BATON ROUGE, La. — Scientists with the University of South Florida say laboratory tests have confirmed that oil from a spewing Gulf of Mexico well has accumulated in at least two extensive plumes deep underwater. The researchers said in Baton Rouge on Friday that tests confirmed their initial findings that were based on field instruments. BP PLC CEO Tony Hayward has said there was no evidence of large underwater plumes.
The researchers say the extensive layers of oil are sitting far beneath the surface miles from the site of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Tests were continuing and final results were expected Monday. The lab tests are the most conclusive evidence yet in a vigorous scientific debate about where much of the oil is ending up…
The government and university researchers confirmed Tuesday that plumes of dispersed oil were spreading far below the ocean surface from the leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico, raising fresh concern about the potential impact of the spill on sea life. The tests, the first detailed chemical analyses of water from the deep sea, show that some of the most toxic components of the oil are not necessarily rising to the surface where they can evaporate, as would be expected in a shallow oil leak. Instead, they are drifting through deep water in plumes or layers that stretch as far as 50 miles from the leaking well…
The announcement of test results came as the White House said would make his fourth trip to the region next week, visiting Mississippi, Alabama and Florida on Monday and Tuesday. The results on the plumes came from samples taken by researchers at the University of South Florida, in St. Petersburg. NOAA helped finance the research and joined in Tuesday’s announcement.
The test results, from samples taken in late May aboard the research vessel Weatherbird II, appeared to confirm information first presented three weeks ago by another group of researchers, who found evidence of large plumes of dispersed oil droplets in the deep ocean. Those scientists have not yet completed their analysis of water samples, but one of them, Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia, supplied additional information at a news conference on Tuesday, including instrument readings taken on her most recent research cruise. Those readings suggest that a large plume, probably consisting of hydrocarbons from the leak, stretches through the deep ocean for at least 15 miles west of the gushing oil well, Dr. Joye said. The top of the plume is about 3,600 feet below the sea surface; the plume is three miles wide and as thick as 1,500 feet in spots, she said.The University of South Florida researchers found an even larger plume stretching northeast of the oil well, with the hydrocarbons separated into two distinct layers in the ocean. One layer is about 1,200 feet below the surface, and the other is 3,000 feet deep, the scientists said. The government’s confirmation of subsea oil plumes is significant in part because BP, the oil company responsible for the leak, had denied that such plumes existed, and NOAA itself had previously been cautious in interpreting the preliminary results from Dr. Joye’s group…
Quantitating the monster is sort of irrelevant. How many gallons [liters, barrels] per day or whether or not there are plumes isn’t the point right now. Now matter what we know, it’s bad. And no matter what the numbers say, it’s still very bad. The point is to stop the leak, and start cleaning it all up.
But these daily conflicting reports do have something to say. BP’s arch-fiend-CEO Tony Hayward is deadset on minimizing this oil spill. There’s nothing minimal about it, and the more he talks, the less credibile he sounds – everything is okay, they’re working hard, they’re doing their best, etc. There’s a huge amount of oil contaminating the Gulf of Mexico, and reassurances from Hayward just make us more angry. He sounds like Nixon after Watergate, Clinton after Monica, Rumsfeld after Abu Ghraib, or 
Rand Paul after the Rachel Maddow show.
I wonder why people do that, make lame disclaiming comments when they’ve really screwed up royally. It never really works. Sooner or later, the truth comes rolling out. I’m thinking that the operative piece of literature for Hayward’s current situation is one familiar to us all since childhood…
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