Last week, after Rep. Edward J. Markey’s (D-Mass.) request, BP finally agreed to provide live footage of the oil spill operations in the Gulf of Mexico. (Here's the Spill Cam.) But that view just shows one leak out of many, and Markey is now demanding that BP make public all 12 possible video feeds, showing the full range of oil leaks and activities. Congressman: give them an inch, they take a mile. Below, for the first time, Markey has shared what BP engineers are looking at on your average, catastrophic day:
When we first began noting the seemingly unstoppable Gulf of Mexico oil spill, some wondered what any of this had to do with NYC. Well, besides the fact that all species—even New Yorkers—cling to the same fragile ecological web of life, here's a specific example of how the spill is penetrating our precious NYC bubble: seafood prices are going up! Chefs at some local restaurants report that they're paying more for shrimp and oysters, even though they don't source from the Gulf of Mexico. "The supply is tighter, and it's driving the prices through the roof," Ron Licht, co-owner of Scandia Seafood, tells Crain's. "It's going to affect the restaurants as people who bought a larger shrimp buy smaller [less expensive] shrimps."
Crown Fish Co. of Hunts Point is reportedly paying up to $8 per pound for shrimp from the Gulf region, or about 30% more than one month ago. And because oil is now beginning to spread to the marshes where shrimp breed, some Louisiana shrimp sellers foresee not having shrimp next year. Many of the local waters have now been closed to fishing, but some shrimp boats are ignoring the ban and are going ahead with shrimping anyway. And other areas that are open to fishing are already polluted. "I could see the tar balls on top of the oil," one fisher tells the Wall Street Journal about an area that's still open for fishing. But never fear, tomorrow, BP goes for the Top Kill.
