GULF SPILL MUCH WORSE THAN WE'VE BEEN TOLD...

     Corporate inaction and incompetence helped thrust the Macondo blowout into an environmental disaster, and energy investment banker Matthew Simmons will be the first one to say so; in fact, he was among the first to say so, and by his own words, took a roasting for it.  Read the longer article in full at:  http://knox.villagesoup.com/news/story/matt-simmons-tells-a-real-ugly-story/338589
     Simmons believes the image of the oil spewing from the blowout preventer displayed on news sites around the world fails to illustrate the reality of the situation. He maintains that a vast lake of oil seeping from the ocean floor and the well head lies approximately six miles from the site where BP says it is trying to cap the oil flow — "flowing like lava and now probably the size of two Washington states," said Simmons. That is the source of what is polluting the gulf, spreading "rainbows of death that stretch for miles in every direction," a description of the oil paths narrated in a video produced by the conservation aviation group South Wings.
     The world is not seeing that well head, from which the heavy crude is gushing. The drilling rig is only partially attached to that well head, maintains Simmons, via a damaged riser — a long pipe (see image 5 in the gallery for an illustration of the mechanics). BP is focusing on capping the end of that riser, which is minimally connected to the well. Imagine a hose that is 30 percent connected to the faucet. The faucet is leaking more water than is entering the hose, while at the other end of the hose, much activity is placed on stopping the hose flow.
     He points to the color of the oil: Louisiana light is a high grade of crude oil typically obtained along the immediate shelf; but what is washing up with the waves is a heavy, orange substance that suggest to Simmons an origin deep below the gulf floor. He fears what gases are also coming up with it, methane and benzene lifting onto ocean breezes.
     Simmons calculates up to 120,000 barrels a day are seeping up into the Gulf, while the U.S. Geological Survey estimates 35,000 to 60,000 barrel per day. He calls the oozing oil the "crime scene," outlining its potential for smothering life in 40 percent of the gulf. In addition to environmental destruction, he talks of the potential for massive human injury, should hurricanes stir the gulf waters and release even more toxic gases from the underwater accruing oil.
     It's a scenario compounded by the prospect of power plants and refineries becoming incapacitated, their systems contaminated by oily water, causing mass mechanical failure. How will people escape noxious clouds if they can't rely on power to get them out, said Simmons.