surface, with the Sun shining over. I've exaggerated the image contrast so you can clearly see the extend of the damage:"It looks very scary. It's not good. I really feel... not good about... more
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On May 21, 2010, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and several conservation organizations will observe Endangered Species Day to recognize the conservation programs underway nationwide aimed at protecting America’s threatened and endangered species.
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) has helped to prevent the extinction of hundreds of species. Co-administered by the Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the purpose of the ESA is to conserve imperiled species and the ecosystems upon which they depend.
“The Endangered Species Act is the nation’s premier law protecting biodiversity today,” said Acting Service Director Rowan Gould. “The bald eagle, American alligator and gray wolf are all species which once found themselves on the list, facing the brink of extinction, but have successfully rebounded. The wood stork, Kirtland’s warbler, Louisiana black bear and Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle are still listed species that are showing good progress towards achieving recovery — the ultimate goal of the ESA. These species and many others continue to benefit from the protections afforded by the ESA and the dedicated people who work through the Act to ensure their continued existence.”
The Service and Endangered Species Coalition are cosponsoring four signature events around the country to focus public support on rare and imperiled species. Events will be held in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Maine and Montana. Michael J. Bean, counselor for Fish and Wildlife and Parks at the U.S. Department of the Interior, is scheduled to speak during the Washington, D.C. event, which will take place at the United States Botanic Garden.
In addition, many of the Service’s field and regional offices will be hosting events in their communities and providing unique programs to visitors on endangered species conservation. For more information on how you can find an event near you, please visit www.fws.gov/endangered/ESDay/2010.html
The Service works with other Federal agencies, state, local and tribal governments, environmental organizations, industry groups, academia, the scientific community and members of the public to help conserve our nation’s threatened and endangered fish, wildlife and plants.
Endangered Species Day honors this national commitment to recovering endangered species and their habitats and provides an opportunity to learn about what efforts are being made to conserve them.
There are currently 1,324 species listed in the U.S.: 750 plants and 574 animals. To find out what endangered species are near you, and how you can help, please visit www.fws.gov/endangered.
The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. We are both a leader and trusted partner in fish and wildlife conservation, known for our scientific excellence, stewardship of lands and natural resources, dedicated professionals and commitment to public service.On May 21, 2010, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and several conservation... more
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Photo caption: Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar visited a wildlife treatment center in Louisiana on Saturday.
May 15, 2010
Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf
By JUSTIN GILLIS
Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.
“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”
The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.
Dr. Joye said the oxygen had already dropped 30 percent near some of the plumes in the month that the broken oil well had been flowing. “If you keep those kinds of rates up, you could draw the oxygen down to very low levels that are dangerous to animals in a couple of months,” she said Saturday. “That is alarming.”
The plumes were discovered by scientists from several universities working aboard the research vessel Pelican, which sailed from Cocodrie, La., on May 3 and has gathered extensive samples and information about the disaster in the gulf.
Scientists studying video of the gushing oil well have tentatively calculated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day. The latter figure would be 3.4 million gallons a day. But the government, working from satellite images of the ocean surface, has calculated a flow rate of only 5,000 barrels a day.
BP has resisted entreaties from scientists that they be allowed to use sophisticated instruments at the ocean floor that would give a far more accurate picture of how much oil is really gushing from the well.
“The answer is no to that,” a BP spokesman, Tom Mueller, said on Saturday. “We’re not going to take any extra efforts now to calculate flow there at this point. It’s not relevant to the response effort, and it might even detract from the response effort.”
The undersea plumes may go a long way toward explaining the discrepancy between the flow estimates, suggesting that much of the oil emerging from the well could be lingering far below the sea surface.
The scientists on the Pelican mission, which is backed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency that monitors the health of the oceans, are not certain why that would be. They say they suspect the heavy use of chemical dispersants, which BP has injected into the stream of oil emerging from the well, may have broken the oil up into droplets too small to rise rapidly.
BP said Saturday at a briefing in Robert, La., that it had resumed undersea application of dispersants, after winning Environmental Protection Agency approval the day before.
“It appears that the application of the subsea dispersant is actually working,” Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer for exploration and production, said Saturday. “The oil in the immediate vicinity of the well and the ships and rigs working in the area is diminished from previous observations.”
Many scientists had hoped the dispersants would cause oil droplets to spread so widely that they would be less of a problem in any one place. If it turns out that is not happening, the strategy could come under greater scrutiny. Dispersants have never been used in an oil leak of this size a mile under the ocean, and their effects at such depth are largely unknown.
Much about the situation below the water is unclear, and the scientists stressed that their results were preliminary. After the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, they altered a previously scheduled research mission to focus on the effects of the leak.
Interviewed on Saturday by satellite phone, one researcher aboard the Pelican, Vernon Asper of the University of Southern Mississippi, said the shallowest oil plume the group had detected was at about 2,300 feet, while the deepest was near the seafloor at about 4,200 feet.
“We’re trying to map them, but it’s a tedious process,” Dr. Asper said. “Right now it looks like the oil is moving southwest, not all that rapidly.”
He said they had taken water samples from areas that oil had not yet reached, and would compare those with later samples to judge the impact on the chemistry and biology of the ocean.
While they have detected the plumes and their effects with several types of instruments, the researchers are still not sure about their density, nor do they have a very good fix on the dimensions.
Given their size, the plumes cannot possibly be made of pure oil, but more likely consist of fine droplets of oil suspended in a far greater quantity of water, Dr. Joye said. She added that in places, at least, the plumes might be the consistency of a thin salad dressing.
Dr. Joye is serving as a coordinator of the mission from her laboratory in Athens, Ga. Researchers from the University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi are aboard the boat taking samples and running instruments.
Dr. Joye said the findings about declining oxygen levels were especially worrisome, since oxygen is so slow to move from the surface of the ocean to the bottom. She suspects that oil-eating bacteria are consuming the oxygen at a feverish clip as they work to break down the plumes.
While the oxygen depletion so far is not enough to kill off sea life, the possibility looms that oxygen levels could fall so low as to create large dead zones, especially at the seafloor. “That’s the big worry,” said Ray Highsmith, head of the Mississippi center that sponsored the mission, known as the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology.
The Pelican mission is due to end Sunday, but the scientists are seeking federal support to resume it soon.
“This is a new type of event, and it’s critically important that we really understand it, because of the incredible number of oil platforms not only in the Gulf of Mexico but all over the world now,” Dr. Highsmith said. “We need to know what these events are like, and what their outcomes can be, and what can be done to deal with the next one.”
Shaila Dewan contributed reporting from Robert, La.Photo caption: Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar visited a wildlife treatment... more
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PHOTO: Forecast location of the spill at 1800 CDT on Saturday 5/1/2010. The red color shows where oil will reach the shore. The Chandeleur Islands and Louisiana marshes will be affected.
This web site provides a place for people to volunteer to assist in cleanup operations related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Organizations working on the cleanup may register here to be connected with volunteers. OilSpillVolunteers.com will link volunteers with cleanup organizations; we will not be directing volunteer activities.
BP, Transocean, Homeland Security, USCG, NOAA, EPA, Department of the Interior - We need to hear from you. We have 2000 people eager to be trained and eager to jump into action when the oil comes ashore. How do they get training? What can they do to help with the cleanup? Help us.
Volunteers - Please register using this form http://www.oilspillvolunteers.com/register.php . Provide complete as much of the form as possible and indicate whether your contact information can be shared directly with cleanup organizations. Please do not use email to provide your volunteer information.
Caution: Do not attempt oil cleanup work without training and the required safety equipment. The oil waste is a toxic material and can pose a threat. This OSHA http://www.oilspillvolunteers.com/docs/OSHA_HAZWOPER_Oil.pdf handbook for oil spill cleanup will explain.
Cleanup Organizations Needing Volunteers - Please send email to don@OilSpillVolunteers.com describing your needs and activities.
***Please route all individual volunteer offers to the registration form here on the web.
We are receiving a large number of emails and calls and it's much simpler and more reliable to keep track of volunteers in the database linked to the form. We'd hate to misplace an email and lose contact with you.
If you've signed up and had a question - Please be patient, we'll be in touch as soon as possible.
For media information, please contact Melanie Allen - mailto:sglmma@cableone.net
Please pardon the rough format of this site; there's too much to do to worry about making it pretty. We'll soon be adding:
Mailing list information
List of cleanup organizations
Phone numbers to report oiled wildlife
Spill location and movement forecast
* Suggestions and assistance are welcomed.PHOTO: Forecast location of the spill at 1800 CDT on Saturday 5/1/2010. The red color... more
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Rescue crews are cleaning the first bird found coated with oil that's been spewing from a sunken rig in the Gulf of Mexico.
The rescue center says the bird was found offshore, not on the shoreline.
The bird is normally white with a yellow head and long, pointed beak but was covered in thick, black oil. The rescuers are cleaning the bird at Fort Jackson, a historic landmark about 70 miles southeast of New Orleans.
It was the only animal being cleaned late Friday morning, but rescuers expected many more to come in throughout the day.
"Wildlife protection officials are trying the strategy of 'hazing,' or using loud propane-fired cannons, to chase birds from the water's edge," National Geographic reported.
Meanwhile, a marine wildlife rehabilitation center in Mississippi is gearing up to take in possibly hundreds of oily sea mammals from Texas to Florida.
The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport has surgery, necropsy and exam rooms, walk-in freezers full of frozen fish for food, X-ray and ultrasound machines and plenty of medicine. The nonprofit facility also has eight large pools, which have been cleaned and prepared to handle sea turtles, manatees and dolphins.
Center director Dr. Moby Solangi said Friday the site will be "ground zero" for injured marine mammals.
Solangi said there are roughly up to 5,000 dolphins in the Gulf area between the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts and the oil rig, many giving birth right now.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/birds-oil-coated-gulf-spill_n_558665.htmlRescue crews are cleaning the first bird found coated with oil that's been... more
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Monterey Bay Aquarium, 06.01.08
Of 500,000 albatross chicks born each year on Midway Atoll, about 200,000 die of starvation. The awful truth—in their searches of the ocean surface, albatrosses mistake plastic trash for food and end up feeding Lego blocks, clothespins, plastic bag bits and a host of other man-made junk to their chicks. As a result, the large amount of plastic crowding the chick’s stomach leaves little room for food and liquid. The amount of plastic floating in our oceans has grown dramatically over the last fifty years. Anthony L. Andrady, a polymer chemist at the Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina says that plastic takes decades to break down on land, but even longer at sea because the water keeps the plastic cool and algae blocks ultraviolet rays. “Every little piece of plastic manufactured in the past 50 years that made it into the ocean is still out there somewhere.”
Monterey Bay Aquarium, 06.01.08
Of 500,000 albatross chicks born each year on... more
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