Disease-ridden Fish, Eyeless Shrimp, Mutated Sea Life, and Fish Plagued with Oozing Lesions, Gashes, Parasites, Ulcers and Strange Black Stains.
Sounds like a bad science fiction film right?
Sadly, it’s no science fiction movie. It’s what scientists and commercial fisherman are increasingly pulling out of the Gulf of Mexico. From mutated sea life to diseased chemical-ridden fish, there are growing concerns over the long-term effects of the 2010 BP oil spill.
In an exclusive report from Al Jazeera English, a number of scientist are raising serious questions about how the chemicals released during the BP spill are effecting sea life in the Gulf of Mexico.
Two years after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, pouring untold amounts of oil into the ocean, the latest research suggests that the Gulf is still in serious trouble.
In testing out of the University of South Florida , researchers are finding oil in the bile extracted from fish.
“Bile tells you what a fish’s last meal was,” said Steve Murawski, a marine biologist with the University of South Florida who was chief science adviser for the National Marine Fisheries Service until November 2010 when he began working on oil spill studies for USF. “There was as late as August of last year an oil source out there that some of those animals were consuming. Those levels are indicative of polluted urban estuaries.”
But it’s not just oil they are finding.
According to the Al Jazeera report, fisherman are finding sea life with horrible mutations. One fisherman told them that they had caught over 400 pounds of eyeless shrimp. According to the fisherman “not only do the shrimp lack eyes, they even lack eye sockets.”
Scientists are blaming some of these mutations on the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that were used to clean up the oil that spewed into the gulf.
While BP and federal government agencies like the FDA and NOAA insist eating Gulf seafood is safe, no real efforts have been made to study the actual health effects in humans. I guess it really shouldn’t be surprising since these are that same agencies who refuse to test seafood effected by the nuclear disaster in Japan.
Over two million gallons of the dispersant Corexit were used by BP. These dispersant chemicals are highly toxic to not only sea life, but human life as well. If we are seeing these types of mutations in sea life, it’s only a matter of time before the effects make their way up the food chain.
Let’s all thank the Obama administration for failing to do anything to prevent or fix two of the biggest ecological disasters in modern time.
And is it not the height of hypocrisy that none of the environmental wackos on the left say anything about how this guy allowed BP to screw the Gulf of Mexico forever, and is failing to act on the radiated waters coming out of Japan. This just shows who these lefties really are and shows that they could careless about the environment.
How exactly was this Obama’s fault? Isn’t it generally the GOP screaming “Drill, baby, drill”? And how would Obama have “fixed” the problem? Should he have swam to the bottom of the ocean and stuck his thumb in the hole until BP could stop THEIR leak? Good grief I’m getting tired of these rabid rethuglican RETARDS blaming Obama for EVERYTHING that is out of his control. Freaking moron.
Anyway, I live in a gulf state and shudder to see people I know gobble up shrimp, thinking its safe. I tried a gulf shrimp one year ago and thought it tasted funny. I couldn’t believe no one else noticed. Safe, my ass. We are going to see the effects of the BP spill for quite some time. I’d rather be dealing with the oil itself than the dispersant chemicals they dumped on top of it that not only is producing unknown side effects, but also pushed the actual oil deeper than it normally would have gone, affecting species that otherwise probably wouldn’t have been affected much or at all.
It’s 100% his fault! I’m sorry that you let your love for him and his leftie policies blind you.
Everyone screamed when Bush took 48 hours to respond to Katrina but no one said a word when Obama took over 40 days to respond to the crisis in the gulf.
Second, he is the President and has the obligation to coordinate disaster relief efforts, which he did not do. We pay tax dollars so our government can respond to situations like this. That’s why we have agencies like FEMA, the USGS and the EPA. We also have a military unit that is trained in disasters like this that was never sent and we also have a nuclear response team that he never sent to Japan.
Third over a dozen countries offered aid and cleaning vessels. He refused to let any of them into the Gulf because he was to worried about his image.
I could site another 20 examples of what he was supposed to do and another 100 on how he screwed the Gulf Coast and the environment, but somehow I don’t think you’ll let Facts into your closed minded head. You’re to busy defending Obama every time he screws the American Public.
I want to make babies with you environut… your so wise. I wish we could all be as faultless and understand as much about the world as you. Why arent you ruling as a god king? I would try and argue the finer points here but you much like glen beck would only gry and compare apples to oranges. If by chance we ever meet in public I will fertilize you with my man seed. Untill then you keep on being right about everything. :)
Excuse me… but what party believes we should deregulate all industries? Last I heard Obama and the lefties were for tightening and adding further regulations on many private industries, such as oil drillers in the gulf of mexico and medical insurance companies. Deregulation is what allowed for unsafe rigs that caused the oil leak, and there was no readily available method to stop it.
April 20 explosion happened
April 22 fire put out, 11 workers missing. Oil rig sank.
April 26 search and rescue operations suspended, 11 workers still missing. experts using robots estimate 1,000 barrels of oil leaking a day. Experts and officials warn it may take months to be able to contain the leaks.
April 28 experts realize that stopping the leak will be so technically challenging that it will likely take even longer.
April 29 it is realized the leaks are actually spewing about 5,000 barrels. By end of day, the oil slick has reached the Mississippi Delta.
April 30 Obama puts a halt on any new offshore drilling
May 1st the non-profit SkyTruth tells the world that the official estimates were too optimistic, and it’s actually leaking at a rate of 25,000 barrels a day. Rush Limbaugh blames those “eco-terrorist liberals” for the explosion.
May 3rd BP attempts to install shut-off valve on one of the three leaks. oil slick appears to be drifting towards the Alabama and Florida coasts.
May 5th BP claims it successfully stopped one of the leaks. 100 ton containment dome was planned to be dropped tomorrow.
May 8 dome failed, and was removed.
May 12th BP finally decided to release pictures of the leak, allowing scientists and the public to finally get a look at it. Executives from BP, Transocean and Halliburton appear at congressional hearings and blame each other for the fiasco.
May 14th BP tries to intubate one of the oil leaks with a smaller pipe to siphon off the oil. Meanwhile, many people are starting to wonder if the official estimate of 5,000 barrels/day is accurate, and if BP isn’t hiding that much more oil is leaking in the Gulf of Mexico.
May 16th BP succeeds in inserting a tube into the leaking riser pile of the well and capturing some oil and gas, but not that much compared to what is still leaking out.
May 24th BP keeps delaying a “top kill” operation that could potentially plug the oil well and stop the flow of oil.
May 27th The “top kill” is finally attempted, and at first it looked like it was working (a U.S. Coast Guard admiral said as much). But after a few days of efforts, the “top kill” is abandoned. BP will have to try something else…
June 1st Contradicting the findings of many scientists, BP denies the existence of underwater oil plumes. Scientists claim they have found more than one oil plume, one of them “22 miles long, six miles wide and more than a thousand feet deep”.
June 2nd Some experts say that under a worst case scenario, the oil leak could last until Christmas. Things would have to go really wrong for that to happen, but so far, not much has gone right. Sarah Palin used Twitter to defend her “drill, baby, drill” rallying cry, implying that environmentalists are to blame for the BP oil spill.
June 7 Obama defends himself, stating that he’s been meeting with experts, and knows “whose ass to kick.” He endorses lifting the $75 million liability limit for corporations in light of the disaster.
June 10 researchers report that up to 40,000 barrels had been leaking for weeks.
June 12 BP is given a letter stating they have until sunday to identify and expedite other ways to contain the spill.
June 15 Obama returns from the gulf, calls for a new clean energy policy. Government scientists revise estimates to between 35,000-60,000 barrels a day.
june 30 cleanup efforts suspended because of hurricane alex
July 1 house of representatives passes bill to remove liability limit
july 8 BP drilling release well, admiral states the “bottom kill” will start in a week.
july 10 crews remove containment cap to put a better one on.
july 12 better one installed
july 15 containment test initiated, for the first time since start no oil leaks into the gulf.
september 3 the blowout preventer which was known to likely be unable to contain oil leaks at the beginning, was removed to install one which would hopefully stop it…
September 19 officials formally declared an end to the spill.
Throughout the whole thing, republicans were blaming liberals. It’s liberals fault that the republicans deregulated the industry. It’s liberals fault that BP cheaped out and didn’t install an extra shut-off valve that would have been required any where else in the world, but was not in the US because BP said it wasn’t needed.
Also, the government response was more then what republicans would have wanted… Private industry is “self regulating”, after all. Private business can do no wrong. Without government intervention, we’d have moon-bases, we’d have no deaths ever, we’d have 2 cent a gallon gas, we’d have… nothing. Regulations are there to make business safe. Without regulations we would not have clean drinking water. Even now, republicans, “conservatives”, and tea-partiers seek the disbanding of the EPA, repeal of the clean water act (because we don’t need clean streams, rivers, and lakes… we’ve got bottled water!) to allow the coal power industry to dump their waste in our drinking water, because that is obviously the best place for it.
EnviroNuts, BOINK BOINK BOINK, Can you hear me now? Let me remind you that the Republicans in the house have held up, and continue to do so, most relief efforts, Have blocked funding for research and long term study, and further cleanup efforts. Meanwhile, the oil companies are pouring the maximum amount allowed into their campaign fund coffers. Is there a conflict of interest? Yeah.
Yes it’s entirely the presidents because one single person has the final say so in everything, that’s how american government works, of course! You should be shot or have all of your reproductive organs removed to ensure you do not procreate. You are the just the worst and stupidest type of person ever. I genuinely hate you.
TOTALLY, TOTALY DISCUSTING, I STOP EATING SEA FOOD EVER SINCE THE BP OIL SPILL, AND THEY RUN OUR GOVERNMENT?
And people wonder why food allergies in kids are increasing every year, why Autism is spiking, why cancer is high and why the bees are dying. These greedy corporations and corrupt government officials are slowly killing everyone in the world with these chemicals.
Large scale Fish Die-offs, birds falling out of the sky all over the world, dolphins beaching themselves. Do we really need anymore signs to tell us something is wrong?
Did you guys really quote Al Jazeera? (not exactly credible source in my book)
Not denying there are serious polution problems in the ocean. Just one more reason to buy local and grow as much of your own food as possible.
It all comes down to profit. Nothing will be allowed to come between the profit margin. That goes from the local buisnessman to the multinational corporation.
In this case yes we did. They were the ones who actually went out there and did the investigative work that no one here in the Mainstream Media wants to do.
Even Fox News ended up picking up the report last night and quoting them because of the content. If it was a bullshit story we would never have used them as our source, but they were the ones who put out the video so that’s what we used.
All this just makes me wonder how the world has made it this far when small minded people need the govt to tell them how to be safe! Im sure most of you where born with a brain try using it.
Too True.
The number of people who believe the FDA is keeping their food and drug supply safe is astounding.
Watching previous posters complain about this administration or that administration and thoroughly ignoring how much control the various regulatory agencies have is maddening.
The GOP/DNC dichotomy is, for the most part, a Punch and Judy show that distracts from the decisions of the various “alphabet soup” agencies.
There are a lot of other life forms that rely on the fish and creatures of the sea. I would like to hear information on the food chain that is affected in the coastal area. I would caution you to stay away from fruit and vegetables grown in the area as well!
The Earth has something like 60,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 total water molecules.
An old Life nature library volume The Sea tries to put this unimaginable number into perspective.
It mentions that a water molecule is only one eighteen-billionth of an inch in diameter yet together they would make a column of water 75 miles in diameter and 70,000 miles high.
But it then points out the connectiveness of the system with another example.
Take an 8 ounce glass of water and mark the molecules so they can be identified then take the glass and pour it in the ocean.
After a few thousand years of “mixing” every glass of water in the sea would hold about 1500 molecules from the original glass.
So what about the Gulf spill?
1 gallon is 128 ounces or 16 glasses of water per gallon.
BP public admissions of Gulf oil spill >200,000,000 gallons of oil.
BP officially admits to spilling over 3,200,000,000 glasses of oil.
That’s 4,800,000,000,000 oil molecules per glass when mixed and independent estimates put the flow rate MUCH higher (the coast guard typically seems to lie by an order of magnitude), not to mention that the thing is still “seeping” along with other wells in the gulf including 8 wells owned by Taylor Energy that have been leaking since Ivan in 2004 and this group is just over ten miles off the coast and not a deep water cluster.
1 cubic mile is about 10,000,000,000,000 gallons.
A gallon of gas weighs about 6.3 pounds 5.5 pounds of which is carbon.
Actually, a barrel of oil is 42 gallons. When the barrel is processed, you may get something like 15 gallons of gasoline, 9 gal. of fuel oil (See Gasoil / D2), 10 gal. of jet fuel (Kerosene) and 4 gal of other “heavy” products such as lubricants, grease, asphalt / bitumene and plastics and 4 gallons of lighter condensates/naphtha.
In energy equivalents, 1 barrel=42 gallons of oil is estimated to be around 19.5 gallons of gas (natural gas) so this is a very loose estimate.
The Earth’s water is about 330,000,000 cubic miles in volume.
Carbon is the tenth most common element in normal seawater at 132,000 tons per cubic mile.
200,000,000 gallons of oil would have loosely 1,100,000,000 pounds or 550,000 tons of carbon.
That would add over 3 pounds of carbon per gallon of Earth’s water by admission and more likely around 30 pounds and growing additional carbon per each gallon of Earth’s water from this one event.
There have been plenty of others.
From the early 1970s through the ’90s, offshore rigs and pipelines averaged about four spills per year of at least 50 barrels, according to the Minerals Management Service (MMS). One barrel is equal to 42 gallons. The average annual total surged to more than 17 from 2000 through 2009. From 2005 through 2009, spills averaged 22 a year.
The spills — and the amount of oil that leaked — grew markedly worse even when taking increases in production into account, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data shows. The leaks came as the oil industry repeatedly claimed that offshore drilling was never safer.
We are all slowly dieing. Their is no trust, no faith, no hope, no honor, no freedom left.
It’s everyone’s fault, no one can point their finger at anyone group or person,we are all responsible for the toxic, violent, greedy world that ALL of us now occupy.
We work to just survive one more day, and we did it to ourselves, the government we vilify was put in office by the PEOPLE! We are the ones who tolerate their lies and greed. If everyone stood up and made a point to do each ones part no matter how small things might just change and if it doesn’t work with peaceful protest then our only choice is to offer violent protest. It worked in the sixtys and it can work now. Get off of your couch, put down the remote, unplug from your Internet, take out your Bluetooth, turn off the air conditioner, live within your means! Talk face to face with your neighbors, GO OUT SIDE! We gave them the power we can take it back!