"New study finds methane bacteria has eaten all the methane from the oil spill earlier than expected."
This is a tweet from whoever is employed to sit, fingers poised (there's already been 18 tweets today, as I write, and it's only 4pm) behind the Twitter app for BP America. But click on the full story they've linked to and you'll see marine ecologist Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia in Athens counter:
"Not so fast … Just because you can't find methane in the spot where you lowered your [instruments] doesn't mean there's no methane out there somewhere … the more parsimonious explanation for why the group found no BP methane: They lost track of the freaking plume."
"BP's cleanup operations are 'on track' with the goal of cleaning Gulf beaches by spring tourist season," BP Tweets, linking to a Q&A with Mike Utsler, the oil company appointee responsible for overseeing the cleanup, who adds: "The beaches are beautiful." Er, not according to Ed Overton, a Louisiana State University chemist who analysed the spill for the US government and was quoted in an Associated Press report at the end of December that said it was unlikely they would clean the beaches by the time college students began flocking to the Gulf coast for spring break. "There is so much oil under the sand, mud and oyster shells that tar balls may be washing up for months, if not years."
To read the rest of the story, please go to: The Guardian (London).
