Category: Uncategorized

  • Archiving the Gulf Death Watch: The Early Weeks

    Below are the links and clips that first appeared in the announcements section of the Texas Civil Rights Review before we read an analysis at The Oil Drum which is altogether logical and depressing. We are at a death watch now, praying for a miracle.–gm

    Link to critcal: TCRR Critical Calendar

    Our timeline of events for the first seven weeks with notes, press clips, and commentary. Our chief interest in the facts pertained to calculation of an oil containment and recovery “deficit” derived from subtracting official figures of millions of gallons of “oily water” recovered from official estimates of oil gushing up.

    But already by week eight the deficit figures calculated during week seven have become obsolete. As Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson reports, we should be considering the number that a NOAA group wrote on a white board shortly after the fatal blowout: 60,000 to 100,000 barrels per day. Since this is the moral equivalent of war, we should take the higher limit as the challenge before us.

    100,000 barrels per day is 4.2 million gallons per day, which means that oil containment and recovery capacities are missing at least 90 percent of the threat. By day 48 we calculated an average “oily water” recovery rate of about 400,000 gallons, but we do not know how to gauge the percent of oil to water, which could be as low (or lower than) 10 percent.–gm (updated June 13).

    Official Date of Blowout: Apr. 20, 2010

    Oil Spill Forecast June 16, 2010

    Forecast for June 16, 2010

    deepwaterhorizon.noaa.gov

    See Also

    New Orleans IndyMedia

    UGA GulfBlog

    Plume Detectives: “Think of it as gas-saturated oil that has been shot out of a deep sea cannon under intense pressure – it’s like putting olive oil in a spray can, pressurizing it and pushing the spray button. What comes out when you push that button? A mist of olive oil. This well is leaking a mist of oil that is settling out in the deep sea.”

    Louisiana Bucket Brigade Crisis Map Reports

    Grassroots Reports from Gulf Coast Community.

    Misdirection Exposed: Dylan Ratigan Clip

    Are we seeing the whole truth?

    Gulf Tribunal

    “We urge all readers to research the activities of Halliburton and BP in the months leading up to DeepWater Horizon’s explosion on April 20, and then sinking on April 22, which happens to be Earth Day.”

    Gulf Restoration Network

    See Latest Footage BP Doesn’t Want You to See: The amount of oil we encountered (on June 4 flyover) is staggering. The lack of response vessels working to contain this oil is bitterly disappointing. At the “source” we counted at most a dozen boats with boom working to contain the oil. However, the source is the only place we found these boats and none of them appeared to be skimmer vessels. Other than the “source” itself, we spotted no other containment efforts until we flew along the Louisiana coast from East Bay to Grand Isle.

    Defend New Orleans


    In an effort to provide regular news updates and accurate information about Louisiana seafood to journalists and the general public, the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board has launched a new website, www.louisianaseafoodnews.com.


    Gov

    USCG National Strike Force / Gulf Strike Team / Official DeepWater Horizon Response Website / US Navy SUPSALV / MMS

    Com

    Abanaki Oil Skimmers / CINC / ITOPF / Desmi Ro-Clean / Koseq / Lamor-Slickbar / RecoveredEnergy


    Watch the latest news video at video.foxnews.com

    More Video Resources

    Long Road to Restoration: PBS interview with RALPH PORTIER, Professor of Environmental Sciences, Louisiana State University (expert on microbial approaches to oil cleanup); and AARON VILES, Gulf Restoration Network (“this is going to be a years and decades problem”).


    The Oil Drum: A Busted Well Bore — All the Way Down?

    What does this mean? It means they will never cap the gusher after the wellhead. They cannot…the more they try and restrict the oil gushing out the bop?…the more it will transfer to the leaks below. Just like a leaky garden hose with a nozzle on it. When you open up the nozzle?…it doesn’t leak so bad, you close the nozzle?…it leaks real bad, same dynamics.

    We need to prepare for the possibility of this blow out sending more oil into the gulf per week then what we already have now, because that is what a collapse of the system will cause. All the collection efforts that have captured oil will be erased in short order. The magnitude of this disaster will increase exponentially by the time we can do anything to halt it and our odds of actually even being able to halt it will go down.

    Not so Fast: A Cracked Well Bore Would Already Have Done More Damage

    if there was a crack, in the same way as with the BOP, then over time that would have been eaten away as oil, gas and mud flowed through it. Once a flow starts it will rapidly eat out a larger passage, as the above has demonstrated. Once that passage was created then oil flow through it to the surface would make it impossible to see what was going on around the well (look at the cloud above the BOP). In fact there are very clear pictures from under the BOP. This would seem to show that there is no oil leaking there at present.

    Early Warning: Dylan Ratigan Clip

    Are
    we seeing the whole truth?

  • New Orleans Gulf Emergency Summit, June 19

    Gulf Emergency Summit

    Saturday June 19

    Doors open 10:00 am

    First Unitarian Universalist Church, New Orleans

    5212 South Claiborne Avenue

    Join Cindy Sheehan, John Clark, Larry Everest, and Gulf region activists, independent of the government and BP in making an ACTION plan. The People Must Act to STOP the Gulf Catastrophe!

    The BP oil blowout is an environmental catastrophe, bringing great peril to marine and wildlife in the Gulf and threatening ecosystems of the planet. The spill is still out of control and spreading. It jeopardizes communities and livelihoods.

    The government and BP have proven unable and unwilling to stop the disaster, protect the Gulf,or even tell the truth.

    The people must come together now to stop this nightmare.

    Millions are sick at heart and looking for ways to act. Many individuals and groups have spoken out, offered suggestions, volunteered to help, protested.

    BP and the government – pursuing their own interests – have ignored people’s ideas, blocked public participation, suppressed and
    harassed scientists, and prevented people on the Gulf from taking initiative to keep oil away from shore. This must not continue.

    A broad, determined, and powerful “peoples’ response” is urgently needed – to get thetruth out, to protect the shores and oceans and deal with the ecological impacts, while exploring deeper causes and solutions.

    The Emergency Summit will bring together scientists, people from fishing communities, environmental activists, progressives, radicals and revolutionaries, artists, intellectuals and all who want to halt this horror.

    There will be testimony on the true scope and impact of the disaster and on what can be done to protect ecosystems, wildlife, and people. We’ll thrash out ways for people to act now – on different fronts and in different ways – and to galvanize many, many more, across the Gulf and beyond. The world is watching. We must not allow the Gulf and oceans to be devastated. Our mission is nothing less than stopping this catastrophe.

    Draft Demands:

    1. Stop oil drilling in the Gulf

    2. The government and entire oil industry must allocate all necessary resources to stop the spill and clean up the devastation. Full support, including by compensation, must be given to efforts by people to save the Gulf.

    3. No punishment to those taking independent initiative; no gag orders on people hired, contracted, or who volunteer.

    4. Full mobilization of scientists and engineers. Release scientific and technical data to the public; no more lying and covering up. Full and open scientific evaluation of emergency measures like the use of dispersants. Fund all necessary scientific and medical research.

    5. Full compensation for all losing livelihood and income from the disaster.

    6. Provide necessary medical services to those suffering health effects of the spill. Protect the health of and provide necessary equipment for everyone involved in clean up operations. Full disclosure of medical and scientific studies about the effects of the oil disaster.

    Some of the hundreds of endorsers:

    William Quigley, Loyola University; Legal Dir., Center for Constitutional Rights*

    Michael G. Hadfield, Marine Biologist, University of Hawaii*

    Larry Everest, author Oil, Power & Empire, Revolution newspaper

    John Pearse, Prof. Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz*

    Eloise Williams, Lower Algiers Environmental Committee, New Orleans

    Elizabeth Cook, Women United for Social Justice, New Orleans

    Andy Washington, Civil Rights Activist, New Orleans

    Survivors Village, New Orleans

    Ben Gordon, Pax Cristi, New Orleans

    Debra Sweet, Director, World Can’t Wait

    Sharon Jasper, public housing activist, New Orleans

    C3-Hands Off Iberville, New Orleans

    George Mahdi, Social Worker, New Orleans

    Endesha Juakeli, housing activist, New Orleans

    Randy Poindexter, New Orleans

    Rebecca Austen, New Orleans

    Gilda & Sain Reed, New Orleans

    Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report

    Dahr Jamail, journalist

    Mark J. Davis, Tulane Institute on Water Resources Law & Policy

    Raymond Lotta, Revolution contributor, environment, socialist sustainable development

    Everyone’s voice, ideas and energy are needed. If you can’t come, contact the Summit for next steps. Endorse the Summit & you’ll be contacted about the ACTION plan

  • Protest Against Raymondville Tent City Targets Georgetown Office

    NEWS ADVISORY

    “Dignity Not Detention” – Activists Protest Private Prison Offices in Georgetown, TX

    Human Rights Organizations Call for Closure of Notorious “Tent City” Detention Center

    Georgetown, TX — On Tuesday, March 30th, from 12:00-1pm, Williamson County residents and central Texans will gather for a protest of the Management and Training Corporation (MTC) offices at 2995 Dawn Drive in Georgetown, TX. MTC operates the Willacy County “Tent City” detention center in Raymondville, Texas for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    MTC’s “Tent City”, built largely out of series of Kevlar pods, is nation’s largest immigrant detention center. It holds up to 3,000 immigrant detainees and has been criticized for a series of allegations of horrendous conditions and abuse, including reports of detainees being fed rotten and inadequate food, and poor access to medical and mental health care.

    Organizers: Members of Grassroots Leadership, the WilCo Justice Alliance, Texans United for Families and other groups.

  • Ibrahim Family Fights Deportation

    Note: the following announcement was posted at the top of the TCRR website for three years–gm.

    Our heroes Maryam and Faten Ibrahim have been ordered deported to Palestine.

    Read our interview with family attorney John Wheat Gibson

    View the CounterPunch article

    Archived Feb. 20, 2010