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IN THE TANK? FEDS SCRUB INCIDENT REPORT ABOUT GULF SPILL NEAR BP RIG!!!

Getting rid of an oil slick is hard work. But apparently it’s a lot easier to clean up an incident report about an oil slick — especially when that spill is near the site of the worst offshore oil accident in American history. Just ask the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, which used its magic to make information from last month about a mystery oil sheen suddenly disappear.

Early yesterday, this blog broke the news about the Sept. 17 incident report, which raised the possibility that fresh oil is still leaking from the Macondo oil field where the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe occurred in April 2011 — killing 11 workers and unleashing a spill that lasted for weeks and dumped 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Here’s what the initial report from NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration said:

This hotline is being started for new reports of sheen of unknown origin in and near lease block Mississippi Canyon 252. This incident is likely related to reports in August 2011 (See incident #8345, Aug2011). Although the source of these sheens may be the wrecked BP Macondo Well, this relationship has not been established at this time. Activities include daily overflights sponsored by BP, with USCG or NOAA observers on board intermitently. BP is sending a vessel to the area with an ROV to investigate the potential source.

However, that report is no longer on the web site as of last night. Instead, this is what visitors see instead:
Incident #8510 does not exist, has been deleted, or you do not have permission to view it.