This all began as a lark. I was bored and could come up with anything interesting that I wanted people to see and think about so I typed in environmental disaster in the google field and picked the one that looked interesting. But it has turned out to be quite fun in a macabre sort of way. Look it is bad enough that Brazil is dozing the rain forest or planting crops in the pantanal; bad enough that they have dammed the Amazon and are running their surface fleet on ethanol. Now they are tossing oil in the ocean.

http://digitaljournal.com/article/314763

Oil spill disaster in Brazil: This time Chevron is to blame

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Andre

By Andre C James

Nov 20, 2011 in World

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In yet another environmental disaster, off shore oil drilling has caused 416,400 litres of oil to flood into the sea 370km (230 miles) off the Brazilian coast.

Chevron claims full responsibility for the disaster that occurred almost 2 weeks ago and has made assurances that the underwater rupture had been sealed although there continued to be residual oil leaking from undersea rock at the Frade Oil Project. The international environmental group Skytruth suggested the spill was 10 times larger than the official estimate and backed up its claim with satellite images.

The cause of the spill was put down to

underestimated pressure of underwater oil deposits while drilling, causing oil to rush up the bore hole and seep into the surrounding seabed.

Meanwhile, Head of the Federal Police Environmental Division Fabio Scliar voiced concern about the methods Chevron was using to clean up the spill. He said, Chevron was “pushing” the oil to the bottom of the sea, thereby putting corals in the area at risk of destruction.

Currently the oil slick originating from the drilling location has extended over 2,379 square kilometers but is dispersing in a clockwise eddy by the ocean currents as it drifts further out to sea.

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Go there and see the pretty pictures, play the video and read. More tomorrow.

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