[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')img]http://www.alternet.org/images/managed/storyimages_picture5_1272566719.jpg_310x220[/img]
Gulf Coast Oil Spill: 'Exxon Valdez Is Going to Pale in Comparison to This'

210,000 gallons a day are gushing into the sea 50 miles off the Louisiana coast.
April 29, 2010

The US military has joined efforts to stop an oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico as fears rise about its scale.

Five times as much oil as previously thought could be leaking from the well beneath where a rig exploded and sank last week, US officials said earlier.

The slick is 45 miles (72km) by 105 miles (169km) - almost the size of Jamaica - and heading for the US coast.

A third leak has been discovered, and a fire-fighting expert said the disaster may become the biggest oil spill ever.

"Probably the only thing comparable to this is the Kuwait fires [following the Gulf War in 1991]," Mike Miller, head of Canadian oil well fire-fighting company Safety Boss, told the BBC World Service.

"The Exxon Valdez [tanker disaster off Alaska in 1989] is going to pale [into insignificance] in comparison to this as it goes on."

Scientists say only a quarter of local marine wildlife survived the Exxon Valdez disaster.

Some 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) a day were now thought to be gushing into the sea 50 miles off Louisiana's coast, said the US Coastguard's Rear Admiral Mary Landry.

If those estimates are correct, the spill could match the 11m gallons spilt from the Exxon Valdez within two months.
http://www.alternet.org/news/146669/gulf_coast_oil_spill:_'exxon_valdez_is_going_to_pale_in_comparison_to_this'_

[timmac]

If this hits our coast in a big way this is going to look very bad on Obama for signing agreements to open up more off shore drilling.

Also brings me to this question, now that China is soon to be drilling some where near Cuba if they have a accident and that slick heads for Florida will they be this aggressive at stopping it ?

[Cloud9]

Does anyone smell sabotage here? Why would the President be sending SWAT teams to oil rigs?

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', 'D')oes anyone smell sabotage here? Why would the President be sending SWAT teams to oil rigs?

[Mesuge]

On the brighter note, it was nice to see on the telly the person in command, the admiral is actualy a lady, more power to them. Some, sociologists-psychologists tend to support the idea, look at the women in given society as the ultimate benchmark to gauge the situation. Although some very recent "wichcraft material" bordering examples were hopefully just freak outliers, which somehow made it in rapid succession inside the upper echelons of U.S. establishment:

- Albright the 1/2million dead iraqi children collateral worth it
- Rice the no one could have predicted planes as missiles
- Nancy the Repukratstein / Impeachment of war criminals - is off the table
- Hillary the overall ultimate chameleon

[Keith_McClary]

Now it's 5 x 5 = 25 times worse than first thought, as I posted in the other thread:
Experts: Oil May Be Leaking at Rate of 25,000 Barrels a Day in Gulf -WSJ
This "leak" or "seep" is covered only by the business press.
I'd call it a "gusher".
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')an MacDonald, professor of oceanography at Florida State University who specializes in tracking ocean oil seeps from satellite imagery, said there may already be more than 9 million gallons of oil floating in the Gulf now, based on his estimate of a 25,000 barrel-a-day leak rate. That's compared to 12 million gallons spilled in the Valdez accident.

[heroineworshipper]

It sounds like sabotage now. There's no way after all these years of oil spills & the mathematical certainty of a blowout that anyone could be so unprepared to contain it.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('heroineworshipper', 'I')t sounds like sabotage now. There's no way after all these years of oil spills & the mathematical certainty of a blowout that anyone could be so unprepared to contain it.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('heroineworshipper', 'I')t sounds like sabotage now. There's no way after all these years of oil spills & the mathematical certainty of a blowout that anyone could be so unprepared to contain it.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('heroineworshipper', 'I')t sounds like sabotage now. There's no way after all these years of oil spills & the mathematical certainty of a blowout that anyone could be so unprepared to contain it.

[Timo]

I'll be curious to see how this oil slick affects the upcoming hurricane season. I honestly have no idea if the slick somehow impedes the upward evaporation of water that then will fall back down as rain. Might we see Dallas suffering 130 mph winds blowing oil around instead of water? And god forbid the levees in New Orleans if they are filled to overflowing again, but this time with oil. It'll be the Coyuhoga (sp?) all over again.

[eXpat]

Not my fault
BP: Oil rig leak 'wasn't our accident'
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')EW ORLEANS - Facing an unprecedented Gulf Coast environmental disaster, not to mention lawsuits, oil giant BP told NBC on Monday that while it was taking responsibility for cleaning up the giant undersea leak, the accident that triggered the disaster was not its fault.

"It wasn't our accident, but we are absolutely responsible for the oil, for cleaning it up, and that's what we intend to do," BP Group CEO Tony Hayward told NBC's "TODAY" show.

The rig that exploded on April 20 and then sank was run by another company, Transocean, he reminded viewers. That rig, he said, "was run by their people, their processes."
Hayward added that the failure of the rig's "blow-out preventer" — a device that should have shut off the well when the rig exploded and sank — was "unprecedented in our industry."

"What has failed here is the ultimate safety device on a drilling rig," he said. "There are many barriers of protection that you have to go to before you get to this. It isn't designed to not fail."

Guy Cantwell, a Transocean spokesman, responded by reading a statement without elaborating. "We will await all the facts before drawing conclusions and we will not speculate," he said.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eXpat', 'N')ot my fault
BP: Oil rig leak 'wasn't our accident'

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')h, the beauty of subcontracting strikes again. So what does this mean, do you think they'll be able to push some of their liability off to Transocean? Would sure save them a lot of money, letting the little rig operator go bankrupt from lawsuits.

I also noticed their use of the words "unprecedented in our industry," I think I smell a legal defense brewing.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', '
')BP is clearly responsible for all costs related to the actual spill, that is mandated in legislation that came out following Exxon Valdez. My understanding is that they are only on the hook for a maximum of 75 MM although there is a bill going to be pushed through Senate that raises this to 10 billion.

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cloud9', 'D')oes anyone smell sabotage here? Why would the President be sending SWAT teams to oil rigs?

[Plantagenet]

Its a little bit late for Obama to put a hold on drilling now.........I wish the government would have realized that these new ultra deep wells encounter higher pressures then previously experienced, and so are more dangerous.

I'm especially troubled by the failure of the Obama administration to require modern acoustic blow out preventers on these wells like Norway and Brazil do.....if we had modern safety equipment in place, it might've been possible to shut this spill down at the start.

--------------------------------

[Plantagenet]

Its possible that the oil discharge is steadily increasing through time as sand and rock debris carried up in the oil jet abrades and destroys the well casing and enlarges the entire hole.

That would be very bad.

[PrestonSturges]

And hardware behaves strangely under those pressures. The gas turns to clathrate "ice" in the pipes at those pressures.

it's like sending a space probe to Mars.

And then it gets dumped off to a subcontractor whose margins are shaved to nothing.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('eXpat', 'N')ot my fault
BP: Oil rig leak 'wasn't our accident'
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')BP Group CEO Tony Hayward:
"It isn't designed to not fail."