I am not sure if I agree with the list below, but if you can only pick 9 when there are that many in the Old Soviet Union alone. Well then:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/31/photos-most-polluted-plac_n_693008.html

9 Of The Most Polluted Places In The World (PHOTOS)

From the highways of Los Angeles to the Citarum River of Bandung, Indonesia, earth’s most polluted city of Linfen, China to the streets of London, the world is laden with man-made pollution. Chemical, air, water and oil pollution ruin the environment, cause premature deaths, spoil the world’s resources and worsen climate change.

As the world’s population soars to nearly 7 billion, we here at HuffPost Green decided to take a virtual tour of some of the world’s most polluted places. Check out our slideshow of nine of the most polluted places in the world. Find out which city’s death rate surpasses its birth rate by 260 percent. Or which city has 50,000 people die prematurely each year due to man-made air pollution. As always, we want to hear from you. Tell us what you think in the comments.

Linfen, China

1 of 10

Linfen, China is the most polluted city on earth. According to Mother Nature Network, if one puts laundry out to dry, it will turn black before finishing drying. Located in China’s coal belt, spending one day in Linfen is equivalent to smoking three packs of cigarettes. 3 million people are affected by Linfen’s coal and particulates pollution, which is residue from automobile and industrial emission

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Only one of nine. Please go see the rest. More tomorrow

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http://www.newenergymovement.org/index.php

Ere many generations pass, our machinery will
be driven by power obtainable at any point in the
universe. It is a mere question of time when men
will succeed in attaching their machinery to the
very wheelwork of nature.

—Nikola Tesla
The World We Envision
Clean, safe, abundant, inexpensive energy for all… stabilized climate… clean and healthy water, food, and air for all… beautiful blue skies over our cities… low-impact, sustainable forestry and agriculture… beautiful landscapes unspoiled by wires and smokestacks… recycling of virtually all wastes… rivers running
free and natural… thriving sustainable local economies… living standards and education rates increasing… birth rates declining…
a global culture of sharing… unleashed human creativity…
a new and lasting era of world peace…

With a revolution in energy as the foundation of renewed and loving stewardship of our planet, we can transform our world into a beautiful and healthy home full of promise, opportunity, abundance, and peace for all of humanity.

Our Mission
The New Energy Movement acts to promote the rapid widespread deployment of advanced, clean, and sustainable energy sources across our imperiled planet. This transformation in the way our civilization generates and uses energy provides the best physical means to protect the biosphere, remediate ecological damage, and enhance the health and well-being of the global human family.

The New Energy Movement’s major priority is to educate the public, policymakers, and investors about the need to support research, development, and use of zero-point energy, magnetic generators, advanced hydrogen processes, and other little-known powerful energy technologies now emerging from inventors and scientists all over the world…

The Challenges

Critical and unprecedented challenges now face our civilization, inflicting a terrible toll on our people, our companion species, and the planet itself. If not reversed soon, they threaten to end human life on Earth.

Without a revolution in energy, we will not be able to act with the speed and scope demanded by the climate change emergency we face. With this revolution we will be able to create sustainable and just economic development required for world peace.

______________________________________________

Our survival will require
a vast and dramatic shift
in how human civilization
generates and uses energy.

______________________________________________

Read complete Mission Statement

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More tomorrow

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When news comes in from LEAN I try to give it some play.

Louisiana Environmental Action Network & Lower Mississippi RIVERKEEPER© Helping to Make Louisiana Safe for Future Generations

E-ALERT June 22, 2010

Don’t Miss Out: Videos of LEAN and LMRK In Action! Check out our Executive Director, Marylee Orr, talking about protecting oil spill worker health on Countdown with Keith Olberman. Marylee Orr, Executive Director of LEAN speaks with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann of the health issues workers are encountering duing the cleanup efforts in the gulf And don’t miss BP Oil Hits Barataria Oyster Fishing Grounds by Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, Dean Wilson and Media Guru, Jeffrey Dubinsky. Rosie Philippie, of the near extinct Atakapa-Ishak tribe is interviewed by Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, Dean Wilson. The 10 or so families make their living on the oyster grounds in Barataria Bay, Louisiana. These ground have now been inundated with oil from the BP oil disaster. click on the images to go to the videos Visit SaveOurGulf.org to get more information about the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster from Waterkeeper organizations across the Gulf Coast and donate to Save Our Gulf!

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More Tomorrow

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It’s jam band Friday -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkGE-kNRUN4

In the mid 90s British Petroleum decided to change its image. They “initialized” their name. Up dated their brand by changing their color schemes to yellow and green and they announced that their gas stations would be energy efficient and included solar panels. They infact set up a solar division and I believe make and sell solar panels. All that to cover up for the fact they were one of the most dangerous businesses in the world. So when people say why are you talking about greenwashing now?  It’s because it is a problem that can lead to the oil spew in the gulf.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkLCRMT-sdE&feature=related

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http://sinsofgreenwashing.org/findings/greenwashing-report-2009/

Greenwashing Report 2009

Greenwashing Report 2009 Low-resolution PDF 3.1 MiB

Greenwashing Report 2009 (French) Low-resolution PDF 2.9 MiB Greenwashing Report 2009 High-resolution PDF 9.5 MiB

Some Notable Findings from the 2009 Report…

A NEW Sin has emerged

98% of products committed at least one of the Sins of Greenwashing. Greenwashing is so rampant that a Seventh Sin has emerged.  The Sin of Worshiping False Labels is committed by a product that, through either words or images, gives the impression of third-party endorsement where no such endorsement actually exists.

Kids (Toys and Baby Products), Cosmetics and Cleaning Products

Greenwashing is most common in three household categories: Kids (toys and baby products), Cosmetics (beauty and health), and Cleaning Products.

More products are claiming to be ‘green’

The average number of ‘green’ products per store almost doubled between 2007 and 2008.  Green advertising almost tripled between 2006 and 2008.

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What you say matters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcKdNV2ep7I&feature=related

Oh and these people asked for links:

http://www.solarhotusa.com/

http://www.facebook.com/FoodIndependenceDay

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That’s right besides the 40 million gallons of oil lurking in mats 1,500 feet above the ocean floor trapped by dispersants and getting ready to wash into the Atlantic and the continued wash of 40, 000 barrels of oil per day, the crisis is over and we here at CES are going to celebrate Norwegian Independence Day. Why? Because it is neither the day of the actual Norwegian Independence nor is it celebrated for the actual year of their Independence. We feel this is fitting.

http://open.salon.com/blog/norwonk/2009/05/17/independence_day_in_norway

Unfortunately, that didn’t work out at all. The Swedes had the support of Russia, Britain, Austria and Prussia, and no one cared much for the opinion of the Norwegian people. Long story short: the Swedes invaded, and after a short campaign Christian Frederick renounced his throne and went back to Denmark, leaving Charles XIII the new king of Norway and Sweden. That union would last until the Norwegian parliament declared independence (again) in 1905.
All this made Christian Frederick a rather unpopular man in Norway, but in time it was realized that he had actually made a pretty good deal. In return for giving up the crown, he had convinced the Swedes to accept the new Norwegian constitution which parliament had adopted (confusingly enough on May 16, which really ought to have been our national day, but never mind). That was a huge bonus. The constitution, which is still in place, was among the most democratic in Europe at that time.

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So basically like the oil companies, these folks have 2 or 3 Independence Days (Yaaa we are free) every year and the first one lasts a month. It involves children with flags, students dressed in funny costumes according to their profession, and reenactors dressing up in very old clothes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Norway

The young king and Norwegian officials tried to find international backing for their bid for Norway as a sovereign state throughout spring and early summer of 1814. After failing to secure the support of Great Britain, war with Sweden became unavoidable. The Swedish Campaign against Norway was short and decisive. However, while badly trained and equipped, the Norwegian Army put up a determined fight, holding the Swedes back at Kongsvinger and securing a tactical victory at the battle of Langnes. This enabled the King to avoid an unconditional surrender as he was forced into negotiations with the Swedes, leading to the Convention of Moss.

Putting the strategic situation and his own abdication to good use, he persuaded the Swedish crown prince Carl Johan (the former Marshal Bernadotte of France) to let the Norwegians keep their constitution. The Swedish crown prince wanted to appease the Norwegians and avoid a bloody continuation of the war. Realizing that a forced union with himself as ruler of a conquered and hostile country would be very uneasy, he accepted the Norwegian proposition. Norway then entered into a personal union with Sweden with only such amendments to its constitution as were necessary to form the Union between Sweden and Norway. On October 7, an extraordinary session of the Storting convened, and king Christian Frederik delegated his powers to the parliament and abdicated on October 10. The Storting adopted the constitutional amendments on November 4 and on the same day unanimously elected Charles XIII king of Norway, rather than acknowledging him as such, thus reinforcing the concept a King by the will of the people.

Dissolution and the second King

The union amendments were revoked after the dissolution of the ninety-one-year-old union in 1905. The question of a King was again considered, and the Storting elected to offer the throne to the 33-year-old Prince Carl of Denmark, married to Maud of Wales, the daughter of King Edward VII. By bringing in a king with British royal ties, it was hoped that Norway could court Britain’s support. Prince Carl was however well aware of a surge of republicanism in Norway and of the constitutional situation of the Norwegian throne. He insisted that he would accept the crown only if the Norwegian people expressed their will for monarchy by referendum and if the parliament then elected him king. On November 13, the Norwegian votes decided on monarchy with a 74 percent majority, and Carl was elected King by the Storting, taking the name Haakon VII of Norway.

Several other amendments have been adopted since 1814, the most recent on February 20, 2006. After World War II and the restoration of peace and constitutional rule, there was much debate on how to handle the events of the previous five years. None of this led to any changes in the constitution; it had withstood the test of hard times.

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Of Course lots of drinking and eating herring also ensues. This guy gets to celebrate 4 Independence Days the US, Italy and 2 for Norway.

http://www.lawzone.com/half-nor/crispo.htm

First, by way of background, Norway was ruled by the kings of Denmark from the 12th century until early in the 19th century (1814).

In 1814, Denmark was penalized for its support of Napoleon by giving Norway to Sweden. Before the transition was carried out, Norway declared itself independent on May 17, 1814. A degree of independence was retained even after Norway became subject to the Swedish Crown.

In 1905, on May 17, Norway declared its complete independence.

In 1914, World War I began. Norway remained neutral, but many of its ships were sunk.

In 1940-1945: when World War II began, Norway again proclaimed its neutrality. However, on April 9, 1940, Nazi forces invaded the two neutral nations of Norway and Denmark under the guise of protecting them against an “Anglo-French Occupation” and “To Protect Their Freedom and Independence.”

Oslo wired Berlin:

“We will not submit voluntarily; the struggle is already underway.”

At the time of World War II, Norway was just beginning to realize its industrial potential when Germany invaded. Five years of German occupation and a burn-and-retreat strategy in the final weeks of the war, left the nation ravaged. But, after the war, the Norwegians, known for their determination and tenacity, returned to rebuild their homes and villages. Finally the flags of freedom were again flying over Europe and Trygve Lie of Norway was elected as the first secretary general of the United Nations.

It is no surprise that Norwegians eat, drink and make merry during the month of May in celebration of this most significant month in their history.

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So we say to BP. Job well done Brownie.

For the real scoop go to:  http://www.leanweb.org/

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It is Jam Band Friday – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udEDlOZJmCc

I have said for awhile that this could be the biggest manmade disaster of all time. I never believed the oil flow estimates and I never believed that they would be able to plug the hole. Now is a good time to pray.

So lets start with what the flow really looks like when they tried the the Big Siphon:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brendan-demelle/new-footage-of-bps-failed_b_574350.html

Brendan DeMelle

Freelance writer and researcher

Posted: May 12, 2010 09:09 PM

New Footage of BP’s Failed Containment Dome Effort (VIDEO)

Update: BP just confirmed to us that the pipe in the 2nd video showing the main leak is 20″ in diameter (almost 2 feet). (Specifically, the outer is 21″; the inner is 20″.)

More footage was released today from the Deepwater Disaster, providing an indication of the powerful streams of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

This video shows the failed attempt over the weekend to lower a 100-ton, 4-story “cofferdam” dome over the top of the main leak. As the dome is lowered onto the leak, you can see the oil gushing out on the sides, offering a better sense of the volume of oil pumping into the Gulf of Mexico.

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Please see the article and the 2 videos. So what happens if the natural gas, which looks to be half the spill catches on fire?  BOOM…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BruDTUvBClk&feature=related

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Ultimately why did this happen? Deregulation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/us/14agency.html?hp

U.S. Said to Allow Drilling Without Needed Permits

By IAN URBINA

Published: May 13, 2010

WASHINGTON — 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.

Under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Minerals Management Service is required to get permits to allow drilling where it might harm endangered species or marine mammals.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, is partly responsible for protecting endangered species and marine mammals. It has said on repeated occasions that drilling in the gulf affects these animals, but the minerals agency since January 2009 has approved at least three huge lease sales, 103 seismic blasting projects and 346 drilling plans. Agency records also show that permission for those projects and plans was granted without getting the permits required under federal law.

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Is there any hope?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S_OU3EBtRo&feature=related

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http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/gulf-oil-spill-supertankers-051310

The Secret, 700-Million-Gallon Oil Fix That Worked — and Might Save the Gulf

May 13, 2010 at 6:46AM by Mark Warren

Workers on the Arabian Gulf overlook a supertanker owned by Saudi Aramco, the oil company that used a suck-and-salvage American technology to recover 85 percent of its previously unreported spill in 1993 and ‘94.

There’s a potential solution to the Gulf oil spill that neither BP, nor the federal government, nor anyone — save a couple intuitive engineers — seems willing to try. As The Politics Blog reported on Tuesday in an interview with former Shell Oil president John Hofmeister, the untapped solution involves using empty supertankers to suck the spill off the surface, treat and discharge the contaminated water, and either salvage or destroy the slick.

627diggsdigg

Hofmeister had been briefed on the strategy by a Houston-based environmental disaster expert named Nick Pozzi, who has used the same solution on several large spills during almost two decades of experience in the Middle East — who says that it could be deployed easily and should be, immediately, to protect the Gulf Coast. That it hasn’t even been considered yet is, Pozzi thinks, owing to cost considerations, or because there’s no clear chain of authority by which to get valuable ideas in the right hands. But with BP’s latest four-pronged plan remaining unproven, and estimates of company liability already reaching the tens of billions of dollars (and counting), supertankers start to look like a bargain.

The suck-and-salvage technique was developed in desperation across the Arabian Gulf following a spill of mammoth proportions — 700 million gallons — that has until now gone unreported, as Saudi Arabia is a closed society, and its oil company, Saudi Aramco, remains owned by the House of Saud. But in 1993 and into ‘94, with four leaking tankers and two gushing wells, the royal family had an environmental disaster nearly sixty-five times the size of Exxon Valdez on its hands, and it desperately needed a solution.

Pozzi, an American engineer then in charge of Saudi Aramco’s east-west pipeline in the technical support and maintenance services division, was part of a team given cart blanche to control the blowout. Pozzi had dealt with numerous spills over the years without using chemicals, and had tried dumping flour into the oil, then scooping the resulting tar balls from the surface. “You ever cooked with flour? Absorbent, right?” Pozzi says. Next, he’d dumped straw into the spills; also highly absorbent, but then you’ve got a lot of straw to clean up. This spill was going to require a much larger, more sustained solution. And fast.

That’s when Pozzi and his team came up with the idea of having empty ships park near the Saudi spill and pull the oil off the water. This part of the operation went on for six months, with the mop-up operations lasting for several years more. Pozzi says that 85 percent of the spilled oil was recovered, and it is precisely this strategy that he wants to see deployed in the Gulf of Mexico.

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When they contacted BP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKQ5jhtFypg&feature=related

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JON KING: Well, we went down to the BP headquarters in Houma, Louisiana, and we didn’t have an appointment so they wouldn’t let us in. Then I called the president of BP and I talked to his secretary and she put me in touch with somebody, but the somebody she put me in touch with didn’t know who we should talk to. Nick contacted a gentleman that he used to work with at BP, and he threatened to sue Nick for not going through channels. And I said, “Great. I’d love BP to sue us for trying to help them. That would be wonderful.”

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While the Army Plays with itself.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/05/us-army-gulf-spill-oil-asphalt-experimental-chemical-video.php

US Army to Turn Gulf Spill Oil Into Asphalt With Experimental Chemical (Video)

by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York on 05.13.10

Science & Technology

Photos by Brian Merchant

In order to protect the coastline at Dauphin Island — a site where tar balls have made landfall and hundreds of fish are washing up dead on the beach — the US Army has launched a highly experimental plan to prevent any oil from reaching its shores. It plans on trapping the oil in Hesco baskets and then applying a chemical called CI Agent, turning the oil into a gelatinous solid. That solid, comprised from oil from the gulf spill, will then be collected and turned into asphalt. Here’s Dan Parker, the CEO of CI Agent Solutions, demonstrating how the chemical solution works:

(Please go to the site and see all the pretty video)

The chemical is contained in the boxes, which will be filled up with gelatin if and when the oil hits Dauphin’s coast.

Questions remain, of course: though both Parker and Captain Kelly affirm the chemical is safe for wildlife, it’s never been used or tested on such a large scale and in this manner. But considering that BP is dropping hundreds of thousands of experimental chemical dispersants in the Gulf as we speak, this is a drop in the bucket by comparison — and if cleaned and contained properly could be an interesting solution to watch for in the future.

I’m traveling around the Gulf of Mexico reporting on the continuing oil crisis. Stay tuned for the latest developments and breaking reports from the scene.

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See you Monday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvbA8FBd_Vo&feature=related

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Do you think PB or anyone else is really serious about cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico? They refuse to share information and if they were really serious about sealing the blow out they would have exploded it or suffocated it by now. But they haven’t so the only conclusion that can be reached is that all they have done so far is for show.

Anyway here are 40 photos of the damage to the Gulf…I am going to try to post one because of copy right laws. But please go to the site and see the rest…IT’s DISGUSTING

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/disaster_unfolds_slowly_in_the.html

Disaster unfolds slowly in the Gulf of Mexico

Seawater covered with thick black oil splashes up in brown-stained whitecaps off the side of the supply vessel Joe Griffin at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill containment efforts in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana Sunday, May 9, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

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Tomorrow is the last day. I can’t take it anymore.

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As the oil pushes west towards Texas, east into the Apalachicola area and west towards the Gulf Jet, this oil rig blow out could literally kill off the Gulf and spread far beyond. But this head line I think sums it up nicely.

http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/05/the-gulf-appears-to-be-bleeding-video.html

‘The Gulf appears to be bleeding’

Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathen of Alabama and volunteer pilot Tom Hutchings of SouthWings flew over the Gulf of Mexico on Friday to get a look at the massive oil slick spreading from the site of the BP disaster.

At nine miles out, they began to smell the oil. At 11 miles, they saw a visible sheen on the water. And at mile 87 off the Alabama coast, they reached ground zero of the disaster — what Wathen described as a “red mass of floating goo” as far as the eye can see.

“The Gulf appears to be bleeding,” he said.

“For the first time in my environmental career, I find myself using the word ‘hopeless,’” Wathen continued. “We can’t stop this. There’s no way to prevent this from hitting our shorelines.”

Wathen and Hutchings had no trouble finding their way back to land: “All we had to do was follow the red,” Wathens said. “There was a perfect line of it leading from the rig to the shoreline.”

Here’s the video from that trip, which is also posted to Wathen’s blog dedicated to documenting the disaster:

By Sue Sturgis on May 9, 2010 12:05 PM

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Please go to the website to view the video for yourself OR google “Gulf is Bleeding” and you can see it ALL over the web.

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This just in from Mobile Alabama:

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/05/gulf_of_mexico_has_plenty_of_f.html

Gulf of Mexico has plenty of familiarity with oil spills

By Press-Register staff

May 04, 2010, 4:33PM

Oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico has led to a number of disasters and near disasters over the past 31 years. In some cases, authorities were unable to stamp out fires or stop spills for months; in others, quick action and good luck prevented disasters from becoming worse than they could have been.

View full size(Courtesy NOAA)Stopping the oil from the IXTOC explosion took over nine months.IXTOC (1979)
The IXTOC I was an exploratory well that blew up in the Bay of Campeche on June 3, 1979, after oil and gas feeding from the well ignited. At its height the well may have pumped upwards of 30,000 barrels of oil (1.26 million gallons) into the Gulf a day; currents eventually brought the oil to the Texas shore that August.  Engineers were finally able to cap the well on March 23, 1980.  The spill is the second-largest in history, behind the deliberate oil spills created at the end of the 1991 Gulf War.  Total cleanup costs are estimated at $498 million (about $1.4 billion in 2010 dollars).View full size(Courtesy NOAA)The Burmah Agate caught fire after a collision on November 1, 1979, killing 31 sailors.

Burmah Agate (1979)

As the Texas coastline struggled against the fallout from the IXTOC, a new disaster compounded the woes. The Burmah Agate collided with a freighter near Galveston, Texas on November 1, 1979, causing the ship to explode and killing 31 crew members. The ship spilled 2.6 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and burned for over two months. View full size(Courtesy NOAA)The Megaborg caught fire while fueling a number of smaller ships.

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aaaak

Please read the whole article…I had to stop before I suffocated..

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What happened when the Ixtoc Drilling Rig Collapsed in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979. They brought in skimmers, booms, remotely operated vehicles, and dispersants. They drilled a second and third wells to take the pressure off. It took 8 months and parts of Texas and Mexico got slimed. Sound familiar?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtoc_I

Ixtoc I was an exploratory oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, about 100 km north west from Ciudad del Carmen in Campeche. On June 3, 1979, the well suffered a blowout and is recognized as the second largest oil spill in history.

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http://leanweb.org/donate/donate/donate-join.html

Louisiana Environmental Action Network & Lower Mississippi RIVERKEEPER© Helping to Make Louisiana Safe for Future Generations

E-ALERT May 4, 2010

Oil Spill Dispersants Are Not A Magic Solution Dispersants, a mixture of chemicals that break up the oil and send it into the water column, are being used as a remedy on oil that is leaking from the Deepwater Horizon disaster but we and many other environmental groups have serious concerns about their use. From: Oil Spill Dispersants: Efficacy and Effects (2005) by Ocean Studies Board (OSB) Dispersants are mixtures of solvents, surfactants, and other additives that are applied to oil slicks to reduce the oil-water interfacial tension (NRC, 1989; Clayton et al., 1993)… Reduction of the interfacial tension between oil and water by addition of a dispersant promotes the formation of a larger number of small oil droplets when surface waves entrain oil into the water column. These small submerged oil droplets are then subject to transport by subsurface currents… In other words the dispersants act like mustard or egg yolk in salad dressing to break up the oil into little droplets that will mix with the water and allow those little droplets of oil to sink down into the water column and to the sea floor. So once the oil sinks everything is fine right? Well, no, not really. The oil is still in the marine environment and can still impact fish and bottom dwelling organisms and potentially allow toxic materials to move up the food chain as bottom dwelling organisms become contaminated and then are preyed upon by large organisms like crabs and shrimp and then the crabs and shrimp are preyed upon by fish, the fish by larger fish etc., this is called bio-accumulation. More from: Oil Spill Dispersants: Efficacy and Effects (2005) by Ocean Studies Board (OSB) One of the most difficult decisions that oil spill responders and natural resources managers face during a spill is evaluating the environmental trade-offs associated with dispersant use. The objective of dispersant use is to transfer oil from the water surface into the water column. When applied before spills reach the coastline, dispersants will potentially decrease exposure for surface dwelling organisms (e.g., seabirds) and intertidal species (e.g., mangroves, salt marshes), while increasing it for water-column (e.g., fish) and benthic species (e.g., corals, oysters). In other words the dispersants may help to decrease shoreline impacts but will increase impacts to things that live under the water. This is obviously a big concern to those of us who enjoy eating oysters, crabs, shrimp, speckle trout, redfish and all of the other wonderful seafood that comes from the Gulf and Louisiana’s coastal estuaries. Another concern we have about the dispersants is that they themselves are toxic. We have learned from the Natural Resources Defense Council that the dispersant being used in the Deepwater Horizon disaster is Corexit 9500. From the Corexit 9500 Materials Safety Data Sheet: MATERIAL SAFETY DATA SHEET PRODUCT COREXIT® 9500 APPLICATION : OIL SPILL DISPERSANT NFPA 704M/HMIS RATING HEALTH : 1 / 1 FLAMMABILITY : 1 / 1 0 = Insignificant 1 = Slight 2 = Moderate 3 = High 4 = Extreme COMPOSITION/INFORMATION ON INGREDIENTS Our hazard evaluation has identified the following chemical substance(s) as hazardous. Hazardous Substance(s) Distillates, petroleum, hydrotreated light Propylene Glycol Organic sulfonic acid salt HAZARDS IDENTIFICATION **EMERGENCY OVERVIEW** WARNING Combustible. Keep away from heat. Keep away from sources of ignition – No smoking. Keep container tightly closed. Do not get in eyes, on skin, on clothing. Do not take internally. Avoid breathing vapor. Use with adequate ventilation. In case of contact with eyes, rinse immediately with plenty of water and seek medical advice. After contact with skin, wash immediately with plenty of soap and water. Wear suitable protective clothing. Clearly any workers handling this product need to be supplied with the proper protective gear. Corexit 9500 is also known to be toxic to marine life. A report written by Anita George-Ares and James R. Clark for Exxon Biomedical Sciences, Inc. entitled Acute Aquatic Toxicity of Three Corexit Products states that, “Corexit 9500, Corexit 9527,  and Corexit 9580 have moderate toxicity to early life stages of fish, crustaceans and mollusks (LC50 or EC50 – 1.6 to 100 ppm*).” We hope that the EPA and US Fish and Wildlife Service are closely monitoring the use of these products and monitoring for impacts to the environment. A further area of concern is the unprecedented deployment of dispersants into the leaking oil at the site of the leaks almost 5,000 feet below the surface. The oil spill Unified Command reported on May 1, 2010 that response crews worked through the night using an ROV to dispense 3,000 gallons of sub-surface dispersant at a rate of nine gallons per minute. BP and NOAA are evaluating the results of the test procedure to determine its feasability for continued use. The Unified Command also reported that, as of May 1, 2010, 142,914 gallons of dispersant have been deployed and an additional 68,300 gallons are available. If you see anything fishy happening on your waterways don’t hesitate to call the Lower Mississippi Riverkeerp hotline at 1-866-MSRIVER Support this vital work today! Yes! I want to help make Louisiana safe for us and for future generations! LEAN is a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Organization Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN) is a non-profit organization working to foster communication and cooperation among citizens and groups to address Louisiana’s environmental problems. For More About LEAN: WWW.LEANWEB.ORG

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All I can say is this is gona be bad..

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