(June 10) -- Constantly updating headlines, endless government revelations, snarky political attacks and airwaves saturated with British Petroleum's self-serving mea culpas have left many with the belief that a big hunk of America's prime spawning ground for seafood is shut down.
Indeed, floating islands of reddish-brown oil and rainbow sheens cover a third of the massive Gulf of Mexico. Nevertheless, shrimp and crab are abundant and safe to eat and half the sprawling oyster beds are open for harvesting. Everything costs more, but less-expensive foreign shellfish -- to which some restaurant suppliers and fishmongers are considering switching -- could be far more hazardous to your health.
And, across the country, diners are still lining up, and being served most of their favorite Gulf seafood.
Even with menacing skies and tornado warnings in the area on Sunday, Cantler's Riverside Inn in Annapolis, Md., served almost 2,500 steamed Louisiana Blue Crabs, drenched in Maryland's official spice, Old Bay.
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"All of us involved in supplying Gulf seafood are getting our asses kicked because some people don't believe that we're still in business down here," said Robbie Walker, owner of the Louisiana Seafood Exchange. "This means everyone's getting hammered, from the shrimpers, crabbers, oystermen, the truck drivers, the processors and those who sell it.
"We need consumers to understand and believe that we're delivering a safe, quality product, because we are."
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John Adams “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”
Ronald Reagan: 'Everybody that is for abortion has already been born'
"I never said I was worth it. I only said I wouldn't do it for less " William F. Buckley Jr.
Hey gris, no comment on how unprecedented this spill really is? How could the LA fisherman actually be out fishing and supplying product if it's so bad down there?
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John Adams “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”
Ronald Reagan: 'Everybody that is for abortion has already been born'
"I never said I was worth it. I only said I wouldn't do it for less " William F. Buckley Jr.
FM: You seem to be saying "eh... no biggie." While I agree that things will get back to normal, as they did after Ixtoc, and that this certainly is not a reason to stop off-shore drilling, which is a simplistic knee-jerk reaction undertaken by morons, this is, nonetheless, a major environmental disaster. Personally, I'd prefer to have a Gulf of Mexico, and sandy beaches, and fresh seafood that aren't tainted by 100 Million Gallons of crude oil.
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HOUSTON – With each new look by scientists, the oil spill just keeps looking worse.
New figures for the blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico show the amount of oil spewing may have been up to twice as much as previously thought, according to scientists consulting with the federal government.
That could mean 42 million gallons to more than 100 million gallons of oil have already fouled the Gulf's fragile waters, affecting people who live, work and play along the coast from Louisiana to Florida — and perhaps beyond.
It is the third — and perhaps not the last — time the U.S. government has had to increase its estimate of how much oil is gushing. Trying to clarify what has been a contentious and confusing issue, officials on Thursday gave a wide variety of estimates.
All the new spill estimates are worse than earlier ones and far more costly for BP, which has seen its stock sink since the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and triggered the spill. Most of Thursday's estimates had more oil flowing in an hour than what officials once said was spilling in an entire day.
"This is a nightmare that keeps getting worse every week," said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. "We're finding out more and more information about the extent of the damage. ... Clearly we can't trust BP's estimates of how much oil is coming out."
The spill was flowing at a daily rate that could possibly have been as high as 2.1 million gallons, twice the highest number the federal government had been saying, U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt, who is coordinating estimates, said Thursday. But she said possibly more credible numbers are a bit lower.
And the estimate does not take into account the cutting of the riser pipe on June 3 — which BP said would increase the flow by about 20 percent — and subsequent placement of a cap. No estimates were given for the amount of oil gushing from the well after the cut. Nor are there estimates since a cap was put on the pipe, which already has collected more than 3 million gallons.
The estimates are not nearly complete and different teams have come up with different numbers. A new team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute came in with even higher estimates, ranging from 1 million gallons a day to 2.1 million gallons. If the high end is true, that means nearly 107 million gallons have spilled since April 20.
Even using other numbers that federal officials and scientists call a more reasonable range would have about 63 million gallons spilling since the rig explosion. If that amount was put in gallon milk jugs, they would line up for nearly 5,500 miles. That's the distance from the spill to London, where BP is headquartered, and then continuing on to Rome.
By comparison, the worst peacetime oil spill, 1979's Ixtoc 1 in Mexico, was about 140 million gallons over 10 months. The Gulf spill hasn't yet reached two months. The Exxon Valdez, the previous worst U.S. oil spill, was just about 11 million gallons, and the new figures mean Deepwater Horizon is producing an Exxon Valdez size spill every five to 13 days
Too funny, I use your numbers for Ixtoc spill and you object. You go on further and say it doesn't count even though it was in the same waters, the main seafood industry recovered with in 2 years because it doesn't fit your doom and gloom model. I post an actual article showing that fishing isn't closed in Gulf and you object. Not only do you object, you call ME bagdad bob for posting facts and/or using your numbers.
I'm truely sorry for posting such bad news for you. I'm sure you wish the gulf was out of business for years. Sorry to disappoint you. Maybe next time.
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John Adams “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”
Ronald Reagan: 'Everybody that is for abortion has already been born'
"I never said I was worth it. I only said I wouldn't do it for less " William F. Buckley Jr.
Sorry, ipsc, never saw your post. Fact is, no body wishes this disaster had happen. It did happen and whats going on now is major, blow it out of proportion. We have to stop drilling. We need to lock up BP. We need to seize the company. Everything is going to be dead. It's just no fricking true and its crazy because the truth/reality isn't getting out.
More bad news for you Gris. Of course we already know you have to dismiss the Ixtoc because it doesn't fit your doom and gloom out come. However, it's very close to what we are seeing today and the end result will work abvout to being very similar.
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MALAQUITE BEACH, Texas -- The oil was everywhere, long black sheets of it, 15 inches thick in some places. Even if you stepped in what looked like a clean patch of sand, it quickly and gooily puddled around your feet. And Wes Tunnell, as he surveyed the mess, had only one bleak thought: "Oh, my God, this is horrible! It's all gonna die!"
But it didn't. Thirty-one years since the worst oil spill in North American history blanketed 150 miles of Texas beach, tourists noisily splash in the surf and turtles drag themselves into the dunes to lay eggs.
"You look around, and it's like the spill never happened," shrugs Tunnell, a marine biologist. "There's a lot of perplexity in it for many of us."
For Tunnell and others involved in the fight to contain the June 3, 1979, spill from Mexico's Ixtoc 1 offshore well in the Gulf of Campeche, the BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico conjures an eerie sense of déjà vu.
Like the BP spill, the Ixtoc disaster began with a burst of gas followed by an explosion and fire, followed by a relentless gush of oil that resisted all attempts to block it. Plugs of mud and debris, chemical dispersants, booms skimming the surface of the water: Mexico's Pemex oil company tried them all, but still the spill inexorably crept ashore, first in southeast Mexico, later in Texas.
But if the BP spill seems to be repeating one truth already demonstrated in the Ixtoc spill - that human technology is no match for a high-pressure undersea oil blowout - scientists are hoping that it may eventually confirm another: that the environment has a stunning capacity to heal itself from manmade insults.
"The environment is amazingly resilient, more so than most people understand," says Luis A. Soto, a deep-sea biologist with advanced degrees from Florida State University and the University of Miami who teaches at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
"To be honest, considering the magnitude of the spill, we thought the Ixtoc spill was going to have catastrophic effects for decades. ... But within a couple of years, almost everything was close to 100 percent normal again."
Then, a hurricane
But after three months in which nothing went right, Texas had some good luck - or, to put it in a glass-half-empty way, Alabama and Mississippi had some bad luck. Hurricane Frederic, while plowing into those two states, sent tides of two-foot waves reeling into the Texas shoreline. Overnight, half the 3,900 tons of oil piled up on Texan beaches disappeared. And human cleanup efforts began putting a dent in the rest.
Even in Mexico, which had neither the resources nor the hurricanes of the United States, the oil began disappearing under a ferocious counterattack by nature. In the water, much of it evaporated; on beaches, the combined forces of pounding waves, ultraviolet light and petroleum-eating microbes broke it down.
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John Adams “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”
Ronald Reagan: 'Everybody that is for abortion has already been born'
"I never said I was worth it. I only said I wouldn't do it for less " William F. Buckley Jr.
Sorry for the bad news Gris
