Containment Boom to defend Breton National Wildlife Refuge
NOAA maps admit that oil from Deepwater Horizon is accumulating onshore. Greenpeace found some at a place called Port Eads.
Here is a 9-day-old video offering a crisp, clean, universally comprehensible explanation of the spill. Keep in mind that by now the first “solution”, the robotic sub, didn’t really work. The second solution, the big dome, just recently failed, so now they’re planning a little “top hat” dome. Also, the stats have changed: 210,000 gallons per day are now gushing into the ocean, for a total of 3.5 million gallons so far. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLiqvZOP8TY] BP has now received federal approval to continuously pump chemical dispersants underwater, the ecological effects of which are completely unknown. Everyone seems clueless about what to do, with the next options including artificial islands, cutting the riser pipe (scary, because even more oil could then leak out), releasing water from the Louisiana levees, or a “junk shot”:
“The next tactic will be a junk shot,” Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen told “Face the Nation” anchor Bob Schiffer on Sunday. “They’ll take a bunch of debris, shredded up tires, golf balls and things like that and under very high pressure shoot it into the preventer itself and see if they can clog it up and stop the leak.”
Here’s the site for the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command, the network of state, corporate and federal agencies responsible for the spill.
The BBC has an interactive graphics page on the spill as well as some video of the cleanup efforts. They also say it’s far from the biggest spill ever. Just wait a few weeks.
Also from the BBC, Neanderthal genes have been confirmed to exist in modern Homo Sapiens. Dave Foreman postulated on this 20 years ago in his book Confessions of an Eco-Warrior.
Russia’s largest underground coal mine has exploded. About 60 people are still trapped inside.
Greenpeace reports that European motorists are using tar sands oil without knowing where it came from.
On May 15th, give your stuff away. Mike Morone is talking about free boxes on a massive scale. It’s something we all should be doing anyway, and maybe this day will help spread awareness.
In case you haven’t seen Kanellos yet, check it out. This dog gets around.
Check out EF! on YouTube! The slide show and puppet show from the Earth First! Roadshow are now online. Props to Diablo EF! for their cathartic car-smashing videos. And in case anyone was wondering, Earth First! is alive and well. We are adding a VIDEOS page to the newswire so everyone can easily watch this stuff.
Read more about the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and its aftermath here.