The only good news is that BP now says it is collecting 5000 barrels a day of the oil gusher-
Gulf Oil Spill: Oil Has Entered Loop Current, Officials Say. Associated Press. So, some of the oil is now off to Florida and maybe even to the East Coast. So far the main part of the oil remains north of the power Loop current. How long will this hold?
Getting oil out of marshes where it does the most damage is much harder than off the beaches. Unfortunately, the heavy black stuff is now going into the marshes. They will soon yellow and die. Will the Oil Kill the Bayou? By Steven Gray. Time Magazine.
BP says it is capturing 5,000 barrels of oil a day from gulf spill. By Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson. Washington Post Staff Writers
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is past President of the Western Watersheds Project and the creator of The Wildlife News.
The original estimate by BP was 5000 barrels for the output of the spill. Looked at live streaming video on line the other day…and to my untrained eye, the flow is just as strong as it was before the pipe was inserted. I suspect we will never know how much oil has been spilled since US Government doesn’t have the necessary expertise and equipment of the oil companies to deal with the spill, or evidently, measure the output of the spill. It is a very dangerous position for the US Government to be so dependent for information on an industry who prides itself on lack of dependency.
Read Tomas Friedman’s op-ed this week…He asks a good question..why the hell isn’t Obama using this to make some long needed and dramatic changes in this atmosphere which affords him that opportunity that wouldnt othewise exist without the crisis?
Politically, it is more valuable to let BP discredit itself and the rest of the oil industry and let the situation soak in (no pun intended) for all those coastal residents who wanted more oil drilling than to get in there and let the rightwing tar (no pun intended) you with the same brush. But, at the same time, there have been some dramatic changes. There is not going to be any offshore drilling on the Pacific coast, nor off Jersey, and even Rubio in Florida is backing away from the drill, baby, drill mantra. In terms of actually stopping the spill, I’m sure the government is offering what expertise it has; but, at this point, there isn’t much that can be done.
Please check out the link and see what my state’s latest clown and his views on the BP spill, the recent loss of 2 coal miners from one of his “accidents happen” mining tragedy.
http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100521/NEWS01/5210346/1008/NEWS01/Rand+Paul++Obama+s+criticism+of+BP++un-American+
I’d like to the American public for most of the public servants that represent my state in DC. (Jim Bunning, Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul). Regarding that article above, I think Obama need to decapitate BP – the fish stinks from the head down!
Sorry, meant to say I’d like to apologize to the American public. I guess I suffered a temporary loss of motor control!
One of the tragic situations in this story is the fact that many of these families in the area have people who work in the fishing industry and people who work for the oil companies. Some do both. That must be really hard for them to handle.