Heckuva job...

Looks like our environmental policies will mimic our foreign policy interventions of the past decade.

Tensions between the Obama administration and the scientific community over the gulf oil spill are escalating, with prominent oceanographers accusing the government of failing to conduct an adequate scientific analysis of the damage and of allowing BP to obscure the spill’s true scope.

The scientists assert that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies have been slow to investigate the magnitude of the spill and the damage it is causing in the deep ocean. They are especially concerned about getting a better handle on problems that may be occurring from large plumes of oil droplets that appear to be spreading beneath the ocean surface.

The scientists point out that in the month since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, the government has failed to make public a single test result on water from the deep ocean. And the scientists say the administration has been too reluctant to demand an accurate analysis of how many gallons of oil are flowing into the sea from the gushing oil well.

21st Century America: The less we know, the easier it is to believe...


ADDED: Enough with the "we're working so hard we're sending out for pizzas" thing too. Bad memories of Bill Clinton's downfall ... didn't he and Monica meet over one of those late-night pizza working sessions?

Thad W. Allen, the Coast Guard admiral in charge of the response to the spill, said Wednesday evening that the government had decided to try to put equipment on the ocean floor to take accurate measurements. A technical team is at work devising a method, he said. “We are shoving pizzas under the door, and they are not coming out until they give us the answer,” he said.

Military might over science. Hoo-ya!

MEANWHILE:
In Florida, already worried about the Everglades and with a precarious drinking water balance, the potential toxic damage is being minimized:

The state's emergency responders downplayed the threat to Florida in a briefing for Senate President Jeff Atwater on Wednesday. South Floridians can expect an occasional tar ball to wash ashore, but they probably will never see oil from the recent spill lapping onto beaches, Florida Emergency Management Director David Halstead told Atwater, R-North Palm Beach.

"If we look at two weeks in the Florida sun, most of that is going to be evaporated," Halstead said. "There is a possibility you'll see very little of any sheen ever even make it down all the way to the Keys."

Even if the oil sheen was caught in the Loop Current, environmental damage in South Florida would be "minimal," Doug Darling, the Florida Environmental Preservation Department chief of staff told Atwater.

"If dolphins or manatees swim through it and come up to surface for air, they're going to get a slight coating," Darling said. "But the fish swimming at 100 feet at not affected by it at all."

Scientists do not agree. The marine animals at the greatest danger are those that must surface for air — such as dolphins, manatees and turtles. Every time they surface for air they are covered again in oil and breath the toxic fumes at the surface.

Deepwater marine life are not safe either, experts say.

Chemical dispersants have caused the oil break up and infiltrate the entire water column. That means marine life on the ocean floor, especially corals, could be damaged.

"If oil is floating on the surface, it is not as available to harm things that live on the bottom," said Richard Dodge, dean of Nova Southeastern's Oceanographic Center and head of the National Coral Reef Institute. "If it is dispersed — either by chemicals or nature — the more it will come in contact with other organisms."