Environmental Disaster?
Research for Online Investors

by John Dalt

7/29/10

Time Magazine has an article that will make the White House squirm as they continue to enforce the deep-water drilling ban.  Time’s The BP Spill: Has the Damage Been Exaggerated? tells us the spill is the biggest ever but may not be that bad concerning the environment.  Jacqueline Michel, a federal contractor and geochemist says the “Impacts have been much, much less than everyone feared.”

Environmentalists will be dismayed if they cannot make hay out of dead birds and destroyed marshes.  So far confirmed dead birds are only 1% of the count from the Exxon Valdez in Alaska 21 years ago, and response teams have only collected three oiled carcasses of dolphins or other mammals.  Fish and shrimp are testing clean for consumption, and restrictions are being lifted.

So far assessment teams have found 350 acres of oiled marshes.  Louisiana looses about 15,000 acres of marsh and wetlands every year due to natural occurrences!  Coastal scientist Paul Kemp compares the impact of the oil spill on marshes to “a sunburn on a cancer patient.”

On June 30, in MarketToday we wrote, “Your editor asked a friend in the oil business about the (gulf) oil spill cleanup… His main point was one of climate; Alaska is cold, whereas the gulf is warm and the oil would evaporate and break down much quicker.”

The scientists interviewed for the Time article cited four reasons for the minimal environmental impact.

Gulf crude oil is light and degradable.
The Gulf is warm which helps bacteria breakdown the oil.
Mississippi currents have kept the oil slick away from the coast.
Mother Nature is resilient.

Gosh, don’t you love it when you know tomorrow’s news before anyone else!

Spill response teams have found 3,000 dead birds in the gulf area compared to guestimates of 435,000 birds killed by the Exxon Valdez accident.  Fewer than half of the 3,000 birds had oil on them, some may have died of other causes.  They have found 492 dead sea turtles, but only 17 were visibly oiled.  Otherwise the teams found one (1) other dead reptile in the entire gulf.  These statistics were confirmed by Amy Holman, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) director for Alaska who is on one of the assessment teams in the Gulf.  Spill response teams have at least one representative from the federal government and the state whose coast they are operating off of.

Time says the oil spill has affected 600 miles of beaches and marshes, but the beaches are easy to clean and the oil has stayed in the first few feet of the water’s edge of the marshes. Mirroring the comments by scientists quoted in our article Sacred Cows and Rat Brains, the gulf scientists blame the airboats patrolling the marshes for more damage than the oil spill.

To the mailbox:

Best over-view on GE I have ever read. Would love to see one of the analysts that cover them do the same!---paid up subscriber C.W.

John’s reply:  Thanks, that is very kind of you.  But, how could the investment banks get any of GE’s business if they told the truth?

The information presented in this newsletter is based on generally available news releases, corporate filings, current events, interviews and the editor’s opinions.  It may contain errors and you should not make investment decisions based solely on what you believe you have read here.  Do your own research, it is your money.  If you lose it, it is your responsibility, not ours or your grandmothers!  The editor may or may not have a position in any securities discussed.  The editor may have held a position in a security earlier, or in the future.

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