Desdemona Despair

By Jeff Dute
May 31, 2010, 12:38PM

MOBILE, Ala. -- On the eve of the opener of the 2010 red snapper season, approaching oil from the Deepwater Horizon well has prompted the NOAA Fisheries Service to expand the federal waters closed to fishing.

The newly closed areas include federal waters up to state waters from Gulfport, Miss., and east across the mouth of Mobile Bay and along the Fort Morgan peninsula to just west of Gulf Shores, Ala.

Federal waters due south of Orange Beach out to about 30 miles and to the southeast of Perido Pass remain open to fishermen. State waters in Mississippi and Alabama remained open as of noon today.

Approaching oil prompts closure of more Gulf areas to fishing

By Jason Burke
www.guardian.co.uk, Sunday 30 May 2010 16.32 BST

Record temperatures in northern India have claimed hundreds of lives in what is believed to be the hottest summer in the country since records began in the late 1800s.

The death toll is expected to rise with experts forecasting temperatures approaching 50C (122F) in coming weeks. More than 100 people are reported to have died in the state of Gujarat where the mercury topped at 48.5C last week. At least 90 died in Maharashtra, 35 in Rajasthan and 34 in Bihar.

Hospitals in Gujarat have been receiving around 300 people a day suffering from food poisoning and heat stroke, ministers said. Officials admit the figures are only a fraction of the total as most of the casualties are found in remote rural villages.

Wildlife and livestock has also suffered with voluntary organisations in Gujarat reporting the deaths of bats and crows and dozens of peacocks reported dead at a forest reserve in Uttar Pradesh.

"Because of the heat, lakes and other water bodies have been reduced to parched land, making dehydration common in such birds," said Neeraj Srivastava, a wildlife campaigner.

Even India's northern hill stations – historically a refuge from the heat – have not escaped. Temperatures in Shimla, recorded a peak temperature of 32.4 Celsius, eight degrees hotter than the seasonal average.

After a drought last year, India's farmers are now impatient for the arrival of the monsoon, which irrigates 60% of India's fields. National meteorologists have forecast "normal" rains for this year, a relief in a country where prices of basic foodstuffs have rocketed in recent months due to growing shortages and structural problems with agriculture.

Forecasters have predicted that the south-west monsoon could arrive over the southern state of Kerala as early as today, but it is unlikely to reach the parched north before the end of June.

"It's too long to wait. We'll all go mad before," said Sanjoy Kumar, who sells dumplings from a stall in south Delhi.

The capital has sweltered under intense heat for weeks though, having endured temperatures of around 45C last week, dust storms and scattered rain brought some relief over the weekend. The new air-conditioned metro has seen record numbers of passengers as travellers abandon buses, taxis and auto rickshaws.

Parts of the city have suffered prolonged electricity blackouts and, in outlying suburbs, water shortages. In upmarket Mehrauli village, residents were forced to buy from private suppliers plying door to door with tankers. In the new town of Gurgaon, entire apartment blocks have run short. In the city of Nagpur, Maharashtra, petrol pumps ran dry after railway wagons which normally carry fuel were switched to supply water. … 

Mean temperatures for both March and April were the highest in more than 100 years. …

Hundreds die in Indian heatwave via Apocadocs

By The Associated Press
May 30, 2010, 6:04PM

The reality that the Gulf oil leak could keep flowing for months was setting in Sunday for some somber churchgoers in Louisiana.

In Plaquemines Parish near the mouth of the Mississippi River, the Rev. Theodore Turner said of his congregants are getting desperate because BP has been unable to stop the leak.

Turner, of Mount Oliver Baptist Church in Boothville, said about a third of his congregation is made up of fishers. He said shrimpers are also getting more anxious as they realize there is less chance they will recover.

At St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Port Sulphur, church member Lyle Stockstill said the community is drawing closer to their faith as the nation's worst oil spill grows.

Louisiana churchgoers somber after BP fails to plug Gulf oil spill

By Matthew Cardinale

ATLANTA, Georgia, May 31, 2010 (IPS/IFEJ) - As oil continues gushing from the ocean floor into the Gulf of Mexico, with no sign of stopping until a new well is finished this August, scientists, environmentalists and local residents are beginning to reckon with the reality of a massive annihilation of sea creatures and wildlife.

Dead animals are already washing up on shores. Birds have been found dying in pools of oil and dispersant, which have taken over their marshland habitats.

Several species in the Gulf of Mexico are already endangered, including the Kemp's Ridley and Leatherback sea turtles, the Sperm Whale, and birds such as the Piping Plover and the Gulf Sturgeon, according to the Arizona-based Centre for Biological Diversity (CBD).

As a result of the disaster, CBD has already petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to add the Bluefin Tuna to the endangered species list.

Assistant Professor Michael Blum of Tulane University's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology warns that some species may be at risk of extinction.

"There are... hundreds of shorebirds and marine mammals that are acutely sensitive to oil. You could potentially lose whole species, have extinction events. Brown pelicans were just taken off the endangered species list. On this threshold, a big dieback and mortality event, they would be pushed back into a situation where they could be endangered," Blum said in an interview.

"A lot of the species of most concern - sea turtles and dolphins - migrate, use our breeding grounds or they're a very important feeding ground," he explained.

While there are no dolphin species whose populations exclusively migrate through the Gulf, Blum said those dolphins not impacted by the Gulf would be in such low numbers that they may not be able to reproduce at an adequate rate to avoid extinction.

The EPA admits the impact of the oil spill - and the unprecedented use of toxic dispersants to break up the oil - on wildlife is unknown. "We're still deeply concerned about the things we don't know. The long-term effect on aquatic life is unknown," EPA Secretary Lisa Jackson said in a conference call with reporters this week. ...

"Certainly when oil washes up against the shoreline you have immediate toxic effects on almost anything. If you're a fish, you get oil on your gills and can't breathe. If you're a crab, same story. If you're a plant, you get suffocated, it reduces photosynthesis," he said. ...

Fears Grow over Oil Spill's Long-Term Effects on Food Chain

By Karin Zeitvogel (AFP) – May 29, 2010

PASS A LOUTRE, Louisiana — Thick black oil hung in the water and stained the bases of the roseau cane at Pass a Loutre, a shrinking patch of Louisiana's fragile wetlands where crude from the BP spill first hit land and began seeping deep into the fragile marshes.

Three rows of boom laid in front of the marshes, which lie 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of the port of Venice and accessible only by boat, appeared to serve little purpose, and if anything were corralling the oil up against the wetlands' plants, not keeping it away.

Coastal scientist Angelina Freeman dipped an amber-colored jar into the oily water to take a sample. …

In the emotionless way of a scientist, Freeman described the oil inside the jar -- "very black, sort of chocolate-syrupy, really thick" -- but also uttered a few "wows" of disbelief. …

Freeman was distressed by what she saw, by the heavy smell of oil, by the sight of men in hazmat suits skimming thick oil off the surface of the water.

She was upset at seeing no sign of life at Pass a Loutre, a wildlife management area, and that the booms laid to protect the marshes had failed miserably.

"It's upsetting that the oil is inside the boom. It seems to be trapped inside the wetlands, where tidal flushing could help take it off the marshes," said Freeman, who works for the Environmental Defense Fund.

To get to Pass a Loutre, Mayfield's boat cut through the waters of the Mississippi delta and through small passes bordered by dense patches of cane.

"The vegetation was vibrant and it was alive with wildlife - birds were singing, fish were jumping. We saw mullets jumping, pelicans and terns and egrets flying overhead," Freeman said of the ride.

"But here, it's nothing. It's almost dead here."

A lone bird perched near a forlorn lighthouse about 100 meters (yards) from where row upon row of boom had been laid to try to protect the marshlands uttered a squawk.

"These marshes are extremely important in Louisiana," Freeman said.

"They are the nursing ground for fish and the nesting ground for birds. The marshes protect internal lands from storm damage. They reduce some of the waves from things like hurricanes and act as a filtration system for water by slowing the current and allowing sediment to fall off," she said.

Louisiana's wetlands make up some 40 percent of all the marshlands in the United States.

Oil in the marshes can suffocate plants and animals or poison them with the toxic chemicals found in hydrocarbons.

That was likely to happen at Pass a Loutre, where it looked impossible to get the oil out of the cane.

"If the roseau cane do end up dying, they have a really intricate root mass and if that goes they won't hold in the sediment any more. That can really enhance erosion. And we are already having a serious problem with erosion," said Freeman. …

At Pass a Loutre, oil seeps deep into Louisiana marshlands

By Julia Whitty
Fri May. 28, 2010 3:29 PM PDT

A new model reveals two major hotspots within the Gulf of Mexico where bluefin tuna prefer to spawn in circular swirling water masses known as cyclonic eddies.

Sadly, the model also indicates the tuna are spawning there right now—and that the hotspots lie in waters befouled by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The Gulf of Mexico bluefins have suffered a huge population decline since 1950. A 20-year plan to rebuild the stock has failed utterly. That failure led the United Nations to consider listing the species as endangered last March—a decision they cowardly backed out of. The senior author of the paper in PLoS ONE, Barbara Block, tells Stanford University:

"Both catch data and electronic tags indicate the Gulf of Mexico along the continental shelf is the preferred habitat of this majestic fish. I think it is amazing how precisely we can predict where the bluefin are. Unfortunately their spawning habitat overlaps the Deepwater Horizon oil accident site, and the timing of the spill coincides with the time when we expect them to be there spawning."

Bluefin Tuna Spawning Mid-Spill Right Now

The big Arctic news remains the staggering decline in multiyear ice — and hence ice volume.  If we get near the Arctic’s sea ice area (or extent) seen in recent years this summer, then this may well mean record low ice volume — the fourth straight year of low volume.  And the latest extent data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center suggests we will.

Of course, the anti-science crowd — and much of the media — remain stuck in two-dimensional thinking.  So the headlines last month were mostly about how the Arctic ice was supposedly “recovering” to the 1979-2000 average.  Now, it was reasonable to ignore the third dimension — ice thickness — when we didn’t have good data on it.  But now we do, so it is unreasonable to continue focusing on just two dimensions in the Arctic.

Arctic poised to see record low sea ice volume this year

By Manzar Shigri; additional reporting/writing by Kamran Haider; editing by Chris Allbritton and Bill Tarrant
KARIMABAD
Sat May 29, 2010 4:15am

EDTKARIMABAD Pakistan (Reuters) - Water began seeping out from a lake formed by a landslide in north Pakistan into a spillway Saturday, officials said, who added that the next one or two days are critical to avoid catastrophic flooding.

If the spillway doesn't contain the water and the landslide dam bursts, authorities fear the heavy flooding could wash away many villages, bridges and roads, affecting up to 50,000 people.

"At this point, the water flow is very smooth but it's eroding the spillway, widening it," Gilgit-Baltistan's Commissioner, Asif Bilal Lohdi, told Reuters by telephone.

"Let's see how the water behaves in the next four to five hours, then the situation will be clear. We are on high alert," he said.

Officials are hoping for a gradual erosion of the blockage, but they have not ruled out a major breach due to rising water levels from melting glaciers.

The landslide in early January blocked the Hunza River and created a huge lake near Attaabad village. Twenty people were killed and another 25,000 were left stranded upstream, and now struggle to remain linked to the main town of Gilgit.

The Pakistan military created a spillway to drain the 19 km (12 miles) long and 360-feet deep lake.

Lohdi said a major breach in the dam was possible.

"It could burst and cause flash flooding, which will ultimately wash away 34 villages and a part of the Karakorum Highway (KKH)," he said referring to the main road to China.

Nearly 30,0000 villagers have already been relocated to 24 camps.

Head of the military's relief organization, Lieutenant General Nadeem Ahmed, said the erosion of the spillway and blockade would be faster in the next one or two days. "These days are very crucial," he said. …

Water begins flowing from Pakistani lake

By Emily Dugan
Sunday May 30, 2010, 1:46 PM

The world's most damaging oil spill - now in its 41st continuously gushing day - is creating huge unseen "dead zones" in the Gulf of Mexico, according to oceanographers and toxicologists. They say that if their fears are correct, then the sea's entire food chain could suffer years of devastation, with almost no marine life in the region escaping its effects.

While the sight of tar balls and oil-covered birds on Louisiana's shoreline has been the most visible sign of the spill's environmental destruction, many scientists now believe it is underwater contamination that will have the deadliest impact. At least two enormous submerged clouds of noxious oil and chemical dispersants have been confirmed already by research vessels, and scientists are seeing the initial signs of several more. The largest of these is some 22 miles long, six miles wide and 3,300 feet deep - a volume which would take up half of Lake Erie. Another spans an area of 20 square miles.

More than 8,300 species of plants and animals are at risk of harm. Some, such as the bluefin tuna which come to the Gulf to spawn at this time of year, could even face extinction. Scientists predict it will be many months - or even years - before the true toll of the disaster will be known.

In previous spills, oil rose to the surface and was dealt with there, but due to the use of dispersants - as well as the weight of this particular crude oil and the pressure created by the depth of the leak - much of the oil has stayed submerged in clouds of tiny particles. At least 800,000 gallons of dispersants were sprayed at escaping oil in a frantic attempt to keep it offshore, but it now seems this preventative measure has created a worse disaster. The chemicals helped to keep the oil submerged and are toxic to marine life, resulting in unprecedented underwater damage to organisms in the Gulf.

Once these harmful substances enter the food chain, almost nothing will escape their effects. Forests of coral, sharks, dolphins, sea turtles, game fish and thousands of shellfish could all face destruction. What happens next to these underwater clouds - or plumes as some scientists have called them - depends largely on the currents they are caught in. If they do eventually rise to the surface, they may end up on the shoreline months or years from now, causing a second wave of destruction to delicate wetlands. …

Oil spill creates huge undersea 'dead zone'

NEW YORK, NY, May 26, 2010 -- Nitrous oxide, or N2O, is a greenhouse gas considered by experts to be 300 times more powerful in its atmospheric warming effect than carbon dioxide. By far the greatest recorded sources of N2O emissions are from agricultural activities and fossil fuel combustion. But sewage breakdown by some wastewater treatment plants also emit nitrous oxide. Until recently nitrous oxide emissions from plants using microbes to breakdown toxins was estimated to be rather low. But the first large-scale survey of 12 plants across the U.S., led by Columbia scientists, shows that these waste water treatment may contribute a larger share of emissions than previously thought; it also challenges the current U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approach for assessing N2O emissions from such plants. The findings appear in the recent issue of Environmental Science & Technology (http://pubs.acs.org/journal/esthag).

The study's principal investigator, Kartik Chandran, assistant professor at the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, explains that nitrous oxide emissions to date have only been estimated because there has not been a consistent protocol to measure N2O from using biological nitrogen removal (BNR) -- a process that uses microbes that involves bacteria to breakdown waster. To solve this problem, the Columbia team devised the first protocol to measure these emissions from full-scale water purification facilities. This protocol has been reviewed by the EPA and adopted by plants across the nation and in certain countries in Europe. Using this protocol, emissions of N2O can be measured in real-time during different phases of treatment within a single plant. To conduct this study, the Columbia team took measurements of N2O 24 hours a day for several weeks over a two year period around the nation to gain an understanding of spatial and temporal variability in N2O emissions. …

As a result of the survey using the new protocol, the team found that aerobic zones generally contribute more to nitrous oxide fluxes. This is important because the EPA approximation method assumes that N2O is only emitted from anoxic zones by the process of denitrification. "Based on our actual measurements, aerobic zones contribute far more N2O than anoxic zones. This is one reason why the EPA emissions estimates are potentially underestimates, since they completely ignore aerobic zone emissions," said Chandran. …

"Until our study, everyone was following the EPA estimation method to approximate emissions," he said. "It might very well be that wastewater treatment plants, particularly those that are not performing optimally, are a far worse contributor to global warming than we expected." Knowing triggers for increased N2O emissions, however, explains Chandran, will make it possible to design and operate BNR plants that not only meet water quality regulations, but also minimize N2O.

Water treatment plant survey shows high emissions of nitrous oxide

By Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune
May 27, 2010, 6:51PM

In St. Bernard Parish last weekend, officials identified a patch of oil getting close to marsh grass. But when they requested the skimmer boats they thought were available, they discovered the boats had been moved to Venice.

And despite constant warnings from Jefferson Parish officials about oil approaching Grand Isle late last week, the boats needed to stop it weren't around when they were needed. As a result, oil washed up on beaches and authorities in Jefferson "commandeered" shrimp boats from BP in order to get booms out to the passes near the island.

"It wasn't a surprise to us. We had people in the air; we were aware it was coming," said Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts, who represents Grand Isle and Lafitte. "It'd be like a house on the same street as the fire department is burning down, and the fire trucks didn't get there in time."

In places like Venice, Grand Isle and Hopedale, local leaders are decrying a lack of urgency on the part of BP and the federal government after more than a week of seeing cleanup crews sluggishly reacting to oil washing up on beaches and getting snared in marsh grasses across the state. As questions mount over the balance of power between BP and the federal government in the response to the oil spill, the same concerns being raised in committee halls in Washington are trickling down to local government officials in command posts on the front lines of the Louisiana coast.

Though outlined in the federal Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the twin duties of a private-sector responsible party and a government command structure overseeing BP's work have created a frustrating arrangement for local leaders across the Louisiana coast as the spills drags into its second month. Many say it's unclear who is answering to whom, an issue that President Obama took head-on in an hourlong news conference Thursday.

"I think we gave the Coast Guard and BP their opportunity," said St. Bernard Parish Councilman Ray Lauga. "Whether the disaster has overwhelmed them, or they have not been doing their jobs ... Whatever it is, it's not working on the local level for us."

The hazy division of responsibility has been particularly galling to government officials who are contending with the BP/Coast Guard division at local command centers as well as at the area command center in Houma. The chain of command creates layers of bureaucracy that make a targeted reaction to a problem largely impossible, many local officials have said this week.

"There's nobody in charge; nobody has a clue about how to deploy these men," Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser added, describing what he called a severely disorganized command center in Venice where task orders for more boom and supplies can take days to process. …

Across coastal Louisiana, officials lament ineffective oil spill command structure

By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF
May 27, 2010, 2:57 pm

Adm. Thad Allen of the Coast Guard on Thursday approved part of a plan by Louisiana officials to repel oil from the BP spill by building a barrier of dredged sand along islands off the state’s southeast coast.

The decision allows Louisiana to immediately begin construction of barriers directly to the east and west of the Mississippi River. There, oil is already swamping the coast.

Roughly half of an 86-mile barrier originally proposed by the state was approved, with construction authorized under an emergency permit granted by the Army Corps of Engineers.

“These areas have been identified as critical locations where greater immediate benefit is likely to be achieved with minimal adverse disruption of coastal circulation patterns,” Col. Al Lee, commander of the New Orleans District of the Army Corps of Engineers, said in a statement.

Approval by Admiral Allen also integrates the construction of the barriers with the overall federal response to the spill – clearing the way for the cost of the project to be ultimately borne by BP. The entire plan was originally estimated to cost as much as $350 million. …

Coast Guard Approves Protective Sand Barrier

By MATTHEW BROWN and JASON DEAREN Associated Press Writers
May 27, 2010, 11:13AM

NEW ORLEANS — Marine scientists have discovered a massive new plume of what they believe to be oil deep beneath the Gulf of Mexico, stretching 22 miles from the leaking wellhead northeast toward Mobile Bay, Alabama.

The discovery by researchers on the University of South Florida College of Marine Science's Weatherbird II vessel is the second significant undersea plume recorded since the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20.

David Hollander, associate professor of chemical oceanography at the school, says the thick plume was detected just beneath the surface down to about 3,300 feet. He says it's more than 6 miles wide.

Scientists say they are worried the undersea plumes may be from chemical dispersants used to break up the oil a mile under the surface.

New, giant sea oil plume seen in Gulf

By GREG BLUESTEIN, Ben Nuckols in Covington, Louisiana, and Andrew Taylor and Matthew Daly in Washington, Associated Press Writers
May 27, 2010 10:18 am US/Central

COVINGTON, Louisiana (AP) ― The Gulf oil spill has surpassed the Exxon Valdez as the worst in U.S. history, according to new estimates released Thursday, but the Coast Guard and BP said an untested procedure to stop it seemed to be working.

A team of scientists trying to figure out how much oil has been flowing since the offshore rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20 and sank two days later found the rate was at least twice and possibly up to five times as high as previously thought.

Even using the most conservative estimate, that means the leak has grown to nearly 19 million gallons (72 million liters), surpassing the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, which at about 11 million gallons (42 million liters) had been the nation's worst spill. Under the highest estimate, nearly 39 million gallons (148 million liters) may have spilled.

U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt said two different teams of scientists calculated that the well has been spewing between 504,000 gallons (1.9 million liters) and more than 1 million gallons (3.8 million liters) a day.

BP and the Coast Guard estimated soon after the explosion that about 210,000 gallons (nearly 800,000 liters) a day was leaking, but scientists who watched underwater video of well had been saying for weeks it was probably more. …

Though the spill is now the biggest in U.S. history, it's not the biggest ever in the Gulf. An offshore drilling rig in Mexican waters — the Ixtoc I — blew up in June 1979, releasing 140 million gallons (529 million liters) of oil.

Borenstein reported from Washington. Ben Nuckols in Covington, Louisiana, and Andrew Taylor and Matthew Daly in Washington contributed to this report.

Scientists: Gulf Oil Spill Surpasses Exxon Valdez

By Marian Wang, ProPublica - May 27, 2010 11:32 am EDT

The word from MSNBC and The AP is that Elizabeth Birnbaum, director of the offshore drilling regulator Minerals Management Service, has been fired.

Birnbaum has only been head of the agency since July 2009—that’s less time than her boss, Ken Salazar, has been at his post as Secretary of the Department of Interior, which oversees MMS. We’ve put in a call to MMS to confirm these reports.

It’s also worth pointing out that just yesterday, The New York Times ran a profile on Birnbaum, calling her “the oil spill’s invisible woman.” The Times noted that her background is mostly with environmental organizations, and when she took the MMS’ top job, she “had virtually no experience with the oil and gas industry, but that was seen as a plus.”

News of Birnbaum’s departure from MMS follows the resignation of MMS associate director Chris Oynes, announced earlier this month.

We’ve been covering the troubles over at the Minerals Management Service for a while now. The agency’s problems run the gamut, from lax regulation of “good friends” in the oil industry to recurring sex, drug and porn problems. Secretary Salazar has announced plans to shake up the structure of MMS to mitigate the agency’s conflict of interest, but many continue to question whether this move will be enough.

Director of Offshore Drilling Regulatory Agency Fired

By Times-Picayune Staff
May 26, 2010, 11:05PM

Fishing boats helping clear oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill from Breton Sound have been called back to dock after four workers reported health problems Wednesday afternoon, Unified Command in Houma announced.

Crew members on three boats reported nausea, dizziness, headaches and chest pains Wednesday about 3:30 p.m. Four workers were taken to West Jefferson Medical Center in Marrero for treatment, one traveling by air, one by boat and two by ambulance. The other crewmembers refused treatment at the dock.

As a precaution, Unified Command directed all 125 of the commercial vessels that had been outfitted with equipment for oil recovery operations in the Breton Sound area, to return to their temporary accommodations in Breton Sound. …

Four oil-cleanup workers fall ill; Breton Sound fleet ordered back to dock

By Staff Writers
Westwego, Louisiana (AFP) May 25, 2010

The fast-encroaching oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico is forcing fish merchants to close one by one in Louisiana's huge Westwego seafood market.

"I'm closed because I couldn't get any crabs," said Michelle Chauncey, who pulled down her stall's rolling metal door on Friday.

Along the Westbank Expressway that follows the Mississippi River, a succession of 26 seafood stalls forms the "shrimp lot" market. These small wooden stores usually offer an assortment of fish, crabs and shrimp every single day of the week. But six stores have already closed their doors over the past 10 days.

"I really don't know what we are going to do. I prepare for the worst, I hope the best," said Chauncey, 41, as she roamed in front of "The Crab Shack," her yellow stall mounted with a giant blue crab.

"It's not just us; it's going to be a domino, it's everybody."

Her supplier, who usually has 35 fishermen, now only relies on six. The rest are working for BP, which operated the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig that drilled a now blown out well gushing crude into the Gulf.

Chauncey lives in Grand Isle, where the oil washed ashore on Thursday.

"Nobody wants to trust that seafood is safe," explained the mother of two as she pointed to the large, and now deserted, parking lot where merchants, cooks and customers usually gather. …

Fish merchants close one by one in New Orleans

24 May 2010 13:28:16 GMT

Thousands are fleeing their homes amidst fears of flooding as a breach of the Attabad Lake in northern Pakistan looks imminent.

An estimated 13,935 people (1,747 families) from 39 villages have been displaced following an avalanche which blocked the Hunza River farming a19km by 80-metres deep artificial lake in Attabad, Hunza, located 130km north of Gilgit in the Northern Areas of Pakistan.

A large number of cattle and standing crops on hundreds of acres of land were also buried under tonnes of earth that blocked the flow of the once fast-flowing river and a 22km stretch of the Karakorum Highway.

Threatening water levels owing to rapid melting of glaciers now fast approaching the Lake's mouth, and just a two to four feet gap from the spillway are sparking fears of a massive flood that will affect many more villages.

Already the villages of Ainabad, Shishkat and Gulmit in the upstream areas of the lake have been completely inundated and 1,000 people from these villages have been moved to camps in safer locations. At least 36 villages situated downstream on the River Hunza are still considered to be at risk.

A total of 18 relief camps have been set up in Gilgit and Hunza, with nine of the camps in Hunza Nagar and nine in Gilgit.

Meanwhile, it is being feared that the leakage or busting of the Lake's bank could affect all of the five districts of Hazara Division. According to a news channel, the people living on the bank of the Indus River have been directed to vacate the area.

The displaced families are facing the daily challenge of obtaining clean drinking water, food and clothing as they seek refuge with relatives or in the tented camps perched amid the terraces of high snow capped mountains on one side and the Indus River on the other side. …

Flood fears as Attabad Lake bank breach looks imminent

By Juliet Eilperin and David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 27, 2010

ON BARATARIA BAY, LA. -- In the Louisiana marsh, oil-coated pelicans flap their wings in a futile attempt to dry them. A shorebird repeatedly dunks its face in a puddle, unable to wash off. Lines of dead jellyfish float in the gulf, traces of oil visible in their clear "bells."

These scenes, scientists say, are confirmation of what they had feared for a month. Now that oil from the Gulf of Mexico's vast spill has come ashore -- in some places, as thick as soft fudge -- it is causing serious damage in one of the country's great natural nurseries.

In nature, oil is a versatile killer. It smothers the tiny animals that make up a coral reef. It suffocates blades of marsh grass, cutting them off from air and sunlight. It clumps up a bird's feathers, leaving it unable to fly; then, trying to remove the oil, birds swallow it.

For now, scientists are seeing the worst effects only in one corner of the Louisiana coast.

But they're concerned about what they're not seeing -- and worried that the impact on animals and plants will only get worse.

"Now that the stuff is really sort of coming ashore, it really is living up to its potential. It's certainly breached the sort of outer defense system of Louisiana," said James H. Cowan Jr., a professor at Louisiana State University. "It's the very worst-case scenario for things like birds and mammals." …

That oil began washing up in Louisiana last week, about a month after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and sank. It first appeared in the remote marshes near the Mississippi River's mouth. Then, this week, it began washing into the vast complex of islands, lakes and bayous just west of the river.

"Unfortunately, it's looking like a real oil spill now," said Larry McKinney, who heads the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, part of Texas A&M University. "This is the stuff that does the damage."

On Tuesday morning, Louisiana scientists ventured out here into Barataria Bay, looking for oil and oil-covered animals. They found both. …

Oil spill's animal victims struggle as experts fear a mounting toll

By Katia Moskvitch
Science reporter, BBC News 

Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in honeybees could be caused by a "synergy" between groups of fungi and viruses.

US researchers claim to have identified a new potential cause for Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in honeybees.

The disease is responsible for wiping out many beekeepers' entire colonies over the past few years.

Scientists from the US Department of Agriculture say the pathogens to blame are a fungus and a family of viruses.

The results of the study were presented at the 110th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in San Diego, California.

Jay Evans of the USDA Agricultural Research Service, a researcher on the study, says that when these two very different pathogens show up together, "there is a significant correlation with colony decline".

Daniel Weaver, a commercial beekeeper from Texas and head of the BeeWeaver Apiaries Inc, remembers the shock he experienced when he opened his hives in the early spring of 2007 - only to find them empty.

"There was only a queen and ten or twelve bees left in a hive, clustered in one corner. There were broods, but very few of adult bees.

"And there were no signs of poisoning or any other signs of acute mortality - there were no dead bees on the bottom of the hive or outside the hive," said Weaver.

Other US beekeepers, many of whom have been in the business for a long time and have always had normal, healthy bee colonies, started noticing a similar problem at about the same time.

Some had lost up to 90% of their bee populations, and every year since 2006 many have been reporting average losses of 30-35% of hives. …

Weaver says he just hopes the buzzing honey workers will continue to fight CCD - because without them, the world just wouldn't be the same.

"Without bees, our world would be a very dreary place to live. So many delicious fruits wouldn't be available and so many wonderful plants wouldn't be able to propagate and reproduce," he said.

"A very dull and dreary place indeed."

Infections link to bees decline

What is a 100 year flood? A 100 year flood is an event that statistically has a 1% chance of occurring in any given year. A 500 year flood has a .2% chance of occurring and a 1000 year flood has a .1% chance of occurring. The map below relates [the] amount of rainfall that fell to the chances of that amount of rain actually occurring.

Climate Progress has been documenting the woefully underreported Tennessee deluge of 2010 aka Nashville’s ‘Katrina’. It was an off-the-charts extreme weather event that human-caused global warming set the table for and almost certainly made more intense, as a leading climate scientist explained to me (interview to be posted next week).

But I didn’t understand just how unprecedented this superstorm was until I saw the above map from the Office of Hydrological Development at NOAA/NWS.  I have never seen a map like this before, but then that may be because there simply aren’t many events to rival this one.  Look at the red streak, which is the area hit by a greater than 1000-year deluge.  And look at how much of western Tennessee was slammed with a greater than 500 year downpour.  This is the “high water” of Hell and High Water.

The NWS has more maps that put the deluge in perspective, including how it compared to Hurricane Katrina’s rainfall:

Stunning NOAA map of Tennessee’s 1000-year deluge - 15 sites had rainfall exceeding maximum associated with Hurricane Katrina landfall

The Oil Drum: Live Comment Thread with Top Kill Video

By Nicole Santa Cruz and Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times
May 26, 2010
Reporting from Venice, La., and Los Angeles

Some fishermen who have been hired by BP to clean up the gulf oil spill say they have become ill after working long hours near waters fouled with oil and dispersant, prompting a Louisiana lawmaker to call on the federal government to open mobile clinics in rural areas to treat them.

The fishermen report severe headaches, dizziness, nausea and difficulty breathing. Concerned by the reports, Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.) wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking the agency's help providing medical treatment, especially in Plaquemines Parish, a southern region where many fishermen live.

Melancon said he expected BP to fund the clinics, but his spokeswoman said Tuesday the company had not responded to last week's request for financial assistance.

George Jackson, 53, has been fishing since he was 12 and took a BP cleanup job after the massive oil spill forced the closure of fisheries and left him unemployed. As he was laying containment booms Sunday, he said, a dark substance floating on the water made his eyes burn.

"I ain't never run on anything like this," Jackson said. Within seconds, he said, his head started hurting and he became nauseated.

Like other cleanup workers, Jackson had attended a training class where he was told not to pick up oil-related waste. But he said he wasn't provided with protective equipment and wore leather boots and regular clothes on his boat.

"They [BP officials] told us if we ran into oil, it wasn't supposed to bother us," Jackson said. "As far as gloves, no, we haven't been wearing any gloves." … 

To Riki Ott, a marine toxicologist who studied the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska, it's "deja vu."

"What we saw with Exxon Valdez was a parallel track — sick animals and sick people. Harbor seals were looking like they were drunk and dying … and autopsies showed brain lesions. … What are we exposing these poor fishermen to?" Ott said. …

Oil cleanup workers report illness

This was to be expected.

Last week, the wives of some of the fishermen spoke out publicly about the symptoms their husbands were experiencing. This week, some fishermen are starting to come forward. In this WDSU TV interview, one of the fishermen reports feeling drugged, disoriented, tingling, fatigued, and also reporting shortness of breath and cough. These are symptoms that are consistent with what one might expect from exposure to hydrocarbons in oil.

Maybe. But these are also some of the symptoms reported by individuals who were exposed to Corexit.

Oil spill clean-up workers report feeling ‘drugged, disoriented’

A tawny water fowl that lived in a tiny corner of Madagascar has officially been declared extinct by conservationists.

The Alaotra grebe, also called the rusty grebe, had been highly vulnerable as it was found only in Lake Alaotra, eastern Madagascar, according to the Swiss-based International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which compiles the Red List of endangered species.

The grebe was wiped out by habitat destruction, by the introduction of a carnivorous fish called the snakehead murrel and by nylon gill-nets which accidentally caught and drowned many birds.

"No hope now remains for this species. It is another example of how human actions can have unforeseen consequences," said Leon Bennun, director of science at BirdLife International.

BirdLife contributes data to the IUCN's Red List on the world's 10,027 recognised bird species.

Of these, 132 species are now extinct; four are extinct in the wild; 190 are critically endangered; 372 endangered and 838 near-threatened.

Of the remainder, 7,751 species are categorised as being of "least concern" while data is insufficient to judge the status of 62.

The IUCN sounded the alarm for wetland birds, imperilled by the draining of marshlands and by alien species that are introduced for food.

"Invasive alien species have caused extinctions around the globe and remain one of the major threats to birds and other biodiversity," Mr Bennun said.

Madagascar water fowl declared extinct

(University of Arizona) Droughts in the late 20th century rival some of North Africa's major droughts of centuries past, reveals new research that peers back in time to the year 1179. The first multi-century drought reconstruction that includes Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia shows frequent and severe droughts during the 13th and 16th centuries and the latter part of the 20th century. An international team led by a University of Arizona researcher developed the tree-ring-based drought history.

Droughts in the late 20th century rival some of North Africa's major droughts of centuries past, reveals new research that peers back in time to the year 1179.

The first multi-century drought reconstruction that includes Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia shows frequent and severe droughts during the 13th and 16th centuries and the latter part of the 20th century.

An international research team figured out northwest Africa's climate history by using the information recorded in tree rings. The oldest trees sampled contain climate data from the medieval period. One tree-ring sample from Morocco dates back to the year 883.

"Water issues in this part of the world are vital," said lead researcher Ramzi Touchan of the University of Arizona. "This is the first regional climate reconstruction that can be used by water resource managers." …

The team found the region's 20th-century drying trend matches what climate models predict will occur as the climate warms. The research is the first to compare projections from climate models with tree-ring-based reconstructions of the region's past climate.

The region's trees and dead wood needed to do such research are disappearing rapidly from a combination of a massive die-off of trees, logging and population pressures, Touchan said.

"We have a chance to do what we call salvage dendrochronology," Touchan said. These are areas where we need to get this information now or it's going to disappear."

Pointing to a cross-section of an old tree from Morocco, he said, "This is from 883 -- and this is from a stump. If we don't take them, they're gone. So this is a real treasure."

The team's paper, "Spatiotemporal drought variability in northwestern Africa over the last nine centuries," is now available online and will be published in a future issue of the journal Climate Dynamics. A complete list of authors and their affiliations is at the bottom of this release. The National Science Foundation funded the research. …

20th century one of driest in 9 centuries for northwest Africa

Climate change will trigger a dramatic and sudden decline in the number of polar bears, a new study has concluded.

The research is the first to directly model how changing climate will affect polar bear reproduction and survival.

Based on what is known of polar bear physiology, behaviour and ecology, it predicts pregnancy rates will fall and fewer bears will survive fasting during longer ice-free seasons.

These changes will happen suddenly as bears pass a 'tipping point'.

Details of the research are published in the journal Biological Conservation. …

"Some populations are expected to go extinct with climate warming, while others are expected to persist, albeit at a reduced population size," says Dr Peter Molnar of the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. …

Southern populations of polar bears fast in summer, forced ashore as the sea ice melts.

As these ice-free seasons lengthen, fewer bears are expected to have enough fat and protein stores to survive the fast.

By developing a physiological model that estimates how fast a bear uses up its fat and protein stores, the researchers could estimate how long it takes a bear to die of starvation.

"In both cases, the expected changes in reproduction and survival were non-linear," explains Dr Molnar.

"That is, as the climate warms, we may not see any substantial effect on polar bear reproduction and survival for a while, up until some threshold is passed, at which point reproduction and survival will decline dramatically and very rapidly." …

Polar bears face 'tipping point'

By MICHAEL BURNHAM AND NATHANIAL GRONEWOLD of Greenwire
Published: May 25, 2010

AMBOSELI NATIONAL PARK, Kenya – … When the rains failed for the second straight year in 2009, plants withered to their roots in this critical dry-season refuge. Marshes and the shallow bed of Lake Amboseli, usually fed by seasonal rains and runoff from snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro, cracked in equatorial sun. With little to eat or drink, more than 70 percent of Amboseli's zebra and wildebeest died of starvation, predation or opportunistic infections. …

Wildebeest and zebra constitute the greatest biomass in Amboseli but suffered the greatest losses during the drought.

The wildebeest population fell by about 83 percent, from 18,538 in 2007 to 3,098 in 2010, according to the aerial counts. Zebra declined by around 71 percent, from 15,328 to 4,432.

The prolonged dry spell also took a heavy toll on livestock.

The area's cattle population is less than half of what it was three years ago, the counts show. Livestock are critical to the Maasai, who build their homes with dung, cover their blades with leather, and fill their bellies with meat, milk and blood. …

The wildlife service estimates that Kenya has about 1,970 lions, down from about 2,750 in 2002. Kahumbu warned that Kenya's wild lions could go extinct within a decade if the cats continue to lose habitat and prey.

Kenya has lost more than 60 percent of its large wildlife since 1977, despite a ban on game hunting, according to government data. Poaching for bush meat and ivory remain lucrative ventures, in poor, rural areas, conservationists say.

Global warming -- and the specter of deeper and more frequent droughts -- is yet another challenge, scientists from the wildlife service and other organizations contend.

The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects that the portion of arid and semiarid areas in Africa is likely to increase 5 to 8 percent by 2080. Between 25 and 40 percent of mammal species in sub-Saharan Africa's national parks will become endangered, according to one study analyzed by the panel.

To cope with the latest drought -- what some are calling the worst in living memory -- the wildlife service spent $250,000 to build dams and dig boreholes in the Maasai Mara reserve and Tsavo West National Park, 50 miles east of Amboseli. … 

"What triggers the migration is when the rainfall starts," WWF's Taye Teferi explained. "When the clouds start gathering, wildlife know which way to go. ... By the time they get to the Mara River, it is in full flood, and the vegetation is quite green."

When the rains failed last year, the river was critically low and the migration was smaller than it had been in the past, Teferi and others recalled. KWS scientist Patrick Omondi guessed that the wildlife were "confused."

To the north, Lake Nakuru receded far from its shore, shrinking critical habitat for pink flamingos, pelicans and hippos. Elsewhere in northern Kenya, watering holes evaporated and hundreds of elephants died of hunger, thirst and exhaustion.

Runoff from more than 19,000-foot-high Kilimanjaro makes Amboseli a critical dry-season refuge, but wildlife service scientist Omondi said he worries whether the park can sustain that role.

"Before, we could predict when we had the long and short rains, but that has changed completely," he added. "Now, we never know when the drought comes."

Drought Spurs Life-Or-Death Struggles in Kilimanjaro's Shadow