By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and HARRY R. WEBER
Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS — A powerful plaintiff has joined the hundreds of people and businesses suing BP and other companies involved in the Gulf oil spill: the Justice Department.
Imaging Notes / Fall 2010
The April 20, 2010 oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico (Figure 1), the result of an unprecedented cluster of human errors and mechanical failures, has led ultimately to a hopeful result. The disaster and the resulting national and international press coverage, including a real-time underwater camera for 24/7 monitoring of the oil gushing from the extraction pipes and catastrophic projections for the damage inflicted, has sparked much-needed activity by citizens, NGOs, businesses, educators, and government agencies.
Read the full article in Imaging Notes magazine / Fall 2010
Statement Reef Relief;
In response to Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar’s announcement today to postpone further consideration of offshore drilling or leasing in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico for seven years, Reef Relief, a Florida based environmental organization, praised his decision and hopes to continue this moratorium indefinitely, until all assurances can be made to safeguard the coral reefs, coastal habitats, people and economies that depend on them throughout Florida and the Florida Keys.
“This is a common sense decision for an uncommon and unpopular problem of mixing oil drilling in an environment that cannot, at this time, support it”, said Paul Johnson, Policy and Projects Director for Reef Relief in Tallahassee.
Last June Reef Relief, along with over 100 business owners, citizens, and government officials in the Keys sent a letter to President Obama asking for a moratorium on drilling off Florida. The letter stated – “Please show the people of Florida, the Gulf coast and the entire United States that you do care and that some areas of our country are too environmentally sensitive and the economic consequences are too great for these extremely dangerous and risky activities to be seriously considered.”
For more information Contact:
Paul G. Johnson,State Programs & Policy Director
REEF RELIEF
Ph: 850-926-7439
Email: PaulJ488@AOL.com
A good overview of the plastic’s problem and the message is to cut off the supply at the source. See here
Lessons from the Deep: Exploring the Gulf of Mexico’s Deep-Sea Ecosystems Ed Materials
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/edu/guide/welcome.html
EAST GRAND TERRE ISLAND, La. — At the end of an oil-stained sandy spit, four researchers cautiously approached a pair of black and white birds with comically long orange beaks.
November 4, 2010 at 8:28 p.m. – Associated Press
PENSACOLA — Federal scientists say they have found damage to deep sea corals and other marine life several miles from where BP’s blown-out well spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration along with Penn State University and others examined the coral.
Scientists said Thursday that surveys using remotely operated vehicles down to 4,600 feet, and roughly seven miles from the BP well, found dead and dying corals. Some appeared to be coated with a “brown substance.”
Further tests are needed to determine if the substance is oil, and if it came from BP’s well that blew out in April off Louisiana.
NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco says the government is committed to ongoing research in the region to determine the extent of damage.
WASHINGTON, DC, October 20, 2010 (ENS) – Three conservation groups today filed a lawsuit against oil giant BP under the Endangered Species Act for they claim is the “ongoing unlawful harm or killing of endangered and threatened wildlife” caused by the company’s Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.
NCSE Launches a new OCEAN-OIL (Online Clearinghouse for Education And Networking – Oil Interdisciplinary Learning) project. OCEAN-OIL will be a comprehensive online teaching resource on the oil disaster and its impacts on the Gulf of Mexico. This project has been developed in collaboration with Boston and Louisiana State Universities with National Science Foundation funding.
This is the fourth cruise in a four-year project to discover and characterize deep-water coral communities in the Gulf of Mexico, to conduct a variety of experiments and analyses that will help us to predict where other communities will be found, and to understand why we find them where we do.
Read more about NOAA’s exploration of the Gulf of Mexico
