BartBlog

This is unflippin’real! Here’s an email I received from FL GOP Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite. I wrote back and asked if those tar balls that are washing up on the Pensacola beaches are really whale turds. I’ll try to post a screen shot below…

Oil Spill Update | August 6, 2010

Dear Friends,

(Ginny and Ivan, from the National
Fish & Wildlife Service, discuss the
importance of keeping Crystal River
and Three Sisters oil free).

Without touching our shores, (emphasis added) the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has infringed on all of our lives. It has impacted our tourism, dampened our aquaculture industry, and threatened the wellbeing (sic) of our precious ecosystems.

(Ginny meets with local fishermen
at Hernando Beach to discuss the affect
the oil spill is having on the the local
seafood industry).

Over the last few weeks, I have met with many members of the aquaculture industry in our District: representatives from the National Fish & Wildlife Service up in Citrus County, shrimpers in Hernando County, and several small business owners from areas in between. I have seen firsthand that, at this point, our waters are clean and our seafood is safe. (emphasis added)

It is of the utmost importance that we work together to protect our natural resources. As a community we need to support our local industry and we should expect the same from our federal government and BP. Included in this mailer are a number of available resources designed to help you and your neighbors as we all work to persevere through this trying time. As always, my staff and I are here to offer assistance in any way that we can. Please do not hesitate to call my Brooksville office at 352-799-8354, or toll free, 1-866-GWAITE-5.

Sincerely,

Ginny Brown-Waite
Member of Congress

Hurricane Preparedness

The National Hurricane Centers predicts a busy hurricane season for much of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. In light of the ongoing situation in the Gulf of Mexico, I have been in touch with FEMA Administrator, Craig Fugate, to discuss his department’s hurricane preparedness plan and whether FEMA has incorporated scenarios that include the Deepwater Horizon oil spill into that plan. Given the Administrator’s previous experience as Director of Florida’s Division of Emergency Management, I have every confidence that, as long as he is given the necessary resources, he will meet the Gulf Coast’s needs during any cleanup effort. To read my letter to Administrator Fugate, go to my website.

Contact Information

Visit www.RestoretheGulf.gov for more details, including contact information for the following:

• U.S. Coastguard Joint Information Center
• Individual and Businesses Claims Line
• Register Your Boat to Assist with Response Effort
• Volunteer to help
• Wildlife Distress Hotline
• Environmental Hotline & Community Information

As always, if you need further assistance, please do not hesitate to call my office at 352-799-8354 or contact me via my website.

Are you kidding me? Millions of barrels of oil and millions of gallons of Corexit just disappeared!?! Thank God that Jesus is watching over the Gulf and miraculously cleaned it up…

Call Ginny Brown-Waite at 352-799-8354 or contact her via her website and ask her if she’d like to work together with you and discuss the situation in the Gulf of Mexico over a fresh Gulf seafood dinner in front of you for a photo op or a You Tube video.

Author’s note: I have a better solution than the author who suggested emigrating. How about REALLY taking our country back…from the corporations that own it? How about, tar, feathers and a modern day version of the guillotine?

Excerpt:
On Friday the grim reality of more job losses for Americans was plastered across headlines. What makes this even more distressing is that this is occurring during what is supposed to be an economic recovery.

Approximately 131,000 jobs were lost in July and the unemployment rate remained stuck at 9.5 percent. Private sector hiring was at a modest 71,000, unable to offset the layoff of thousands of temporary census workers, other government employees and those who lost their jobs in the private sector last month.

Of course, the big story was that the jobs report affected stocks and the Dow Jones industrial index, not the millions of Americans that are out of work, even though stocks rebounded by the end of the day. After all, who in the corporate media really cares about middle class workers? It is becoming clear that the so-called economic recovery applies to Wall Street, not “Main Street.”

According to Newsweek, Main Street may not be adding jobs, but Wall Street went on a hiring binge. A recent study by the White House executive-compensation board reported that banks paid $1.58 billion in bonuses at the end of 2008, just days after receiving federal bailout money and dangerously close to the nexus of the financial collapse. These same banks do not want to lend to the shrinking middle class that bailed them out when they can make more money speculating on Wall Street.

Economists are still spinning fairy tales so they can celebrate bank bailouts. Unmentioned are the 40 million Americans that are still broke and out of work. The reality is that things have gotten progressively worse as foreclosures are still near their peak, bankruptcies are rising, wages are stuck or reversing backwards, and benefits that have been cut by companies may never be returned to their workers.

Why is that? I do not have any answers, but this piece written by Michael Lind, director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation, may provide some insight. I normally would excerpt this and provide commentary, but this one may be best to read in its entirety:

Are the American People Obsolete?

Have the American people outlived their usefulness to the rich minority in the United States? A number of trends suggest that the answer may be yes.

In every industrial democracy since the end of World War II, there has been a social contract between the few and the many. In return for receiving a disproportionate amount of the gains from economic growth in a capitalist economy, the rich paid a disproportionate percentage of the taxes needed for public goods and a safety net for the majority.

In North America and Europe, the economic elite agreed to this bargain because they needed ordinary people as consumers and soldiers. Without mass consumption, the factories in which the rich invested would grind to a halt. Without universal conscription in the world wars, and selective conscription during the Cold War, the U.S. and its allies might have failed to defeat totalitarian empires that would have created a world order hostile to a market economy.

Globalization has eliminated the first reason for the rich to continue supporting this bargain at the nation-state level, while the privatization of the military threatens the other rationale.

The offshoring of industrial production means that many American investors and corporate managers no longer need an American workforce in order to prosper. They can enjoy their stream of profits from factories in China while shutting down factories in the U.S. And if Chinese workers have the impertinence to demand higher wages, American corporations can find low-wage labor in other countries.

This marks a historic change in the relationship between capital and labor in the U.S. The robber barons of the late 19th century generally lived near the American working class and could be threatened by strikes and frightened by the prospect of revolution. But rioting Chinese workers are not going to burn down New York City or march on the Hamptons.

What about markets? Many U.S. multinationals that have transferred production to other countries continue to depend on an American mass market. But that, too, may be changing. American consumers are tapped out, and as long as they are paying down their debts from the bubble years, private household demand for goods and services will grow slowly at best in the United States. In the long run, the fastest-growing consumer markets, like the fastest-growing labor markets, may be found in China, India and other developing countries.

This, too, marks a dramatic change. As bad as they were, the robber barons depended on the continental U.S. market for their incomes. The financier J.P. Morgan was not so much an international banker as a kind of industrial capitalist, organizing American industrial corporations that depended on predominantly domestic markets. He didn’t make most of his money from investing in other countries.

In contrast, many of the highest-paid individuals on Wall Street have grown rich through activities that have little or no connection with the American economy. They can flourish even if the U.S. declines, as long as they can tap into growth in other regions of the world.

A very interesting point of view that is worthy of consideration. What do you think? Will Americans ever get fed up enough to do anything?

Read more, get links here: Madison Independent Examiner

Author’s note: I am not sure how to post this one on the blog here…it’s really long. Let’s start with this, a poem…

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)

Excerpt:
The words of Dr. McCrae, written in 1915 after witnessing the death of his friend, have as much relevance today as they did then. July was the deadliest month for Americans in Afghanistan since the war began almost nine years ago. And there is no end in sight.
President Obama marked the beginning of August with a speech, stating that:

Our overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future. To meet that goal, we will pursue the following objectives within Afghanistan. We must deny al Qaeda a safe-haven. We must reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government. And we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan’s Security Forces and government, so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan’s future.

It is, however, unclear how this “goal” and these “objectives” can be attained without either the full cooperation of the Afghan people, a never-ending U.S. military presence, or both. Meanwhile, the members of the armed services who put their lives on the line every day are paying to achieve these ambiguous goals and unclear objectives with their lives.

Here are a few of their names…

Cpl. Larry Donell Harris Jr., age 24, Thornton, Colorado. 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force. Died while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan, on July 1, 2010. Following a rifle volley at Fort Logan National Cemetery, a Marine took the American flag off Larry Donell Harris Jr.’s silver casket, folded it and placed it on the lap of his weeping wife. The Harris’ had only been married for four months.

Spc. Morganne Marie McBeth, age 19, Fredricksburg, Virginia. Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Special Troops Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division. Died on July 2, 2010, in Al Asad, Iraq, of wounds sustained in a non-combat related incident in Khan Al Baghdadi, Iraq, on July 1, 2010. “Morganne treated all of her patients with unsurpassed compassion, regardless of their injury or illness severity,” said 1st Lt. Abraham Medina Jr. “Morganne’s vivid smile and attitude were contagious. Regardless of how rough your day may have been, if Morganne entered the room you were going to smile. Her spunky character and selflessness will be remembered by all who were privileged enough to have met her.”

Capt. David Anthony Wisniewski, age 31, Moville, Iowa. 66th Rescue Squadron, 563rd Rescue Group, 23rd Wing. Wisniewski died July 2, 2010, at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, of wounds sustained when his HH-60G Pave Hawk rescue helicopter was shot down near Forward Operating Base Jackson in Helmand province, Afghanistan, on June 9, 2010. Four other airmen also were killed in the crash. His brother, Craig, said Dave had his sights set on flying helicopters ever since their grandfather took them to Offutt Air Force Base, Neb. “As we left, he tugged on my grandpa’s shirt tail and said, ‘You know what grandpa? One day I’m going to do that. I’m going to fly one of those things.’ ”

Staff Sgt. Christopher Francis Cabacoy, age 30, Virginia Beach, Virginia. B Troop, 1st Squadron, 71st Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division. One of two soldiers killed when insurgents attacked their vehicle with a roadside bomb in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on July 5, 2010. The last contact from Cabacoy to his family came on Facebook, just three days before he was killed. He told his wife, Tami, “I love you and can’t wait to see you.” And to his little boy Aidan, he wrote “Keep growing and be good, I love you.”

Pfc. Michael Shane Pridham, age 19, Louisville, Kentucky. Company D, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment. One of three soldiers killed when insurgents attacked their vehicle with a roadside bomb in Qalat, Afghanistan, on July 6, 2010. Pridham’s wife, 17-year-old Deidre, says it’s all hard to believe. “He would always tell me, I’m coming home. Don’t worry, I promise I’m coming home. I knew something was wrong because there were two army men in my house. But, it just felt kinda like a dream…like a nightmare.” Deidre and Michael got married just days before Michael was deployed. Michael was supposed to be back home in just six weeks, close to when the couple is expecting their first child. Deidre says Michael would always talk about how much he was looking forward to coming home and “he asked about the baby all the time.”

Lance Cpl. Daniel Gabriel Raney, age 21, Pleasant View, Tennessee. 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force. Died while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan, on July 9, 2010. Penny Riley said, “One of the last things he said to me was ‘I can’t wait to come home and take my baby brother and my cousin Kody to the movies.’” Penny said she was notified of her son’s death just one day after she found out he was to be home for a visit in August. “It was a happy day. We were all so ecstatic and happy because we got a homecoming date. Then I came home and there was this vehicle in my driveway. At first, I thought they were lost, but then I looked at the car tag and noticed it was government. I saw the green uniforms. I screamed ‘no!’ of course, and I ran to the back seat of the car to pick up my 11-year-old, who was crumpled over already. I don’t remember much else after that.”

I know…I am preaching to the choir here on the bartblog, so no need to go through all 69 of them.

Almost every day young Americans are dying in these wars. 69 may not sound like a large number when given a 30-second sound byte or a few sentences, but it is very large when ones looks into the lives that each and every one of these individuals could have had. The casualty list above does not include the 123 soldiers of other nations that have died in these wars this year or the 85 U.S. troops wounded in July.

There are now 5629 U.S. military personnel who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, each with their their own story, a life and loved ones they have left behind. 5629 families without fathers or mothers, sons or daughters this August, as well as the tens of thousands that have been horribly wounded in these wars. With all the other problems that this nation faces today, is it not about time to end this insanity?

Many Americans voted for a leader that promised to bring an end to the wars, yet nothing substantive has been done toward that end. Meanwhile, the corporate media buries news about the wars, leaving these brave young men and women to die with a hardly a mention to their names. They deserve more. We as a nation deserve more.

Read more, read all the names and links here: Madison Independent Examiner – 69 Americans in Flanders Fields.

Author’s note: Apparently the corporate propaganda network has made the oil disappear!

Text:
If one believes recent reports like this from ABC News, this from USA Today, this from the New York Times, this from CBS News, or this from the Washington Post, it may be tempting to think that the worst of the Gulf oil disaster is over and the oil is gone. But scientists say that is simply not the case and a recent fly-over of the Gulf shows otherwise (see video here).

The unprecedented heavy use of dispersants by BP and the U.S. government may have kept the oil out of sight and out of mind, but also may have created an even more dangerous toxic soup that is impossible to clean up.

The New York Times reported today that there are conflicting numbers regarding the amount of dispersants used, prompting Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, to write Admiral Thad Allen of the Coast Guard on Friday saying that the dispersants contributed to “a toxic stew of chemicals, oil and gas, with impacts that are not well understood.”

In a request filed on June 16, BP told the Coast Guard that in the previous several days it had used a maximum of 3,365 gallons of dispersant in a single day. But in e-mails to members of Congress giving updates on the cleanup, the company said it had used 14,305 gallons of dispersant on June 12 and 36,000 gallons on June 13.

Researchers at Tulane University have already found the chemical dispersant, Corexit, present in blue crab larvae from the coast of Florida to the coast of Texas. These tiny creatures are a major source of food for fish and other marine life in the Gulf.

According to a Louisiana Fox News affiliate report, University of New Orleans’ Martin O’Connell, Ph.D said, “If you’re a small fish and you eat 1,000 of these small crab larvae and all of them have oil or Corexit droplets in them they could get into the fish — that little fish could be eaten and so on and so on.” Pondering the future of the Gulf, O’Connell said, “I think they should be more concerned that we might be losing whole cohorts of these animals when they’re very small, and we won’t see the impact in the adults but three or four years from now.”

Florida toxicologist Dr. William Sawyer, who has been hired on behalf of sickened fishermen and cleanup workers, says “some of these chemicals are in great excess of risk-based lethal levels…[and] the current hydrocarbon levels are capable of sterilizing our fisheries and estuary production zones.” Furthermore, the EPA and Gulf state officials have admitted that while Gulf seafood is being tested for oil, it is not being tested for the presence of dispersants.

What may even be more telling about the amount of oil that leaked into the Gulf is that despite the use of up to 1.8 million gallons of dispersants, a recent flyover of the Gulf revealed that oil is still floating on the surface of the water, and other videos show that oil is still seeping from beneath the surface of the water (see videos here).

The bottom line is that it is up to readers to believe whom they choose – the corporate media, BP and the federal government, or the scores of researchers gathering information and their own eyes. After months of obfuscation, which sources do you trust?

Get links and videos here: Madison Independent Examiner – Despite what corporate media would like people to believe, there is still oil in Gulf

Author’s note: This is good example of how 9/11 first responders have been kicked to the curb and why congress cannot get anything done. Wow, after all the patriotic hoopla about remembering 9/11 and those who made sacrifices, the Republicans sure are quick to forget that once Democrats want to do something for them. Damn hypocrites!

Excerpt:
A House bill designed to aid 9/11 first responders who have health problems or were directly impacted in the aftermath of the attacks was killed in the House late Thursday.

According to the New York Times, while most legislators supported the measure, the 255-to-159 vote fell short of the two-thirds margin needed under special rules that were used to bring the measure to the floor. In the end, 243 Democrats and 12 Republicans supported the measure; 155 Republicans and 4 Democrats opposed it.

The bill would have provided $3.2 billion over the next eight years to monitor and treat injuries stemming from exposure to toxic dust and debris at the World Trade Center site. The bill also would have set aside $4.2 billion to reopen the Victim Compensation Fund to provide compensation for any job and economic losses and make another $4.2 billion in compensation available through 2031.

In addition, the bill contained a provision that would have allowed money from the Victim Compensation Fund to be paid out to anyone who receives payment under the pending settlement stemming from lawsuits that 10,000 rescue and cleanup workers filed against the city. Currently, anyone who receives a settlement from the city could not receive compensation from the fund

The funding would have come from closing tax loopholes on foreign subsidiaries that do business in the United States, and from the city of New York picking up 10 percent of the health care costs.

The arguments against the bill ranged from the usual calling it a “slush fund” and a “massive job-killing entitlement program” to objections about the procedure used to pass the bill. Here are some quotes compiled by the NY Daily News:

“This legislation as written creates a huge $8.4 billion slush fund paid by taxpayers that is open to abuse, fraud and waste,” said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), arguing that it would be raided by undeserving scammers with tenuous links to 9/11.

Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) cast it as a money grab for New York because the bill would pay for care at higher rates than Medicare. “What this is is politics,” Shimkus said. “What this is is enfranchising a bunch of New York City hospitals.”

“This fund is bloated,” said Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA).

Texas Republican Joe Barton, leading debate for his side, said the GOP would back a smaller program, such as the $150 million a year the White House would like to spend. But he said the rest of the country should not bear the brunt of helping New Yorkers cope with the aftermath of the terror attacks.

“We support it, without raising taxes on the rest of the American people,” said Barton (R-TX), who recently won infamy by apologizing to BP.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) objected to the bill on the grounds that democrats brought it up for vote on the suspension calendar, which speeds up the voting process and is commonly used for non-controversial legislation. Suspension prevents the minority party from adding unrelated legislation, but also requires a two-thirds majority for passage.

After Rep. King called it “cruel hoax and charade” and other Republicans said they would consider supporting the bill only if they could add amendments, it elicited a harsh response from several Democrats.

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), whose constituents include many directly affected by this legislation, wasn’t especially impressed with the Republican argument and went into a rant that has been called a You Tube moment by some, “It’s Republicans wrapping their arms around Republicans, rather than doing the right thing on behalf of the heroes! You vote yes if you believe yes… if you believe it’s the right thing. If you believe it’s the wrong thing, you vote no.” He later sparred with Rep. King on Fox news (see videos here).

In question here are the health and well-being of hundreds of people who put aside all politics and worked tirelessly in hazardous conditions to clean up the mess at ground zero, only to lose their jobs, health care and in some cases, their lives as a result. Enabling the government and the country to give them something in return is not a matter of politics, it is a matter of righteousness. It is a shame our politicians cannot work together as well as the 9/11 first responders had in the months following 9/11.

Read more, get links and videos here: Madison Independent Examiner – Bill to aid 9/11 first responders with health problems fails to pass in House

Author’s note: There is a huge problem with BP using dispersants to keep the oil out of sight and out of mind. Chemical dispersants may have kept most of the oil from floating on the surface and washing up on beaches, but it is still in the water and the problem with that is that it is impossible to clean up and may be even more toxic when mixed with dispersants. Furthermore, the FDA is not testing seafood for the presence of dispersants even though they are bioaccumulative.

Excerpt:
In May, when scientists reported the existence of giant underwater plumes of oil, it was argued that it is uncertain that those plumes came from the leak at the Deepwater Horizon site. Researchers have now confirmed that the underwater oil plumes are, indeed, from BP’s leak.

According to the New York Times, scientists from the University of South Florida matched samples taken from the plumes with oil from the leaking well provided by BP. The findings were the first direct confirmation that the plumes were linked to the spill, although federal scientists had said there was overwhelming circumstantial evidence tying them to BP’s well.

The discovery of the plumes several weeks into the oil leak alarmed scientists, who feared that clouds of oil particles could wreak havoc on marine life far below the surface. The underwater plumes also confirm that the heavy use of chemical dispersants have kept much of the oil from rising to the surface, where it may be out of sight and out of mind, but is still poisonous to marine life.

While the underwater oil plumes consist of microscopic droplets of dispersed oil that are invisible to the naked eye, they are extremely large. In May, one was reported to be 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick. Another is 22 miles long and more than 6 miles wide.

According to USF chemical oceanographer David Hollander, “What we have learned completely changes the idea of what an oil spill is. It has gone from a two-dimensional disaster to a three-dimensional catastrophe.” Little is known about the effects of subsurface oil and chemical dispersants on marine life.

The oil droplets could coat fish gills, be eaten by larval fish, or kill fish eggs. “The plume reaching waters on the continental shelf could have a toxic effect on fish larvae, and we also may see a long term response as it cascades up the food web,” Hollander said. The toxins in both oil and chemical dispersants are bioaccumulative, which means that they become more concentrated higher in the food chain. Furthermore, while the FDA is testing seafood from the Gulf for the presence of oil, the NOAA has admitted that it is not being tested for the presence of chemical dispersants, which may be even more toxic than the oil (see video here).

“The only oil we thought we had to worry about was the floating oil,” said Richard Dodge, the dean of the Nova Southeastern University Oceanographic Center. “Now we have this still really undefined mass of submerged oil. … It’s another pool of oil that could impact Florida in yet unknown ways. “We’ve been lucky so far,” he added. “But it still gets scarier.”

Read more, get links and videos here: Madison Independent Examiner – Scientists confirm underwater plumes of oil from BP leak

Author’s note: RS Janes and many others are correct in not believing the horse hockey from BP, the feds and their mouthpieces in the media about this leak being stopped. ABCNNBBCBSFOX is trying to con America into thinking that the gulf disaster is over simply because the well head is capped. This propaganda is being put out because BP wants to limit their financial losses over this mess and Obama does not want the Gulf Disaster, which was caused by not reining in the MMS during the first 400 days of his Presidency, following Democrats into the November election.

Text:
When BP announced they had successfully capped the well and stopped the flow of oil that has been gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico since April 20, several scientists and industry experts were skeptical. It appears their skepticism has been confirmed by recent reports and videos that show oil and methane gas leaking from the seabed.

Both MSNBC and the AP reported that a federal official says “scientists are concerned about a seep and possible methane near BP’s busted oil well.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official also said that methane might be escaping through cracks in the seafloor and that could be a sign of leaks in the well that has been capped off for three days as part of a test of its integrity.

Testing had been extended until 4 p.m. ET Sunday, but that came and went without any word on whether it would continue even longer. 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.

A close look at BP’s own camera footage of the area near the capped well, however, clearly shows leakage from the seabed (see videos below). That would explain why pressure readings have been less than expected. As reported by the Washington Post, initial pressure readings peaked at around 6700 psi, well below the 8000 to 9000 psi that would be considered assurance that the well bore and surrounding seabed are intact. There is no way of knowing how many other leaks may exist farther from the well site.

As early as late June, the Washington Post reported that Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University, said “additional leaks are a possible source of deep-sea plumes of oil detected by research vessels. But this part of the gulf is pocked with natural seeps,” he noted. “Conceivably the drilling of the well, and/or the subsequent blowout, could have affected the seeps. Once you started disturbing the underground geology, you may have made one of those seeps even worse,” he said.

Geologists have said that if the well casing is substantially breached, the oil and methane gas will find a way through fractures in the surrounding geology and make it into the ocean. The Houston Chronicle also noted in June that “a report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Monday noted research vessels found natural gas seeping from the sea floor several miles away from the well…[and] if the well casing burst it could send oil and gas streaming through the strata to appear elsewhere on the sea floor….”

If there are natural oil or gas seeps nearby, there are already pre-existing channels up to the seafloor, so that may very well be the path of least resistance for the subterranean oil to flow up through the seafloor. In other words, if there is a substantial breach in the well bore and/or fissures in the seabed, nearby natural oil and gas seeps could very well increase in volume, while pressure readings under the cap would remain relatively low.

Michael Rivero, writing on his blog WhatReallyHappened.com, puts it this way:

Common sense (and engineering) will tell you that if you have a pipe with leaks, putting a cap on one leak simply drives the oil out the other leaks. From an environmental perspective this makes no sense, because the oil is still leaking out of the well, just in a different place. Of greater concern is that the oil can flow out into the surrounding rocks the way the mud did during the failed Top Kill procedure, forming what is called a subsurface blowout….Capping a well with known leaks below the surface really serves only one purpose, and that is to present to the media video images showing the well is capped….But the hard reality being withheld from the public is that the problem is not fixed. The leak has not been stopped, it has just been moved out of sight. The camera feed of the capped well head will be shown constantly to assure Americans that all is well and lull us back to a useful torpor. No other views from around the well will be allowed….Except that the cat is already out of the bag!

BP and the current administration have two simple motives in hiding the leaks from public view. The Obama administration would probably like to get this disaster out of sight and out of mind before the mid-term elections that are a little over three months away and BP would like to minimize leak estimates in order to minimize the damages it has to pay under the Clean Water Act. BP likely will try to pretend that the nearby natural seeps always had the same volume.

As the leasee of the site where the spill is occuring, BP may be the only party to have mapped out the nearby seeps, so they can get away with saying whatever they want about the scope of these additional leaks. This document, from BP’s own web site, seemingly contradicts everything they have said publicly about being unable to accurately measure the flow of their leak.

So do not be surprised when formerly tiny seeps become gushers and BP tries to pretend that they were always that large. Given BP’s record of prevarication, it will not be shocking if BP pretends that brand new gushers are ancient, natural seeps.

Given that same tendency toward prevarication and their hesitancy to disclose information, it is becoming clear that BP cannot be trusted to stop the oil gusher. It may be time to remove the criminals from the scene of the crime and replace them with scientists and engineers that do not have such a poor safety record and such a clear conflict of interest.

Here is a series of videos that show additional leaks from the seabed near the capped well.

Get links and see videos here: Madison Independent Examiner – Videos confirm additional leaks reported in seabed near capped well