The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill-The Largest Disaster Of Its Kind In History-STILL A Major Polluter
This Picture Shows The Are Of Initial Impact From The Deepwater Horizon Spill.
This Shows The Estimated Distribution Of The Oil & Corexit Pollution-But Does NOT Figure In Storm Redistribution, River Inflow, Along With Its Increasing Cocktail Of Agri-Pollution.
By R Andrew Ohge aka Rex Dexter – With Excerpts From Alex Higgins, SOTN & The “Above Top Secret” Blog: Deny Ignorance…Note: A NUMBER Of Videos Put Up About This From Private & Public Sources Have Been Designated[Taken Down] As “Private” By YouTube-AS IF We Are EVER Surprised Anymore & The “Oil Spill Remediation Conference”
FROM ALEX HIGGINS NEWS:
[http://alexanderhiggins.com/fisherman-forced-to-sign-waiver-making-them-and-not-bp-liable-for-contaminated-bp-gulf-oil-spill-seafood]
Project Gulf Impact has just released a new video[Now Designated “Private”(Read: Censored) By YouTube of several local Gulf Fisherman speaking out against the federal government’s decision to open waters contaminated by the BP Gulf Oil spill to fishing.
Kindra Arnesen-Fisherman-Whistleblower-Activist For: http://projectgulfimpact.org
While the entire video is very revealing, Kindra Arnesen brings shocking new details to light that no one is talking about.
As a little background BP and the Federal Government gave Kindra Arnesen unlimited insider access to the BP Gulf Oil Spill cleanup and response operations.
Disgusted by what she saw she turned whistle blower at the Gulf Emergency Summit and exposed the shocking truth of what is really going on behind the scenes of the clean up operations.
This Is A Copy Of The Waiver You Must Sign As A Commercial Fisherman In The Gulf.
Video description and transcripts:
By Alexander Higgins
blog.alexanderhiggins.com
The Feds have waved a magic wand..
and Gulf waters are clean…
and Gulf seafood is safe to eat.
But why are Gulf fisherman being forced to sign a waiver.
That makes them and NOT BP liable for contaminated BP Gulf Oil Spill seafood.
Thanks for coming out here everybody.
My name is Kindra Arnesen and I am the outreach coordinator for Cultural Heritage Society.
I have also been one of the only residents to be granted security into BP’s offices, their operation sections.
I have been up in the air out to the Deepwater Horizon site itself, all over to say the least.
I have several things I want to address with everyone today.
Number one that I want to address to everyone is that they are opening Louisiana waters to shrimping as of Monday.
This is a huge concern.
From what we are being told the dock owners have asked our fisherman to sign a waiver saying that they would be responsible for their own catch and as to whether or not the catch was clean without chemicals in it.
This liability can not fall with our fisherman.
The bottom line is and I am going to propose this within the next week to the EPA, FDA, BP, our parish officials and our government officials is if the FDA has waived this magic wand and says that the Gulf is clean and that the seafood is safe, let’s get some FDA mobile units on our docks and let’s do some chemical testing.
Not a sniff test — with a machine, take chemical samples of both the organs and the tissues from the species as they are being brought into the docks for sale.
The thing about this is that people need to understand something — one batch of bad seafood goes on the market and it is over for our commercial fisherman.
All along the coast our fisherman have rebuilt from dirt after hurricane on top off hurricane.
We went back, we worked the waters, we did what we had to do.
Everyone’s got these new loans, these new homes, and they have no equity built into them.
If we can’t work BP has already put up a fight and they are not going to pay our fisherman, bottom line!
If we can’t work we can’t pay our bills.
We are going to lose our places, we are going to lose our homes, our land, our footholds.
I am talking about people with generations of commercial fisherman as far back as we can trace.
This is their divine right.
This was handed down to them family member after family member.
The heritage here, it is going to be a cultural genocide, if they do not test the seafood and make sure that it is safe.
Not only to protect our fisherman, but hello, what about the consumer.
We have prided our self in bringing out fresh fish, fresh shrimp, fresh seafood altogether.
I mean we take the best care of our fish all along the Gulf coast, our commercial fisherman know that.
They know how to do this.
They have been doing it for generation after generation so we pride ourselves in bringing fresh uncontaminated seafood to the market for the consumer to eat.
The Gulf produced, before BP, the best seafood in the entire United States.
So the bottom line here is we need the FDA on the docks to do the chemical testing for the components in the crude which is much more toxic than the Louisiana sweet crude.
Just wanted to put that in their.
And we need them to test for the chemical components in the dispersants.
As far as the vessel of opportunity program goes I have heard the term spillionaires, I have heard get rich quick and let me tell you something about that.
The vessel of opportunity program — BP sent me a letter and it clearly states that federal law clearly states that any and all income from alternative employment or businesses undertaken or potential income from alternative employment or businesses not undertaken but reasonably available will be deducted from their claim in its entirety.
So that means that our guys have been out here, our charter fisherman and our commercial fisherman, have been out here cleaning up BP’s mess and taking BP’s people all over the place and working off their own claim.
What if we didn’t have boats and they would have had to hire them anyway and pay the claim of their litigants.
Then they would of had to pay for the boats themselves out of their own pockets and not out of our business money.
You know we have people down here from all over the country.
I know that in Louisiana we have got someone from Gretna with a plumbing company that has four boats on the job and has never fished a day in his life and has guaranteed positions.
I can’t even get even get home Indians who have been there generation after generation on to the job and we have these people down there on this job working making all of this money hiring captains and putting them on their on these boats.
Then they can turn around and still take their money from their plumbing company but we can’t have our money from our company even though, you look at the photographs, who’s on the boats dripping in oil?
The commercial fisherman that’s who.
So the bottom line here is this has been mismanaged and poorly handled from day one.
The oil is still all over around our peninsula in Louisiana and in Plaquemenes Parish.
I am the closest resident to the Deepwater Horizon site itself.
I know what is going on.
I am all over the place and I am here to tell you it’s not cleaned up.
You have got to understand the first third of the time, 33 and a third, 70,000 gallons of dispersant.
The second 66.6 guess what?
1,730,000 gallons of dispersant.
You mean to tell me that 66 percent of the time that they put this much dispersant out and now here a month later that it is gone.
There is no way!
As far as Bonnie goes it “Broke it up and got rid of it” — Bonnie was a rain cloud.
This last one that we had when it came through there was some bad weather but it wasn’t a hurricane and there hasn’t been enough time for this to biodegrade anyway, its not gone.
And the health concerns.
We are going to be doing some health studies in the area.
We are having people who are breaking out in rashes and different things so we will be taking care of that.
So what’s wrong with this picture?
The Government has lied and said the oil has disappeared while military aircraft continues to spray toxic dispersants.
In fact the federal government has decided to violate its own protocols and reopen BP Gulf Oil Spill wishing waters based on “visual observation” of no oil on the surface using inadequate and skewed test results of fishing samples to justify the reopening of the waters.
Commercial fisherman James “Catfish” Miller, took fishermen Danny Ross Jr. and Mark Stewart, along with scientist Dr. Ed Cake of Gulf Environmental Associates and others out and they found the fishing grounds to be contaminated with oil and dispersants.
[http://www.bridgethegulfproject.org/blog/6]
Similarly water samples taken by a local news station in Alabama waters reopened for fishing were also found to be highly toxic.
Gulf fisherman are warning us the shrimp they are catching is covered in oil and were told to shut up about it by Government officials after complaining about it.
Now BP is leaving town and no longer paying out of work fisherman and to help aide and abet the Government is forcing fisherman to put contaminated seafood on the market.
Meanwhile as the government declares Gulf waters are clean and the Gulf seafood is safe they are making the fisherman and not BP liable for any damages caused from any toxic seafood that makes consumers sick.
IF YOU THOUGHT THIS WAS THE ONLY CAUSE FOR CONCERN-[Klaxon Sounds] WRONG-THERE’S MORE:
We have a dispersant called Corexit STILL being sprayed by Government planes, despite their assurances the oil is ALL GONE.
We have a number of major river systems draining Agricultural Operations using some of the most toxic chemicals ever created in history, the effluvia of Industry, Nuclear Power Plants, City Sewage, and runoff from some of the largest Confined Animal Feeding Operations(CAFO) in the WORLD…and it’s all dumping into the Gulf.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill [Read: Oil Volcano] was simply the “icing on the cake”.
EXCERPTS SELECTED FROM SOTNews “Gulf Oil Remediation Cyber Conference”:
Pathogenic Micro-organisms Proliferate Due
To Polluted And Poisoned GOM ‘Bioterrain’
by Gulf Oil Spill Remediation Cyber-Conference
There have been several significant developments over the past few decades in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) which now require special and immediate attention.
The multitude of oil spills — both large and small — require extraordinary remediation measures, as well as the application of safe and proven technologies which will not make the existing hydrocarbon pollution worse.
There are other major sources of water pollution in the GOM which have also became apparent, particularly since the eye-opening 2010 BP oil spill.
The Gulf of Mexico is Dying: A Special Report On The BP Gulf Oil Spill
The BP Gulf Oil Spill drew the world’s attention to the GOM for a variety of reasons. The sheer volume of oil spilt was unprecedented, as were its profound and lasting effects on a large geographic area. Because it occurred in such a large body of water, many population centers were adversely impacted as they continue to be up to this very day. However, it was the incompetent and negligent oil spill response from BP that received the justified scrutiny of the entire world.
Some have since advanced the notion that global oil spill response has been forever changed for the better, because of how profoundly BP mismanaged the spill for all to see. In this regard, they speak of a literal sea change regarding the methodologies and modalities, process and procedure, science and technology that are now accepted by many of the nations of the world.
The entire world watched in horror as millions of gallons of the dispersant Corexit were used to ‘disappear’ the gushing oil in the Macondo Prospect throughout 2010 and beyond. Disappearing the oil actually meant sinking it, after micronizing it, so that both BP and the US Federal Government could be ‘applauded’ for a successful response. However, the known health risks/dangers and environmental damage caused by Corexit became so well publicized that it has now been banned in those countries which have learned from the BP fiasco. The following article provides more details in this regard.
Dispersant Use Like Corexit Sees Precipitous Decline Worldwide
[http://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=6558%5D
The single revelation about the ramped up toxicity of Corexit-treated oil* served to awaken many stakeholders about the safety of dispersant use in our coastal waters.
More importantly, this issue also triggered a variety of concerns about the overall condition of the Gulf of Mexico.
Residents along the GOM coast, business owners, annual vacationers, property owners and the like began to research and discover the true state of the Gulf.
[http://www2.epa.gov/emergency-response/alphabetical-list-ncp-product-schedule-products-available-use-during-oil-spill%5D
*We can make the following three (3) statements about oil, dispersant (Corexit 9500) and dispersed oil as per this EPA website link on the relative toxicities of Corexit and petroleum:
1. 10.72 parts per million (ppm) of oil alone will kill 50% of the fish test species in a normal aquatic environment within 96 hours.
2. 25.20 parts per million of dispersant (Corexit 9500) alone will kill 50% of the fish test species in a normal aquatic environment within 96 hours.
3. 2.61 parts per million of dispersed oil (Corexit-laden) alone will kill 50% of the fish test species in a normal aquatic environment within 96 hours.
It was through a confluence of many disparate circumstances during the gushing, “ginormous” oil volcano which brought to light the following critical observations about the overall status of the Gulf of Mexico.
These various perceptions and insights, when considered in the aggregate and within a much larger context, have allowed to surface an assessment of the GOM which can no longer be denied or ignored.
What are the major factors contributing to the unrelenting degradation of the Gulf of Mexico?
We need to look no further than the mouth of mighty Mississippi River to assess some of the most obvious causes of the relentless destruction of the GOM.
If one just considers what the Mississippi River dumps into the GOM on a daily basis, it is easier to grasp the enormity of the problems confronting every stakeholder.
The most obvious types of pollution entering the GOM are conveyed in vast amounts from various sources throughout the American heartland.
Countless kinds of harmful contaminants and toxic chemicals find their way into the Gulf via the Mississippi which comes from many different sources.
This mighty river and it’s many tributaries carry a tremendous chemical burden in the form of industrial waste, as well as rain runoff laden with every chemical imaginable from suburbia and cityscapes alike.
Agribusiness has seen to it that enormous amounts of chemical fertilizers and soil fortifiers, pesticides and insecticides, mosquitocides and larvicides, fungicides and herbicides, weedkillers and defoliants, bovine growth hormone and animal antibiotics end up in the Mississippi.
Likewise, a whole assortment of pharmaceutical drugs, over-the-counter medications, nutraceutical products, as well as all the chemical compounds utilized in the typical American household eventually find their way into the sewers of the nation’s midsection.
When you add the untold volumes of leaked oil and gas into the mix in the undersea Mississippi Canyon by way of manmade oil spills, natural leaks and seeps, drilling mud and other highly toxic chemicals used by the Oil & Gas Industry, methane burps, undersea mud volcanoes, and the increasing vaporization of methane hydrates, an alarming picture starts to take shape.
Oil & Gas Industry Produces Humongous Amounts Of Pollution In The GOM
Just as each human body possesses its own very unique environmental profile, so, too, does the Gulf of Mexico.
From the preceding description of what the Gulf of Mexico is routinely exposed to, it is now incontestable that, as a body of water, the GOM cannot avoid being extremely polluted and only getting worse by the year.
In addition to what the Mississippi incessantly dumps into the GOM, Oil & Gas Industry operations are responsible for enormous amounts of pollution.
If the BP Gulf Oil Spill taught us nothing else, it is that oil and gas drilling operations conducted in the GOM 24/7 produce an extraordinary number of predicaments in which severe pollution is produced, and then dispersed to the four corners of the Gulf.
Not only is the actual process of drilling a very dirty one, the subsequent transport, refinement and utilization of the oil and gas creates myriad opportunities for pollutants, toxins, contaminants, poisons and chemicals to further pollute the GOM.
Environmental and Health Impacts of the BP Gulf Oil Spill
[http://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=6617%5D
However, this is just one component of the ever-worsening condition of the GOM.
The incessant utilization of drilling mud (also known as drilling fluids) has greatly contributed to the current state of degradation of the entire Gulf Of Mexico.
The traditional drilling locations off the coast of Louisiana and Texas are by far the most polluted and perhaps irremediable.
However, even the coastlines of Florida are vulnerable to the migration of hydrocarbon affluent and drilling fluids.
The components of drilling mud are much less about mud, and more about other highly corrosive and toxic chemicals which are necessary to do a very difficult job.
During any drilling operation in the GOM where copious amounts of drilling mud are utilized, there is effectively no way of containing it or disposing it once it is released.
Hence, the GOM seafloor and sub-seafloor geological formations have been exposed to constant injections of drilling mud since use first began decades ago.
The following link entitled “Drilling fluids and health risk management” contains a 9 page list of components found in drilling fluids in Appendix 8 under the title:
“Detailed health hazard information on drilling fluid components”
[http://www.ogp.org.uk/pubs/396.pdf%5D
A close reading of this material reveals an extraordinary number of highly toxic pollutants which can eventually find there way into the water columns, the wetlands, the estuaries, and onto the beaches, etc.
Decades of High Intensity Oil Drilling Operations Have Created A Toxic GOM Environment
The sheer number of oil wells drilled throughout the GOM since the early 1930s is quite staggering.
Each of those wells is either active or inactive.
With each well that is drilled, there are opportunities for hydrocarbon effluent to escape into the GOM.
After wells are capped there are also many situations that can, and do, develop whereby a bad well can allow for a steady leak of hydrocarbon effluent into the GOM.
The BP Gulf Oil Spill demonstrated how a blown well can present a predicament that simply cannot be fixed (See preceding diagram).
Depending on just how large an oil reserve has been drilled into, hydrocarbon effluent can leak into the Gulf of Mexico into perpetuity.
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X13002762%5D
There is also the ever-present risk associated with all capped wells leaking.
These are also subjected to undersea earthquakes and other seismic activity, undersea volcanoes and mud volcanoes, as well as hydrothermal vents and other fissures which can open up anywhere at any time.
The preceding discussion provides only a glimpse into some of the various co-factors which are responsible for contributing considerable amounts of pollution to the total toxic load borne by the Gulf of Mexico every day … of every week … of every year … over many decades.
Because of the inordinate political pressures operating at the federal level to make the USA completely energy independent, the push to “drill, drill and drill more” has only increased.
U.S. Agrees to Allow BP Back Into Gulf Waters to Seek Oil – NYTimes.com: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/14/business/energy-environment/epa-to-lift-suspension-of-oil-leases-for-bp.html?_r=0
Even the Atlantic Seaboard is being opened to oil and gas exploration so powerful is theOil & Gas Industry lobby in DC.
Obama opens Eastern Seaboard to oil exploration – US News: http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2014/07/18/ap-newsbreak-obama-opens-east-coast-to-oil-search
What’s it all mean?
It means many things to those who live, work and play along the GOM coastline.
Because of the speed of deterioration of the environmental profile of the Gulf, fishing in the waters, swimming in the bayous, sunning on the beaches is no longer what it used to be.
The proliferation of pollution via so many vectors of dissemination has increased the concentration of dangerous chemicals and other toxins so much that the GOM must be looked at through different lens, henceforth.
The State Of The Bioterrain Always Dictates The Most Likely Outcomes
In virtually every article that has been published in the mainstream media over the past decade about the many deaths and serious illnesses that have been directly linked to the GOM, there is often a qualification about the individual who died or who became seriously ill or diseased.
Deliberate reference is made to the strength (or lack thereof) of the immune systems of those who passed or took ill.
This leaves the reader with the false impression that only those with weakened immune systems are vulnerable to pathogenic micro-organisms like Vibrio vulnificus.
[http://www.cdc.gov/vibrio/vibriov.html%5D
While it’s true that a fisherman who is immuno-compromised is more susceptible to serious infection should he enter the waters with open wounds, it is also true that any individual with open wounds or sores can be easily infected by Vibrio.
[http://www.loyno.edu/lucec/natural-history-writings/flesh-eating-bacteria-coastal-scourge-vibrio-vulnificus-lurking-estuaries%5D
Because the concentrations of various chemicals and contaminants in various regions of the GOM is at an all time high, the human body is only so equipped to efficiently process them.
Therefore, the bioterrain of any person will be affected, no matter how strong their constitution is.
Or, how clean their bioterrain is.
Or, how efficiently their immune system is functioning.
What is being proposed here is that the more resonance that occurs between the human body and the GOM body of water during swimming, fishing, snorkeling, and boating activities, the greater the likelihood of adverse health consequences.
For those oyster fisherman, who also eat raw oysters, the risks increase exponentially.
Especially those whose bioterrains have been degraded through an unhealthy lifestyle, there will be more and more serious medical repercussions from imprudent and/or ill-advised activity in the GOM.
Soaring Vibrio Vulnificus Infections Reveal The Degree Of Resonance Between The GOM Body Of Water And The Human Body
The spate of articles over the past few years regarding the flesh-eating bacteria incidents coming out of the GOM clearly indicate an evolving predicament which no one in government — federal, state, or local — or from industry, want to address in any meaningful way.
[http://www.chron.com/news/health/article/Study-Tar-balls-found-in-Gulf-teeming-with-4977264.php%5D
When people are regularly getting sick — VERY SICK — to the point of dying from Vibrio vulnificus infections, it does not reflect well on the various branches of government which are responsible for ensuring public safety and addressing serious public health concerns.
[http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1055523-overview%5D
Flesh-eating Vibrio bacteria at seasonal peak in South Mississippi waters:
[http://www.sunherald.com/2014/07/15/5700048/flesh-eating-vibrio-bacteria-at.html%5D
Likewise, the many businesses and industries which rely on the GOM are no longer inclined to trumpet serious health alerts, such as the rising incidence of Vibrio infections.
Simply put, it’s bad for business.
Whether you’re a fisherman or boat manufacturer, hotel owner or tour boat operator, a sick Gulf of Mexico does not look good on the front pages of the newspapers.
This is especially true in the middle of the intractable recession that the Southeast economy has been stuck in since 2008.
The same is true for the homeowners and commercial property developers, particularly the wealthy, whose mansions dot the coastline from the Florida Keys to the southeastern coastline of Texas.
They simply don’t want to hear that there are tar balls washing up on their secluded beaches, especially when those tar balls contain high numbers of Vibrio vulnificus.
[http://www.wkrg.com/story/23875140/deadly-bacteria-vibrio-vulnificus-in-high-numbers-in-tarballs%5D
Or, that red tide is showing up off their coasts.
Schools of dead fish, or dead dolphins, or dead whales washing up on their sandy shores are also an extremely undesirable image.
Especially when property values can plummet were the true condition of the waters to be publicized.
Not Only Pathogenic Bacteria Like Vibrio, Red Tide Also Proliferates In Polluted GOM
Vibrio is only one of numerous pathogenic micro-organisms which will proliferate in such a conducive environment as the GOM.
There are many others, such as Alexandrium fundyense (the algae that causes Red tide), which also seek out an imbalanced aquatic environment in which to thrive.
Over time there is expected to be a steady rise in the incidence of these and other water borne pathogens and ailments which originate in a degraded GOM.
Red tide has been visiting the Gulf Coast for many years now, except that the outbreaks have become increasingly more severe and affecting larger areas.
Emergency room visits have seen a marked increase during full blown Red tide blooms.
So have schools of fish and manatees and other marine life seen a considerable uptick in their mass killings byRed tide.
The released toxins during a Red tide event are especially deadly to many kinds of fish.
Red Tide blamed for large fish kill in northeast Gulf of Mexico: http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/red-tide-blamed-for-large-fish-kill-in-northeast-gulf-of-mexico/2190106
Florida sees record 803 manatee deaths; red tide blamed: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/florida-sees-record-803-manatee-deaths-red-tide-blamed-f2D11785545
Here’s what the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has to say about Red tide, also known as harmful algal blooms, or HABs.
The Gulf of Mexico has a bioterrain, too!
What NOAA will not tell you about Red tide is that there are circumstances beyond certain environmental conditions which encourage this highly toxic algae to bloom.
Just like the human bioterrain, when the intestinal flora becomes imbalanced, the opportunistic candida albicans fungus will colonize within the GI tract and overtake the eugenic bacteria required for proper digestion and absorption of nutrients.
If allowed to persist without proper intervention, systemic candidiasis can result, which can ultimately give rise to a pre-cancerous condition in the various target organs and tissues weakened by the pathogenic, mutated candida.
Likewise, when the GOM’s normal balance of both eugenic and pathogenic micro-organisms is thrown off, a similar set of circumstances can result.
Dangerous invasions of flesh-eating bacteria, toxic algae blooms and other health-compromising, microscopic inhabitants will likewise proliferate.
The more polluted the waters, the higher the frequency of their appearance, especially closer to shore because of the warmer waters which prevail there; where it’s shallow, the sun reflects off the sea bottom and warms the waters.
Of course, this is exactly where much of the swimming, water sports, fishing and other GOM activities take place.
The bayous and lagoons, bays and estuaries, wetlands and swamps often function as traps for much of the pollution which is systematically produced within and/or dumped into the GOM.
Because the normal circulation of these areas can be significantly limited at times (such as when the Loop Current* stalls), they create an opportunity for the many toxic chemicals, hydrocarbon contaminants, industrial pollutants, and poisonous dispersants to both aggregate and densify.
*[https://gosrc.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=793&action=edit&message=1%5D
In so doing, they eventually create an hospitable environment for pathogenic micro-organisms to propagate and flourish.
Nothing demonstrates this concept better than the existence of multiple dead zones throughout the GOM.
The following map delineates only those dead zone areas south of the Mississippi River, which have been the site of intensive oil and gas drilling since the early 1930s.
Were the entire Gulf of Mexico to be similarly mapped out, the resulting dead zones would be shown to be growing in both numbers and size, particularly over the past many years that deep sea oil drilling has been intensifying.
Dead zone pollutant grows despite decades of work: http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2012/07/dead_zone_pollutant_nitrate_gr.html
“DIRE Realities Of The Methane Predicament”
There are vast reservoirs of methane hydrates locked in place on the GOM seafloor through the forces of extremely high pressure and cold temperatures.
Likewise, there are myriad repositories of methane clathrates throughout the sub-seafloor geological formations in the Gulf.
Because of the highly intrusive nature of oil and gas extraction methane is being released at an unprecedented rate, especially from those areas defined by oil and gas leases.
When oil drilling rigs sink deep sea wells into the crust of the Earth they unsettle and melt these methane hydrates.
Hydrocarbon effluent under high pressures emerges at very high rates of flow and at temperatures that can reach upwards of 300 degrees.
In so doing it serves to first melt and then vaporize the frozen hydrates.
Eventually some of this methane will find points of egress through the seafloor and into the GOM.
The hydrates sitting on the surface of the seafloor which melt can easily enter the water column in the form of dissolved methane.
When a large volume of methane is released at once and travels up through the water column, the normal oxygen levels are precipitously reduced thereby causing hypoxia in any marine life which happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In fact many of the mass fish kills which have been showing up on the GOM coastline since the BP Gulf Oil Spill first occurred are the direct result of either generalized or local hypoxia*.
In either case the acute deprivation of adequate oxygen supply is what quickly kills fish and dolphins alike. Many a flock of birds has also been taken out of the sky when these “methane burps” enter the atmosphere.
*“Microbial respiration of methane in the water column is the last filter before the greenhouse gas is emitted to the atmosphere, and could lead to local hypoxia and ocean acidification” (Source: Natureasia.com)
At the end of the day, however, it will be determined that it was the exceedingly invasive oils and gas drilling operations which has been responsible for opening up so many cracks and crevices, fissures and small chasms through which so much methane can pass into the GOM.
The higher the concentrations of dissolved methane in the Gulf, the less hospitable are the conditions that support marine life.
Hence, we see dead zones appearing and enlarging everywhere throughout the GOM.
Ultimately, the Hydrocarbon Fuel Paradigm will be understood as the greatest contributor of the most consequential of all the Greenhouse gases — Methane!
Which is precisely why this evolving predicament has become so “DIRE”, and requires a common sense approach if the Gulf of Mexico is to be successfully remediated.
[http://cosmicconvergence.org/?p=4582%5D
Qualification: It is also acknowledged that many mass fish kills in the GOM are the direct result of the deadly concentrations of various kinds of pollution, pathogenic micro-organisms, and/or harmful algal blooms such as red tide.
Radioactive Component Of Hydrocarbon Effluent and Refinement ProcessThe following excerpt provides a cursory explanation of the radioactive components associated with both the oil and gas extraction process in deep wells, as well as the oil and gas refinement process.
This is the real untold story of the Hydrocarbon Fuel Paradigm, and why it is so fatally flawed.
If the community of nations properly responded to this weighty matter alone, they would have begun the process of systematically transitioning the world away from the Hydrocarbon Fuel Paradigm.
If the reader pays attention to nothing else in this essay, be advised that pervasive ionizing radiation disseminated by oil and gas extraction operations worldwide is the most critical issue that must be addressed.
The very sustainability of life on Planet Earth depends upon it, especially the deeper the oil wells are drilled in desperation of finding the next motherlode of hydrocarbon reserves.
As follows:
“The deeper the geological source of the hydrocarbons, the more radioactive isotopes present in the oil and gas.
That hydrocarbons pulled from the bowels of the earth have a scientifically verified radioactive component(s) is the dirty little secret of the Oil & Gas Industry.
So secret in fact that, if it were to get out, this single scientific fact would seal the fate of the entire industry.
It also undergirds the correct understanding that oil and gas are both abiotic in nature and abiogenic in origin – facts which cast a refreshing light on the notion of Peak Oil.
Yes, we have reached Peak Oil, but not because of the untenable Fossil Fuel Theory which has been known to be false by the Oil and Gas Industry since its inception.
It has been asserted that the Macondo Prospect sits on a reservoir of abiotic oil the size of Mount Everest, one of the two largest batholiths with proven oil and gas mega-reserves in the GOM.
However, that doesn’t make it economically feasible or technologically prudent to extract; nor is it smart to engage in such utter folly, as the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon dramatically demonstrated.
Mantle-generated hydrocarbons come from very young geological formations deep in the earth, and are the product of extremely powerful geo-thermal forces.
The presence of radioactive isotopes such as uranium, thorium, radium show up in much greater concentrations the deeper the well bore is drilled into the earth’s crust, and are ubiquitous throughout the mantle.
Therefore, the hydrocarbon constituents, which are actually found in the interstitial spaces, porous rock formations and Quaternary sediments and are scattered everywhere because of their liquid and gaseous states, exist within and around this highly radioactive environment.
How radioactive is the hydrocarbon effluent upsurging from the wells in the GOM that are drilled at 12, 15, 18, 20, 25 or 30,000 feet through the crust and into the mantle?
Here’s a link to the American Petroleum Institute website that will partially answer this question:
[http://www.chk.com/Media/Educational-Library/Fact-Sheets/Corporate/API_NORM_Fact_Sheet.pdf%5D
Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM: http://www.evs.anl.gov/project/dsp_