'Not for public': the oil spill may be getting much worse

[crikkett]

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[2012 Countdown]

Warning To Gulf Volunteers: Almost Every Cleanup Worker From The 1989 Exxon Valdez Disaster Is Now Dead



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Are you sure that you want to help clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? In a previous article we documented a number of the health dangers from this oil spill that many scientists are warning us of, and now it has been reported on CNN that the vast majority of those who worked to clean up the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska are now dead. Yes, you read that correctly. Almost all of them are dead.
In fact, the expert that CNN had on said that the life expectancy for those who worked to clean up the Exxon Valdez oil spill is only about 51 years. Considering the fact that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is now many times worse than the Exxon Valdez disaster, are you sure you want to volunteer to be on a cleanup crew down there? After all, the American Dream is not to make big bucks for a few months helping BP clean up their mess and then drop dead 20 or 30 years early.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/warning- ... z0uiDcbgCR

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And yes 82_28, I saw that story and had the same reaction. Truly unbelievable.

[82_28]

Ah. A life at long last, given back.

BP CEO Tony Hayward To RESIGN Before Tuesday: Reports

BP CEO Tony Hawyard, who's quickly become the public face of the Gulf Oil spill, will be stepping down within days, according to reports in the British press.

The move is expected to come in anticipation of the company's announcement of its first-half results on Tuesday. BP will announce that it has made approximately $10 billion this year, even while contending with the largest oil spill in history, the U.K.'s Telegraph reports. Here's Telegraph :

The chief executive of BP, Tony Hayward, is finalising the details of his imminent exit from BP this weekend as the oil giant prepares to make an announcement on the chief executive's future possibly within the next 48 hours.


After a weekend of detailed negotiations over Mr Hayward's severance package, it now appears almost certain that he will announce his departure ahead of BP's half year results on Tuesday.

The Wall Street Journal reports that BP is currently discussing Hayward's departure:

Under the plan being discussed, Mr. Hayward would not necessarily depart immediately, these people said, giving the company time to settle on a successor and devise and orderly transition. It is possible, however, that the board could move more quickly in tapping a new chief.

The U.K.'s Guardian also relays news of Hayward's imminent departure, and reports that he will be replaced by Bob Dudley. Dudley is managing the day-to-day Gulf Oil spill operations.

But in a statement issued to Dow Jones Newswires, a BP spokesman said: "Tony Hayward is the chief executive and has the confidence of the board and senior management."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/2 ... 58469.html

Good comment on the above link:

This was obvious. The plan was to keep him in place during the entire mess of the spill and coverup, make him look like the face of the whole spill and then get him to leave and hopefully take some of the bad image with him.

[Hugo Farnsworth]

I read up on the active ingredient in (In)Corexit 9527, used in the Prince William Sound Alaska spill and in the GoM. This is the same family of chemicals mentioned in the documentary Gasland. Not good for you. But this stuff is in household cleaners (read what the EPA did for the household cleaner manufacturers), so it seems obvious to me that when it's mixed with crude oil, a far more potent concoction is created.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2-Butoxyethanol

[Laodicean]

BP boss Hayward to get immediate £600,000 pension

Tony, you did one heck of a job...

[DoYouEverWonder]

BP boss Hayward to get immediate £600,000 pension

Tony, you did one heck of a job...

The only thing this asshole should be getting is a jail sentence.

[Alaya]

Little poor thing.
Maybe he can get his life back now.

Personally, I would like to tear him limb from limb - and feed him to the mountain lions and others wild critters we have lurking about around these parts.

[Pele'sDaughter]

I'd simply strip him of his fortune and have him perform GOM clean-up sans hazmat suit. That's pretty much what he's done to the people living on the Gulf coast.

[bks]

thanks, Hugo and 2012.

And 2012: best wishes down there as this disaster continues. I've been very grateful for your reportage.

[2012 Countdown]

Thanks bks, although 'reportage' is ambitious. Its like I am just giving my take being trapped in this never ending 'situation'. I think I've posted more in the last few months than the balance of my count.
But I think I know what you mean. It is always interesting to read a take on things as they appear to an ordinary person in the area. I would reciprocate and say thanks to all who are also have added valuable info and thoughts.

So today another well head unrelated to the main issue was run into by barges-

Wellhead hit, leaking oil and natural gas near Bayou St. Denis
JEFFERSON, La. – A tow boat slammed into an abandoned well north of a bay already hit by crude from the Gulf oil spill, sending a plume of oil and gas spewing into the air Tuesday.

The boat hit the wellhead near Mud Lake early in the day. No one was hurt.
The well is abandoned, the Coast Guard said, and a company called Environmental Safety and Health Inc. hired for the cleanup was on site by the afternoon.
Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man for the massive BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, said 6,000 feet ofprotective boom was placed around the site. The boom and skimming equipment were already nearby because of the Gulf spill.

Chief Petty Officer John Edwards said a strip of oil 50 yards wide and a mile long was spotted on the water near the well. The extent of the damage beyond that was unclear.
Lt. Brian Sattler said a helicopter was dispatched to survey the area, which is accessible only by boat.
Mud Lake is part of a network of bayous and lakes north of Barataria Bay, an ecologically sensitive coastal estuary where authorities have been fighting waves of oil from the spill that started in the Gulf when the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20.
Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts said he was confident the leak and spill would be stopped quickly.
"This likely can be contained today," he said in an e-mail Tuesday.
He was concerned, however, because the leak stopped water traffic leading into Barataria Bay. That could hamper efforts to send out oil-fighting equipment that was moved inland ahead of last week's Tropical Storm Bonnie.
"This leaves us vulnerable until we can reopen traffic and get resources back out," Roberts said.

http://www.wwltv.com/news/gulf-oil-spil ... 13024.html

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The article (nor local newscasts) did not say, but I would guess its all the traffic of barges and such, scurrying around and one got away.
Shit happens, it seems minor, but the collateral of the larger issue.


Also, I hope there is an article being written on this, or maybe video, but a local newscast had a story about a bag of stuff being found off the coast. The bag was found by a wildlife regulator looking for oiled birds.
The bag contained personal ID, military ID, $290, and other personal items. The wildlife guy tracked the guy down (I.D. was from midwest as I recall). It turns out the guy lost the bag off the coast of Guantanamo Bay!
He lost it on a scuba trip over 3 months ago. So the bag traveled over 1200 miles (and thats if it took a direct route). Its rather amazing I think. If the story shows up online, I will post.

[Sepka]

From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... id=topnews

Oil from the BP blowout is degrading rapidly in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and becoming increasingly difficult to find on the water surface, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday.

"The light crude oil is biodegrading quickly," NOAA director Jane Lubchenco said during the response team daily briefing. "Significant oil has been dispersed and broken down by bacteria."

Lubchenco said, however, that both the near- and long-term environmental effects of the release of several million barrels of oil remain serious and to some extent unpredictable.

"The sheer volume of oil that's out there has to mean there are some pretty significant impacts," she said. "What we have yet to determine is the full impact the oil will have not just on the shoreline, not just on wildlife, but beneath the surface."

But much of the oil appears to have been broken down into tiny, microscopic particles that are being consumed by bacteria. Little or none of the oil is on seafloor, she said, but is instead floating in the gulf waters.

Her conclusions come from the work of several NOAA boats now collecting water samples, as well as the analysis of academics brought in to help study the spill effects. The goal, she said, is to get a scientifically sound assessment of the overall environmental effects of the spill. "We're close to being able to put together a comprehensive picture of what is still out there -- how much has been removed by skimmers and burned off and how much remains," she said. "We're getting close to an answer."
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Lubchenco also said that five boats are now patrolling the gulf for sea turtles, scores of which have been found dead on shorelines. She said the rescue teams had caught 180 turtles that appeared to be stressed by oil, and that 170 are now in successful rehabilitation.

NOAA has been at the center of several disputes about what has been happening to the oil from the BP well. Early reports by university scientists of large plumes of oil moving below the water's surface were generally dismissed by NOAA, and the agency has also determined that the sea turtles and sea mammals that washed up onshore after the spill do not appear to have died from the oil. These conclusions have led some to charge NOAA is underestimating the spill's environmental damage.

A significantly more optimistic assessment of the environmental effects of the oil well blowout came Tuesday from Edward Owens, who worked with Exxon for four years on the Alaska-Valdez spill and who has been hired as a consultant to BP. Owens was quoted by AFP as saying the fragile Louisiana marshes would be close to pre-blowout condition within months and that the environmental impact on the gulf as a whole would be "quite small."

Lubchenco rejected the sanguine conclusions of a BP restoration consultant. "Anyone who classifies the results of the accident as anything less than catastrophic has not been watching," she said.

Federal officials do agree, however, with the assessment of BP chief executive Tony Hayward, who told investment analysts Tuesday, "it is increasingly difficult to find oil in sufficient quantities to skim or burn."

[DoYouEverWonder]

BP starting tests to seal well.

Live camera -

http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:31499.asx

BOP IS LEAKING

[DoYouEverWonder]

BP delays final 'static kill' test

Aug 2, 2010

NEW ORLEANS — BP engineers delayed until today a test that could lead to permanently plugging the well that has leaked millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

They had planned to start the test Monday night, slowly injecting oil, then mud, into a four-story blowout preventer sitting on the well. If successful, they can proceed with a "static kill," in which heavy mud is forced into the well.

They rescheduled it after discovering a small leak in a hydraulic control system.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-08-02-oil-spill_N.htm

[2012 Countdown]

I just wanted to give an update on things here. The environment is coming back -or seems to be so far.
New grass is growing through the dead grasses, and oil has stopped coming ashore. They are still cleaning birds, but that has slowed down substantially.
We are all wondering now what effect all of the subsurface oil is having. The hardest hit will be the oystermen. Already huge areas are destroyed if not because of the sinking oil, then because fresh water was allowed to flow into areas to flush out contamination. The fresh water kills oysters. Its going to take about 3 years for that to come back. Fishing areas are reopening, and the seafood is being heavily tested.

[82_28]

Good to hear 2012!

Here is a pretty decent graphical animation I just saw to put this static kill into perspective:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/02/gulf.o ... tml?hpt=T1