A Week That Defies Categoriazation

Starting with the dispersants BP has been using to hide the enormity of the spill in the Gulf. The real reason BP has used nearly 2 million gallons of the dispersant Corexit in the Gulf is to hide the oil and save themselves money in possible fines, says Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. He explains that the dispersant is used to atomize the oil and force it down the water column so that it’s invisible to the eye. 

He also feels that , the government—both EPA, NOAA, etc.—have been sock puppets for BP in this cover-up. Now, by hiding the amount of spill, BP is saving hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in fines, and so, from day one, there was tremendous economic incentive to use these dispersants to hide the magnitude of the gusher that’s been going on for almost three months. You can listen to his full interview with Democracy Now's Amy Goodman below:



In what should be considered alarming news, oil and dispersant have entered the food chain, and hydrocarbons have been detected in crab larvae. A Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries biologist expressed this concern recently:"We are quite concerned that we will see significant mortality of larvae as they encounter oil or dispersants." (Times Picayune, Bob Marshall, 7/20/2010) Further, it is a known fact that oil mixed with dispersant can actually prove to be more toxic than oil, or dispersant, alone. (See fact sheet at the link).

There's so much BP has done wrong - so many acts for which they will hopefully be criminally liable it's no surprise to read that they've been screwing up the cleanup of the Gulf on top of everything else.



As far as capping the well, that's been the good news this week as the gusher seems to be under control and they're getting closer to having the relief wells done. In a bit of bad news on this front, efforts will be suspended this weekend as they wait out a tropical storm Bonnie which could potentially develop into a hurricane.

On the environmental front, some good news beginning with Obama signing an executive order creating a new national ocean policy to protect and restore America's oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes. Followed by terrible news today, from TPM: At a press conference this afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), the Democrats' top climate and energy negotiator, acknowledged officially, and with obvious disappointment, that they lack the votes to pass legislation limiting carbon pollution, and that forthcoming energy legislation will be extremely narrow, in a bid to overcome a GOP filibuster.

Now there are those who want to blame this failure on Obama and I unsderstand that but it is not his fault. Says Harry Reid about the fate of the bill, "Unfortunately at this time we don't have a single Republican to work with in achieving this goal."

Not one single Republican to work with on legislation that is probaby more important than any other issue out there. Joe Romm believes averting catastrophic climate change is the singular most important problem we face as a society.

Follow-up

Just to follow up on the Corexit dispersant story and the videos posted below - the people over at Video Café have this story and chat with a marine toxicologist about the effects of Corexit on the metabolism: Shrimpers who were exposed to a mixture of oil and Corexit dispersant in the Gulf of Mexico suffered severe symptoms such as muscle spasms, heart palpitations, headaches that last for weeks and bleeding from the rectum...



The media doesn't give it a lot of coverage, but it's old news that Corexit is 4 times more toxic than the oil itself, it's old news that there are better and less toxic dispersant available,  it's old news that the EPA asked BP to stop using Corexit and BP told them to stuff it.

Corporate Criminals

If BP does manage to get the spill contained there's so much that they still have to answer for - Like cutting 40,000 claimants off for having incomplete files. Oh yeah, they're going to make it right all right... for themselves. Take a look at this video with images that aren't being showed much in the MSM:




There's their use of the dispersant Corexit that's described as being four times as toxic as the oil itself:



And from our good friend Laffy over at the Political Carnival, comes this video of BP hiding the toxic sludge that they're collecting - the waste management facility reminds me of something I once saw in the X-Files. Sadly though, the truth is nowhere to be found.