30 Days Of Oil Spill

What do we have to show for it?

NOT MUCH.

* Fox News | BP Chief Predicts ‘Very Modest’ Oil Spill Impact
* Coast Guard: Despite BP efforts, Gulf oil spill is getting worse

* Meanwhile, back in reality:

* Oil Spill Reaches Into Plaquemines Parish. Not good at all. That’s here on a Louisiana map. Incidentally, I woke up today to NPR butchering both “Nungesser” and “Pass a Loutre.”

* Fast Company | BP Releases Four Disturbing New Videos of Gulf Oil Leak

The bad news: the spill looks really, really bad. The good news: scientists might be able to use the video to check whether BP’s estimated oil release of 210,000 gallons per day is accurate.

* NPR reiterates the importance of having a very accurate estimate of the amount of Macondo oil and gas in the Gulf. “Eventually, BP will be subject to the federal Oil Pollution Act, which will hold them responsible for damages to people as well as to the environment. It will be difficult to assess the environmental damage from this spill, so legal scholars expect that eventually BP’s financial responsibility could be tied to the amount of oil spilled.”

* In another case of Impeccable Timing, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) joins Lisa Murkowski to block the rise in the oil liability cap. We need to increase the caps, we don’t know just how high that should be.

* John McQuaid has a must-read over at True/Slant. In The oil spill and Hurricane Katrina: ˜Natural disasters“?, McQuaid reminds readers of what was natural and what was man-made during The Storm and The Flood. “Our collective thinking amplified by the media is to lump everything together in a way that tends to strip the human agency out of what“s really happening.” He also links to the Treme clip in which Creighton Bernette rips Dandy The Reporter a new pooper.

* What is sadly eclipsed now is that Shell and Chevron successfully began production at the ultra-deepwater Perdido facility, which is located in 8000 feet of water, last month.