'Death Gyre' in the Gulf
Firsthand accounts and leaked photos of a secret BP processing facility -- possibly for dead animals -- point to a massive cover-up in the Gulf. An exclusive report.
Tue, Aug 03 2010 at 10:28 PM EST
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June 10th was a strange day. In a surprising move, the Coast Guard instituted a dramatic expansion of the "no-fly" zone over the Gulf, preventing major media outlets like the New York Times and even scientists with top government clearance from accessing the area. This caused a wave of journalistic uproar and bewilderment on the part of researchers like Edward E. Clark of the Wildlife Center (above) who had been invited to study the impacts just prior to the media blackout.
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All manner of apocalyptic scenarios were running through my head that morning when by chance I received a very strange message that pointed to a less fantastic but equally horrific explanation. It was a text message that had been sent on a borrowed phone to a man's wife (according to the person who forwarded it to me) a man who had just returned from what many are now calling the "Death Gyre." The message was e-mailed to a family friend who posted it on Facebook and it has since been recirculated. Here's the text (you will notice a few colloquialisms that are specific to Bayou talk) so read through the lines, and forgive the misspellings:
I have to write this mail on a new cellphone because they have taken our phones off us. people dont know how bad this oil is.. im working in the cleanup operation and we've all has to sign a legal paper that stops us from talking to anyone. im onshore now and cant tell you where but ive just finished a very long shift in the gulf and textin this....fast as i can. the military are watching us dolphins whales, seabirds fish are all floating dead on the surface of the water.. see more.. see more…boats helicopters are scooping them away dead and dying... Whales are being exploded by the military cause they cant be carried. dead bodys as far as the eye can see air smeling of benzene ..weve seen birds fall from the sky. workers falling sick we think some workers have died. my friends are hard oilmen it was ok to at the start but now we cry. dead sea life is as big as genocide you wont imagine
Since no one has yet been able to get this individual to go on record (and the Facebook post was eventually taken down) this can't be taken as hard evidence, but it does beg the question ... just how many animals have died because of the worst oil spill in U.S. history?
According to the latest count of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Daily Collection Report (PDF), only about 4,100 birds, 670 turtles, 70 sea mammals, and 1 snake have died in the Gulf since April 20 (assuming 50 percent mortality of live animals).
It's an astonishingly low number, considering that one of the largest pods of sperm whales in the U.S. resided just miles from the site of the BP Macondo well (aka Deepwater Horizon), a region home to one of the most abundant and biodiverse marine ecosystems in the world.
Compare those small numbers with the Exxon Valdez spill ... Best estimates put the toll of the far smaller oil spill in Alaska at more than 200,000 birds (including hundreds of eagles), more than 3,000 sea mammals, more than 20 whales, and billions of fish eggs. The accident permanently wiped out the herring population of this Alaskan Gulf region. And that was an accident 1/10th the size of the Deepwater Horizon.
The final tally of the BP oil spill is almost 5 million barrels of crude, compared to only about 500,000 barrels for Exxon Valdez — a 1:10 ratio. Yes the Alaska spill happened closer inland, but the oil was not fully integrated with the water column as in the BP gusher (a far more pervasive and deadly scenario) and neither were thousands of tons of highly toxic dispersants like Corexit, a chemical that has, ironically, been banned in Britain because of its impacts on wildlife and human health.
One would be forgiven then for assuming there should be a far greater body count than what is currently being reported by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the same government office that famously blocked Anderson Cooper from peering past the 10' high barricades that had been put up to enclose a "bird receiving" area. According to the math, the count should be in the hundreds of thousands of dead birds, tens of thousands of sea mammals, and millions upon millions of fish and shellfish. So where were all the dead bodies? We should be seeing something like the mass dolphin kill off the coast of Zanzibar (left) that resulted from a much smaller offshore oil leak.Is it possible that a massive cleanup operation in early June was focused on collecting dead animals out at sea in naturally forming "death gyres?" According to marine toxicologist Riki Ott, such gyres of dead and dying animals were common for weeks after the Exxon Valdez spill. And we know that BP was doing everything in its power to keep dead animal photographs out of the press. Kate Sheppard and Mac Mclelland of Mother Jones documented several instances of BP actually barring photography of dead animals on public beaches.
I received two firsthand accounts indicating that some sort of processing operation was taking place —one from Alabama (a rig operator contracted to work in an abandoned Navy yard) and one on Grand Isle — both reporting the construction of highly secured, nearly militarized ports that had been converted into "waste processing" areas.
EPA head Lisa P. Jackson mentioned on her Twitter feed June 11 feed that she was visiting a shipyard "...where the waste is managed." What exactly was the waste being processed? If it was just oil-soaked boom and contaminated sand bags, where were all the photo opps demonstrating BP's awesome progress in cleaning up the oil? It wasn't adding up. Then I got an e-mail with some interesting photos that were uploaded to Citizen Global, a crowdsourcing news platform, on their Gulf News Desk.
It was a firsthand account by an individual working in the Gulf, who reported...
... receiving unconfirmed confidential reports that BP is withholding information about fish kills including that of sperm whales, whale sharks, Blue-fin Tuna and other marine mammals. (…) Following up on these leads, recently I flew over the staging areas where the reports allege that BP has been engaged in these secretive operations. What I saw from the air over Shell Beach and Hopedale, Louisiana was what seemed to be military protected staging areas where whales could potentially be brought in from offshore, processed under huge white tents, then carted off in trash trucks owned by a collaborative of oil companies, including BP. I'm deeply concerned that BP has the power to put in place restrictions on... access to certain areas of the ever-growing BP drilling disaster location and will continue advocating for a change in this policy.
The following three photographs (taken in the first week of June and published here for the first time) document the processing area just prior to commencing operations. A large-scale construction project, which included creating a visual barricade on a 200' long pier, several large cranes adjacent to lined pools at least 50' in length, and a series of large tents alongside a fleet of trucks, gives further credence to the theory that BP, with the help of the U.S. government, was processing some form of waste that they did not want the public to know about:
A team of journalists, including Jerry Cope of the Huffington Post and Charles Hambleton, co-producer of the Academy award-winning documentary "The Cove", went down to the region to investigate. They had some interesting findings to report and got some great interviews with locals on the mystery of the disappearing dead animals. Most notable was their finding that some municipal dumps had been secured by law enforcement officials in the area, and several individuals reported the dumping of bags full of rotting carcasses.
You might be wondering about motive. Sure BP probably wanted to keep the full, gruesome reality of their toxic nightmare out of the press as much as possible. But was that enough of a motive to warrant such a massive and expensive operation? Probably not. A greater incentive may have been the fines the company would have incurred if the correct number of dead carcasses had been verifiable. At $50,000 a pop, hundreds of thousands of dead animals could spell B-A-N-K-R-U-P-T-C-Y for BP, and that's something that no one, including the U.S. government, would have wanted to happen.
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Comments
Lucius
08/17/2010 21:47 PM
BP and the US Government have prohibited research and have spun the media into the "spill" as a virtual non-event. Nothing to see here, folks.
Go away. That's an order!!
However, I beg to differ.
The prediction: http://www2.ucar.edu/news/ocean-currents-likely-to-carry-oil-spill-along...
The facts: .... More
MSSPPILove
08/16/2010 22:52 PM
Who the HELL does British Petroleum think they are not allowing US citizens the right to photograph the devastation of OUR waters, OUR land and sea life? Are you kidding me? Not only that, but the world should be outraged because the oil will reach their coasts too! I was in Katrina and sh** was bad with the government but now THIS? What else do we need to stand up against these goons? And I'm talking government officials too. They suck BP a** gas just like the rest of their paid lackeys. They.... More
MNN Propaganda
08/15/2010 22:55 PM
The stranding in that photo was taken in Zanzibar, SHAME ON YOU "Mother Nature Network"....MNN is the FOOL
bob
09/29/2010 23:22 PM
Right. And the column says it was taken in Zanzibar. But you didn't bother reading that far, you just wanted to mouth off, eh?
MMN Propaganda
08/15/2010 22:55 PM
The stranding in that photo was taken in Zanzibar, SHAME ON YOU "Mother Nature Network"....MNN is the FOOL
st
08/21/2010 19:35 PM
You must not have read the article. It clearly stated that "dolphin photo" was taken in Zanzibar after a much smaller oil spill. Shame on You!
waren wilson
08/11/2010 09:03 AM
wondor how many people you should allow at a fender bender on the free way-- rubber neckers--let people do their work without stumbling over a bnch of jerks tryiing to cash in on a spill--research 1979 Pemex blowout--learn the truth
Emery
08/14/2010 03:42 AM
What a stupid idiot you are.......it's not a fender bender. A BP employee no doubt.
Chae
08/11/2010 01:08 AM
It bugs me to imagine what in the world were they trying to hide from us and spend who knows what to just hide this from the media!
There was a movie my sister rented something called "The neighbor next door" which Jackie Chan plays as the main character.. Anyways, the protagonist in the movie are the "Russians" and built this new technology that will make them super because it can vanquish oil in a matter of seconds... This was definitely odd to me that a movie such as this would play.... More
Chicago
08/10/2010 19:29 PM
Follow the money, ledgers, records, lbs of stuff! .... like when they investigated the Holocaust.
Mark
08/10/2010 15:26 PM
Re Video: These people should have gone up in the helicopter the second time, at the 6:00 pm time slot. The advisory by cell phone that "they" said their clearance had been revoked again should have been met by the response: "SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO - SHOOT DOWN OUR HELICOPTER? WE'RE GOING ANYWAY. PERIOD." It's time to stop following the orders of these clone people.
J Adams
Today 23:31 PM
All three of the photos, ostensibly "taken in the first week of June and published here for the first time" in this article published August 3, were published to Greenpeace's Flickr site on May 13. For example, http://www.flickr.com/photos/greenpeaceusa09/4604203671/in/set-721576238....
If you want to shriek about the death of anything, try lamenting the destruction of American critical thinking
awakened
08/09/2010 03:42 AM
Your link is as vague as your point. Does it matter when the photo first aired on the net? It is what it is. The person who uploaded thought it was a clean up station and sounded unsure of that. You and the others who have posted on here with the "so what" attitudes are in for the shock of your lives very soon. Keep on believing things will continue as they have and keep on sucking the gas from the pump as if it were the way life was supposed to be. You will wake up to a different world and.... More
Jared Israel
08/07/2010 19:24 PM
My comment was meant to be a reply to RonKH's comment, not to anything said in the article. :-)
Jared Israel
Jared Israel
08/07/2010 19:21 PM
Obama didn't just fail "by not taking charge and making sure the U.S. agencies cooperated and were led effectively." With the silent assent of the Republican and Democratic leadership, his administration *fought* to put BP in charge of the crime scene by repeatedly claiming that the Oil Pollution Act required this, which is a lie -- not a misinterpretation of the law, but an outright fabrication, as proven at .... More
Leo Denton
08/07/2010 10:19 AM
Louisiana rain near gulf oil catastrophe contains high levels of toxins http://umpteenhorizons.org/wordpress/2010/08/07/citizen-rain-water-tests...
Spurlock
08/06/2010 20:42 PM
Enter your comments here
Spurlock
08/06/2010 20:42 PM
Aliens!
Giant space aliens! That's what they are hiding!!!
I know this, because the Gray Dolphin whale spoke to me.
It said: "Roorooroooorooow", which roughly translates to: "Give me your taco humans!" - a CLEAR sign that ALIEN'S have invaded this sacred land for they feed off natural resources such as Crude Oil and have run their own resources dry building technology to advance themselves before concerning themselves with their own economy!!!
(LOL I'm just messin....... More
steve rogers
08/05/2010 21:18 PM
the article is bull the pictures are unauthentic . the photo is a grey whale not a sperm whale and sunlight would not have been penetrating the water with a slick on top. the dolphin pictures look like they originated from the spill in the persian gulf . no way would someone be allowed to walk through a slick in the u.s. i don't fall for it .
Chicago
08/10/2010 19:32 PM
If you would READ the article, it is an example of what we are NOT seeing. It is LIKE what we would be seeing, but are not seeing.
Chicago
08/10/2010 19:33 PM
If you would READ the article, it is an example of what we are NOT seeing. It is LIKE what we would be seeing, but are not seeing.
Cheeky *******
08/09/2010 08:02 AM
@ Steve:
This is the copy next to the dolphin picture: "We should be seeing something like the mass dolphin kill off the coast of ZANZIBAR (left) that resulted from a much smaller offshore oil leak."
Would that you could read as critically as you respond to other people's comments.
Susan
08/07/2010 18:01 PM
Read the article. If you do, you will see this sentence by the picture you are referencing. The article says why aren't we seeing something like this. "We should be seeing something like the mass dolphin kill off the coast of Zanzibar (left) that resulted from a much smaller offshore oil leak."
dummy radar
08/06/2010 11:34 AM
Nowhere in the article does it say that is a picture of a sperm whale. There is mention of sperm whales living in the area...perhaps that is what you skimmed and misinterpreted? Read before you slam man.
capt. obvious
08/06/2010 00:52 AM
The photo is from Zanzibar, which is mentioned and described as the photo... dummy.
Leo Denton
08/05/2010 19:27 PM
Gulf oil right next to Dauphin Island is collected and then decays rapidly in sealed glass jars. This is very worrisome and strange.
http://umpteenhorizons.org/wordpress/2010/08/05/oil-collected-north-of-d...
ron
08/05/2010 15:45 PM
in case someone else needs to see this
Rick James
08/05/2010 15:28 PM
The United States Government are puppets and the corporations pulling their strings are terrorist that are controlling our world and ruining the earth!
"Wake up and realize that our real enemies are not in some distant land. They're not people who's names we don't know and cultures we don't understand. The enemy is people we know very well and people we can identify. The enemy is a system that wages war when it's profitable. The enemy is CEO's who lay us off when it's profitable. It's.... More
Marley Eats
08/05/2010 09:23 AM
And they want us to believe that we can swim in the water and eat the fish! After all the oil has been vanished; by the greatest magicians of the world BP & our government. Do they really think southerners are that naive?
ladsakj
08/05/2010 08:25 AM
Let's not paint a Katrina on the Obama administration
RonKH
08/05/2010 16:25 PM
Obama painted a Katrina, and worse, on himself by not taking charge and making sure the U.S. agencies cooperated and were led effectively.
Obama failed. He did not talk to a top BP exec until 60 days after the explosion and oil geyser spewed into the Gulf.
Obama failed. Still today, people on the Gulf are crying for help and even one of the Dems' best friends, Carville, is screaming for Obama to help, to provide leadership.
Obama failed. The EPA told BP not to use.... More
Leo Denton
08/05/2010 08:09 AM
See pictures of oil in water right next to houses ... the OIL IS STILL HERE - http://umpteenhorizons.org/wordpress/2010/08/04/i-am-really-mad-no-more-...
Jackk Lindblad
08/04/2010 23:03 PM
now!
green leaner
08/04/2010 09:28 AM
The truth in the Gulf may never come out..its too big of an area and there was so much panic around this spilll...even worse (in my mind) is that the people of the Gulf will keep their regular pollution into the water going after this....
