Leaked memo re: Oil Spill

[Valentine]

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/04/deepwate..._memo.html

A confidential government report on the unfolding spill disaster in the Gulf makes clear the Coast Guard now fears the well could become an unchecked gusher shooting millions of gallons of oil per day into the Gulf.

"The following is not public," reads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Emergency Response document dated April 28. "Two additional release points were found today in the tangled riser. If the riser pipe deteriorates further, the flow could become unchecked resulting in a release volume an order of magnitude higher than previously thought."

In scientific circles, an order of magnitude means something is 10 times larger. In this case, an order of magnitude higher would mean the volume of oil coming from the well could be 10 times higher than the 5,000 barrels a day coming out now. That would mean 50,000 barrels a day, or 2.1 million gallons a day. It appears the new leaks mentioned in the Wednesday release are the leaks reported to the public late Wednesday night.

"There is no official change in the volume released but the USCG is no longer stating that the release rate is 1,000 barrels a day," continues the document, referred to as report No. 12. "Instead they are saying that they are preparing for a worst-case release and bringing all assets to bear."

The emergency document also states that the spill has grown in size so quickly that only 1 to 2 percent of it has been sprayed with dispersants.

The Press-Register obtained the emergency report from a government official. The White House, NOAA, the Coast Guard and BP Plc did not immediately return calls for comment made early this morning.

The worst-case scenario for the broken and leaking well pouring oil into the Gulf of Mexico would be the loss of the wellhead and kinked piping currently restricting the flow to 5,000 barrels -- or 210,000 gallons -- per day.

If the wellhead is lost, oil could leave the well at a much greater rate.

"Typically, a very good well in the Gulf can produce 30,000 barrels a day, but that's under control. I have no idea what an uncontrolled release could be," said Stephen Sears, chairman of the petroleum engineering department at Louisiana State University.

On Thursday, federal officials said they were preparing for the worst-case scenario but didn't elaborate.

Kinks in the piping created as the rig sank to the seafloor may be all that is preventing the Deepwater Horizon well from releasing its maximum flow. BP is now drilling a relief well as the ultimate fix. The company said Thursday that process would take up to 3 months.

"I'm not sure what's happening down there right now. I have heard there is a kink in what's called the riser. The riser is a long pipe that connects the wellhead to the rig. I really don't know if that kink is a big restriction. Is that really a big restriction? There could be another restriction further down," said LSU's Sears. "An analogy would be if you have a kink in a garden hose. You suspect that kink is restricting the flow, but there could be another restriction or kink somewhere else closer to the faucet.

BP Plc executive Doug Suttles said Thursday the company was worried about "erosion" of the pipe at the wellhead.

Sand is an integral part of the formations that hold oil under the Gulf. That sand, carried in the oil as it shoots through the piping, is blamed for the ongoing erosion described by BP.

"The pipe could disintegrate. You've got sand getting into the pipe, it's eroding the pipe all the time, like a sandblaster," said Ron Gouget, a former oil spill response coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"When the oil is removed normally, it comes out at a controlled rate. You can still have abrasive particles in that. Well, now, at this well, its coming out at fairly high velocity," Gouget continued. "Any erosive grains are abrading the inside of the pipe and all the steel that comes in contact with the liquid. It's essentially sanding away the pipe."

The formation that was being drilled by the Deepwater Horizon when it exploded and sank last week is reported to have tens of millions of barrels of oil. A barrel contains 42 gallons.

"The loss of a wellhead, this is totally unprecedented," said Gouget. "How bad it could get from that, you will have a tremendous volume of oil that is going to be offgassing on the coast. Depending on how much wind is there, and how those gases build up, that's a significant health concern."

(Updated 5:04 p.m. to add additional information from federal documents.)

[Deathaniel]

and if it stays unchecked and kills all the sea life, with ocean currents one could see a very large decline in our ability to use the oceans as a food source, or biological filter, and random lightening could ignite gasses in places also if it went world wide....

don't know how long it would take to affect in land fresh water reserves, but it would put them at a premium.

this is the kind of shit to pay attention to.

[---]

Quote:BP is now drilling a relief well as the ultimate fix. The company said Thursday that process would take up to 3 months.

Sounds like there are fortunes to be made meanwhilst

[Valentine]

Quote:Sounds like there are fortunes to be made meanwhilst

Like this? Why, it's almost like they knew it was coming. Like they have ESP or something, eh.

Halliburton Buys Boots & Coots
04/12/10 - 06:54 AM EDT
HOUSTON (TheStreet) -- Halliburton(HAL) has reached a deal to acquire all of the outstanding stock of Boots & Coots (WEL) in a stock and cash deal worth about $240 million.

Boots & Coots shareholders will receive about $3 for each share of Boots & Coots they hold, consisting of $1.73 in cash and $1.27 in Halliburton stock, according to a statement from Halliburton.
Following completion of the transaction, a new product service line within Halliburton will be created to include Halliburton's existing coiled tubing and hydraulic workover operations and Boots & Coots' intervention services and pressure control business.

Boots & Coots' management will be retained to lead Halliburton's Boots & Coots product service line. Halliburton expects the acquisition to be accretive in the first full year of operation.

The transaction is expected to close in the summer of 2010, Halliburton said.

[kevlar]

yea this oil spill leaks of lies

i first thought it might be sabotage by the Venezuelans or other South american country. But then i thought that it might not be in their interest to waste oil like that. But there are some crazy mo fo in the military and oil industries, they wouldn't care if half the world was destroyed if they made some money.

[h3rm35]

If some Haliburton subsidiary scoops up contracts to "fix" this problem, we'll know it was them who caused it... right now, there's a slow leak of info coming from Haliburton on their culpability in this whole thing, designed to lessen the impact on their stock prices than if someone were to blurt out the fact that faulty concrete work caused the problem, and they poured the concrete. See this post for more info on Haliburton's blame for this crisis... interesting timing on that purchase - good find, Valentine.

[FastTadpole]

This is big cog in the rigged (pun!) plan to promote the global warming / climate change / carbon tax / world government / world religion / carbon trading bubble / world enforcement / carbon police surveillance / selective corporate funding / world socialism agenda.

Demonize the oil companies while manipulating commodity and energy prices to win public support (I've seen biased articles about how nuclear power is being made to be unsafe and pollutive as well as a security threat), raise the price of resources, make it an outrage for the environment, the timing could not have been better planned with the next round of conferences planned for next month (the first being a Minister-level meeting on Global Warming to be held in Bonn, Germany, for three days starting May 2nd, climate conference is scheduled for Cancun, Mexico on November 29) with the culmination happening on March 18 2011 at COP 17/MOP 7 in South Africa. Bolivia just hosted the People’s World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights on April 20-22. The push is on. Unreliable, proprietary and expensive and publicly subsidized wind and solar technologies are being pushed hard along with BIG grants for coal gasification (clean coal) and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to throw oil interests a bone and get them on board.

Haliburton is assisting in the investigation and recently did repairs on the rig as noted and is a shady player in all of this.

[---]

Okay. I'm convinced: Helliburton did it. I would have wondered if maybe the concrete was poured okay but some violent movement on the ocean bed tore it asunder in such a ferocious spasm that by the time it was realised the "stop this from happening" buttons were flimsy and ineffective.

But seeing as it isn't being mentioned by anyone I shall take my chewing cuds over to the herd.

the rationale - halliburton are evil ergo they must be guilty works for me. Also, they ( tptb) planned a huge fissure volcano in Iceland so they could conduct military exercised in secret.

[FastTadpole]

Jack Blood did up a great summary of the potential motives that could be behind all of this.

Quote:10 suspects, and motives as to why the Gulf oil spill was an inside job
April 30, 2010 by JackBlood

Yes I know… Not everything is a conspiracy, but I don’t let that stop me from theorizing, especially when a certain incident has so many beneficiaries. Case in Point: The 2010 Gulf Oil “Spill”.

While it is possible that this TOO was just another example of “incompetence” or Mother nature fighting back… We owe it to ourselves to fully analyze the situation, its players, and who benefits .

Consider this a starting place for reasons that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill might be an inside job, and go from there. My point is not to convince you, but to make sure we aren’t missing anything by simply buying in to the Media version of events. (Whatever that is?) In fleshing this all out, I will be counting in two columns. Who stands to gain, and who had a motive and opportunity.

Whats fishy here is that all the witnesses have vanished! 11 people BTW (there’s that pesky 11 again). There is no surveillance video evidence (that we know about), even though we are talking about billions of dollars sitting offshore. Surveillance cameras at the BP gas stations, but not on their oil rig? Yeah… there were no cameras at the Pentagon, or at Oklahoma City either… wink wink.

Here is the list of suspects, not particularly in any order.

1) ENVIRONMENTALISTS. “Eco Terror” is a fact of life, For decades some of the most radical and dangerous groups have been environmentalists. In a way its hard to blame them. Most of the planet has been polluted by the Kleptocracy for decades. Through mind numbing propaganda, the environmental movement have been conditioned to believe that if drastic measures are not taken ASAP… Were all gonna Diiiiiiiiiiiiiie! (This “Movement” was started interestingly enough by the same people who own BP, see below)

So its no wonder they capable of doing anything to save the planet.This includes targeting “capitalist” oil rigs. (If I believed as they do, I might be just as capable of same.)

They have a motive. The question is, do they have the means. It would have been an incredible feat, but with enough planning, people and bravado… It could be done. I tend to lean very low on this one though. The collateral damage to the environment should rule them out altogether, and it would take a commando style raid on the armed rig. While its possible, it’s not likely. Count on them to exploit the problem just the same.

2) OPEC: The global economic war is a serious one with players from every ideology. OPEC stands to gain as this incident will effect the price of oil, supply and demand. When you loose millions of gallons of domestic oil, who do you go to to make up the difference? Yep.

We should also consider that an increase in off shore drilling, if it catches on, could cost OPEC 100’s of Billions annually. (We all heard Obama a few weeks back promising to do more drilling. Was that just pandering? See below) Therefore if OPEC could throw a monkey wrench into the works by causing a conveniently timed disaster, would they? Sure. Could they?
They have a motive. As for the means, they have that too.

The problem with pinning it one them is its too obvious, and it would be too much of a risk for them to attempt. Also the US (as Iraq) is a member, so…. would the US purposely attack themselves? Ok, dumb question. Still – I rule out OPEC, but will explore some of the members below.

3) Shrimp and Fish (IE: Food) cartels. (Today, the US harvests over 650 million pounds of shrimp a year, more than any other country. And still this is not enough to fill the need, in spite of shrimp-farming. The US imports yet another 200 million pounds a year. )

Yeah, yeah Its a stretch. Obviously the price of a shrimp cocktail will be out of site for the next few years. While the cartels do stand to gain, have access to this part of the world, and the money to make it all so… Its just too out of the realm of reality. (We can keep in mind that many on this list cross pollinate, and have some of the same owners!)

Our hearts go out the the families who will lose their livelihoods while the cleanup continues.

4) THE SECURITY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: Always looking for new people to protect, and tied in to some of the most nefarious groups the world over, the SIC could definitely benefit from the Oil Rig Disaster. I would guess that someone already had the contract to train the men and protect the rig. Well they “failed”, and a new player can now move in on the territory.

Many companies under this banner can easily make something like this happen, but I am betting that the group holding the current contract stood down to make this happen. (unless a drug cartel was responsible) Whatever happens, you can bet that all rigs will up their security after this. Cha CHING for the SID!

5) RUSSIA / VENEZUELA AXIS: The economic energy war has been waged from the west on players like this. Like OPEC, they always stand to gain when oil becomes scarce. No doubt they cheered when they heard the news! Oil futures have been artificially high as of late and I attribute that to some back door negotiations with the US.

Russia obviously has the know how (tectonic and exotic weaponry) and would do the deed if they were sure they wouldn’t get caught. It lays them out for FULL ON retaliation though. This is why I would have to rule them out for now. Poke the Tiger and get your head bitten off.

6) BP: Would BP attack itself? Uh … the 7/7 underground bombing is London says YES. What would be their motive?

Higher oil prices which might be canceled out by the bill for all the damages? No… the only reason for their involvement is… ha ha EVERY CUI BONO IN THIS ARTICLE. They ARE the environmental movement, They Are western / global intelligence. They ARE the drug smugglers. They are the economic hit men!!!! This makes BP a prime suspect, at least for a stand down and a cover up.

*There is also the matter of oil put options (we are checking on that now) or at least using inside knowledge of an inside job to sell high and buy low. This all needs to be investigated. Many of the players on this list have been known to cheat the casino. My motto always is: If they can they will… IE: “Yes We Can”

7) GULF DRUG CARTELS: One of the things that Mike Ruppert did best was to blow the whistle on how offshore oil rigs were being used as a drop, and ship for Cocaine and other elicit drugs. He implicated Halliburton (KBR) in doing so (see below)

The theory here is that the Gulf Cartel(s) wanting to wipe out the CIA / MI6, et al competition and strike a blow to the oligarchs in the process. The cartels are militarized, well trained, and extreme. They have the funds to buy whatever was needed to blow the rig and get rid of the witnesses. They have to be in consideration for prime suspect at this point, but it would have been a HUGE risk for them.

8) GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE / CIA: This would run as a opposite to the benefits gained by Russia and Venezuela, OPEC etc… The prime target would be China in this regard. China is a buyer not a seller. The shadowy world of economic hit men has been detailed extensively by Jim Norman (the Oil Card) and John Perkins (Confession of an economic hit man) Unlike the environmentalist movement, GI doesn’t care one whit about collateral damage. People get hurt by them all the time. They might even want this kind of Chaos and distraction. If you analyze it, this theory probably makes the most sense. So they have the motive, the track record, and the resources to pull it off. Top suspect IMO.

9) HALLIBURTON: These guys, like Bechtel.. are very powerful. So powerful in fact, that they can escape blame for the spill, and turn it into huge profits.

Perhaps knowing that it couldn’t hold out much longer, the firm issued a terse statement this afternoon about the “cementing facts regarding rig incident” , which was hardly illuminating.

The gist:

* Halliburton performed a variety of services on the rig, including cementing.

* Halliburton had four employees stationed on the rig at the time of the accident. All four were rescued by the Coast Guard.

* Halliburton completed the cementing of the final production casing string 20 hours prior to the incident.

* The company also claims it tested the production casing string.”

* It also stated that “at the time of the incident, well operations had not yet reached the point requiring the placement of the final cement plug which would enable the planned temporary abandonment of the well, consistent with normal oilfield practice.”

Clearly there is going to have to be some careful examination of the cementing operation and related engineering questions. As Gold and Casselman report, the MMS says “cementing was a factor in 18 of 39 well blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico over a 14-year period….the single largest factor, ahead of equipment failure and pipe failure.”

Moreover, cracks in the integrity of the company’s cementing operations have happened before. The Journal reporters say Halliburton was the cementer on a well that suffered a big blowout last August in the Timor Sea, off Australia, where tens of thousands of barrels of oil were released over 10 weeks before it was shut down.

The investigation into that incident “is continuing; Halliburton declined to comment on it.”

It’s starting to look like the only thing Halliburton can cap tightly is its own mouth.

While they should be considered a perfect accomplice to Global Intel groups, they would not likely be the masterminds. This is because they are doing everything they can to keep a low profile, after years of bad publicity. They would play a part, but not chance much more.

10) DNC / SOROS / AL GORE / FOB’s (OBAMA’S BACKERS): “Spill baby Spill” will now replace “Drill Baby Drill” which should cripple and pro drilling America first style energy policy previously sloganized by Aw Shucks Sarah Palin and crew. This would mean that Obama’s announcement to increase off shore drilling was a well timed ruse they had no intention of following through on. That’s done now, and so is anyone who wants to use it as a political weapon against cousin Barry and Crew.

Obama backers can see this and the Mine tragedy last month as a win for their “Green” energy cabal. They almost give themselves away by the sheer timing of all these events. Of course they have all the tools necessary to not only pull this off, but to cover it up. They have to be considered prime suspects. Their actions going forward will either give them away or vindicate them. We are watching!!!

SUMMERY:

The coming months will bring events that make it much clearer as to whom was responsible, and why. In the mean time we should be questioning why British (beyond – LOL) Petroleum is drilling off the coast of the USA! Also… Why is Louisiana one of the most poverty stricken states in the US, while they have all those resources? What will happen to all those who will be wiped out thanks to this incident? How much more can Louisiana take?

http://digg.com/political_opinion/10_Sus...Inside_Job
http://deadlinelive.info/2010/04/30/10-s...nside-job/

Quote:Could the BP Oil “Spill” be an attempt to “steer” the next big Hurricane?
May 5, 2010 by JackBlood

   
Is it possible that in order to save all these rigs, one had to be destroyed?

Sorry, I don’t buy incompetence theories, coincidence theories, or that convenient timing of world events is not somehow pointing to a hidden agenda. So I have been working hard to try to crack the combination of the recent Gulf of Mexico disaster. In my previous article I laid out all the prime beneficiaries, motives, and possibilities as to why we have this situation…. BUT… I missed one aspect to the whole shebang.

WEATHER CONTROL.

In the Scientific American article September 27th, 2004, on Controlling Hurricanes… The possibility of “Steering” a Hurricane by using oil on water is explored. It certainly caught my attention, but the question now becomes… Where would they steer it? Could this be used as a Weather Weapon? We now know that the US (and the world) food chain will be effected, and this brings an enormous amount of stress on the markets as well as the people. As the UN has noted in the past. “Food is also a weapon”.

Using oil as a steering wheel for hurricanes is also broached here.

Ross N. Hoffman of AER suggests that an array of earth-orbiting solar power stations could eventually be used to supply sufficient energy for the disruption of hurricanes. By heating an area of ocean, scientists in the future may be theoretically able to “steer” a hurricane off its projected path if it threatens population centers. Hoffman concedes though that the amount of energy needed to achieve such an objective would be substantial.

Since hurricanes draw their power from evaporating sea water, cutting off the supply of warm water available to them could reduce their strength. Operating on this premise, Hoffman suggests another tactic involving the application of “a thin film of a biodegradable oil” to slow the evaporation that serves as the fuel for a hurricane. A great deal more research is needed to determine where such a strategy is feasible especially with a large hurricane that may cover hundreds of square miles of ocean surface.

Other approaches involving the towing of icebergs or detonation of nuclear weapons pose more risk that potential meteorological protection.

*Interestingly enough, The authorities have also considered using a 1 megaton tactical nuke to fuse the oil blow out under water.

Meteorological control raises issues

While technical solutions to such weather phenomena may someday be possible, there are a host of issues that must be resolved. For example, who would determine what tropical storms and hurricanes would be targeted? Each year there are several dozen weather disturbances, of which only five or so actually become hurricanes. Further, “what if intervention causes a hurricane to damage another country’s territory?” asks Hoffman. Or, what if countries start to use weather as a weapon of mass destruction?

At the moment these questions are somewhat academic. For now the focus should be on the wisdom of continuing to build on lands that are highly susceptible to hurricane damage. As the oceans warm, hurricanes are only going to get stronger and pose an ever greater threat to low-lying cities and coastal areas.

Hurricane season is set to start near June 1st, and will run through November 2010 (election day)

It could very well be a possibility that the weather controllers have planned another Katrina, but needed to make sure that it didn’t do damage uncontrolled to the gulf coast and the USA in the process.

Meanwhile many have been getting rich from the spill. Cost benefit analysis?

In the mean time we watch and wait as all this becomes potential evidence.

http://deadlinelive.info/2010/05/05/coul...hurricane/

[h3rm35]

(05-05-2010 06:42 PM)nik Wrote:  Okay. I'm convinced: Helliburton did it. I would have wondered if maybe the concrete was poured okay but some violent movement on the ocean bed tore it asunder in such a ferocious spasm that by the time it was realised the "stop this from happening" buttons were flimsy and ineffective.

But seeing as it isn't being mentioned by anyone I shall take my chewing cuds over to the herd.

the rationale - halliburton are evil ergo they must be guilty works for me. Also, they ( tptb) planned a huge fissure volcano in Iceland so they could conduct military exercised in secret.

OK then, Nik, we'll say it was a group effort...
although, the following article throws a little more weight onto this argument (the weight provided by cement from Haliburton)

Quote:DNC / SOROS / AL GORE / FOB’s (OBAMA’S BACKERS): “Spill baby Spill” will now replace “Drill Baby Drill” which should cripple and pro drilling America first style energy policy previously sloganized by Aw Shucks Sarah Palin and crew. This would mean that Obama’s announcement to increase off shore drilling was a well timed ruse they had no intention of following through on. That’s done now, and so is anyone who wants to use it as a political weapon against cousin Barry and Crew.

Obama backers can see this and the Mine tragedy last month as a win for their “Green” energy cabal. They almost give themselves away by the sheer timing of all these events. Of course they have all the tools necessary to not only pull this off, but to cover it up. They have to be considered prime suspects. Their actions going forward will either give them away or vindicate them. We are watching!!!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...18_pf.html

Quote:
U.S. exempted BP's Gulf of Mexico drilling from environmental impact study

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 5, 2010; A04

The Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely.

The decision by the department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) to give BP's lease at Deepwater Horizon a "categorical exclusion" from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on April 6, 2009 -- and BP's lobbying efforts just 11 days before the explosion to expand those exemptions -- show that neither federal regulators nor the company anticipated an accident of the scale of the one unfolding in the gulf.
Rethinking the rules

Now, environmentalists and some key senators are calling for a reassessment of safety requirements for offshore drilling.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who has supported offshore oil drilling in the past, said, "I suspect you're going to see an entirely different regime once people have a chance to sit back and take a look at how do we anticipate and clean up these potential environmental consequences" from drilling.

BP spokesman Toby Odone said the company's appeal for NEPA waivers in the past "was based on the spill and incident-response history in the Gulf of Mexico." Once the various investigations of the new spill have been completed, he added, "the causes of this incident can be applied to determine any changes in the regulatory regime that are required to protect the environment."

"I'm of the opinion that boosterism breeds complacency and complacency breeds disaster," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) on Tuesday. "That, in my opinion, is what happened."

Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said it is important to learn the cause of the accident before pursuing a major policy change. "While the conversation has shifted, the energy reality has not," Gerard said. "The American economy still relies on oil and gas."

While the MMS assessed the environmental impact of drilling in the central and western Gulf of Mexico on three occasions in 2007 -- including a specific evaluation of BP's Lease 206 at Deepwater Horizon -- in each case it played down the prospect of a major blowout.

In one assessment, the agency estimated that "a large oil spill" from a platform would not exceed a total of 1,500 barrels and that a "deepwater spill," occurring "offshore of the inner Continental shelf," would not reach the coast. In another assessment, it defined the most likely large spill as totaling 4,600 barrels and forecast that it would largely dissipate within 10 days and would be unlikely to make landfall.

"They never did an analysis that took into account what turns out to be the very real possibility of a serious spill," said Holly Doremus, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley who has reviewed the documents.

The MMS mandates that companies drilling in some areas identify under NEPA what could reduce a project's environmental impact. But Interior Department spokesman Matt Lee-Ashley said the service grants between 250 and 400 waivers a year for Gulf of Mexico projects. He added that Interior has now established the "first ever" board to examine safety procedures for offshore drilling. It will report back within 30 days on BP's oil spill and will conduct "a broader review of safety issues," Lee-Ashley said.

BP's exploration plan for Lease 206, which calls the prospect of an oil spill "unlikely," stated that "no mitigation measures other than those required by regulation and BP policy will be employed to avoid, diminish or eliminate potential impacts on environmental resources."

While the plan included a 13-page environmental impact analysis, it minimized the prospect of any serious damage associated with a spill, saying there would be only "sub-lethal" effects on fish and marine mammals, and "birds could become oiled. However it is unlikely that an accidental oil spill would occur from the proposed activities."

Kierán Suckling, executive director of the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity, said the federal waiver "put BP entirely in control" of the way it conducted its drilling.
Agency a 'rubber stamp'

"The agency's oversight role has devolved to little more than rubber-stamping British Petroleum's self-serving drilling plans," Suckling said.

BP has lobbied the White House Council on Environmental Quality -- which provides NEPA guidance for all federal agencies-- to provide categorical exemptions more often. In an April 9 letter, BP America's senior federal affairs director, Margaret D. Laney, wrote to the council that such exemptions should be used in situations where environmental damage is likely to be "minimal or non-existent." An expansion in these waivers would help "avoid unnecessary paperwork and time delays," she added.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill were talking Tuesday about curtailing offshore oil exploration rather than making it easier. In addition to traditional foes of offshore drilling such as Democratic Sens. Robert Menendez (N.J.) and Bill Nelson (Fla.), Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and centrists such as Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) said they are taking a second look at such methods.

"It's time to push the pause button," Baucus told reporters.

[h3rm35]

but then again, there's this:

Quote:
Was the Gulf Oil Spill an Act of War? You Betcha

Thursday 06 May 2010

by: Randall Amster J.D., Ph.D., t r u t h o u t | News Analysis

photo
(Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: Hopeful in NJ, gaelx, ka2rina)

Speculation has been running rampant among certain sectors of the web world lately about the true origins of the massive oil spill that has engulfed the Gulf and threatens marine, plant, animal and human health in a region already beset by natural disasters and toxic industries. Unwilling to accept the mainstream media version of the story (namely that it was the result of offshore drilling activities) and suspicious of the timing of the calamity (namely that it occurred right on the cusp of Earth Day and during a period of political contentiousness over drilling), this faction has surmised that the "trigger event" in this instance may have been (choose your favorite): an attack by the North Koreans; an act of homegrown eco-terrorism by left-wing environmentalists; or something to do with Venezuela, China, and/or other Communist (machi)nations. With little more than a hint from an online Russian source, the theory of a North Korean attack in particular has been gaining virulence among certain fox trotters.

Here's a great overview of the argument from the self-avowedly conservative Dakota Voice:

"Rush Limbaugh pointed out that the explosion occurred on April 21st, the day before 'Earth Day.' He also reminded us that Al Gore had previously encouraged environmental nut jobs to engage in civil disobedience against the construction of coal plants that don't have carbon capture technology. 'Eco-terrorists' exist and have done millions of dollars worth of criminal damage. Fire is one of the main tools of their evil trade. I'm not claiming the Deep Horizon was bombed by eco-terrorists, although I don't believe it's out of the realm of possibility. But, it would take some serious money and ability to pull off an attack like that, so I would tend to think much bigger than college hippie eco-wackos with some money-backing - a foreign government, perhaps. Of course, before I could finish writing my thoughts here, I just heard Michael Savage posing the same questions. He also said there is a theory on a Russian website that claims North Korea is behind this. The article claims that North Korea torpedoed the Deepwater Horizon, which was apparently built and financed by South Korea. Torpedoes would make sense for the results we see.... There are a number of international 'suspects' who might want to do something like this. They range from Muslim terrorists to the Red Chinese, Venezuela and beyond. Remember that China and Russia are drilling out there, as well and they would benefit from America cutting back on our own drilling."

The article at the root of this savagery appears on the site WhatDoesItMean.com and is titled "US Orders Media Blackout Over North Korean Torpedoing of Gulf of Mexico Oil Rig" - which pretty much eliminates any suspense about the gist of it. The piece is attributed to one "Sorcha Faal," who either exists or does not depending upon whether you believe the link arguing a bit too strenuously that she in fact does. The article cites as its source, without further attribution, "a grim report circulating in the Kremlin today written by Russia's Northern Fleet," and argues, "the reason for North Korea attacking the Deepwater Horizon, these reports say, was to present US President Obama with an 'impossible dilemma' prior to the opening of the United Nations Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons set to begin May 3rd in New York. This 'impossible dilemma' facing Obama is indeed real as the decision he is faced with is either to allow the continuation of this massive oil leak catastrophe to continue for months, or immediately stop it by the only known and proven means possible, the detonation of a thermonuclear device."

In other words, all of this was designed to force Obama to use a nuclear device to seal the leak ahead of an upcoming conference on nonproliferation. Ingenious! James Bond is alive and well, apparently. Missing from the calculus (along with good sense, credibility and verifiability) is any explanation of why the logic of this scenario will automatically result in Obama deploying a nuke and what exactly would be gained by him doing so except (by implication) making the US look like hypocrites at the negotiating table. Those dastardly cowards! Everyone knows that we don't need any help from foreign entities to hypocritically attempt to force others to hold to international standards that we will ourselves proceed to flagrantly ignore. I mean, duh.

Hey, I'm all for a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy/gal. We certainly ought to question the "consensus reality" version of any major event communicated back to us by the corporate media. And we can logically surmise that the government keeps us on a "need to know" basis under the rubric of a closely-held "national security" ethos. So, there's always reason to dig deeper, ask hard questions, check with non-US sources and formulate one's opinion independent of the herd. But in this case, the impetus for the tale is so vague and thinly rendered that it strains the limits of credulity, yet, it still seems to be gaining traction each day. In fact, there are even more solid reasons to suspect that this miserable episode - which will inflict more suffering on an already battered region - was contributed to by the activities of a certain homegrown corporation and not any eco-nuts or commies. While the premise is thus wholly wrong, the conclusion that this was a putative act of war might actually hold water. To wit:

Oil and War: Are there any two concepts in the realm of geopolitics more closely associated than resources and warfare? Oil in particular, as the primary lubricant of the global economy, earns special status as a sine qua non of our profligate lifestyles and simultaneously as an overt security interest that triggers our military mobilizations. We know about Iraq of course and Afghanistan to a lesser extent for its strategic pipelining location, but don't overlook places such as Venezuela, Central Africa and the Caribbean shelf around countries like Haiti as potential sites of future conflict over Black Gold. Indeed, it might be said that wherever there's oil, there's war - or at least the seeds of conflict over a dwindling commodity that draws the interest of governments and corporations alike. The past decade has shown and our national security documents reflect, that the US will essentially do anything in its power to control as much of the world's remaining oil supplies as it possibly can, either through direct intervention or by proxy. There's nothing light or sweet about any of this; it is almost wholly crude.

Drilling and the "War on Terra": Without overly editorializing the point, since at least the advent of industrialization, it appears that humanity has made a Faustian bargain that renders us the enemies of the earth in order to survive. Notions of complementarity and sustainability have been supplanted by consumption and separation instead. The cruel joke is that our willingness to continually flout nature's laws leaves us in a perpetual state of scarcity and requires a regular doubling-down on the very same logic that made things scarce in the first place. Thus, in order to extend the life of the petroleum economy and provide the massive energy inputs that we rely upon, we have to drill deeper and deeper to procure the substance at ever-increasing energy costs in the process. This literal sense of "diminishing returns" is compounded by the attendant toll exacted on our collective health via fossil fuels, as well as the concomitant stratification of wealth and power that subverts any pretense we still hold of democracy. Massive spills and other calamities are part and parcel of this normalization of a warlike attitude toward nature (and, thus, ourselves) and are blithely considered little more than business as usual by the ruling elites, as intimated in an article on care2.com: "All this is the result of dangerous and unnecessary offshore drilling, yet, in a statement Friday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the explosion was no reason to give up plans to expand offshore drilling. 'In all honesty I doubt this is the first accident that has happened and I doubt it will be the last,' Gibbs told reporters."

Halliburton IS the War Machine: Finally, we come to the most likely culprit in all of this, and a sure sign that indeed this is an act of war. Wherever Halliburton goes, so goes the war machine and vice versa. From no-bid and no-account contracts in Iraq (and post-Katrina New Orleans, by the way) to a massive corporate presence in the Gulf region, these folks seem to have an acute capacity for making a buck on cataclysms of all sorts. Perhaps more to the point, they appear to be at the nexus of most disaster zones, including the erstwhile Bush presidency and now the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. As a recent article in The Huffington Post noted:

"Giant oil-services provider Halliburton may be a primary suspect in the investigation into the oil rig explosion that has devastated the Gulf Coast, The Wall Street Journal reports. Though the investigation into the explosion that sank the Deepwater Horizon site is still in its early stages, drilling experts agree that blame probably lies with flaws in the 'cementing' process - that is, plugging holes in the pipeline seal by pumping cement into it from the rig. Halliburton was in charge of cementing for Deepwater Horizon."

The Los Angeles Times subsequently reported that members of Congress have called on Halliburton "to provide all documents relating to 'the possibility or risk of an explosion or blowout at the Deepwater Horizon rig and the status, adequacy, quality, monitoring and inspection of the cementing work' by May 7." A YouTube video (which is actually mostly audio) more bluntly asserts that "Halliburton Caused Oil Spill," and noted the fact - confirmed by Halliburton's own press release - that its employees had worked on the final cementing "approximately 20 hours prior to the incident." Interestingly, one commenter on the YouTube video noted how "that would conveniently explain the North Korean story; [Halliburton] may have leaked this story to the press to divert attention away from alleged negligence." Wouldn't that just be the ultimate? Halliburton spawns the calamity, but pins it on North Korea and then the nation goes to war whereby Halliburton "cleans up" through billions in war-servicing contracts. It's almost too perfect and might be funny if it didn't seem so plausible. (The only thing funnier is picturing Dick Cheney in the role of Exxon Valdez fall guy Joseph Hazelwood.)

But, hey, there's no need to get conspiratorial about all of this. And what's happening in the Gulf - now spreading into the Atlantic - isn't funny at all. Indeed, war hardly ever is and that's what we've got on our collective hands here, in one form or another. As Isaac Asimov once said, "It is not only the living who are killed in war." Cherished ideals, future generations, hopefulness, the earth itself - all are among war's many casualties. The sooner we recognize the sense of pervasive warfare in our midst, embedded in the flow of our everyday lives, the sooner we can intentionally turn that essential corner toward peace, as Martin Luther King Jr. alluded to in his Nobel speech:

"I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life, unable to influence the unfolding events which surround him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality."

Waking up to war may in fact be the first genuine step toward peace, both among ourselves and with the environment.

[FastTadpole]

Some details hinting as to how regulation can cause scarcity via limits on drilling depths and a stranglehold of regulation.

Quote:Oil production hit for decades after BP spill
A deep sea drilling moratorium will leave global supplies depleted just as demand gets greater
By David Strahan
Sunday, 9 May 2010

Even as the first oil from BP's stricken Macondo well in the US Gulf of Mexico washed ashore this weekend, and as the clamour mounts, experts claim the slick will be nothing like as catastrophic as forecast – for either the environment or the oil industry. However, some analysts warn the accident could still seriously hurt global oil supply later this decade.

The fate of the Louisiana coastline is in the hands of BP engineers working to place a cofferdam, or 100 tonne steel and concrete funnel, over the worst leaks, using remote-controlled submarines a mile down on the seabed. If the operation succeeds early next week, as BP hopes, it should capture around 85 per cent of the leaking oil, sharply reducing the potential impact. "Once they have the cofferdam in place they're almost home and dry", says Dr Simon Boxall, an oil spill expert from the University of Southampton, "if they succeed, this won't even make it into the top 100 oil spills by volume".

Around 100,000 barrels, or 4.2 million gallons, have leaked from pipes damaged when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank last month, less than half the amount spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989. But if the cofferdam fails, the impact would be much worse. BP, led by chief executive Tony Haywood (pictured) is already drilling a second well to intercept and plug the first just above the oil field itself, 13,000ft below the seabed, though that might take three months. If so the spill could reach 450,000 barrels, just under twice the Exxon Valdez. But even that would only rank in the top 50 spills. "It could clearly do a lot of damage," says Dr Boxall, "but when people claim this is the oil industry's Chernobyl, it's really nothing like it".

The rising backlash against deepwater drilling – anything over 500 meters, far too deep for divers to work should anything go wrong – is unlikely to damage the industry as much as the noise on Capitol Hill would suggest, because it is too vital to the oil supply. According to analysts Douglas Westwood, deepwater oil production
has soared from under two million barrels per day in 2000 to eight mb/d in 2010, almost 10 per cent of global consumption, and must rise further as onshore and shallow offshore production declines. "They can't ban deepwater because the industry has nowhere else to go", says chairman John Westwood. Last year, 500 deepwater wells were drilled, costing up to $100m each, and Douglas Westwood predicts $167bn will be spent on deepwater development to 2014.

Deepwater drilling has provided substantial discoveries recently, such as BP's Tiber field off Brazil, thought to contain some three billion barrels of oil. But such is the industry's desperation it will also chase tiny fields at depths unheard of a decade ago. The Macondo field probably contains less than 50 million barrels – an oilfield minnow. A BP spokesman admitted "the easy stuff is done first. We're now on to the stuff that is technically, politically or economically difficult."

If a ban is unlikely, deepwater drilling will be far more tightly regulated, as happened after the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988. Then British North Sea production slumped for several years as safety equipment and procedures were upgraded, before recovering. The difference is that many forecasters now predict a global oil supply crunch by the middle of this decade, so any pause in US deepwater drilling could have magnified consequences.

The analysts Newedge USA say if the moratorium on new drilling, announced by President Barack Obama after the accident drags on, oil supply could suffer a shortfall of up to one mb/d by 2016 to 2018. Another analyst said: "They wouldn't be able to offset depletion with new drilling". With forecasters predicting peak oil in 2015, this could only make matters worse.

If BP's cofferdam succeeds, it will still be neck deep in litigation for decades to come, and industry costs will rise, but hostility to deepwater drilling will soon be overshadowed.

David Strahan is the author of The Last Oil Shock: A Survival Guide to the Imminent Extinction of Petroleum Man, published by John Murray. http://www.lastoilshock.com

http://digg.com/business_finance/Oil_Pro...r_BP_Spill
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/busine...68931.html

[Shinobi]

The weather control mentioned by Jack there makes a lot of sense FastTadpole as does everything else I have read here. So really are we to look out for a man made catastrophic event ? a hurricane can serve as a great distraction indeed for these evil beings to carry out even more nefarious plans and I say that from learning lots about katrina - more went on than we know regarding katrina. I expect we will start hearing quite a bit about HAARP in the coming weeks & months. All the right (well wrong!) corporations seem to be involved.

[h3rm35]

Ever since Katrina, I've thought that the Gulf coast west of Florida was being scheduled to become a major military base complex... just a feeling...
It was the levee system built by the corps of engineers that caused the problem in the first place, right? And we've been funneling troops into Mexico to fight the "war on drugs."
If this were the case, they could re-cap the well, and pipeline the oil directly to the area which has plenty of refineries. With focused hurricanes and the sea ecosystem destroyed, many would leave without being forced, leaving the battered infrastructure to be rebuilt by a "jobs program" into a manner that suits the gvt... it'd be much easier to force the populist governments in the south into the banana republics that the PTB have wanted them to be all along, (instead of serious geopolitical players w/ natural resources,) if the gulf of Mexico was a private playground for the military. I could even see the hurricanes as an electioneering gambit - "don't change horses in mid-flood," using it like a war, politically, since we're used to war and it can't be used the same way, now that we've had a presidential transition without a "new 9/11". The terrorism fear card has played out it's usefulness now, and I could easily see the new fear card being natural disasters, possibly with a couple (engineered) plagues thrown in, which would feed the Christian lunatics and Zionists "end of days - take back the holy land" motivation. We might just prop up an "antichrist" somewhere to give "holy credence" to more imperialistic drives in the mid-east & Asia. Then the fanati-lunatics would be placated waiting for the rapture, and then the real, "dangerous" people in the tea parties could be singled out and targeted... You know, the ones that want our government to act the way it's supposed to?

Quote:Establishing martial law in the United States
From SourceWatch
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The John W. Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2006 (PL 109-364), "named for the longtime Armed Services Committee chairman from Virginia," was signed October 17, 2006, by President George W. Bush. The Act "has a provocative provision called 'Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies'," the thrust of which "seems to be about giving the federal government a far stronger hand in coordinating responses to [Hurricane] Katrina-like disasters," Jeff Stein, CQ National Security Editor wrote December 1, 2006.

"But on closer inspection, its language also alters the two-centuries-old Insurrection Act, which Congress passed in 1807 to limit the president’s power to deploy troops within the United States ... 'to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy'," Stein wrote.

"But the amended law takes the cuffs off" and "critics say it’s a formula for executive branch mischief," Stein wrote, as "the new language adds 'natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident' to the list of conditions permitting the President to take over local authority — particularly 'if domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order.'"

"One of the few to complain, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., warned that the measure virtually invites the White House to declare federal martial law. ... It 'subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law,' he said in remarks submitted to the Congressional Record on Sept. 29." [1]

Also see related Posse Comitatus Act section.
Contents

* 1 Executive Order 12919: "National Emergency"
* 2 Executive Authority
* 3 Foundation: Executive Orders
o 3.1 Executive Orders (EO) related to Federalism and Emergency Preparedness
o 3.2 Assignment of Emergency Preparedness Functions, October 11, 2004
* 4 American concentration camps
* 5 Specific to a Flu Outbreak
* 6 Specific to Hurricane Katrina
* 7 Documents
* 8 Other Articles & Commentary
* 9 Related SourceWatch Resources

Executive Order 12919: "National Emergency"

Should President George W. Bush proclaim and put into effect Executive Order 12919, "the President would put the United States under total Martial Law and Military Dictatorship." [2]

"The President need not wait for some emergency to occur, however. He can declare a National Emergency at any time, and freeze everything. Congress, and the States, are powerless to prevent such an Executive Dictatorship, as long as the President advises Congress in a timely matter." [3]

Executive Authority

Executive Order 12656 "Assignment of Emergency Preparedness Responsibilities", February 16, 2004 plus Executive Order 13074, Amendment to EO 12656, February 9, 1998.

"Executive Order Number 12656 appointed the National Security Council as the principal body that should consider emergency powers. This allows the government to increase domestic intelligence and surveillance of U.S. citizens and would restrict the freedom of movement within the United States and grant the government the right to isolate large groups of civilians. The National Guard could be federalized to seal all borders and take control of U.S. air space and all ports of entry." [4]

Executive Order 11921 "Adjusting Emergency Preparedness Assignments to Organizational and Functional Changes in Federal Departments and Agencies" allows the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) [stated as the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency] to "develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months." [5]

"FEMA's powers were consolidated by President Jimmy Carter to incorporate: The National Security Act of 1947, which allows for the strategic relocation of industries, services, government and other essential economic activities, and to rationalize the requirements for manpower, resources and production facilities; The 1950 Defense Production Act, which gives the President sweeping powers over all aspects of the economy; The Act of August 29, 1916, which authorizes the Secretary of the Army, in time of war, to take possession of any transportation system for transporting troops, material, or any other purpose related to the emergency; and The International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which enables the President to seize the property of a foreign country or national. These powers were transferred to FEMA in a sweeping consolidation in 1979." [6]

For the first time in American history, the reigns of government would not be transferred from one elected element to another, but the Constitution, itself, can be suspended. [7]

Foundation: Executive Orders

Executive Orders (EO) related to Federalism and Emergency Preparedness

* EO 13132: "Federalism", August 4, 1999.
* EO 11490: "Federal Departments and Agencies", February 16, 2004.
* EO 12472: "Telecommunications Functions", April 3, 1984; February 16, 2004.

* EO 12407 "provides the regional and local mechanisms and manpower" for carrying out the provisions of Executive Order 12919: National Defense Industrial Resources Preparedness. This order, signed February 22, 1983, by President Ronald Reagan, "sets up ten Federal Regional Councils to govern ten Federal Regions made up of the fifty States."

Assignment of Emergency Preparedness Functions, October 11, 2004

The following EOs all fall under EO 12919: [8]

* EO 10990: "allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports." [9]
* EO 10995: Federal seizure of all communications media in the US.
* EO 10997: Federal seizure of all electric power, fuels, minerals, public and private.
* EO 10998: Federal seizure of all food supplies and resources, public and private and all farms and equipment.
* EO 10999: Federal seizure of all means of transportation, including cars, trucks, or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports and water ways.
* EO 11000: Federal seizure of American people for work forces under federal supervision, including the splitting up of families if the government so desires.
* EO 11001: Federal seizure of all health, education and welfare facilities, both public and private.
* EO 11002: Empowers the Postmaster General to register every single person in the US.
* EO 11003: Federal seizure of all airports and aircraft.
* EO 11004: Federal seizure of all housing and finances and authority to establish forced relocation. Authority to designate areas to be abandoned as 'unsafe,' establish new locations for populations, relocate communities, build new housing with public funds.
* EO 11005: Seizure of all railroads, inland waterways and storage facilities, both public and private.
* EO 11051: Provides FEMA complete authorization to put above orders into effect in times of increased international tension of economic or financial crisis (FEMA will be in control incase of 'National Emergency').

* EO 12919 "Apparently Allows Cabinet Heads to Make Direct Loans to Government Contractors." [10]
* Also see Index of Executive Orders, Beginning December 30, 1992, WorldNetDaily website.

American concentration camps

Specific to a Flu Outbreak

* Bush Administration Plan for Flu Outbreaks
* "Bush military bird flu role slammed," CNN, October 5, 2005: "A call by President George W. Bush for Congress to give him the power to use the military in law enforcement roles in the event of a bird flu pandemic has been criticized as akin to introducing martial law."
* David Brown, "Military's Role in a Flu Pandemic. Troops Might Be Used to 'Effect a Quarantine,' Bush Says," Washington Post, October 5, 2005.
* Mike Whitney, "Martial Law and the advent of the Supreme Executive," uruknet, October 6, 2005.

Specific to Hurricane Katrina

* George W. Bush: Hurricane Katrina
* Hurricane Katrina: List of related pages
* Joint Task Force Katrina

[h3rm35]

The Cover-up: BP's Crude Politics and the Looming Environmental Mega-Disaster

By Wayne Madsen

URL of this article: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...&aid=19068

Global Research, May 9, 2010
Oilprice.com

WMR has been informed by sources in the US Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Florida Department of Environmental Protection that the Obama White House and British Petroleum (BP), which pumped $71,000 into Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign -- more than John McCain or Hillary Clinton--, are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP's liability for damage caused by what can be called a "mega-disaster."

Obama and his senior White House staff, as well as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, are working with BP's chief executive officer Tony Hayward on legislation that would raise the cap on liability for damage claims from those affected by the oil disaster from $75 million to $10 billion. However, WMR's federal and Gulf state sources are reporting the disaster has the real potential cost of at least $1 trillion. Critics of the deal being worked out between Obama and Hayward point out that $10 billion is a mere drop in the bucket for a trillion dollar disaster but also note that BP, if its assets were nationalized, could fetch almost a trillion dollars for compensation purposes. There is talk in some government circles, including FEMA, of the need to nationalize BP in order to compensate those who will ultimately be affected by the worst oil disaster in the history of the world.

Plans by BP to sink a 4-story containment dome over the oil gushing from a gaping chasm one kilometer below the surface of the Gulf, where the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and killed 11 workers on April 20, and reports that one of the leaks has been contained is pure public relations disinformation designed to avoid panic and demands for greater action by the Obama administration, according to FEMA and Corps of Engineers sources. Sources within these agencies say the White House has been resisting releasing any "damaging information" about the oil disaster. They add that if the ocean oil geyser is not stopped within 90 days, there will be irreversible damage to the marine eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico, north Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. At best, some Corps of Engineers experts say it could take two years to cement the chasm on the floor of the Gulf.

Only after the magnitude of the disaster became evident did Obama order Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to declare the oil disaster a "national security issue." Although the Coast Guard and FEMA are part of her department, Napolitano's actual reasoning for invoking national security was to block media coverage of the immensity of the disaster that is unfolding for the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and their coastlines.

From the Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the Environmental Protection Agency, Coast Guard, and Gulf state environmental protection agencies, the message is the same: "we've never dealt with anything like this before."

The Obama administration also conspired with BP to fudge the extent of the oil leak, according to our federal and state sources. After the oil rig exploded and sank, the government stated that 42,000 gallons per day was gushing from the seabed chasm. Five days later, the federal government upped the leakage to 210,000 gallons a day.

However, WMR has been informed that submersibles that are monitoring the escaping oil from the Gulf seabed are viewing television pictures of what is a "volcanic-like" eruption of oil. Moreover, when the Army Corps of Engineers first attempted to obtain NASA imagery of the Gulf oil slick -- which is larger than that being reported by the media -- it was turned down. However, National Geographic managed to obtain the satellite imagery shots of the extent of the disaster and posted them on their web site.

There is other satellite imagery being withheld by the Obama administration that shows what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be around the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public, according to our sources.

The Corps and Engineers and FEMA are quietly critical of the lack of support for quick action after the oil disaster by the Obama White House and the US Coast Guard. Only recently, has the Coast Guard understood the magnitude of the disaster, dispatching nearly 70 vessels to the affected area. WMR has also learned that inspections of off-shore rigs' shut-off valves by the Minerals Management Service during the Bush administration were merely rubber-stamp operations, resulting from criminal collusion between Halliburton and the Interior Department's service, and that the potential for similar disasters exists with the other 30,000 off-shore rigs that use the same shut-off valves.

The impact of the disaster became known to the Corps of Engineers and FEMA even before the White House began to take the magnitude of the impending catastrophe seriously. The first casualty of the disaster is the seafood industy, with not just fishermen, oystermen, crabbers, and shrimpers losing their jobs, but all those involved in the restaurant industry, from truckers to waitresses, facing lay-offs.

The invasion of crude oil into estuaries like the oyster-rich Apalachicola Bay in Florida spell disaster for the seafood industry. However, the biggest threat is to Florida's Everglades, which federal and state experts fear will be turned into a "dead zone" if the oil continues to gush forth from the Gulf chasm. There are also expectations that the oil slick will be caught up in the Gulf stream off the eastern seaboard of the United States, fouling beaches and estuaries like the Chesapeake Bay, and ultimately target the rich fishing grounds of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland.

WMR has also learned that 36 urban areas on the Gulf of Mexico are expecting to be confronted with a major disaster from the oil volcano in the next few days. Although protective water surface boons are being laid to protect such sensitive areas as Alabama's Dauphin Island, the mouth of the Mississippi River, and Florida's Apalachicola Bay, Florida, there is only 16 miles of boons available for the protection of 2,276 miles of tidal shoreline in the state of Florida.

Emergency preparations in dealing with the expanding oil menace are now being made for cities and towns from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Houston, New Orleans, Gulfport, Mobile, Pensacola, Tampa-St.Petersburg-Clearwater, Sarasota-Bradenton, Naples, and Key West. Some 36 FEMA-funded contracts between cities, towns, and counties and emergency workers are due to be invoked within days, if not hours, according to WMR's FEMA sources.

There are plans to evacuate people with respiratory problems, especially those among the retired senior population along the west coast of Florida, before officials begin burning surface oil as it begins to near the coastline.

There is another major threat looming for inland towns and cities. With hurricane season in effect, there is a potential for ocean oil to be picked up by hurricane-driven rains and dropped into fresh water lakes and rivers, far from the ocean, thus adding to the pollution of water supplies and eco-systems.



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