Earth ChangesS


Cloud Lightning

Tropical storm kills 83 in Central America

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© AP Photo/Moises CastilloA man carries a child under heavy rains of tropical storm Agatha in Patulul, Guatemala, Saturday, May 29, 2010.
Guatemala City - The death toll in Central America from landslides and flooding triggered by the year's first tropical storm surged to 83 on Sunday, as authorities struggled to clear roads of debris and reach cut-off communities.

Torrential rains that have pounded an area stretching from southern Mexico nearly to Nicaragua eased somewhat, as rivers continued to rise and word filtered out from isolated areas of more deaths in landslides.

In Guatemala, 73 people were killed as rains unleashed lethal landslides across the country, according to government disaster relief spokesman David de Leon.

Tropical Storm Agatha made landfall near the nation's border with Mexico with winds up to 45 mph (75 kph) on Saturday and was dissipating rapidly Sunday over the mountains of western Guatemala.

In El Salvador, President Mauricio Funes warned that the danger had not yet passed and reported nine deaths.

"Although the storm appears to be diminishing in intensity, the situation across the country remains critical," Funes said.

Heart - Black

BP's psychopathic CEO disputes claims of underwater oil plumes in Gulf

BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward
© Patrick Semansky / The Associated PressBP Chief Executive Tony Hayward on Fourchon Beach in Port Fourchon last week.BP

Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward is refuting claims by scientists that there are large undersea plumes from the Gulf oil spill.

Hayward said Sunday the oil is on the water's surface, and that BP's sampling shows "no evidence" of oil in the water column.

Scientists from several universities have reported plumes of what appears to be oil suspended in clouds that stretch for miles and reach hundreds of feet beneath the Gulf's surface.

Question

Could Secret Saudi Spill Hold Fix for Gulf Slick?

gulf oil spill booms
© Eric Gay/ Associated PressA shrimp boat collects oil with booms in the waters of Chandeleur Sound, La., on May 5. An engineer who witnessed a crude spill in the Persian Gulf in 1993 says BP should use a fleet of empty supertankers to suck crude off the water's surface.
Even as proposals pour in for cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, one veteran of a massive (and secret) crude spill in the Persian Gulf says he has a tried-and-true solution.

Now if only the people who could make it happen would return his calls.

"No one's listening," says Nick Pozzi, who was an engineer with Saudi Aramco in the Middle East when he says an accident there in 1993 generated a spill far larger than anything the United States has ever seen.

According to Pozzi, that mishap, kept under wraps for close to two decades and first reported by Esquire, dumped nearly 800 million gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf, which would make it more than 70 times the size of the Exxon Valdez spill.

But remarkably, by employing a fleet of empty supertankers to suck crude off the water's surface, Pozzi's team was not only able to clean up the spill, but also salvage 85 percent of the oil, he says.

"We took [the oil] out of the water so it would save the environment off the Arabian Gulf, and then we put it into tanks until we could figure out how to clean it," he told AOL News.

While BP, the oil giant at the center of the recent accident, works to stanch the leak from the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig, Pozzi insists the company should be following his lead.

Bizarro Earth

Exxon Valdez cleanup holds lessons for Gulf oil spill

Exxon Valdez fishing boat
© Mark Thiessen/Associated PressAn Alaskan fishing boat returns from Prince William Sound. The state’s rocky shoreline still has pockets of spilled oil from the Exxon Valdez. The Gulf oil spill could have the same effect on the southeastern US coastline.
Oil from the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in 1989 may take centuries to disappear, says Exxon. How long will the Gulf oil spill linger?

Two decades after the Exxon Valdez supertanker ran aground and ripped open its cargo tanks, the spill still marks Alaska's environment. Pockets of fresh crude are buried in beaches scattered around Prince William Sound and segments outside it, in isolated spots along more than 1,200 miles of coastline that received oil in 1989.

The discovery confounded earlier predictions that remnant crude would quickly weather and disperse as waves washed it into the sea.

"At this rate, the remaining oil will take decades and possibly centuries to disappear entirely," concluded the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, the federal-state panel that administers the $900 million civil settlement struck in 1991 between the governments and Exxon for natural resource damages.

The lingering oil was a revelation to scientists like Gail Irvine of the United States Geological Survey (USGS), who found some still-fresh crude hundreds of miles away from Bligh Reef, along the Alaska Peninsula far outside Prince William Sound. "I was surprised," she says. "It was still goopy and aromatic. It was not asphalt."

Bizarro Earth

Swimming Through the Spill

For the last few days, attention has understandably been directed at the shores of the Gulf Coast as oil has started to wash up on beaches and in marshes. But last week I had the chance to see the effects of the spill from another perspective - when I dived into the oil slick a few miles off the Pass a Loutre wetlands in southern Louisiana. What I witnessed was a surreal, sickening scene beyond anything I could have imagined.

As the boat entered the slick, I had to cover my nose to block the fumes. There were patches of oil on the gulf's surface. In some places, the oil has mixed with an orange-brown pudding-like material, some of the 700,000 gallons of a chemical dispersant called Corexit 9500 that BP has sprayed on the spreading oil. Near Rig No. 313, technically a restricted zone, the boat stopped and I (wearing a wetsuit, with Vaseline covering exposed skin) jumped in.

Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: BP Oilpocalypse Creates Underwater Nightmare

On Good Morning America, correspondent Sam Champion and Philippe Cousteau Jr. explore the toxic plumes of dispersed oil floating beneath the waves in the Gulf of Mexico.

Phoenix

Big volcanic eruptions in Guatemala, Ecuador

Tungurahua volcano
© AP Photo/Dolores OchoaA view of the Tungurahua volcano throwing ashes in Huambalo, in Ecuador's central highlands, Friday, May 28, 2010. The Tungurahua has been constantly erupting since 1999.

Guatemala City - Explosive eruptions shook two huge volcanos in Central and South America on Friday, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes and disrupting air traffic as ash drifted over major cities.

Guatemala's Pacaya volcano started erupting lava and rocks Thursday afternoon, blanketing the country's capital with ash and forcing the closure of the international airport. A television reporter was killed by a shower of burning rocks when he got too close to the volcano, about 15 miles (25 kilometers) south of Guatemala City.

In the village of Calderas, close to the eruption, Brenda Castaneda said she and her family hid under beds and tables as marble-sized rocks thundered down on her home.

Arrow Down

SOTT Focus: Is It Raining Oil In Florida? This Is Just The Beginning

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© Sean Gardner/EPAGreenpeace senior campaigner Lindsey Allen walks through a patch of oil from the Deepwater Horizon on the breakwater in the mouth of the Mississippi river where it meets the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana
As early as May 9 it was announced that FEMA evacuation protocol for forest fires in and around Tampa, Florida could be activated at a moment's notice in the event of the oil slick approaching Florida's coastline. One proposal is to undergo a 'controlled burn' of surface oil in the Gulf to prevent the oil reaching Florida's coast. This would result in highly toxic fumes blowing ashore. In fact, toxic fumes have already been reported elsewhere as Gulf residents complain of breathing difficulties and nausea:
Oil is semi-volatile, which means that it can evaporate into the air and create a heavy vapor that stays near the ground -- in the human breathing zone. When winds whip up oily sea water, the spray contains tiny droplets -- basically a fume -- of oil, which are small enough to be inhaled deep into the lungs. We know that's happening in the Gulf Coast, because people are reporting a heavy oily smell in the air. Already my colleagues in Louisiana are reporting that people in the coastal community of Venice, Louisiana are suffering from nausea, vomiting, headaches, and difficulty breathing.
The following eyewitness account came to our attention yesterday:
Hi all,

Making this quick, don't feel well. About 4:15pm or so eastern, coming back from Tampa, Florida north on Veteran's Expressway...about 7 miles perhaps from SR 54...it sprinkled some gray watery and solid black oil on my car. Thought it was bugs, but so fast did not make sense and windshield wipers just smeared it. Got out of car at store and looked on the paint and solid black dots on my car...I touch? huh? it's wet? it's OIL!!!!!

I had several folks verify it before I sprayed it off and it came off easier than the few love bugs. Two hours later still wet like OIL! nope, not water, smell it, OIL!!!

Camera

Best of the Web: Gulf Oil Photo Essay


Bizarro Earth

Central and South America: Thousands Forced to Flee Volcanoes

Explosive eruptions have shaken two huge volcanoes in Central and South America, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes and disrupting air traffic as ash drifted over wide regions.

Guatemala's Pacaya volcano started spewing lava and rocks on Thursday, blanketing the country's capital with ash and forcing the closure of the international airport. President Alvaro Colom declared a "state of calamity".

Television reporter Anibal Archila was killed by a shower of burning rocks when he got too close to the volcano, about 15 miles south of Guatemala City, said David de Leon, a spokesman for the national disaster committee. The last images of Mr Archila broadcast by Channel 7 television show him standing in front of a lava river and burning trees, talking about the intense heat.

Mr De Leon said three children between the ages of seven and 12 were missing. At least 1,600 people from villages closest to the volcano were evacuated to shelters.

The volcano's eruption lost some intensity on Friday, although ash still rained heavily on nearby communities and constant explosions continued to shake the 8,373ft mountain, according to the Central American country's Geophysical Research and Services Unit. The unit reported an ash plume 3,000ft high which trailed more than 12 miles to the north-west.