Oil Spill Near Louisiana

[The Chronicler]

When I read this post by Pangaea, I decided to bring up this topic.

Here's the story: an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana exploded on April 20 (last Tuesday) and sank two days later. As a result, oil is now leaking from the oil deposit into the Gulf of Mexico, and has just reached the coast today. At this point, people are saying that this oil spill will be even worse than Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989.

I can see why this will be such a disaster. There's a lot of wildlife that will be affected. Also, a lot more people live there than in Alaska. Not to mention, the marshland of the Louisiana coast would be a very difficult place to remove oil.

I would have to agree with an analogy stated by one person in an article I just read.

A hurricane is like closing your bank account for a few days, but this here has the capacity to destroy our bank accounts.

What are your thoughts on this event?

[Kor]

A terrible tragedy.  More reason to not use oil, or cut down on needing to haul it around by ship.  Likely it'll take decades for the areas to recover, if they do even then.

[jedi472]

I've been watching this unfold on CNN. I hope they can contain the spill.

[The Chronicler]

I just read a few more articles this morning about this.

The first one I read described how British Petroleum, the company that owned this oil rig, were completely unprepared to deal with a disaster of this scale simply because they thought the odds of it happening were nearly impossible.

This one explains how the local fishermen are dealing with this disaster.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100501/us_nm/..._leak_fishermen

And this one points out that this particular rig had a few small spills throughout its history.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100430/ap_on_...l_spill_the_rig

[jedi472]

I hear this is even worse than the Exxon-Valdez spill. BP seems intent on blaming the company that owned the rig.

[The Chronicler]

Actually, BP is the company that's getting all the blame. Not to mention the apparently slow response of the government.

Just read another article. Now they're saying that, if the oil spill isn't contained soon, there's a possibility that it could reach the Atlantic.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100501/ap_on_..._gulf_oil_spill

[Kor]

sounds like typical human reaction, very slow and not very smart.  There should be a plan in place since this sort of thing does happen there should be a plan in place and the response teams should have to drill now and then so they know what to do.

[The Chronicler]

http://news.yahoo.com/s//ap/20100502/ap_on..._gulf_oil_spill

It seems BP has a (currently untested) way to shut off the leaking oil well in about a week. That's the best-case scenario. If it doesn't work, it could be three months before the only other method, drilling a relief well, can be done.

[The Chronicler]

Based on experience from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, it appears this one near Louisiana my be similar in many ways.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100503/ap_on_...il_spill_alaska

[The Chronicler]

It should also be worth noting that hurricane season starts in about a month, and who knows how much of an effect it will have on the oil spill.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/201005...oilspillcleanup

[Nick22]

this one will likely be bigger and have a longer lasting effect, especially on marshlands

[The Chronicler]

It is now believed that the explosion of the rig on April 20 was caused by a bubble of methane gas from the bottom of the ocean.

Also, BP has just lowered a containment dome into the Gulf in an effort to contain the largest of the three leaks. Something like this has never been done before, but if it works it'll make the clean up a lot easier.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/201005...entdomewillwork
Let's hope that it will work.

[The Chronicler]

Looks like the first attempt failed. The containment dome ended up hundreds of feet away and encased in ice crystals. They're going to try again in a few days, either with the one they brought there or with another one that's being built right now. Meanwhile, the oil is starting to wash ashore on the coast of Alabama.

[The Chronicler]

Finally, after so many failed solutions, BP managed to get one of them to work. Using a long tube like a siphon, they've managed to stop some oil from leaking into the Gulf, but it's not a permanent solution and there's a lot of oil still leaking out.

[The Chronicler]

I just found out that this oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has now surpassed Exxon Valdez as the largest oil spill in U.S. history. Estimates on how much oil has leaked into the Gulf so far range between 18 million and 39 million gallons. By comparison, Exxon Valdez spilled only 11 million gallons of oil.

At least it's still not the worst oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. That happened near Mexico in 1979, when an oil rig exploded and released 140 million gallons.

[Noname]

I believe it has indeed become the worst oil spill in American history. The worst in World history was in the Persian gulf after the Gulf war.  

[The Chronicler]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100605/us_nm/us_oil_spill

Looks like the latest solution actually seems to be working. The containment cap is currently removing about a third of the oil that's leaking out, but that's still better than what was estimated to be the maximum amount it could remove. Still, the only permanent solution will be the relief wells that won't be finished until August.