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The Cover-up: BP's Crude Politics and the Looming Environmental
Mega-Disaster Written by Wayne Madsen Thursday, 06 May 2010 16:43
WMR has been informed by sources in the US Army Corps of Engineers,
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Florida Department
of Environmental Protection that the Obama White House and British
Petroleum (BP), which pumped $71,000 into Barack Obama's 2008
presidential campaign -- more than John McCain or Hillary Clinton,
are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster
in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP's liability
for damage caused by what can be called a "mega-disaster."
Obama and his senior White House staff, as well as Interior Secretary
Ken Salazar, are working with BP's chief executive officer Tony
Hayward on legislation that would raise the cap on liability for
damage claims from those affected by the oil disaster from $75
million to $10 billion. However, WMR's federal and Gulf state sources
are reporting the disaster has the real potential cost of at least
$1 trillion. Critics of the deal being worked out between Obama and
Hayward point out that $10 billion is a mere drop in the bucket for
a trillion dollar disaster but also note that BP, if its assets
were nationalized, could fetch almost a trillion dollars for
compensation purposes. There is talk in some government circles,
including FEMA, of the need to nationalize BP in order to compensate
those who will ultimately be affected by the worst oil disaster in
the history of the world.
Plans by BP to sink a 4-story containment dome over the oil gushing
from a gaping chasm one kilometer below the surface of the Gulf,
where the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and killed 11 workers
on April 20, and reports that one of the leaks has been contained
is pure public relations disinformation designed to avoid panic and
demands for greater action by the Obama administration, according
to FEMA and Corps of Engineers sources. Sources within these agencies
say the White House has been resisting releasing any "damaging
information" about the oil disaster. They add that if the ocean oil
geyser is not stopped within 90 days, there will be irreversible
damage to the marine eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico, north
Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. At best, some Corps of Engineers experts
say it could take two years to cement the chasm on the floor of the
Gulf.
Only after the magnitude of the disaster became evident did Obama
order Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to declare the
oil disaster a "national security issue." Although the Coast Guard
and FEMA are part of her department, Napolitano's actual reasoning
for invoking national security was to block media coverage of the
immensity of the disaster that is unfolding for the Gulf of Mexico
and Atlantic Ocean and their coastlines.
From the Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the Environmental Protection
Agency, Coast Guard, and Gulf state environmental protection agencies,
the message is the same: "we've never dealt with anything like this
before."
The Obama administration also conspired with BP to fudge the extent
of the oil leak, according to our federal and state sources. After
the oil rig exploded and sank, the government stated that 42,000
gallons per day was gushing from the seabed chasm. Five days later,
the federal government upped the leakage to 210,000 gallons a day.
However, WMR has been informed that submersibles that are monitoring
the escaping oil from the Gulf seabed are viewing television pictures
of what is a "volcanic-like" eruption of oil. Moreover, when the
Army Corps of Engineers first attempted to obtain NASA imagery of
the Gulf oil slick -- which is larger than that being reported by
the media -- it was turned down.
However, National Geographic managed to obtain the satellite imagery
shots of the extent of the disaster and posted them on their web
site.
There is other satellite imagery being withheld by the Obama
administration that shows what lies under the gaping chasm spewing
oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be around the
size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost
national security-level classification to keep it from the public,
according to our sources.
The Corps and Engineers and FEMA are quietly critical of the lack
of support for quick action after the oil disaster by the Obama
White House and the US Coast Guard. Only recently, has the Coast
Guard understood the magnitude of the disaster, dispatching nearly
70 vessels to the affected area.
WMR has also learned that inspections of off-shore rigs' shut-off
valves by the Minerals Management Service during the Bush administration
were merely rubber-stamp operations, resulting from criminal collusion
between Halliburton and the Interior Department's service, and that
the potential for similar disasters exists with the other 30,000
off-shore rigs that use the same shut-off valves.
The impact of the disaster became known to the Corps of Engineers
and FEMA even before the White House began to take the magnitude
of the impending catastrophe seriously. The first casualty of the
disaster is the seafood industy, with not just fishermen, oystermen,
crabbers, and shrimpers losing their jobs, but all those involved
in the restaurant industry, from truckers to waitresses, facing
lay-offs.
The invasion of crude oil into estuaries like the oyster-rich
Apalachicola Bay in Florida spell disaster for the seafood industry.
However, the biggest threat is to Florida's Everglades, which federal
and state experts fear will be turned into a "dead zone" if the oil
continues to gush forth from the Gulf chasm. There are also
expectations that the oil slick will be caught up in the Gulf stream
off the eastern seaboard of the United States, fouling beaches and
estuaries like the Chesapeake Bay, and ultimately target the rich
fishing grounds of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland.
WMR has also learned that 36 urban areas on the Gulf of Mexico are
expecting to be confronted with a major disaster from the oil volcano
in the next few days. Although protective water surface boons are
being laid to protect such sensitive areas as Alabama's Dauphin
Island, the mouth of the Mississippi River, and Florida's Apalachicola
Bay, Florida, there is only 16 miles of boons available for the
protection of 2,276 miles of tidal shoreline in the state of Florida.
Emergency preparations in dealing with the expanding oil menace are
now being made for cities and towns from Corpus Christi, Texas, to
Houston, New Orleans, Gulfport, Mobile, Pensacola,
Tampa-St.Petersburg-Clearwater, Sarasota-Bradenton, Naples, and Key
West. Some 36 FEMA-funded contracts between cities, towns, and
counties and emergency workers are due to be invoked within days,
if not hours, according to WMR's FEMA sources.
There are plans to evacuate people with respiratory problems,
especially those among the retired senior population along the west
coast of Florida, before officials begin burning surface oil as it
begins to near the coastline.
There is another major threat looming for inland towns and cities.
With hurricane season in effect, there is a potential for ocean oil
to be picked up by hurricane-driven rains and dropped into fresh
water lakes and rivers, far from the ocean, thus adding to the
pollution of water supplies and eco-systems.
This story contributed by the Wayne Madsen Report for Oilprice.com