Just to summarize and counter a Newhouse press report out of New Jersey (which I won’t dignify with a link) calling the entire Gulf Coast oil disaster overblown “hype,” and the media coverage of it worse than the spill itself, let’s summarize some recent findings.

A citizens group conducting its own water samples in the Gulf of Mexico released results today showing dangerous levels of oil and chemicals in Naples and St. Petersberg Florida coastal waters.

LFNJ: Independent Tests Show Dangerous Levels of Oil, Chemicals in Gulf

A 22-mile-long invisible mist of oil is meandering far below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, where it will probably loiter for months or more, scientists reported Thursday in the first conclusive evidence of an underwater plume from the BP spill. The most worrisome part is the slow pace at which the oil is breaking down in the cold, 40-degree water, making it a long-lasting but unseen threat to vulnerable marine life, experts said.

AP: Major Study Charts Long-Lasting Oil Plume in Gulf of Mexico

Academic scientists are challenging the Obama administration’s assertion that most of BP’s oil in the Gulf of Mexico is either gone or rapidly disappearing — with one group Thursday announcing the discovery of a 22-mile “plume” of oil that shows little sign of vanishing. That plume was measured in late June and was described Thursday by scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. The biggest news was not the plume itself: For weeks, government and university scientists have said that oil from BP’s damaged well is still underwater.

WP: Scientists Say Oil from Gulf Spill Not Going Away

Tags: Scientists Find Seafloor Covered in Oil 40 Miles South of Panama City

This entry was posted on Monday, August 23rd, 2010 at 4:26 pm and is filed under Big Oil, BP Oil Spill, Environment News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.