Original Op is in the spoiler. It contains useful links for volunteer info and the like.
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NY Times-
Size of Spill in Gulf of Mexico Is Larger Than Thought
So yeah, this just keeps getting worse and worse.
Here are some highlights from the article.
NEW ORLEANS — Government officials said late Wednesday night that oil might be leaking from a well in the Gulf of Mexico at a rate five times that suggested by initial estimates.
An explosion and fire on a drilling rig on April 20 left 11 workers missing and presumed dead. The rig sank two days later about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast.
“The leaks on the sea floor are being visually gauged from the video feed” from the remote vehicles that have been surveying the riser, said Doug Helton, a fisheries biologist who coordinates oil spill responses for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in an e-mail message Wednesday night. “That takes a practiced eye. Like being able to look at a garden hose and judge how many gallons a minute are being discharged. The surface approach is to measure the area of the slick, the percent cover, and then estimate the thickness based on some rough color codes.”
Wind patterns may push the spill into the coast of Louisiana as soon as Friday night, officials said, prompting consideration of more urgent measures to protect coastal wildlife. Among them were using cannons to scare off birds and employing local shrimpers’ boats as makeshift oil skimmers in the shallows.
On Wednesday evening, cleanup crews began conducting what is called an in-situ burn, a process that consists of corralling concentrated parts of the spill in a 500-foot-long fireproof boom, moving it to another location and burning it. It has been tested effectively on other spills, but weather and ecological concerns can complicate the procedure.
And here's the kicker.
Walter Chapman, director of the Energy and Environmental Systems Institute at Rice University, said a 50 percent burn-off for oil within the booms would be considered a success. Admiral Landry called the burn “one tool in a tool kit” to tackle the spill. Other tactics include: using remote-controlled vehicles to shut off the well at its source on the sea floor, an operation that has so far been unsuccessful; dropping domes over the leaks at the sea floor and routing the oil to the surface to be collected, an operation untested at such depths that would take at least two to four more weeks; and drilling relief wells to stop up the gushing cavity with concrete, mud or other heavy liquid, a solution that is months away.
The array of strategies underscores the unusual nature of the leak. Pipelines have ruptured and tankers have leaked, but a well 5,000 feet below the water’s surface poses new challenges, officials said.
This is pretty horrible stuff. The coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle are under threat. The Gulf Coast fishing industry is going to get hit hard by this, and if it hits the shore so is the tourist industry that is vital to the Gulf Coast. As a resident of the Gulf Coast, I'm terrified. It just keeps hitting me in waves. All I can think about is that the lives everyone has built here are in jeopardy. The economic fallout is going to hit us on a national level most likely.
This image in the spoiler was captured on the 27th.
I'm having a hard time remembering the last time I was this scared. This is bad, and I fear it could become a disaster of unprecedented proportions.
UPDATES
New Estimate! Possibly 25,000 Barrels a Day!Gulf oil spill swiftly balloons, could move east
Here's a report on NOAA's latest worst case scenario.
Sand is an integral part of the formations that hold oil under the Gulf. That sand, carried in the oil as it shoots through the piping, is blamed for the ongoing erosion described by BP.
"The pipe could disintegrate. You've got sand getting into the pipe, it's eroding the pipe all the time, like a sandblaster," said Ron Gouget, a former oil spill response coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"When the oil is removed normally, it comes out at a controlled rate. You can still have abrasive particles in that. Well, now, at this well, its coming out at fairly high velocity," Gouget continued. "Any erosive grains are abrading the inside of the pipe and all the steel that comes in contact with the liquid. It's essentially sanding away the pipe."
Gouget said the loss of a wellhead is totally unprecedented.
"How bad it could get from that, you will have a tremendous volume of oil that is going to be offgassing on the coast. Depending on how much wind is there, and how those gases build up, that's a significant health concern," he said.
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Mobile Press Register
NOAA Website Devoted to Deepwater Horizon Incident. This reads like a pretty sanitized version of what's going on in the Gulf but there are lots of maps, documents and forecasts in handy pdf format.
Image captured on May 1st.
Why is Jeff Childs a massive douchebag, you ask? Read the next two links;
BP official: 'We've significantly cut the flow' of oil from damaged rigBP says oil flow from Deepwater Horizon remains unchanged, refuting executive
http://twitter.com/Oil_Spill_2010http://twitter.com/lisapjackson
These were both linked by a site linked on the NOAA site, so I'm guessing the non-verified one is legit.
edit: Also useful:
http://www.incidentnews.gov/incident/8220
So here we are, it's been a month. BP is currently trying their Top Kill, a process that involves sealing the leaks with Drilling Mud pumped into the wellhead at high pressure, then capping this seal with cement and fillers (in this case rubbery garbage). We should know one way or another how effective this process is soon enough. At this moment, every thing looks oily and icy on the
BP DisasterBot Spillcam.
Another big concern is the health of the people working this industrial catastrophe. Reports have been coming out that people haven't been equipped with the proper respiration gear, which is pretty unbelievable. The toxicity of this kind of accident is pretty high, the air around the spill is basically saturated with hydrocarbon solvents and gases. Stuff like benzene, which is very not good for you. The health fall out we will see from just this fact alone is going to be pretty bad.
Now for some numbers. BP has claimed that the leak has been putting around 5,000 bbl/day into the Gulf. No one has really believed this number but BP has clung to it through thick and thin. According to
this article on Bloomberg.com, it's more likely 12,000 to 19,000 bbl/day. If that is accurate then we roughly have twice the oil of the Exxon-Valdez now in the Gulf of Mexico. That's pretty bad news. These estimates are changing all the time (mainly growing), so I wouldn't be surprised to hear that for whatever reason there is even more oil than that in the Gulf.
Finally, I'll wrap this up with a link to the NOAA's website dedicated to the response. Get your factsheets and spill projections
here.
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The coast guard was there right from the start. He did dispatch the proper cabinet officials pretty quick. However the spill ballooned beyond anyone's control pretty damn quick. I lay a significant part of the blame at BP's feet as it seems like they tried downplay the severity of the spill for a while. But I think the govt has let them twist in the wind too long.
Not permanently, the real challenge now is to make sure that the mud they shot in holds long enough so they can cement over it, sealing it for good.
Here's hoping.
there is absolutely nothing that they can say any longer that I trust, they lie even when it doesn't afford them any significant advantage, they just lie and lie and lie and misrepresent things and talk down to us and bullshit incessantly
everything BP says should just automatically be put in scare quotes and left there
don't confuse my reticence to celebrate with skepticism; I don't doubt that they did something which allows them to say "we've stopped the flow of oil" without creating any kind of criminal liability or whatever
but that's the only barometer BP uses to say anything; not whether it's true or not, but whether they can get away with it
EDIT:
48 hours after 24 hours after 24 hours after 24 hours
"everything is going according to plan"
JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP, BP, YOU AND YOUR COAST GUARD PAWNS
BTW, BP never said that they 'stopped the flow of oil' without qualifications. Generally, they say that they stopped the flow of oil while they were pumping mud in the whole. As soon as they stop, it returns. The issue is that they need the mud to clog it, not just overcome the oil pressure.
Yeah. I dislike the fact that government response to BP has been fairly mild.
It will take a few more beaches being destroyed or another month without work for Gulfers before people start realizing that, as critical as it is to stop the leak, it's honestly a red herring if we aren't also investigating how to heal all of the harm already done as best we can.
Edit: Are there any projections that show the leak expanding much beyond Louisiana if it continues, or will it continue to deposit there?
Forcing them to drill only 1 additional relief well is not enough. People at the oil drum are saying that they need at least 4.
I would also like him to say to BP something along the lines of "look, either stop trying to cover this up more by preventing people from going on spill sites or I will seriously make sure you get fucked in the ass" or something equally harsh. He can at least order the coast guard to prevent that shit from happening.
Well, to be fair, Florida's the only one with beaches actually worth visiting.
Granted, the MS and AL shores didn't kill you when you visited them, but that's not water you really want to swim in.
I don't understand why people are saying Obama hasn't done much.
It's an oil spill 5,000 feet underwater. Everything that can be done is being done already. I think maybe people expect him to don a wetsuit and stop the leak with his finger or something =/
No, he's giving BP too much autonomy in handling the spill, and letting them get away with things like cover-up attempts and trying to save money by drilling fewer relief wells.
The need to draw equivalence. Ordering the coast guard to lay boom has been done, not that much else to do that is as time-critical.
Gulf Shores in Alabama (where I grew up) is basically just like Florida and its Gulf waters.
Same with Orange Beach, Alabama.
almost everyone is aware of (the quotation) "separation of church and state" but the separation of state and business is far more integral to our country's day-to-day operations and, honestly, much more dangerous in the modern world than the former
addressing the first part, who else can handle it? I don't think there is a federal dept of handling oil spills 5k under water. (not trying to be snarky, I just don't think anyone but BP is really capable of handling it) (unfortunately)
I am not saying he should get the government to deal with plugging the leak. I am saying he should not let BP try to cover up the spill even more by not allowing reporters to the spill sites and bullshit like that.
Someone asked a Coast Guard official (don't remember who) why the Coast Guard was siding with BP on that matter, and they said "It's BP's oil". Are you fucking kidding me.
Especially after the Pearl Act. They should at least be getting embedded on Coast Guard vessels.
edit: And allowed to document the sites it's made landfall. And BP should foot the bill for any services required to protect the reporters. Guides, HazMat suits, whatever.
Look all I know is that if I took a junk shot to my oil pipe it'd stop my flow.
Edit: Who cares about a bunch of inbred hicks, anyway, mirite?
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But more to the point, the government failed massively before the spill.
Anne Rice likes Louisiana.
That is all that needs to be said about Louisiana.
ugghh.
now, i know she was just joking around, and i might be an overly emotional female right now, but grrr.
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Really they have failed in that they're letting BP have control of the PR, the actual mechanics of the leak the government is more or less powerless to stop
I mostly consider this a failure of the media.
And on a serious note, I really don't think this top kill is going to work. Something about pumping in that mud at a lower PSI than the oil just seems... outside of science to me. Here's hoping they figure out how to fix it sometime and actually get started cleaning up their gigantic mess.
I don't necessarily think this is a problem with Obama, though (not saying you are, but just that one can easily conflate government = the administration currently in chargE), unless there's evidence that during his administration up to the start of the spill that he let it get worse by somehow undermining the MMS, etc (I doubt this is the case). Rather, I think there's just a general systemic government failure (MMS is a prime component of this) here that's part of the departmental bureaucratic organization level which is outside any administrative control.
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Well...
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
Well, no. The Bush Interior's utter corruption and subserviance to the oil industry is the primary fault there. That said, Salazar was not the best pick to clean it up and he didn't do a great job doing so.
That's actually pretty neat. Need more Hondas.
Also, the live feed of the mess is very... brown today. They need to learn how to park their little underwater cameras better... or everything is just horribly messy today.
BMW was running commercials a year or two back about their hydrogen cell car that was "ready for when the world is ready for it" or something.
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
What the fuck? The media has been running nonstop since he got elected about how we need less meddlesome government, less inept government trying to run our lives, less government getting into people's private businesses. Private business fucks up and suddenly it's Obama's fault?
I'm not even that hardcore pro-Obama but it's just obnoxious to me that we can suddenly be criticizing the government for not becoming sufficiently involved cleaning up someone else's mess, especially when the someone else is doing their best to be unhelpful throughout all this.
Really? BP fucks up and then BP pulls shit like this when the government comes in to help and somehow this results in Obama apologizing?
Lone Gunmen did it. Or rather, discovered it.
/Obscure?
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Well, this spill was never going to get plugged and cleaned up quickly. The GOP knows this and the problem is that if Obama had tried to step in and do too much the GOP could point and scream about government interference and how things would have gotten fixed so much faster if the government just stepped back and let the business handle it.