Scientists (Again) Criticize Obama Administration Over Claims of Recovery of Gulf After BP Spill
jonathanturley
Remember when Obama energy advisor Carol Browner assured the public that the oil from the BP spill has miraculously disappeared after criticism of Obama’s opening up the pristine areas of Eastern coast to exploration? Well, the Administration is still at odds with scientists who insist that the damage is devastating.
A leading scientist, Samantha Joye of University of Georgia has released video and slide evidence that the oil is not degrading despite continued assurances from the Obama Administration that the oil has largely dissipated. She insists that the Administration’s magic microbes” have “consumed maybe 10 percent of the total discharge, the rest of it we don’t know . . . there’s a lot of it out there.” Both the Administration and a BP scientist with a grant from BP insist that most of the oil is gone.
Yet, Joye and colleagues took 250 cores of the sea floor and travelled across 2,600 square miles. They also show pictures of totally dead areas as well as extremely high levels of methane — something they insist is being ignored by the effort to leave a rosy picture of the spill and “miracle” recovery.
Kenneth Feinberg, the government’s oil compensation fund czar, insisted that the Gulf of Mexico would almost fully recover by 2012. The scientists insist that this is simply wrong and a continuing underestimation of the damage caused by the spill.
