Free Oil!!!!! Come Get'cha Free Oil!!!!--Back Open

Discussion in 'The Bench' started by Poppaluv, May 2, 2010.

  1. Poppaluv

    Poppaluv I CALL WINNERS!!!

    This will explain better than I what's still here now and for quite some time....:ball:



    Oil spill is far from over for those who live, work along the Gulf

    Published: Sunday, September 19, 2010, 6:00 AM Updated: Sunday, September 19, 2010, 5:11 PM
    Bob Marshall, The Times-Picayune Bob Marshall, The Times-Picayune
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    FOURCHON BEACH -- Don't tell Forrest Travirca that you've heard Louisiana dodged the bullet on environmental damage from the BP oil disaster. You might find yourself eating those words.
    Enlarge John McCusker, The Times-Picayune Wisner land field inspector Forrest Travirca, III smells a pinch of sand taken from the beach near the surf Tuesday, September 14, 2010. The beach may appear devoid of oil, but scratching the surface reveals oil just below the top layer of sand.

    The field inspector for the local property owner shook his head in disgust and pointed down the beach where tiny yellow and red flags mark oil deposits that must be removed.

    "All the brown spots and patches you'll see on this beach for the next nine miles is oil, too," he said. "And if you dig down a few inches or a few feet, you'll see oil, too. And if you walk into that marsh back there, you'll find oil.

    "So don't tell me we dodged any bullets. Or that it wasn't so bad. 'Cause I've been out there every day since May dealing with all that oil we dodged. It just makes my blood boil."


    Since the Deepwater Horizon stopped gushing crude into the Gulf July 15 and sightings of fresh oil have tailed off, the story line for the worst oil disaster in American history has slowly begun to change. Those agonizing fears that a huge oil tsunami would wash over the wetlands and smother a way of life has given way to sighs of relief. And while scientists caution that the long-term damage to the ecosystem is unknown, most agree the worst-case scenarios didn't happen, because most of the 200 million gallons of oil BP pumped into the Gulf stayed offshore.

    Massive fish kills were averted. Fishing areas have reopened. Cleanup crews are packing up protective boom and airboat crews are being laid off.

    And the bottom line from state authorities is that of the Louisiana's 7,700 miles of tidal coastline, only about 500 miles were oiled.

    Still a battleground

    That seems a small toll -- unless, like Travirca, you manage some of those 500 miles. Then you find yourself in a place where the bullets are still flying and battle is still going on, a battle experts say you could be fighting for years to come.

    "There might not be fresh oil coming ashore, but there's a lot of residual oil that will continue to show up, especially in those places that were hard-hit," said Ed Overton, an LSU professor who has been studying and fighting oil spills for 30 years. "This is a well-known and common occurrence in spills.

    "I'd say those folks are probably going to be dealing with this certainly for the next year, and very possibly beyond in these hot spots."




    One of the hottest of the hot spots is the coastal beach and marsh complex between Grand Isle and Fourchon, a 12-mile stretch of beach, low dunes and salty marshes laced with lagoons, bays, bayous, and oil and gas canals. It includes the state-managed Elmer's Island Wildlife Area, but most of the area is under private ownership.

    The largest holding, about 12,000 acres, is part of the Edward Wisner Donation, a 1914 gift held in trust for the city of New Orleans. Spend a day walking the area and you know this is one of those places where BP's bullets hit the bone.

    "The perception out there from the press -- and particularly from BP and the Coast Guard -- is 'We're in the home stretch. We're done. It wasn't so bad,' and that's a false impression," said C. Cathy Norman, secretary-treasurer and land manager for the Wisner Donation.

    'It's far, far from over'

    "Those comments and stories are frustrating to us because our beach is a mess. It was bad for us. And it continues to be bad for us, because it's not over -- in fact, it's far, far from over."

    BP's oil began coming ashore here on May 20 and never really stopped, Travirca and Norman say. Small, yards-long bands of floating oil that appeared that first day grew in length, width and thickness through the weeks. The long lines and floating islets of peanut butter-colored slush arrived almost daily until the first week of September.

    "If you squeezed it, black oil came out of the inside," Travirca said. "At first it was just on the beach, but when we got storms like Alex and Bonnie, the tide pushed it over the beaches and into the back marshes."


    BP cleanup crews, including Coast Guard and Louisiana National Guard, worked frantically to remove layers of oiled sand, but the oil had an ally on these beaches: Louisiana's coastal erosion problem.

    Beach retreat -- erosion to the north -- averages about 46 feet per year here, Norman said. That rate hasn't paused during the spill, so oil that landed on the beach and wasn't collected immediately often became submerged by the Gulf within days.

    "You come out one day and it looks like the beach was cleaned overnight, but what you're seeing, really, is new beach, because the beach that was here a few days ago -- and the oil that was on it -- is now under the water and covered with new sediment and sand" Travirca said. "But it doesn't stay gone.

    "When we get rough weather, that sediment containing the oil gets picked up pushed back up on the new beach. Some of it is exposed, some of it is buried again."

    A walk on the beach proves his points. Drag a foot across what looks like common debris lines left by a falling tide and the sand turns brown from the oil residue carried by the detritus. Dig a small hole with a shovel, and brown pockets of buried oil are revealed.

    And patches of brown sand exposed to the heat of the noonday sun often begin secreting oil.





    "There's so much oil in some of these sands that when they heat up, the oil starts bubbling to the surface," Travirca said. "That's one reason the cleanup crews have to wear those (protective) shoes. They're literally walking on oil sometimes."

    The water isn't clear, either. The falling tide reveals many shallows clogged by what looked like yards-long mud flats just beyond the water line. But a shovel proved them to be huge, sticky mats of sand and sea shells bound together by oil residue.


    In some places where the mats were exposed to the sun, black and brown oil was bubbling to the surface, tracing small black lines between shorebirds and hermit crabs before dripping into the Gulf.

    "Those were mats of oil that landed on the beach, but were not collected before the tide came up," Travirca said. "By then it was weighted down with sand and sediment, and eventually was covered with more sand.

    "But then the shoreline changes, and it gets exposed again. Or the next storm that comes will wash it up on the beach and maybe all the way into the marsh.

    "You see birds and crabs and other animals walking on it and feeding in it. You see fishermen out there casting over this stuff, and they have no idea what's below their boats.

    "This can't be safe for critters and people."

    Threat still remains


    Overton and fisheries biologists agreed.

    While the most dangerous components of the oil -- the volatile organic compounds -- probably were weathered off long ago, what's left still poses a mortal threat to any fish and wildlife that make contact, Overton said. And oil that was buried in sediments before being heavily weathered could still carry compounds proven to be carcinogenic to humans.

    "Oil that is buried in sediments doesn't degrade very quickly, or at all, so whatever properties it had when it was covered, it will still have when it's exposed again," Overton said.

    And the that re-exposed oil often appears in the most critical segment of the estuarine ecosystem: the line where plants meet water.

    "That edge is critical to the whole food chain, and when oil gets there -- whether it's new or old -- it can't help production," said Myron Fischer, director of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries research lab located at Grand Isle.

    "The real concern we have is what will our samplings show next spring, because that's when we'll first be able to tell how much damage it did to reproduction. I know this: As long as it's there, we have to try to get rid of it -- and they tell us that could take years."

    None of that is news to Norman or Travirca.

    "We've had top scientists with NOAA out here, and some of them have said the best thing to do is just to leave it alone, and eventually it'll all be gone," Travirca said. "They say it could take decades, but it'll finally be gone.

    "I say, 'What about the rest of us during that time? What about the birds and the fish? What about the fishermen? What about the chance my granddaughter could have to walk and swim on this beach?

    "So when I hear people say 'It's over," I just feel like screaming. I want them to come spend a day on this beach, and then tell me it wasn't so bad, or it's over."

    Me here fellas, Elmers Island is one of the only places in LA where you can drive down, camp and fish on the beach that pokes out into the Gulf. Old man Elmer died several years ago and wanted to sell the land to LA for future generations. After several years of negotiations, part was open to the public- just befor the spill....:(
     
  2. Poppaluv

    Poppaluv I CALL WINNERS!!!

    Seeing is believing...:shock:


    <table style="border:0px; padding:0px;"><tr><td><font style="font-size:13px; font-family:Verdana; font-weight:bold; font-color:#293546">Oil Hot Spots</font></td></tr><tr><td><script type="text/javascript" src="http://tribeca.vidavee.com/advance/trh/embedAsset.js?width=470&height=352&wmode=transparent&skin=v3AdvInt_nola.swf&dockey=6AC1B84B917D00ADFCDF1A9CE5570E11&"></script></td></tr></table>
     
  3. Poppaluv

    Poppaluv I CALL WINNERS!!!

    He literally asked for his "papers" to film in a park!!!!!! :shock:

    Anyone else getting queasy in the pit of their stomach?????? :(

    Ted, I'm curious, do YOU have your papers???? I don't.:( :Do No:
     
  4. Poppaluv

    Poppaluv I CALL WINNERS!!!

    This is my Parish Pres. I do not know him well, but know he's a good man. We ride the same parade (Knights of Nemisis) and have had quite a few beers w/ him at meetings and during our community volunteer programs. ...

    Gulf of Mexico oil spill response guided too much by BP, St. Bernard president says

    Published: Wednesday, September 22, 2010, 9:00 PM
    Jonathan Tilove Jonathan Tilove


    St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro told a congressional panel Wednesday that the federal response to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico thwarted local efforts and, all too often, let BP call the shots.
    Enlarge The Associated Press Actor Kevin Costner, left, and St. Bernard Parish, La., President Craig Taffaro Jr., talk on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2010, prior to testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee hearing on lessons from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.


    "Louisiana law specifically states and grants emergency powers to the local authorities during times of declared disasters," Taffaro said in testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee. But, he said, "instead of embracing the local authorities' involvement and resource capacity, local authority was met with resistance, exclusion and power struggles."
    14



    "This decision, contemplated or not, resulted in adversarial relationships between the local agencies, the state and governor's office, and BP and the United States Coast Guard," Taffaro said. He said local parishes were left to feel that the Coast Guard, which was in charge of the federal response, was acting more in a "protective role than an enforcement role" in its relationship with BP, the company responsible for the worst oil spill in the nation's history.

    Taffaro shared the witness table with the actor Kevin Costner, who recounted his own frustrations in trying to bring his oil-water separation technology to bear on the disaster, and his ambitious $895 million, 190-vessel plan to respond to future oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico. It is a plan he has been presenting to federal officials and Gulf Coast governors in recent weeks.

    Taffaro joked that he was glad Costner spoke first because he did not want to "overshadow" the Academy Award-winning actor and director, whose presence had the hearing room full to overflowing.

    Some local officials have, in fact, become celebrities of sort in the wake of the oil disaster, with a number of members of the panel referring in their comments to "Billy," as in Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, who was not present Wednesday but has offered his own criticism of the federal response in similar forums on Capitol Hill.

    Costner, as well, said the first person to take his oil-water separation technology seriously during the crisis was Nungesser, who had seen it successfully demonstrated at a Texas exhibition some years earlier. Costner said that BP, after testing his equipment, ultimately leased 32 of his machines.

    A number of administration officials on a second panel disputed the notion that they had ceded too much authority to BP.

    Rear Adm. Peter Neffenger, the Deputy National Incident Commander, said that "in general terms, BP would often in the course of the response make recommendations about how to implement what we ordered them to do, anything from how we might deploy resources to the type of resources that might be available, because they were paying for it."

    On their relationship with local officials, Neffenger conceded the Coast Guard was more accustomed to working with state governments, and assuming they were "speaking for the whole population," and that in the future, it would be better to work more closely with local officials more immediately.

    Members of the committee seemed inclined to trust Taffaro's version of events, suggesting that the disaster response had left the public with the perception that BP was in charge.

    Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao, R-New Orleans, who was the ranking Republicans at the hearing, said that especially early on, the government was leaning so heavily on BP's technical expertise that it appeared the oil company "was calling the shots," and that the lesson is that the government has to develop its own comparable expertise.

    "Somehow, at the genesis of this, BP stepped up the microphone, stepped up to the world stage and presented an image of being not only in charge, to the extent that they were the ones with the technical expertise, but that this was their operation to manage," said Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, a New Orleans native.

    In his testimony, Taffaro gave a couple of examples of what he considered the undue deference granted BP.

    "Very early in the response, St. Bernard Parish requested BP to allow for and support the establishment of a local environmental planning and assessment team," Taffaro said. "This was disallowed by BP only to be told some three and half months later by a visiting Coast Guard authority that St. Bernard should have been involved in environmental assessment from the start."

    Taffaro also said that there was initial resistance to their request to use the local commercial fishing fleet to help clean up the spill, and "the very industry that was under siege ... had to fight their way into the response."
     
  5. Junkman

    Junkman Well-Known Member

  6. r0ckstarr

    r0ckstarr Well-Known Member

    Illegal to film in a national park? Since when?
    You can get arrested for building sand castles. WTF.:eek2:

    Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense!
     
  7. Junkman

    Junkman Well-Known Member

    I don't know why people don't believe me when I say that the USA has turned into a communist style police state when this is just one example of many. I find this outrageous - the incident on the beach.
     
  8. 66electrafied

    66electrafied Just tossing in my nickel's worth

    The fact that you can still say what you think without the fear of a knock on the door in the middle of the night, and the fact that these clumsy attempts at cover-up and clean-up are still being printed proves that the US isn't a Commie state, or even a half-decent Fascist police state. It's just typical of what goes on in this day and age; - it's an over-worked bureaucracy that can't get over it's own inertia and when someone finally makes a decision and reacts it's usually too much, too late.

    I'm not trying to play apologist for those people, but keeping the public off of oil soaked beaches is probably a good thing, can you imagine what kind of a health problem and the lawsuits it would create if those beaches were turned into a tourist trap? All it takes is one idiot to go in there and get sick and screw it up for everyone. Every rubbernecker in the world would be there, all of them bemoaning the fact that all this wildlife has been destroyed and beaches spoiled. Get them out of there so the clean-up crews can get in there. Yes, it's true, all of that stuff is wrecked, and for how long no one knows. What's done is done, now let's see what they do to clean it up, and yes, it can be seen from a distance, or from the air; one doesn't need to be on a contaminated beach to see if they're doing anything or not.
     
  9. Poppaluv

    Poppaluv I CALL WINNERS!!!

    Marc, people are already sick
     
  10. 66electrafied

    66electrafied Just tossing in my nickel's worth


    I fully realize that, and I'm not trying to play down a bad situation; - it is ugly out there, they did ruin a lot of coastlines and jobs, and as usual, it's the little guy who will suffer for it while the corporations and the feds haggle it out in court for the next hundred or so years.

    As you've aluded to, it's only going to get worse, not better; - but at least you can still report what you see and hear; - they haven't muzzled that yet.

    My apologies if you were offended; that certainly wasn't my intent...
     
  11. Poppaluv

    Poppaluv I CALL WINNERS!!!

    Not offended at all Marc!:beer Really just didn't know if y'all knew there have been lotsa resptory (sp?) cases :Do No: .I'm surprised they reported that where you are. And wasn't being a smart ass.:) I could have worked the spill on a few guys boats, but as I told them, floating in the middle of touluine(sp?) and benzine, etc, would not be worth the 80k they made in 4 months. Gotta feeling my med bills would cost more than that in the future.
     
  12. 66electrafied

    66electrafied Just tossing in my nickel's worth

    Well, where we are there is a lot of noise about the "dirty" oil sands; - we're the largest supplier of oil to the US now, (thanks to George W and his energy self-sufficiency programs) and there are a lot of environmentalists who are a bit misinformed about what they're doing up there and want everyone to boycott it. So we're a little sensitive to oil and pollution concerns up here; - what most people don't realize is that the oilsands project is essentially a big reclamation project; the oil is literally burbling up from the ground. The oil companies strip mine the stuff, process it with steam, and then refine it. Any oil is removed from the soil and the "cleaned soil" is supposed to be put back. Whether it actually is remains to be seen. They've just decommissioned one old tailings pond. Any areas that are returned to the wild are returned clean; - things will actually grow on them now whereas before it wouldn't. The Athabaska river actually has fish in it now whereas before it was a natural oil slick. Some however, are still of the three-eyed variety.

    That being said, there still is a problem with tailings ponds, they're an environmental hazard like your coastlines are now, (oil and waste sludge) they've managed to kill off a number of birds that mistakenly landed there. The countryside around the oil sands looks like a moonscape, and will for a few years yet. But when it's all said and done a hundred years from now, forests should be able to grow in the mine sites where nothing grew before.

    So we get a lot of news from down your way, and a lot of us in the petrochemical industry know and understand the hazards associated with crude oil, benzine, and toluene, and exploding rigs. One good use for toluene is mix it with regular gas, and you've got a cheap octane boost for your Buick. However, I wouldn't recommend going out there with a pail to go and collect it...
     
  13. Poppaluv

    Poppaluv I CALL WINNERS!!!

    Yep it's a bit different from bubbling natural pools where they have been for eons to where you've taken the kids for generations..:idea2:
     
  14. r0ckstarr

    r0ckstarr Well-Known Member

  15. Poppaluv

    Poppaluv I CALL WINNERS!!!

    That's funny. They've been saying it's all gone. Hmmmmmmm....:idea2:

    Massive stretches of weathered oil spotted in Gulf of Mexico
    Published: Saturday, October 23, 2010, 11:37 AM Updated: Saturday, October 23, 2010, 11:42 AM
    Bob Marshall, The Times-Picayune Bob Marshall, The Times-Picayune


    Just three days after the U.S. Coast Guard admiral in charge of the BP oil spill cleanup declared little recoverable surface oil remained in the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana fishers Friday found miles-long strings of weathered oil floating toward fragile marshes on the Mississippi River delta.


    The discovery, which comes as millions of birds begin moving toward the region in the fall migration, gave ammunition to groups that have insisted the government has overstated clean-up progress, and could force reclosure of key fishing areas only recently reopened.


    The oil was sighted in West Bay, which covers approximately 35 square miles of open water between Southwest Pass, the main shipping channel of the river, and Tiger Pass near Venice. Boat captains working the BP clean-up effort said they have been reporting large areas of surface oil off the delta for more than a week but have seen little response from BP or the Coast Guard, which is in charge of the clean-up. The captains said most of their sightings have occurred during stretches of calm weather, similar to what the area has experienced most of this week.

    On Friday reports included accounts of strips of the heavily weathered orange oil that became a signature image of the spill during the summer. One captain said some strips were as much as 400 feet wide and a mile long.

    The captains did not want to be named for fear of losing their clean-up jobs with BP.

    Coast Guard officials Friday said a boat had been dispatched to investigate the sightings, but that a report would not be available until Saturday morning.

    However, Times-Picayune photojournalist Matt Hinton confirmed the sightings in an over-flight of West Bay.

    Robert Barham, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said if the sightings are confirmed by his agency, the area will be reclosed to fishing until it is confirmed oil-free again.


    Just Tuesday, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, in charge of the federal response, and his top science adviser, Steve Lehmann, said that little of the 210 million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf remained on the surface or even on the Gulf's floor. Lehmann pointed to extensive tests conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that included taking samples of water from various depths, as well as collections of bottom sediments both far offshore and close to the coast.

    Those claims, announced on the six-month anniversary of the spill, brought quick rebuttals from a variety of environmental and fishermen's groups who insist their members have been reporting sightings of surface oil all along.

    LSU environmental sciences professor Ed Overton, who has been involved in oil spill response for 30 years, said he believes both claims could be accurate. The Louisiana sweet crude from the Deepwater Horizon is very light and has almost neutral buoyancy, Overton said, which means that when it picks up any particles from the water column, it will sink to the bottom.

    "It's quite possible that when the weather calms and the water temperatures changes, the oil particles that have spread along the bottom will recoagulate, then float to the surface again and form these large mats.

    "I say this is a possibility, because I know that the (Coast Guard) has sent boats out to investigate these reports, but by the time they get to the scenes, the weather has changed and they don't see any oil."

    "I think the reports are credible, but I also think the incident responders are trying to find the oil, too,'' Overton said. "This is unusual, but nothing about this bloody spill has been normal since the beginning."

    Overton said it is important for the state to discover the mechanism that is causing the oil to reappear because even this highly weathered oil poses a serious threat to the coastal ecology.

    "If this was tar balls floating around, that would be one thing, but these reports are of mats of weathered oil, and that can cause serious problems if it gets into the marsh," he said

    The reports are a great concern to wildlife officials. The Mississippi delta is a primary wintering ground for hundreds of thousands of ducks and geese, some of which already have begun arriving. The West Bay area leads into several shallower interior bays that attract ducks, geese and myriad species of shore and wading birds each winter.

    Earlier this month state wildlife officials were expressing optimism the spill would have minimal impact on most waterfowl visitors because little oil had penetrated the sensitive wintering grounds.


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  16. buickjunkie

    buickjunkie Well-Known Member

  17. Junkman

    Junkman Well-Known Member

    Imagine that.
     
  18. Junkman

    Junkman Well-Known Member

  19. SteeveeDee

    SteeveeDee Orange Acres

    Ahhh, yes, BP, bringing oil to America's shores!
     
  20. Poppaluv

    Poppaluv I CALL WINNERS!!!

    I'll have to look for it, but a few weeks ago there was a several page article on the Gulf floor. I know it is a large area and there are lotsa places where this is happening.:
    The is literally INCHES of goop (for lack of a better term) on the sea bed. Video and cameras show lots of dead creatures right near/in it.

    I talked today to a friend at his daughter's b-day party about some of this. Brown shrimp season is a month away and they won't be shrimping it. Gonna be bad. Last years Brown fed/swam/migrated right through the mess. Gonna take a while for them to rebound..

    I haven't posted in a while to give everyone a break- but yeah- more oil. Gov. isn't sure of the source.......:rolleyes:
     

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