It Just Keeps Getting Better - C.W. Jones

It’s been 2 months and oil continues to gush into the Gulf almost as fast as the bull shit about the spill continues to pile up - so much so you need wings to stay above both. At a recent press conference, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed that giant clouds or “plumes” of oil mixed with seawater are lurking beneath the surface and drifting off to a fate that no one will dare to guess about. Even if they did, based on the accuracy (or lack thereof) of the information we’ve been given so far, we would probably get more accurate predictions from a Ouija board.

So what are we supposed to believe?

During a June 6 interview, just a few days prior to the NOAA announcement confirming the plumes, BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward disputed the existence of the underwater oil saying that there was “no evidence” that it existed.  In an attempt to backpedal from the fallout of yet another denial that turned out to be false, BP spokesman Robert Wine stated that the company was waiting for “confirmation” before issuing a statement.

Well, it’s confirmed - sort of. Researchers who collected and analyzed the data confirming the plumes refused to state conclusively (I feel a lump in my throat swelling up as I write this) that the gigantic plumes of emulsified oil that lie beneath the surface of the Gulf are a result of the Deepwater Horizon spill. 

Yes, that's right, the best and brightest minds of the research group want to exclude the possibility that there’s not another gushing oil spill in the Gulf that we don’t know about that the plumes could have come from.

USF Chemical Oceanographer David Hollander indicated that “it's a lengthy process of elimination.” Hollander continued “So far, we haven't eliminated the Deepwater Horizon well as the source but haven't entirely confirmed it either…(sic) There are sources that we have knocked out already but Deepwater Horizon wasn't one of them, so you go through one step after another after another checking off the boxes of what it isn't."

Apparently, the researchers require a sample of oil from BP in order to confirm that the plumes are a result of the Deepwater Horizon spill.  Hollander says there are several tests they could do if they had oil from the BP well to use for comparison but so far he says he's had no luck getting any from BP. "I've tried to get a piece of the oil from a BP representative and it was met with resistance," he said. Ummm, Dave, couldn’t you just go scoop up a sample from the millions of gallons that are lingering off the shores of the northern Gulf coast or are we not sure that oil is from the Deepwater Horizon either? You’ve got to love academia!

What we do know:

Water samples collected by the research vessel Weatherbird II have confirmed biodegraded crude oil in two undersea layers as far as 40 nautical miles northeast of BP’s seabed leak, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said at a press briefing. The vessel’s samples show oil as deep as 3,300 feet in the water, Lubchenco said.

“The bottom line is that yes, there is oil in the water column, it’s at very low concentrations, and we will continue to release those data as soon as they are available,” Lubchenco said at a press conference held jointly with Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen. “That doesn’t mean that it does not have significant impact.”

The tests are the second confirmation of the existence of oil plumes in the Gulf. Research by Samantha Joye at the University of Georgia, and analyzed at Texas A&M University, also confirmed the presence of undersea oil.

Additional data will allow researchers to produce images of slices of the ocean similar to those produced by magnetic resonance imaging machines used by doctors. The data will allow the scientists to determine crude concentrations in the different slices, Lubchenco said. The NOAA vessel Gordon Gunter has returned to shore and is analyzing its findings. A second research ship, the Thomas Jefferson, is collecting additional samples.