Obama vs. a judge with a brain.

[jimpeel]

No, there's a pretty bad record in the Gulf.

Deepwater was ignoring all sort of safety concerns. Time to shut them all down until we can be sure that something like this or worse isn't about to happen.

The oil from the 1979 Ixtoc1 blowout reached the gulf coast but no one is speaking about that. That nine month spill lasted from June 3 until March 23, 1980 a much longer time than this spill.

Can anyone show me the lasting damage from the Ixtoc1 blowout? Anyone?

Prince William Sound? The Persian Gulf? They can't. They just expound on the lasting damage caring not if they are lying in the face of stark evidence to the contrary.

An interesting fact. During that spill there were only five hurricanes and the thinking is that the oil on the surface of the water may retard hurricane formation.

In 1979, there were five hurricanes. Hurricane Henri was a rare tropical storm that entered the Gulf of Mexico without having made landfall anywhere else. It was the second of four times this occurred during the twentieth century. So it is possible that the oil on the surface of the Gulf does retard or prohibit the formation of a genuine cyclone or hurricane.
- Rush Limbaugh June 25, 2010

There is a refutation for that supposition HERE.

Search terms: hurricane Henri gulf coast 1979

Try THIS and find that drilling has been going on in the Gulf for 70 years. There are currently 700 rigs in the Gulf. 1/700 goes wrong and that adds up to calls for a 100% shutdown?

 

[MrBishop]

Beaches are easier top clean than wetlands, Jim.

 

[jimpeel]

Beaches are easier top clean than wetlands, Jim.

Both will clean themselves over time.

 

[catocom]

Both will clean themselves over time.

but Kevin Costner can't make any money that way

 

[MrBishop]

Both will clean themselves over time.

Yes, and given enough time...the Earth will fully recover from a nuclear holocaust too, or a meteor impact or any number of other things.

That's not the point is it? TEOTWAWKI - for people living there and working there. Some people are worried about the impact of a moritorium on drilling in the gulf. OMG...the companies will lose profit and leave!!!

The gulf is known for it's fishing industry as well. How long can fishermen and shrimpers survive without their catch? Measure that against how long it would take nature to clean itself.

 

[catocom]

Yes, and given enough time...the Earth will fully recover from a nuclear holocaust too, or a meteor impact or any number of other things.

That's not the point is it? TEOTWAWKI - for people living there and working there. Some people are worried about the impact of a moritorium on drilling in the gulf. OMG...the companies will lose profit and leave!!!
.

and many jobs lost there too.

The gulf is known for it's fishing industry as well. How long can fishermen and shrimpers survive without their catch? Measure that against how long it would take nature to clean itself.

I haven't heard one report of a fish being found to be contaminated.
The gov. just won't let um do what they need to do.

 

[MrBishop]

I haven't heard one report of a fish being found to be contaminated.
The gov. just won't let um do what they need to do.

"These are the first round of dying/dead fish off the gulf coast in Louisiana. We had to sneak passed Coast Guard guards and eventually were asked to leave when ATV riders drove passed. Literally the entire beach had little piles of these dead fish that the tide had washed in. Most were small flounder like fish but some were pretty huge. Pictures to come."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd8J6aITAU0&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZASR4czL6I&NR=1


They're being used to help clean up the mess..the boats and crews, that is. This is no time to try and fish.

 

[catocom]

I don't see anything in those vids that prove that it was video of where they say it is.
It could actually be china for all I know.

Why hasn't Any of the news media reported on it?

 

[MrBishop]

BTW..that's not asphalt on the right - it's floating dead fish.

The news is reporting on it as it can.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gEsS5h6C_l_Ndr7VMsRzKLN9qNdgD9GCIK304

Even FoxNews
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/06/1...-near-shore-scientists-say-new-dangers-await/

 

[catocom]

ok, some of the sea life is dying.
Is there a report of anything being caught (not dead) set to go to market that is contaminated?

 

[MrBishop]

ok, some of the sea life is dying.
Is there a report of anything being caught (not dead) set to go to market that is contaminated?

Nothing is being caught in that area.. no fishing. And this is because of the contamination. Who want's a sea-bass steak with a nice petrochemical glaze anyway?

 

[catocom]

ah, just like the so-called stimulus huh?

You can prove a negative.
It's all conjecture.

 

[MrBishop]

Conjecture that there is no fishing going on in that part of the gulf? That's not conjecture, it's a fact.

The stimulus package is a whole other story, cato...try to stick with the current topic.

 

[spike]

The oil from the 1979 Ixtoc1 blowout reached the gulf coast but no one is speaking about that.

A lot of people are talking about that actually.

Here's a good article in the similarities and differences...
http://news.discovery.com/earth/gulf-oil-spill-ixtoc.html

That one was much shallower and didn't have the wetland problems but it still took an enormous toll.

I'm not sure what you point was though? Everything's cool?

Of course it isn't the business on the Gulf are being devastated....and BP is not compensating them as promised.

 

[spike]

The gov. just won't let um do what they need to do.

What are you talking about?

 

[catocom]

The stimulus package is a whole other story, cato...try to stick with the current topic.

I was on topic, just using that as another example.
The point was, (as was said)..."You can't prove a negative"
like that. It's 'speculation' told like it was 'fact'.

What are you talking about?

The gov. won't let um fish.

 

[jimpeel]

A lot of people are talking about that actually.

Here's a good article in the similarities and differences...
http://news.discovery.com/earth/gulf-oil-spill-ixtoc.html

That one was much shallower and didn't have the wetland problems but it still took an enormous toll.

What toll? Where is the lasting damage?

I'm not sure what you point was though? Everything's cool?

If the catastrophe were natural they would have to accept their fate and they would have no one to sue. All of the help that has been offered has been stymied by the administration. They are the largest blockade to this being resolved.

Of course it isn't the business on the Gulf are being devastated....and BP is not compensating them as promised.

They put up 20 billion -- unconstitutionally demanded by Obama -- and that money is now in the control of the administration. Blame them.

From your link:

The fact that the spill happened in warm offshore waters made the effects of the Ixtoc I spill less than they otherwise might have been, experts agreed. Warm temperatures accelerate the evaporation, weathering and microbes' consumption of oil.

...

"We were surprised there were so relatively few effects," said Olof Linden of the World Maritime University in Malmö, Sweden and part of a United Nations expert group that assessed the Ixtoc I spill.

There's a rule of thumb that for every 10 degrees Celsius increase in water temperature, chemical and biochemical reactions happen twice as quickly.

"That means if you compare the recovery time of the Exxon Valdez, where you had average temperatures of, say, 5 degrees, with those in the Mexican Gulf where the temperature is about 25 degrees, you have two doublings. What will happen in 20 years in Alaska will take five years in the Gulf," said Arne Jernelöv, who lead the U.N. team.

...

Fish and octopus catches reportedly dropped by 50-70 percent that year from 1978 levels in some places, according to Jernelov and Linden's report. Fisheries in the area closed for a period, including the shrimp fishery, said Jernelöv, now of the Swedish Institute for Future Studies.

However, he said, "The much-reduced fishing pressure on fisheries that are normally over-fished meant that the fisheries' recovery went quite quickly. A few years down it was difficult to see any effect on the organisms. The damage the oil did was, to a significant extent, compensated or even overcompensated by the fact that you didn't have fishing."

...

"Five years later, most of this was covered with sand," he added. "But where it was exposed, crabs were crawling over it and oysters and mussels were settled on it. The toxicity of it was gone. It looked like asphalt road."

...

But a tropical storm did much to reduce that damage. "We had a tropical depression come in and raise the water level and it eroded the shore a little bit," Gundlach said. "It removed 80 percent of the oil that was on the shore of Texas."

So it took the Alaska spill 20 years to return to normal and it will take, by the formulaic prognostications of this scientist, five years for the Gulf Coast to return to normal. Fishing and shrimping will come back better than ever.

 

[spike]

What toll? Where is the lasting damage?

There was a huge toll on fishing and oysters still haven't returned. It doesn't matter if the all the damage is lasting or not Jim. Bankrupting businesses and the like is still a huge problem.

"But the effects were soon apparent. Carlos Castillo, now 78, was an avid skin diver at the time who used a speargun to catch fish for his small restaurant. Before Ixtoc I, he could catch 30 kilograms of grouper, snapper or snook in two hours, he says. But during the spill, his mask became oily, and he developed health problems. Eventually, he couldn't find anything to catch because fish were dying or leaving for cleaner waters. "I told my wife, 'Sorry, we have to buy fish.'" They began serving freshwater fish or fish trucked in from other regions.

The spill years were devastating for fishermen, many of whom had nowhere else to turn for income or food, but fisheries recovered faster than most researchers expected. Chávez says that Campeche shrimp-catch records, for instance, suggest that within two years fishermen were pulling in normal hauls again. Locals say that fish catches improved substantially within three to five years. Tunnell points out that the Gulf may have been healthier and more resilient then, so it's difficult to say whether species in the northern Gulf will rebound as quickly from the current spill. But the curtailment of commercial fishing owing to fears over contaminated seafood may hasten the recovery of exploited species.

In some parts of Campeche, however, there are ominous signs that not all ecosystems fared as well. After leaving Champotón, Tunnell and his colleagues traveled about 125 kilometers north to the tiny village of Isla Arena, to look for oil among mangrove trees. A few kilometers from the village, the team found patches of what looked like highly weathered oil. Then Chávez called out, "Hey Wes, there's a stinky one over here." The 2-metre by 1-meter mat of tar smelled distinctly of asphalt.

More disturbing is the absence of oysters around Isla Arena, where they were once so abundant that local fishermen say they could chop off a mangrove branch and pluck off enough of the mollusks to feed their families. The oysters never returned after Ixtoc I, according to the fishermen, and there is no research to explain why. "As far as I know, this is one of the least-studied ecosystems in Mexico," says Tunnell. He says that he's intrigued by the oyster story and hopes to do follow-up research on the topic.

So far, Tunnell says, Ixtoc I's main lesson for those responding to the current spill is that sandy beaches and rocky shores can recover relatively quickly, but that more productive ecosystems such as mangrove swamps or salt marshes--the closest analogue to mangroves in the northern Gulf--retain oil indefinitely. They may take decades to regain their health.

Jernelöv says that other features of Ixtoc I may foreshadow what the coming months and years could hold. For example, although the water depth at Ixtoc I was just 50 meters, compared with 1,500 meters for the current spill, it too generated subsurface oil plumes. That oil made its way around the Gulf, and at one point some beaches in Texas took an unexpected oil hit after it mixed with surface waters close to shore. "You didn't see anything and then all of a sudden you had oil on the beaches," Jernelöv says.

In broader terms, Tunnell, Jernelöv and other researchers familiar with Ixtoc I agree that its most important lesson is to continue studying the Deepwater Horizon spill and its impact--especially after the oil stops flowing and the world's attention turns elsewhere--so as not to be caught short next time.

Steve Murawski, chief science adviser for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service, says that he and others have lamented the lack of Ixtoc I data as they have worked to respond to Deepwater Horizon. But he says that he hopes the mistakes of 30 years ago will not be repeated, and that "the number of regrets will be relatively modest when we start writing the history of this one."

As for the fishermen near the Ixtoc I site, they are well aware of the new disaster unfolding to the north. Many fear that the oil will come their way, and they sympathize with those already affected. "To me, it's a problem for humanity," says Castillo."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-lost-legacy-Ixtoc-oil

If the catastrophe were natural they would have to accept their fate and they would have no one to sue.

If it was natural then they might be covered by insurance. As it is they are being destroyed by a irresponsible company. Not sure what your point was.

All of the help that has been offered has been stymied by the administration. They are the largest blockade to this being resolved.

Wrong, the administration has accepted and provided all sorts of help.

They put up 20 billion -- unconstitutionally demanded by Obama -- and that money is now in the control of the administration. Blame them.

All the claims are not currently going through that fund. Blame BP for ruining their businesses and not paying claims.

There was nothing unconstitutional about BP putting up 20 billion to cover their damage. If Obama had legally required them to do it you might have something but that was not the case. Suggesting a company pay for the damage to the country is perfectly legal.

So it took the Alaska spill 20 years to return to normal and it will take, by the formulaic prognostications of this scientist, five years for the Gulf Coast to return to normal. Fishing and shrimping will come back better than ever.

I doubt fishing and shrimping will come back to previous levels any time soon. But even if it took 5 years it's 5 years too many. Oil companies don't get a free pass on destroying other types of companies.

 

[MrBishop]

I doubt fishing and shrimping will come back to previous levels any time soon. But even if it took 5 years it's 5 years too many. Oil companies don't get a free pass on destroying other types of companies.

The perfect answer... if it takes 5 years for shrimp and other fishing to recover, then that's about the right timeline for the moratorium on drilling in the gulf too. Hell, why should fishermen be the only ones suffering from BP and Halliburton's cost-cutting idiocy? Then maybe the American people can actually feel the impact of BP's BS. Higher oil prices caused by an environmental disaster - whodathunkit?

 

[Gonz]

FUCK YEA!!!!! Let's end drilling. Wait, let me fill up first.