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Disaster looms as oil slick reaches US coast

so your saying that i have no way to live without (petroleum) oil? (or lack the will to try to be more aware as a consumer)?

I'm saying that making comments like "stop driving your car so much" are mind numbingly inane, even more so now it is revealed that your livelihood depends on oil consumption, and that the issue is just a *bit* more complex than people drivin to much in their cars. Obviously you have no way of living without oil, you feed yourself by patching rooves with a petroleum by-product.

^ I'd jerk off to a headline proclaiming BP going bankrupt.

:D
 
Just to be clear, you weren't responding to missunderstood, right? (just thought I'd clear that up because if she's as confused as I was for a moment there then this is going to go pear shaped)
 
I'm saying that making comments like "stop driving your car so much" are mind numbingly inane, even more so now it is revealed that your livelihood depends on oil consumption, and that the issue is just a *bit* more complex than people drivin to much in their cars. Obviously you have no way of living without oil, you feed yourself by patching rooves with a petroleum by-product.

i not think it was so inane...i think i remember reading somewhere that transportation is 1/4 of oil consumption.

and we do offer green alternatives, they are just not in demand. we try hard to sell clean roof, but the customer is always right. right?

ps: sorry for "engaging" in one liners lol
 
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So 3/4 of the worlds oil use has nothing to do with people driving their cars? Yeah, I'd call your interjection inane, as I would any one-liner of the sort you so often engage in.
 
June 2 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc’s failure since April to plug a Gulf of Mexico oil leak has prompted forecasts the crude may continue gushing into December in what President Barack Obama has called the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history.

BP’s attempts so far to cap the well and plug the leak on the seabed a mile below the surface haven’t worked, while the start of the Atlantic hurricane season this week indicates storms in the Gulf may disrupt other efforts.

“The worst-case scenario is Christmas time,” Dan Pickering, the head of research at energy investor Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. in Houston, said. “This process is teaching us to be skeptical of deadlines.”

Ending the year with a still-gushing well would mean about 4 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf, based on the government’s current estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels leaking a day. That would wipe out marine life deep at sea near the leak and elsewhere in the Gulf, and along hundreds of miles of coastline, said Harry Roberts, a professor of Coastal Studies at Louisiana State University.

So much crude pouring into the ocean may alter the chemistry of the sea, with unforeseeable results, said Mak Saito, an Associate Scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

No Guarantee

BP, based in London, says it can’t guarantee the success of its attempt now underway to capture the flow of oil and divert it to a ship at the surface. Thad Allen, the U.S. government’s national commander for the incident, said operations may need to be suspended to allow for an evacuation ahead of a tropical storm or hurricane, during which oil would continue to gush into the Gulf.

The so-called relief well being drilled to intercept and plug the damaged well by mid-August might miss -- as other emergency wells have done before -- requiring more time to make a second, third or fourth try, Dave Rensink, President Elect of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, said.

Robert Wine, a spokesman for BP, declined to detail the company’s own worst-case scenario.

In its original exploration plan for the Macondo well about 40-miles from the Louisiana coast, BP estimated the worst-case scenario for an oil spill was 162,000 barrels of crude a day, according to a filing with the U.S. Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service.

Hurricane Season

BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward has more recently put the maximum potential leak rate at 60,000 barrels a day.

Wine reaffirmed BP’s estimate that it will take 90 days to stop the leak with a relief well, which would be the first half of August. He said an early, vigorous hurricane season could have an impact on the schedule.

The ultimate worst-case scenario is that the well is never successfully plugged, said Fred Aminzadeh, a research professor at the University of Southern California’s Center for Integrated Smart Oil Fields who previously worked for Unocal Corp. That would leave the well to flow for probably more than a decade, he said in a telephone interview.

More likely, the relief wells will eventually succeed, though it might take longer than the three months predicted by BP, he said.

Pemex Spill

It took Mexico’s state-owned oil company, Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, nine months to plug its Ixtoc I well after an explosion and fire in 1979.

The company’s first attempt with a relief well failed, so it had to drill a second. Eventually, more than 140 million gallons of crude spilled into the Gulf of Mexico -- the biggest offshore oil spill on record.

Last year, an explosion at a well off the Australian coast owned by Thailand’s national oil company, PTT Exploration & Production Pcl, required five attempts before it could be plugged by a relief well 10 weeks after the spill began.

BP has improved its odds by drilling two emergency wells at once. If a first attempt fails, it will have the second well ready to try again. The company is using techniques such as a larger well bore, raising its chances of hitting its mark, said Robert MacKenzie an analyst with FBR Capital Markets in Arlington, Virginia.

Plugging the well is another challenge even after BP successfully intersects it, Robert Bea, a University of California Berkeley engineering professor, said. BP has said it believes the well bore to be damaged, which could hamper efforts to fill it with mud and set a concrete plug, Bea said.

Evacuating Ships

While these efforts are underway, BP could face delays if a hurricane enters the Gulf, forcing an evacuation. BP says it is developing a mechanism to quickly disconnect the ship collecting oil from the well so that it can evacuate ahead of a storm. That would leave the well gushing oil, Bea said.

Ocean biologists are concerned the oil could linger in deep layers in the sea, generating oxygen-depleted “dead zones” that kill marine life.

Plumes of oil spinning off of the spill have been detected in two directions, and researchers suspect there are more.

“Clearly, oxygen levels are going to be decreased in the vicinity of the plume area, and it looks like it could be a very large plume area,” said Saito, of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Birds, Oysters

The crude oil could enter a current that would draw it out of the Gulf and up along the East Coast of the U.S. all the way to Nantucket, Roberts, of Lousiana State University, said.

The American Bird Conservancy has identified 10 key regions on the Gulf Coast where birds could be harmed. If the oil is spread widely by a hurricane, there could be long-term damage to bird populations, the non-profit organization has said.

“What is difficult to measure is the loss of future generations of birds when birds fail to lay eggs or when eggs fail to hatch,” George Fenwick, the organization’s president, said in a statement on at-risk areas in the Gulf Coast.

Marine life may take decades to recover, wiping out businesses along the coastline that depend on the fishing and seafood industry.

Al Sunseri, who runs P&J Oyster Co., the oldest continually operated oyster dealer in the U.S., said he could end up out of business:

“This could be the end of our 134-year-old business,” he said. “I’ve been doing this 30 years. I have a son and I don’t know if he’ll be able to carry on this next generation.”

Source:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aPfFTgqayIKY&pos=9


Not good....
 
CNBC Daniel Weiss/ Center for American Progress "Hurricane will make Gulf land Chernobyll"

CNBC just had Daniel Weiss on, who is the head Climatologist researcher for the Center for American Progress, which is headed by John Podesta.

He says that if a category 2 or 3 Hurricane comes ashore through the gulf, the oil will have a good chance of turning the landfall areas into our Chernobyl.

He said there would be dead zones where nobody could go, breathing problems, cancer, etc.

The hosts and another talking head went apeshit, saying it was pure speculation....but this Weiss guy was reved up saying this is a nightmare.

Get ready folks....


Video/Source:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1511097510&play=1


I didn't know what to make about all the loose rumors about evacs and national guard, but there must be contingency plans out there after hearing this.

I wouldn't panic and worry about leaving now, but if a hurricane does head your way, I might think about taking a few more valuables with me in preparation for the chance they may not let you back.
 
^^^hmmmm....I think that comparing this spill to Chernobyl is somewhat disingenuous. I mean this is bad, but will the land be uninhabitable and deadly toxic for decades if the oil lands ashore? Probably not.

Three years after the Ixtoc 1 spill in the late 70's, marine life was almost 100% back to normal. Bacteria in the ocean actually breaks down oil thus nature does much of the cleanup for us.

But I will concede that the nature of the two spills are different...... so who knows.....
 
^Wait till it gets into the water.... like the drinking water.... plus do not forget about all the diperments they have been dumping to cover up the mess....

That 70's spill was not in deep waters like this one...

Another Major BP Oil Rig in the Gulf is in Danger of blowout.... Rig is called "Atlantis"

http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2010/06/02/am.costello.bp.atlantis.cnn

The gulf can not take no more..... in my prayers....

This guy is not comparing the disaster....

He is saying that there will be Evacuations of Uninhabitable land, well inland of the gulf if a Hurrican picks up oil....

It's not a metaphor....he's saying death, illness, evacuations.

He is one of the top Economic Climatologists in the country and is in contact with the Obama administration.

Be warned.....this is everyone's worst fear coming true according to this guy
 
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More on this^^



Bloomberg
U.S. Should Shut BP Atlantis Platform, Lawmaker Says

By Jim Polson

May 20 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Interior Department should shut BP Plc’s Atlantis platform in the Gulf of Mexico pending the completion of a safety investigation which began in March, Representative Raul Grijalva said.

Grijalva asked other Congressmen to sign a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, according to an e-mail from his office today. The Minerals Management Service, part of the Interior Department, agreed March 26 to look into the safety of the platform at the request of Grijalva and 18 other members of Congress. The agency said it would issue a report by the end of this month.

Atlantis can produce 200,000 barrels of crude daily, according to BP. That’s equivalent to about 3.6 percent of U.S. production, according to the Energy Department in Washington. The platform is about 100 miles (161 kilometers) south of where the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig caught fire April 20 and sank, leading to a continuing oil spill.

“To avoid a catastrophe of huge proportions, huger than the one we’re having now, it’s the prudent way to go,” Grijalva said today in an interview. “There’s lingering doubt about Atlantis and it has to be dealt with.”

Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat and chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, and the other lawmakers asked for the MMS investigation Feb. 24, saying the Atlantis platform had been operating for several years without safety documents that “are essentially an operator’s guide.”

Those claims are “without substance,” BP said in a May 17 statement on its website. Sheila Williams, a BP spokeswoman in London, declined to comment. Kendra Barkoff, an Interior Department spokeswoman, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Grijalva said he’s concerned that the MMS hasn’t yet interviewed a whistleblower who reported the alleged lapses or a BP ombudsman who confirmed some problems.

‘Giant’ Fields

Atlantis taps one of BP’s three “giant” fields in the Gulf of Mexico, Andy Inglis, chief executive officer of exploration and production, said at a March 2 investor conference. The others are Thunder Horse and Mad Dog, he said.

Food & Water Watch, an environmental group with offices worldwide, filed a lawsuit May 17. The group asked a U.S. judge to force the MMS, which oversees offshore oil and gas production, to shut London-based BP’s Atlantis platform until the company can prove the system, one of the Gulf’s largest, was built according to engineer-certified designs and is operating safely.

At least 109,000 barrels (4.58 million gallons) of oil have leaked from the Macondo well since the Deepwater Horizon’s explosion, based on estimated daily flow rates provided by BP, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administation and the U.S. Coast Guard.

--With assistance from Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York. Editors: Kim Jordan, Charles Siler.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-20/u-s-should-shut-bp-atlantis-platform-lawmaker-says-update2-.html
 
BP Chief -- I'm Sorry, Dirty Coast residents.

(CNN) -- BP's CEO said Sunday he's sorry for the largest oil spill in U.S. history and the "massive disruption" it has caused the Gulf Coast, telling reporters the company hopes to corral most of the crude offshore.

"The first thing to say is I'm sorry," Tony Hayward said when asked what he would tell people in Louisiana, where heavy oil has already reached parts of the state's southeastern marshes.

"We're sorry for the massive disruption it's caused their lives. There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back."

Hayward said the company is doing "everything we can to contain the oil offshore," but, "as far as I'm concerned, a cup of oil on the beach is a failure."

yeah fuck you man. you're an oil executive who's gonna leave with a massive golden parachute.
"i want my life back", please. sorry, we had to tear you away from fucking some 10K a night whores and blowing through massive amounts of yayo off their plastic implant asses.

dick.
 
This animation shows one scenario of how oil released at the location of the Deepwater Horizon disaster on April 20 in the Gulf of Mexico may move in the upper 65 feet of the ocean. This is not a forecast, but rather, it illustrates a likely dispersal pathway of the oil for roughly four months following the spill. It assumes oil spilling continuously from April 20 to June 20. The colors represent a dilution factor ranging from red (most concentrated) to green (most diluted). The dilution factor does not attempt to estimate the actual barrels of oil at any spot; rather, it depicts how much of the total oil from the source that will be carried elsewhere by ocean currents. For example, areas showing a dilution factor of 0.01 would have one-hundredth the concentration of oil present at the spill site.
The animation is based on a computer model simulation, using a virtual dye, that assumes weather and current conditions similar to those that occur in a typical year. It is one of a set of six scenarios released today that simulate possible pathways the oil might take under a variety of oceanic conditions. Each of the six scenarios shows the same overall movement of oil through the Gulf to the Atlantic and up the East Coast. However, the timing and fine-scale details differ, depending on the details of the ocean currents in the Gulf. The full set of six simulations can be found here. (Visualization by Tim Scheitlin and Rick Brownrigg, NCAR; based on model simulations.)

Ocean currents likely to carry oil along Atlantic coast

Video: Must watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE-1G_476nA&feature=player_embedded

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Film director and deep-sea explorer James Cameron said on Wednesday that BP Plc turned down his offer to help combat the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico

"Over the last few weeks I've watched, as we all have, with growing horror and heartache, watching what's happening in the Gulf and thinking those morons don't know what they're doing," Cameron said at the All Things Digital technology conference.

Cameron, the director of "Avatar" and "Titanic," has worked extensively with robot submarines and is considered an expert in undersea filming. He did not say explicitly who he meant when he referred to "those morons."

Cameron said he has offered to help the government and BP in dealing with the spill. He said he was "graciously" turned away by the British energy giant.


Cameron suggested the U.S. government needed to take a more active role in monitoring the undersea gusher, which has become the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

"I know really, really, really smart people that work typically at depths much greater than what that well is at," Cameron said.

The BP oil spill off the U.S. Gulf Coast is located a mile below the surface.

While acknowledging that his contacts in the deep-sea industry do not drill for oil, Cameron said that they are accustomed to operating various underwater vehicles and electronic optical fiber systems.

"Most importantly," he added, "they know the engineering that it requires to get something done at that depth."

More info:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100603/en_nm/us_oil_spill_cameron


These guys are acting a Fool... They should accept all help.... "those morons." lol


CNN iReport: “Significant amounts of oil is floating ashore in the Florida Keys”

http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/c...of-oil-is-floating-ashore-in-the-florida-keys
 
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Health Effects of the BP Oil Spill

The long and short-term health effects of the Gulf Coast oil spill are potentially catastrophic. Short-term health risks include relatively minor nuisances such as runny noses and headaches while long-term health risks include liver and kidney disease. Additional health risks will occur if contaminated seafood ends up in the marketplace. Although public health agencies are monitoring air quality, drinking water, and seafood, it is possible that a significant part of the population located near and working with the oil spill could experience mild to severe health problems.

Crude oil contains a number of carcinogens, including benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). There is no “safe level” of exposure to these carcinogens. Dispersants, which are also being used in an attempt to control the oil spill, reportedly contain petroleum products, sulfonic acid salts and propylene glycol. These chemicals pose yet additional health hazards, especially because they are volatile compounds that are easily dispersed into the air. Once airborne, these chemicals have the potential to reach communities that are far removed from the oil spill itself.

Way more information on the topic here:
http://baronandbudd.com/legal_services/gulf_coast_oil_spill/health


Imagine the same results once the spill starts nearing shorelines. Evacuation does not seem that far fetched after reading this..

Source:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/06/03/gulf.fishermans.wife/index.html

Venice, Louisiana (CNN) -- Kindra Arnesen's husband often calls while he's out on a shrimping trip, so she wasn't surprised to hear her cell phone ring the night of April 29 while he was on an overnight fishing expedition.

However, this time, her husband, David, wasn't calling to tell her about the day's catch or to wish their children Aleena and David Jr. a good night. He was calling to tell her he was sick, and the strange thing about it, so were men on the seven other shrimping boats working near his.

"I received several calls from him saying, 'This one's hanging over the boat throwing up. This one says he's dizzy, and he's feeling faint. Everybody's loading up their stuff, tying up their rigs and going back to the docks,'" Arnesen remembers.

Arnesen believes it was vapors from the oil and the dispersants from the BP Gulf oil disaster that made her husband and the other shrimpers sick. She says they were downwind of it, and the smell was "so strong they could almost taste it."

For several weeks, she hesitated to talk publicly about it. Like many fishermen who can no longer fish in the Gulf, her husband has signed a contract to work with BP to clean up the oil, and she doesn't want to bite the hand that puts food on her family's table.

Full coverage: Gulf Coast oil disaster

But now Arnesen, a 32-year-old "uneducated housewife" -- her words -- is breaking her silence and is encouraging others in her community do the same. After attending a lecture by Rikki Ott, a toxicologist who's worked with families affected by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, Arnesen decided to organize other wives to ask questions about the safety of working near the oil.

Her cell phone rings constantly.

"Hey, Theresa, how you doing?" she said, taking a call Tuesday morning. "Can you come to the meeting tonight?"
People don't want to talk. They're scared.
--Kindra Arneson

But Theresa can't come to the meeting, and Arnesen has come to expect such a response.

"People don't want to talk. They're scared," she says, of repercussions and consequences from BP. "Our financial situation lays in the palm of their hands."

"I don't believe in coincidence."

When David Arnesen reported that the other men were so sick they were cutting their shrimping trips short and heading home, his wife knew something strange was happening. Shrimpers work through illness, she says, because a trip cut short can cost a shrimper thousands of dollars.

She says the men had all the same symptoms at the same time -- vomiting, dizziness, headaches, shortness of breath. Could it be a coincidence?

"I don't believe in coincidence. It would be one thing if one of them got sick. It would maybe be OK if two got sick," she says. "When everyone's getting sick all at the same time, that's not coincidence"

When asked at a news conference Sunday about people getting sick while out on the Gulf, BP CEO Tony Hayward had his own theory.

"Food poisoning is clearly a big issue," HE said. "It's something we've got to be very mindful of.
"

Arnesen says there's no way her husband and the men on the other boats had fallen victim to food poisoning, noting the men were on eight boats and didn't eat the same food.

The night her husband became ill, Arnesen says, she tried to get him to come home like the other shrimpers, but he refused. He stayed out fishing from 6 p.m. until 9 a.m. the next morning, and came home so sick he collapsed into his recliner without eating dinner or saying hello to her or the children.

"It's a nasty cough. I literally woke him up over and over again," she says. "It didn't sound like he was getting enough air.

At first, David refused to see a doctor, but after three weeks of coughing and feeling weak, he agreed to go. His wife says he was diagnosed with respiratory problems and prescribed medicines, including an antibiotic and cough medicines.

She says while he's feeling better, he still doesn't have the energy he used to have.

"Here we are over a month later and he's still not completely well," she says.

Since CNN aired a story about her Tuesday night, Kindra Arnesen says she's received phone calls from as far away as Texas from people wanting to team up with her to protect coastal communities from the oil.

One of her immediate goals is to persuade BP to give its workers masks.

Graham MacEwen, a spokesman for BP, says the company isn't providing masks because their air monitoring shows there's no health threats to workers.

He denied Arnesen's accusations that BP has prevented workers from wearing their own masks, saying workers may do so as long as they read training materials on how to use a mask safely.

Arnesen is also working to have BP fund an effort to put sandbags along the marshes in her area to keep the oil out.

(Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal announced Wednesday that the White House has ordered BP to fund Louisiana's plan to dredge up walls of sand along its coast.)

Arnesen says she is indeed scared that her husband will lose her job now that she's speaking out.

"Am I scared? Yes," she said. "Anything that ever starts, starts with one. And if I have to be the one then I have to be the one," she says.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl....com+-+Top+Stories)&utm_content=Google+Reader

NEW ORLEANS — For days now, Dr. Damon Dietrich has seen patients come through his emergency room at West Jefferson Medical Center with similar symptoms: respiratory problems, headaches and nausea.

In the past week, 11 workers who have been out on the water cleaning up oil from BP's blown-out well have been treated for what Dietrich calls "a pattern of symptoms" that could have been caused by the burning of crude oil, noxious fumes from the oil or the dispersants dumped in the Gulf to break it up. All workers were treated and released.

"One person comes in, it could be multiple things," he said. "Eleven people come in with these symptoms, it makes it incredibly suspicious."

Few studies have examined long-term health effects of oil exposure. But some of the workers trolling Gulf Coast beaches and heading out into the marshes and waters have complained about flu-like symptoms — a similar complaint among crews deployed for the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.

BP and U.S. Coast Guard officials have said dehydration, heat, food poisoning or other unrelated factors may have caused the workers' symptoms. The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals is investigating.

Brief contact with small amounts of light crude oil and dispersants are not harmful. Swallowing small amounts of oil can cause upset stomach, vomiting and diarrhea. Long-term exposure to dispersants, however, can cause central nervous system problems, or do damage to blood, kidneys or livers, according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention.

In the six weeks since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 workers, an estimated 21 million to 45 million gallons of crude has poured into the Gulf of Mexico. Hundreds of BP contractors have fanned out along the Gulf, deploying boom, spraying chemicals to break up the oil, picking up oil-soaked debris and trying to keep the creeping slick out of the sensitive marshes and away from the tourist-Mecca beaches.

Commercial fisherman John Wunstell Jr. spent a night on a vessel near the source of the spill and left complaining of a severe headache, upset stomach and nose bleed. He was treated at the hospital, and sued — becoming part of a class-action lawsuit filed last month in U.S. District Court in New Orleans against BP, Transocean and their insurers.

Wunstell, who was part of a crew burning oil, believes planes were spraying dispersant in the middle of the night — something BP disputes.

"I began to ache all over ..." he said in the affidavit. "I was completely unable to function at this point and feared that I was seriously ill."

Dozens of complaints, most from spill workers, have been made related to oil exposure with the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, said spokeswoman Olivia Watkins, as well as with the Louisiana Poison Center, clinics and hospitals. Workers are being told to follow federal guidelines that recommend anyone involved in oil spill cleanup wear protective equipment such as gloves, safety glasses and clothing.

Michael J. Schneider, an attorney who decided against filing a class-action lawsuit in the 1990s involving the Valdez workers, said proving a link between oil exposure and health problems is very difficult.

"As a human being you listen to enough and you've got to believe they're true," he said. "The problem is the science may not be there to support them ... Many of the signs and symptoms these people complained of are explainable for a dozen different reasons — it's certainly coincidental they all shared a reason in common."

Similar to the Valdez cleanup, there have been concerns in the Gulf that workers aren't being supplied with enough protective gear. Workers have been spotted in white jumpsuits, gloves and booties but no goggles or respirators.

"If they're out there getting lightheaded and dizzy every day then obviously they ought to come in, and there should be respirators and other equipment provided," said LuAnn White, director of the Tulane Center for Applied Environmental Public Health. She added that most of the volatile components that could sicken people generally evaporate before the oil reaches shore.

BP PLC's Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said reports of workers getting sick are being investigated but noted that no one has pinpointed the cause. Suttles said workers were being given "any safety equipment" needed to do their jobs safely.

Unlike with Exxon Valdez, in the Gulf, the oil has been lighter, the temperatures warm and humid, and there have been hundreds of thousands of gallons of chemicals used to break up the oil.

Court records showed more than 6,700 workers involved in the Exxon Valdez clean up suffered respiratory problems which the company attributed to a viral illness, not chemical poisoning.

Dennis Mestas represented the only known worker to successfully settle with Exxon over health issues. According to the terms of that confidential settlement, Exxon did not admit fault.

His client, Gary Stubblefield, spent four months lifting workers in a crane for 18 hours a day as they sprayed the oil-slicked beaches with hot water, which created an oily mist. Even though he had to wipe clean his windshield twice a day, Stubblefield said it never occurred to him that the mixture might be harming his lungs.

Within weeks, he and others, who wore little to no protective gear, were coughing and experiencing other symptoms that were eventually nicknamed Valdez crud. Now 60, Stubblefield cannot get through a short conversation without coughing and gasping for breath like a drowning man. He sometimes needs the help of a breathing machine and inhalers, and has to be careful not to choke when he drinks and eats.

Watching the Gulf situation unfold, he says, makes him sick.

"I just watch this stuff everyday and know these people are on the very first rung on the ladder and are going to go through a lot of misery," said Stubblefield, who now lives in Prescott, Ariz.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...eanup_worker_as_sickness__lawsuits_surge.html

"I'm scared," said boat captain John Wunstell outside his house in Galliano, La. "The truth needs to come out. BP just can't keep going on hurting all these people."

He was recently airlifted to West Jefferson Medical Center in Marrero, La., where his clothes were stripped off and he took several decontamination showers.

Discharged Monday after a three-day stay, he has joined a growing number of class-action suits against BP and Transocean - owners of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that blew up.

Wunstell says his entire crew got ill after coming into contact with the dispersant, called Corexit, which is supposed to break the oil into small droplets that are biodegradable. The company says the product is safe. The feds have asked BP to limit its use.

Even walking on the beach can be a hazard, said Lisa Lougue, 47, who works at Sarah's Diner in Grand Isle. She took a stroll and then "couldn't stop coughing."

"I couldn't breathe. I had chest pains and my blood pressure went up," Lougue said. "The doctors said stay away. Whatever you do, don't go near the beach."
 
I really wish they'd stop using the word "gusher", it gets me every time.

What else would you call it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoWWpr386sg (from earlier today)

There are at least a half a dozen ROVs down there at any given time, each with a live cam. BP has links to the feeds to those cams on their site for those who wish to watch the action. I spent three days I didn't have this week watching those cams. It's terribly addictive.


If you have VLC player, here are direct links:


Links for VLC Player

Live feeds from Ocean Intervention III
ROV 1 http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:44287.asx?bkup=44668
ROV 2 http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:44838.asx?bkup=45135

Live feeds from Viking Poseidon
ROV 1 http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:46566.asx?bkup=54013
ROV 2 http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:55030.asx?bkup=56646

Live feeds from Boa Deep C
ROV 1 http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:31499.asx?bkup=31500
ROV 2 http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:22458.asx?bkup=23729

Live feeds from Skandi
ROV 1 http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:45685.asx?bkup=49182
ROV 2 http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:45685.asx?bkup=49182

Live feeds from Enterprise
ROV 1 http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:47175.asx?bkup=21144
ROV 2 http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:21145.asx?bkup=21327

Live feeds from Q4000
ROV 1 http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:37235.asx?bkup=37270
ROV 2 http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:35523.asx?bkup=35624
 
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I guarantee that the progressive movement is going to convert a lot of fence sitters.
perhaps it will be a tug of war between progressives wanting less corruption and more transparency, and the giant "anti incumbent wave" supposedly coming
 
I heard on the news this morning they have it plugged, but right after he said that he said "but how well are they really plugged" and then I fell back asleep
 
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