Oil Spill: Sobering News For the Gulf Coast

[lamsalfl]

The least BP could do is move their American headquarters outta Houston and relocate it to New Orleans. I've got a niiiice spot on Loyola Ave. for a skyscraper for them! NO would get a major headquarters, and BP would be paying taxes to Louisiana's treasury and not Texas' for years to come. Sounds like an arrangement Huey Long would come up with. It'll never happen, but just my $0.02.

[desertpunk]

[QUOTE=Bobdreamz;57413323]

Originally Posted by Smallville

Obama received 2.5 milllion dollars from BP. Obama received more than any other politician from BP. Obama waited for a few days before he addressed the spill.

I love how people try to politicize this and blame Obama for this. All resources by the Government are being used and BP initially said the spill was not huge and they could take care of it but now we know the truth.
This is not the time to play politics and finger pointing and you are essentially accusing the President of dragging his feet on a disaster because a company donated to his campaign.
Anyways today I heard there is an expert team from Abu Dhabi flying in to help BP cap this well.

Obama deserves every bit of it. What leader allows the perp to call the shots? You give them 2 weeks to fix it and then you call the Army Corps of Engineers. Obama is a toy!

[Bobdreamz]

^ desert the Army Corps of Engineers have been there since the beginning.

[krazeeboi]

Originally Posted by desertpunk

Obama deserves every bit of it. What leader allows the perp to call the shots? You give them 2 weeks to fix it and then you call the Army Corps of Engineers. Obama is a toy!

Ironically, legislation passed after the Exxon Valdez spill in the late 80's actually ties the administration's hands somewhat on this, since that legislation put virtually all responsibility on the company and took it out of the hands of the government. If anything, this particular spill--like just about all disasters of any kind under any administration--shows how limited and toothless regulatory agencies can be.

[kevinkagy]

We really need to stop relying on petroleum. Now more than ever we should be pushing for renewable energy sources and greater investment in public transit to lower our dependence on cars and consequently oil. This is really sad and there should have been a worst case scenario back-up plan. The clean up of this will go on for years and years to come.

[greenparrot]

Originally Posted by krazeeboi

Ironically, legislation passed after the Exxon Valdez spill in the late 80's actually ties the administration's hands somewhat on this, since that legislation put virtually all responsibility on the company and took it out of the hands of the government. If anything, this particular spill--like just about all disasters of any kind under any administration--shows how limited and toothless regulatory agencies can be.

actually...the opposite is true

Following the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, Members faced great pressure to overcome the disputes
discussed above.31 The spill highlighted the inadequacies of the existing coverage and generated
public outrage. The end result was the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA)32—the first
comprehensive law to specifically address oil pollution to waterways and coastlines of the United
States.

Oil Pollution Act of 1990

With the enactment of OPA on August 18, 1990, Congress consolidated the existing federal oil
spill laws under one program. The 1990 law expanded the existing liability provisions within the
CWA and created new free-standing requirements regarding oil spill prevention and response.
Key OPA provisions are discussed below.

Spill Response Authority

When responding to a spill, many considered the lines of responsibility under the pre-OPA regime
to be unclear,33 with too much reliance on spillers to perform proper cleanup.34 OPA strengthened
and clarified the federal government’s role in oil spill response and cleanup. OPA Section 4201
amended Section 311(c) of the CWA to provide the President (delegated to the USCG or EPA)
with three options: perform cleanup immediately (“federalize” the spill), monitor the response
efforts of the spiller, or direct the spiller’s cleanup activities. The revised response authorities
addressed concerns “that precious time would be lost while waiting for the spiller to marshall its
cleanup forces.”35
The federal government determines the level of cleanup required. Although the federal
government must consult with designated trustees of natural resources and the governor of the
state affected by the spill, the decision that cleanup is completed and can be ended rests with the
federal government. States may require further work, but without the support of federal funding.36
31

[desertpunk]

[socrates#1fan]

Originally Posted by kevinkagy

We really need to stop relying on petroleum. Now more than ever we should be pushing for renewable energy sources and greater investment in public transit to lower our dependence on cars and consequently oil. This is really sad and there should have been a worst case scenario back-up plan. The clean up of this will go on for years and years to come.

I agree, our society is built on this finite fuel , it is dangerous to our security. This is what happens when we try to get every last drop of oil, like a drug addict.

[FLAWDA-FELLA]

NBC, msnbc.com and news services
updated 3:59 a.m. ET, Thurs., May 27, 2010

COVINGTON, La. - Drilling mud, not oil, appeared to gush from a ruptured undersea well six hours into an effort to halt a growing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a BP executive said.

After BP began pumping heavy mud into the leaking well, executives said that there had been no problems so far, but they said engineers would not know until at least Thursday afternoon whether the latest remedy was having some success.

If the risky procedure, known as a top kill, stops the flow, BP would then inject cement into the well to seal it. The top kill has worked above ground but has never before been tried 5,000 feet beneath the sea. BP pegged its chance of success at 60 to 70 percent.

[Sean in New Orleans]

A Louisiana Congressman reveals on 05/27/2010 firsthand on Capitol Hill what we all are feeling and experiencing in SE Louisiana today and every day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jtr7xMiAsU

[QuantumX]

According to today's Wall Street Journal, the Gulf disaster is now officially larger than the Exxon Valdez disaster.

Miami Herald

Posted on Thu, May. 27, 2010
Current shift could spare Florida of oil
BY CURTIS MORGAN
cmorgan@MiamiHerald.com

A dramatic change in the Gulf of Mexico's loop current has trapped a slick of oil in a huge circular eddy that scientists said Thursday appears likely to push slowly west instead of pumping the oil south into the Florida Keys.
The shift, which oceanographers have been watching strengthen for a week, has at the least reduced the imminent environmental threat for Florida. Tar balls predicted to be floating in the Florida Straits by now instead might not arrive for weeks, months or -- depending on lots of variables -- maybe at all.

``I don't think there is an express lane here anymore,'' said Nick Shay, a physical oceanographer at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.

But he and other scientists caution they are still struggling to assess another unseen but potentially catastrophic threat -- plumes of submerged oil from the April 20 deep sea blowout that the federal government finally confirmed has become the nation's largest oil spill.

A team of scientists assembled by the federal government calculated the flow at two to five times the rate estimated by BP -- meaning from 18 to nearly 40 million gallons of crude have already spewed into the Gulf. That's roughly two to four times the 11 million gallons the Exxon Valdez dumped in Alaska in 1989.

There is mounting evidence a considerable amount remains below the surface.

How much is there and where it is going is both a major concern and mystery, said Frank Muller-Karger, biological oceanographer at the University of South Florida.

``We need to know what is down below,'' Muller-Karger said. ``We have no handle on that at all.''

A team from a USF research vessel reported Thursday that it had mapped a massive undersea plume of hydrocarbons, a strong indicator of oil -- stretching 22 miles north of the well, six miles wide and starting just below the surface down to 3,300 feet, with the heaviest concentrations at 1,300 feet.

It was the second deep-sea cloud discovered by researchers surveying the spill. Samantha Joye, a University of Georgia marine scientist leading a team that first discovered large underwater plumes two weeks ago, also reported Thursday on her shipboard blog that a second voyage had found a plume moving north at 2,500 to nearly 4,000 feet.

And Shay, who is partnering with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on reconnaissance flights, believes instruments he's dropping to record ocean temperature and salinity have pinpointed yet more plumes drifting from 160 to nearly 500 feet deep.

If preliminary readings are verified, impacts from the spill could rise exponentially -- potentially contaminating marine life from the deep sea floor to the shoreline. Submerged oil could wreak havoc on deep ocean creatures, from filter feeders like whales to plankton and larvae near the surface.

``The first ecological impact of this spill is the effect on coastal habitats, including marshes, beaches and estuaries. The second threat to nature would be the impact on the food webs,'' David Hollander, a chemical oceanographer who was lead investigator for the USF voyage, said in a release. ``That is what's at risk.''

Scientists believe temperature and salinity gradients could be trapping the oil as well as other possible factors, including the deep sea application of chemical dispersants, which break the oil into clouds of tiny droplets so diffused they might rise very slowly or even remain trapped by layers of warmer, heavier water overhead.

Shay speculated that plumes might take months to surface, if they surface at all.

``It doesn't surprise me we haven't seen any of these blobs pop to the surface in the loop current,'' he said.

Tracking and estimating the size of sub-sea plumes pose huge technical challenges. Unlike surface slicks, there is no satellite image to track, and Coast Guard studies as recent as last year call the technology to assess submerged oil inadequate.

The uncertainity of where the oil might be going adds to the concern. The USF surveys suggest oil is moving north up the Continental Shelf toward Louisiana. But Shay's readings came south of the spill site, raising concerns that unseen oil could still make its way toward the Florida coast.

For now, what oceanographers can clearly track is the change in the loop current, a warm water pipeline constantly reshaping itself. Two weeks ago, Muller-Karger said, it looked much like a horseshoe, digging far into the Northern Gulf near the spill.

But over the last two weeks, a counter-current on the outside of the loop began pushing east and may force the current into a circular pattern oceanographers call a ``warm core eddy.''

``In oceanography, that is not a new phenomenon,'' Muller-Karger said. ``The horseshoe closes up on itself and you have this big ring of water the size of Florida.''

That ring, now about 100 miles west of Tampa, typically will drift west -- bad news for Texas and Mexico but a good development for the Florida Keys. The remaining loop current typically flattens out, flowing east across the Yucatan Channel to the Florida Straits -- hundreds of miles south of the spill -- before moving up the East Coast.

It's possibly the formation can change, scientists say, and eddies can reattach but the process can take weeks or months, essentially confining the surface slick already drawn into the loop in the mid-Gulf for the near future.

Scientists say it is much harder to predict what might happen to submerged oil if it moves south. It's possible, for instance, that seasonal upwelling of cold water in the summer could push it out below the eddy and loop current onto the shallow Continental Shelf west of Florida, Muller-Karger said.

If that happened, winds and weather would take over.

``After it's on the shelf, it can affect anywhere along the coast,'' he said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© 2010 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/2...#ixzz0pDjR3RoQ

[Sean in New Orleans]

Interesting and the "talk of the town," in SE Louisiana today: http://campbellbrown.blogs.cnn.com/2...r-obama-visit/

[indyfan]

Well, I see Top Kill isn't working. I just shudder to think how bad this is going to get.

[socrates#1fan]

This may sound ignorant, but could this damage the seafood industry?

[QuantumX]

The Miami Herald
Posted on Sat, May. 29, 2010
Top Kill fails to plug oil gusher; now robots get their chance
BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com

BP on Saturday abandoned its three-day ``top kill'' attempt, declaring it a failure, and said it would next try another engineering strategy to stop the runaway oil and gas leak feeding the worst spill in U.S. history in the Gulf of Mexico.
Robots will saw off portions of Deepwater Horizon's damaged well, the risers, at a depth of 5,000 feet, said BP executive Doug Suttles.

Then, the plan is to weld on a ``lower marine riser package,'' a cap containment system known in the industry as a Top Hat. It could take four to seven days to accomplish.

People should be able to clearly watch while it happens on live video feeds, unlike the puzzling, failed top kill effort that showed only a murky discharge.

``This scares everybody -- the fact that we can't make this well stop flowing,'' Suttles conceded in a media briefing Saturday evening. Earlier, he had been more measured in tone, saying ``it's time to move on to the next option.''

Oil industry scientists consulted with government experts -- including Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar and Energy Department Secretary Steven Chu -- before concluding they had to scrap the top kill effort that Suttles had given a 60 to 70 percent chance of success.

Saturday, he refused to even offer odds on the new plan. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry, his on-scene partner in the containment and clean-up effort, reflected the frustration of the moment on the 40th day of the disaster:

Despite ``tremendous brain power and hard working people,'' she said, ``There is no silver bullet to stop this leak.''

Saturday night, President Barack Obama said the approach was ``not without risk,'' ``will be difficult and will take several days.''

He vowed to continue pursuing ``any and all responsible means of stopping this leak.''

``Every day that this leak continues is an assault on the people of the Gulf Coast region, their livelihoods, and the natural bounty that belongs to all of us,' the president said. ``It is as enraging as it is heartbreaking.''

TENT CITIES ON SHORE

Landry, the Coast Guard admiral, warned that the start of hurricane season could further complicate both the cleanup that has captured oil far from the shore and underwater work, should the rig and other seaborne effort need to be evacuated in advance of a storm.

At the same time, Suttles said that BP was going to move 2,200 cleanup workers ``closer to the front lines,'' by erecting tent cities in strategic sites along the shore.

BP executives had said since last week that they were readying backup plans for plugging the leak but were going to let play out the idea of infusing it with mud and then capping it with cement until they felt the effort could not succeed.

Now, Suttles warned, the new technique would not seal off the leak entirely and even if successful could continue to ooze -- comments that may have prompted Landry to warn that the industry will continue to use dispersants.

The toxic chemicals disperse the oil before it reaches the surface but are the focus of health concerns.

Suttles said he didn't anticipate that removing the risers would unleash an increasing amount of oil, which the government estimated last week was spewing at a rate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day.

RELIEF WELLS

But he said that only the completion of one of two relief wells -- he estimated in early August -- would stop the leak.

Progress on that front has been slow. Suttles reported that the machinery had to dig through some 6,000 feet of rock to reach the oil deposits.

Florida has so far been unscathed and Gov. Charlie Crist's office credited favorable currents and winds with continuing to keep the oil from the Sunshine State's shores at least until after Memorial Day.

``Currently, there have been no confirmed oil impacts to Florida's more than 1,260 miles of coastline and 825 miles of sandy beaches,'' said an 11 a.m. update from the state's Department of Environmental Protection.

Winds and currents should ``continue to keep the plume away from the Florida coast for at least the next 72 hours,'' the update said.

In Kenner, La., meantime, the Coast Guard issued an alert Saturday to the public ``to be on the lookout for debris from the Deepwater Horizon rig that might be floating in the Gulf or washing up on shore.''

IMPORTANT DEBRIS

The alert called the debris ``vital'' to investigators seeking a cause of the April 20 accident.

Their instructions: Leave it in place, take note of its location and call the Transocean contact center at 1-800-598-3195.

One focus of Florida's response is to keep up the mantra that the state's coasts are unmarred by the oil disaster.

So the state's oil spill response bulletin offered a reminder that the fisheries, wildlife and seafood off the Florida's coast in state waters are safe.

Gov. Charlie Crist has declared May 29-31 and June 5-6 to be ``free fishing weekends.''

Both residents and nonresidents in Florida can fish for saltwater species around the state without a license during that period. The idea is to help draw visitors to the state.


© 2010 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/2...#ixzz0pPQZwByh

[greenparrot]

Originally Posted by socrates#1fan

This may sound ignorant, but could this damage the seafood industry?

just a tad

seriously....many areas are off limits for fishing. While much of Louisiana's seafood industry is still OK....at the least...from a PR image this is not good. it remains to be seen how much this affects reproduction of the seafood stock and viability of the current stock for consumption in or near the affected areas. Many areas outside Louisiana are publicly stating they are not selling Louisiana seafood in their restaurants. No...it's not good.

[socrates#1fan]

Originally Posted by greenparrot

just a tad

seriously....many areas are off limits for fishing. While much of Louisiana's seafood industry is still OK....at the least...from a PR image this is not good. it remains to be seen how much this affects reproduction of the seafood stock and viability of the current stock for consumption in or near the affected areas. Many areas outside Louisiana are publicly stating they are not selling Louisiana seafood in their restaurants. No...it's not good.

I know up here many people are afraid that they won’t be able to eat as much seafood as before.
Up here however, a lack of seafood won’t destroy our economy.

[Sean in New Orleans]

Originally Posted by socrates#1fan

I know up here many people are afraid that they won’t be able to eat as much seafood as before.
Up here however, a lack of seafood won’t destroy our economy.

Thus far I've had no issues getting any fresh seafood I have wanted...I've had shrimp, raw oysters several times since the spill, and today, I even had boiled crabs. No problems.

[snookums]

Originally Posted by desertpunk

Obama deserves every bit of it. What leader allows the perp to call the shots? You give them 2 weeks to fix it and then you call the Army Corps of Engineers. Obama is a toy!

Exactly!! Obama is basically turning out to be 'Bush#3'. This huge oil spill is his Katrina. I am totally disgusted about all of this and the approval of offshore drilling --even if it is halted for now. I am disgusted about the on-going war in the Middle East, but that is another issue. I thought we were going for CLEAN and SAFE energy??? But instead we just have more bullshit like usual. I'm really gonna be pissed if this oil comes up the Gulf stream and up the Atlantic and does the same thing to our coastline I feel sorry for the Gulf coast area.
Fuck BP

[Sean in New Orleans]

I'm concerned...extremely. Now we're hearing what I've thought for some time...leak isn't going to be sealed until August. They just can't do it. They are simply going to try things that will slow the flow.
The local meteorologists have done an excellent explanation daily of where the oil is going. It's not about wind. It's about ocean currents. The currents have been plowing into SE Lousiana for the last 3 weeks...UNTIL 2 days ago. Now, as explained tonight, the currents have changed and they are now heading towards Alabama and the Emerald Coast of Florida, and if they stay this way, we are going to have oil in the high touristy beach areas in about a week. This is so depressing. Seriously. I love the beaches of Alabama and Florida and this could be hell. It isn't effecting New Orleans much at all. We're pissed, but, the GOM is approximately 100 miles from the city, however, it sure has effected the coast--especially around Grand Isle.