What exactly is every one WAITING for?

Posted: May 22, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Gulf Oil Spill | 1 Comment

Gulf Shrimp in their natural habitat: my dinner plate

I took that picture of my dinner because I have no idea how much longer I’ll be able to buy Gulf Shrimp. I also don’t know how to get the nation’s attention. We have an oil tsunami down here and it’s not getting any better.

I’m posting links to our local stations because it appears that BP and the Coast Guard are chasing off the national media. For some reason, local journalists make it on to the boats and see the damage first hand.

I’m going to show you what Jefferson and Plaquemines Parishes are doing and then there’s the presidential response which is basically to create an Oil-Spill Panel that’s got six months to do its thing. SIX fucking months! How many lives will be destroyed by that time? What on earth can be done by a committee that has six MONTHS to report? Where is the power of a president that can order a citizen assassinated and an assassin drone to cross the borders of a country with whom we are not at war? Where is any sense of urgency?

Meanwhile, back in my backyard at my favorite area to hike, things are a little more desperate. Oil is rushing towards the Barataria estuaries. Jefferson parish commandeered 40 idled-by-BP boats to try to stop the flow. That’s 40 boats just sitting around doing nothing. NOTHING at all. Oil is pushing into the marshes. We just keep getting excuses from every where. Plaquesmines Parish is now trying to fund their own program because they can’t get enough help.

Oil is pushing into more and more stretches of coastal marsh in Plaquemines Parish, with some stalks of cane now appearing to wilt from an onslaught of oil.

“This is our worst nightmare. I’m sick to my stomach,” said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser. “It’s going through the other side of the bayou. So, it’s infiltrated all of this marsh and you can see the brown starting to work up the cane.”

Despite the presence of oil containment and absorbent boom, Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser has watched more and more oil encroach on coastal marshes, with each passing day. As time goes by, he’s become more and more frustrated that the federal government has yet to approve a state proposal, which would build barrier islands off the coast to catch the oil, before it hits the marsh.

“We we’re asking to put back a little bit of the barrier islands, so we’d have a chance to save this,” Nungesser said.

The oil, which looks like thick, dark caramel, is sticking to this marsh and there is no clear solution on how to remove it.

“Seeing is believing,” said Plaquemines Parish Council Member Lynda Banta. “You hear it on TV, but when you come and see it first-hand– it’s overwhelming to me.”

Fully ONE month after the oil tsunami,we are getting a congressional delegation and a few cabinet secretaries on a visit again. Meanwhile, BP is fighting the EPA directive on dispersant. What do we have to do to get some attention down here?

I was relieved to see Anderson Cooper host both James Carville and Douglas Brinkley who basically said the time to do the razzle-dazzle is well past. This is a quote from the ragin cajun via Crooks and Liars.

“I’m as good a Democrat as most people, and I think this administration has done some good things. They are risking everything by this ‘go along with BP’ strategy they have that seems like, lackadaisical on this, and Doug is right, they seem like they’re inconvenienced by this, this is some giant thing getting in their way and somehow or another, if you let BP handle it, it’ll all go away. It’s not going away. It’s growing out there. It is a disaster of the first magnitude, and they’ve got to go to Plan B.“

The deal is James, stick your nose out the door and take a whiff. It was that nasty smell of old crayons all day long. There is no Plan B. There is only the fact that we are indentured servants to the world’s biggest corporations. They own us and they own our politicians. We leave all the plans up to them and the plans are all about maximizing profits and nothing else.

In one of the few glimpses of positive steps I’ve seen since this particular crisis unfolded is this news from ProPublica. The EPA is evidently considering some sanctions against BP.

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency are considering whether to bar BP from receiving government contracts, a move that would ultimately cost the company billions in revenue and could end its drilling in federally controlled oil fields.

Over the past 10 years, BP has paid tens of millions of dollars in fines and been implicated in four separate instances of criminal misconduct that could have prompted this far more serious action. Until now, the company’s executives and their lawyers have fended off such a penalty by promising that BP would change its ways.

That’s all fine and dandy, isn’t it? We keep warning them and they keep keeping on. One of the three culprits in this disaster is Haliburton and they’ve been on a list of Federal nastiness for some time. They are joined by GE and some of the biggest most influential corporations in the world. How many warnings do you get before the interests of the American people come before corporate profits and influence peddling?

Federal law allows agencies to suspend or bar from government contracts companies that engage in fraudulent, reckless or criminal conduct. The sanctions can be applied to a single facility or an entire corporation. Government agencies have the power to forbid a company to collect any benefit from the federal government in the forms of contracts, land leases, drilling rights, or loans.

The most serious, sweeping kind of suspension is called “discretionary debarment” and it is applied to an entire company. If this were imposed on BP, it would cancel not only the company’s contracts to sell fuel to the military but prohibit BP from leasing or renewing drilling leases on federal land. In the worst cast, it could also lead to the cancellation of BP’s existing federal leases, worth billions of dollars.

The President and the Congress have this kind of power now. Why do we have to wait six months for a committee to tell them to use it?

Gulf Update

Posted: May 20, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , | Comments Off on Gulf Update

I went out last night to Jack Dempsey’s Seafood Restaurant. It’s my local seafood place that’s just down the street from me. Since I live between the Coast Guard Base and the east bank portion of a Marine Base and the ninth ward is the Gateway to the Coastal parishes, I get to hear a lot about what’s going on with the Gulf Spill. It didn’t take me long to figure out that it’s not good. I asked about the oyster plate and there were basically no oysters. I had to settle for the shrimp platter where the shrimp were much smaller than I usually see on plates this time of year. At least there are still some around.

Wednesday night is pretty quiet so it wasn’t hard to get every one in the room to start opening up on the Gulf Spill. A good portion of the folks that eat and work at Jack Dempsey’s have that tell-tell Chalmette accent so you know that some one in there has family that makes a living on a fishing or shrimping boat. You could tell they’re all worried about their livelihoods even if they’re not on the boats any more. Everything from here east is about seafood and the Gulf. I kid you not.

We also decided that Governor Bobby Jindal looks like hell. One of the waitresses wondered if that was intentional because former Mayor Ray Nagin got so much criticism for his vanity aboard AF1 during Hurricane Katrina. Jindal looks like he’s been forgoing his little dab will do ya. He’s also obviously tired. He hasn’t slowed down when giving pressers, however. He still talks faster than any one can follow.

The first topic that came up were the complaints that BP was basically paying the small fishing business less than minimum wage for their boats and their services. This is prime shrimp season so they’re losing a lot more than just a day’s work. It’s also hurting the charter boats that take tourists out for a day’s fishing. Those boat owners and a lot of my neighbors with fishing camps in the area are complaining about their favorite weekend of the year. That’s when they all climb into a boat and compete in the the Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo. The father-in-law of my neighbor across the street bought a brand new boat for the occasion and now it’s sitting in his garage indefinitely. Fishing Rodeos are better attended that mass in the coastal parishes.

The Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo is the oldest fishing tournament in the country and was founded in 1928.

Raymond Stouder, a Metairie native who won the Bluefish catch category last year, said the event means more to him than the competition.

“Every year we try to get a bunch of us to go down there together, ” Stouder said. “It’s more than just fishing.”

Stouder, who said he tries to fish at least a couple of times a week, said it would be terrible for the state to lose any of its fishing rodeos this year.

“It’s going to be a bad situation, especially for (the) economy down there, ” Stouder said.

If canceled, the Grand Isle Rodeo will join a list of other major fishing rodeos in South Louisiana to be canceled.

The Golden Meadow-Fourchon International Tarpon Rodeo in Port Fourchon has already been canceled because of the spill. That rodeo was scheduled for July 1-3. Jesuit High School’s annual fishing rodeo, scheduled for June 25-26, has also been canceled.

This is just the beginning of how much life is going to change around here. We’re also getting reports that some Fisherman working in the Gulf are reporting they are ill.

One fisherman said he felt like he was going to die over the weekend.”I’ve been coughing up stuff,” Gary Burris said. “Your lungs fill up.”Burris, a longtime fisherman who has worked across the Gulf Coast, said he woke up Sunday night feeling drugged and disoriented.”It was like sniffing gasoline or something, and my ears are still popping,” Burris said. “I’m coughing up stuff. I feel real weak, tingling feelings.”Marine toxicologist Riki Ott said the chemicals used by BP can wreak havoc on a person’s body and even lead to death.”The volatile, organic carbons, they act like a narcotic on the brain,” Ott said. “At high concentrations, what we learned in Exxon Valdez from carcasses of harbor seals and sea otters, it actually fried the brain, (and there were) brain lesions.”

Earlier today, the EPA has ordered BP to use a less toxic dispersant. I posted earlier about the problems seen with Corexit. Finally, the information on it is getting to other people. Here’s some of the latest information on that. EPA head Lisa Jackson spoke about the problems.

Jackson used less glowing language, calling the dispersant “the lesser of two environmental outcomes no one wants to have to deal with. But we also need to be able to answer questions about what’s out there and what’s available for use,” she said Tuesday after a Senate environment committee hearing.

In her testimony, Jackson said the long-term effects of the dispersants on aquatic life are still unknown, and said the EPA would work to ensure that “the dispersants that are used are as non-toxic as possible.”

The agency has been working with manufacturers, BP and with others to get less toxic dispersants to the response site as quickly as possible, Jackson said.

Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of a House global warming committee, praised Jackson for acting swiftly to address concerns that the dispersant BP chose to use is more toxic than other available chemicals.

“The effect of long-term use of dispersants on the marine ecosystem has not been extensively studied, and we need to act with the utmost of caution,” Markey said.

After hearing complaints from scientists that they were not getting enough information on the spill, the Administration compelled BP to broadcast the gusher and information concerning the conditions in the Gulf on the Web. The U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming has the live video feed. Much of this is provided by our Coast Guard.

If you didn’t get a chance to check out the pictures that were taken at Pass a Loutre by LAGOHSEP and Governor Bobby Jindal’s staff yesterday, please go look. I think you’ll see how bad things are getting down here just from the two I’ve put below. I’m still planning on going down there soon.

11th Hour Cat Herding

Posted: May 19, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Global Financial Crisis | Tags: , | Comments Off on 11th Hour Cat Herding

I’m trying to follow the financial regulation bill as it morphs into something to attract votes. It’s just been announced that Harry Reid

"Too Big to Fail"

will call for a vote because Susan Collins of Maine–and possibly some others– is willing to leave the Just Say No Republican Bloc. Lame Duck Chairman Dodd evidently is playing enough with Blanche Lincoln’s derivative amendment to bring some Naysayers into the fold. The sticking point was derivatives. Lincoln’s amendment sought to ban commercial banks from dealing in derivatives. It was seen as an attempt to bring back some sense of Glass-Stegall to financial institutions. While Blanche was back in her district trying to cast a vote for herself in an election where she now faces a run-off, Dodd was wheeling and dealing on the cornerstone ‘brag’ in her record.

There’s bits and pieces of this story all over the web, but it’s hard to find anything definitive. The best two that I’ve found to date are from Bloomberg and FT. The derivatives amendment is pretty much hated by Republicans who believe that the business will just go elsewhere in the world and make the US banking industry less competitive. There’s also some last minute wrangling to give the states more leeway in terms of their own state banking laws and regulations. This is seen as a compromise because some states could tighten regulations but others could leave them more loose per the federal regulation.

Anyway, I’ll try to highlight some of the articles cited above to see if we can’t get a sense of where this is headed. The first maneuver by Dodd, yesterday, was to keep the Lincoln amendment, but delay implementation for two years, pending a study. This change was dropped earlier today. This maneuver is explained pretty well in this Bloomberg piece.

Dodd filed an amendment yesterday that would delay a measure requiring banks to put their swaps-trading desks in subsidiaries pending a one-year study of its effects by a new council of regulators. The amendment would let the panel eliminate the rule if it was found to “have a material adverse effect on the financial markets and economy.”

The decision against offering the amendment leaves open an issue that has complicated the overhaul debate since Senator Blanche Lincoln proposed her derivatives measure last month. Lincoln, an Arkansas Democrat facing a battle for the party’s nomination as she seeks reelection, has said she will defend efforts to strip the provision.

Dodd’s decision means the Senate legislation is likely to include the rule, which would force banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. to move swaps trading to subsidiaries, when it comes up for a final vote as soon as this week.

Republicans definitely don’t like this and are arguing that it will actually bring more uncertainty (and therefore variability and instability) to the market. The FT article believes that this may be overstated because it believes the intent of the ban is slightly different than what is portrayed by the industry. They don’t see it as an outright ban but a partial ban impacting some institutions.

However, Mr Dodd’s proposal appears to ban dealing in derivatives only if it does not comply with the Volcker Rule, the proposal elsewhere in the bill that prevents banks from trading for their own account, owning hedge funds and private equity firms.

It also gives discretion to regulators to call off the ban after a study of the consequences to be delivered within a year.

Those regulators have come out strongly against a proposed ban on banks from dealing in swaps, one area of the derivatives market, which is in the existing bill and which Mr Dodd’s language is designed to replace.

Republicans blocked a vote on the Merkley-Levin amendment on Wednesday night which would have increased the scope of the Volcker Rule and which is opposed by most of the banks.

So, this brings us back to the Volcker Rule that we’ve discussed here before. This is a rule that seeks to establish a Glass-Stegall lite that replaces the wall of separation that used to exist between financial intermediary functions (that would be bank deposit/lending activities) and investment banking (that would be market making and financial innovation). Under Glass-Stegall, financial institutions could do one or the other. The could not have units that did both. Again, the FT talks about the amendment that places state and federal banking laws at odds. Notice that Tom Carper(d) from Delaware is doing the heavy lifting for big banks here.

In a partial victory for the banks, senators approved by a vote of 80-18 an amendment from Tom Carper, a Democratic senator from Delaware, to restrict the rights of individual states to apply consumer protection rules to banks. Large banks that operate across state lines had argued that they should be subject to only one standard.

The American Bankers Association said that without it “consumers and their banks could have been subject to potentially hundreds of different and confusing state and local laws covering their loans, checking accounts, credit and debit cards, or ATM usage”.

State attorneys-general will retain a role in protecting consumers but they could not bring class action law suits against national banks and the Office of Comptroller of the Currency could supersede their action under the amendment. Amid other changes and compromises in the final hectic hours of considering the bill, senators were also trying to reach a compromise over language in the bill that places a “fiduciary” duty on banks to look after its clients’ interests. Banks and some regulators say it is unworkable and ignores the realities of market making .

The NYT–in an article this morning–does a pretty good job at dissecting the Republican discontent. Republicans have traditionally been the workhorses for the American Banker’s Association and they’re playing that role here. However, the watering-down process seems due more to Democrats like Carper even though Reid has been trying to find some Republican support for a super majority vote. I’m not sure how far Mitch McConnell can get with this type of rhetoric in this political atmosphere. I believe that he will soften since the Murtha seat in PA 12 was retained by the Democrats and the Rand Paul victory in his home state of Kentucky. The results of the elections last night didn’t say anything positive for candidates supported by either party’s titular heads within the beltway.

The remarks by Republican leaders on Tuesday suggested they saw no benefit in joining with the Democrats even to impose tougher rules on Wall Street. At a news conference, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, blamed the White House.

“The marching orders are coming from downtown: push the bill as far to the political left as possible,” he said. “Look at the last 15 months. They’re running banks, insurance companies, car companies, taking over the student loan business, taking over health care, now, apparently doing to the financial services industry what they did to the health care industry.”

“This is a massive government overreach,” Mr. McConnell said, adding that Republicans were confident about their political prospects. “The American people are saying, ‘enough’ and I think that’s why everyone is anticipating a major midcourse correction this November.”

Again, Reid will schedule the vote and is planning on support from some Republicans. Politico is reporting that Susan Collins of Maine has bucked the Republican wall of no.

There is still a significant amount of work to be done — and arguments to be had on the Senate floor — before Reid’s 2 p.m. deadline, and it is still not entirely clear that the majority leader has enough votes to clear his 60-vote cloture hurdle.

But one Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, will vote yes on cutting off debate, her spokesman told POLITICO Wednesday morning. That makes her the first GOP senator to publicly break with her party on the crucial vote.

Tuesday afternoon Reid had said that “a number” of Republican senators told him they would vote to cut off debate, and Republican aides said they felt Democrats would be able to swing enough votes to move to the next procedural phase of the bill.

Yet aside from Collins, very few GOP senators have stated publicly their support for cloture, and even several Democrats — including Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Ben Nelson of Nebraska — are still on the fence.

Even as the Senate moves ahead on some amendments, Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s proposal forcing banks to spin off their derivatives operations remains safe — for now.

Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) has decided not offer an amendment gutting the provision by delaying implementation for two years while a study is completed., said his spokeswoman Kirstin Brost.

The banking industry pushed back hard against the Dodd compromise, saying it might be worse than Lincoln’s proposal. Learning of the proposal while fighting for the Democratic nomination in Arkansas, Lincoln issued a statement vowing to fight the measure.

One of the notable amendments included in the agreement is to be offered by Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) on reviving the Depression Era Glass-Steagall rules designed to control speculation and impose stricter limitations on banks. Cantwell reportedly was holding out a “yes” vote on cloture unless her amendment was considered.

I still am personally more concerned about the reporting and process issues surrounding derivatives contracts more than anything else. To be pragmatic, these financial assets will be offered elsewhere and it doesn’t take much to set up a foreign office to deal with them if the institution is so inclined. In this case, it is much more important for the delivery process to be systematized and clearly reported and for the regulators to be clearly tasked with tracking the results and coming up with some kind of early warning system. With this in mind, I’m not sure the political process will deliver best results either way.

P.S. You can add other things to this thread. I won’t mind at all.

Gulf Gusher Update

Posted: May 15, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Gulf Oil Spill | Tags: , , | Comments Off on Gulf Gusher Update

It was very stormy today and I am still grading finals but I managed to catch a few things on the local news that show the level of frustration down here with BP and the response to the tragedy unfolding in the Gulf. There’s so much speculation as to how desperate the situation will be that every one wants more information and it doesn’t appear very forthcoming.

A group of fishermen got angry at officials at a meeting in the two hard hit parishes here. That would be Plaquemines and St. Bernard. Both were slammed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and haven’t really recovered to any place you’d call normal. Most of the folks that have stayed there have livelihoods that depend on the gulf including shrimpers and folks that live on commercial and sport fishing. These families are about at the end of their ropes and most have been in the area and in the business for generations. It’s more than just a living to them.

The fishermen said they feel like their livelihood is being threatened and they’re being punished twice — first by the spill and now by their parish and BP.

“We have to suffer because of their damn mistakes,” said Suzanna Guidroz, who works as a deckhand. “They should have had a backup plan for this oil spill before it even happened. It should have been in the works years ago.”

More of the frustration stemmed from the pay that captains and deckhands are being offered, which is far less than they’re used to making.

“I dropped out of seventh grade to do this,” fisherman Michael Thonn said. “I’ve been doing this my whole life, since I was a kid. It’s all I know. How am I supposed to pay my bills? I got family to take care of. I got kids.”

“These fishermen make a lot more than $17 an hour and $250 a day for their boat,” Guidroz said. “They could not compare to what these guys are making out there right now.”

Meanwhile, confusion over the testimony at last week’s congressional hearing has caused Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to fire off a letter to the CEO of BP. Since no one was claiming any responsibility, she felt the urge to get a little clarification.

The letter specifically mentions an interview with Reuters on April 30 in which BP CEO Dr. Anthony Hayword said, “We are taking full responsibility for the spill and we will clean it up, and where people can present legitimate claims for damages we will honor them. We are going to be very, very aggressive in all of that.”

As recent as May 11, Lamar McKay, the chairman and president of BP America, was reported as making similar claims before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. In his testimony, Napolitano’s letter said that McKay agreed that BP will pay all claims, even if they exceed what he described as an “irrelevant” statutory cap of $75 million per incident.

If this winds up in court ala the Exxon Valdez and the AMOCO Cadiz, people will most likely be dead before they have hope of recovering any of the damages. The Napolitano letter followed up the White House Rose Garden speech where TOTUS instructed POTUS to be very angry. I think this means the buck is going to stop on the back of those of us that live on the Gulf right now. Believe me, the pain will spread too. If this thing gets up into the Mississippi, there is no telling what will happen. That’s a major artery for commerce as well as the source of a lot of drinking water. The President seems to think his administration’s response has been okey dokey.

With the Gulf spill, he said, the response was “comprehensive and fast” and the Coast Guard and Interior Department were on the scene almost immediately.

Yeah. That was the same group that pulled us off of roofs during Hurricane Katrina. I’m beginning to trust the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries over just about any body else in the country, frankly. How about sending us a few brilliant engineers to figure out how to plug up the gusher?

Meanwhile, back to the poor folks in Chalmette and to the rest of us that can’t live without our Shrimp Po’ Boys.

All of the waters directly affected by the spill remained closed to commercial and recreational fishing, so no seafood from the region is at risk of oil contamination.

It is almost certain, however, that the life cycle of shrimp in the Gulf will be affected by the spill. Shrimp reproduce and lay their eggs in the Gulf, which is now largely covered in dispersed and floating oil, and then move inshore to the estuaries, which are are also at risk.

I think we’re all kinda tired of making history down here.

You can consider this an open thread, but I have to tell you, there’s not much on my mind right now but how bad this is going to be.

To the rest of the U.S. from Louisiana: SOS

Posted: May 14, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Gulf Oil Spill | 1 Comment

I just got my first notice to grab my shrimper boots and head south from GRIT. Here are some of the latest updates on the Gulf Oil Spill.

The current NOAA trajectory maps predict the movement of oil along the Louisiana coast to the Atchafalaya Bay over the next 72 hours. These trajectories are based on weather patterns and gulf currents. This trajectory could impact some of our beloved barrier islands and thousands of more acres of wetlands. Working with BP, GRIT has identified sites that would be safe and accessible for clean-up prior to the impact of oil. Debris and trash that collects on our shorelines can potentially get covered in oil and make the clean-up of these natural areas even more complicated.

The news from our part of the world is not good. I just read this update from the National Geographic Daily News. I think I would call National Geographic's pictures of a fishing boat tackling the oil spilltoday’s headline a conversation stopper. It reads ” Gulf Oil Leaks Could Gush for Years: “We don’t have any idea how to stop this,” expert says. ” Here are some of the highlights of the article.

If efforts fail to cap the leaking Deepwater Horizon wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico (map), oil could gush for years—poisoning coastal habitats for decades, experts say.

…

If the oil can’t be stopped, the underground reservoir may continue bleeding until it’s dry, Simmons suggested.

The most recent estimates are that the leaking wellhead has been spewing 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons, or 795,000 liters) of oil a day.

And the oil is still flowing robustly, which suggests that the reserve “would take years to deplete,” said David Rensink, incoming president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

“You’re talking about a reservoir that could have tens of millions of barrels in it.”

National Geographic–known for its excellent indepth coverage and wonderful photos–is at its best with its coverage of this spill. Please spend some time on the site.

Meanwhile, we’re finding just how complicit our own government has been with the oil profiteers.

The federal Minerals Management Service gave permission to BP and dozens of other oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico without first getting required permits from another agency that assesses threats to endangered species — and despite strong warnings from that agency about the impact the drilling was likely to have on the gulf.

Those approvals, federal records show, include one for the well drilled by the Deepwater Horizon rig, which exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers and resulting in thousands of barrels of oil spilling into the gulf each day.

The Minerals Management Service, or M.M.S., also routinely overruled its staff biologists and engineers who raised concerns about the safety and the environmental impact of certain drilling proposals in the gulf and in Alaska, according to a half-dozen current and former agency scientists.

Those scientists said they were also regularly pressured by agency officials to change the findings of their internal studies if they predicted that an accident was likely to occur or if wildlife might be harmed.

NPR reports that the government may be under reporting the gusher.

The amount of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico may be at least 10 times the size of official estimates, according to an exclusive analysis conducted for NPR.

At NPR’s request, experts examined video that BP released Wednesday. Their findings suggest the BP spill is already far larger than the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska, which spilled at least 250,000 barrels of oil.

BP has said repeatedly that there is no reliable way to measure the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico by looking at the oil gushing out of the pipe. But scientists say there are actually many proven techniques for doing just that.

Steven Wereley, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, analyzed videotape of the seafloor gusher using a technique called particle image velocimetry.

Given how little environmental impact studies were done on this site, do you think we really have a handle on what the potential hazard this will be to the wildlife, plantlife, and people down here on the Gulf? I’m torn between anger and panic.

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