New OIL SLICK emerges- or is it Dredging Mud?

[Spectrism]

B-b-b-b-but they capped the oil well and all was well, right?

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/03/20/coast-guard-investigating-reports-oil-spill-gulf/

Coast Guard Investigating Reports of Oil Spill in Gulf

Published March 20, 2011
| FoxNews.com

The U.S. Coast Guard is investigating reports of a potentially massive oil sheen about 20 miles north of the site of last April’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, according to the Times-Picayune.

Coast Guard spokeswoman Casey Ranel says the agency is sending out a cutter Sunday to collect samples of the substance, according to The Associated Press. Ranel says an airplane is also expected to fly over so officials can get a better idea of what’s in the water.

A press release sent Saturday night said the Coast Guard was investigating reports of an oil sheen in the Gulf. The Coast Guard says there is a substance in the water, though officials have yet to determine what it is.

Pollution investigators and a helicopter crew are following up on two calls to the National Response Center, the federal point of contact for reporting oil and chemical spills, Paul Barnard, an operations controller for Coast Guard Sector New Orleans, told the Times-Picayune.

Nearly one year after the BP oil rig explosion that caused 4.9 million barrels of oil to pollute the Gulf of Mexico, a pilot flying over the area reported a sheen of about a half-mile long and a half-mile wide, according to Barnard. Another caller reported a much larger sheen – about 100 miles long.

The larger oil slick was spotted Saturday off Grand Isle, Louisiana, and reported by pilot Bonny Schumaker, who heads up the California-based environmental nonprofit “On Wings of Care.” Schumaker told oilspillaction.com that the slick is rapidly expanding, and reports that she will be returning to the site as soon as possible to further investigate the situation.

The Coast Guard is investigating the area near the Matterhorn well site, about 20 miles north of the BP Deepwater Horizon site, according to the Times-Picayune. The Matterhorn field includes a deepwater drilling platform owned by W&T Technology. It was acquired last year from TotalFinaElf E&P.


For a slick to be 100 miles long before someone spots it, that has to be some serious leak.

[gunDriller]

i heard about that !

the MSM is talking about the ongoing BP Oil-Corexit Disaster as if it was yesterday's news.

is there a silver lining ? now that that water is too toxic for animals to live in - there's a lot of gold in that seawater - maybe Barrick is going to set up a plant in the Gulf - they could reasonably argue "well, it's already polluted !"

[Spectrism]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rocky-kistner/fresh-oil-continues-to-wa_b_838726.html
Rocky Kistner.Media associate, NRDC
Posted: March 21, 2011 05:50 PM

Fresh Oil Continues to Wash Ashore in the Bayou

Fresh Louisiana crude washed into the beaches and dock areas near Grand Isle over the weekend, creating a sickening sight for the residents of this oil battered region. The reddish brown crude and oily sheen lapped onto the sandy and rocky shores, while some people flocked to Grand Isle's famous white beaches for spring break unaware of the oily assault nearby.

Grand Isle Mayor David Camardelle said the oil had hit Elmers island and Lafourch beaches near the main beach area of Grand Isle. He said the oil appeared to be about two miles offshore over the weekend but then started coming ashore to the west of the island. "It reminded me of the first time we saw oil last summer, a brown reddish sheen."

The Coast Guard says it is mobilizing workers to lay fresh boom in environmentally sensitive areas and arranging for additional cleanup crews to help as oil comes ashore.


The Coast Guard has confirmed that oil slicks have impacted Louisiana shore around the beach resort of Grand Isle and further to the west. The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that oil continues to wash ashore in the Grand Isle area and impact the coastline. Here's how the paper describes it:

Photos taken by Jefferson Parish officials show globs of reddish matter coming ashore on Elmer's Island, a state wildlife sanctuary, that looks very similar to what washed onto northern Gulf beaches during last summer's oil spill. Other photographs, taken off Port Fourchon, show vast stretches of the Gulf's surface coated in a thin film and streaked with bright orange streams of thick matter...


The Coast Guard said the oil appears to have come from a leaking drilling rig near Grand Isle, but details remain sketchy. News reports quote local government officials as saying the oil spread for 5 miles.

The Coast Guard is continuing its investigation of reports last weekend of a major plume of oil in the Gulf that stretched for perhaps a hundred miles, according to reports filed with the Coast Guard's emergency response office.

A Coast Guard press release yesterday stated the giant dark plumes in the water appeared to be a massive dredging operation in the Mississippi River that had washed silt into the Gulf. The agency said it had sampled the water from the plumes that could be seen from the air and found only "trace amounts" of petroleum hydrocarbons, oil and grease.


But others who flew over the area last weekend believe there were vast stretches of oil in the water. Mike Roberts of the Louisiana Bayoukeepers was with a group that went up in the air on Saturday and then out on a boat on Barataria Bay Sunday. "It looked like a huge amount of oil in the Gulf," Roberts said. "They could smell it from the airplane and I could smell it from the boat. This wasn't just Mississippi River mud."

This is how his wife Tracy Kuhns, who went on the flyover on Saturday describes it in her Bayoukeeper blog post today:

We turned to the southwest, heading toward the reported oil sighting south of Grand Isle, LA. Almost immediately we began seeing, what appeared to be, large areas of oil just below the surface along with streaks of multicolored "sheen" on the surface. The smell of petroleum was thick in the air. We flew southwest, to approximately 40 miles south of Grand Isle and followed the "plumes" and "sheen" north all the way in to Grand Terre Island and Grand Isle. The "sheen" appeared to be flowing into Barataria Bay through Four Bayou Pass and Grand Isle Pass. We saw only a few birds, one large, dead Red Fish and only three dolphins during the entire fly over.


Bonny Schumaker with the group Of Wings of Care pointed out there were still potential harmful effects from the brown substance in the water even if it is not pure oil. Schumaker watched a pod of dolphins trying to keep one apparently mortally ill dolphin afloat in the the Gulf. This is what she told WWL radio in New Orleans:

"There were dolphins and turtles and a large bull redfish lying dead on its back... They worked for a full 20 minutes trying to push this other one up, and eventually I guess they gave up."

Coast Guard officials say they will continue to investigate the source of the leaking oil and complete tests results of water samples taken from the giant plumes observed last weekend. As the memorial anniversary of the BP blowout approaches, this is one memory coastal residents here don't want to live through again.