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

[82_28]

It's Nice We Can Finally Look Back On That Whole Oil Spill And Laugh

By Carl-Henric Svanberg
Chairman, BP
August 17, 2010 | ISSUE 46•33

It's often said that with time and distance comes perspective; that nothing is ever as bad as it initially seems. Well, in the case of the BP oil spill, which—if you can even remember this far back—happened in the spring and summer of 2010, truer words have never been spoken.

A few weeks ago, I was a completely different guy: worried, easily agitated, constantly on edge. But now that I've had a good amount of time away from all the underwater plumes and the oil sheens and the static kills, I think about how worked up I got and can't help but laugh.

Honestly, it's kind of hilarious how I flipped out about the whole thing as if one massive oil spill was the end of the world.

Seriously, if you would have asked me all the way back in July if I thought I'd ever get over causing 2.5 million gallons of oil to gush into the Gulf every day for 87 days, I would have said no. I let myself get so wrapped up in all the drama—the Deepwater Horizon rig exploding, the 11 people dying, the destruction done to the Gulf economy—that I was incapable of taking a step back and saying, "Carl, for Christ's sake, stop beating yourself up! I know you don't think so now, but there will be a time in the future when you'll realize that, hey, some things are just beyond your control."

Of course, it took me until now to finally realize that. Now when I see images of the spill or think about all those devastated residents, I roll my eyes at how much I let that stuff bother me. At the time, it really seemed like the spill was this major thing, but in retrospect, it was just a stupid goof by a silly little oil company that failed to monitor and react to several critical warning signs while drilling a deep-sea well.

In the span of a lifetime, the Gulf oil spill was like a little blip. A footnote. Hardly anything at all. I know that now.

In fact, the one thing I'm most apologetic for, and quite frankly embarrassed about, is my childish behavior. God, to think about how much I yelled and screamed at my employees whenever a new report came out saying we lied about the severity of the spill, or how it had been uncovered that we used Photoshop to embellish our cleanup response. Like any of that stuff really matters. Like really, truly matters, you know?

Man, I must have looked like an absolute nut banging my desk and slamming the phone down after every call. I was so angry! And honestly, at what? So we dumped some oil in the ocean. Big deal. People screw up. That's life.

Trust me, worse things have happened.

Heck, if I knew then what I know now, I would have handled things much differently. I probably would have smiled a lot more, that's for sure, and I certainly wouldn't have asked my CEO to step down. Tony had the right idea when he went to that yacht race. He sure was taking a lot of heat, but there he was hanging out and having fun, and there I was all stressed out about the future of our company. We're BP. Of course we were going to be fine. What was there to worry about? Jeez, Carl, lighten up!

Even the way we celebrated back in, I think it was August, when the well was completely sealed, was just ridiculous. It was just one little well we capped, but you'd have thought we won the lottery or something!

If anything, the disaster in the Gulf taught me about perspective. I haven't told anyone this, but last May when the whole thing was just ballooning out of control, I actually cried at the sight of an oil-covered bird. A bird, for God's sake! But there I was crying. Talk about losing all perspective on what's really important: good friends, good laughs, and the ability to shrug off a mistake.

Look, things happen in life. A car breaks down. Your daughter gets the chicken pox. A blowout preventer intended to stop the release of crude oil fails to activate thereby setting in motion the largest ecological disaster in the history of the United States of America. In every case, no matter how worked up you get, you just have to tell yourself that—while it may take you seven or eight days to realize it— this, too, shall pass.

You can get that car fixed next week, the chicken pox go away eventually, and entire ecosystems recover in a century or two.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/its-ni ... -oi,17914/

[elfismiles]

Major study proves oil plume that's not going away
Writer Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer – 19 mins ago


Reuters – A slick of oil floats near a boat off Grand Isle, Louisiana June 9, 2010. Americans are almost equally …

WASHINGTON – A 22-mile-long invisible mist of oil is meandering far below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, where it will probably loiter for months or more, scientists reported Thursday in the first conclusive evidence of an underwater plume from the BP spill.

The most worrisome part is the slow pace at which the oil is breaking down in the cold, 40-degree water, making it a long-lasting but unseen threat to vulnerable marine life, experts said.

Earlier this month, top federal officials declared the oil in the spill was mostly "gone," and it is gone in the sense you can't see it. But the chemical ingredients of the oil persist more than a half-mile beneath the surface, researchers found.

And the oil is degrading at one-tenth the pace at which it breaks down at the surface. That means "the plumes could stick around for quite a while," said study co-author Ben Van Mooy of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, which led the research published online in the journal Science.

Monty Graham, a scientist at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama who was not involved in the study, said: "We absolutely should be concerned that this material is drifting around for who knows how long. They say months in the (research) paper, but more likely we'll be able to track this stuff for years."

Florida State University scientist Ian MacDonald, in testimony before Congress on Thursday, said the gas and oil "imprint of the BP discharge will be detectable in the marine environment for the rest of my life."

The underwater oil was measured close to BP's blown-out well, which is about 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. The plume started three miles from the well and extended more than 20 miles to the southwest. The oil droplets are odorless and too small to be seen by the human eye. If you swam through the plume, you wouldn't notice it.

"There's no visible evidence of oil in the samples; they look like clear water," study chief author Richard Camilli said.

The scientists used complex instruments — including a special underwater mass spectrometer — to detect the chemical signature of the oil that spewed from the BP well after it ruptured April 20. The equipment was carried into the deep by submersible devices.

With more than 57,000 of these measurements, the scientists mapped a huge plume in late June. The components of oil were detected in a flow that measured more than a mile wide and more than 650 feet from top to bottom.

Federal officials said there are signs that the plume has started to break into smaller ones since the Woods Hole research cruise ended. But scientists said that wouldn't lessen the overall harm from the oil.

The oil is at depths of 3,000 to 4,000 feet, far below the environment of the most popular Gulf fish like red snapper, tuna and mackerel. But it is not harmless. These depths are where small fish and crustaceans live. And one of the biggest migrations on Earth involves small fish that go from deep water to more shallow areas, taking nutrients from the ocean depths up to the large fish and mammals.

Those smaller creatures could be harmed by going through the oil, said Larry McKinney, director of Texas A&M University's Gulf of Mexico research center in Corpus Christi.

Some aspects of that region are so little known that "we might lose species that we don't know now exist," said Graham of the Dauphin Island lab.

"This is a highly sensitive ecosystem," agreed Steve Murawski, chief fisheries scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "The animals down at 3,300 to 3,400 feet grow slowly." The oil not only has toxic components but could cause genetic problems even at low concentrations, he said.

For much of the summer, the mere existence of underwater plumes of oil was the subject of a debate that at times pitted outside scientists against federal officials who downplayed the idea of plumes of trapped oil. Now federal officials say as much as 42 million gallons of oil may be lurking below the surface in amounts that are much smaller than the width of a human hair.

While federal officials prefer to describe the lurking oil as "an ephemeral cloud," the Woods Hole scientists use the word "plume" repeatedly.

The study conclusively shows that a plume exists, that it came from the BP well and that it probably never got close to the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, Camilli said. It is probably even larger than 22 miles long, but scientists had to stop measuring because of Hurricane Alex.

Earlier this week a University of South Florida team reported oil in amounts that were toxic to critical plant plankton deep underwater, but the crude was not necessarily in plumes. Those findings have not been reviewed by other scientists or published.

The plume is probably still around, but moving west-southwest of the BP well site at about 4 miles a day, Camilli said.

While praising the study that ended on June 28, Murawski said more recent observations show that the cloud of oil has "broken apart into a bunch of very small features, some them much farther away." Texas A&M's McKinney said marine life can suffer harm whether it is several smaller plumes or one giant one.

NOAA redirected much of its sampling for underwater oil after consulting with Woods Hole researchers. The federal agency is now using the techniques that the team pioneered with a robotic sub and an underwater mass spectrometer, Murawski said.

Previous attempts to define the plume were "like watching the Super Bowl on a 12-inch black-and-white TV and we try to bring to the table a 36-inch HD TV," said Woods Hole scientist Chris Reddy. The paper, fast-tracked for the world of peer-reviewed science, was written on a boat while still in the Gulf, he said.

Reddy said he could not yet explain why the underwater plume formed at that depth. But other experts point to three factors: cold water, the way the oil spewed from the broken well, and the use of massive amounts of dispersants to break up the oil before it gets to the surface.

The decision to use 1.8 million gallons of dispersants amounted to an environmental trade-off — it meant less oil tainting the surface, where there is noticeable and productive life, but the risk of longer-term problems down below.

At a federal science conference, officials looked at the relative risks and decided "it was worth the effort" to use dispersants, Murawski said.

About 7 percent of the oil from the leaked well went into this particular plume, said Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia. Given the slow rate at which the oil is degrading in the cold water, she and others said it is too early to even think about closing the books on the spill: "The full environmental impacts of the spill will thus not be felt for some time."

___

Online:

http://www.sciencemag.org

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100819/ap_ ... pill_plume

[Fixx]

BP oil spill: Final Gulf of Mexico well seal delayed

An operation to permanently seal the ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico has been delayed until early September, US officials say.

Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said oil firm BP needed to replace key equipment before starting the procedure, which involves pumping cement into the well.

BP had intended to start the process, known as "bottom kill", in mid-August.
The flow of oil was stopped on 15 July, but officials say the bottom kill is needed as a permanent fix.

Meanwhile, new research on the effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill has confirmed the presence of a toxic chemical residue 1km (0.6 miles) below the water's surface.
Uncertain timescale

The delay will allow BP engineers to replace the failed blowout preventer - a giant stack of pipes and valves that sits atop the well.

Adm Allen refused to give a specific timescale for the operation, but said it would start probably in the week beginning 6 September.

"We will know when we have satisfied ourselves and we have removed any shadow of doubt," he said.
The investigation into the toxic residue, carried out in late June, confirms that a plume, or cloud, of crude oil exists below the surface.

The research, which is published in the journal Science, measures the plume of crude oil-based chemicals at up to 200m high and 2km wide, extending 35km from the spill site.

But the results of the investigation by a research team at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, in the US state of Massachusetts, suggest that the quantity is less than 0.1% of the total amount spilled.

Members of the research team have said they are unable to speculate at this stage what impact the plume may have on marine life.

Oil began leaking into the Gulf on 20 April when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 workers.

An estimated 4.9m barrels of oil leaked into the waters of the Gulf over the course of 87 days, with only 800,000 barrels being captured.

On 15 July, a cap was used to seal the top of the wellhead.

BBC

[Jeff]

or maybe...

Thursday, August 19, 2010
Top Expert: Geology is "Fractured", Relief Wells May Fail ... BP is Using a "Cloak of Silence", Refusing to Share Even Basic Data with the Government


Few people in the world know more about oil drilling disasters than Dr. Robert Bea.

Bea teaches engineering at the University of California Berkeley, and has 55 years of experience in engineering and management of design, construction, maintenance, operation, and decommissioning of engineered systems including offshore platforms, pipelines and floating facilities. Bea has worked for many years in governmental and quasi-governmental roles, and has been a high-level governmental adviser concerning disasters. He worked for 16 years as a top mechanical engineer and manager for Shell Oil, and has worked with Bechtel and the Army Corps of Engineers. One of the world's top experts in offshore drilling problems, Bea is a member of the Deepwater Horizon Study Group, and has been interviewed by news media around the world concerning the BP oil disaster.
Washington's Blog spoke with Dr. Bea yesterday.


WB: Is BP sharing information with the government?

Bea: No. BP is using a "cloak of silence". BP is not voluntarily sharing information or documents with the government.

In May, for example, Senator Boxer subpoenaed information from BP regarding footage of the seafloor taken before the blowout by BP's remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). We still have not received a response 12 weeks later.

[Bea subsequently clarified that he's not sure whether BP has failed to release the information, or Senator Boxer's committee has sat on the information. My bet is on BP. Indeed, BP has refused to answer some very basic written questions from Congressman Markey, chair of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. See this and this. Indeed, it is unclear whether BP is sharing vital details even with Thad Allen, Secretary of energy Chu, or the Unified Command].

WB: Might there be problems with the relief wells? I know that it took a couple of relief wells to finally stop the Ixtoc leak, and it has taken as many as 5 relief wells to stop some blowouts.

Bea: Yes, it could take repeated attempts.

WB: Are there any conditions at BP's well which might make killing the leak with relief wells more difficult than with the average deepwater oil spill?

Bea: That's an interesting question. You have to ask why did this location blow out when nearby wells drilled in even deeper water didn't blow out.

You have to look at the geology of the Macondo well. It is in a subsalt location, in a Sigsbee salt formation. [For background, see this and this]

The geology is fractured.

Usually, the deeper you drill, the more pressure it takes to fracture rock. This is called the "fracture gradient".

But when BP was drilling this well, the fracture gradient reversed. Indeed, BP lost all pressure as it drilled into the formation.

WB: Is it possible that this fractured, subsea salt geology will make it difficult to permanently kill the oil leak using relief wells?

Bea: Yes, it could. The Santa Barbara channel seeps are still leaking, decades after the oil well was supposedly capped. This well could keep leaking for years.

Scripps mapped out seafloor seeps in the area of the well prior to the blowout. Some of the natural seeps penetrate 10,000 to 15,000 feet beneath the seafloor. The oil will follow lines of weakness in the geology. The leak can travel several horizontal miles from the location of the leak.

[In other words, the geology beneath the seafloor is so fractured, with soft and unstable salt formations, that we may never be able to fully kill the well even with relief wells. Instead, the loss of containment of the oil reservoir caused by the drilling accident could cause oil to leak out through seeps for years to come. See this and this for further background].

WB: I know that you've previously said that you're concerned that there might be damage to the well bore, which could make it more difficult for the relief wells to succeed.

Bea: Yes, that's still a concern.

WB: I have heard that BP is underestimating the size of the oil reservoir (and see this). Is it possible that the reservoir is bigger than BP is estimating, and so - if not completely killed - the leak could therefore go on for longer than most assume?

Bea: That's plausible.

...

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/08/ ... ed-bp.html


http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~bea/about.html

[Iamwhomiam]

The remains of the Washington's Blog post Jeff omitted:

WB: The chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon said that the Macondo well was originally drilled in another location, but that "going faster caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools", and that BP abandoned that well. You've spoken to that technician and looked into the incident, and concluded that “they damn near blew up the rig.” [See this and this].

Do you know where that abandoned well location is, and do you know if that well is still leaking?

Bea: The abandoned well is very close to the current well location. BP had to file reports showing the location of the abandoned well and the new well [with the Minerals Management Service], so the location of the abandoned well is known.

We don't know if the abandoned well is leaking.

WB: Matthew Simmons talked about a second leaking well. There are rumors on the Internet that the original well is still leaking. Do you have any information that can either disprove or confirm that allegation?

Bea: There are two uncorroborated reports. One is that there is a leak 400 feet West of the present well's surface location. There is another report that there is a leak several miles to the West.

[Bea does not know whether either report is true at this time, because BP is not sharing information with the government, let alone the public.]

WB: There are rumors on the Internet of huge pockets of methane gas under the well which could explode. I've looked into this rumor, and have come to the conclusion that - while the leak is releasing tremendous amounts of methane - there are no "pockets" of methane gas which could cause explosions. Do you have any information on this?

Bea: I have looked into this and discussed methane with people who know a tremendous amount about it. There is alot of liquid and solid methane at the Macondo site, but no pockets of methane gas.

WB: That's good news, indeed.

Bea: But there was one deepwater leak I worked with where tremendous amounts of hydrogen sulfite were released. We had to evacuate two towns because of the risk. [I didn't ask Dr. Bea if there were any dangerous compounds which could be formed from the interaction of the crude oil and methane with chemicals in the ocean water or dispersants].

And with the Bay Charman oil leak, more than 50% of the oil stayed below the surface of the ocean. [As I've previously pointed out, the US Minerals Management Service and a consortium of oil companies, including BP, found that as little as 2% of the oil which spill from deepwater wells ever makes it to the surface of the ocean. And the use of dispersant might decrease that number still further].

WB: I have previously argued that nuking the well would be a bad idea. What do you think?

Bea: [Bea agreed that nuking the well would be counter-productive. He told me a story about a leaking deepwater well that he was involved in killing. A nuclear package was on its way to the well site but - fortunately - the well stopped by itself before a nuke was deployed. I'm not sure whether this is classified information, so I won't disclose the name of the well. Bea also discussed alternatives in the form of high-pressure, high-temperature conventional explosives, echoing what Bill Clinton said recently].

WB: Thank you for your generous time and for sharing your expertise with us, Dr. Bea.

Bea: You're welcome.

~~~~~~~~

Please review the other info linked to in the WB posting above; indicated as "here and here" http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/08/top-oil-expert-geology-is-fractured-bp.html

[kristinerosemary]

"Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said oil firm BP needed to replace key equipment before starting the procedure, which involves pumping cement into the well."

Must be so nice to have your very own coast guard. Oh wait.

[Iamwhomiam]

"Must be so nice to have your very own coast guard."

Perhaps it would be so, if only they weren't guarding you from accessing the coast.

Yeah, seems they couldn't guard the coast from all the unarmed but lethal oil blobs.

But maybe that's because most Guardsmen are in Iraq guarding their oil from terrorists.

[Fresno_Layshaft]

Spike Lee has a follow up to his Levees doc, IF GOD IS WILLING AND DA CREEK DON’T RISE, that deals with the BP disaster as well. Should be good.

http://www.collider.com/2010/08/19/spike-lee-interview-if-god-is-willing-and-da-creek-dont-rise/?_r=true

This monday on HBO.

[img]http://www.collider.com/wp-content/uploads/If-God-Is-Willing-and-Da-Creek-Dont-Rise-image-2.jpg[/img


SPIKE:

It was the greed of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, who cut corners in the construction of the levee system, consequently leading New Orleans to be 80% underwater. It was greed again that reared its ugly head with BP, who did not want to buy this blowout protector, which only cost half a million dollars. They were behind schedule.

We’ve had enough instances where, any time you try to cut corners, it ends up biting you in the butt, later on. What gets lost is that 11 people are dead because of the negligence of BP because they threw safety precautions out the window. MMS (Mineral Management Service) was not doing their job. They had been corrupted by Super Bowl tickets, sex orgies and whatever, and they weren’t doing their job regulating stuff. And, we have people who get appointed to positions, who are elected, who lay down and pray at the altar of the all-mighty dollar. They’ll put their mother on the corner, if they had to for a dollar, with no regard to what’s right, wrong or moral. All they think about is the money. And, if people have to end up dying and being hurt, they don’t give a fuck, excuse my language. It’s as simple as that.

[StarmanSkye]

Great Spike Lee interview; His Documentary project sounds awesome -- What an outstanding Human Be'in he is. Inspiring.

The article cited re: Washington's Blog was insightful -- ie. The Pentragon consumes more oil than the 36th to 210th nations, ie. just below the Phillipines, twice as much as Ireland, 20 times as much as Iceland. Every soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan requires an average of 16 gallons of oil per day to supply, support, transport, secure, etc.

Just mind-blowing how distorted and skewed public policy has become.

We're screwed by our own system (shoved down our throats).

The BP execs should be indicted (at the very least) and the company dissolved.
Is it true that the Queen of England owns something like 74% of BP?

[Pele'sDaughter]

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/08/ ... d-for.html

Saturday, August 21, 2010
FDA Not Testing Gulf Seafood for Mercury, Arsenic or Other Heavy Metals Because "We Do Not Expect to See an Increase Based on this Spill"




Congressman Markey's subcomittee held a hearing Thursday on seafood and the oil spill.

Markey got the Food and Drug Administration to admit that fish are not being tested from oiled areas:

The FDA also admitted that it is not testing for mercury, arsenic or other toxic heavy metals, because - wait for it - the FDA doesn't expect to see an increase of these toxins from the oil spill:

But in the real world:



Crude oil contains such powerful cancer-causing chemicals as benzene, toluene, heavy metals and arsenic.

***

As Bloomberg notes:



“Oil is a complex mixture containing substances like benzene, heavy metals, arsenic, and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons -- all known to cause human health problems such as cancer, birth defects or miscarriages,” said Kenneth Olden, founding dean of New York’s CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College, who is monitoring a panel on possible delayed effects.

***

Benzene, toluene, arsenic, heavy metals and many other components of crude oil ... bioaccumulate.
And as the Wall Street Journal noted yesterday:

Researchers said they found high concentrations of benzene, toluene, xylene and other so-called BTEX petroleum compounds that could be traced to the leaking well. They calculated that the plume contained between 5% and 6% of the signature BTEX petroleum hydrocarbons released during the spill.
The FDA's statement is similar to NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco's recent assertion that oil doesn't bioaccumulate in fish, and that fish naturally "degrade and process" the oil.
As a former long-time NOAA scientist points out, NOAA hasn't exactly been neutral and objective with regards to Gulf oil spill science:


Ian R. MacDonald, an oceanographer at Florida State University ... sees this latest incident as part of an ongoing problem.

Lubchenco had previously been a key figure in the patently low-ball estimates for the oil flow, and fervently resisted acknowledging the existence of underwater oil plumes, he said.

"I've worked with NOAA essentially all my career and I have many good friends there, and people I respect in the agency, scientists who are really solid," MacDonald said.

"Throughout this process, it's been troubling to me to see the efforts of people like that passed through a filter where the objective seems to be much more political and public relations than making comments to inform the public.

"The consistent theme," MacDonald said, "seems to be to minimize the impact of the oil -- and to act as a bottleneck for information."

Unfortunately, this is how government today operates ... its main activity is simply to try to cover up crises.

The FDA also admitted that it is not testing for the most toxic bioaccumulating metabolites of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Hat tip Florida Oil Spill Law.

[ninakat]

Thanks Pele'sDaughter -- here's an accompanying video of Markey asking if the FDA (or NOAA) tests for heavy metals, etc -- and what's with the bad hair day on the weird, mafia-looking NOAA rep?

[justdrew]

another doc to watch for:
http://thebiguneasy.com/

[kristinerosemary]

I'm too vague. I meant BP had their very own Coast Guard, not us.

"Must be so nice to have your very own coast guard."

Perhaps it would be so, if only they weren't guarding you from accessing the coast.

Yeah, seems they couldn't guard the coast from all the unarmed but lethal oil blobs.

But maybe that's because most Guardsmen are in Iraq guarding their oil from terrorists.

[Nordic]

Washington's Blog yet again:

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/08/ ... crabs.html


Portions of the Gulf are So Toxic that Dolphins, Fish, Crabs, Stingrays and Other Animals are "Trying to Crawl Out of the Water"

Danny Ross, a commercial fisherman from Biloxi… said he has watched horseshoe crabs trying to crawl out of the water, and other marine life like stingrays and flounder trying to escape the water as well. He believes this is because the water is hypoxic. …

David Wallis, another fisherman from Biloxi… [said] “I’ve seen crabs crawling out of the water in the middle of the day. This is going to be affecting us far into the future.”

This has been a common occurrence since BP started spilling oil into the Gulf.

much more at the link

[undead]

Maybe this is the "big scary predator" that caused all the fish to jump out of the water and onto the beach in south Jersey.