Jan-18-2011 23:56
Evidence Emerges that BP Gulf Disaster Not Over
Terrence Aym Salem-News.comNew reports of fissures and oil leaks are routinely being suppressed.
(CHICAGO) - Deep under the Gulf of Mexico, beyond the light, beyond the waves, beyond most humans' sight, dark death lingers.
When the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster occurred the world's attention became riveted on the spectacle of horror and disaster that terrorized Gulf residents, sent the media into a frenzy, and galvanized environmentalists around the globe.
The federal government's response came late. When state and federal officials finally did react their response was more political than scientific.
Because of that, the long term danger was never properly addressed and the warning signs that many experts pointed to were either roundly ignored or overlooked by officials and those that knew better.
Now new evidence has emerged that the entire ecology of the Gulf has been damaged, the biodiversity severely impacted, and the underwater currents themselves harmed.
Geohazards Specialist assesses actual Macondo Prospect damage
BK Lim, a Geohazards Specialist and underwater oil well blowout expert, has documented the true state of the blown out well and the sea bottom surrounding the Macondo site. The numerous new leaks from cracks, crevices, craters and seafloor chasms are not natural despite official pronouncements declaring they are normal ocean features. They are actually emerging changes occurring in the Gulf seafloor due to a terrible transformation of the Macondo region's entire geological strata are ongoing.
Worse, the current state of the Gulf's water—and it's estuaries and coastal wetlands, marshes and beaches—is much more severe than official data leads the unwary media and now apathetic public to believe.
Worse, the current state of the Gulf's water—and it's estuaries and coastal wetlands, marshes and beaches—is much more severe than official data leads the unwary media and now apathetic public to believe.
“The rock beds in the vicinity of a salt dome are highly fractured and permeable due to stress and deformation which occur as the salt dome thrusted upwards.” says BK Lim.
The BP oil disaster encompassed three distinct events
First, the main event—the well blowout—that the media, government, and rest of the world focused on, gushed between 70,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf for a period of 87 days. During the main blowout at the acondo Prospect, two smaller rogue wells also blew. They too began spewing oil into the region. Though briefly reported by some of the news media, attention was quickly refocused on the more spectacular drama unfolding at the Deepwater Horizon wellhead.
Next, the seafloor began fracturing. Fissures opened and megatons of methane began bursting into the Gulf. Oil also hemorrhaged into the waters. Scientific researchers on several vessels reported these occurrences. For the most part they were under reported or ignored completely.
Finally, first-had accounts by researchers, clean-up crews, volunteer boaters and some BP personnel on-site reported numerous leaks and small oil gushers were breaking out from the seafloor within an area as large as ten square miles surrounding the damaged well. Many of the observers reporting on the fissures and leaking anomalies knew the region well as they were fisherman that frequented the area and had never seen oil seeping into the ocean in that region previously.
Government officials and BP spokesmen dismissed the reports saying that natural fissures leak methane and oil into the Gulf all the time.
Despite the assurances that everything is under control and all that is now transpiring on the seafloor of the Gulf is natural, nothing could be further than the truth.
New reports of fissures and oil leaks are routinely being suppressed.
Powerful corrosive chemicals
Maybe the powers that be are hoping that the problem will just take care of itself, but from a biochemical and geological perspective it cannot. The reason is that methane gas, when mixed with the turbulent salt water at the bottom of the Gulf, creates a powerful corrosive chemical. Under high pressure it pushes its way through every crack and cranny of sedimentary rock on through the seafloor and into the water.
The constant, unrelenting pressure of the hydrocarbons creating the corrosive mix will widen the fissures, split open the cracks and permit more oils to gush into the Gulf at hundreds, and then thousands, and then tens of thousands of breached points over a greater and greater area.
The process is underway right now, initiated by the titanic blowout and failure of the wellhead. Nothing on Earth can stop it and the technology to reverse it doesn't exist.
Meanwhile the biology of the Gulf is being radically changed by the massive ongoing hydrocarbon pollution and the chemical agents created by part of the oil bonding with the dispersant Corexit.
The deep sea soup that is clouding the Gulf is like an erupting volcano of toxins. Those toxins are not just sitting dormant under the water. There's evidence they are mutating and poisoning the aquatic life, poisoning the seafood that is now being caught and eaten by humans again—even "poisoning" the Gulf Loop current, according to some recent U.S. Navy studies and affecting the flow of the Gulf Stream.
The current BP Gulf poisoning and the 'walking dead'
“I think the media now has to…tell the American people who’s getting money for poisoning the millions of people in the Gulf." – Hugh Kaufman, senior EPA analyst, admits millions have been poisoned in the Gulf states.
A biochemical bomb went off in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010—a bomb as dangerous and destructive as a nuclear blast.
A nuclear explosion causes deaths that can be measured immediately; BP’s unintentional biochemical bomb, however, is a slow-motion explosion that's propelling forward shockwaves of disaster.
Millions exposed to future uncontrolled hemorrhaging, lesions, cancers
Angry scientists presented strong evidence that millions of Gulf area residents have been poisoned by the BP Gulf disaster. Worse, millions more could be exposed to long term poisoning from benzene contamination. Benzene exposure leads to cancer.
Yet other than these furious scientists few seem to care.
Three deadly substances
The old saying states that "death comes in three" and for the death agents of the Gulf disaster that certainly holds true.
Frightening evidence has surfaced that areas of the Gulf Coast may be saturated with high levels of benzene, hydrogen sulfide and radioactive hydrocarbon effluents. Three deadly substances that cause disease and death years after initial exposures.
Ron Kendall, an ecotoxicologist from Texas Tech University, was interviewed by National Geographic concerning the affect of the poisons released by the blown out well on bacteria and plankton in the Gulf.
The results were not looking good. Indications of a major, ongoing poisoning occurring in the Gulf were widespread. "This is what we've been worried about, because this is the base of the food chain," he told National Geographic. "Any effects on that level can work their way right on up."
Meaning right up the food chain to humans—many of whom have already been exposed to poisons from the air and water.
Avoid exposure at all costs
According to a report issued by Michael Harbart, Professor of internal medicine at Wayne State University and Kathleen Burns, Ph.D., Director of Sciencecorps, "Gulf Oil Spill Health Hazards," long-term exposure of the chemicals released by the ongoing BP Gulf disaster—at relatively low levels—should be avoided at all costs because "the potential for serious health damage is substantial. Chronic health effects are typically evaluated for specific crude oil components and vary from cancer to permanent neurological damage. They cover a range of diseases affecting all the organ systems…"
In their JAMA paper, the “Health Effects of the Gulf Oil Spill,” Gina M. Solomon and Sarah Janssen categorically state that “The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico poses direct threats to human health…”
In their JAMA paper, the “Health Effects of the Gulf Oil Spill,” Gina M. Solomon and Sarah Janssen categorically state that “The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico poses direct threats to human health…”
Catch the rest of this article at: Helium.com
Damage: Shots from May 2010 (left) and April 2011(right) Scientists said Cat island is significantly eroded, with much of the mangrove dead or dying because the island was completely overwashed by the oil
Contrast: The, left, May 2010 photo shows birds nesting just after the spill hits the shore line. The second photo taken on April 8, 2011 near the same location, shows the shoreline heavily erode.
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