Disaster looms as oil slick reaches US coast

[bit_pattern]

5000 bls a day and no known way to cap it, this is a disaster of epic proportions. Just one more on a long list of reasons we need to transfer to a clean energy economy NOW

Disaster looms as oil slick reaches US coast
May 1, 2010 - 12:30PM

Oil from a giant Gulf of Mexico slick has begun washing onto Louisiana shores, threatening an environmental calamity, as US President Barack Obama called for a "thorough review" of the disaster.

With about 5000 barrels of oil a day spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from a ruptured well, the accident stemming from a sunken offshore rig may soon rival the Exxon Valdez disaster as the worst oil spill in US history.

US federal and state officials warned British Petroleum that its resources appeared insufficient for the task at hand as southeast winds blew the first oily strands of the slick directly onto coastal wetlands in Louisiana.
Oil and gas platforms off the coast of Louisiana.

Oil and gas platforms off the coast of Louisiana. Photo: AFP

"I do have concerns that BP's resources are not adequate," said Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. "I urge them to seek more help from the federal government and others," he said at a press briefing.

The oil's approach forced Louisiana to close shrimping grounds and oyster beds, as a massive effort involving state, federal and BP resources struggled to combat the slick.

Officials declined to specify the size of the spill, which measured at least 1500 square kilometres on Wednesday when the Coast Guard said oil was leaking at a rate of 5000 barrels a day, five times faster than previously thought.

Obama said some 1900 federal response personnel were in the area with 300 boats and aircraft.

"We've laid 217,000 feet of protected boom and there are more on the way," he said in Washington.

The president said he had asked Interior Secretary Ken Salazar "to conduct a thorough review of this incident and report back to me in 30 days" on precautions required to prevent a recurrence of such a disaster.

Salazar joined Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson in surveying the slick and containment efforts in Louisiana on Friday.

The White House also put new domestic offshore oil drilling on hold until the disaster has been fully investigated and dispatched teams to the Gulf Coast "to inspect all deep water rigs and platforms to address safety concerns."

The Coast Guard was coordinating vessels including skimmers, tug boats and robotic submarines, which are investigating the underwater damage.

Fresh water from the Mississippi River was also being diverted into wetlands in an attempt to push back some of the oil, Wilma Subra of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network told AFP.

"This is a very, very good measure," she said, as hundreds of kilometres of coastline came under threat in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, a region that amounts to more than 40 per cent of America's ecologically fragile wetlands.

British energy giant BP said meanwhile it is "taking full responsibility" for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and will pay for "legitimate claims" stemming from the disaster.

Company spokeswoman Sheila William told AFP the energy firm was ready to assume costs related to the cleanup and to reimburse damages.

At least two lawsuits have already been filed on behalf of fisherman and shrimpers, in what is expected to be a flood of litigation from the disaster.

The region is a prime spawning ground for fish, shrimp and crabs, home to oyster beds and a major stop for migratory birds.

"For birds, the timing could not be worse; they are breeding, nesting and especially vulnerable in many of the places where the oil could come ashore," said Melanie Driscoll of the Audubon Society, a nature conservancy group.

With the ruptured well no closer to being capped, the White House went into emergency response mode to try to avoid the kind of disaster that Hurricane Katrina brought to the region in 2005.

Any "notion that somehow we're playing catch-up is badly uninformed," Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters, adding that he did not consider Katrina a proper analogy, noting that 1800 people died as a result of the hurricane and subsequent relief mismanagement.

US officials called the event a disaster of "national significance" to better coordinate resources, as the governors of Louisiana and Florida declared states of emergency.

The Pentagon also authorised the deployment of the Louisiana National Guard, some 6000 troops, to respond to the crisis.

Many of those dependent on the region's vital fisheries and nature reserves had already given up hope due to strong onshore squalls forecast for several days to come.

Oil was still gushing unabated from near the Deepwater Horizon platform, which sank April 22 two days after a huge explosion.

BP has been operating 10 robotic submarines in a so-far unsuccessful bid to cap the ruptured well on the seabed some 1500 metres below the surface.

At the Gulf well's current estimated rate of leakage, it would take 54 days for the amount of spilled toxic crude to surpass the 11 million gallons of oil that poured from the grounded Exxon Valdez tanker in Alaska in 1989.

AFP

 

[Unbreakable]

Double whammy for New Orleans...

First it was Katrina and now they have the oil mess to deal with. Based on the projected maps their beaches should be covered with oil pretty soon. New Orleans hit by two of the greatest disasters in a span of 5 years. Whats next, a hurricane to carry all the oil inland... sure looks like it... should be hitting the shores today.....

State of Emergency Declared in 6 Coastal Florida Counties


On Friday, a state of emergency was declared by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist in six counties due to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal also declared a state of emergency on Thursday.

The oil spill "threatens the state of Florida with a major disaster," said Crist.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/30/louisiana.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1

White House Says No New Offshore Drilling Until Investigation is Complete[/B]
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Politics/...ze-obamas-offshore-drilling/story?id=10512504

How the fuck do they plan to stop this leak?

The longer they wait the harder it is......

Leaked Report: Government Fears Oil Well Could Become Unchecked Gusher - Releasing 2.1 Million Gallons a Day & Toxic Gas Clouds

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/04/deepwater_horizon_secret_memo.html

 

[bit_pattern]

Drill baby, drill! 8)

 

[bit_pattern]

Double whammy for New Orleans...

First it was Katrina and now they have the oil mess to deal with.

When's hurricane season due in the Gulf? Just imagine if the levees were breached again with this toxic sludge going over them

 

[marsmellow]

Environmentalists did this so the cap and trade bill would pass! It was an inside job.

 

[Unbreakable]

July - Nov i believe... but they got tornado warning over Alabama... idk if that affects them or not...

 

[bit_pattern]

The parallels between the coal industry and the oil industry when it comes to complete disregard for safety standards, with this and the coal mine disaster a few weeks back, are as disturbing as they are striking

]Big Oil Fought Off New Safety Rules Before Rig Explosion

By Marcus Baram
First Posted: 04-26-10 05:00 PM | Updated: 04-27-10 10:18 AM

As families mourn the 11 workers thrown overboard in the worst oil rig disaster in decades and as the resulting spill continues to spread through the Gulf of Mexico, new questions are being raised about the training of the drill operators and about the oil company's commitment to safety.
Deepwater Horizon, the giant technically-advanced rig which exploded on April 20 and sank two days later, is leaking an estimated 42,000 gallons per day through a pipe about 5,000 feet below the surface. The spill has spread across 1,800 square miles -- an area larger than Rhode Island -- according to satellite images, oozing its way toward the Louisiana coast and posing a threat to wildlife, including a sperm whale spotted in the oil sheen.

The massive $600 million rig, which holds the record for boring the deepest oil and gas well in the world -- at 35,050 feet - had passed three recent federal inspections, the most recent on April 1, since it moved to its current location in January. The cause of the explosion has not been determined.

Yet relatives of workers who are presumed dead claim that the oil behemoth BP and rig owner TransOcean violated "numerous statutes and regulations" issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard, according to a lawsuit filed by Natalie Roshto, whose husband Shane, a deck floor hand, was thrown overboard by the force of the explosion and whose body has not yet been located.

Both companies failed to provide a competent crew, failed to properly supervise its employees and failed to provide Rushto with a safe place to work, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The lawsuit also names oil-services giant Halliburton as a defendant, claiming that the company "prior to the explosion, was engaged in cementing operations of the well and well cap and, upon information and belief, improperly and negligently performed these duties, which was a cause of the explosion."

BP and TransOcean have also aggressively opposed new safety regulations proposed last year by a federal agency that oversees offshore drilling -- which were prompted by a study that found many accidents in the industry.

There were 41 deaths and 302 injuries out of 1,443 incidents from 2001 to 2007, according to the study conducted by the Minerals and Management Service of the Interior Department. In addition, the agency issued 150 reports over incidents of non-compliant production and drilling operations and determined there was "no discernible improvement by industry over the past 7 years."
As a result, the agency proposed taking a more proactive stance by requiring operators to have their safety program audited at least once every three years -- previously, the industry's self-managed safety program was voluntary for operators. The agency estimated that the proposed rule, which has yet to take effect, would cost operators about $4.59 million in startup costs and $8 million in annual recurring costs.

The industry has launched a coordinated campaign to attack those regulations, with over 100 letters objecting to the regulations -- in a September 14, 2009 letter to MMS, BP vice president for Gulf of Mexico production, Richard Morrison, wrote that "we are not supportive of the extensive, prescriptive regulations as proposed in this rule," arguing that the voluntary programs "have been and continue to be very successful," along with a list of very specific objections to the wording of the proposed regulations.

The next day, the American Petroleum Institute and the Offshore Operators Committee, in a joint letter to MMS, emphasized their preference for voluntary programs with "enough flexibility to suit the corporate culture of each company." Both trade groups also claimed that the industry's safety and environmental record has improved, citing MMS data to show that the number of lost workdays fell "from a 3.39 rate in 1996 to 0.64 in 2008, a reduction of over 80%."

In addition, TransOcean accountant George Frazer, without identifying his affiliation with the company, submitted a public comment on the proposed regulations stating, "I strongly disagree that a mandated program as proposed is needed," arguing that the proposed action "is a major paperwork-intensive, rulemaking that will significantly impact our business, both operationally and financially," calling it an "unnecessary burden."

"It does appear to be have been an orchestrated effort among most of major oil companies and drilling operators," says Defenders of Wildlife senior policy adviser Richard Charter.

"This event has called attention to fact that there is a long-standing safety problem in offshore industry," he says, noting that he gets phone calls from whistleblowers working on rigs who complain about the work conditions and the environmental damage caused by such operations."

Brian Beckom, a personal-injury attorney who has sued TransOcean several times on behalf of workers, says that "the industry preaches safety, that's what comes out of their corporate mouths, but I know for a fact that is not always the way things go," though he concedes that the company is better than most in the industry, especially some of the smaller "fly-by-night operators". With newer expensive rigs -- BP was paying $500,000 a day to use Deepwater Horizon -- Beckom says "there is tremendous pressure to put production first" and safety issues fall by the wayside.

Industry officials seem to be aware of safety concerns -- in the minutes of a July 2009 meeting of the Health Safety Environment Committee of the International Association of Drilling Contractors trade group, one section is titled, "Stuck on the Plateau." At the meeting, members discussed the difficulty of lowering the number of safety incidents, how to "rock over from the incident plateau" especially in light of a shrinking workforce.

In the current case, the spill's damage has been exacerbated by the depth of the drilling, causing the oil to spread across a wider area and impeding clean-up efforts. On Monday morning, response teams failed to seal off the wellhead with a remote vehicle about a mile under the surface of the water -- an effort akin to "putting a lid on a peanut jar from thousands of feet away," explains Charter.

That threatens to make the spill the most damaging since the Exxon Valdez accident off the coast of Alaska in 1989. It is already the worst oil rig disaster since a blowout on the Union Oil platform off the coast of California in 1969 -- the public outrage over that 11-day oil spill helped spawn the modern environmental movement.

BP and TransOcean did not return calls for comment. Halliburton could not be reached for comment on Monday night.

Go to http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/MM ... 0001-1.pdf to see the proposed rule from the Interior Department's MMS

 

[bit_pattern]

Environmentalists did this so the cap and trade bill would pass! It was an inside job.

Jesus wept! Do people have no fucking shame. When, oh, when will that fat fucking slug have a massive coronary and step the fuck off this mortal coil

 

[Unbreakable]

The amount of oil we get from the golf isn't even enough for one years use of oil....

btw how the fuck will they stop this for real? idk i am no engineer

 

[Desdenova]

Environmentalists did this so the cap and trade bill would pass! It was an inside job.

Oh for fuck's sake...

It was obviously the Illuminati!

 

[bit_pattern]

You know the Gulf is actually sinking because of all the oil and gas that's been pulled out of it? Yet another looming disaster being caused by our voracious appetite for energy

And in some coastal areas — most notably along the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana — the land is falling as well: Thanks to massive oil and gas extraction, the continental shelf is collapsing like a deflated balloon. “The rate of subsidence measured at Grand Isle, Louisiana,” says Rui Ponte, of the private consulting firm Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc, “is almost 10 millimeters per year, compared with two or three in other areas.” That’s especially problematic for a city like New Orleans, which already lies partly below sea level.

...

Subsidence from the extraction of oil or gas doesn't make the news.

There's an island in Los Angeles' harbor called "Terminal Island," which sits up close to the shore and runs for ten or 12 miles along it. It's flat and has accommodated a lot of industrial development over the years, including a Naval airbase, a Navy shipyard, and lots of oil wells, along with much wharfage and shipping related facilities, and at one time was home to Howard Hugh's monster airplane, the Spruce Goose.

This island has subsided 20 feet or more over the years, especially at its eastern end. That's where the Spruce Goose used to be and they had to build a 25 foot wall around it to prevent its flooding and have been forced to abandon a lot of that end as it has sunk into the ocean. This subsidence is quite localized but it is dramatic in its extent. $millions have been spent dealing with it. Oil extraction ended there more than 25 years ago when the wells went dry. This subsidence started when I was a kid during War II and continued over the next 40 or 50 years before stabilizing.

New Orleans and the delta has been sinking for many years, albeit at a slow rate. When oil is pumped from the ground, something usually gives, especially where the field is under water, the weight of which causes collapses in emptied spaces that lie beneath the ocean floor.

http://www.rational-skepticism.org/...ience-denial-scepticism-t5955-30.html#p166951

 

[marsmellow]

btw how the fuck will they stop this for real?

They could have stopped it easily if they had this.

The leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well lacked a remote-control shutoff switch that two other major oil producers, Norway and Brazil, require,

But nnnnoooo, that would have been government interference in the free market, and you know how bad that is. 8)

 

[Unbreakable]

So on a scale of (1 - 10 ) on the DOOM Scale... what would this be guys in your opinion?

 

[beamers]

Clusterfuck-ola

 

[Unbreakable]

So anyone live near that area... wtf does it smell like ? i bet it is not so nice...
wait till the heat comes...and it lays out in the sun... nasty shit i would guess... good luck ; (

hope it dont hit the waterways...

 

[capstone]

Looks as if Obama might be nationalizing the oil trade for the US soon. SWAT teams?

That was my theory. Either way, this is a fucking disgrace. Worse than the Exxon Valdez, at least there was only so much in the boat....

btw how the fuck will they stop this for real? idk i am no engineer

Well, the rig is fucked, so there's no salvaging it to cap off the gushing shit spill. This situation is just fucked all the way around, none of the "authorities" did anything right in the first place to minimalize the effects, be they BP, the Coast Guard, they all fucked up. Ballast and quarantine, Assholes!! But no, its to late to do anything effective there.

Unless the spill reduces with pressure, which isn't likely before it makes a few species extinct, they'll probably have to tow in a whole new oil rig(which takes a while) to drill a relief shaft, and then cap it off.

This is just fucked. The day the oil companies always knew would come, but always dreaded: when an offshore rig blew the fuck up.

And going green with the same exact incompetent companies to give them more power isn't any solution to this either. We need a total overhaul reintegration of all our energy systems, including the companies.

 

[bit_pattern]

Looks as if Obama might be nationalizing the oil trade for the US soon. SWAT teams?

That was my theory.

Yeah, you and Rush Limbaugh, you're in real good company there, mate 8(

 

[capstone]

^You are so fucked up its not worth commenting further on. I'm sorry you're an insane arrogant collectivist. Get some help with that.

Limbaugh thinks it was a false flag op, I do not. It was an accident, and an obscenely mismanaged one at that.

My simple point, that you like to focus on rather than having a civil discussion of my other points(fuckhead), is that the current political administration will probably use this for nationalization, since it seems to be so en vogue with our government anymore. At least, this would not surprise me if this is right around the corner for the next election.

In conclusion, fuck off.

 

[bit_pattern]

I shouldn't have deleted my original reply

 

[Mehm]

this seems like it will have some very serious psychological ramifications through out the US, especially in the south. It will most definitely forward the cause of alternative energy/sustainability, and will increase the distrust of the current corpogovernment structure. Could be a blessing in disguise. I wonder how this will effect world ocean ecology?