As if the new projected costs of the Deepwater Horizon BP disaster isn’t enough bad news, here is a newly released report on a persistent toxic zone. Not yet confirmed publicly, an oil insider is reporting a “dead zone:”
Sources at the Federal Emergency Management (FEMA) and the US Army Corps of Engineers are predicting that the BP Gulf oil gusher will create a “dead zone” within a 200-mile radius fromm Deepwater Horizon, says The Wayne Madsen Report for OilPrice.com for 23 June 2010. The sources report that Corexit 9500 oil dispersant used by BP has mixed with evaporated water from the Gulf, been absorbed by rain clouds and created
“toxic precipitation that threatens to continue killing marine and land animals, plant life, and humans within a 200-mile radius of the Deepwater Horizon disaster site…Adding to the worries of FEMA and the Corps of Engineers is the large amounts of methane that are escaping from the cavernous grotto of oil underneath the Macondo drilling area of Gulf of Mexico.”
Federal officals now say privately, according to Madsen, that the dead zone “will” force evacuation and possible long-term abandonment of cities and town within that 200-mile radius—- this would include New Orleans, Slidell, Biloxi, Mobile, Pensacola, Panama City, even possibly Baton Rouge. They fear that toxic rain “is expected to poison fresh water reservoirs, lakes, streams, and rivers. This will create another disaster in agriculture, not to mention drinking water in the entire area.
Imagine the toxic rain that could result from a hurricane, covering far more than the described 200-mile radius. Obviously, if this scenario comes to pass, that $20 billion recovery fund set up by BP (and for which Reppublicans have been apologizing to BP) will be a mere pittance. The new $1 trillion cost estimate could run closer to $2-3 trillion.
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