I have been posting in the club about the oil spill in the gulf. I want to expand the audience By repeating the posts for the rest of FTE.
This will become the primary thread for my updates.

Yesterday, 07:02 AM
We are facing total ruin here on the Gulf Coast. The environmental destruction is going to be immense! The seafood industry will collapse under the loss of a seasons catch. This will affect the catch for decades to come. Charter operations are going to leave if they can. But where will they go? Hotels will suffer as the beaches that attract visitors become oil covered. Restaurants will have trouble when the price of menu items soar. These base industries will be depressed resulting in an expanding loss to the entire economy.
We have not yet recovered from Hurricaine Katrina and this attack to our lifestyle here on the coast is crippling.
The talk that compares this to the Exxon Valdez is inappropriate as the Valdez had a finite amount of petroleum aboard. This platform has reserves many, many, many times the volume carried by the Valdez.

Today, 09:19 AM
The "official" rate is 5,000 BARRELS not gallons. That is 200,000 gallons per day! So far that is >2.2 million gallons to date.
We're watching the shore here in Long Beach for the oil to wash up any time now. The wind has been blowing on shore for the last couple of days and is expected to continue through the next 48 hrs.
Link to official website for disaster information; Gulf of Mexico-Transocean Drilling Incident
Facebook link; http://www.facebook.com/pages/Deepwa...3.743998184..1
Twitter link; http://twitter.com/RobertLAJIC

http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse....c/2931/534651/

DATE: April 30, 2010 16:07:57 CST
UPDATE 13: Deepwater Horizon update

The unified command continues with a comprehensive oil well intervention and spill-response plan following the April 22 sinking of the Transocean Deepwater Horizon drilling rig 130 miles southeast of New Orleans. Nearly 2,000 personnel are involved in the response effort with additional resources being mobilized as needed. The federal government has been fully engaged in the response since the incident occurred April 20.

The Minerals Management Service remains in contact with all oil and gas operators in the sheen area. Currently, no production has been curtailed as a result of the response effort.

Incident Facts:

More than 217,000 feet of boom (barrier) has been assigned to contain the spill. An additional 305,760 feet is available.

To date, the oil spill response team has recovered 20,313 barrels (853,146 gallons) of an oil-water mix. Vessels are in place and continuing recovery operations.

75 response vessels are being used including skimmers, tugs, barges and recovery vessels.

139,459 gallons of dispersant have been deployed and an additional 51,000 gallons are available.

Five staging areas are in place and ready to protect sensitive shorelines. These areas include:

Biloxi, Miss., Pensacola, Fla. Venice, La., Pascagoula, Miss., and Theodore, Ala.

A sixth staging area is being set up in Port Sulphur, La.

Weather conditions for April 30 - Winds from the southeast at 20 knots, 5 - 7 seas with slight chance of afternoon showers.

126 people were on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig when the incident occurred. 11 remain unaccounted for; 17 were injured, 3 of them critically. 1 injured person remains in the hospital.

To report oiled or injured wildlife, please call 1-800-557-1401.

To report spill related damage claims, please call 1-800-440-0858.

To report oil on land, or for general Community and Volunteer Information, please call 1-866-448-5816.

For the latest information visit www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com or follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/RobertLAJIC or on Facebook at Deepwater Horizon Response.

For media needing more information regarding the Deepwater Horizon incident, contact the joint information center at (985) 902-5231/5240.

Today, 01:22 PM
A short while after I last posted I needed to drive down the beachfront road. As I arrived at the intersection on the beach I observed an Osprey swoop down and snag a Mullet in his talons. Mullet feed on the surface of the water and will be obliterated when the oil arrives. The Ospreys' will have lost a major food source. We also have a few pairs of Bald Eagles That live in this region. The eagles are fishers too. All of these raptors are currently setting on nests. The food loss will undoubtedly result in a reduction of the nestlings survival rate.

Steve; I'll give you the 1.6 million gallon spill total to date. However at a rate of 8,333 gallons per hour the spill is still just too great to comprehend.

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Today, 02:13 PM
Here is an article on the structure of the Deepwater Horizon; Newsvine - Deepwater Horizon - A Failure of Well Control

Here is another website for pollution monitoring information; EPA Response to BP Spill in the Gulf of Mexico | US EPA

Today, 07:33 PM
More informative articles;
BP’s Deepwater Disaster: What Happened And Why? Forbes.com's The Energy Source

Gulf of Mexico oil spill 2010: The worst-case scenario | al.com

Link to spill map;
http://response.restoration.noaa.gov...04-30-2145.pdf

This is what I have posted so far on the spill.
I will be adding to this as the disaster unfolds.

 

What, exactly, does the dispersant do (aside from the obvious)? I mean, does it simply break up the oil into minute particles to drift away, or does it somehow dissolve it into particles too small to affect the sea life around it?

My thoughts and prayers are with the folks of the Gulf Coast, as well as the environment.

 

This will have repercussions all over the country. Fuel prices will soar, gulf seafood prices will soar and the entire economy in the gulf region is in great peril.

The environmentalists will win the battle. Drilling off of Virginia's coast will no doubt be shelved and off shore wind farms will have to jump hoops to see fruition.

 

It is a surfactant. So basically it "sinks" the oil. Just like in those Dawn dishwashing liquid commercials. It just moves the spill from the surface of the water to the ocean floor.

 

I just returned from a work run. When I stepped out, to go, the smell struck me. It is the smell of oil like you smell when you enter a 10 year old Jiffy Lube on a hot day. The day of reckoning has arrived.

 

Subscribing.

 

This is an absolute disaster!
From what I'm reading/hearing on the news, the shut-off valves aren't working?

WHY?????

Do the robot mini-subs not have enough torque to turn the valves???

The seafood industry is gonna 'tank'.
We are already seeing it, here. My wife and I went to a chinese restaurant last night, and I got sweet & sour shrimp.
I usually get 9 or 10 nice-sized shrimp.
Last night. . . . 6 small shrimp. Same price, though.
The owner said it's because of the oil spill in the gulf.

 

The gouging has already begun. I call BS on that one. A huge percentage of the shrimp, seafood and farm raised seafood we eat comes from overseas and other parts of the US that are not directly affected by this horrific event.

Just knowing that a gallon of fuel will soon sky rocket, consumer prices will go up immediately.

 

What you describe would merely weigh down and sink the oil. Not disperse it.

Here is a very good read on dispersing agents and how they break up and suspend the smaller oil particles into the wave flow.

http://www.oilspillresponse.com/pdf/...rsants2009.pdf

 

I think they should focus more on reclaiming the oil rather than sinking of dispersing it.

The oil giants have clearly forgot about Valdez, Ak. They've had 20 fricken years to get their acts together, look at them now.

 

1 massive, catastrophic spill will "cause" the gas prices to soar yet, we are not having an oil "shortage" and greed once again determines fuel prices... After hearing how many barrels are being spilled daily, I can't help but think about the amount of oil that can, potentially, be produced or stored and how we constantly hear about this so-called oil "shortage" - the numbers don't add up...

 

Well so far at least it isn't as bad as when Iraq dumped oil on purpose
1991
Jan. 23–27, southern Kuwait: during the Persian Gulf War, Iraq deliberately released 240–460 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf from tankers 10 mi off Kuwait. Spill had little military significance. On Jan. 27, U.S. warplanes bombed pipe systems to stop the flow of oil.

 

Sorry I made a bad description. Thanks for that link. It describes pretty much what I was trying to say.

I see no reason whatsoever for this spill event to raise the price of fuel. Other than oportunistic gouging. This well was never in production and had not even been completed. So it's not like the spill is decreasing offshore production. Unless any other gulf platforms are ordered shutdown. What I see happening is fuel prices going up and we will be told that it is because fuel is being routed to the gulf for the spill response boats as first priority. All the while we experience higher prices but no shortages.

 

Being another coast resident I'm apprehensive about the spill as well. Its going to take an economic situation that's already pretty bad, and just make it more horrendous. I've seen fuel prices rise already at certain stations. Most prices in my area are around $2.75 a gallon, and these certain stations are in the neighbourhood of $3.00 a gallon.

 

I live about an hour from Venice, were the guys fly from to get to the rigs.

The oil industry is claiming that this will not effect the cost of fuel, however they claimed that Katrina had done damage to the offshore rigs and had to raise fuel costs due to the expense. This will cost much more than Katrina's damage.

The industry has and continues to cut corners as far as safety backups go just as the politicians did with the levee structures around New Orleans. They have funneled money to other parts of their company on the premise that this type of disaster would not occur. They had the safety devices in place, just not kept up to working standards.

I see know reason for the government to help these companies. They have boasted record profits and should have everything to clean this up. This is not the type of business were you can say "oops, I made a mistake." We the taxpayers are going to provide the cleanup via the government and then pay for the rest through elevated gas prices.

This whole mess is disgusting and a real crime against the commercial and sport fisherman. These guys deserve every dime they sue for. I can not even mention the environmental devastation. To me, this can never be made up for.