Wave upon wave...

Hurricane Alex delays Gulf oil clean-up efforts

A containment boom is placed along a beach in Elmer’s Island, Louisiana as efforts to clean the beach from effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill arehalted due to bad weather. Hurricane Alex disrupted the BP oil spill clean-up in the Gulf of Mexico as the storm gathered strength and was expected to make landfall.… Read more »

(AFP/Getty Images/Joe Raedle)

hmmm they don’t mention that Elmer’s Island is FEDERALLY protected beach… public land. Or, I should say, previously open to the public.

HOWEVER, after a few days of unfettered access following the explosion of Deep Water Horizon, a truck from the sheriff’s office appeared, parked at the single road turn-off leading to EI, telling media and others, locals too, that if they wanted access they had to go to a BP center and APPLY.

Glory in our freedom. To be serfs.

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I snagged this directly from a thread at The Oil Drum… a handy comment from someone shut-in today and thus spending some productive time looking at Corexit and its banning in the UK:

 [new] k3d59 on June 30, 2010 – 5:58pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Parent subthread | Comments top

I brought you all a present. Have to wait for the weather to improve to go outside, so I spent the day researching previously discussed TOD topics. Ever wonder why Corexit was banned in the UK? Here’s excerpts from the documents of the entity that is responsible for monitoring and approval over there. BTW, note that the Rocky Shore Test used an exposure period of six hours followed by rinsing. That’s not even close to what’s going on in the Gulf. Brits They have a nice way of handling bioremediation products too. EPA could take lessons. All protocols are on the Marine Management site as are the results for each product approved for use in UK.

Marine Management dot org/UK

Oil spill treatment products approved for use in the United Kingdom

All products approved after 1 April 1996 have been required to pass both the Sea/Beach and Rocky Shore Toxicity Tests. Any products coming up for renewal that have only passed the Sea/Beach toxicity test in the past are required, before they can be renewed, to pass the Rocky Shore Test also.

The following products have been removed from the list of approved products because they did not pass the Rocky Shore Test when submitted for renewal:

Chemkleen OSDA JAC (removed from list 21/01/1998)
****Corexit 9527 (removed from list 30/07/1998)
Corexit 9500 (removed from list 30/07/1998)****

Sea Test

“This test is based on the premise that if oil treatment products are correctly applied to an oil slick at sea,marine organisms will be exposed to a mixture of oil and product, rather than to a suspension or solution of product alone. The test therefore compares the toxicity of oil dispersed under standard conditions of mechanical agitation, with that of the same amount of oil treated with the product in question under the same conditions of mechanical agitation.
Research has shown that concentrations of oil especially dispersed oil) under slicks reduce rapidly in the first few hours (Cormack, 1977). It was, however, technically difficult and unrealistic in a routine andreproducible laboratory test to reproduce this phenomenon. Therefore, it was decided to base the test on the exposure of a marine organism to a fixed concentration for a fixed period.”

Rocky Shore Toxicity Test

“The intertidal zone is of great value both in amenity and ecological terms. Toxic effects of beached oil treatment(dispersant spraying etc.) are likely to have only limited impact on commercial fisheries e.g. cockles etc., on sandy beaches and will be relatively benign on dynamic pebble beaches where there is good drainage and a relatively impoverished species community. Therefore,for these environments (i.e. sandy/pebble amenity beaches) it is assumed that a product passing the Sea Test will be of an acceptably low risk. However, the death of grazing organisms (e.g. winkles and limpets)that inhabit rocky shores can lead to a much more significant deleterious ecological change due to extensive uncontrolled growth of seaweed. Consequently a toxicity test was developed using a typical intertidal grazing organism, the common limpet (Patella vulgata L.).

“…When products are used to clean oil from beaches,animals are exposed to very different conditions to that experienced at sea. Both oiled and unoiled animals may be exposed to neat product and left exposed until they are washed by the next incoming tide or the use of water hoses. The Rocky Shore toxicity test for all dispersants and bioremediation agents has therefore been based on these exposure conditions…

“Preliminary tests in the laboratory showed that the mortality of limpets exposed to oil is high and the detection of a toxic effect due to the product over and above that of the oil would be difficult and less accurate than determination of the effect of the product alone. Additionally, a product is likely to be applied over wide areas of shore and the evaluation of a particular product should also take into account the effect of the product on those parts which are un-oiled as well as those which are oiled. Therefore, the test finally adopted was designed to assess the effect of application of the product on un-oiled limpets. The amounts of product applied to the test organism were based on the density of application likely to be encountered in practice. Similarly, the test sought to simulate the initial exposure to a product for an ***average period of 6 h followed by successive tidal rinsing***.   In order to compensate for seasonal variations in the susceptibility of the test species, the effects of a standard oil alone were also assessed…”

Apparently tar balls – from whatever source — have hit Texas beaches… and at today’s presser Admiral Allen somehow already knows it is seepage from the Keys.

Ex-ray eyes!  Mind reading!  He tele-ported!  Communication with the shell fish down in the Keys…! A great big sea shell called him up!!  E-mailed him!  One of the Hemingway cats told him!  The coral soon to be under threat told him!

He just knows.

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THIS via the People mag for politics… gave me a laugh.  Calling him on his hypocrisy.

Barack Obama

Gay soldiers subpoena Obama

The gay soldiers arrested outside the White House protesting “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” will annouce today that they’re demanding that President Obama testify in their trial on minor civil disobedience charges.

Their novel argument: Obama himself called on gay rights advocates to pressure him, so they were just following orders.

“Don’t Ask” has energized gay rights activists frustrated with the White House’s deliberate pace, even as Democratic leaders are frustrated with continued protests, as repeal is on track for next year.

The subpoena in the defense of Lieutenant Dan Choi and Captain James Pietrangelo’s  arrest  [....]

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President Obama, accompanied by Mayor John Dickert, tries a pecan kringle during an unscheduled stop at O and H Bakery in Racine, Wis., Wednesday, June 30.   [AP Photo/Charles Dharapak]

Oh just have a kringle and shut up.  Be happy…

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