NEW ORLEANS --
In the nearly two weeks since a temporary cap stopped BP's gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, not much oil has been showing up on the surface of the water.
Scientists caution that doesn't mean the crude is gone. There's still a lot of it in the Gulf, though no one is sure quite how much or exactly where it is.
"You know it didn't just disappear," said Ernst Peebles, a biological oceanographer at the University of South Florida. "We expect that is has been dispersed pretty far by now."
Thomas Bianchi, a geochemist and oceanographer at Texas A&M University, said that because the dispersants have pushed oil underwater, scientists may be past the point where they can track it from the air.
"Now it's time to look at the molecular and microbial food web," he said. "We may be beyond people in white suits and booms."
He added: "There's no way to clean up water at that level in a large basin like the Gulf or these estuaries. You have to live with nature's ability to clean it up."
In truth, it's a relief to learn that "we may be beyond people in white suits and booms" now since "Beyond Petroleum" was always been kind of beyond protective gear or proper booming anyway. In any event, they look about ready to call it day.
The amount of boats contracted by BP to skim oil, lay new boom, and replace the old ones soaked with crude will be seriously slashed, according to area leaders. The current group of about 300 vessels will be cut down to 40.
"Which is concerning for us because there has been no indication from BP they would scale back to this level," said Chris Roberts, Jefferson Parish councilman.
Roberts said he got wind of the reduction through contractors hired by BP. A spokesperson for the oil giant could neither confirm nor deny the news, but did admit to Eyewitness News there is a current scale back all along the coast.
Pointing to the well that's been capped now for over a week, BP says there's isn't enough oil in the water to warrant the same level of boats.
The downsizing could impact as many 1,000 workers, according to Roberts, and so fisherman forced into unemployment by the oil could be unemployed once more. While 76 percent of the Gulf's waters are now open to fishing, concerns remain over just what they'll find.
Providing cover for the hasty withdrawal is a sudden swell of "where-did-the-oil-go?" stories spilling out into the news continuum this week. Most notable among these is this Time Magazine story (featuring known BP flack Ivor Van Heerden) which prudently asks "Has the Damage Been Exaggerated?" at a time when the extent of that damage is still being measured and is, in all likelihood, still accruing.
As major news media began pushing this mysterious vanishing oil story, Mother Jones' Mac McClelland figured it was at least worth sending a few text messages for the sake of verification.
I sent one text message to Bloomberg's Lizzie O'Leary, who's standing on Grand Isle, Louisiana, right now, asking how the beach looks. "Lower part past the barrier untouched with globs of oil that washed up last night," she said. By "untouched," she means by cleanup crews, and that "barrier" she's talking about is the one the press isn't allowed past. I sent another text to Drew Wheelan, who's also in Southwestern Louisiana, doing bird surveys for the American Birding Association, asking him how big the biggest tar mat on Grand Terre—the scene of those now famous horrifying oiled-bird photos—is. "20 feet by 15," he said. "But bigger ones submerged slightly."
If I managed to find that much oil with my BlackBerry without getting dressed or leaving the house, let's hope Thad Allen, who is quoted in the article as saying, "What we're trying to figure out is where is all the oil at and what can we do about it," can locate some more with the staff and craft of the United States Coast Guard at his disposal.
Gambit's Alex Woodward notes that the stream of "vanishing oil" stories fly in the face of various instances of reported oil sightings.
Coastal parishes last week all reported oil on shore or close to shore, or both. On July 28, the National Resources Defense Council issued a report showing 2,000 beach closings, advisories and notices had been issued in the Gulf region so far this year — compared with 237 in all of 2009. Oil is also blowing through boom, landing along islands off the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts. More ominously, oil is billowing under the water’s surface in large patches — some stretching for miles and sinking rapidly, thanks to BP-applied dispersants.
Meanwhile Dambala has been sharing photos and video he shot while flying over the spill site as well as beaches and marshes in Louisiana and Mississippi. What he found there is pretty horrifying.
We landed at the Ocean Springs Airport and met with a local lawyer and conservationist who gave us a tour of the city and beach. I was in a state of disbelief when we drove past the beach area and saw kids on the beach and in the water. I wanted to run out and scream bloody murder, but I realized it was futile and that there were hundreds if not thousands of people out in that water from there to Panama City, FL. Man, if they could only have seen what I saw from the air. I don't know what the state of Mississippi is telling people, but I can absolutely, positively assure you that this spill is in the waters off their beaches.
In case you haven't been listening to local radio or watching cable news lately, here's what the State of Mississippi has been telling people.
Doubtless these ads and others like them are the fruit of BP's contribution to state tourism departments accross the Gulf coast. At the time these grants were announced, it seemed to some of us a gross misapplication of resources to devote so much money to image management in the middle of a crisis of public safety.
To some extent, such behavior is only to be expected from an oil giant like BP where propaganda is just part of the corporate playbook. And BP has implemented every page of that book. They've even been buying space to talk themselves up in places some people didn't even realize were for sale.
The ads they run every day all day on cable news channels feature one or another BP employee with personal ties to the Gulf Coast promising to "stay as long as it takes" to repair the horrible damage their company has done. And so it comes as little surprise that, since the well is nearly killed and the dramatic images of spillcam have been shut down, "as long as it takes" has suddenly become sooner than later. We don't expect BP to act in good faith with us. They're a self-interested, for profit, oil corporation. It's their job to lie themselves out of as much loss as they can. That the state and local governments whose people and coastlines have been victimized have themselves demonstrated the same enthusiasm for feel-good advertising is less defensible but perhaps explicable nonetheless.
Last Sunday, Times-Picayune outdoors editor, Bob Marshall panned Governor Jindal for making demagogic and scientifically unsound proclamations about the ongoing effort to protect the coast. While the preternaturally image conscious Jindal's hysterics are calculated to capitalize on rage at the various federal actors' performance they also serve to deflect blame from Jindal himself and an important constituency of his.
Since the oil began spewing, Jindal has been trying to convince people the reason our wetlands are being poisoned and people are out of work is those damn feds. It's a diversion. If he screams loud enough, maybe people will forget that he was a big supporter of risky deepwater drilling.
He is making villains of those responding to the disaster, not those responsible for it.
The fur coat comes from an old adage that applies to many people elected to public office: "Give a gorilla a fur coat, and he thinks he's King Kong." Jindal thinks "governor" is not an office but a title, one that comes with a crown that bestows divine enlightenment: He must know more than the scientists because he was elected. That's why he can ignore the experts.
Finally, we come to panic -- which is the enduring image the nation may be getting from the most visible Louisiana politicians during this crisis. They see men screaming at cameras, raging at the federal government about this oil disaster. The same men are screaming that we need to continue drilling more wells and ignoring their own scientists' advice on how to deal with the problems.
If we have a future on this coast, we will need the nation's help in the form of tens of billions of dollars for coastal projects. Politicians spewing distortions, ignoring experts and wasting tens of millions of dollars doesn't inspire investor confidence.
Marshall doesn't say it exactly like this but the takeaway here is that, while Jindal is the Governor of Louisiana, this doesn't mean that he represents All Of Louisiana against encroachment from the sea or even from the White House. Like any elected office holder, Jindal uses that office to protect the friends who placed him there. If that means "spewing distortions, ignoring experts and wasting tens of millions of dollars" then so be it.
Likewise, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu derives his priorities through observance of the needs of his closest friends and stakeholders. Most of those friends and stakeholders happen to slither about in the city's tourist industry in one way or another. Currently, more than a few of these folks are keenly interested in presenting the attractions of the Gulf Coast in as positive a light as possible. Which is why, even as scientists are identifying real threats to the local seafood supply from the combination of oil and dispersant, the Mayor is insisting on more money to combat this and other "negative" perceptions of local tourism, regardless of whether those concerns are based in fact.
For Mitch, as he often says, it is more important that everyone in the city learn to act as "one team" speaking with "one voice" than it is for them to freely air their policy concerns, access the records of important meetings, or, say, determine the safety of their own food supply.
Mayor Landrieu takes a page from Sarah Palin's book and writes his idiotic talking points on his hands.
When people like Mitch Landrieu talk about the importance of protecting reputations and brands, it should be immediately understood that they aren't really interested in the truth if they perceive the truth as being bad for business. The fact is, you can't really have that both ways. You're either on the side of working fishermen, the Louisiana wetlands, and the public safety or you're on the side of the people exploiting those things for profit.
Landrieu's and Jindal's behavior is especially pernicious in that they pretend they're advocating on your behalf when they're really covering up ugliness on behalf of their friends. It's not really any different from BP's attempt to hide the oil. Except that nobody really expects BP to act on anyone's behalf but its own. Maybe no one should expect their elected representatives to behave any differently. But at least they could grant us the courtesy letting us speak with our own voices on the matter.
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