GULF OIL DISASTER
How the Minerals Management Service's partnership with industry led to failure
On Doomed Rig's Last Day, a Divisive Change of Plan
How reporters mangle science on Gulf oil
Deep-sea plumes: A rush to judgment?
"For now, Kessler and others argue, it's too early to say any plume — much less all plumes — have been thoroughly removed from the water. Such an assurance must wait, they say, until scientists confirm that something more than the hydrocarbon equivalents of cookies and steak have disappeared from the Gulf's crude-oil lunch carts."
Obama environmental advisers had limited role in plan to expand oil drilling
"Speaking before the presidential oil spill commission, Jane Lubchenco, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's administrator, and Nancy Sutley, chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, said that while they did offer comments about the proposal, the key decisions were made by the president and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who oversees U.S. oil and gas policy under federal law.'
WILDLIFE, HUMAN AND ECOSYSTEM IMPACTS
Gulf Oil Spill: Rick Steiner Got BP Disaster Right From The Beginning, Warns Crisis Is Far From Over
"The transcendent, take-home lesson from all of this is that we need to hasten our transition to sustainable energy. Some of the costs of oil become very clear in oil spills, but the real costs also include climate change, wars to secure oil supplies, health impacts from breathing atmospheric emissions, and supporting petro-dictators. "We know we need to transition to sustainable, clean, low-carbon energy, and we know how. We know that the chronic, day-to-day degradation of our biosphere caused by our oil addiction -- global warming, ocean acidification, coral reef death, sea level rise, floods and droughts, crop failure, forest fires, ice melt, biodiversity loss -- is cumulatively more devastating than all the oil spills we can throw at ourselves."
New Study Documents Symptoms of Cleanup Workers in 2002 Spill Off Spanish Coast
"The exposed workers were examined two years after their contact with spilled oil, when "a greater proportion" of that group was found to still experience respiratory symptoms such as wheezing and nighttime shortness of breath, the study's authors wrote. Chromosomal abnormalities in white blood cells, considered a potential marker for heightened cancer risk, was also detected at higher rates in fishermen who regularly came in contact with oil during cleanup work."
"On the 23rd, BP once again asked the Corps of Engineers for an Emergency Permit to "surf wash" the beaches of Louisiana--this time on Grand Isle. The concept behind this surf washing is to push the sand, "stained" by oil, back into the Gulf, and let the waves "clean" it."
CALIFORNIA
Santa Barbara officials say 'no, thanks' to oil drilling
FLORIDA
Florida Chapters Start State Constitutional Ban Effort (Surfrider Foundation and Save our Seas, Beaches and Shores, Inc.)
VIRGINIA
VA Youth question Governor McDonnell's offshore views
