by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 31, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Toxification
By Peter Beaumont / The Guardian
A new study of dolphins living close to the site of North America’s worst ever oil spill – the BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe two years ago – has established serious health problems afflicting the marine mammals.
The report, commissioned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA], found that many of the 32 dolphins studied were underweight, anaemic and suffering from lung and liver disease, while nearly half had low levels of a hormone that helps the mammals deal with stress as well as regulating their metabolism and immune systems.
More than 200m gallons of crude oil flowed from the well after a series of explosions on 20 April 2010, which killed 11 workers. The spill contaminated the Gulf of Mexico and its coastline in what President Barack Obama called America’s worst environmental disaster.
The research follows the publication of several scientific studies into insect populations on the nearby Gulf coastline and into the health of deepwater coral populations, which all suggest that the environmental impact of the five-month long spill may have been far worse than previously appreciated.
Another study confirmed that zooplankton – the microscopic organisms at the bottom of the ocean food chain – had also been contaminated with oil. Indeed, photographs issued last month of wetland coastal areas show continued contamination, with some areas still devoid of vegetation.
The study of the dolphins in Barataria Bay, off the coast of Louisiana, followed two years in which the number of dead dolphins found stranded on the coast close to the spill had dramatically increased. Although all but one of the 32 dolphins were still alive when the study ended, lead researcher Lori Schwacke said survival prospects for many were grim, adding that the hormone deficiency – while not definitively linked to the oil spill – was “consistent with oil exposure to other mammals”.
Schwacke told a Colorado based-publication last week: “This was truly an unprecedented event – there was little existing data that would indicate what effects might be seen specifically in dolphins – or other cetaceans – exposed to oil for a prolonged period of time.”
The NOAA study has been reported at the same time as two other studies suggesting that the long-term environmental effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill may have been far more profound than previously thought.
A study of deep ocean corals seven miles from the spill source jointly funded by the NOAA and BP has found dead and dying corals coated “in brown gunk”. Deepwater corals are not usually affected in oil spills, but the depth and temperatures involved in the spill appear to have been responsible for creating plumes of oil particles deep under the ocean surface, which are blamed for the unprecedented damage.
Charles Fisher, one of the scientists who jointly described the impact as unprecedented, said he believed the colony had been contaminated by a plume from the ruptured well which would have affected other organisms. “The corals are long-living and don’t move. That is why we were able to identify the damage but you would have expected it to have had an impact on other larger animals that were exposed to it.”
Chemical analysis of oil found on the dying coral showed that it came from the Deepwater Horizon spill.
The latest surveys of the damage to the marine environment come amid continued legal wrangling between the US and BP over the bill for the clean-up. BP said the US government was withholding evidence that would show the oil spill from the well in the Gulf of Mexico was smaller than claimed. Last week BP, which has set aside $37bn (£23bn) to pay for costs associated with the disaster, went to court in Louisiana to demand access to thousands of documents that it says the Obama administration is suppressing.
Read more from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/31/dolphins-sick-deepwater-oil-spill
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 20, 2012 | Toxification
By Bill McKibben
Cornell’s Global Labor Institute issued a big new report [PDF] this morning examining the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, the most comprehensive look yet at its economic impact. And it makes clear just how right President Obama was to block this boondoggle: It would make money for a few politically connected oil companies, but at a potentially staggering cost to the American economy.
For once economists looked at the whole effect of the project. Unlike studies paid for by the TransCanada pipeline company that purported to show thousands of jobs created (a number since walked back to “hundreds” of permanent positions even by company spokespeople), this study asks: What happens when there’s a spill?
Not if there’s a spill. There’s going to be a spill — the smaller precursor pipeline recently built by TransCanada spilled at least 14 times in its first year of operation, once spewing a geyser of tar-sands oil 60 feet into the air. In fact, the new Cornell report estimates that we can expect 91 significant spills over the next half century from Keystone, in large part because the bitumen it would carry south from Alberta is like liquid sandpaper, scouring the steel of the pipe.
And when the spill happens? In 2010, a six-foot gash in a tar-sands pipeline let a million gallons of crude pour into the Kalamazoo River. Fifty-eight percent of people in the area reported adverse health effects from the evaporating oil; the river is still closed; clean-up costs are likely to be higher than $700 million. The pipeline’s owner had to buy out more than a hundred homes and relocate the residents. Multiply by 91.
And remember that the Keystone XL pipeline would cross the Ogallala Aquifer, source of 30 percent of the nation’s irrigation water, not to mention many of its farming jobs. The six states the pipeline would run through would together reap about 20 permanent jobs from Keystone XL; together those states employ more than half a million farmers. Do the math. And then remember something else: Renewable energy jobs are growing at twice the rate of the rest of the economy. If a wind turbine topples over, that’s bad news, but it doesn’t turn the aquifer black.
From Red, Green, and Blue: http://redgreenandblue.org/2012/03/13/report-reveals-true-cost-of-keystone-xl-staggering-public-costs-vs-private-benefits/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 5, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Toxification
By Dahr Jamail / Al Jazeera
Hundreds of thousands of people living along the US Gulf Coast have hung their economic lives on lawsuits against BP.
Fishermen, in particular, are seeing their way of life threatened with extinction – both from lack of an adequate legal settlement and collapsing fisheries.
One of these people, Greg Perez, an oyster fisherman in the village of Yscloskey, Louisiana, has seen a 75 per cent decrease in the amount of oysters he has been able to catch.
“Since the spill, business has been bad,” he said. “Sales and productivity are down, our state oyster grounds are gone, and we are investing personal money to rebuild oyster reefs, but so far it’s not working.”
Perez, like so many Gulf Coast commercial fisherman, has been fishing all his life. He said those who fish for crab and shrimp are “in trouble too”, and he is suing BP for property damage for destroying his oyster reefs, as well as for his business’ loss of income.
People like Perez make it possible for Louisiana to provide 40 per cent of all the seafood caught in the continental US.
But Louisiana’s seafood industry, valued at about $2.3bn, is now fighting for its life.
‘The shrimp are all dead’
Perez is not alone.
“They said they’d make things right and they never did,” said Nicholas Harris, a fourth-generation oyster fisherman in eastern Louisiana. “Business has been s****y, and BP kept low-balling us with how much money they said they’d give us for compensation, so we got our attorneys involved.”
Harris, like Perez, is suing the oil giant for property damage and loss of income.
His family has a 4,000-acre private lease for oysters, but it was destroyed when the State of Louisiana diverted fresh water from the Mississippi River in a failed attempt to flush BP’s oil from the oyster fishing grounds in his area.
The situation in Mississippi for shrimpers is nearly as grim.
“I was at a BP coastal restoration meeting yesterday and they tried to tell us they searched 6,000 square miles of the seafloor and found no oil, thanks to Mother Nature,” Tuan Dang, a shrimper, told Al Jazeera while standing on a dock full of shrimp boats that would normally be out shrimping this time of year.
Song Vu, a shrimp boat captain for 20 years, has not tried to shrimp for weeks, and is simply hoping that there will be shrimp to catch next season.
His experience during his last shrimping attempts left him depressed.
“The shrimp are all dead,” he told Al Jazeera. “Everything is dead.”
Read more from Al Jazeera: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/03/20123571723894800.html
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 1, 2012 | Toxification
By Akiko Okazaki / The Asahi Shimbun
A mind-boggling 40,000 trillion becquerels of radioactive cesium, or twice the amount previously thought, may have spewed from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant after the March 11 disaster, scientists say.
Michio Aoyama, a senior researcher at the Meteorological Research Institute, released the finding at a scientific symposium in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, on Feb. 28.
The figure, which represents about 20 percent of the discharge during the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, is twice as large as previous estimates by research institutions both in Japan and overseas.
It was calculated on the basis of radioactive content of seawater sampled at 79 locations in the north Pacific and is thought to more accurately reflect reality than previous simulation results.
Scientists believe that around 30 percent of the radioactive substances discharged during the crisis ended up on land, while the rest fell on the sea.
This makes it especially difficult to accurately evaluate the total amount of radioactive materials released. Thus, seaborne data is essential to the process.
The scientists measured cesium concentrations in seawater as of April and May last year. They then used a model of diffusion in the atmosphere and the oceans to evaluate the total amount of cesium released. The calculation produced estimates of 30-40 quadrillion becquerels.
The researchers also estimated that 24-30 quadrillion becquerels of that cesium reached the sea.
That combines the roughly 70 percent of the total discharge, which is thought to have reached the ocean, and the cesium content of radioactive water that Tokyo Electric Power Co., the nuclear plant operator, released from the plant to the sea.
While the latest study said 15-20 quadrillion becquerels of cesium-137 was released into the atmosphere, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency estimated the amount at 8.8 quadrillion becquerels. Similar data released by other researchers both in Japan and overseas ranged between 7 quadrillion and 35 quadrillion becquerels.
In the meantime, TEPCO on Feb. 28 began pouring cement on a trial basis from a marine platform onto the seabed in the port at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. The work is intended to cover 7 hectares of seabed inside the breakwaters.
The aim is to prevent radioactive cesium that accumulated there from spreading offshore. The project is expected to take 3-4 months to finish.
During the trial, TEPCO will determine what thickness of cement cover is effective for the purpose. Choppy waters due to adverse weather conditions had obstructed the work.
From The Asahi Shimbun
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 22, 2012 | Mining & Drilling
By BBC
A gas-fuelled fire, with flames as high as 5m, may burn for months in waters off the Niger Delta in south-east Nigeria, Chevron has told the BBC.
Two workers died after January’s explosion at the KS Endeavour exploration rig, owned by the US firm.
Friends of the Earth says this is the world’s worst such accident in recent years.
Chevron spokesman Lloyd Avram says, despite the fire, the situation is now under control and no oil is leaking.
Nigeria is the largest oil producer in Africa.
Pouring cement
A fire is burning in a 40m-wide area on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, 10km off the Nigerian coast.
The company is trying to put out the fire by piercing a hole in the original gas well – through which cement will be poured.
“There’ll be 10,000ft of drilling and interestingly we need to hit an area that is approximately 12sq inches,” Mr Avram told the BBC.
“It is going to take some time, but I cannot predict how long that is going to be – conceivably months,” he said.
Scientists are conducting tests to find out if local food and water has been contaminated by the gas in the ocean – after local people raised concerns.
Almost 100 people have left towns close to the fire and local chiefs are asking Chevron to relocate more.
A major build-up of gas pressure from drilling caused the explosion that set the rig on fire in the middle of January, according to the Nigeria’s state run oil company.
From BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17126335
