Dead dolphins and shrimp with no eyes found after BP clean-up

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Independent

Dead dolphins and shrimp with no eyes found after BP clean-up

Chemicals used to disperse Gulf of Mexico spill blamed for marine deaths and human illness

Emily Dugan
Sunday 14 April 2013

Hundreds of beached dolphin carcasses, shrimp with no eyes, contaminated fish, ancient corals caked in oil and some seriously unwell people are among the legacies that scientists are still uncovering in the wake of BP's Deepwater Horizon spill.

This week it will be three years since the first of 4.9 billion barrels of crude oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, in what is now considered the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry. As the scale of the ecological disaster unfolds, BP is appearing daily in a New Orleans federal court to battle over the extent of compensation it owes to the region.

Infant dolphins were found dead at six times average rates in January and February of 2013. More than 650 dolphins have been found beached in the oil spill area since the disaster began, which is more than four times the historical average. Sea turtles were also affected, with more than 1,700 found stranded between May 2010 and November 2012 – the last date for which information is available. On average, the number stranded annually in the region is 240.

Contact with oil may also have reduced the number of juvenile bluefin tuna produced in 2010 by 20 per cent, with a potential reduction in future populations of about 4 per cent. Contamination of smaller fish also means that toxic chemicals could make their way up the food chain after scientists found the spill had affected the cellular function of killifish, a common bait fish at the base of the food chain.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/dead-dolphins-and-shrimp-with-no-eyes-found-after-bp-cleanup-8572080.html

[stonecutter357]

1. It's OK come on down!

[primavera]

2. In case you were wondering...

... BP's referenced "studies" on how safe it is to eat Gulf seafood are just as full of shit as you would expect them to be: when you read the fine print footnotes, you find that Gulf shrimp are absolutely safe to eat* (*based upon a consumption of one shrimp per month). Riiight. Because nobody ever eats more than one single shrimp.

I also was bemused by their comment that no oil company has ever done more than BP has. Sadly, that's probably true, since, as a rule, oil companies don't do shit to repair the catastrophic harms they cause.

[In_The_Wind]

27. I couldn't eat only one!

That would be torture.

[L0oniX]

3. ...and more too big to fail.

[sakabatou]

4. It was already known that Corexit was toxic

[Laelth]

5. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[Dustlawyer]

6. K&R!!! Americans would be outraged if they knew the truth! BP sprayed the Corexit only to sink it

so it could not be sucked up and the barrels counted. BP is fined by the barrel and they have done everything to cover up how much leaked. They have also been lying to the rest of the world about everything associated with the spill. They have lied to get starving fishermen to take $5,000 for all of their damages, past and present. Many never worked past April of 2010, for that whole year. There never was a 20 billion dollar account to settle claims. BP agreed to put so much in Ken Feinberg's Gulf Coast Claims Facilities account every quarter. That ran out after the first couple of weeks and then everyone waited another 3 months. Ken Feinberg was found by Judge Barbier to have never been "Independant" of BP as he had proclaimed up and down the coast. He also repeatedly told everyone to NOT hire a lawyer since he was Independant they would just be giving away money to the attorney. BP has also been the biggest advertiser on the Gulf Coast, telling people who live on the coast to "Come on down to the coast" and "We're setting all kinds of records her on the Gulf" repeatedly on their local TV stations, much to the anger of the locals. The effect is that no newspapers, TV and radio stations will air or write a story that is in any way negative to BP. The world is not hearing the victim impact stories of what is still going n down here. BP buys up EVERY documentary about the spill. I have seen trailers for these documentaries only to have hem disappear. One such, "Dirty, Lying Bastards" even had a quote from my boss taken from an interview when we went to trial against BP for the explosion that killed 15, including both parents of a really courageous young lady, Eva Rowe. The documentary was very professionally edited and then disappeared. There have been several others to where now people are trying to make low budget ones to get money. Our politicians represent the BP's of the world, not us. By the way, after BP was sued for the Texas City explosion in 2005, the state of Texas changed the law so that the injured contractor workers at a plant could not sue the premises owner. Those widows could only file for workers comp death benefits. Corporations are MORE IMPORTANT people my friend!

[Curmudgeoness]

11. What, do you suppose, is happening to the documentaries?

I mean, I would think that someone who feels strongly enough to do all that work would not be easily bought out. And if the PTB here in the US will not air them, there is always another country where they can be released, or the internet. So, what's happening?

[snot]

14. I second the question.

[Selatius]

18. As somebody who lives on the Mississippi coast, nobody wants to go to the BBC on a local problem.

If you have to travel a continent away to a news network a continent away to have major grievances and environmental issues aired on a television network that isn't even carried in most homes in the United States, why even bother with such an exercise? Your target audience isn't even going to see your documentary for the most part. The European audience will see what's going on, but they don't buy the campaigns of politicians in Washington like Big Oil and the Big Banks do.

If you're a company like Exxon or BP, you buy millions in ad time on networks like CNN and FOX News. Of course, they're not going to want to cover the issue in-depth unless it's in everybody's face and is simply too big to ignore. Now, that the oil spill is over, this crap is simply going to be ignored and swept under the carpet.

The greatest losers in this whole fiasco are the fishermen and the creatures of the sea. Their future has been blackened, in practical terms permanently.

[Curmudgeoness]

21. That may be the case, but I don't agree with the logic.

When something like a documentary makes a big enough stir in another part of the world, word gets out....plus just having the information out in the open is a benefit. First of all, even most people in this country don't pay much attention, so why bother making a doucmentary in the first place. It has to be because the issue has to be out in the open.

So what do you think these film makers are doing with the documentaries that they made? Do you think that they are "selling" them to BP, who is willing to buy them to keep them from being aired? Or are they being threatened and intimidated into just walking away from all that work and research?

[primavera]

25. Lol - as a New Orleans resident, the BBC is about the only source I trust anymore!

Gawd knows no one here will give you the straight story.

[Dustlawyer]

23. The 1st one I heard of, their attorney sold it for $5 mil

The rest are going for $1-3 mil. They must turn over EVERYTHING and are not to speak of it again.

[Curmudgeoness]

24. As I suspected then.....BP bought them. nt

[SammyWinstonJack]

7. Dead dolphins. stranded sea turtles........

[Uncle Joe]

8. But, but, but what about all those BP commercials telling us

what good stewards they are and how everything is peaches and cream!

Thanks for the thread, Judi Lynn.

[WillyT]

9. K & R !!!

[OnyxCollie]

10. But the President and his family swam in the Gulf!

Well, almost in the Gulf.

[KoKo]

12. Recommend

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

13. BP's CRIMINALLY reckless use of the...

... widely banned and highly toxic poison, Corexit, made this disaster much worse than it otherwise would have been if they'd simply mobilized a fleet of skimmers to collect the oil off the surface as experts said, then and now, should've have been done. The criminal enterprise BP should be charged with crimes against humanity for their conduct during this crisis.

[gtar100]

15. Exposes the cowardice and ignorance of these people involved in the oil industry.

Their first instinct - and only action they take - is to hide their problems. Out of sight, out of mind; followed up with a PR campaign to deceive us into thinking they are responsible people. But they aren't. They are completely reckless with their only purpose to generate money, money, money. No concern for quality of life at all. Degenerates every one of them. I consider them enemies to life itself.

[SunSeeker]

16. K&R

[LTX]

17. Ironically enough, Corexit has a measurable, detrimental effect

on the ability of a marine environment to both commence and continue bio-remediation through proliferation of hydrocarbon metabolizing bacteria, so it actually impedes both short and long term natural remediation.

http://www.int-res.com/articles/feature/a063p101.pdf

One of the more surprising microbial responses to the Gulf spill was the rapid, open water exponential increase in hydrocarbon metabolizing bacteria in the presence of increased hydrocarbon feedstock. It is increasingly apparent, however, that this relatively immediate microbial response was not otherwise as effective as it could have been because of the very presence of chemical dispersants - dispersants which are allegedly used for more immediate commencement of the degradation process. Such chemically self-defeating efforts will now undoubtedly be re-thought.

[GeorgeGist]

19. Chill.

[valerief]

20. Yeah, but what about the most important thing? How much money did really rich people lose? nt

[Auntie Bush]

22. but, but, but, the ad guy says it's all cleaned up! Come on down!

So the shrimp have no eyes! Who cares, they don't need them now and they taste just the same. Put on a blind fold and you couldn't tell the difference. So eat up!

[trof]

26. 'Blind Shrimp' - the new culinary fad