Tokyo Electric Power Company began dumping more than 11,000 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Monday, mostly to make room in storage containers for increasing amounts of far more contaminated runoff. The water, most of it to be released over two days, contains about 100 times the legal limit of radiation, Tokyo Electric said. The more contaminated water has about 10,000 times the legal limit.
[...]
But the pumping effort is not expected to halt, or even alter, the gushing leak from a large crack in a six-foot-deep pit next to the seawater intake pipes near Reactor No. 2. The leak, discovered Saturday, has been spewing an estimated seven tons of highly radioactive water an hour directly into the ocean; attempts to plug it have so far failed.

Funny thing about those attempts to plug the leak: it’s been scrubbed from the Times page (where I read it this morning), but the Atlantic caught it: they’ve been trying to stop the leak with “sawdust, shredded newspaper and an absorbent powder”. That sounds an awful lot like BP’s “let’s plug our exploded oil well with garbage” strategery, which worked… but only to inspire comedy sketches like this one:

So now we’re on to stage two in humanity’s most recent assault on the oceans: we started by killing the Gulf, and now the executives at TEPCO are making sure the Pacific’s polluted too. Hey, who gives a fuck, right? Fish really isn’t all that good for you anyway, and swimming in the ocean is highly overrated (as is singing in the rain: remember where clouds start, friends, and consider getting a lead-lined slicker.)

For example, why are so many baby dolphins washing up dead? Really, it’s SUCH a mystery:

he investigation into the many infant dolphin deaths along the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama will be multi-faceted in the months to come and watched by dozens of agencies and hundreds of attorneys in litigation with BP.

But why the young mammals died and continue to die prematurely, weeks before the birthing season in the northern Gulf, may remain forever a mystery.

By the end of the week, there had been 39 confirmed deaths, an unprecedented number for Mississippi and Alabama, but not as unusual for the much-larger Texas coast.

Tissue samples will be checked for signs of oil. There’s no ignoring that crude oil from BP’s well was gushing into the environment when the mother dolphins were in their early months of pregnancy.

You’ll notice the word “Corexit” never appears. Not once. I wonder why, he asked cynically.

And the missing turtles? “Shrimp boat nets”. Seriously, even though a number of commenters point out that “All fishing and shrimping activities in that region were temporarily suspended due to the emergency.”

Meanwhile, Ben Marble MD provides sad reminder from last year.

DATE: June 29, 2010 21:28:45 CST

Coast Guard establishes safety zone around all Deepwater Horizon protective boom, operations in Southeast, La.

Key contact numbers

* Report oiled shoreline or request volunteer information: (866) 448-5816
* Submit alternative response technology, services or products: (281) 366-5511
* Submit your vessel for the Vessel of Opportunity Program: (866) 279-7983 or (877) 847-7470
* Submit a claim for damages: (800) 440-0858
* Report oiled wildlife: (866) 557-1401

Deepwater Horizon Incident
Joint Information Center Phone: (713) 323-1670
(713) 323-1671

Houma, La., – The New Orleans Captain of the Port, under the authority of the Ports and Waterways Safety Act, has established a 100- meter safety zone surrounding all Deepwater Horizon booming operations and oil response efforts taking place in Southeast Louisiana.

Vessels must not come within 100 meters of booming operations, boom, or oil spill response operations under penalty of law.

The safety zone has been put in place to protect members of the response effort, the installation and maintenance of oil containment boom, the operation of response equipment and protection of the environment by limiting access to and through deployed protective boom.

In areas where vessels operators cannot avoid the 100-meter rule, they are required to be cautious of boom and boom operations by transiting at a safe speed and distance.

Violation of a safety zone can result in up to a $40,000 civil penalty. Willful violations may result in a class D felony.

Permission to enter any safety zone must be granted by the Coast Guard Captain of the Port of New Orleans by calling 504-846-5923.

The minute I read this, I emailed my friend and asked “can I reasonably translate this to “we don’t want anyone to see what’s going on because it might contradict the official narrative”?

To which he responded:

It’s fucking bullshit is what it is.

Yesterday, I posted video of dolphins and sperm whales drowning in oil, while a ship maintained a constant spray of water on the oil burning machines to prevent them from overheating and exploding themselves. Today, I learn the Coast Guard is implementing rules that prevent independent observation of BP’s disaster in the Gulf, presumably to prevent more videos like that from leaking out.

I’d like to know why the Coast Guard is complicit in BP’s cover-up.

Around the 6:33 mark, the narrator/filmer, John Wathen, comes to a pod of 36 dolphins stranded in oil, “struggling just to breathe”. Another 18 are discovered later, and then A GODDMAN FUCKING SPERM WHALE TRAPPED IN OIL UP TO ITS GODDAMN BLOWHOLE. “Across his back we could see red patches of crude as if he’d been basted for boiling,” says the narrator, before cutting to ANOTHER pod of dead and dying dolphins.

It’s one of the saddest things I have ever seen, and makes me wonder why, if God exists, He hasn’t struck down humanity yet. Or as my buddy Tim put it, “we’re the new dinosaurs, this is our greed-driven asteroid.”

Fuck you BP. fuck you Tony Hayward. Fuck You Carl-Henric Svanberg. I hope all of you die slow, miserable deaths. I hope the good people of the Gulf have the capacity to kidnap one of you, stuff you into a burlap sack and keelhaul you through the muck before exercising their new SCOTUS-decided individual rights to bear arms.

And for that matter, FUCK YOU US GOVERNMENT for letting BP take the lead in this, for allowing them to harass and chase of journalists, for allowing them to continue to lie and cover-up, and for believing them in the first place when they have 760 fucking safety violations.

Fuck all ya’ll. YOU FUCKING SUCK SHIT YOU ASSHOLE FUCKING SHITBAGS.

On Sunday, a new eruption of oil began. When will the government take control away from BP, a foreign company which is way more interested in salvaging its well than protecting our country’s natural resources?

For that matter, when will someone “get on the teevee and point out that no, it is not ok for any actor – state, big corporation, or terrorist – to destroy the coastlines and economies of several states? Because all I’ve seen is a bunch of self-serving cover your ass bullshit:

Schieffer noted that both Democrats and Repubicans have suggested BP is “lying,” “covering up” and “shouldn’t be trusted.” He asked Gibbs if the federal government trusts the company and what it is telling them.

“Well, Bob, BP is the responsible party, they own the well, they’re responsible for capping it,” he said. “That effort is overseen by and directed by Admiral Thad Allen, and our commanders on the ground in Louisiana.”

Gibbs said that if Admiral Allen has a concern with BP’s actions he “calls their CEO on his cell phone.”

He acknowledged that “we’ve had some problems with BP’s lack of transparency,” noting that it took ten days for a video feed of the leak to be made public.

Gibbs goes on to insist that this isn’t the administration’s Katrina, but I disagree: when you’ve already “allowed BP to hide its video feed of a gushing oil pipe in the Gulf of Mexico from the public for three weeks, all the while that same video played live in the White House Situation Room” you don’t get to say that anymore. When you’re staging “I’m really angry now” moments while letting the same company that CAUSED THE DISASTER control the site cleanup, you don’t get to say that anymore.
Also, this is rich

“I will tell this to Rand Paul and anybody else that is listening: Laws that were passed after the Exxon Valdez ensured that the taxpayers don’t get a bill for this,” Gibbs replied. “BP will pay for every bit of this … we have to regulate this industry, we have to make sure that their safety standards are up to the very latest and highest standards whenever they do something like this, drilling in such a precious ecosystem as the Gulf of Mexico.”

Are you kidding me Bob Gibbs? ARE YOU FUCKIN’ KIDDING ME??

“Laws were passed after the Exxon Valdez”: yeah, how’d THAT work out, Bob?

In a decision issued June 25, 2008, Justice David Souter issued the judgment of the court, vacating the $2.5 billion award and remanding the case back to a lower court, finding that the damages were excessive with respect to maritime common law. Exxon’s actions were deemed “worse than negligent but less than malicious.” The judgment limits punitive damages to the compensatory damages, which for this case were calculated as $507.5 million. Some lawmakers, such as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, have decried the ruling as “another in a line of cases where this Supreme Court has misconstrued congressional intent to benefit large corporations.”

“BP will pay for every bit of this” is a nice thought Bob, but some things are worth more than money. Like fresh water for example, or fisheries and an abundant source of FOOD. You can’t eat money.

“We have to regulate this industry, we have to make sure that their safety standards are up to the very latest and highest standards whenever they do something like this”. You’re telling me you’re gonna regulate the industry with Ken Salazar running the department of the Interior?

Oil and mining interests praised Mr. Salazar’s performance as a state official and as a senator, saying that he was not doctrinaire about the use of public lands. “Nothing in his record suggests he’s an ideologue,” said Luke Popovich, spokesman for the National Mining Association. “Here’s a man who understands the issues, is open-minded and can see at least two sides of an issue.”

Mr. Popovich noted approvingly that Mr. Salazar had tried to engineer a deal in the Senate allowing mining companies and others to reclaim abandoned mines without fear of lawsuits. (The legislation is pending.) He has also supported robust research on technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from coal-burning power plants, something the coal industry favors.

He also backed a compromise that would let oil companies drill for natural gas in limited parts of the Roan Plateau in northwestern Colorado, a plan that most environmental advocates opposed.

You’re gonna tell me about regulation while “In the days since President Obama announced a moratorium on permits for drilling new offshore oil wells and a halt to a controversial type of environmental waiver that was given to the Deepwater Horizon rig, at least seven new permits for various types of drilling and five environmental waivers have been granted”? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, BOB GIBBS?

Bob, you know what you need to do? You need to shut the fuck up RIGHT NOW, go down to the Gulf Coast and get on a boom crew.

Then open this in a different window, for the soundtrack effect.

Two weeks ago, the government put out a round estimate of the size of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico: 5,000 barrels a day. Repeated endlessly in news reports, it has become conventional wisdom.

But scientists and environmental groups are raising sharp questions about that estimate, declaring that the leak must be far larger. They also criticize BP for refusing to use well-known scientific techniques that would give a more precise figure.

The criticism escalated on Thursday, a day after the release of a video that showed a huge black plume of oil gushing from the broken well at a seemingly high rate. BP has repeatedly claimed that measuring the plume would be impossible.

The figure of 5,000 barrels a day was hastily produced by government scientists in Seattle. It appears to have been calculated using a method that is specifically not recommended for major oil spills…

The issue of how fast the well is leaking has been murky from the beginning. For several days after the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, the government and BP claimed that the well on the ocean floor was leaking about 1,000 barrels a day.

A small organization called SkyTruth, which uses satellite images to monitor environmental problems, published an estimate on April 27 suggesting that the flow rate had to be at least 5,000 barrels a day, and probably several times that.

The following day, the government — over public objections from BP — raised its estimate to 5,000 barrels a day. A barrel is 42 gallons, so the estimate works out to 210,000 gallons per day.

Alex Brandon, photo

if the song’s over, press re-play. heck, if you can get to loop without stopping, i suggest you do so, because this one’s pretty bad too:

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…

Aside from allowing BP and other companies to drill in the gulf without getting the required permits from NOAA, the minerals agency has also given BP and other drilling companies in the gulf blanket exemptions from having to provide environmental impact statements…

After the disaster, [Interior Secretary Ken] Salazar said he would delay granting any new oil drilling permits.

But the minerals agency has issued at least five final approval permits to new drilling projects in the gulf since last week, records show.

Despite being shown records indicating otherwise, Ms. Barkoff said her agency had granted no new permits since Mr. Salazar made his announcement.

Joe Raedle, photo

Humans have never been very good at learning basic lessons, and we’ve had an especially hard time grasping the “don’t shit where you eat” concept. We’re getting a crash course in that now, and predictably, it’s unpleasant.

BP has been desperately trying to downplay the sheer scale of the disaster, and the media has helped by not showing the complete picture. I think everyone’s noticed the way the story has slowly disappeared from the headlines, but the gusher has not stopped flowing: indeed, we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil every day into our largest fishery and the engine of the Gulf Stream. This isn’t a local or national disaster: it’s a GLOBAL disaster.

The video above is amateur video shot by a pilot flying over the Gulf. More at Daily Kos, but here’s the money quote from John Wathen, the guy who shot the video and is blowing the whistle:

We counted 30 boats in the pictures. All floating around while this stuff was headed for shore. No-body seemed to be able to do anything about it.

For the first time in my Environmental career I found myself using the word hopeless.

We can’t stop this.
There’s no way to prevent this from hitting our shorelines.
The best I think we can do is minimize the impact. Learn from our mistakes.

But we won’t learn from our mistakes. We never do. already BP is casting blame and trying to minimize their culpability. The media’s helping. Same as it ever was.

Game over.

My personal belief, and I would love to be wrong, is that they won’t be able to fix it. The oil drilling business is always risky, always a gamble; and as every gambler knows, sometimes your luck runs out.

I think our luck just ran out. We have grievously damaged an incredibly important ecosystem, and i don’t think it’s reparable. Not that our last big oil disaster, the Exxon Valdez, was reparable either, but the sheer size and importance of the Gulf of Mexico, its role in global ocean currents, makes the disaster that much worse.

I honestly don’t think much of what humanity does in any other venue,politically, culturally, whatever, really matters anymore. I think we just signed our own death warrant.

What follows is my personal opinion.

I think the gusher in the Gulf is a lot worse than anyone in industry or government wants to admit. BP is clearly panicking, flailing to contain the damage they said “was unlikely, or virtually impossible… to occur.

As I’ve said before, the fact that the media, the government, and the industry continue to call this disaster “a spill” betrays a complete and catastrophic misread of the situation: this isn’t a spill of a few hundred thousand gallons of oil (although that’s clearly unacceptable). This is almost certainly unstoppable, a geyser of highly pressurized oil spewing into one of the most productive fisheries in the entire world. The oil is predicted to head up the east coast, ruining coastlines, habitats, and livelihoods everywhere it goes. It may even hit the New Jersey shore this summer, which will do wonders for the states tourism industry as beachgoers flock to soak up the sun and the light sweet crude.

I think we have really done it this time. And by “really done it” I mean I think the human race has just Armageddon-ed itself. Apologies to those of you who were expecting a nuclear war or the slow burn of global warming. I think we may have given our oceans a death blow.

And now we are up to more than 2.6 million gallons of oil, and growing. It’s going to continue to grow, too.

I think we have shit the bed this time. And once you shit the bed, it is impossible to un-shit it. I think we have consigned ourselves to certain extinction.

I’d be happy to be wrong… but I don’t think I am. Our game of environmental Russian Roulette may well be over, and we lost.