The EPA called the spills “worse than the worst-case scenario.”

more + photos here…

http://batcave911.blogspot.com/2008/07/mccain-katrina-oil-spill.html

There were oil spills. And the collapse of oil rigs. It was in the news at the time of Katrina.

Stupid!!!

As I understand it, the highest risk of large scale oil spills and environmental catastrophe from offshore oil production is in the transport of the oil (e.g., shallow water pipelines failures, tanker collisions, tanker grounding, tanker offloading, etc). ExxonMobil Valdez colliding with Alaska was an example of this.

Thanks. It’s amazing to me how many of these people (assuming they are, in fact, people) can’t tell facts from opinion.

Niffy,

I realise the topic is off-shore drilling. However, I’ve seen the reichwingers’ talking points morph from

There were no spills

to

There were no major spills

to

Those spills did not touch land

I believe I’ve shown all those arguments to be fallacious. It didn’t take very long, or too much effort, by the way.

NO. YOU were the one ‘misinforming’ = LYING!

Excellent articles, but as we’re on the topic of offshore drilling, I would like to deal with that mostly. The first news article you linked happened on land at an oil refinery. Unfortunately that does not have much factor into the offshore drilling debate. Regardless, there was a gem of what Jeremiah was saying linked in that first article, “In some cases, the natural disaster actually minimized the environmental one. Oil can’t harm towns already destroyed by winds and floodwaters. Sunlight evaporated, and water diluted, many spills.” It is not exactly promising to use the logic of “it was broken already, so we can’t break it anymore,” but there is some truth to the statement. The best logic in the article linked comes from Denny Larson, coordinator of the Refinery Reform Campaign, “people have said for years that they shouldn’t have facilities in low-lying coastal areas where contamination risks are great… it’s the poorest possible choice.”

Ditto for the second article and third articles, they talk exclusively about on shore oil spills. The only telling line is the one you linked which includes the words “along the Gulf Coast.”

By Googling “Katrina offshore oil spills” I was found, unfortunately quite early in the disaster, an article from msnbc; http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9365607/ that quotes the Coast Guard, “As for oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico, Paskewich said the Coast Guard has fielded no reports of offshore spills there,” but, “leaks could spring when the thousands of oil platforms and hundreds of miles of pipeline are restarted” which I believe was the case. As per the skytruth photos of oil spills all along the gulf, “Paskewich dismissed suggestions by an environmental advocacy group that satellite photos showed some 7,000 square miles of oil floating in the Gulf, saying numerous flyovers revealed only minor sheening.”

The rest of the front page on Google was dominated by political blogs and articles, so I opted to read the one (admitting I only read one!) from a news agency, and that one was woefully inadequate about what happened when the pipelines were turned back on.

So It seems most of the environmental impact occurred on shore at refineries and storage facilities which were located too close to low lying coastal regions. The nature of the disaster softened the environmental blow in at least some instances. Any photo satellite pictures taken before the oil pipelines were restarted paint a dubious picture of the damage, at least according to an agency that was directing real eye-in-the-sky flyovers of the area.

To me this does not mean abandon offshore drilling because of the dangers it poses. First, it means more strategically place our oil refining and storing capabilities on land to cope better with environmental events, and second inspecting oil pipelines and offshore oil rigs before pumping can be allowed to be restarted to prevent leakage once pumping resumes.

And then you were sent on a media jag to spread that “misinformation” to the sheeple. Just like the Chinese are drilling off Cuba and opening up off shore drilling will bring immediate relief at the pump. The is the GOP’s favorite tactic. Intentionally spreading lies en masse to the press and the public starting from Shrub, then McCant and on downhill to advisors, Senators, Congress, neocon radio hosts and their “base” in the MSM. Let the lie spread and fester and even after the truth has been put out there, keep lying as long as possible because some people will still believe it. If faced with the facts, they try their best to give the lie equal air time (even if you admit the falsehood). The “Chinese are drilling” lie was discredited allmost immediately but the GOP stuck to their disingenuous talking point for months. The MSM laps it up like so much bbq. I believe Olbermann said once something to the effect that the MSM considers “fair and balanced” giving the same amount of credence and time to the lie as they do the truth. Unfortunately the GOP has mastered the coordination of misinformation. Goebels would be proud of his little devotees in the GOP.

“So, are we to expect the McCain administration to say things and do things based on misinformation? Is that what we have to look forward to?”

That’s the way these people operate. “We have to ivade Iraq to stop their WMDs!” Oops, sorry, we were misinformed, not our fault. We have just been shown a preview of what the McCain Presidency would be like.

Really Jeremiah, that is just your opinion isn’t it. Do you have any hard data that hasn’t been gathered by the oil companies on that. I didn’t think so.”

Just think of it in terms of physics. Oil spilled during a hurricane will not form an oil slick and will not cause effects similar to the ExxonMobil Valdez Tragedy. It may cause environmental damage but it would be spread out, not localized and acute.

Any oil spill that continued or occurred after the hurricane could cause an oil slick and acute, localized damage

Excellent post, Gregor. “Willfully ignorant” seems to be the most accurate description yet for our visiting trolls. They do not wish to argue from facts, only talking points which, according to the people they admire, are just as valid as facts in debate.

When is the crappy GOP gonna’ roll out the “It wasn’t me , it was the one-armed man” excuse/defense ?

To the willfully ignorant, who didn’t pay any attention to the news that mentioned, time and again, the toxic sludge floating on the flood waters in New Orleans and other places:

Hurricane Katrina’s flood waters unleashed 1 million gallons of oil from one of the massive storage tanks at Murphy Oil’s nearby refinery. The spill spread over 1 square mile and stained 1,700 homes, making it one of the largest environmental spills to occur in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
But it was far from the only one.
Industry says there was no way to prepare for spills

Government agencies -even the oil companies- acknowledged there were spills:

“Oil got into the neighborhoods,” Jean Kelly, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality told MSNBC.com on Wednesday. [...]
Rodney Mallett, a responder at the state’s oil spill task force, told MSNBC.com that little is known about the Venice slick so far.
Second oil spill feared on Mississippi River

And here is another news piece:

More than a month after Hurricane Katrina, environmental workers are still struggling to clean up the 50 oil spills along the Gulf Coast. An estimated 190,000 barrels, or nearly 8 million gallons of oil spilled into Louisiana’s waterways — and into some of its neighborhoods.
Oil spills foul Louisiana neighborhoods

You just demonstrated you cannot be trusted to have an informed discussion on this topic, considering the oil spills were so openly talked about in the media after Katrina. It was, quite literally, all over the news. Under what rock on what planet have you been living lately?

This is scary….McCain relies on these experts.

I truly believe that Americans, nay, humans in general prefer lies to the truth, at least 75% of the time.

Oy.