Author’s note: Here we go again, the oil disaster. I think people in FL are finally getting a clue as to how bad this is. I did not include this link in my article. It’s from Think Progress, and it basically says BP has bought the word “oil” from search engines. That means that any time you type in “oil” it will pull up BP’s propaganda first. That’s why I call it tar balls in this one. It’d be cool if they had to buy and own “tar balls” too.
Excerpt:
Tar balls from the BP oil leak in the Gulf began to wash up on the beaches of the Florida panhandle on Friday. For many Florida residents, the oily predictions that were just news for the past few weeks are now reality.
Swimmers at Pensacola Beach rushed out of the water after wading into the mess while children played with it on the shore. Others inspected the clumps with fascination, some taking pictures. Instead of a clean ocean breeze, an oily smell was in the air.
With Americans across the nation seeing images of dead and dying marine life, as well as oil fouling pristine beaches, a recent Washington Post – ABC News poll reported that 64 percent of respondents say the government should pursue legal action against BP.
Chances of a ruling against BP in Federal court in the Gulf states, however, is less than 50 percent, since the AP also reports that 37 of the 64 active or senior judges in key Gulf Coast districts in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida have links to oil, gas and related energy industries, including some who own stocks or bonds in BP PLC, Halliburton or Transocean. Others regularly list receiving royalties from oil and gas production wells, according to the reports judges must file each year. The AP reviewed 2008 disclosure forms, the most recent available.
Meanwhile, BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward told the BBC Sunday that the cut-and-cap maneuver is now collecting 420,000 gallons of oil a day – 40 percent more than it was collecting Saturday. According to the Christian Science Monitor, he said he thought the cap was now collecting “the majority, probably the vast majority of the oil.” The poll shows, however, that most Americans have heard enough from Hayward after:
- Hayward said there was a 60 percent to 70 percent chance that the “top kill” maneuver of two weeks ago would seal the well. It failed.
The use of a siphon stuck into the riser pipe three weeks ago prompted Hayward to say: “I do feel that we have, for the first time, turned the corner in this challenge.” The siphon was later abandoned. - Early estimates of the oil flow rate were pegged at 210,000 gallons a day or about 5,000 barrels, which according to current estimates, might have been four times lower than the actual rate. Some scientists say that even the current estimates are conservative.
- Steve Wereley, an associate professor at Purdue University, told Congress the actual spill rate of the BP oil disaster is about 3 million gallons a day – 15 times the official guess of BP and the federal government.
The news went from bad to worse when Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) was interviewed by Andrea Mitchell yesterday morning on MSNBC and confirmed reports of oil seeping up from additional leak points on the seafloor. That means that BP’s recent cap is only catching a small fraction of the oil gushing from the sea floor of the Gulf.
It gets even worse when one considers that many technical experts have said that the first attempts to complete the relief well in August could miss entirely on the first try, as it is difficult to intersect the blown-out well at the precise location and angle needed. In that case, the leak(s) may continue gushing until late summer or early fall.
Can it get any worse? The answer is yes, because the wild card is hurricane season. According to at least one scientist interviewed on MSNBC, Michio Kaku, a hurricane this summer could pick up oil and rain it down hundreds of miles inland and “dump it all over the south.”
Read more, get links and video here: Orlando Independent Examiner: Tar balls wash up on FL panhandle, situation angering most Americans