GULF OIL DISASTER
As federal panel probes oil spill, picture emerges of a series of iffy decisions
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/24/AR2010072402594.html?hpid=topnews
“If there is no smoking gun in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, it is because there is smoke coming from so many places.”
Disabled oil rig alarm points to human failures in Gulf oil spill
Rig Returns to Well Site as Storm Dissipates
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/us/25soilspill.html
BP Returning to Gulf Oil Spill Site to Drill Relief Well as Bonnie Weakens
Storm's passage reveals problems with oil spill response
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/07/storms_passage_reveals_problem.html
‘The Well From Hell’
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/07/25/weekinreview/0725-week-graphic.html
Summary for The Week of July 18-24
Daring to Pose a Challenge to the Oil Culture
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/us/25voices.html?_r=1
Patty Whitney, a community organizer in Terrebonne Parish, asked “We are constantly told, ‘You have to adapt to coastal land loss, you have to adapt because of the oil leak, you have to adapt to the new situation,’ ” she said. “When is our government going to adapt to new energy sources that aren’t harmful to our environment and the people who depend upon the environment?”
Never again - Congress must toughen regulations on Big Oil
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/25/1745396/never-again.html#ixzz0uoHkGkUI
WILDLIFE, HUMAN AND ECOSYSTEM IMPACTS
Researchers confirm subsea Gulf oil plumes are from BP well
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/23/98088/researchers-confirm-subsea-gulf.html
“The announcement came on the same day that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that its researchers have confirmed the existence of the subsea plumes at depths of 3,300 to 4,300 feet below the surface of the Gulf. NOAA said its detection equipment also implicated the BP well in the plumes' creation. Together, the two studies confirm what in the early days of the spill was denied by BP and viewed skeptically by NOAA's chief — that much of the crude that gushed from the Deepwater Horizon well stayed beneath the surface of the water. "What we have learned completely changes the idea of what an oil spill is," said chemical oceanographer David Hollander, one of three USF researchers credited with the matching samples of oil taken from the water with samples from the BP well. "It has gone from a two-dimensional disaster to a three-dimensional catastrophe." The finding is important because oil that escaped from the mile-deep, blown-out well had been treated with dispersants, which broke the oil in the water column into tiny droplets, and therefore did not form an oil slick at the surface, said Richard H. Pierce, senior scientist and director of the Center for Ecotoxicology at Sarasota's Mote Marine Laboratory. "It's more readily taken up and absorbed and ingested by marine animals," he explained.”
Federal records show steady stream of oil spills in gulf since 1964
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/23/AR2010072305603.html
“…federal records […] show a steady stream of oil spills dumping 517,847 barrels of petroleum -- which would fill an equivalent number of standard American bathtubs -- into the Gulf of Mexico between 1964 and 2009. The spills killed thousands of birds and soiled beaches as far away as Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Altogether, they poured twice as much as oil into U.S. waters as the Exxon Valdez tanker did when it ran aground in 1989.”
CALIFORNIA
Poll: Californians no on offshore drilling
http://totalbuzz.ocregister.com/2010/07/23/poll-californians-no-on-offshore-drilling/38295/
FLORIDA
Video Interview with pro surfers Shea and Corey Lopez on their view of the oil spill and drilling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvv0d72zmYI&feature=player_embedded
NEW ZEALAND
Oily People Send Warning Over Offshore Drilling
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1007/S00304/oily-people-send-warning-over-offshore-drilling.htm
