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BP Funds Front Group Claiming Oil Spill Jobs Are Better Than 'Normal' Ones, Storm Will Clean Up Oil!
Shortly after BP's catastrophic oil spill in the gulf, the New York Times spoke to Quenton Dokken, the executive director of the Gulf of Mexico Foundation, about the environmental impact. "The sky is not falling," Dokken told the paper, adding "it isn't the end of the Gulf of Mexico." ProPublica dug into the Gulf of Mexico Foundation, and reported that the Times had failed to disclose that Dokken and his group are funded by a consortium of oil companies with business in the gulf, including companies involved in the Deepwater Horizon rig, Transocean and Anadarko. Today, the Times reported that the Foundation has been downplaying effects of the spill, possibly because of its funding from oil companies.
Stephanie Neumann holds a Northern Gannet
Animal health technician Stephanie Neumann tried to rescue the Northern Gannet, but beach safety officers stopped her. Her coworkers at the Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge already had stabilized birds and a sea turtle affected by the Gulf oil disaster, but officials wanted to know: Did she have a contract with BP? Could she - and the bird - wait while they verified her organization's status?
"They're trying to do their job," Neumann said as she crouched over the motionless bird, wrapped in a white sheet and barely hidden from the stares of kids and parents. "They have to make sure protocol is followed."
© Greenpeace
Blair Mase, the Southeast marine mammal stranding coordinator for the oceanic agency, said that scientists were "very concerned" that oil was the cause of the whale's death, but that the whale's body was so decomposed and scavenged by sharks that it would be impossible to say for certain.
There are an estimated 1,700 sperm whales that live in gulf waters and they are known to congregate particularly at the mouth of the Mississippi River, a rich feeding ground. Unlike other whales, which travel long distances, these live full-time in the Gulf and do not usually mingle with sperm whale pods in the neighboring Caribbean and Sargasso Sea. Ms. Mase said that the dead whale was almost certainly a gulf whale.
© Jerry Moran Dorsal Fin Encrusted with Oil in Barataria Bay
We were on the water with New Orleans photographer Jerry Moran and Reel Screamers Guide Service on June 11, when we noticed two groups of dolphins. One group was swimming through a bubbling slick consisting of the dispersant COREXIT and oil, and the other was in the shallows and rooting in the mud. Dolphins will dig for flounder on the bottom, so it did not seem remarkable at the time, but we did note that they appeared unusually agitated. The group swimming in the oily dispersant near our boat was sluggish but there was nothing we could do to discourage them from swimming there. Oil was everywhere, above and below the surface, and there was no escape. We shrugged it off, snapped a few photos, and went on to photograph oiled pelicans on Cat Island and Queen Bess.
© Benny F. Nielsen/AP PhotoA fin whale is seen stranded in a shallow fjord on the western coast at Vejle on the western coast of Denmark Wednesday June 16, 2010.
A team of veterinarians, natural science experts and students have dissected most of the 58-foot (17.6-meter) whale, which died Sunday, Joachim Engel of Denmark's Natural History Museum said. Scientists will analyze its heart and other organs to establish the cause of death.
"That is what they will be trying to find out, whether it was sick. We don't know," biologist Anders Kofoed said.
The team dissected the animal on a pier in the Vejle Fjord, 135 miles (220 kilometers) west of Copenhagen, where the animal had been stranded since Wednesday.
© Thomas Lersch/WikipediaCommon chimpanzee in the Leipzig Zoo.
University of Michigan primate behavioral ecologist John Mitani's findings are published in the June 22 issue of Current Biology.
During a decade of study, the researchers witnessed 18 fatal attacks and found signs of three others perpetrated by members of a large community of about 150 chimps at Ngogo, Kibale National Park.
Then in the summer of 2009, the Ngogo chimpanzees began to use the area where two-thirds of these events occurred, expanding their territory by 22 percent. They traveled, socialized and fed on their favorite fruits in the new region.
Oil spill containment efforts could be putting strain on damaged well, New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 18, 2010:
Meanwhile, observers monitoring the video feeds from the robotic vehicles working on the sea floor have noticed BP measuring a tilt in the 40-ton blowout preventer stack with a level and a device called an inclinometer.
Odone, the BP spokesman, confirmed that his company has been monitoring the lean of the blowout preventer, which BP believes began tilting when the Deepwater Horizon rig sank and the riser pipe got bent. ...
Meanwhile, observers monitoring the video feeds from the robotic vehicles working on the sea floor have noticed BP measuring a tilt in the 40-ton blowout preventer stack with a level and a device called an inclinometer.
Odone, the BP spokesman, confirmed that his company has been monitoring the lean of the blowout preventer, which BP believes began tilting when the Deepwater Horizon rig sank and the riser pipe got bent. ...
© Unknown
The study, by the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, found that the Gulf Stream could carry oil from the Louisiana coast far into the eastern Atlantic ocean.
Based on computer animation, the study shows how the oil could be carried in the upper 65ft of the ocean, taking into account weather and currents.
If the oil spill is contained by the end of August, the impact on Ireland will be negligible, said NCAR oceanographer Synte Peacock. But if it continues, no-one knows what the impact will be, she said.
© GettyThe clean-up begins on Florida's Pensacola Beach
On Grand Isle, La., college students working a pelican emergency room don't have time to think about the fate of the oiled birds they've triaged before a crate harboring another shivering, oiled avian arrives.
And in Waveland, Miss., Nadine Brown frets about a falloff in tourists at the bar she rebuilt with more than just a little grit after Hurricane Katrina washed it away, along with most of the waterfront city's downtown.
For many in the weathered fishing villages and tiny towns along the Gulf of Mexico, the unrelenting eight-week siege of oil is taking a toll on the psyche. A drive along the coast from Louisiana to Florida finds towns still littered with hurricane debris, families struggling to recover and a mounting worry that oil will finish off what Katrina did not.
In Bayou La Batre -- the "Seafood Capital of Alabama'' -- Kenny Dang, 32, fears for his parents. "All they've ever known is shrimping,'' he said, coming in from a day aboard the family vessel -- this time spotting for oil off Alabama's coast.
In Pensacola, where enjoying the water defines life, marina owners like John and Anita Naybor -- who had to rebuild a marina, and their home, after Hurricane Ivan grimly consider the future.
Kagoshima (Kyodo) A pair of explosive eruptions Sunday on Mount Sakurajima in Kagoshima Prefecture brought the total to 550 this year, setting a new annual record, the local meteorological observatory said.
Given that the volcano has been erupting roughly twice as frequently since last year, the number of eruptions could reach 1,000, the observatory said.
The previous record of 548 was set last year.
The volcano released around 3 million tons of ash between January and April alone, more than the roughly 2.35 million tons released in 2009.
"While there is no ominous sign of a large-scale explosion, volcanic activity is expected to intensify," the observatory said in a statement. "It is advisable to watch out for large rocky ash falling in surrounding areas."
Given that the volcano has been erupting roughly twice as frequently since last year, the number of eruptions could reach 1,000, the observatory said.
The previous record of 548 was set last year.
The volcano released around 3 million tons of ash between January and April alone, more than the roughly 2.35 million tons released in 2009.
"While there is no ominous sign of a large-scale explosion, volcanic activity is expected to intensify," the observatory said in a statement. "It is advisable to watch out for large rocky ash falling in surrounding areas."
