Gulf Restoration Network

United for a Healthy Gulf

Blog - BPs Oil Drilling Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico

Wednesday, 31 August 2011 12:12

Bird’s Eye View: Warning

Warning: If you are offended by large amounts of oil fouling the Gulf of Mexico, do not click here. On a flyover yesterday by our friend Bonny Schumaker, lead pilot for On Wings of Care, she spotted yet more oil near the Macondo well. What she saw yesterday was much more oil on
the surface than I had spotted and documented with her on two recent previous flights, one on August 19^th and one on August 25^th. Based on Bonny’s latest footage, it appears as if things are getting worse near the site of the ruined Deepwater Horizon. I’m sure that BP is not pleased that we are birdogging this situation so closely but we pledge to continue to keep groundtruthing what is really happening out there.

Others, in response to our reports, have taken boats out to the positions we recorded including reporter Ben Raines from the Mobile Press-Register. You can check out Ben’s report here. Independent scientists and activists have also collected samples. They all saw, smelled, and sampled the globulules that we spotted. Scientists at Louisiana State University analyzed and pronounced it to be Louisiana “sweet crude.”

Both BP and the US Coast Guard claim they have deployed surface vessels, submersibles, and aircraft since our report last week. They claim that they have seen nothing, and that there is no “scientific evidence" of any oil in the Macondo Prospect. If that is the case they are either not being truthful or incompetent. Or both?

Read Stuart Smith’s Aug. 17 post that broke the “new leak” story: http://www.stuarthsmith.com/oil-rising-again-from-macondo-well-bp-hires-fleet-of-40-shrimp-boats-to-lay-boom-around-old-deepwater-horizon-site

Read Bonny Schumaker’s flyover reports: http://onwingsofcare.org/protection-a-preservation/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-2010/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-2011-spring.html

Check out my August 19^th flyover footage and blog: http://healthygulf.org/201108201718/blog/bps-oil-drilling-disaster-in-the-gulf-of-mexico/breaking-news-birds-eye-view-grn-spots-oil-near-bps-macondo-well

Check out photos from my August 25^th flyover: http://www.flickr.com/photos/healthygulf/sets/72157627438705439/show/ This set includes photos I took of another leak near shore. It aslo includes shots of Sperm whales, which is pretty freakn' awesome!

Check out Bonny’s report from August 30^th: http://www.onwingsofcare.org/protection-a-preservation/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-2010/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-2011-spring/175-whale-sharks-gulf-of-mexico-oil.html

Read Stuart Smith's recent blog: The Second Coming of Macondo: How Long Has Oil Been Leaking from BP’s Deepwater Horizon Site – This Time? http://www.stuarthsmith.com/the-second-coming-of-macondo-how-long-has-oil-been-leaking-from-bps-deepwater-horizon-site-%E2%80%93-this-time

To view photos from August 25th flyover, see below:

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Jonathan Henderson is the Coastal Resiliency Organizer for GRN.

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