The BP Spill: Has the Damage Been Exaggerated?

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Time

President Obama has called the BP oil spill "the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced," and so has just about everyone else. Green groups are sounding alarms about the "Catastrophe Along the Gulf Coast," while CBS, Fox and MSNBC slap "Disaster in the Gulf" chryons on all their spill-related news. Even BP fall guy Tony Hayward, after some early happy talk, admitted the spill was an "environmental catastrophe." The obnoxious anti-environmentalist Rush Limbaugh has been a rare voice arguing that the spill — he calls it "the leak" — is anything less than an ecological calamity, scoffing at the avalanche of end-is-nigh eco-hype.

Well, Rush has a point. The Deepwater explosion was an awful tragedy for the 11 workers who died on the rig, and it's no leak; it's the biggest oil spill in U.S. history. It's also inflicting serious economic and psychological damage on coastal communities that depend on tourism, fishing and drilling. But so far — while it's important to acknowledge that the long-term potential danger is simply unknowable for an underwater event that took place just three months ago — it does not seem to be inflicting severe environmental damage. "The impacts have been much, much less than everyone feared," says geochemist Jacqueline Michel, a federal contractor who is coordinating shoreline assessments in Louisiana. (See pictures of the Gulf oil spill.)

Yes, the spill killed birds — but so far, less than 1% of the birds killed by the Exxon Valdez. Yes, we've heard horror stories about oiled dolphins — but, so far, wildlife response teams have collected only three visibly oiled carcasses of any mammals. Yes, the spill prompted harsh restrictions on fishing and shrimping, but so far, the region's fish and shrimp have tested clean, and the restrictions are gradually being lifted. And, yes, scientists have warned that the oil could accelerate the destruction of Louisiana's disintegrating coastal marshes — a real slow-motion ecological calamity — but, so far, shorelines assessment teams have only found about 350 acres of oiled marshes, when Louisiana was already losing about 15,000 acres of wetlands every year. (Comment on this story.)

The disappearance of more than 2,000 square miles of coastal Louisiana over the last century has been a true national tragedy, ravaging a unique wilderness, threatening the bayou way of life and leaving communities like New Orleans extremely vulnerable to hurricanes from the Gulf. And while much of the erosion has been caused by the re-engineering of the Mississippi River — which no longer deposits much sediment at the bottom of its Delta — quite a bit has been caused by the oil and gas industry, which gouged 8,000 miles of canals and pipelines through coastal wetlands. But the spill isn't making that problem much worse. Coastal scientist Paul Kemp, a former Louisiana State University professor who is now a National Audubon Society vice president, compares the impact of the spill on the vanishing marshes to "a sunburn on a cancer patient."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2007202,00.html#ixzz0v52AT9NH


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2007202,00.html#ixzz0v52AT9NH

[QC]

1. And now the happytalk begins!

We can expect an all out media push to make us believe that what we saw happen didn't really happen and besides what didn't really happens wasn't a big deal anyway.

[tularetom]

2. Toxic sludge is good for you

[Warpy]

3. Yes, millions of gallons of oil and poisonous dispersant

won't do that much damage, at all! The Gulf is big, really big, and all that oil will just disperse! The fish will thrive in it! Nothing to see here, just go shopping!

[zipplewrath]

6. That's not what they are saying

They are saying it is bad, but as bad as it is, the media still overhyped it. In a way, considering how bad it is, that's a heck of an accomplishment.

[flyarm]

16. Excuse me ..the media did NOT over hype it..quite the opposite.

In fact the cover up by our government and the complicity of our media..is criminal!

From a Gulf Resident...my back Yard is the Gulf in fact...and we have been screaming about the cover up from Day one.

I would say Anderson Cooper has been the Only media person on the National level who has even attempted to tell the story! And I would say he has been good to mediocre at best.

[zipplewrath]

18. They over hyped certain aspects

Yes, some things didn't get the "proper" coverage because they were so busy looking for dead dolphins. Cameras went running to find tarballs in Key West. That kind of dispersed focus, and over emphasis of ancillary issues, is what leads to what you are characterizing as a "cover up".

[flyarm]

27. No they didn't! That is incorrect and dead wrong! eom

[zipplewrath]

39. Okay

But the gulf isn't dead, and Key West is relatively fine.

[Maine-ah]

55. right now it isn't

but who's to say 6 months down the road...1 year...5 years...

we have no clue what the environmental impact this is going to have at this point.

[wordpix]

65. "very little [oil] infiltrated the wetland soils that determine the health of the marsh." Really?

I haven't read any stories about wetland soils being tested in all the places oil has washed into wetlands. What's this statement based on? Reporter doesn't offer ANY studies.

[depakid]

4. Time/Warner/CNN/AOL -proving right alongside Fox that the American corporate media will say anything

[Romulox]

23. Now we're a BP apologist, huh?

:hi: :rofl:

[zipplewrath]

5. The problem with the state of journalism these days

It is the problem of "news as entertainment" we have these days. You can see it in almost every story on television, whether it is the weather report or a "crime stoppers" segment. Everything gets hyped so bad, that any honest reporting comes off as ho-hum.

The most hystrionic predictions were presented almost without criticism or context. I heard predictions that the entire gulf would be "dead", that the spill was going to be "washing up on the shores of England" and that fishing all along the eastern seaboard "could be ended". All of these had elements of truth, but were presented such that the most extreme version was what the casual observer would assume.

There will be damage long after we've all stopped paying attention. And the sad part is that it was so over hyped, that the response now will basically be "oh, is that all?".

[City Lights]

7. The day Limburger makes it into the opening paragraph of a

is the day Time can no longer be considered a serious news source.

[SOS]

31. That dismissal can be dated earlier

"The moral force of Fascism, appearing in totally different forms in different nations, may be the inspiration for the next general march of mankind."

-Henry Luce, founder of Time magazine
April 19, 1934 in a speech to the Scranton, Pa. Chamber of Commerce

"America needs at this moment a moral leader, a national moral leader. The outstanding national moral leader of the world today is Mussolini."

-Henry Luce speaking to businessmen in Rochester NY.
March 1928

[Downwinder]

8. Back to normal life. Drill...Baby...Drill!

[Dr.Phool]

Fuck no!!!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/ns/msnbc_tv-countdown_with_keith_olbermann/#38458741

From last nights Countdown!

[deutsey]

9. Even if this article is correct (and I'm not convinced it is)

isn't the bigger issue here the need to regulate much more effectively all the oil rigs down there in the Gulf so something like this won't happen again? (I don't see us eliminating drilling.)

If this particular event isn't as bad as many of us believed it is, what if we have two, three, five, ten more events like it as a result of the greed and negligence of oil companies?

Will that be bad enough for you?

[ixion]

10. This is a great example of crappy contemporary quasi journalism

more specifically, propaganda.

[sendero]

64. Exactly..

.... which is just about all the MSM is capable of any more.

[L0oniX]

11. The damage is going to be showing up for a long time ...possibly decades.

[Xipe Totec]

12. Kudos to the Memholes of the M$M! n/t

[paparush]

13. Go read this DU post and then revisit this question -

Sea plankton levels have declined 40% since 1950.

What's the big deal you ask? Well, in addition to being the base of the food chain, plankton generate HALF of the atmosphere's oxygen.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8833415

[dipsydoodle]

14. You posted a link to a climate change issue.

.

[paparush]

45. Its a stretch to connect the oil spill and dispersant to the decline of plankton?

I don't think so.

[flyarm]

15. It's bad..It's very very very very bad! And people will die of cancers and people will eat fish that

will cause cancers..and people will bleed ..

and it will all be hidden from the eye beause of Toxic Disppersants!..That our government allowed these criminals to dump into our ocean!

YouTube - EPA Whistle-blower People and Dolphins are Hemorrhaging from Corexit and BP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANsBlXFfows&feature=player_embedded

[metapunditedgy]

17. "BP" is a rebranded "British Petroleum," like Xeon is Blackwater. n/t

[dipsydoodle]

20. By virtue of its merger with Amoco

at which point the name British Petroleum became meaningless. It was retitled BP Amoco and then simply BP. The Blackwater analogy isn't a very bright one. It was only the pig ignorance of some, maliciously spinning this into being soley a UK problem , that bought the name British Petroleum to the forefront again. In terms of ownership its more or less equally owned by the UK and USA @ 40% each.
Of its 30,000 or so employess 20,000 are in the USA.

[metapunditedgy]

41. I don't think it's solely a UK problem. I think it's *BP's* problem.

Out of curiosity, who says it's solely a UK problem?

[Lance_Boyle]

44. Xe is Blackwater. Xeon is a line of server-class CPUs from Intel. n/t

[metapunditedgy]

46. You are correct. I guess I'll leave Intel out of this... for now. n/t

[Lost4words]

51. its Xe not XEON!

is the new name for blackwater killers inc.

[metapunditedgy]

60. You're RIGHT! n/t

[TreasonousBastard]

19. Lots of comments here from people who just don't get it...

This spill is big and bad, but we've been slowly killing the Gulf for decades.

Shrimp? They've been fished out, like everything else and now we get most of our shrimp from the Indian Ocean-- for as long as that lasts. Oysters? The Gulf is on its way to the same fate as Chesapeake Bay. Every bulkhead that goes up or load of lawn chemicals from seaside developments is one more bit of coastal breeding ground gone.

The oceans are gasping their last, with coral reefs dying, krill disappearing, popular finfish being mined to extinction...

THAT'S the point of this article-- stop whining about the spill and figure what to do about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch or the extinction of bluefin tuna.

The oceans are dying, and we did it without the help of any oil companies.

[Grey]

26. I agree with TreasonousBastard,

It's about the history of stupid moves to destroy the wetlands.
It's about greed and waste, It's about the long term effects of mans stupidity.
This is just one step on a long trail of destruction.

[Uncle Joe]

34. The Gulf before this catastrophe was able to supply approximately 20% of the nation's seafood.

The Gulf Ecology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill#Fisheries_and_tourism

The spill threatens environmental disaster due to factors such as petroleum toxicity and oxygen depletion.<203> Eight U.S. national parks are threatened.<204> More than 400 species that live in the Gulf islands and marshlands are at risk, including the endangered Kemp's Ridley turtle. In the national refuges most at risk, about 34,000 birds have been counted, including gulls, pelicans, roseate spoonbills, egrets, terns, and blue herons.<77> A comprehensive 2009 inventory of offshore Gulf species counted 15,700. The area of the oil spill includes 8,332 species, including more than 1,200 fish, 200 birds, 1,400 molluscs, 1,500 crustaceans, 4 sea turtles, and 29 marine mammals.<205><206> As of 29 July, 3,613 dead animals had been collected, including 3,054 birds, 494 sea turtles, 64 dolphins and other mammals, and 1 reptile.<207> According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, cause of death had not been determined as of late June. Also, dolphins have been seen which are lacking food, and "acting drunk" apparently due to the spill.<208> A reporter kayaking in the area of Grand Isle reported seeing about 60 dolphins blowing oil through their blow holes as they swam through oil-slick waters.<209>

Duke University marine biologist Larry Crowder said threatened loggerhead turtles on Carolina beaches could swim out into contaminated waters. Ninety percent of North Carolina's commercially valuable sea life spawn off the coast and could be contaminated if oil reaches the area. Douglas Rader, a scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, said prey could be negatively affected as well. Steve Ross of UNC-Wilmington said coral reefs could be smothered.<210> In early June Harry Roberts, a professor of Coastal Studies at Louisiana State University, stated that 4 million barrels (170,000,000 US gallons; 640,000 cubic metres) of oil would be enough to "wipe out marine life deep at sea near the leak and elsewhere in the Gulf" as well as "along hundreds of miles of coastline." Mak Saito, an Associate Scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts indicated that such an amount of oil "may alter the chemistry of the sea, with unforeseeable results."<211> Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia indicated that the oil could harm fish directly, and microbes used to consume the oil would also reduce oxygen levels in the water.<212> According to Joye, the ecosystem could require years or even decades to recover, as previous spills have done.<213> Oceanographer John Kessler estimates that the crude gushing from the well contains approximately 40% methane, compared to about 5% found in typical oil deposits.<214> Methane could potentially suffocate marine life and create dead zones where oxygen is depleted.<214> Also oceanographer Dr. Ian MacDonald at Florida State University believes that the natural gas dissolving below the surface has the potential to reduce the Gulf oxygen levels and emit benzene and other toxic compounds.<74><215> In early July, researchers discovered two new previously unidentified species of bottom-dwelling pancake batfish of the Halieutichthys genus, in the area affected by the oil spill.<216> Damage to the ocean floor is as yet unknown.<201>

Yes we have been polluting the Gulf for a long time either from oil or farm runoff coming down the Mississippi, but this is still a catastrophic loss and downplaying it does no good.

As for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, indirectly the oil companies play a major role in that as well, because the vast majority of it; is plastic bags; one of the many petroleum based byproducts; human society has come to rely on.

[TreasonousBastard]

36. NOBODY IS DOWNPLAYING IT! The point is that by next year...

spill will be a bad memory but we will still be killing the oceans in so many other ways. As a species, we react to crisis, but not to long-range problems.

Also, note that the Gulf would not need to supply 20% of our seafood (btw, does that include catfish farms?) if we didn't already have collapses in New England, Chesapeake Bay, and other places. Collapses due simply to our destruction of habitat and overfishing.

Here in NY there are only 3 marine species where we're allowed an unlimited catch, and we now have to get a marine recreational fishing license. Whoda thunk that would ever happen?

[Uncle Joe]

43. Time is downplaying it and they're being hypocritical about

who has conflict of interest.

Here are a couple of bullshit paragraphs in that column.

Anti-oil politicians, anti-Obama politicians and underfunded green groups all have obvious incentives to accentuate the negative in the Gulf. So did the media, because disasters drive ratings and sell magazines; those oil-soaked pelicans you keep seeing on TV (and the cover of TIME) were a lot more compelling than the healthy pelicans I saw roosting on some protective boom in Bay Jimmy. Even Limbaugh, when he wasn't downplaying the spill, was outrageously hyping it as "Obama's Katrina." But honest scientists don't do that, even when they work for Audubon.

"There are a lot of alarmists in the bird world," Kemp says. "People see oiled pelicans, and they go crazy. But this has been a disaster for people, not biota."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2007202-2,00.html#ixzz0v5mHAfhK

The corporate media makes it's money by selling commercials, BP is swamping them with PR commercials not just to affect the American People's opinions but to give financial enticement to the corporate media, including Time to downplay this catastrophe. I don't see that conflict of interest anywhere in this column, nor of the scientists hired by BP. I see this column as a virtual puff piece for BP.

There are no catfish farms in the Gulf, to my knowledge catfish are freshwater fish and those farms are in ponds on the land. The Gulf was still producing a large amount of seafood in spite of it's problems.

I agree with you on one point "As a species, we react to crisis, but not to long-range problems." but that's exactly why when a crisis such as this happens, we should use that energy to alter long term behavior and the best way for that to happen is never forget and don't underplay it just because things have been allowed to degrade in other areas.

[metapunditedgy]

42. No, the oil companies definitely helped. Don't forget the propaganda they fund

in the media, false scientific research, etc., in addition to the Gulf and the other obvious stuff.

[wordpix]

48. shrimp haven't been fished out in the Gulf---one shrimper reporter $5K/week income before blowout

:shrug: This on NPR this am. The context was he didn't know what to ask for in the Feinberg-BP payout b/c he doesn't know how long the shrimping will be closed. Will it be 1 yr. or 20 yrs.? No one knows so he can't estimate his losses very easily.

[Romulox]

21. Came here for my daily dose of British Economic Nationalism.

Left happy!

Unrec.

[PSPS]

22. I guess Time wants some of those BP advertising bucks.

[Doctor_J]

24. Time now using Limpballs as a source

I stopped paying attention to all Big Media propaganda about 15 years ago, because I knew it would get to this.

[DallasNE]

25. Roughly 180,000,000 Gallons Of Oil Leaked

Into the Gulf. At most, 500,000 gallons was caputured, burned or skimmed off the water. That leaves 179,500,000 gallons where, perhaps, 1/2 has simply evaporated into the atmoshpere. That still leaves 90,000,000 gallons dispersed in the waters. We simply don't know the effects of this. For instance, how much oxygen has been depleted from the water. Will this cause cancers in the animals coming in contact with this toxic mess. Those kinds of damage will take decades to determine because the balance of nature has been disturbed.

[Desertrose]

28. I seriously doubt it...more like underplayed

to the max.

But Americans have a short attention span so in the end it doesn't really matter anyway.
:sarcasm:

[Demit]

29. I love the repeated elocution "so far." How long till the stories of "No one could have predicted!"

You don't know when, but you know they're coming.

[CountAllVotes]

30. yes it has been exaggerated

exaggerated alright - they have exaggerated their lies about how severe and permanent the irreversible damage is! Sonzabitches belong in jail, all of them! :puke: :puke: :puke:

[jpak]

32. What a steaming heap of BP/Limpballs horseshit

The true extent of mortality to marine mammals, turtles, birds, fish and benthic invertebrates will never be fully accounted.

Most of that oil is suspended in deep water and on the sea floor where it is diffucult top measure and monitor - and it will be there for decades - just like tge stuff that has washed ashore.

This is greenwash.

[CatholicEdHead]

33. It is not on the surface but still there

The dispersant will be the worst factor. Oil is a bit natural and while bad is not as bad as the unknown dispersant.

[DCBob]

37. if the dispersant is "unknown" then how do you know its worse than the oil??

Is it really unknown? I thought the feds had tested it.

[DCBob]

35. According to scientists monitoring the situation the oil is degrading faster than expected..

Where is all the oil? Nearly two weeks after BP finally capped the biggest oil spill in U.S. history, the oil slicks that once spread across thousands of miles of the Gulf of Mexico have largely disappeared. Nor has much oil washed up on the sandy beaches and marshes along the Louisiana coast. And the small cleanup army in the Gulf has only managed to skim up a tiny fraction of the millions of gallons of oil spilled in the 100 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig went up in flames.

So where did the oil go? "Some of the oil evaporates," explains Edward Bouwer, professor of environmental engineering at Johns Hopkins University. That’s especially true for the more toxic components of oil, which tend to be very volatile, he says. Jeffrey W. Short, a scientist with the environmental group Oceana, told the New York Times that as much as 40 percent of the oil might have evaporated when it reached the surface. High winds from two recent storms may have speeded the evaporation process.

Perhaps the most important cause of the oil’s disappearance, some researchers suspect, is that the oil has been devoured by microbes. The lesson from past spills is that the lion’s share of the cleanup work is done by nature in the form of oil-eating bacteria and fungi. The microbes break down the hydrocarbons in oil to use as fuel to grow and reproduce. A bit of oil in the water is like a feeding frenzy, causing microbial populations to grow exponentially.

Typically, there are enough microbes in the ocean to consume half of any oil spilled in a month or two, says Howarth. Such microbes have been found in every ocean of the world sampled, from the Arctic to Antarctica. But there are reasons to think that the process may occur more quickly in the Gulf than in other oceans.

Microbes grow faster in the warmer water of the Gulf than they do in, say, the cool waters off Alaska, where the Exxon Valdez spill occurred. Moreover, the Gulf is hardly pristine. Even before humans started drilling for oil in the Gulf — and spilling lots of it — oil naturally seeped into the water. As a result, the Gulf evolved a rich collection of petroleum-loving microbes, ready to pounce on any new spill. The microbes are clever and tough, observes Samantha Joye, microbial geochemist at the University of Georgia. Joye has shown that oxygen levels in parts of the Gulf contaminated with oil have dropped. Since microbes need oxygen to eat the petroleum, that’s evidence that the microbes are hard at work.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews_excl/ynews_excl_sc3270

For some reason the "Gulf Doomers" dont want to hear this but these are the facts. I guess they were hoping for a major catastrophe so they could use that to push some political agenda. Why else would they dismiss these reports from scientists?

[wordpix]

66. ""Some of the oil evaporates"---it does?

I didn't know that. :eyes:

[grantcart]

38. No, but pointing out that the rapid erosion of LA's coastline and loss of wetlands

may be an even bigger problem may be true.

[DCBob]

40. If you all can stand any further good news... NCState expert: Gulf oil unlikely to reach East Coast

The Associated Press
Thursday, July 29, 2010; 10:47 AM

RALEIGH, N.C. -- An expert on marine sciences and coastal circulation says it's unlikely oil from BP's massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico will reach the East Coast. Roy He of North Carolina State University said Thursday the chances are low in part because the well is capped for now. BP expects to permanently kill it soon.

He also says large amounts of oil haven't been observed in the Loop Current, which could carry oil around Florida and into East Coast waters. He also points to the ongoing dilution and degradation of the oil. A National Center for Atmospheric Research model released at the beginning of June projected that parts of the oil spill could come up the East Coast during the summer.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/29/AR2010072902840.html

[wordpix]

47. "it does not seem to be inflicting severe environmental damage" - WTF? 3500 dead birds, turtles,

marine mammals THAT WE KNOW OF have been counted. Then there are all those we don't know of that got stuck in the oil and drowned. Plus, how many fish, crabs, shrimp have died or been contaminated?

This sounds like a Faux piece. :crazy:

Look in the water column where Corexit has put the oil---you'll find it there and in the marshes. GEESH! :puke:

[Theobald]

50. I think they mean severe damage with

perspective to the severity of the spill. The oil spill in the gulf is much bigger than the Exxon Valdez spill and yet it has killed much less wildlife. And they are comparing the known deaths from the BP spill to the known deaths of the Exxon spill, so bringing in unknown deaths is not relatively to this paticular part of the conversation.

[wordpix]

61. the fact is NO ONE KNOWS the severity due to the Corexit + deep water + long term impacts

However, many experts do know the oil is under the surface b/c it does not just disappear. Some of it is in the landfills, too. And the damage it is doing that we can't see or measure is probably huge, on top of what we can see and measure on the surface.

No one knows the impact below with the Corexit mix so to say "maybe the damage is not so bad" sounds like a lot of BP PR to me. No one knows how long the fishing will be closed, or how long the animals and birds will end up on beaches dead. No one knows the long term effects on cleanup workers breathing the heavy oil + Corexit both on the surface and burning in the air.

The reporter is just ignorant and irresponsible to write this "not so bad" BS. :grr:

[zonkers]

49. FUCK THIS BULLSHIT PROPOGANDA.

[Lost4words]

52. +1 spot on!

[wordpix]

62. +1 sounds like the reporter is doing a little PR for BP on the side

[Odin2005]

53. AAAAND here comes the goddamn whitewash!

:grr:

[Quantess]

54. Try telling that to the fishermen.

[DCBob]

56. 26,000 Square Miles Of Gulf Reopened To Fishing

(AP) NEW ORLEANS
Published: Thu, July 22, 2010 - 4:39 pm CST

New Orleans, - The government is allowing commercial and recreational fishing again in roughly one third of the waters it had closed because of the BP oil spill. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the area that reopened Thursday is 26,388 square miles of federal waters in the Gulf.

[wordpix]

63. this makes no sense---the fish don't stay in one place, they migrate

and it's clear there's oil under the surface and Corexit entering the food chain.

As for me, I'm not eating Gulf Coast shrimp OR fish

[DCBob]

67. They opened these areas up based on testing of the fish and on water samples..

NOAA had closed the area out of concern that patchy sheens of oil might enter the Loop Current and speed toward the Florida Keys. Since mid-June, NOAA data has shown no oil in the area and U.S. Coast Guard overflights have not spotted any oil. A NOAA research vessel took water samples from early to mid-July in and around the area being reopened and found no oil.

Trajectory models show the area is at "low risk" for future oil exposure and fish caught in the area and tested by NOAA experts have shown no signs of contamination, NOAA said Thursday. NOAA said it would continue to take samples from the reopened area and continue dockside sampling of seafood caught by commercial fishermen throughout the Gulf.

http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/state/one-third-of-gulf-fishing-area-closed-due-to-oil-spill-to-be-reopened

[alarimer]

57. Absolutely not.

I love how the mainstream media is buying BP's selfish line.

So it didn't (yet) kill that many birds.

It probably killed billions of larval fish and shrimp and probably killed livelihoods Gulf-wide. Fuck BP and the corporate media.

[robcon]

58. I hope this article is accurate.

I hope this ends well.

[woo me with science]

59. Wait until there is a storm, and then we will know more.

We have been incredibly lucky with regard to weather and currents so far.

[KakistocracyHater]

68. what tobacco scientist wrote this?

so they've "tested" the regions shrimp & other animals & found "nothing" & are now surging ahead & lifting those pesky safety restrictions......dividends are everything.....greed is good.......the air is safe to breathe......everything is fine-if you're from Bizarro World.

[defendandprotect]

69. More likely, the damage has been UNDERSTATED ---

The damage from COREXIT dispersant alone will be horrific --