Spill, Baby, Spill!

[Secretariat]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100502/...f_oil_spill_39

"Crews have had little success stemming the flow from the ruptured well on the sea floor off Louisiana or removing oil from the surface by skimming it, burning it or dispersing it with chemicals. Adding to the gloomy outlook were warnings from experts that an uncontrolled gusher could create a nightmare scenario if the Gulf Stream current carries it toward the Atlantic.

Long tendrils of oil sheen made their way into South Pass, a major channel through the salt marshes of Louisiana's southeastern bootheel.

"That is the very first sign of oil I've heard of inside South Pass," said Venice charter boat captain Bob Kenney, shaking his head. "It's crushing, man, it's crushing.""

.................

"The Coast Guard conceded Saturday that it's nearly impossible to know how much oil has gushed since the blast, after saying earlier it was at least 1.6 million gallons — equivalent to about 2 1/2 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Even at that rate, the spill should eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident as the worst U.S. oil disaster in history in a matter of weeks. But a growing number of experts warned that the situation may already be much worse.

The oil slick over the water's surface appeared to triple in size over the past two days, which could indicate an increase in the rate that oil is spewing from the well, according to one analysis of images collected from satellites and reviewed by the University of Miami. While it's hard to judge the volume of oil by satellite because of depth, images do indicates growth, experts said.

"The spill and the spreading is getting so much faster and expanding much quicker than they estimated," said Hans Graber, executive director of the university's Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing. "Clearly, in the last couple of days, there was a big change in the size."

Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer for exploration and production, said it was impossible to know just how much oil was gushing from the well, but company and federal officials were preparing for the worst-case scenario.

In an exploration plan and environmental impact analysis filed with the federal government in February 2009, BP said it had the capability to handle a "worst-case scenario" at the site, which the document described as a leak of 162,000 barrels per day from an uncontrolled blowout — 6.8 million gallons each day.

Oil industry experts and officials are reluctant to describe what, exactly, a worst-case scenario would look like — but if the oil gets into the Gulf Stream and carries it to the beaches of Florida, it stands to be an environmental and economic disaster of epic proportions.

The well is at the end of one branch of the Gulf Stream, the warm-water current that flows from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Atlantic. Several experts said that if the oil enters the stream, it would flow around the southern tip of Florida and up the eastern seaboard.

"It will be on the East Coast of Florida in almost no time," Graber said. "I don't think we can prevent that. It's more of a question of when rather than if." "
.....




It won't be long until this hits almost the entire southern coastal border of Mississippi and Alabama looking at the timeline on the link. Florida's beaches are going to be impacted as well and the Lousiana wetlands. The shrimp industry down there is devastated by this.

What is frightening is the amount of other BP rigs down there this can happen to. It's another example of bypassing any kind of regulation on these rigs. The GOP motto, "Let the industry police themselves", and voila, we've got something worse than the Exxon Valdez in a "matter of weeks" AND it still has not been sealed. Imagine now, thousands more of these rigs with little or no oversight and the potential for more of these.

Who is going to pay for this? Spill, baby spill.

[chrisl]

I would like to see how the fishing industry will be compensated for there losses. My wifes family was destroyed by the Exxon Valdez spill. Courts gave the plaintiffs after 20 years of court battles, a settlement of 30,000. Pennies of what was lost. You can still see the impact of this spill today, even though Exxon states the coast line is better now that it was before the spill.

[Robert Goren]

They just can't stop the flow from the broken pipe down near the gulf bottom. From I have heard from numerous news sources that they are not likely to get it stopped any time soon. That $1.6 billion will just a drop in the bucket on what this thing is going to cost. They have no idea on the cause of it (or if BP does, they ain't talking) I really doubt that even as big as BP is that they have any near the resources to pay for this. The American taxpayer will be on the hook for a lot of it. On a side note, if you like shrimp now might be a good time to fill the freezer. JMO

[johnhannibalsmith]

Originally Posted by Secretariat

... It's another example of bypassing any kind of regulation on these rigs. The GOP motto, "Let the industry police themselves", and voila, we've got something worse than the Exxon Valdez in a "matter of weeks" AND it still has not been sealed. Imagine now, thousands more of these rigs with little or no oversight and the potential for more of these...

When was the Exxon Valdez disaster? Are you telling me that since that time with all of the administrative shuffles since then that the lack of regulations or oversight or whatever you are clamoring for with amazing hindsight hangs specifically on one political party?

Maybe I can believe you - but I'd like to see some evidence of the DEM aggressiveness to solve this problem over the last two decades only to be effectively rebuked by the GOP in order to buy into this odd brush of singular accountability you offer up here.

[Tom]

You are doing a hell of a job, there, BARRY.

Welcome to your Katrina.
Oil spewing out, under a democratic regieme, car bombs in NYC, and where is the CNC?

Telling jokes at a party.

[Robert Goren]

This is BP's show so far. They are running everything from the attempts to plug the pipe to the attempts to contain the oil slick. Nobody until yesterday was saying that the Feds should this over. Even today Jindal was saying that BP should be in charge of the "on the sea operations". Most people are saying that the government should only be in charge of the clean up. Quite frankly I am not sure there is anyone in the government who knows about this to be put in charge. The amazing thing how quiet the "drill, baby, drill" crowd has gotten. A month ago they were saying that there was no way something like this could happen. Where are they now, looking for a way to Obama. It would nice if one of those pro drilling people would step up and say " We were wrong".JMO

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Robert Goren

This is BP's show so far. They are running everything from the attempts to plug the pipe to the attempts to contain the oil slick. Nobody until yesterday was saying that the Feds should this over. Even today Jindal was saying that BP should be in charge of the "on the sea operations". Most people are saying that the government should only be in charge of the clean up. Quite frankly I am not sure there is anyone in the government who knows about this to be put in charge. The amazing thing how quiet the "drill, baby, drill" crowd has gotten. A month ago they were saying that there was no way something like this could happen. Where are they now, looking for a way to Obama. It would nice if one of those pro drilling people would step up and say " We were wrong".JMO

Yo, Robert, come here I have something to tell you -- but only if you promise to keep it a secret. Promise? Okay, good. Here it is: When BO made his announcement (I believe it was his initial one) regarding his decision to allow drilling, he himself said at the time that generally speaking it was pretty unlikely that any accidents would occur on those rigs.

Boxcar
P.S. I'm still for drilling. The black gold is what keeps the entire world's economy spinning smoothly.

Boxcar

[Robert Goren]

I am still for drilling too, But I want to know what cause this and a better plan for handling spills. I also want to go full speed ahead with plans to replace our need for oil. We can never be free of the Arabs as long as the use of oil is at anything close to the current levels. We don't have enough and a lot of we have is so expensive to get that it is cheaper to buy from the Arabs. But there is still bunch of people out there who said that this could not possibly happen. There is a difference between "unlikely" and "no way". JMO

[Lefty]

We have Oil, we have Coal and we have Gas. All we need to do is get it.

[Robert Goren]

Originally Posted by Lefty

We have Oil, we have Coal and we have Gas. All we need to do is get it.

Well you are 2/3rds right. We have Coal and Gas. We have some oil, but not nearly enough. Coal has some problems with mining. Remember the cave-in a month ago. We have a lot of wind. We can do some more nuclear. The French use a lot of it. We need to moving away from oil as quickly as possible. What I don't understand is why anything is heated with oil anymore when we have so much Natural Gas and in my part of the country it has been the main heat source for as long as I have been alive.

[prospector]

we should have done the shale oil in wyoming years ago..no tunas there..

[JustRalph]

If this was Bush they would be calling it Katrina II

But then again, what is the race of those that are being hurt by this one?

I am waiting for Some Milquetoast White Singer to go on stage somewhere and declare "Barack Obama hates White People" or maybe he hates fish?

[Tom]

Obama has an oil spill machine.

[Robert Goren]

Originally Posted by JustRalph

If this was Bush they would be calling it Katrina II

You are right about that. Bush would be getting it good.

[ceejay]

Politically, this blowout and subsequent leak I think will be a game changer. And, are no winners among stakeholders. The environment & fisheries lose, the American consumers lose (more dependence on foreign oil), the oil companies lose (by higher operational costs in the future).