May 7, 2015

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released the first nationwide guidelines Wednesday for determining when algal toxins have reached dangerous levels in public water systems and do-not-drink warnings might be needed.

 

Up to 48 million people nationwide get drinking water from lakes and reservoirs that could become fouled with toxins generated by algae-like bacteria, the federal agency said. Pollution from cyanobacteria, otherwise known as blue-green algae, in Lake Erie left more than 400,000 people in northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan without usable tap water for two days last August.

 

April 21, 2015:  Crowley Maritime Corp. and Svitzer have reached an agreement to merge their salvage divisions to create a new company named “Ardent”. The company will be equally owned by Crowley and Svitzer, and will commence operations on 1 May 2015.

Svitzer Salvage, a longstanding market leader in emergency response, and Titan Salvage, a leading wreck removal company among other things known for raising the Costa Concordia, will bring together their strong heritages and expertise in an entirely new entity that will offer customers an even broader range of capabilities and marine related services.

Like cars, some microbes use oil as fuel. Such microorganisms are a big reason why BP's 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was not far worse.

 

"The microbes did a spectacular job of eating a lot of the natural gas," says biogeochemist Chris Reddy of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The relatively small hydrocarbon molecules in natural gas are the easiest for microorganisms to eat. "The rate and capacity is a mind-boggling testament to microbes," he adds.

 

When Hurricane Ivan struck the Gulf of Mexico off of Louisiana in 2004, the force of the waves prompted a mudslide that toppled an offshore well platform owned by Taylor Energy. Since then, more than 10 years ago, oil from the undersea wells has been leaking into the Gulf unabated.

 

And the leak is far larger than reported.

 

According to an Associated Press investigation, recent U.S. Coast Guard figures show that the volume of the continual spillage is 20 times higher than figures originally put forth by Taylor Energy.

 

Taylor Energy for years reported that the volume the leak was declining: from 22 gallons per day in 2008, it was said to taper down to 12 gallons per day over the following five years. But the 2,300 pollution reports analyzed by the AP didn't match those figures.  Rather than decline, the pollution reports documented a dramatic spike in the size of oil sheens and the volume of spilled oil since September 1, 2014, just after federal regulators began sending government observers on the observation flights with the Taylor contractor that had been reporting spill volumes. A Taylor spokesman declined to comment on AP’s findings.