* WWLTV.com | BP says tube taking out one-fifth of oil leaking from well blowout
BP PLC chief operating officer Doug Suttles said Monday … that a mile-long tube was funneling a little more than 1,000 barrels — 42,000 gallons — of crude a day from a blown well into a tanker ship. The company and the U.S. Coast Guard have estimated about 5,000 barrels — 210,000 gallons — have been spewing out each day.
Let’s say the tube is evacuating more like one-tenth of the oil. Allowing scientists access to the gusher at the sea floor to measure it “is not relevant to the response effort,” according to BP, so I guess it doesn’t matter if one-fifth, one-tenth or one-twentieth is being taken out, right? Because more accurate, transparent numbers are not relevant to the response effort, you heard?
Getting the relief tube in right the first time a problem is not an apology-worthy mistake, but an opportunity in “learning, reconfiguring, doing it again.”
* Scientific American | How Long Will the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Last?
“If the [oil] mousse gets into the marshes, it can last a real long time … Once there’s no oxygen, it doesn’t break down fast at all; it’s a long-term toxic reservoir.”
The toxic compounds in oil vary, but largely fall in the group known to chemists as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), such as napthalenes, benzene, toluene and xylenes. All are known human carcinogens with other health effects for humans, animals and plants. “These hydrocarbons are particularly relevant if inhaled or ingested,” says environmental toxicologist Ronald Kendall of Texas Tech University. “In the bodies of organisms such as mammals or birds, these aromatic hydrocarbons can be transformed into even more toxic products, which can affect DNA.” In other words, the effects of the oil spill will linger in the genetics of Gulf coast animals long after the spill is gone, resulting in mutations that could lead to problems ranging from reduced fertility to cancer.
* More on the science of chemical dispersants: “while we may worry about BP’s dishwashing venture in the Gulf, the bigger experiment is our own.”
