ALMOST 90,000 GALLONS AND COUNTING....
AS AMERICA AND AMERICANS REFUSE TO TURN TO SOLAR, WIND, OR ANYTHING BUT OIL, COAL AND NUCLEAR POWER, YET ANOTHER "ACCIDENT" IS SWEEPING ACROSS OUR GULF OF MEXICO, SOUTH OF LOUISIANA....AGAIN.
THE BP "ACCIDENT" IS STILL ONGOING, VIDEO FOOTAGE SHOWING US THAT IS STILL LEAKING, AS IS AN OLDER WELL AFTER 10 YEARS.
NOW SHELL OIL HAS MANAGED TO HAVE THEIR OWN "ACCIDENT", WHICH HAS BARELY MADE THE NEWS IN THE U.S..
WITH THE LEAK CONTINUING INTO THE 6th DAY, I FOUND IT MENTIONED ON JUST THE HUFF POST SITE AND THE WEATHER CHANNEL'S NEWS...NOT NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, WSJ, ETC.
WHY?
BECAUSE MOST AMERICANS SIMPLY DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT, EVEN IF OIL SPILLS KILL EVERYTHING IN EVERY OCEAN EVERYWHERE.
OIL SPILLS DON'T SELL NEWSPAPERS.
CONGRESS DOESN'T CARE, EITHER.
THEY PROTECTED THE ATLANTIC COAST FROM OFFSHORE DRILLING BECAUSE SO MANY OF THEM OWN HOMES OR VACATION HOUSES ALONG THE ATLANTIC, BUT WHO CARES ABOUT THE GULF OF MEXICO, SOUTHERN STATES?
RESIDENTS ALONG THE GULF DO CARE, SOME DO, THOSE WHO HAVE ENDURED SO MANY SPILLS, SO MANY STUPID ACCIDENTS FROM SO MANY CARELESS OIL COMPANIES OUT FOR MORE PROFITS.
ONLY 1300, BUT IT BEATS NONE.
Gulf Coast environmental justice advocates Yudith Azareth Nieto and Hilton Kelly lead a march in Washington, DC, against offshore oil drilling on May 15, 2016. About 1,300 people attended the protest, which was part of a global week of action against fossil fuel extraction. (Photo above: Sabelo Narasimhan)
First spotted May 12th, on Thursday evening, the 88,000-gallon spill reportedly caused a long oil sheen over 26 square miles of the Gulf's surface, about 90 miles off the coast of Louisiana, after an undersea pipeline connecting a well to a drilling platform released oil into the water.
Jonathan Henderson, who has monitored oil spills in the Gulf since the massive BP spill in 2010 and founded the watchdog photography organization Vanishing Earth, flew over the spill in a small aircraft on Saturday and shared his observations
"It pales in comparison to the BP disaster, but it still is pretty gnarly looking; I wouldn't call it a small spill at all," Henderson said.
Henderson said he was disappointed, but not surprised, to see only three vessels skimming oil off the surface of the Gulf when he flew over the spill on Saturday morning.
Oil spills are actually quite common in the Gulf region, where offshore drilling platforms dot the horizon and dozens of oil refineries churn out gasoline and petrochemical products, but most are not big enough to make national headlines, as last week's Shell spill did.
"I think it just proves time and time again that there is no such thing as safe fossil fuel extraction and safe offshore drilling," said Lindsay Meiman, an organizer with the climate justice group 350.org.
"The offshore drilling plan has already barred drilling off the Atlantic coast, so this action was really to stress that what is dangerous in [the] Atlantic is dangerous anywhere," said Meiman, who added that the Gulf and Arctic should not be considered "sacrifice zones" for fossil fuel production.
WHEN WE COMPARE WHAT FORCES WERE MOBILIZED AND HOW QUICKLY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT RESPONDED AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA HIT THE SOUTH, THE GULF STATES, AS COMPARED TO WHEN HURRICANE SANDY HIT THE EAST COAST WE CAN SEE AGAIN THE HUGE DIFFERENCE IN WHO CARES AND WHAT'S DONE.
SOME RESIDENTS OF THE GULF STATES ARE STILL WAITING FOR HELP!
SOME ARES WERE NEVER CLEARED AND REBUILT THERE, AND THE FISHING INDUSTRY, THE SHRIMPERS, CAN CERTAINLY TELL ANYONE WHO'S INTERESTED THAT THE BP WELL AND THE TAYLOR WELL AND OTHER WELLS ARE STILL LEAKING!
IF MARTHA'S VINEYARD WAS THREATENED, THERE'D BE PLENTY RUSH TO STOP ANY HARM FROM COMING TO THAT SPIT OF LAND!
It sure wouldn't be allowed to go on for over a decade, as it has south of New Orleans!
January 20, 2016
"Federal regulators believe oil is still leaking at the site where waves whipped up by Hurricane Ivan in September 2004 triggered an underwater mudslide, which toppled the Taylor Energy Company's platform and buried a cluster of its oil wells under mounds of sediment
Taylor Energy has said nothing can be done to completely eliminate the chronic sheens that often stretch for miles off Louisiana's coast. Regulators recently estimated the leak could last a century or more if left unchecked.
The company has downplayed the leak's extent and its possible impact on the Gulf's ecosystem.
But an Associated Press investigation last year revealed evidence that the leak is worse than the company, or government, have publicly reported during their secretive response.
Presented with AP's findings, the Coast Guard provided a new leak estimate that's about 20 times larger than one cited by the company in a court filing last year.
Taylor Energy, once one of the Gulf's largest operators, sold all its offshore leases and oil and gas interests in 2008. Its founder, Patrick Taylor, died in 2004.
The company is led by his widow, Phyllis Taylor, a prominent philanthropist and political donor.
Environmental groups led by the New York City-based Waterkeeper Alliance sued Taylor Energy in 2012, arguing the public was entitled to know more about the company's government-supervised work.
Taylor Energy says it has spent more than $480 million on its efforts to stop the leak.
Earlier this month, the company sued the federal government to recover approximately $432 million that remains frozen in a trust, reserved for leak response work.
Last year, federal authorities rebuffed the company's settlement overtures and ordered it to perform more work at the leak site."
FIRST, THEY SHOULD HAVE TO PROVE THEY'VE DONE ANYTHING TO STOP IT.
WHY TAKE JUST THEIR WORD FOR IT?
More than a decade after crude started leaking at the site, few people even know of its existence. The Taylor Energy Company has downplayed the leak's extent and environmental impact, likening it to scores of minor spills and natural seeps the Gulf routinely absorbs.
Even industry experts haven't heard of Taylor's slow-motion spill, which has been leaking like a steady trickle from a faucet, compared to the fire hose that was BP's gusher.
Taylor has kept documents secret that would shed light on what it has done to stop the leak and eliminate the persistent sheen.
Ian MacDonald, a Florida State University biological oceanography professor and expert witness in a lawsuit against Taylor, said the sheen "presents a substantial threat to the environment" and is capable of harming birds, fish and other marine life.
Using satellite images and pollution reports, the watchdog group SkyTruth estimates between 300,000 and 1.4 million gallons of oil has spilled from the site since 2004, with an annual average daily leak rate between 37 and 900 gallons.
If SkyTruth's high-end estimate of 1.4 million gallons is accurate, Taylor's spill would be about 1 percent the size of BP's, which a judge ruled amounted to 134 million gallons.
That would still make the Taylor spill the 8th largest in the Gulf since 1970, according to a list compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"If we learned anything from the BP disaster, it's that the industry is "woefully unprepared" for large accidents, Henderson stated.
"To see such a paltry response shows the industry hasn't invested enough in its ability to respond, or its will to respond," he said, adding that Shell is one of the wealthiest companies in the world.
"There's no reason why there shouldn't be 50 skimmers out there, not just three of them."
By Sunday, joint efforts by Shell Oil and the Coast Guard had recovered about 51,000 gallons of oily water from the surface of the Gulf, according to a statement released by the company.
AND WE, WHAT? TAKE THEIR WORD FOR IT ....AGAIN?
MEANWHILE, AS I SAID, THE BP WELLS ARE STILL LEAKING.
"Back in June, video from the Remotely Operated Vehicles on the ocean floor spotted oil leaking up from fissures in the sea floor near the [BP] well.
Common sense (and engineering) will tell you that if you have a pipe with leaks, putting a cap on one leak simply drives the oil out the other leaks. From an environmental perspective this makes no sense, because the oil is still leaking out of the well, just in a different place.
Of greater concern is that the oil can flow out into the surrounding rocks the way the mud did during the failed Top Kill procedure, forming what is called a subsurface blowout. This is a huge bubble of oil inside the rock.
The danger is if the bubble ruptures and the oil collected over 80 days of leakage rushed to the surface of the gulf all at once. Such a surge of oil could easily engulf and founder the surface ships.
Capping a well with known leaks below the surface really serves only one purpose, and that is to present to the media video images showing the well is capped, so that they can reassure the public the problem is over ....and please vote Democratic.
It is my theory that the giant explosion which came up from underground and surged up through the drilling rig, exploding it, was powerful enough that it also damaged Well A, which is only about 120 feet away from Well B, the stricken well.
There were reports that Well B's blowout preventer had been rocketed miles away from the well site by the force of the blast. So I think both took damage -- B, where Deepwater was drilling, I think is totally gone if the story of the blowout preventer is correct. I believe BP have shown us site A 99.9999% of the time so that they could go through the charade of replacing the cap on that one, which they capped in 2009 ahead of the hurricane which blew through.
They accidentally left the public live feeds on the Skandi rovers a couple of times, and luckily people who didn't know what they had on their hands uploaded these to Youtube. I found them -- three videos of oil coming out from a well which BP says it never built.
'Well B' is still out there if what I fear is correct, still destroyed and so badly that it cannot be capped at the wellhead.
And even if it could be, BP itself reported that they had found leaks in the well casing, meaning that even a successful cap on the wellhead would not stop the oil from leaking out of the shattered well casing and from the vents that have formed in the ocean floor.
But we are told it does not exist, so I guess it doesn't.
Even though pictures prove the thing is out there."
MORE OIL DRILLING LEASES?
MORE DAMAGE TO THE GULF, TO THE PEOPLE AND OTHER LIVING THINGS OF THE GULF?
MORE ECONOMIC DISASTER FOR THE FISHING INDUSTRY AND THOSE WHO DEPEND ON THAT TORTURED OLD GULF FOR SO MANY THINGS?
AS EUROPEAN NATIONS, ASIAN NATIONS, AFRICAN NATIONS, ISLAND NATIONS, EVEN CHINA ALL MOVE TOWARD CLEANER, CHEAPER, SANER MEANS OF ENERGY, WE JUST KEEP DRILLING FOR OIL, DIGGING FOR COAL, BUILDING NUCLEAR REACTORS SO WE CAN TOTALLY DESTROY THE NATION WE LIVE IN....AND BEYOND?
THAT'S INSANITY!
WHY CHOKE US ALL TO DEATH OR RENDER THE PLANET RADIOACTIVE WHEN THERE ARE SIMPLE ALTERNATIVES, AS NIKOLA TESLA PROVED OVER 100 YEARS AGO?
A DEAR FRIEND SAID TODAY, "LAUGHINGSTOCK."
I SAID, "WHAT?"
SHE SAID,
"We've become the laughingstock. I have friends around the globe and they all say the same thing WTF is wrong with you Americans?!?!?!"
WHAT'S WRONG, INDEED!
AND WHAT WILL MILLIONS OF OUR CHILDREN, LIKE THE YOUNG MAN PICTURED BELOW, HAVE LEFT TO SUSTAIN THEIR FUTURES?
WHAT FUTURES?
WE'RE ERASING THE FUTURE....
WE'RE ERASING EVERYTHING, INCLUDING HOPE, IN EVERY WAY IMAGINABLE.
SORRY, KID, OIL PROFITS COME FIRST.
COMMON SIGHT ALONG THE GULF, FOR MILES....AND MILES....
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