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

[SanDiegoBuffGuy]

The major plant kills, yes, then the plants dry out, then what? Thousands of square miles covered (blotched?) with a toxic flammable mess? How far inland? Over what territory?

One lightning strike, one spark, and then what? The South sees something like the return of Sherman?

[justdrew]

maybe the man has finally found a way to lick the kudzu. no but seriously... it'll be a firestorm.

Can people smell it and over what area I wonder?

google search -> smell gulf oil spill

BP says insertion tube not working as well as before
BP spokesman John Curry told The Associated Press on Sunday that a mile-long tube inserted into the leaking well siphoned some 57,120 gallons of oil within the past 24 hours, a sharp drop from the 92,400 gallons of oil a day that the device was sucking up on Friday. However, the company has said the amount of oil siphoned will vary widely from day to day.

nearly useless.

Here's the EPA's air quality monitoring site, note... most everyhting on here seems to be two weeks old or older.
http://www.epa.gov/bpspill/air.html

[2012 Countdown]

fyi- I'm 2 min. from downtown N.O. and no smell yet. The wind is blowing from the southwest though.
I have to go southward for work tomorrow. I'm sure I'll smell it then.

If that top kill doesn't work, this could be game over.
Think about all the migratory birds that stop here too.

Louisiana, The "Sportsman's Paradise" Lost.

We should have started on these sand barriers weeks ago. The Corps is at fault. It was going to happen anyway. People weren't going to just sit around and let this shit come in. THIS was something Obama could have gotten. Told the Corps to allow it. Now its another PR disaster for him and Jindal is seen the hero. Its almost too late, but maybe the hemorrhaging will stop. Its life or death time now. Gotta do something.

[Nordic]

fyi- I'm 2 min. from downtown N.O. and no smell yet. The wind is blowing from the southwest though.
I have to go southward for work tomorrow. I'm sure I'll smell it then.

If that top kill doesn't work, this could be game over.
Think about all the migratory birds that stop here too.

Louisiana, The "Sportsman's Paradise" Lost.

We should have started on these sand barriers weeks ago. The Corps is at fault. It was going to happen anyway. People weren't going to just sit around and let this shit come in. THIS was something Obama could have gotten. Told the Corps to allow it. Now its another PR disaster for him and Jindal is seen the hero. Its almost too late, but maybe the hemorrhaging will stop. Its life or death time now. Gotta do something.

The lack of action from Obama is astounding.

I mean, even for Obama.

It's like he turned into a libertarian.

[justdrew]

Later this week, BP will perform a "top kill" on the oil well. The process requires injecting 40 barrels a minute of "kill mud" into the broken well and then sealing it with cement. The material will be pumped at high pressure down the choke and kill lines of the blowout preventer, which failed to seal the well after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20. Choke and kill lines are used to control the amount and pressure of drilling mud in the wellbore, so that surges of oil and natural gas can be kept under control.

BP had initially planned to precede the top kill with a "junk shot," pumping debris such as golf balls and shredded tires into the blowout preventer to clog the leak, before adding the mud. But BP decided not to do the junk shot under concerns that it might cause more damage. BP spokesman Mark Proegler said the junk shot carried certain risks, specifically that the debris could shoot through the well causing more oil to leak.

IF the kill and choke valves are still functional, why the hell was this not the first choice of action weeks ago?

anyone else remember this well being describes as an exploratory well when this first started?

On April 20, 2010, while working on an exploratory well approximately 50 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana, the semi-submersible drilling rig Deepwater Horizon experienced an explosion and fire. The damaged platform capsized and sank on April 22, 2010.

this was just an exploratory well?

Term: Exploratory Well
Definition:
An Exploratory Well is a well drilled for the purpose of discovering new reserves in unproven areas. They are used to extract geological or geophysical information about an area with a view to exploiting untapped reserves.

[SanDiegoBuffGuy]

They're still calling it a "leak"?

[2012 Countdown]

May 24, 2010
Melanie Driscoll: We're braced for a heavy impact and the food-chain collapsing
It's really hit hard in the past couple of days. It seemed, initially, that it was little fingers of oil that would come in then get washed out again by the tide. Now it's coming in with thick waves. Heavy oil is washing up.

Behind it, more oil is spewing from the Gulf and that means there's a mass of oil that will continue to break up on to those shores and beaches.

We've been working there for 20-hour days. We're trying to work on this at a strategic level with a long-term conservation plan about how we maintain and protect habitats into the future as, hopefully, the leaking oil gets capped.

But we're bracing for a really heavy impact on the habitat and the birds. The area is incredibly rich. It's both rich in diversity but also in abundance. There are vast marshes and miles and miles of beaches and, at this time of the year, birds are just packed into those areas for breeding. The impact on the migrant birds will be very heavy, [especially on] the breeding terns and the breeding marsh birds. We're mobilising volunteers to help with individual birds, planning and documenting the effects of the spill.

While there's this large mass of oil that we can see on the surface, there are untold volumes of oil under the surface. We could see the food chain collapsing, which could cause as much damage to the birds as the oil. We could see the young born early being fed with tainted fish or abandoned because the parents die and don't come back.

What we're seeing now is very distressing. We've been working to save some of these habitats for years. I spoke to some of my co-workers - and we've been dealing with this for a month - and I have never heard them sound so depressed. They told me that they went to a restaurant on Grand Isle and the manager there started to cry. After all, it's her home.

Melanie Driscoll is the director of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society's Louisiana programme

http://www.independent.co.uk/environmen ... 81134.html

[anothershamus]

The major plant kills, yes, then the plants dry out, then what? Thousands of square miles covered (blotched?) with a toxic flammable mess? How far inland? Over what territory?

One lightning strike, one spark, and then what? The South sees something like the return of Sherman?

If the concentrations get high enough there could be a fuel air explosion! Or several!


wiki:

Benzene, or benzol, is an organic chemical compound with the molecular formula C6H6. It is sometimes abbreviated Ph–H. Benzene is a colorless and highly flammable liquid with a sweet smell and a relatively high melting point. Because it is a known carcinogen, its use as an additive in gasoline is now limited, but it is an important industrial solvent and precursor in the production of drugs, plastics, synthetic rubber, and dyes. Benzene is a natural constituent of crude oil, and may be synthesized from other compounds present in petroleum. Benzene is an aromatic hydrocarbon and the second [n]-annulene ([6]-annulene), a cyclic hydrocarbon with a continuous pi bond. It is also related to the functional group arene which is a generalized structure of benzene.

Benzene the killer! Plans in place to evacuate The Gulf Population

—–

gazbom.blogspot.com - Sat 22 May ‘10

Plans to evacuate the Gulf are BEGINING TO FLY AROUND THE NET.

Benzene, incredible amounts of Benzene are being released into the atmosphere and is a clear and present danger not only for the old and people with respiratory problems but the general Gulf population as a whole.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has determined that benzene is a human carcinogen, and can cause various forms of cancer from prolonged exposure.Exposed to high levels of benzene show association with leukemia cancer; including acute myelogenous leukemia, acute lymphocytic leukemia, and chronic myelogenous leukemia. Benzene-related leukemias have been reported to develop in as short as nine months,(read more below)

This is much more serious than they are letting on, especially as one of the options here is to burn the escaping oil!

Florida Gulf oil spill: Plans to evacuate Tampa Bay area expected to be announced

Gulf Oil Spill 2010: Plans to evacuate Tampa Bay area expected to be announced

Plans to evacuate the Tampa Bay area are expected to be announced in the coming days as FEMA prepares for what is now being called the worst oil disaster in the history of the world.

Evacuate Florida!! Good God in Heaven!!! What have these monsters done to us!!

Was tuning my sat dish and picked up ‘The micro effect radio show’ and there is a scientist on there who said they have backup plans to evacuate Florida and eventually the East coast now that the oil is in the loop currents. The slick is releasing huge amounts of Benzene. Benzene will flat out kill ya!! Don’t go down there, stay away!!!!

http://www.themicroeffect.com/

[Jeff]

A blogger who's been watching the spill cam:

Sunday, May 23, 2010


Major Change Down Below... Live Blogging...


Regular updates will be tacked on to the bottom of this post through the day.

UPDATE 5:45pm CDT: A brand new MAJOR eruption is happening. tune into the SpillCam at BP.com . It's black, all you can see is a cable. It started with yet another GUSH plume/tornado.

Oh, dear-- now, we can see that that is a LOT of oil-- and a BLIZZARD of Hydrates..


UPDATE 6:03pm CDT: The current eruption is way, way worse than the several that occured earlier. I think this might be a "Main Event" situation.

UPDATE 6:45pm CDT: An hour after the start of this most recent eruption, and it is still just a wall of oil, methane crystals, and gack.

WAY, WAAAY worse than the first event.

UPDATE 7:35pmCDT: Live feed of recent blowout froze-up, requiring a reload of page. All of a sudden-- no more black chaos-- just the current clear-water gusher view. I suspect loop tape, but I have the screen grabs from the entire day, below.

If there is another delay in the "Top-Kill/Junk Shot," you'll know why.


----------------------------------

I've been watching the live Spillcam, and discussing it with folks, here all day long. About 5pm last night, we all started taking note of gas bubbling out of the seabed floor. It started earlier than that, actually-- see pic a few posts down. About 1am this morning, the eruptions began to increase in spew volume. At about 8am, CDT, as I watched, things started changing rapidly. Where the water around the two major gush points used to be very clear, it is now super turbid, and detritus is flying everywhere in a chaotic manner. seabed venting is obvious to see when ROV cameras pan around.


Yet-to-be-confirmed rumors are that the casing wall has finally worn through, about 300 feet below seabed, at an annulus (coupling), and the gas and oil are now finding a new way out to the seabed.

Not good news, as it will make the Top-Kill/Junk Shot nearly ineffectual... At the least, it means that more pressure and mud/cement is going to be required.

http://monkeyfister.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... below.html


"Cleared again... seems to be a crater now in the sea floor..."



link

[justdrew]

A blogger who's been watching the spill cam:

I've been watching the live Spillcam, and discussing it with folks, here all day long. About 5pm last night, we all started taking note of gas bubbling out of the seabed floor. It started earlier than that, actually-- see pic a few posts down. About 1am this morning, the eruptions began to increase in spew volume. At about 8am, CDT, as I watched, things started changing rapidly. Where the water around the two major gush points used to be very clear, it is now super turbid, and detritus is flying everywhere in a chaotic manner. seabed venting is obvious to see when ROV cameras pan around.


Yet-to-be-confirmed rumors are that the casing wall has finally worn through, about 300 feet below seabed, at an annulus (coupling), and the gas and oil are now finding a new way out to the seabed.

Not good news, as it will make the Top-Kill/Junk Shot nearly ineffectual... At the least, it means that more pressure and mud/cement is going to be required.

OMFG

well then. Pity. It was such a nice planet to live on (mostly)...

[2012 Countdown]

Just went outside. CLEARLY smelling something like diesel.


Oh, nice, now we're going to be swallowed up into the ocean (seacam)

anothershamus- Man, are you trying to make me panic? Shit. That has to be hysteria, no?

[justdrew]

I don't know... that monkeyfister site... they make their prediction UPDATE 7:35pmCDT of a delay in the "top kill" and then say oh it's confirmed at UPDATE 8:15pm CDT but I know the delay was in news reports that I saw before 7:35pmCDT so, that apparently successful prediction could be interpreted as manipulative shenanigans. or it could be nothing but a delay in that authors awareness of the delay. but fyi.

===

holy crap, I'm looking at the live feed now and it seems to be focus on the riser pipe end laying semi-parallel with the seabed. The force of the out flow seems to be making it move a bit like an uncontrolled garden hose. of course this might not really be live but we have to assume it is.

video feed

on edit: the pipe that is moving is the pipe that's ejecting the dispersant, the big yellow oil pipe remains stationery, but it's hard to see from the shot angle at the moment.

[2012 Countdown]

I'd heard on Friday it was being pushed back till Tues... it might be on page 19-20ish of this thread.

[justdrew]

I'd heard on Friday it was being pushed back till Tues... it might be on page 19-20ish of this thread.

yeah but this is a new delay of an additional day, so I guess it's now slated for Wednesday.

Might be a good time for a road trip Countdown...

[ninakat]

2012, I can't thank you enough for all your first-hand reporting on this. It's just all so incredibly overwhelming -- I wish I had some words of encouragement, but all I can think to say just is so woefully inadequate. But, FWIW, take good care.

Here's an Al Jazeera video: