Breaking News: Plumes Moving East

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There’s big news this morning breaking on CNN about University of South Florida research tracking dangerous levels of oil from the British Petroleum spill to within 40 miles of the Florida panhandle, while documenting toxic reactions from plankton and other organisms. And this coming on the heels of an AP report yesterday: “…scientists say as much as 80 percent of the oil still lurks under the surface. The Georgia team said it is a misinterpretation of data to claim that oil that is dissolved is actually gone.”

This is yet more vindication for Gulf residents and independent experts who have been saying for weeks that – just like initial oil-flow rates were low-balled – estimates of remaining oil are ridiculously low. It’s just taking these independent experts a bit longer to break through the clutter as both the government and BP cling to their “all clear” story.

CNN is reporting: “Initial findings from a new survey of the Gulf conclude that dispersants may have sent droplets of crude to the ocean floor, where it has turned up at the bottom of an undersea canyon within 40 miles of the Florida Panhandle.”

Researchers say “… [the] spill may have settled to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico further east than previously suspected – and at levels toxic to marine life.”

See the CNN coverage here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/17/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html?hpt=T2

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Stuart H. Smith is an attorney based in New Orleans fighting major oil companies and other polluters.
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