BP’s Next Tactic: Plume Denial

Photo from NWFblogs, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nwfblogs/4580722183/">via Flickr</a>.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Several independent teams of scientists monitoring the impacts of the Gulf oil spill have found huge plumes of undersea oil extending miles from the spill site. A first team of scientists reported a plume two weeks ago and last week teams identified two separate plumes extending in opposite directions. One plume is estimated to be 22 miles long, six miles wide and more than a thousand feet deep, made up of globules of oil of varying sizes.

How has BP CEO Tony Hayward responded to these findings? Seems he’s decided to go the denial route. “The oil is on the surface,” Hayward said. “There aren’t any plumes.” The company’s own tests, he said, have found “no evidence” of such plumes.

This is, of course, the guy who for weeks argued that the spill was “tiny” compared to the “very big ocean.” Last Friday he finally acknowledged that this is “clearly an environmental catastrophe.” But now he’s set to work to convince the public that the oil, which the company has tried so hard to keep below the water, doesn’t exist if we can’t see it on the surface.

The existence of the plumes is a new phenomenon; oil generally floats to the surface, given its natural buoyancy. But some of the scientists believe that the record volume of dispersants used at this site is keeping the majority of oil under the surface and causing it to form these plumes. That’s what dispersants are designed to do—break up the oil into smaller globs so it sinks and can biodegrade more rapidly. As of Monday, a total of 920,000 gallons of dispersant have been used on the spill—720,000 on the surface and 200,000 at the spill site. Critics of dispersant use note that while the chemicals solve the problem of oil hitting land, they keep it under the water, where it’s less of a PR issue for the oil company but still creates its own set of environmental problems.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) on Monday sent a letter to BP America president Lamar McKay asking for more information about BP’s plume denial. The letter requests “copies of all measurements, calculations or other supporting materials on which Mr. Hayward based his statements regarding the existence of sub-surface plumes of oil (including indications of BP’s methodology or any observational equipment used).”

BP has shown it can’t be trusted to give an accurate estimate of the spill size. Now it looks like the company doesn’t plan to be honest about where all that oil is going, either.

If you appreciate our BP coverage, please consider making a tax-deductible donation.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate