Dolphins. Picture from aquariumposter.com

On February 21, three baby dolphins were found dead on the shores of Horn Island, and on February 22 the finding of a fourth carcass was confirmed by The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies (IMMS). This brings the amount of dead infant dolphins reported since January up to 18. Since the beginning of the year, 10 adult dolphins have also been found dead.

Located roughly 12 miles (20 km) south of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Horn Island is one of several islands that make up the Gulf Islands National Seashore Park. National Resource Advisory employees are currently working with BP cleanup crews on the island.

Blair Mase, marine mammal stranding coordinator at The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is concerned about the high number of wash up dead dolphins.

“We’re definitely keeping a close eye on this situation,” says Mase. “We’re comparing this to previous years, trying to find out what’s going on here.”

We are now early in the birthing season for dolphins in the area, and so far, 18 bodies of baby dolphins have been found where the baby was either stillborn or died shortly after birth.

“We’re trying to determine if we do in fact have still births,” says Mase. “There are more in Mississippi than in Alabama and Louisiana. With the oil spill, it is difficult. We’re trying to determine what’s causing this. It could be infectious related. Or it could be non-infection. We run the gamut of causes.”

The necropsy of the dead dolphins will hopefully help shed some light on the situation.

Scientists researching the Gulf of Mexico have found an underwater mass of dead biological material that appears to be growing as microscopic algae and bacteria get trapped and die. The blob is at least three feet (90 cm) thick and spans two-thirds of a mile (1 mile = 1 609 meters) parallel to the coast just off the Florida Panhandle, within the site of Perdido Key. The blob smells like rotten eggs and feels similar to jelly.

The researchers have been unable to determine how the blob was formed, where it comes from or where it will go. Tests show that the material is nearly 100% biological and less than a year old. It is also clear that tiny organisms have gotten stuck in the sticky blob and died. Tests carried out by the researchers also showed that the blob has no connection to land.

“It seems to be a combination of algae and bacteria,” says David Hollander, a chemical oceanographer with the University of South Florida. According to Hollander, the substance is toxic and “extraordinarily sticky”.

Scientists are not ruling out a connection to last years’ Deepwater Horizon disaster, but so far none of the tests have shown any sign of oil.

Researchers encountered the blob for the first time in December as they were searching for oily sediments on the sea floor. They did find such sediments, but they also got a tip about something weird floating around roughly half a mile from Perdido Pass and this caused them to change their plans and head over to the area to investigate.

The environment where the blob can be found is a relatively pristine sloping shelf. Normally, wave action will sweep away any sediments here.

Hollander and his team are planning to return to the blob within a few weeks to gather more samples, since they were unable to get any material from the bottom of the blob during their last visit. They will also try to map out the entire blob to be able to see exactly how big it is.



Photo by: Igor GOLUBENKOV

Researchers backed by the NSF (National Science Foundation) and in conjunction with the WHOI (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) have discovered a plume of hydrocarbons which is more than 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico and is thought to be 22 miles long at minimum. This plume is the residue of the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.

The 650 foot high, and 1.2 mile wide, plume of trapped hydrocarbons was discovered in the midst of a ten day subsurface sampling effort which took place from the 19th of June, until the 28th of June this year near the wellhead. The results have given a clear indication of where the oil has gone as the slicks on the surface have been shrinking and disappearing.

“These results create a clearer picture of where the oil is in the Gulf,” commented Christopher Reddy, a WHOI marine geochemist and one of the authors of a paper on the results that appears in this week’s issue of the journal Science.

This investigation – which was made possible by three quick action grants from the chemical and oceanography program at the NSF, with additional money made available by the US Coast Guard and NOAA via the Resource Damage Assessment Program – has confirmed that a large flowing plume was discovered which had

“petroleum hydrocarbon levels that are noteworthy and detectable,” Reddy explained.

So it seems we have not yet seen the end of the dreadful BP Oil Spill. While there has been no talk about what to do about this potentially disastrous situation, they are hard at work on it, but it could be months before an answer is found.

The warm, white sand beach stretches as far as the eye can see, and is as clean and flat as freshly laundered towels.

The light blue-green sea is so clear, you can see the sun gleam off the silver colored fish frolicking around..

Sounds nice doesn’t it? This is the scene at the Pensacola Beach, on the Gulf Coast of Florida.. But there is one thing missing… Where are all the tourists?

Normally, at this time of year, you would be hard pressed to get even standing room on the beach, but now the beach is almost like one of those private oasis’ you hear about on TV.

So, why are the tourists staying away? It all boils down to one chaotic day last June.. This was the day the Obama administration made the announcement that the BP oil spill was “the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced.” Well you know what happens next. News Networks from all over raced on down to the Pensacola Beach and quickly found what they were seeking – atrocious images of the famous white sandy beaches, smothered with gruesome black ooze, and apparently in dire straights.

This apocalyptic message was strengthened when interviews were conducted with locals of the area. “It’s damn near biblical. This place is done for!” commented Kevin Reed, a 36 year old man, whose family has had the pleasure of swimming and sunbathing in the area for years and years.

His sadness was entirely understandable.

Yet, as has been witnessed this past week, not only is the beach not “done for”, the exact opposite seems to be the truth. Not only that, but had the news crews bothered to go back just three short days after they originally raced down to the beach in the first place, they would have noticed that the black goo had already been removed by a group of the large team BP had put together to clean up the mess.

Now, the BP workers are still on site – however, they are using small instruments to sift out the tiniest particles of oil.

However, a nice clean beach after a “catastrophic” oil spill, doesn’t make for good news does it? I mean who wants to listen to that?

Not the compensation claimants and their sharks, not the politicians, and not even the green lobby tub-thumpers.
So, the going theory is that they made the whole thing up, to help bolster Obama’s image, and get the attention off things that were mainstream news not too long ago.. Remember the story that Obama was using a Fake Social Security Number? How about the other dirt that was brought into the light? True or not, those stories were very damaging to not only Obama, but to the administration as well..

So what better way than to have a “catastrophe” and then have Obama come out the hero?

You will of course need to draw your own conclusions.. But there are a lot of people who finds this scenario a bit fishy… We here at AC are happy just to conclude that it has been a disaster in its own right and see no need to quantify it.

BP

It has been over 3 weeks since BP has capped its spewing oil well. The skimming operations to help clean up the mess have all but ground to a halt, and researchers are saying that less than a third of the oil remains in the Gulf of Mexico.

That being the case, wildlife officials are finding more birds covered in the black sticky substance than ever. Fledgling birds are getting stuck in the viscous goo that is left behind after the cleanup efforts have passed on. Rescue workers are making initial visits to the rookeries they had initially avoided, lest they disturb the precious creatures during their nesting time.

What is really disturbing, is that before BP capped off their well on the 15th of July, an average of 37 birds were being pulled in dead or alive each day. Now, after the fact, that figure has doubled up to 71 per day. This information comes to us courtesy of a Times-Picayune review of the daily wildlife rescue reports.

The number of sea turtles discovered is even higher, with more of the poor things covered in the sticky black stuff being found in the last 10 days, than during the disaster’s first three months.

While the increase of oily turtles being found is still stumping researchers, the wildlife officials have said there are several things that could be contributing to the increase in the number of oiled birds being found since the leak was stopped.

Whatever the reasons, something has to be done about the situation, however, no efforts are being focused on that at this point in time.

Dead zone may 2010. It is now bigger.

The “Dead Zone”, the low-oxygen area in the Gulf of Mexico, which has been recorded this year, might just be the largest on record and it overlaps areas which were affected by the oil spill courtesy of our Eco-friendly oil conglomerate BP.

The areas afflicted with low levels of oxygen, also known as hypoxia, cover an area estimated to be over 7,000 square miles of the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and extended as far as to actually enter Texas waters. This astonishing discovery was made by researchers at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, after performing a survey of the waters.

The area covered is expected to have included a section off of Galveston, Texas, as well, however poor weather conditions forced the researchers to cut their surveying trip short.

“The total area probably would have been the largest if we had enough time to completely map the western part,” said the consortium’s executive director, Nancy Rabalais.

The largest dead zone that was ever measured in a survey, which started on a regular basis in 1985, was slightly more than 8,000 square miles, and was recorded in 2001.

This annual summer “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico is generally attributed to chemicals used by farmers, and which make their way to the Gulf by means of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers.
The phosphorous and nitrogen contained in agricultural runoffs provide a food source which allows algae to prosper in the Gulf.

When bits of algae die off, or are excreted by sea animals which eat them settle onto the bottom of the water, they decompose and the bacteria consume the oxygen in the water.

The end result, the scientists explained, is that this causes oxygen depletion in the water, which forces many marine animals including fish, shrimp and crabs to either vacate their homes, or suffocate.

The marine life which makes its home in the sediments can survive with relatively little oxygen, however they will begin to die off as the oxygen level approaches zero.

To be considered as part of this “Dead Zone”, the oxygen levels in bottom waters in the Gulf of Mexico need to be at a level of 2 parts per million or less.

By the end of July this year, large areas of the norther part of the Gulf of Mexico had already reached that level, including one part close to Galveston Bay.

The area which the BP oil spill overlaps in some areas in the “Dead Zone”, Rabalais explained, and microbes which would be used to help clean up the spill can deplete oxygen levels in the water.

Be that as it may, scientists could not say that there is a definite link between the devastating oil spill, and the size of the “Dead Zone”.

“It would be difficult to link conditions seen this summer with oil from the BP spill in either a positive or negative way,” Rabalais explained.

Government officials have gone on the record, and stated that the spill in the Gulf of Mexico is no longer a threat to the East Coast, however Marine Scientists are begging to differ. The scientists are saying it’s not the oil we can see, but the oil that we can’t see, that is the problem.

The marine scientists are shouting out against the government claims that the oil spill in the Gulf is finally being taken care of, and no longer is putting Florida, or the rest of the East Coast at risk. The scientists firmly believe that the oil may simply have moved itself to under the water, and as such still poses an immense risk to fish and other sea lifeforms.

“Just because you don’t see it on the surface or on the coast, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem,” explains the director of the coastal marine laboratory at Florida State University, Felicia Coleman,

“I want to know what’s happening with dispersants and dispersed oil. If there are large plumes of oil underwater we might not be able to see for some time “

On the 27th of last month, Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the NOAA, released the following statement; “the coast remains clear” for the Eastern Seaboard.

“With the flow stopped and the loop current a considerable distance away, the light sheen remaining on the Gulf’s surface will continue to biodegrade and disperse, but will not travel far,” Lubchenco explained.

However, others feel, that if the oil has made its way underwater, it could be quite some time before we know the whole story, and what impact it could have on the delicate ecosystems around the world.

Despite the May 26 directive issued by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Coast Guard approved dozens of requests by BP to disperse hundred of thousands of gallons of surface oil dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico. The actual directive stated that they should only be using dispersants rarely, this according to documents analyzed by a Congressional subcommittee.

In fact, in some of the requests the Coast Guard approved, there wasn’t even an upper limit set on the amount of dispersant that BP planned to disperse.

The Democratic chairman of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Edward J Markey, wrote in a letter to the retired Coast Guard admiral who is in charge of leading a federal response to the oil spill, Thad W. Alen, that the dispersants were contributing to “a toxic stew of chemicals, oil and gas, with impacts that are not well understood,”

In a conference call between the Admiral and the E.P.A. Administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, they said they were working closely together on the issue, and were coming close to achieving the agency’s goal of diminishing the use of dispersant amounts by three quarters.

On the 26th of May, the E.P.A. Had blatantly told BP it was to stop its use of dispersants on the ocean surface, except in “rare cases when there may have to be an exemption.” They were also told to strictly limit the amounts they used underwater.

Seems BP just can’t stop stepping in a heap of trouble.. One wonders when they will finally get things cleared away, and if they will be held accountable for the destruction they have wrought on the environment.

President Obama himself has been quoted as saying that the BP oil spill is the “ worst environmental disaster America has ever faced,” and well, so has just about anyone else asked what they thought about it. All sorts of different environmental groups are sounding the klaxons and screaming “catastrophe along the Gulf coast”, while the major news agencies such as; CBS, Fox, and MSNBC are all slathering “Disaster in the Gulf” into their main stories and reports.

Even Tony Hayward, the official fall guy for BP, after some early happy talk, has admitted that the spill was an “environmental catastrophe”. Rush Limbaugh, a rather obnoxious anti-environmentalist, has been on of the few which has argued that the spill, which he calls “the leak” – is not the disaster that everyone is making it out to be. He scoffs the apocalyptic claims of the vast majority of the various green groups.

It appears that Mr. Limbaugh has indeed got a point. The Deepwater Horizon explosion was a horrible thing to happen, especially for the 11 rig workers who died out there, and it certainly isn’t “a leak”; it is the largest spill that the US has witnessed to date.

It is also dealing some heavy blows to the economy and also the psychological well being of the coastal communities that depend on drilling, tourism and of course fishing. While it is impossible to know exactly how much damage has really been done as the event only took place some 3 months ago, it doesn’t seem to be doing any serious environmental damage.

“The impacts have been much, much less than everyone feared,” explains Jacqueline Michel, a geochemist who also is a federal contractor who is involved in coordinating the assessments of the shoreline in Louisiana.

It is true that the oil spill has killed birds, but so far, it is less than 1% of the number which were killed in the Exxon Valdez oil spill out in Alaska 21 years ago.

Of course, we have heard all those horror stories about those poor oiled dolphins, however, it is interesting to note that the wildlife response teams have only collected three visibly oiled bodies of mammals. When the spill first occurred, there was a harsh restriction put on fishing and shrimping. After a few tests on the shrimp and fish in the area, it was discovered they were clean, and the restriction lifted.

Yes, Lousiana, it has been warned could experience a speeding up in the deterioration of their marshes, which is happening anyway…

So as you can see, the spill has been touted as being the worst ever.. But is it just being hyped up for public entertainment? I mean would as many papers be sold if it weren’t the biggest disaster in the Gulf Coast? So who benefits from all he doom and gloom? Or is this an effort to try and calm people and divert attention away from what IS a big disaster? We don’t really know at this point.. We may never really know.. But stay tuned, and hopefully someone will sort out this mess.

As the size of the disaster seems to shrink away to nothing, experts are saying that the oil is actually breaking up, and staying beneath the waves.

For a blood curdling two and a half months, oil was gushing out into the Gulf of Mexico, courtesy of BP’s damaged oil well. It pumped out somewhere in the vicinity of 200 million gallons of the black gold into the surrounding ecosystems. Along with the federal government, BP has gotten together an army of people to help deal with the mess. There just seems to be one problem – the oil seems to have gone AWOL.

At its most devastating levels last month, the area the oil covered was comparable to that of Kansas, however the spill has rapidly started to disappear, and it now only the size of New Hampshire.

Yesterday, reporters working for ABC News went out to look for themselves, and they didn’t see anything. Even when they flew out to the site of the rig this past Sunday with the Coast Guard, there was surprisingly no oil around.

“That oil is somewhere. It didn’t just disappear,” said Billy Nungesser, the Plaquemines Parish President.

One of the men in search of the black gold is Salvador Cepriano. Cepriano, a professional shrimper, has been attempting to scoop up some of the precious black stuff, but there just doesn’t seem to be any to scoop up.

“I think it is underneath the water. It’s in between the bottom and the top of the water,” Cepriano commented when asked about the strange phenomenon.

The federal government seems to be stumped as well, and has publicly admitted that finding the oil has become an issue.

“It is becoming a very elusive bunch of oil for us to find,” said Thad Allen, the National Incident Commander.

Skimmers are Scooping UP Less Crude:
Well, the math is right, and numbers rarely lie: a fortnight ago, the skimming boats scooped up around 25,000 barrels of oily water. This past Thursday, they only scooped up about 200 barrels.

Don’t break out the wine yet.. This does not mean that the oil which was pumped out over the past weeks is gone. There are still thousands of small patches of oil which are staying beneath the waves. Be that the case, experts have said that an amazing amount of the black gold has simply disappeared, apparently reabsorbed by the environment.

“[It’s] mother nature doing her job,” explained a professor of environmental studies at Louisiana State University, Ed Overton.

Scientists: The Oil in The Gulf is Breaking Up:
The lighter of the black gold started to break down when it first squirted from the pipes at high pressure, and then it was inundated with dispersants to help catalyze the process.

The oil that actually did make it to the surface of the ocean was deteriorated by 88 degree water, and then baked by 100 degree sun, chowed down by a bunch of microbes, and then ripped apart by the wind and waves in the area.. Quite a welcoming party huh?