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The Government is Dealing with the Oil Spill Like the Soviets Dealt with Chernobyl
The Soviet Union was famous for covering up its environmental disasters.
As award-winning journalist Dahr Jamail points out in a must-read article about the oil spill:
“It
is well known that after the Chernobyl accident, the Soviet government
immediately did everything possible to conceal the fact of the accident
and its consequences for the population and the environment: it issued
“top secret” instructions to classify all data on the accident,
especially as regards the health of the affected population,”
journalist Alla Yaroshinskaya has written.
In
1990 Yaroshinskaya came across documents about the Chernobyl nuclear
catastrophe that revealed a massive state cover-up operation, coupled
with a calculated policy of disinformation where the then Soviet
Union’s state and party leadership knowingly played down the extent of
the contamination and offered a sanitized version to the public, both
in and out of Russia. To date, studies continue to show ongoing human
and environmental damage from that disaster.
When
the disaster at Chernobyl occurred, it was only after radiation levels
triggered alarms at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden that the
Soviet Union admitted an accident had even occurred. Even then,
government authorities immediately began to attempt to conceal the
scale of the disaster.
But it's not just the communist Soviets ...
The U.S. also has a long history of covering up environmental and health disasters, as shown by the following examples.
The Bush administration covered up the health risks to New Orleans residents associated with polluted water from hurricane Katrina, and FEMA covered up the cancer risk from the toxic trailers which it provided to refugees of the hurricane.
The Centers for Disease Control - the lead agency tasked with addressing disease in America - covered up lead poisoning in children in the Washington, D.C. area.
The government's response to the outbreak of mad cow disease was simple: it stopped testing for mad cow, and prevented cattle ranchers and meat processors from voluntarily testing their own cows (and see this).
The government also underplayed the huge Tennessee coal ash spill. As the New York Times noted in 2008:
A
coal ash spill in eastern Tennessee that experts were already calling
the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States is more than three times as large as initially estimated, according to an updated survey by the Tennessee Valley Authority.
***
The
amount now said to have been spilled is larger than the amount the
authority initially said was in the pond, 2.6 million cubic yards.
(The former head of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy says that the government whitewashed the whole coal ash investigation.)
And
the government allegedly ordered Manhattan Project scientists to
whitewash the toxicity of flouride (flouride is a byproduct in the
production of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium). As Project Censored noted in 1999:
Recently
declassified government documents have shed new light on the
decades-old debate over the fluoridation of drinking water, and have
added to a growing body of scientific evidence concerning the health
effects of fluoride. Much of the original evidence about fluoride,
which suggested it was safe for human consumption in low doses, was
actually generated by “Manhattan Project” scientists in the 1940s. As
it turns out, these officials were ordered by government powers to
provide information that would be “useful in litigation” and that would
obfuscate its improper handling and disposal. The once top-secret
documents, say the authors, reveal that vast quantities of fluoride,
one of the most toxic substances known, were required for the
production of weapons-grade plutonium and uranium. As a result,
fluoride soon became the leading health hazard to bomb program workers
and surrounding communities.
Studies commissioned after chemical
mishaps by the medical division of the “Manhattan Project” document
highly controversial findings. For instance, toxic accidents in the
vicinity of fluoride-producing facilities like the one near Lower Penns
Neck, New Jersey, left crops poisoned or blighted, and humans and
livestock sick. Symptoms noted in the findings included extreme joint
stiffness, uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea, severe headaches, and
death. These and other facts from the secret documents directly
contradict the findings concurrently published in scientific journals
which praised the positive effects of fluoride.
Regional
environmental fluoride releases in the northeast United States also
resulted in several legal suits against the government by farmers after
the end of World War II, according to Griffiths and Bryson. Military
and public health officials feared legal victories would snowball,
opening the door to further suits which might have kept the bomb
program from continuing to use fluoride. With the Cold War underway,
the New Jersey lawsuits proved to be a roadblock to America’s already
full-scale production of atomic weapons. Officials were subsequently
ordered to protect the interests of the government.
After the war, ... the dissemination of misinformation continued.
These
are just a few of many examples showing that the U.S. has long acted
just like the Soviets in covering up the magnitude of environmental
disasters.
Government Says Oil Has Disappeared
The
government is now saying that almost all of the oil has already
disappeared, and that the small amounts of remaining oil are not toxic.
Many have pointed out that it is still easy to find oil even on the surface. As National Geographic points out:
In fact, scientists are still finding plenty of spilled Gulf oil—whether it's bubbling up from under Louisiana's islands, trapped underneath Florida's sugar-white beaches, or in the ocean's unseen reaches. (See pictures of spilled Gulf oil found just under Florida beaches.)
This week, biological oceanographer Markus Huettel and colleague Joel Kostka dug trenches on a cleaned Pensacola beach and discovered large swaths of oil up to two feet (nearly a meter) deep.
Oil gets trapped underground when tiny oil droplets penetrate porous sand or when waves deposit tarballs and then cover them with sand, said Huettel, of Florida State University in Tallahassee.
(Read more about oil found under "clean" Florida beaches earlier this month.)
And see photographer Julie Dermansky's report.
As the Washington Post points out, scientists aren't buying the government's spin either:
But,
in interviews, [government] scientists who worked on the report said
the figures were based in large part on assumptions and estimates with
a significant margin of error.
Some outside scientists went
further: In a situation in which many facts remain murky, they said,
the government seemed to have used interpretations that made the gulf
-- and the federal efforts to save it -- look as good as possible.
"There's
a lot of . . . smoke and mirrors in this report," said Ian MacDonald, a
professor of biological oceanography at Florida State University. "It
seems very reassuring, but the data aren't there to actually bear out
the assurances that were made."
***
But scientists who
worked on the report said many of the numbers on the WhiteHouse's pie
chart had significant margins of error. The estimate of how much oil
evaporated was calculated using a formula designed for spills near the surface, not 5,000 feet underwater.
The calculation of how much oil would be "dispersed" as it flowed from
the well was a new one, extrapolated from data about the way oil is
broken by waves.
***
The situation is "being portrayed
as 'the oil is out of the environment; it's gone,' " said Michael J.
Blum, a professor at Tulane University in New Orleans. But, he said,
all that's certain is that "the form of the oil has shifted. Dispersed
oil is still oil. It's just in a different form."
Indeed,
because - according to the US Minerals Management Service and a
consortium of oil companies, including BP, themselves - as little as 2% of the oil which spilled from BP's oil well ever made it to the surface, any formula based on surface spills is worthless.
In other words, as much as 98% of the spilled oil may not yet have even
made it to the surface, but may have been suspended under the surface
the whole time.
And since the government and BP have been using
Corexit to sink the small proportion of oil visible from the surface,
that means that more than 98% of the oil might be lurking beneath the surface.
National Geographic makes a similar point:
To University of South Florida chemical oceanographer David Hollander, the NOAA estimates are "ludicrous."
"It's almost comical."
According
to Hollander, the government can account for only about 25 percent of
the spilled Gulf oil—the portion that's been skimmed, burned off,
directly collected, and so on.
The remaining 75 percent is still unaccounted for, he said.
For
instance, the report considers all submerged oil to be dispersed and
therefore not harmful, Hollander said. But, given the unknown effects
of oil and dispersants at great depths, that's not necessarily the
case, he added.
"There are enormous blanket assumptions."
***
Oil
cleanup is mostly getting rid of what's on the surface, [Robert Carney,
a biological oceanographer at Louisiana State University in Baton
Rouge] said. There's a common perception that "as long as you keep it
off the beach, everything's hunky dory," he added.
***
Whether
microbes munch the oil—the most common way oil breaks down—depends on
how much oxygen is available for the tiny organisms to do their work....
"So
far, we haven't seen any rapid degradation in these deep layers,"
[biological oceanographer Markus Huettel] said, though he noted oil at
the top of the sand has been disappearing within days.
With little oxygen, the buried oil may stay for years, until a storm or hurricane wipes away the upper sand layers.
Previous
oil spills suggest that the buried beach oil may continuously migrate
not only out to sea but also into groundwater, where it can harm
wildlife, Huettel said.
Oil-laden groundwater in Alaska following the Exxon Valdez spill, for instance, led to "significantly elevated" death in pink salmon embryos between 1989 and 1993, he said....
Another "open question" remains, FSU's Huettel noted: What is happening to the oil deep in the Gulf?
For
the first time during an oil-spill response, officials used chemical
dispersants to break up oil at ocean depths between 4,000 and 5,000
feet (1,200 and 1,500 meters). The dispersant-treated oil bits may have
sunk to the seafloor, Huettel said.
In the cold, dark
ocean, this mixture of oil and chemical dispersants may be suspended
and preserved, causing long-term problems for deep-sea animals, Texas
Tech University ecotoxicologist Ron Kendell said during August 4
testimony before the U.S. Congress.
"We have very limited
information on the environmental fate and transport of the mixture of
dispersant and oil, particularly in the deep ocean," Kendall said.
Some
oil fragments are so tiny they can't be seen with the human eye, said
the University of South Florida's Hollander. Others are big enough to
be gobbled up by baby fish that mistake the oil for food....
Predicting
what will happen to the deep-sea ecosystem is "uncharted territory,"
said Hollander, who's studying what the oil is doing to deep-sea
creatures during a series of research cruises this summer and fall.
***
"We're
getting into something different than the 2-D petroleum spill" on the
Gulf's surface, he added. "All of the sudden you've taken this 2-D
disaster and turned it into a 3-D catastrophe."
And the Guardian notes:
"Recent
reports seem to say that about 75% of the oil is taken care of and that
is just not true," said John Kessler, of Texas A&M University, who
led a National Science Foundation on-site study of the spill. "The fact
is that 50% to 75% of the material that came out of the well is still
in the water. It's just in a dissolved or dispersed form."
Would I Lie To You, Comrade?
Florida
State University oceanographer Ian McDonald points out that the
government scientists claiming almost all of the oil is gone are the
same folks who said that only 5,000 barrels of oil were leaking a day,
and who denied that there were underwater plumes:
Anderson Cooper made a similar point:
The
bottom line is that the government's entire response to the oil spill
is to try to cover it up, just as the Soviets tried to do with
Chernobyl, and just as the U.S. government has done with the financial crisis, torture, 9/11, the anthrax attack, and every other crisis.
- advertisements -
Browner: (oil's gone)
(Bloomberg)
http://video-static.clipsyndicate.com/cs-video/flash/production/3/flvpla...
Joye: Where has all the Oil Gone? (Aug 1)
http://gulfblog.uga.edu/2010/08/where-has-the-oil-gone/
Today's teleconference (Aug 10) with Joye at 11am ET 888-204-5987 access code 2560397
how about an update on the methane bubble, the tsunami, the second leak, the underground lake of oil, etc etc, all of which were going to imminently wipe out the southern USA?
Or is all that forgotten now and we're on to some new tack?
See the problem with making ridiculous, irrational claims is that when you have something that might actually have some truth to it, no one takes you seriously
You are recalling the Geo Wash that the Chicken Littles love so much. The second well seems to have stopped flowing oil at the same time as the first one did. Damned amazing how those BP engineers were able to kill two wells with one kill pill. Wasn't it seven miles away?
Robert Cavnar says there's still pressure on the wellhead.
VWbug
It's early dude, give it a few more months.
absolutely true.
More like give it a few years before we know all the effects.
As I have said repeatedly, my only issue is with the morons who made outrageous, uneducated claims (who now seem to be scrambling madly to distance themselves from those claims)
Provide some quotes and links please. You've been asked this before. I think people were considering and being afraid of some of the possibilities Simmons laid out.
I know I didn't make any of those claims, but you're still being rude to me...
when did George say there was an underground lake of oil? (perhaps you could provide a quote and a link)
I think you confuse him with Matt Simmons who was featured regularly on Bloomberg, CNN etc.)
oh yeah, that's right, GW didn't buy any of that, he was very critical of Matt.
Talk about revisionist history, lol.
great comeback VW, thanks for the links
you act like I really think I could convince a conspiracy theorist of anything, I don't, and I don't care if you all want to live cowering in fear of disasters, depressions and silent black helicopters.
But let's ask GW himself:
Hey GW, this guy says you never believed any of Simmons' claims? That true?
+666 triple-word-score
The troll works the label 'conspiracy-theorist' and the term 'black helipcopters' into the SAME SENTENCE! Triple-multiplier for the completely novel and heretofore unseen use of the adjective SILENT. Way to go!
LOL, best reply to the troll yet. He can't be hungry anymore can he? We're all feeding him so much and all...
Yeh... The "silent" thing was pretty cool. I didn't know. I'll have to bring up that very real possibility at our next "meeting"...
VW you made the statement, so I am thinking you probably should try and back it up, just think what that would do for your credibility.
work?? I had 25 years of that, no more for me, thank you very much.
Credibility? I am just stating my POV. Take it or leave it, no skin off my back.
How soon we forget huh ms creant ? Love freedom of speech...
You look like you are freely speaking/typing to me. No one has tried to stop you that I can perceive. It also looks like you lack the capacity to admit when you are wrong. Too bad. You said he said things he did not say and you will not own it.
I'll leave you alone. You got scapes and stuff all over your back.
Medic!!! We need triage over here.
I think you mean rug burns all over his knees. I hear Hayward has the best vintage 70's shag carpet at his place in the Virgin Islands.
So you as well are saying GW's POV was Simmons'theories were all bullshit?
Hey ok, I was wrong, we all agree Simmons was spouting nonsense and the whole gulf spill was wildly exaggerated.
wow, that was easy.
Whatawiener.
You talk awfully big for somebody who hasn't been around for even three weeks. Put up or shut up. It's how we roll.
'it's how we roll'
oh jesus...where do I begin...how about re reading your comment and then look up hypocrite
it's how we roll....hahahaha next you'll be calling me dawg or yelling 'lock and load!!'
too funny
Dude, all you can do is levy ad hominem attacks and make hasty generalizations (i recognize the irony there, and i'm opening the door for you to commit a circumstantial ad hominem attack). How much do you get paid for your services, because you know you can charge more when you're more subtle.
Anywho, read-up on your fallacies, its fun!
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/circumstantial-ad-hominem.html
funny how when anyone disagrees with the doomsters looney theories the immediate and only refutation is 'you must be a paid shill'
ever consider that some people actually think rationally and therefore disagree with you?
ever notice only the conspiracy theorists claim that those who disagree with them are paid shills?
well I guess that does make sense lol
I actually have noticed that only the 'conspiracy theorists' claim that those who disagree with them are paid shills. That is because those who are able to look at things honestly, and with an open, rational, discerning mind, don't have to pay their minions to go out and push their agenda. That is because the truth speaks for itself.
I've also considered that people think rationally, but I don't believe they use that ability much. Between confirmation bias and our drive to believe lies when faced with the truth, we're not doing so hot as a species in the thinking department. Also, rational thinking and agreeing with me are not mutually exclusive, thank you very much.
I am glad that you are comforted by the narrative provided to you by the MSM. I, however, realize that since this thing began, its been damn near impossible to touch the truth with a 10 kilometer pole. So to claim that you know for a fact that everything is alright is complete and utter nonsense. You don't know whats going on down there any more than I do. I am trying to reserve judgement on this situation. I think it will really be years before we fully understand this. I will be relieved if, at that time, we find out that you were, in fact, correct and there is nothing to worry about. However, I think that you're being disingenuous if you're tying to claim that everything is alright. It might be, but you don't know that, so please stop pretending that you do.
nice try at diverting the discussion once again away from the lake of oil, the methane bubble, the volcano, the tsunami, the second oil leak etc.
I never said everything was fine and in fact posted quite the opposite, what I am saying is i am gonna hound you doomsters about your looney claims of death and destruction, so get used to it, lol.
(I won't bother asking you to post where I said it was all good etc etc)
I don't take issue with stuff re: methane, volcano, tsunami. I take issue with the claims that the oil evaporated and is now gone missing.
You are putting words in his mouth. Wang never said GW did or did not believe Simmon's claims. You do sloppy work.
get fluoride out of your body with borax;
add 1/8-1/4 tsp (depending on body weight) of borax
to 1 liter of water (preferably reverse osmosis filtered)
and sip throughout the day.
http://www.earthclinic.com/Remedies/borax.html
George, you do have the ability to attract large numbers of trolls. Congratulations!
Geo Wash is the primo Troll.
come on, flouride?
Fluoride is TOXIC WASTE. Look it up for yourself.
It displaces iodine in our bodies.
Between vaccinations in the DOZENS and fluoride, can't believe we are actually surprised that asthma, allergies and autism are skyrocketing. Not even mentioning obesity which can be partially attributed to low levels of Vitamin D and iodine in our children.
Quit believing the powers that be about ANYTHING, or deal with the "side effects."
BTW, the government is voting on a bill granting Monsanto the 100% control of ALL farming in the US, including the control over my 10x10 garden. The bill will make it illegal for me to give cucumbers to my neighbors. Sweet.
"In 2007, the Centers for Disease Control released the latest national survey data on the rate of dental fluorosis among US teenagers (3). The survey, conducted between 1999 and 2004 by CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), found that 41% of 12-15 year olds, and 36% of 16-19 year olds, have dental fluorosis. In other words, over 1 in 3 American teenagers now display a visible sign of fluoride overexposure. This is the highest national rate of fluorosis ever recorded in the US, far higher than the 1-10% range found in the 1940s, and considerably higher than the 23% found to be affected in the 1980s."
Toxic MCD & KO, PEP also to blame..
The cancer causing effects of flouride are well documented. Please read up! It will do you good...
Sean7k
Better than that read a toothpaste label.
"Pensacola beach and discovered large swaths of oil up to two feet (nearly a meter) deep."
Uh, no, that's not nearly a meter. Try about "up to" half as much... presumably a lot less.
The application of hyperbole undermines the credibility of the whole discussion.
BWAWHAW...Hyperbole? Is that really what you meant to say?
Sounds like troll humor.
GEORGE! You're back!
Did the secret meeting with Soros go well?
LOVE the new tinfoil hat !
The new one is probably double heavy weight tin. If only the IQ was a large as the hat size . . . .
Environmental and Health Impacts of the GoM voilcano:
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article21717.html
GEORGE! You're back!
LOVE freedom of speech.
LOVE freedom of the press.
+1
We have a choice: believe the government or read. Thank you George for the report, but I am neither surprised nor angry.
The US government does not function for the benefit of the people. (unless those people are part of the top 1%). The other 99% are expendable. Uses include war fodder, debt slaves and medical experimentation.
Better yet, people are patriotic about the whole exercise. I would venture we are the dumbest people on the planet, except all governments pursue the same practices and their captive audiences all applaude at the end of the show.
America is merely the modern poster child for evil, an evil practiced by man against all inhabitants of the earth since recorded history and beyond. Celebrate the great satan, for he is us.
good to see you back GW,
Smoke, dust from Trade Center could trigger asthma, emphysema, other lung disease attacks
September 12. 2001 (AP)
"the primary environmental concern about the disaster right now is asbestos said Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman"
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xScPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=fIUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6...
EPA CHIEF SAYS WATER, AIR ARE SAFEFriday, September 14th 2001,
The city's air and water are safe, Environmental Protection Agency chief Christie Whitman said yesterday
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2001/09/14/2001-09-14_epa_chief...
This from the San Francisco Chronicle in 2003
EPA misled public on 9/11 pollution / White House ordered false assurances on air quality, report sayshttp://articles.sfgate.com/2003-08-23/news/17506140_1_epa-draft-asbestos...
Ground zero air quality was 'brutal' for months / UC Davis scientist concurs that EPA reports misled the publichttp://articles.sfgate.com/2003-09-10/news/17507000_1_marianne-horinko-e...
Time to STFU about this topic IMO.
Sorry to pile on, but I just wanted to be part of a record junking! I've never seen anyone get 32 junks!
Well done.
Illya, I guess you don´t live near the gulf.
Proud to junk you, though I hope you are kidding. Do you think the oil magically went, well, where exactly?
a lot of it was dispersed and is still hanging around, but a huge amount EVAPORATED, google it.