VENICE, La. (AP) — BP CEO Tony Hayward is refuting claims by scientists that there are large undersea plumes from the Gulf oil spill. Hayward says the oil is on the water’s surface, and that BP’s sampling showed “no evidence” of oil in the water column.
A day after scientists reported finding a huge “plume” of oil extending miles east of the leaking BP well, on Friday a Louisiana scientist said his crew had located another vast plume of oily globs, miles in the opposite direction.
James H. Cowan Jr., a professor at Louisiana State University, said his crew on Wednesday found a plume of oil in a section of the gulf 75 miles northwest of the source of the leak.
ST. PETERSBURG – The discovery in the depths of the Gulf of Mexico was so unsettling University of South Florida marine scientists ran two tests this week just to make sure.
Data from an array of instruments was conclusive: a team on board the USF research vessel Weatherbird II had discovered a vast new plume of oil about 3,300 feet beneath the waves.
The blob, more than 6 miles wide, is stretching inland toward the shallower waters off Alabama, where many fish and other species reproduce, said David Hollander, associate professor of chemical oceanography at USF.
