… scientists say it could take decades to comprehend the toll the last 100 days took on wildlife — from sea turtles to bacteria.
Currently, oil covers approximately 638 miles (1,026 kilometers) of Gulf shoreline, according to the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center
… can only hope that about 35 years from now, when these hatchlings reach maturity, they will still have the same instinct to return to the beaches where their mothers nested to lay eggs.
The size of the “dead zones,” where low oxygen levels cause marine life to languish and die, may grow in the coming days … [But] “the Gulf, with the warm temperature and the sunshine, can break down the oil really fast,” [University of Texas Marine Science Institute marine researcher Zhanfei] Liu said. “It spreads out, the bacteria attacks the oil really fast. This is not like the oil spill in Alaska.”
Undoubtedly, hurricanes will visit the Gulf within the next 100 days — hurricane season won’t end until the beginning of December … But scientists cannot predict how a hurricane might disperse the oil.
Put differently, our fate is similar to that of Joel, Crow and Tom Servo, trapped on a spaceship and forced to watch this low-budget horror movie play out until god knows when.
[Bottom kill] will come after “static kill,” which has a tentative start date of next Monday. Static kill would deposit the same mixture of materials into the top of the well. Unlike “top kill” in late May, which employed the same tactic, static kill is considered a more realistic solution to preventing oil flow because the container cap, installed in mid-July, is providing a tighter seal around the wellhead and therefore won’t allow oil and gas to escape.
And why things have seemingly slowed down over the last couple of weeks. Copious amounts of champagne after the last container cap worked Bonnie and all that casing.
Both operations are being prepared simultaneously. Monday the well lines are being reattached to the riser pipes that extend from the seafloor to near the surface, after they were temporarily abandoned this weekend due to the threat of tropical storm Bonnie. Both lines will be flushed to remove sediments.
Starting Wednesday and continuing through Sunday, the lines will each be fitted with a 2,000-foot internal casing pipe that will carry the materials downward. Once they are in place, the static kill operation will occur, likely Monday. The entire endeavor is set to prepare the launch of the relief well operation.
“The week after next we will have the potential … to begin killing the well.”
Did anyone hear Jon Stewart saying last night that Tony Hayward started at BP as a geologist at the age of 22 and with a PhD? Ah, that famous one-year University of Edinburgh PhD. Ok, it turns out he was 25. Either way, it’s the first I heard he started out in the industry as a production geologist before “rising quickly through the ranks in a series of technical and commercial roles in BP Exploration” and “coming to Lord ‘Culture of Complacency’ Browne‘s attention.” The shame.
One thing which became immediately apparent was the large amount of failed boom, not just at Racoon, but all over the barrier islands.
… After leaving Racoon, we took off toward the Horizon well site. We immediately ran into signs of oil and dispersant, on a rather large scale. We spotted a small pod of dolphins right about a mile from the Racoon area, but after that … nada. I’ve flown over the Gulf before and been out in boats, and I was very spooked at the overall absence of dolphins.
As we progressed, the oil became more and more apparent in different forms and textures. It was like Baskin Robbins 32 flavors of Hell …
What happens will depend in part on which way the wind blows. Hurricanes move in a counter-clockwise direction and so tend to move water from east to west — the opposite direction from the way the oil has generally been spreading so far. That means a tropical storm or hurricane passing to the west of the oil slick could drive oil to the coast, while one to the east could push oil away from the coast, according to NOAA.
The idea that there is a huge, continuous, high pressure reservoir of [methane] gas beneath the sea floor, just waiting to explode, is fundamentally mistaken. If there was, do you think BP would drill through a vast, easily obtainable hydrocarbon resource to get to a more technically challenging reserve?
… This doesn’t mean the methane being released from the leaking well isn’t worrying: in fact, it’s potentially a huge ecological problem for the Gulf of Mexico. Bacteria in the water column will happily respire it and use up all the oxygen, creating the ‘dead zones’ we’re hearing so much about. Seriously, isn’t reality bad enough? Do we really need to pretend we’re in a Michael Bay movie?
Wow, Ray Nagin is the bald, black version of W. We always knew it, but it isn’t so stinkingly apparent until you’re confronted with the final bill. Um, waiter, we didn’t order all that. Too bad, it’s your lucky day to pay it.
If you come away from it thinking “Boy, am I glad I don’t live in that city,” you are blind and deaf. It is everywhere in this country and especially bad when visitors from India say, “Hey, this sounds just like home!”
Please help some innocent living things by supporting the efforts of The International Bird Rescue Center in locating, rescuing, and cleaning wildlife affected by the ongoing oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Click on the pelican to donate.
About
Maitri is a geoscientist, technologist and blogger who believes science education, the Green Bay Packers, New Orleans, Project Gutenberg, the power of story, honoring the past while tinkering on the future and pie will save the world.
