[rockdoc123]

"peer review"? ....you must be joking. It wasn't done as a scientific paper for submission to a journal, it was merely estimates done by the NOAA working group who are trying to get their arms around a huge problem. And the subsequent press releases can hardly serve as a peer review proxy simply because they did not have access to any of the data, it wasn't published anywhere.

Even based on the news release (which by the way is second hand information and could well be out of context) there is 19.5% recovered from the wellbore, 6% burned and 4% skimmed. The NOAA notes they do not have good measurements on the amount recovered from beaches. What they do say in the report (if you bothered to even read it) is that everything else is estimates but much of it is based on measurements made. As an example the estimate of 25% evaporated or dissolved was based on water sampling during the period the spill was active, and the amount dispersed (24%) was also based on observations according to the NOAA report. The residual amount (25%) was noted to just be that for which they could not account through their best estimates.

So the bottom line is they can account relatively accurately for 30% of the spill. Accounting for the rest requires assumptions and predictions based on their measurements. If you read the NOAA report they do not suggest their estimate is accurate and have lots of provisios regarding "best estimates" etc. They do not suggest the dispersed oil has already been biodegraded but that it will likely biodegrade rapidly based on their observations. Somehow the report has been wildly overplayed in the press.

It is laughable that someone in the press would be pointing fingers at the NOAA for misleading the public. From what I can see reading the report it is the press that suggested there was significant confidence in the findings, not the NOAA.

[Pops]

"Truth" is whatever is the most repeated sound-bite.

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'T')he guy who did the study (done in June) was on the News Hour and he was pretty funny when asked where the oil is now - "I don't know, the gulf is a big place."

[Plantagenet]

Its not just the NOAA administrator who lied about this.....the entire Obama administration at the highest levels has been spinning and lying since day one to try to downplay the BP oil spill

Thad Allen denied the existence of underwater oil plumes as recently as three days ago. Carol Browner, the official White House energy advistor went on NBC and said most of the oil was already gone:

"It was captured. It was skimmed. It was burned. It was contained. Mother Nature did her part," said Carol Browner, White House energy adviser on NBC.

And, of course, just two weeks ago Obama himself went on TV and falsely claimed 2/3 of the oil was gone because it had "evaporated."

[efarmer]

Well it is obvious, we suspended 3 million plus barrels of petroleum as fine particles in a massive amount of sea water and hoping for the best. It is hard for TV cameras to see. It is more probable that this will succumb to natural degradation than thousands of miles of contaminated shoreline. It sucks.
We won't know what it entails for decades and we want someone to fess up and explain it all right now.
It ain't gonna happen, because it can't.

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ell it is obvious, we suspended 3 million plus barrels of petroleum as fine particles in a massive amount of sea water and hoping for the best.

[efarmer]

Thanks for a better accounting estimate, and I assume the microbes will do what they do and the instruments will continue to provide feedback until we know how long it takes to naturally remediate the balance. I will accept your 2.9M barrels as a better estimate and retract my 3M+ estimate.

I think this is as good as it gets with what it is. It is just not satisfactory for those who wish it all vanished immediately or those who seem to wish it stayed together like globs in a lava lamp so that
it was better evidence to use against symbols of dissatisfaction.

Just so I am clear, I am grateful that it was dispersed when it could not be captured or combusted.
To me, having it intact on the boundary between the sea and land (what permaculture calls "edge") would be far worse for far longer.

What I hope to see yield from this instrumented, unintentional experiment, is the best way for the
petroleum industry to disperse petroleum and aid bioremediation for what escapes collection and
burning. I am certain this process will be too slow for people who want thrilling TV or public beatings for villains.

[efarmer]

Rockdoc123,
There are data that create feelings and conclusions, as well as feelings and prejudices that create data in proportion to those biases. I don't claim to know them but I assume you have a set of opinions on how Macondo turned into a wild well, how it was managed by the industry, government, and media, and your takeaway on where the process for handling any or all of the disaster could be done better.
I assume you have a set of feelings and observations based on what has been a scientific and insider knowledge based experience and following of the disaster, and I am hoping we could get some idea of them.

[rockdoc123]

Actually I've resisted jumping to conclusions on what sequence of events were responsible for the dissaster nor who might be responsible. At TOD a number of the engineers/righands/wellsite geos have done that which they are more than entitled to do. The reason why I have not is that I have some experience in incident investigations. If you ever have a chance to take the TapRoot incident investigation training and then apply it to real life situations a few times what you will note is that the root cause is never what you first thought it would be and generally there are a whole sequence of events where errors and mistakes were made and/or equipment failed, all adding up to the final incident. There is always a root cause, but also a number of additional factors that came into play...usually pretty complicated even if you have all of the information. As a consequence I'm waiting on the results of the incident investigation.

[efarmer]

Your approach is consistent with how you have expressed yourself to date and I understand,
your answer will come when sufficient information is available to provide an opinion you wish
to stand by and own.

I think that is Macondo in a nutshell, it was man made, it was horrifying, it has unknown consequences of unknown scope and duration, and data are being gathered and will require careful analysis for short term culpability and long term consequences to reach the conclusions that drive the best course of action going forward.

This waiting simply drives many of us nuts, it fuels people who speculate wildly for various reasons, it gives us valid concerns and fears about the unknown aspects, and the media is required to update the populace with hearsay and preliminary information that is in a form raw enough to sell like hotcakes but not done enough to eat. You can make a living on the stuff if you can keep it from getting murdered by the truth for a sufficient length of time.

We have all eaten a load of sensational, half baked news and speculation this summer, when you have something carefully prepared and based on your best analysis of data that you have career based insight about, by all means give us your take.

Until then, I have begun to bracket probabilities and crossed the torpedo hit on Macondo from a North Korean midget submarine launched from Cuba off my list. I hope you don't make me regret that one.

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') think that is Macondo in a nutshell, it was man made, it was horrifying, it has unknown consequences of unknown scope and duration, and data is being gathered and will require careful analysis for short term culpability and long term consequences to reach the conclusions that drive the best course of action going forward.

[Aging gypsy]

A short excerpt from a personal message to me from a friend:

I have been taking time to regroup from all the horrors I saw in the Gulf. I tried to sneak pictures out showing whats really happening in the Gulf but every one of us on land and in the water were monitored by the U.S. Coastguard and BP people. I had numerous photographs of what I had seen and took pictures of but I was met on dock by U.S. military and phones and cameras were confiscated and smashed to bits

LIES, lies and more lies abound regarding the extent of oil spilled and the actions taken.Unregulated (sub surface) use of Corexit dispersant wll keep oil, Corexit and ocean water suspended in microdroplets that will be entering the foodchain.
Anyone know what is in the Corexit dispersant?:

http://cleancaribbean.org/docs/COREXIT_ ... UsCuEg.PDF

For interest:
http://www.protecttheocean.com/whats-in-corexit/

And this:
http://www.protecttheocean.com/corexits-foul-stench/

http://www.nalco.com/news-and-events/4272.htm

Good business for Nalco and it`s shareholders that are VERY likely to be the same folk in government lying to keep the truth from the sheeple!
The Gulf Of Mexico has become a huge petri dish sadly.

[efarmer]

Knowing that vested interests exist to suppress bad PR both in industry and government, if I were going to do such image gathering I would breeze off the dock with SD cards in my socks and underwear and not a single cell phone or camera on my person. I would also have a cover story.
I suspect the people who are used to how the world operates in their own way are loaded with images, water samples, and data to prevent vested interests from burying their poop in their own contrived litter box.

The petroleum industry and the United States government became cozy at the right points of contact to allow drilling to go into the deep water without any proven ability to counter a deep water blowout and very little proven tools or long term projections for remediation or methodology for how to deal with the escaped oil. This is because there is big money in petroleum and our government is for sale. This has been true since the 1920's, so the question arises as to how it strikes people as a bolt from the blue at this late date.

The EPA has been well funded and in existence for a long time. Am I really to believe that the EPA was convinced there would never be a large oil spill in US waters and that dispersants would not be applied as part of other efforts?

People believe in the process of a few brave souls reporting on injustice and horror and bringing the top echelons of power to their knees and making the world better, and I am glad they do, and are willing. I just don't believe that is enough to really change fundamentals.

The ingredients in Corexit are all over the web, any high school kid can google them and read them to his chemistry teacher to discuss.
The people who should know what it means to put a million gallons of it into the gulf do not, the best I can figure is that they do not allow large oil spills.

[Aging gypsy]

My friend, an American female was there helping to save wildlife from the spill and the controlled burning that was taking place.She innocently did not expect to be treated as she was, she didn`t think she had anything to hide or to be secretive about.
And I for one don`t believe for one minute that both the EPA and the government ministers/senators etc are ignorant of how dangerous to the marine environment Corexit is.

http://www.protecttheocean.com/gulf-beaches-are-toxic/

Simple stuff, anyone can take water samples for analyses and I`m certain all the parties involved are fully aware of the state of the Gulf Of Mexico.

[efarmer]

On the simple issue of right and wrong it is clearly wrong, I have no reason to debate that point.
And on the issue of environmental impact to scale with Corexit or any other petroleum dispersant for use in marine environments, my notion is that no they really don't know other than hypothetical scenarios based on scientific speculation because they didn't do the work to find out.

We are dealing with an industry that became sure they would not have spills of this quantity that is being regulated by a government and it's agencies that reinforced the fallacy by declaring that they would not allow it, and set a regimen of fines in place to give their ban on large spills teeth.
And then one took place, and everyone had their bare ass sticking out in the wind without a clue.


So what if the spill was an earthquake ripping a reservoir open off the coast of California?
Do we find a new God, or do we fine, perhaps jail or define a probation period, and hope to
correct God's bad behavior? Do we only need proven tools for man made spills?

Some years ago Norway did a study to see what happened when they purposely released some
petroleum deep so they could understand how it behaved, dispersed, remediated, etc.
The MMS kicked in some funds so they could get some real world data, which implies they did not
have any similar to this rudimentary, first order, real world test.

If I were to go out on a mission to save wildlife amidst the crews doing controlled burning or skimming and booming and I appeared to be doing photojournalism or having an alternate agenda, I would fully expect to run foul of the factors that allowed me to pursue my stated mission. This doesn't mean that it is right, but it is very much in line with how such things are.

Not only do we not know the implications of such large scale usage of Corexit, we do not know what would be better, why, or what should be pursued as a combined strategy to insure that it is learned and mandated. The EPA is not able to allow small scale testing to drive disaster scale tool creation and the industry can buy the government to pretend along with them that the era of disasters is over due to "modern times" and "our recent track record".

You can't fix this with riveting photos of dying wildlife covered in oil, they can be sold for top dollar to the highest bidder, they can drive great political intrigue and ass covering and suppression of information release, but they don't drive the process of collaboration that is most likely to reduce the horrifying situation that the images document.

Oil buys government and government buys environmental protection and the media buys damning photographs to make them change figureheads and people buy this as justice and then go back to sleep. Like a Doctor at war, God bless her for saving some wildlife and suggest she whisper to a stealthy journalist where to slip in and get the damming photos and video so she can continue.

Nixon was brought down by journalism with a white hot story and inside information, he also got the EPA established during the mayhem that resulted, which to me was some good amidst the bad.
Did the expose and depose process that got Nixon repair the integrity of government?
I submit it isn't a sound solution for environmental protection with regard to petroleum either.
We need fundamental changes driven by good science which is allowed to independently compete for the truth,but we clamor for hot scoop and gossip good enough for a book and a movie version.
Our process is only yielding the latter, because as it sits right now the money on the science side is on why and how we have been doing things, and on the gossip side, the money is the best when the government and science process is the worst.

[Keith_McClary]

The Gulf Crisis is Not Over-Slow Violence and the BP Coverups-By ANNE McCLINTOCK$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hree vanishing acts are being played out in the Gulf: the disappearing of the oil from the ocean surface by Corexit, the disappearing of the story by the media blockade, and the disappearing from view of the shadowy private contractors who are making a mint helping BP and the Coast Guard keep a cover on the clean-up. This triple vanishing trick, collectively choreographed by BP and sundry federal agencies, culminated on August 4th in a report released by NOAA that claimed 75% of the oil spill had been captured, burned, evaporated or broken down.

[Aging gypsy]

22 mile long sub surface plume of microdoplets:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... ists-plume