Louisiana oil spill

[Deleted]

Looks like this one might be really bad.

I might propose renaming it the Mississippi oil spill in a day or two. I guess Katrina wasn't enough for the coast.

[Deleted]

It is really,really bad. British Petroleum has been trying to downplay just how bad it really is for days now and has finally agreed that yes,it is bad.Thousands and thousands of barrels per day.
My husband's work takes him down in the direction of where it is expected to reach the shoreline by the weekend. He is not looking forward to seeing this...
Perhaps,now,they will reconsider drilling off the Florida Coast?
I can't bear listening to the news.
This is so depressing.

[Deleted]

I read that there were already some blobs on the beaches of the Chandeleur islands -- and I also read that the governor of Florida was rethinking the oil drilling deal.

30% of the seafood eaten in the United States comes precisely from that area, by the way.

[hwinpp]

BP will have to pay for the clean up just like after the Exxon Valdez catastrophe.

[Deleted]

We talked to some people last night that live a little south of here and they told us that there is already a really foul odor in the air. The local news people say that odor will be wafting toward the Metro area over the weekend.
The seafood industry is f'd. They wouldn't let any fisherman,shrimpers etc.out into any of the waters yesterday,even to the areas not yet contaminated.

[lagatta]

It is just emerging how utterly devastating this spill is. And so many more people live nearby than was the case with the Exxon Valdez. The poor fish. And poor fishermen.

[Deleted]

And poor wildlife in general,all manner of birds,waterfowl,alligators,nutria etc.,anything and everything that grows on or near the coast line will be devastated.The whole food chain wiped out.
The brown Pelican(ironically,the State bird,which was just taken off the endangered species list) will likely be threatened with extinction again.

[Deleted]

Here is the outward facing side of Ship Island off the Mississippi coast, right where the oil is going to arrive. I don't think these birds have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving.

[Deleted]

It looks like this spill could have a devastating affect on the wildlife, not to mention those who work and live in the area. Keep us updated on this, Kerouac.

[Deleted]

Jeez,I just spoke with our plumber who came to do some repairs and he has a contract with one of the large hotel chains here. He was called by the director,CEO,whomever,and told that one of the federal agencies (FEMA) has notified them that there is a possibility that the city water supply have to be be shut down. Ships traveling through the oil spill,then come into the river (where our water supply comes from) and the oil on the hulls on the ships could cause major contamination of the water supply.
I hope these people know what they are doing.
Sounding grimmer and grimmer.

[auntieannie]

Any environmental activists ready to clean the birds and any other animal that can be saved by takig the oil off their bodies?
Could they install giant net type things around the oilspill that would stop fish from swimming into it? I mean, I don't know if it is feasible?

[Deleted]

President Obama's top environmental people are here and hopefully will have the situation in hand.

[bixaorellana]

You know, this is not really an oil spill, such as the finite amount that would be in a ship, for instance. This is an oil well releasing however much oil is down there directly into the Gulf. As of eight hours ago, the US Coast Guard reported that the amount of oil is about five times greater than previously estimated.

NASA pic from eight hours ago:


The good(?) news is that this could have been far worse:
www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2971866

[cristina]

I ran across this article today, asking for volunteers, especially to minimize the destruction of wildlife. Its a nice compendium of volunteer needs put together by CNN.

I also wonder if or how BP will compensate those whose livelihoods depend upon the water? The fishing industry in the Gulf is a $2 billion/year economy of its own. Lots of small fishing outfits will be greatly hurt by this. I can't even begin to imagine how some of these fishermen feel right now. Besides angry.

[Deleted]

The French news was showing the whole marsh and bayou network of the mouth of the Mississippi, explaining that there is absolutely no way to save the wildlife in those places where there is no dry land to be able to reach them. If that whole area gets clogged with oil, there is no way to clean anything, land or beast.

And the French know quite a bit about cleaning birds after oil spills...

[bixaorellana]

This is absolutely horrible. It's impossible to read this without crying.

Up-to-the-minute report from the BBC: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8655683.stm

[bixaorellana]

Gulf oil leak from rig explosion puts more than 400 species in potential harm's way
By Bob Marshall, The Times-Picayune -- April 28, 2010, 10:27PM

...
Because of the influence of wind and tides pushing the oil northward, the area in harm's way reaches from the deep-water Gulf of Mexico across sandy beach fronts into the intricate maze of the nation's largest coastal marshes, ending only on the northernmost stretches of the freshwater wetlands dominated by cattails and cypress trees. Because of those varied environmental regimes, the area is one of the world's most productive fish and wildlife habitats.

The area under threat produces the largest total seafood landings in the lower 48 states, is a vital wintering or resting spot for more than 70 percent of the nation's waterfowl, is used by all 110 neo-tropical migratory songbirds, and produces 50 percent of the nation's wild shrimp crop, 35 percent of its blue claw crabs and 40 percent of its oysters. Researchers say 90 percent of all the marine species in the Gulf of Mexico depend on coastal estuaries at some point in their lives, and most of those estuaries are in Louisiana -- endangered by an oil spill that could last months.
...
This is an especially critical time for bird life because it is peak nesting and migration times for hundreds of species. For the next two weeks the Gulf of Mexico will be the O'Hare Airport of the neo-tropical bird world with Louisiana's coast a main runway. A study by LSU reported as many as 25 million neo-tropical birds can cross the Gulf each day during this two-week peak, many of them making their first rest stops on the Louisiana a coast and barrier islands.

Shorebirds and coastal species such as pelicans and cranes are nesting on beach fronts, barrier islands and marsh rookeries, many directly in the path of the approaching slick. Mottled ducks, the state's native duck species, is in the midst of its nesting season
...
Marine species in harms way include mammals such as whales and dolphins as well as turtles, all of which must surface to breath and may inhale oil. But tuna, wahoo, and billfish and other pedators will be feeding on smaller species that could be coated in the oil.

Inshore fisheries are also at a very critical al period in their life cycles. Shrimp have just begun to grow in the interior marshes, oysters have begun to reproduce, speckled trout have started their summer-long spawning season.

Oil that settles onto the bottom could be ingested by micro-organisms that are important to the larval and post-larval stages of shrimp, crabs and numerous commercially and important fish species, from trout and reds to drum, flounder and red snapper.

Full story with links: www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2010/04/more_than_400_species_in_poten.html

[spindrift]

Oh, this is a catastrophe for everyone and everything concerned. How on earth can the oil leak be stopped? What is the up to date news? I think I read somewhere that there is talk of deliberately setting the oil on fire. It's hard to imagine anything worse.

Here's what The Times has to say:

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7113267.ece

Apparently, no-one has any idea of when the leak might be stopped because no-one understands why it happened in the first place.

[fumobici]

Every asshole who ever chanted 'Drill baby drill' should have to report to the Gulf coast today for cleanup duty- Bill Maher

[fumobici]

We need to get off of our dependence on oil ASAP. Yeah it'll cost more, TFB.

[Deleted]

[spindrift]

I thought I saw in this morning's news that it has already reached the shore.

[Deleted]

BP has retained every environmental law firm in the tri state area to represent them. Gee,I wonder why...

[bixaorellana]

Have you all seen this? So strange, yet so logical. (If you don't feel like reading the whole thing, skip to the video at the bottom, really worth watching.)

U.S. Gulf residents ready "hairmats" to soak up oil
Thu May 6, 2010 5:02pm EDT - By Kelli Dugan

MOBILE, Ala., May 6 (Reuters) - While a vast containment operation dumps gallons of chemical dispersant and lays miles of plastic boom to attack a massive spreading oil slick, some U.S. Gulf Coast residents are turning to more unlikely remedies -- hair and pantyhose.

Shoreline communities threatened by the oil spewing from a ruptured Gulf of Mexico undersea well have started a grassroots campaign to fabricate homemade booms from these mundane materials to help sponge up the tarry mess before it sloshes ashore.

One such drive is under way in Alabama where hair stylist Phil McCory, inspired by TV images of a sea otter soaked with crude, first seized on the idea of using human hair to contain oil slicks after the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska's Prince William Sound.

The homegrown Alabama cleanup effort, aimed at producing as many makeshift oil-absorbing booms or "hairmats" as possible, is being led by Liz Ann Howard-Alvarez of Mobile and Amanda Bacon of Point Clear, who began receiving donations this week at a factory set up in a warehouse in downtown Mobile.

Scores of volunteers are being trained in the rudimentary manufacturing process, which involves using a PVC pipe to stuff a stocking leg full of tightly compacted hair.

The hose is then closed with a twist tie and bundled together with other hair-stuffed legs, before being covered with mesh and readied for deployment to trap and soak up oil.

"People in this area are latching on to this as a way to help because everybody's watching what's going on and feels helpless. This is our chance to help," said Bacon.

In Destin, a town known for its white sand beaches and pristine emerald waters in northwest Florida, Billie Golden said she and her husband had already signed up about 200 volunteers to aid in the assembly of the rudimentary oil containment booms.

"Hair acts as a sponge. When you put these booms in oil-polluted water, they absorb the oil and leave the water crystal clear," said Billie's husband Jeff Golden, vice president and co-founder of The Sunshine and Shores Foundation in Destin.

Billie Golden said hair was being donated from around the United States, adding that a friend had just called her to say a car-sized load of compacted hair had been dropped off in her driveway.

Hanesbrands (HBI.N), a big marketer of women's sheer hosiery in the United States, said on Thursday it was donating 50,000 pairs of pantyhose to the effort.

"Everybody along the Gulf Coast is doing this through different organizations," said Golden, who said she knew of at least 14 groups from Louisiana to Florida involved in the effort.

"Nobody cares about our beaches more than we do ... As locals we know what the tourism industry means to us and we need to do our part in protecting our beaches," she said.

Like her counterparts in Alabama, Golden said she was working with San Francisco-based Matter of Trust, a nonprofit that began producing "hairmats" in 2007, to collect donations from hair salons across the country.

McCory, reached at his home in Huntsville, Alabama, said he had lobbied unsuccessfully for years to convince coastal communities to stockpile the absorbent homemade mats for quick placement along their shores on the off chance an oil spill disaster occurred.

"I'm not an environmentalist or a tree hugger. I'm just an average guy," said McCory, who added the oil spill from a Gulf of Mexico well owned by BP Plc (BP.L) had not surprised him.

"The oil companies don't ever think something like this is going to happen, but that's like hopping on the Interstate and saying to yourself, 'Well, I've gone 3,000 miles and never had an accident, so it's not ever going to happen'" McCory said.

[Deleted]

Yes, I have been hearing all about this. Today, at the hairdresser when I went for a haircut,my friend said that they were all saving their vacuum bags full of hair to donate. So,I guess some of my locks are going to be part of the cause.
In the meantime,T.'s work driving has sent him down to Venice quite a bit this week,he has been transporting all manner of equipment,personnel down there to the staging area at the Coast Guard Station. He said it's crazy,crazy with people, equipment etc. and of course all kinds of media people from all over the world.
Everytime I hear there's progress,I then hear there's some kind of snafu...
I can't bring myself to look at the photos of the wildlife washing ashore....

[Deleted]

So, I see that the "cofferdam" didn't work...

[Deleted]

No,BP is foiled again. Failure due to "ice crystals"
(They sure are spending alot of time,effort and mega $$$ on damage control.)
I hope The New Yorker or some other excellent investigative journal does an expose on these guys...

[spaceneedle]

This story breaks my heart.

[Deleted]

An estimated 3.5 million gallons of oil have spilled since the explosion. At that pace, the spill would surpass the 11 million gallons spilled in the Exxon Valdez disaster by next month. BP is drilling a relief well that is considered a permanent fix, but that will take several weeks to complete.

Goodbye oysters, goodbye shrimp, goodbye beaches...

[Deleted]

The :-Xgood news just keeps on coming...

Hurricane could worsen US oil spill


The Gulf of Mexico oil spill could grow more disastrous if the looming hurricane season churns up towering black waves and blasts beaches and crowded cities with oil-soaked gusts, experts warn.

With just three weeks before the Atlantic hurricane season begins, odds are more than 40 per cent that a big storm could cross the giant spill gushing from a ruptured well on the seabed.

An April 20 blast sank the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling platform, killing 11 workers and leaving its uncontrolled well to gush millions of gallons of oil into the gulf waters.

Last month forecasters who issue a closely watched Colorado State University seasonal forecast said there was a 44 per cent chance a hurricane would enter the Gulf of Mexico in the next few months, far greater than the 30 per cent historic average.

"The high winds may distribute oil over a wide area," said National Hurricane Centre meteorologist Dennis Feltgen.

"Storm surges may carry oil inland, mixed with hurricane debris."

The movement of the oil would depend much on the track of the hurricane, said Mr Feltgen, who said a hurricane passing to the west of the slick could drive a large volume of oil to the fragile coastline.

But "high winds and seas will mix and weather the oil, which helps accelerate the biodegradation process," he said.

Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are studying how an oil spill interacts with a hurricane in a bid to determine whether it reliably weakens or strengthens the storm.

Since storms are fuelled in part by evaporation from the sea surface, if a sufficiently thick layer of oil weakens the process, the slick could actually help minimise the size of the storm, Mr Feltgen said.

- AFP