Massive Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill

[Broomstick]

You think BP would have gotten it by now during the short time this has been going on. Practically every eye is on this situation and by extension BP. They have already gotten blow back from being less that honest, and yet the bullshit keeps piling up. Better to just come completely fucking clean and try to salvage what you can of your company's reputation.

The guys in control here don't care about the company reputation. People don't seem to get that. They care ONLY about themselves. No one and nothing else. Fuck the fishermen, the wildlife, the environment, fuck the company, fuck everyone and everything so long as THEY are insulated from consequences and can retain their wealth and privilege.

Instead these fuckers just keep digging themselves into an ever deeper hole. At this rate, when all is said and done they'll be lucky people aren't literally coming for them with torches, pitchforks, and rope to string their asses up.

They believe themselves immune to peasant uprisings. They will just take their private jets to someplace else.

[Temujin]

We've seen that already, with BP saying this is all Transocean's and Halliburton's fault.

Well I'm sure that Transocean, and particularly Halliburton are also to blame, however, it is primarily BPs responsibility and fault.

The guys in control here don't care about the company reputation. People don't seem to get that. They care ONLY about themselves. No one and nothing else. Fuck the fishermen, the wildlife, the environment, fuck the company, fuck everyone and everything so long as THEY are insulated from consequences and can retain their wealth and privilege.

Instead these fuckers just keep digging themselves into an ever deeper hole. At this rate, when all is said and done they'll be lucky people aren't literally coming for them with torches, pitchforks, and rope to string their asses up.

They believe themselves immune to peasant uprisings. They will just take their private jets to someplace else.

Sadly your right, just like the Wall Street sociopaths, they care nothing, not even for their own company. If collectively they aren't the absolute best example on a personal level of what is wrong with libertarianism and unfettered capitalism, and why it ultimately doesn't work I don't know what is.

The only way I see the top BP guys getting hauled into court is if the situation gets back enough the oil starts washing up on the shores of Great Britain - and frankly, I'd rather the problem get fixed, or at least contained, before it gets that bad.

This was my thought as well, unfortunately some estimates are looking at continued leaking till Christmas, and that's just taking into account the leak we know about. There has been a lot of speculation of leaking from other areas including the seabed itself. The problem is, with BP controlling most of the access and information, we won't know what the true situation is until after its far too late to fix anything.

At this point I'm convinced that by the time we do get this under control (assuming we actually do), this will be hands down the absolute worst ecological disaster in human history. The only question will be by just how large of a margin.

[Broomstick]

We've seen that already, with BP saying this is all Transocean's and Halliburton's fault.

Well I'm sure that Transocean, and particularly Halliburton are also to blame, however, it is primarily BPs responsibility and fault.

Yes, but from the start BP has been trying to make a case it is NONE of their fault, just Transocean and Halliburton and BP is an "innocent" victim.

This was my thought as well, unfortunately some estimates are looking at continued leaking till Christmas, and that's just taking into account the leak we know about. There has been a lot of speculation of leaking from other areas including the seabed itself.

Do understand that petroleum leaks, or petroleum seeps from the ground are, indeed, a natural phenomena to a certain degree. One famous one is La Brea Tar Pits in Los Ageles, California. The Wiki on petroleum seeps states that there about 600 naturally occurring seeps around the Gulf Coast of North America. In 2003 there were asphalt volcanoes - that is, volcanoes formed of asphalt from petroleum deposits erupting to the surface - discovered in the Gulf of Mexico. (They've also been found off California).

So, yes, there really are "oil leaks" in the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico. That is beyond dispute. In fact, those naturally occurring "leaks" is one of the features that lead to drilling in the Gulf.

The real question is how many are natural and how many are not?

I'm sure BP will try to pass off all other leaks as natural, but you and I know that may not be the case at all. And none of the natural leaks erupts in such quantity as the current disastrously-gone-wrong well. This is not nature run amok here.

The problem is, with BP controlling most of the access and information, we won't know what the true situation is until after its far too late to fix anything.

True.

It may be the case that is it already too late to save the Gulf. We just don't know yet, either way.

[J]

And on a lighter note...

[Temujin]

Well I remember hearing on Olbermann or Maddow (or maybe both, the days are blurring together) from at least a few different guest experts that they think that some of these rather huge oil plumes that they keep finding are coming from something other than the busted pipe. One expert said that it was due to the type and consistency of some of the oils, which differ from what's coming out of the pipe. Also, it seems that some of the plumes are made up of completely different kinds of oil; i.e., one was described as black and tarry, while another was thin and like vegetable oil. I wish I had a more concrete link; I may have to go rewatch some of those episodes and try to track down who said what, and see if they've posted anything online. If anyone has any corroborating info please chime in.

[Temujin]

Found this blog with a link to one of the videos. It was Dylan Ratigan, not Olbermann or Maddow.

Many people are now looking at the live feed video to watch as BP and the Fed Gov try this Top Kill method to fill the pipe with mud and cement.

Simmons and Pozzi are agreed that the live feed is showing the smaller of the two leaks. That there is a much larger leak that they are not allowing to be filmed. That this small, 7 inch rip in the pipe is not pushing out enough oil to account for the large plumes that have been recorded 7 miles away.

These plumes are several hundred feet thick and bigger, now, than both Maryland and Delaware together. (size comparison in video)

Here’s the video from Ratigan’s show earlier on the afternoon of the 26th:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/37363529#

[montypython]

The only way I see the top BP guys getting hauled into court is if the situation gets back enough the oil starts washing up on the shores of Great Britain - and frankly, I'd rather the problem get fixed, or at least contained, before it gets that bad.

This was my thought as well, unfortunately some estimates are looking at continued leaking till Christmas, and that's just taking into account the leak we know about. There has been a lot of speculation of leaking from other areas including the seabed itself. The problem is, with BP controlling most of the access and information, we won't know what the true situation is until after its far too late to fix anything.

At this point I'm convinced that by the time we do get this under control (assuming we actually do), this will be hands down the absolute worst ecological disaster in human history. The only question will be by just how large of a margin.

If that's the case it really would be preferable for those scumbags to be dealt with the same way the Russians deal with terrorists, they might as well have deliberately started an oil well fire by sabotage for all intents and purposes.

[wautd]

It's tragic that dutch and belgian companies have the technology to assist with closing the oil leak but aren't allowed due to an old protectionist law called the Jones Act. (or that's what I just read in my newspaper anyway, no link in english yet).

[Rogue 11]

From what I hear the company my dad works at as a section leader is getting in on the action to handle this.

Clampon Inc works with advanced sensors for use in oil (Mostly for detecting sand in the pipes but a few branch outs to other types of sensors as well as well) and will be helping with trying to make the relief well drilling hit their target.

They've done similar stuff in in the North Sea, admittedly the opposite where they helped drilling avoid hitting the other well which is easier, but from what I understand they were required then to give as exact a location as possible so provided they did that properly their job is the same.

Here's to hoping they succeed.

[Akkleptos]

The thing that really worries me is that I've heard somewhere that, with the change of tides, or seasonal water current changes, this might blow back to Mexico, where we had nothing to do with the spill in the first place.

We're one of the countries in the world that have to protect biological megadiversity. And if the US have failed to do so in the face of this debacle, what can we do?

Do understand that petroleum leaks, or petroleum seeps from the ground are, indeed, a natural phenomena to a certain degree. One famous one is La Brea Tar Pits in Los Ageles, California. The Wiki on petroleum seeps states that there about 600 naturally occurring seeps around the Gulf Coast of North America. In 2003 there were asphalt volcanoes - that is, volcanoes formed of asphalt from petroleum deposits erupting to the surface - discovered in the Gulf of Mexico. (They've also been found off California).

Yeah, but at these levels? Really, come on!

[MKSheppard]

So this continuing mess is showing how utterly incompetent Obama is.

Link

John Lapoint of Packgen in Auburn, Maine, says he’s got plenty of floating oil containment boom and can make lots more on short notice. There’s just one problem: no one will buy it from him.

He’s already had a representative from BP visit his factory and inspect his product. The governor of Maine, John Baldacci, visited the facility and made a video plea to no one in particular to close the deal. Maine Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins wrote a letter on May 21 to the secretary of the Interior, the administrator of NOAA, and the commandant of the Coast Guard to alert them to the existence of Packgen, their supply of boom, and their demonstrated capacity to make more. I have no idea if those are the correct persons and agencies to notify about the manufacturing capacity and the availability of boom. One wonders if the senators know.

Then there's rumor that why we haven't been using supertankers to suck up the oil at sea and then filter them on the ships themselves via simple gravity settling of the oil in the ship's tanks (water is pumped out) is because the tankers have foreign crews and the US Seamen's unions hate them.

Part of the post-Exxon Valdez reforms were a series of laws that gave the Feds unitary authority and power over cleanup operations -- but Obama is not doing a damn thing to use those powers -- he's just blustering on television instead of seizing the cleanup operation and issuing an executive order delegating near unlimited authority to various people in the government's clean up effort.

Need to pay several million bucks to a company that makes oil booms in CT with no competitive bidding right away? DONE.

Need to buy several dozen supertankers and reflag them under our flag and place US Naval Reservists or U.S. Merchant Seamen in charge of them? DONE.

Hell, we can use the 1950s/1960s/1970s FEMA Executive Orders signed by previous presidents to conscript huge masses of people to clean the beaches by hand with kitchen sponges.

Instead; he blusters because he doesn't want to to make decisions that might be questioned.

[MKSheppard]

This on-going disaster is really going to severely dent the FedGov's credibility in the South.

One of the things both spectrums in the US (left/right) agree on is that the FedGov is ideal for superhuman mass efforts like this that would utterly swamp or be out of scope monetarily, and organizationally wise for a company or state/local government.

But other than the usual deployment of the USCG and National Guard helicopters in the region; IIRC, not much has really been done -- like for example, the Feds could be trawling the entire global market for oil booms and buying things up, no matter how ridiculous the cost is - since it beats a costly cleanup of the oil after it's gotten into the marshes/beaches.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Is there any evidence you can provide that this spill could be in any significant capacity successfully boomed, especially considering subsurface plumes?

[CaptainChewbacca]

Is there any evidence you can provide that this spill could be in any significant capacity successfully boomed, especially considering subsurface plumes?

There's surface oil in every saltwater marsh from New Orleans to the florida panhandle! Booms would be protecting the coastal ecology significantly. That's like saying 'We can't stop the cancer, might as well not cure the gangrene either.' Minimizing the surface spread of the oil would be HUGELY beneficial to the cleanup efforts.

[Broomstick]

Do understand that petroleum leaks, or petroleum seeps from the ground are, indeed, a natural phenomena to a certain degree. One famous one is La Brea Tar Pits in Los Ageles, California. The Wiki on petroleum seeps states that there about 600 naturally occurring seeps around the Gulf Coast of North America. In 2003 there were asphalt volcanoes - that is, volcanoes formed of asphalt from petroleum deposits erupting to the surface - discovered in the Gulf of Mexico. (They've also been found off California).

Yeah, but at these levels? Really, come on!

Did you even finish reading my post? I made it very clear that the current level of floating oil is in no way natural.

[Temujin]

Well as more and more evidence of the existence of these 'plumes' is found, despite BP's continual denials, it looks like the American people are starting to take a dimmer and dimmer view of drilling for oil.

Poll: Support for oil drilling dwindles
Many fault federal regulators for Gulf of Mexico oil disaster
By Juliet Eilperin and Jon Cohen
The Washington Post
updated 3:12 p.m. ET, Wed., June 9, 2010

Just a quarter of Americans back expanding offshore drilling in the wake of the BP oil spill, and most fault federal regulators for the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Before the spill, the Obama administration lifted the moratorium on drilling in U.S. coastal waters as a way to address the country's energy needs. But most Americans now want fewer offshore wells (31 percent) or the amount kept at current levels (41 percent).

Perhaps as a consequence of the spill, public support for oil and gas drilling in general is also significantly lower than it was a year ago. And as Americans have become increasingly skeptical about such exploration, some elected representatives are now questioning what the government is doing in order to ensure energy exploration can take place safely offshore.

On Wednesday morning during a Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee hearing, the panel's chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), said the Gulf of Mexico oil spill underscores a failure on the part of both BP and the federal government.

"It's clear that prior to the explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig neither the companies involved nor the government adequately appreciated or prepared for the risks involved in a deepwater drilling operation of this type," Bingaman said. "The results of that failure to properly assess and prepare for risks have been disastrous. Lives have been lost. The livelihood and way of life of many Gulf residents have been interrupted and in some cases destroyed. The environmental damage has been immense."

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), another panel member, questioned Interior Secretary Ken Salazar why his department had let offshore drilling be guided by "a philosophy that basically said, step back and let industry police itself, even if there are tremendous risks to the American public."

The new Post-ABC poll reveals a widespread perception that poor federal regulation was at fault in the Gulf spill. Some 63 percent point a finger at inadequate enforcement of current regulations, and 55 percent see an overall weak regulatory structure. Even more, 73 percent, blame BP and its drilling partners for the accident. And the same number now call the spill a major environmental disaster.

In an interview Wednesday, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-WVa.) said it sometimes "takes a tragedy of these proportions" to give the American public and their elected representative the political will to impose stricter federal rules on energy exploration.

"They want to see professional, highly-trained inspectors that are not just pushing paper and rubber-stamping what the industry gives them," Rahall said of Americans. "They need to ask the tough questions and be truly concerned about holding these companies accountable."

The broad concern about government inaction directly relates to public support for new drilling: Those who see a weak regulatory structure as a reason for the spill are about twice as likely to want to curb offshore drilling than are those who don't see the need for stricter federal controls.

Another challenge for the administration as the leak continues is that there's a growing sense that it represents a big problem with offshore drilling itself. About half, 49 percent, now see the Gulf spill as part of a broader problem with such drilling; in a CBS News poll a month ago, a majority of Americans said they thought it was more aptly described as "an isolated incident." Support for drilling in general has slipped from 64 percent last August to 52 percent now.

Even as Salazar highlighted the steps the administration has taken to tighten safety rules for drilling off the Outer Continental Shelf, such as rules announced Tuesday that will require stricter inspections of a well's blowout preventer and casings, Gulf Coast officials insisted Salazar had gone too far in halting drilling.

"This could be devastating to our state, and to the Gulf Coast," asked Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), warning 330,000 Louisiana jobs are at stake due to the temporary drilling moratorium. "I am asking: can you give any time certain, can you give any confidence that we can keep our people at work, that could get our people back to work?"

"We have put the pause button until we can have a sense of safety that this can never happen again," Salazar replied.

When asked a similar question by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who suggested "the pause button" may have become "the stop button," Salazar answered that when it came to predicting when deep water drilling will resume, "Senator Barrasso, the frank answer to that question is I don't know today."

The Post-ABC poll was conducted June 3 to 6, among a random national sample of 1,004 adults. Interviews were conducted on conventional and cellular telephone, and the results from the full poll have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

© 2010 The Washington Post Company

Just a quarterof Americans back expanding offshore drilling in the wake of the BP oil spill

Telling that number; roughly the same number of assholes who you would expect to support "Drill baby, drill".

[J]

Then there's rumor that why we haven't been using supertankers to suck up the oil at sea and then filter them on the ships themselves via simple gravity settling of the oil in the ship's tanks (water is pumped out) is because the tankers have foreign crews and the US Seamen's unions hate them.

Actually that's more of an EPA regulation problem, ships aren't allowed to dump oil at sea and in any kind of scoop & separate operation some of the oil will get past all the filters and get dumped back into the ocean along with the water. This is illegal, even though the oil came from the sea in the first place. If a ship pulls a million gallons of oil from the ocean, separates out 98% of the oil and dumps 20,000 gallons back into the ocean it's a hundred times better than doing nothing, but we can't have that since 20,000 gallons of oil is being dumped into the ocean.

[Sea Skimmer]

Actually that's more of an EPA regulation problem, ships aren't allowed to dump oil at sea and in any kind of scoop & separate operation some of the oil will get past all the filters and get dumped back into the ocean along with the water. This is illegal, even though the oil came from the sea in the first place. If a ship pulls a million gallons of oil from the ocean, separates out 98% of the oil and dumps 20,000 gallons back into the ocean it's a hundred times better than doing nothing, but we can't have that since 20,000 gallons of oil is being dumped into the ocean.

if that was a real issue Obama could have congress vote to suspend any such regulations in under four hours. That's how long it took them to pass a whole new law which made it tax except to catch a baseball and then donate it, after the issue came up a few years ago when new home run records were being set and the balls were estimated to be worth as much as a million bucks each.

Its all just excuses, nothing is actually in the way of using the super tanker solution, which is how the largest oil spill EVER, one one Saddam unleashed, was cleaned up. Obama just doesn't want to take any damn action and its basically incomprehensible why. All talk, nothing to back it up at all. its fucking insane too, since this is one time in which basically everyone will back any action. I doubt burning oil at sea BTW, is legal either. But it was done.

[Instant Sunrise]

Well, the EPA quietly posted the ingredients of the dispersants that BP is using.

As the BP leak has dumped thousands of barrels into the Gulf of Mexico each day—and the responses of the oil firm and the Obama administration have been questioned—one critical issue has been the use of dispersants, especially the main dispersants deployed by BP: Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527. The Obama administration and members of Congress have raised concerns about the substances, which are supposedly more toxic than available alternatives.

This week the EPA, with no fanfare, posted on its website the chemical components of these two dispersants. Here's the list:

• 1,2-Propanediol
• Ethanol, 2-butoxy-
• Butanedioic acid, 2-sulfo-, 1,4-bis(2-ethylhexyl) ester, sodium salt (1:1)
• Sorbitan, mono-(9Z)-9-octadecenoate
• Sorbitan, mono-(9Z)-9-octadecenoate, poly(oxy-1,2-ethanediyl) derivs.
• Sorbitan, tri-(9Z)-9-octadecenoate, poly(oxy-1,2-ethanediyl) derivs
• 2-Propanol, 1-(2-butoxy-1-methylethoxy)-
• Distillates (petroleum), hydrotreated light

We don't have on-staff chemists at Mother Jones. And if you look up these compounds, you find that Sorbitan, for example, is used to make chemicals that allowing liquid to spread more easily and allow two liquids to mix better. But we already knew that—that's what dispersants do. Unfortunately, it's hard to determine from the list itself if dumping these chemicals into the Gulf might create more problems than they are supposed to solve. But we'll look for experts who can assess these compounds. And if you happen to know anything about octadecenoate, let us know.

Update: A spokesman for NALCO, the company that makes Corexit, writes in to scoop [at] motherjones [dot] com (You can, too! Try it!):

I read Nick Baumann's posting on the EPA's release of the ingredients in our COREXIT dispersants. Please note that since their original posting they have updated the information to clarify the Ethanol, 2-butoxy- is included only in COREXIT 9527 and is not in COREXIT 9500.

This is a key point since COREXIT 9500 is the sole product we have been making for Gulf responders since the spill began. Only limited quantities of COREXIT 9527, which were drawn from existing dispersant stockpiles from around the world, have been used in the Gulf spill response.

Both COREXIT dispersants have been approved by the EPA as part of the National Contingency Plan for treating oil spills.

In addition, a May 2010 report by the Centers for Disease Control concluded that ‘because of the strict guidelines that must be followed to utilize dispersants, it is unlikely that the general public will be exposed (directly) to (the) product.’ The report further states that ‘ingredients are not considered to cause chemical sensitization; the dispersants contain proven, biodegradable and low toxicity surfactants.’

We have posted information about the ingredients in COREXIT dispersants on our website: http://nalco.com/news-and-events/4297.htm

I hope you find this in formation useful.

Hopefully who knows more about these compounds than I do can point out the toxicity of them. The impression I got from reading other discussions about this is that each component isn't going to cause serious damage right away, you wouldn't want to swim in, drink, or breathe the vapors of a lot of these compounds.

Regarding the supertanker idea, I'm not sure that it's a very good idea to have a ship as unmaneuverable as a supertanker in an area of sea as crowded as the site of the oil release. The sea around the oil release is actually incredibly crowded with support ships for the undersea operations as well as the ships that are running the ROV's. Something like a supertanker, a ship that cannot exactly turn on a dime, seems like a recipe for disaster.

[Sea Skimmer]

Regarding the supertanker idea, I'm not sure that it's a very good idea to have a ship as unmaneuverable as a supertanker in an area of sea as crowded as the site of the oil release. The sea around the oil release is actually incredibly crowded with support ships for the undersea operations as well as the ships that are running the ROV's. Something like a supertanker, a ship that cannot exactly turn on a dime, seems like a recipe for disaster.

Which is why you assign each tanker a tug or two boat to help it turn when needed if it is operating near any other craft. This is not rocket science. We dock huge ships in absurdly constricted ports on an hourly basis when the channels are often barely more then twice as wide (if that) as the beam of the ship. The tankers would not need to move at more then a few knots to do this job. They'd basically just have enough engine power going to maintain steerage. Most of the oil is coming to the surface miles away from the actual leak site too. Of course plenty of normal sized oil tankers are also available for use with quite good agility. The tanker method worked fine in the Persian Gulf, which is a much smaller and even more cluttered area of sea then the Gulf of Mexico. The Saudis are not known for technical competence either, but it worked great and saved half of Saudi Arabia from being without drinking water.

Also since the mouth of the Mississippi river is closed to traffic now, the amount of large ship traffic this area of sea normally sees is in fact way down. Aside from the drilling platforms themselves, which are tightly clustered, most vessels involved in the pathetic cleanup are in the range of a few thousand tons to less then one ton. So they can just get the fuck out of the way.

Now once hurricane season starts up we wouldn't want a lot of extra tankers around, which is all the more reason to use them now. BP wont spend the money to do this unless forced, and Obama has made it clear that he is at best all talk and no action on forcing BP to do anything. It took what a month, just to get them to start drilling a second relief well? At worst this really is whoring to the unions.

[Temujin]

There's also the fact that the tankers could be used to suck up the oil not in the immediate vicinity of the operation to stop the leak, like the plumes that are drifting ever further out into the gulf. Up till now we've done little more then dumping dispersants on the oil, eventually we're going to have to start cleaning that stuff up.

[wautd]

Link

A German biologist says that efforts to clean oil-drenched birds in the Gulf of Mexico are in vain. For the birds' sake, it would be faster and less painful if animal-rescue workers put them under, she says. Studies and other experts back her up.

"Kill, don't clean," is the recommendation of a German animal biologist, who this week said that massive efforts to clean oil-soaked birds in Gulf of Mexico won't do much to stop a near certain and painful death for the creatures.


Despite the short-term success in cleaning the birds and releasing them back into the wild, few, if any, have a chance of surviving, says Silvia Gaus, a biologist at the Wattenmeer National Park along the North Sea in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.

"According to serious studies, the middle-term survival rate of oil-soaked birds is under 1 percent," Gaus says. "We, therefore, oppose cleaning birds."

The oil spill -- which continues to pump more than 200,000 gallons (755,000 liters) of crude into the Gulf each day -- was caused by an April 20 explosion on a BP-operated oil rig about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast.

In the path of the spill are several large protected areas for wildlife, including a vital nesting area for thousands of brown pelicans which were only removed from the US Endangered Species Program last year. Louisiana's Breton National Wildlife Refuge is by itself home to 34,000 birds. So far, the vast oil slick has yet to make significant landfall, limiting the numbers of birds affected, but observers worry that it is only a matter of time before beaches along America's Gulf Coast become blackened.

Birds Will Eventually Perish from Long-Term Causes

Catching and cleaning oil-soaked birds oftentimes leads to fatal amounts of stress for the animals, Gaus says. Furthermore, forcing the birds to ingest coal solutions -- or Pepto Bismol, as animal-rescue workers are doing along the Gulf Coast -- in an attempt to prevent the poisonous effects of the oil is ineffective, Gaus says. The birds will eventually perish anyway from kidney and liver damage.

Gaus speaks from 20 years of experience, and she worked on the environmental cleanup of the Pallas -- a wood-carrying cargo ship that spilled 90 tons of oil in the North Sea after running aground in October of 1998. Around 13,000 birds drown, froze or expired due to stress as a result of the Pallas spill.

Once covered in oil, a bird will use its bill and tongue to remove the toxic substance from their feathers. Despite oil's terrible taste and smell, a bird will still try and clean itself because it can't live without fluffy feathers that repel water and regulate its body temperature. "Their instinct to clean is greater than their instinct to hunt, and as long as their feathers are dirty with oil, they won't eat," Gaus says.

Kill Them 'Quickly and Painlessly'


But it's the instinct of biologists, who often feel compelled to save the birds out of duty and ethical reasons, that will ultimately lead a bird to a worse death, say some. It would be better to let the birds die in peace, Gaus says, or kill them "quickly and painlessly."

Even dyed-in-the-wool preservationists from the WWF agree with Gaus. At the time of the 2002 Prestige oil spill off the coast of Spain, a spokesman from the organization said: "Birds, those that have been covered in oil and can still be caught, can no longer be helped. … Therefore, the World Wildlife Fund is very reluctant to recommend cleaning."

The Prestige spill killed 250,000 birds. Of the thousands that were cleaned, most died within a few days, and only 600 lived and were able to be released into the wild. According to a British study of the spill, the median lifespan of a bird that was cleaned and released was only seven days.

With a survival rate of < 1%, I think it's the right thing to do as well.

[CaptainChewbacca]

This week the EPA, with no fanfare, posted on its website the chemical components of these two dispersants. Here's the list:

• 1,2-Propanediol
• Ethanol, 2-butoxy-

In high enough concentrations, these will shut down your nervous system, but you'd have to drink a gallon. The real concern is that they cause skin irritation in about 1 out of 10 people.

[*]Butanedioic acid, 2-sulfo-, 1,4-bis(2-ethylhexyl) ester, sodium salt (1:1)

Painful blisters, respiratory problems, and all kinds of other fun things.

[*]Sorbitan, mono-(9Z)-9-octadecenoate
[*]Sorbitan, mono-(9Z)-9-octadecenoate, poly(oxy-1,2-ethanediyl) derivs.
[*]Sorbitan, tri-(9Z)-9-octadecenoate, poly(oxy-1,2-ethanediyl) derivs

Sorbitan compounds are oil/water emulsifiers and are reasonably safe.

[*]2-Propanol, 1-(2-butoxy-1-methylethoxy)-
[*]Distillates (petroleum), hydrotreated light

Propanol is another one in the 'skin irritation/nerve damage' family, and isn't much fun. The distillates are a LITTLE better, but it's still petroleum.

I don't know how much of this stuff got dumped into the gulf, but I would definitely advise women not to eat any seafood caught in the gulf of mexico for the next ten years.

Yeah. That bad.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

That essentially means we're going to have a sharp spike in birth defects.

[Broomstick]

That essentially means we're going to have a sharp spike in birth defects.

Or miscarriages/infertility.

Of course, that only applies when the contaminated food is actually eaten - avoid contaminated seafood you avoid the problem. (Admittedly, sometimes easier said than done)