Dead Fish Are Washing Up Everywhere . . . Is It Due to BP Oil Spill and Dispersants?
by ilene - August 13th, 2010 4:14 pm
Dead Fish Are Washing Up Everywhere . . . Is It Due to BP Oil Spill and Dispersants?
Courtesy of Washington’s Blog
Dead fish are washing up everywhere.
For example, numerous dead fish washed ashore in Massachusetts a couple of days ago:
Dead fish had washed up in New Jersey yesterday.
Hundreds of thousands of dead fish washed up today in New Jersey, and even the birds wouldn’t eat them:
(The second report in this video compilation – referring to a ripped fishing net – is actually from Virginia, some 210 miles from the scene of the first report in New Jersey. The size of the Virginia fish incident was much smaller than the one in New Jersey.)
And they have washed up in Mississippi as well.
Scientists attribute the dead fish to low oxygen levels in the Gulf of Mexico.
Indeed, scientists have been warning about this for months. For example, on May 16th, the New York Times wrote:
Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.
“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”
The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.
As I pointed out in June, the high methane content in the BP crude also depletes oxygen:
As CBS notes:
The oil emanating from the seafloor contains about 40 percent methane, compared with about 5 percent found in typical oil deposits, said John Kessler, a Texas A&M University oceanographer who is studying
Potential Second Spill Found Near BP Blown Out Oil Well, BP Evaluates Potential Break Up Opportunities
by ilene - July 18th, 2010 11:57 pm
Potential Second Spill Found Near BP Blown Out Oil Well, As BP Evaluates Potential Break Up Opportunities
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
In case you missed George Wahsington’s update, here it is straight from the AP horse‘s mouth. And, if this story is true, we can only hope one is not long BP stock or short the CDS.
NEW ORLEANS — A federal official says scientists are concerned about a seep and possible methane near BP’s busted oil well in the Gulf of Mexico
Both could be signs there are leaks in the well that’s been capped off for three days.
The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Sunday because an announcement about the next steps had not been made yet.
The official is familiar with the spill oversight but would not clarify what is seeping near the well. The official says BP is not complying with the government’s demand for more monitoring.
And if that wasn’t enough, some more bad news from Sunday Times, via Reuters:
Under-fire oil company BP Plc (BP.L) has started canvassing shareholders about a restructuring in the wake of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill which could include a break up of the business, the Sunday Times reported.
The newspaper, citing unnamed BP insiders, said options included selling the group’s refineries and petrol stations, scaling back its U.S. operations and ramping-up in-house engineering instead of outsourcing.
These are on top of the sale of about 10 percent of its assets, including its stake in the giant Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska, the Sunday Times added.
A BP spokesman said it did not comment on rumour and speculation.