[env-trinity] Is Gulf oil rig disaster far worse than we're being told?

Tue May 11 22:01:42 PDT 2010

Also see this video by Hurrican CreekKeepers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG8JHSAVYT0

*Is Gulf oil rig disaster far worse than we're being told?
**Natural News*

http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/05.10/oildisaster.html

(NaturalNews) Reports about the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill have been
largely underestimated, according to commentators, including Paul Noel, a
Software Engineer for the U.S. Army at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. He
believes that the pocket of oil that's been hit is so powerful and under so
much pressure that it may be virtually impossible to contain it. And Noel is
not the only person questioning the scope of this disaster.

A recent story from the Christian Science Monitor
(CSM)<http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0501/C-mon-how-big-is-the-Gulf-of-Mexico-oil-spill-really>reports
that many independent scientists believe the leak is spewing far
more than the 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons, per day being reported by
most media sources. They believe the leak could be discharging up to 25,000
barrels (more than one million gallons) of crude oil a day right now.

The riser pipe that was bent and crimped after the oil rig sank is
restricting some of the flow from the tapped oil pocket, but as the leaking
oil rushes into the well's riser, it is forcing sand with it at very high
speeds and "sand blasting" the pipe (which is quickly eroding its structural
integrity).

According to a leaked National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration memo
obtained by an Alabama
newspaper<http://blog.al.com/live/2010/04/deepwater_horizon_secret_memo.html>,
if the riser erodes any further and creates more leaks, up to 50,000
barrels, or 2.1 million gallons, per day of crude oil could begin flooding
Gulf waters every day.

When this disaster first occurred, the media downplayed it. BP spokespersons
were quick to claim that the leakage was minimal and that crews would
eventually be able to contain it. But as time went on, it became clear that
things were not under control and that the spill was far more serious than
we were originally told. (Gee, sound familiar? Remember Katrina?)

Yet some of the media reports still seem more like press releases than
actual reporting because they continue to repeat what the public relations
cleanup crews (pun intended) would *like* the public to believe rather than
what's actually happening. Reality, it seems, has a nasty habit of
interfering with corporate spin.

*Cap and trade becomes "cap and pray"*

The New York Times yesterday reported that BP is working on a large
containment dome<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/us/04spill.html?pagewanted=2>that
is intended to cap the leak and catch the escaping oil so that it can
be safely pumped to the surface. Meanwhile, crews are said to be working on
fixing the broken blow-out preventer valve that should have stopped the leak
from happening in the first place, but they have been unsuccessful thus far.

Almost every report says that BP is doing everything it can to contain the
spill and stop the leak, even though the company claims it is not
technically at fault. According to an article from the U.K. Daily
Mail<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1270917/BP-vows-clean-Gulf-Mexico-oil-slick-3-months-cap-leak.html>,
BP's CEO Tony Hayward recently responded to the cleanup efforts by
explaining, "This is not our accident but it is our responsibility to deal
with it."

Swiss-based Transocean is the company that actually owned and operated the
sunken rig. It manned the rig with its own crew and BP just leased it from
Transocean (which makes you wonder why BP is so willing to take full
responsibility for everything).

BP says that it's working on a relief well, but that it could take up to
three months to complete. Until then, the company is trying several
different approaches to at least slow the leak and hopefully stop it
altogether.

Mind you, almost all of the information about the spill from day one has
come directly from BP which obviously has every incentive to downplay the
true environmental destruction that could be caused by this oil spill.

Even the word "spill" is incorrect. This isn't some ship of oil that spilled
into the ocean -- it's a "volcano" of oil spewing from the belly of Mother
Earth herself. It's under extremely high pressure, it's spewing a huge
volume of oil directly into the ocean, and there so far seems to be no
human-engineered way of stopping it (short of setting off an underground
nuclear bomb near the well site).

*Addressing the unanswered questions*

According to the CSM article, environmental risk models are normally
performed for pollutants like crude oil, yet not one model has yet been
released for this incident by BP or the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA). Many are wondering why this crucial information has not been made
public. Could it be because the results of the model might seem too
catastrophic?

Neither has there been an adequate explanation given for exactly *why* the
oil rig exploded... twice! Some reports indicate that the crews responsible
for properly cementing the well casing didn't do it right. Others suggest
that the oil deposit was just too large and under too much pressure for the
equipment to handle it. (Be careful where you poke around the planet if you
can't handle what comes out, right?)

It's also important to note that, according to a recent New York Times
article <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/us/04spill.html?pagewanted=1>,
Halliburton was actually the company responsible for all the cementing work
on the rig, which brings a third party into the picture.

BP's federal permits allowed the company to drill up to 20,000 feet deep,
but according to one of the workers who was onboard the rig during the
explosion, drilling in excess of 22,000 feet had been taking place. This
same worker is said to handle company records for BP, but BP has denied
these allegations.

BP has declined to comment, however, on other allegations that the spill
happened because it chose not to install necessary deep-water valves which
would have acted as a last resort seal of protection in the event of an
emergency.

Several other allegations include suspicions that the crews allowed gas to
build up in the well bore and that the rig operator tried to detach too
quickly from the well, causing a disruption.

BP, Halliburton and Transocean have all indicated that they are continuing
to investigate the situation. When companies investigate themselves,
however, the truth rarely comes out.

*The possibility of an extinction event?*

It's hard to say exactly what's going on in the Gulf right now, especially
because there are so many conflicting reports and unanswered questions. But
one thing's for sure: if the situation is actually much worse than we're
being led to believe, there could be worldwide catastrophic consequences.

If it's true that millions upon millions of gallons of crude oil are
flooding the Gulf with no end in sight, the massive oil slicks being created
could make their way into the Gulf Stream currents, which would carry them
not only up the East Coast but around the world where they could absolutely
destroy the global fishing industries.

Already these slicks are making their way into Gulf wetlands and beaches
where they are destroying birds, fish, and even oyster beds. This is
disastrous for both the seafood industry and the people whose livelihoods
depend on it. It's also devastating to the local wildlife which could begin
to die off from petroleum toxicity. Various ecosystems around the world
could be heavily impacted by this spill in ways that we don't even yet
realize.

There's no telling where this continuous stream of oil will end up and what
damage it might cause. Theoretically, we could be looking at modern man's
final act of destruction on planet Earth, because this one oil rig blowout
could set in motion *a global extinction wave* that begins with the oceans
and then whiplashes back onto human beings themselves.

We cannot live without life in the oceans. Man is arrogant to drill so
deeply into the belly of Mother Earth, and through this arrogance, we may
have just set in motion events that will ultimately destroy us. In the
future, we may in fact talk about life on Earth as "pre-spill" versus
"post-spill." Because a post-spill world may be drowned in oil, devoid of
much ocean life, and suffering a global extinction event that will crash the
human population by 90 percent or more.

We may have just done to ourselves, in other words, what a giant meteorite
did to the dinosaurs.

*About the author: Mike Adams is an award-winning natural health author with
a strong interest in personal health, the environment and the power of
nature to help us all heal He has authored and published thousands of
articles, interviews, consumers guides, and books on topics like health and
the environment, reaching millions of readers with information that is
saving lives and improving personal health around the world. Adams is a
trusted, independent journalist who receives no money or promotional fees
whatsoever to write about other companies' products. He has created over 100
CounterThink cartoons and produced several popular hip-hop songs on
socially-conscious topics. He's also a noted technology pioneer and founded
a software company in 1993 that developed the HTML email newsletter
software<http://www.arialsoftware.com/>currently powering the
NaturalNews subscriptions. Adams is currently the
executive director of the Consumer Wellness
Center<http://www.consumerwellness.org/>,
a 501(c)3 non-profit, and pursues hobbies such as Pilates, Capoeira, nature
macrophotography and organic gardening. Known on the 'net as 'the Health
Ranger,' Adams shares his ethics, mission statements and personal health
statistics at www.HealthRanger.org <http://www.healthranger.org/>*

www.naturalnews.com

-- 
"A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in
time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as
something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of
consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to
our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our
task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of
compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its
beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the
sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require
a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive." ~ Albert
Einstein, 1954
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