Julia Whitty writes for Mother Jones on the environment and she's written about the dramatic decline in microscopic life on Gulf beaches and also about how using dispersant allowed oil to penetrate much more deeply into beaches, possibly extending lifespan of its toxicity. Now she highlights a new study that finds the addition of Corexit to the Gulf oil explosion made the whole mess much more toxic:

A new study finds that adding Corexit 9500A to Macondo oil—as BP did in the course of trying to disperse its 2010 oilspill disaster—made the mixture 52 times more toxic than oil alone. The results are from toxicology tests in the lab and appear in the scientific journal Environmental Pollution.

Using oil from the Deepwater Horizon blowout and Corexit the researchers tested the toxicity of oil, dispersant, and a mixture of oil and dispersant on five strains of rotifers—the lab rats of marine toxicology testing. Among the results:

• The oil-dispersant mixture killed adult rotifers

• As little as 2.6 percent of the mixture inhibited egg hatching by 50 percent

The inhibition of egg hatching in bottom sediments is particularly ominous because rotifer eggs hatch each spring to live as adults in the water column where they are important food sources for larval and juvenile fish, for shrimp, crabs and other marine life in estuarine and shoreline ecosystems—including fisheries humans depend on.

"Dispersants are preapproved to help clean up oil spills and are widely used during disasters," said lead author Roberto-Rico Martinez currently at the Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes, Mexico. "But we have a poor understanding of their toxicity. Our study indicates the increase in toxicity may have been greatly underestimated following the Macondo well explosion."

Seen the original BP ads? For more of the most cookie-begging ad campaign in the history of cookies, check this out. Or, oooh, this one is just the worst.

Because, y'know, corporations are people. And sometimes they need a pat on the back. Or a hug. Or permission to expand offshore drilling. So BP has introduced Voices From The Gulf!

So, BP has chosen to treat the genuine badassery of people trying to eke out a living in the midst of the shitstorm they created as...wait for it...a branding opportunity. Perfectly appropriate! Thanks BP! We get that you're still in the Gulf, what would it take for you to get the fuck out and take all that oil and Corexit with you? It's hard to count the number of reasons these people should go directly to hell.

For more from the commie conspiracy to make a big deal out of the deformities in seafood, check out this lefty rag.

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It was only a year ago today that the Deepwater Horizon oil well ruptured in the Gulf of Mexico, and yet it seems as if the horrendous damage it inflicted on people and wildlife in the region has all been forgotten.

Sure, for a little while, the "drill baby drill" chants subsided for a little while -- but not for very long. Now Republicans are trying to use the spill anniversary to attack President Obama for not opening up MORE drilling.

The public strongly supports efforts to make BP accountable for restoring the Gulf's ecosystem and the damaged communities, while Republicans have been apologizing to BP for those efforts.

But just because the media haven't been paying attention, it doesn't mean that dead wildlife haven't been washing ashore in droves, or that the ecological catastrophe is only starting to become manifest.

Of course, BP has been trying hard to suppress research into the spill's effects, despite increasing evidence that they will be catastrophic.

And at the same time, the government has opened the door for more such catastrophes:

With everything Big Oil and the government have learned in the year since the Gulf of Mexico disaster, could it happen again? Absolutely, according to an Associated Press examination of the industry and interviews with experts on the perils of deep-sea drilling.

The government has given the OK for oil exploration in treacherously deep waters to resume, saying it is confident such drilling can be done safely. The industry has given similar assurances. But there are still serious questions in some quarters about whether the lessons of the BP oil spill have been applied.

The industry "is ill-prepared at the least," said Charles Perrow, a Yale University professor specializing in accidents involving high-risk technologies. "I have seen no evidence that they have marshaled containment efforts that are sufficient to deal with another major spill. I don't think they have found ways to change the corporate culture sufficiently to prevent future accidents."

Mike Conathan at the Center for American Progress has a good summary on the government's abdication of its responsibilities:

Continue reading »

While the media is busy assuring their audiences that we still need nuclear energy despite catastrophic accidents potential, environmentalists would like you to remember we still have issues in the Gulf of Mexico from another one of our short-sighted energy policies.

The Coast Guard is investigating reports of a potentially large oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico not far from the Deepwater Horizon site. According to a knowledgeable source, the slick was sighted by a helicopter pilot on Friday and is about 100 miles long. A fishing boat captain said he went through the slick yesterday and it was strong enough to make his eyes burn.

According to the Times Picayune, the Coast Guard has confirmed they are investigating a potentially large 100 mile slick about 30 miles offshore. They are going to a site near the Matterhorn well site about 20 miles north of the BP Deepwater Horizon site, according to the paper. The Matterhorn field includes includes a deepwater drilling platform owned by W&T Technology. It was acquired last year from TotalFinaElf E&P.

I'm sure that the GOP will insist that this has nothing to do with the Deepwater Horizon site and is strictly a coincidence. And of course, by no means should this force us to reassess the wisdom of deep water drilling. To which, you can be sure, the administration will shrug and acquiesce.

Because why should we worry about a fragile eco-system and search for alternative fuel sources (thereby adding jobs and strengthening the economy) when we can instead live in the back pocket of Big Oil?

Thank heavens, this part of the mess is over. But reports from the Gulf seem to indicate BP's abandoned cleanup efforts:

BP Plc started pumping cement into the top of its crippled Gulf of Mexico well, moving closer to permanently plugging the source of the world’s biggest accidental offshore oil spill on record.

“We’ll create a significant milestone and make a major step forward, probably by tomorrow when the cementing is done,” National Incident Commander Thad Allen told reporters today in Washington. “We can all breathe a little easier regarding the potential that we have oil in the Gulf ever again.”

BP pumped mud into the top of its Macondo well earlier this week, pushing back the flow of oil and gas and making the cementing possible. The cement will cure in 24 to 36 hours, and then the company will resume drilling a relief well that aims to permanently plug Macondo from below.

BP temporarily sealed the well on July 15 through a valve stack placed atop Macondo, stopping a leak that spewed 4.9 million barrels of crude since an April 20 drilling-rig explosion, according to a government estimate. The relief well near Macondo will take at least five days to finish drilling its final 100 feet (30 meters).

By filling the well from top to bottom, pushing cement into the oil and gas reservoir, London-based BP will eliminate any possibility of a leak, Allen said. The well is located about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast.

Here's hoping that the storm doesn't carry the chemical dispersant over the mainland:

PENSACOLA, Fla. — Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen late Thursday ordered BP to begin evacuating the Deepwater Horizon oil spill site after the National Hurricane Center predicted that sustained winds of more than 55 miles per hour would reach the area perhaps as early as Saturday.

"Due to the risk that Tropical Storm Bonnie poses to the safety of the nearly 2,000 people responding to the BP oil spill at the well site, many of the vessels and rigs will be preparing to move out of harm's way beginning tonight," Allen said. "This includes the rig drilling the relief well that will ultimately kill the well, as well as other vessels needed for containment. Some of the vessels may be able to remain on site, but we will err on the side of safety."

Allen said he had directed BP to leave the well sealed during the evacuation and said that monitoring of the well, which has not leaked oil into the Gulf of Mexico for more than a week, would continue until the last possible moment. He said BP has been told to move ships guiding remotely operated vehicles providing a video feed from the capped well last and to return them to the area first.

"While these actions may delay the effort to kill the well for several days, the safety of the individuals at the well site is our highest concern," he said.

Federal and state oil cleanup workers had begun the process of battening down across the Gulf of Mexico for a weekend tropical storm, pulling out booms and calling vessels back to port from anti-contamination efforts in the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

BP says they want to permanently cap the well, but the feds want it to be opened again later. It's getting awfully hard to keep track without a scorecard -- one anonymous source tells the Associated Press there's a seep near the well:

Pilloried for nearly three months as it tried repeatedly to stop the leak, BP PLC capped the nearly mile-deep well Thursday and wants to keep it that way. The government's plan, however, is to eventually pipe oil to the surface, which would ease pressure on the fragile well but would require up to three more days of oil spilling into the Gulf.

"No one associated with this whole activity ... wants to see any more oil flow into the Gulf of Mexico," Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer, said Sunday. "Right now we don't have a target to return the well to flow."

An administration official familiar with the spill oversight, however, told The Associated Press that a seep and possible methane were found near the busted oil well. The official spoke on condition of anonymity Sunday because an announcement about the next steps had not been made yet.

I don't understand enough of this to interpret what's going on, but it doesn't sound good:

NEW ORLEANS -- Worried about triggering another blowout -- possibly deep down a well of uncertain condition -- BP and federal officials have put the brakes on the latest effort to choke off the undersea geyser of crude.

Instead, they ordered a new round of analysis scheduled to start Wednesday before moving forward with pressure tests intended to determine whether a new 150,000-pound cap and a well three miles below the sea floor are strong enough to withstand the powerful flow of oil and gas.

The decision was made Tuesday in Houston, where U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and a team of federal and industry scientists and geologists are overseeing BP's plans to run a "well integrity test."

"As a result of these discussions, we decided that the process may benefit from additional analysis," U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is in charge of the federal effort, said in a statement issued Tuesday afternoon.
After successfully placing a new and beefier cap on the blown-out well, the oil giant had been scheduled to start slowly shutting off valves, aiming to stop the flow of oil for the first time in three months.

If the cap works, it would enable BP to stop most, and possibly all of the oil, now gushing into the sea. The company could either use the cap as a cork to "shut in" the well. Or, if capping would create too much pressure, use the more sophisticated new cap to channel as much as 60,000 barrels a day through pipes and lines to as many as four collection ships.

Neither BP nor the federal government offered an immediate explanation of the additional analysis, but in briefings early in the day, it was clear there are still significant questions about conditions of gear on and underneath the sea floor -- particularly the casing that lines the well.

Those concerns also had prompted Chu to halt BP's earlier "top kill" effort to pump heavy drilling mud down into the well. Kent Wells, a BP senior vice president, told reporters in a conference call from Houston Tuesday afternoon that the integrity test would indicate whether there was damage inside the well. If the pressure doesn't build up as valves are closed on the new cap, he said, it would point to a breech that could worsen if the well is simply capped.

In the worst-case scenario, it could trigger a blowout deep beneath the sea floor that would be difficult, and perhaps impossible, to control -- at least until BP finishes drilling relief wells. That effort is still expected to take until mid-August.

On his blog BPOilslick,John L. Wathen,
aka Hurricane Creekkeeper, posts pictures of contractors covering up the oily beaches in Gulf Shores, Alabama with fresh sand. (Which may make things look pretty for the tourists, but doesn't do a damn thing about the toxic dispersant in the water.) Heather pointed out other instances last week.

Now, a semi-plausible case might be made for covering up the oil to serve the tourist trade, I suppose -- but why would you want people swimming in that water? (Anyone remember "Jaws"?) And more importantly, why are they lying to us about what they did?

US Coast Guard issued a press release claiming that no covering of oiled beach was occurring. I sat in my motel room in Orange Beach and watched as multiple pieces of heavy equipment excavated sand and hauled it up the beach and used it to cover oiled sections of beach.

While contractors drove bulldozers, front end loaders, screening tractors and various kinds of equipment on beaches known for Turtle nesting.

I watched them from about 11:00 P.M 07/02/10 until about lunch the next day excavating the beach under cover of darkness. There was a stand of ponded water with oil and so called "Tar Balls" which was covered with sand from another area.

U. S. Coast Guard issued a press release stating that this is not happening. USCG uniformed men sat in ATV buggies and watched. I saw them and photographed them.

Why is our Coast Guard playing toady to BP? Are they nothing more than oil lackeys?

Go look at the rest of the pictures. Fascinating...

Kindra Arnesen is the wife of a Gulf fisherman and she's been kicking butt on exposing BP abuses. In this latest news, she's discovered that BP is claiming is that if fishermen choose not to take part in the oil spill cleanup, BP will consider that as potential income declined and deduct it from their claims.

Kindra has previously talked about the serious health problems manifesting in those who have taken part in the cleanup.

In other words, if you didn't want to risk your health and expose yourself to their toxic waste, you're going to suffer financially as a result. But doesn't BP have a pretty sunflower logo?