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The good news is that more than a million gallons of leaking oil are now being captured every day from the broken Gulf of Mexico well. The not-so-good news is that about 400,000 gallons of that is being burned off spectacularly by an “environmentally friendly” device that’s not all that environmentally friendly. And the even less good news is that as much as a million gallons are still leaking into the Gulf every day. That situation won’t change for a couple of weeks.
But down the road, the news should improve again. More oil-recovery ships are on the way to site, and the operation that's billed as the ultimate fix for the leaking well - a weeks-long effort to drill relief wells 13,000 feet beneath the sea floor - is ahead of schedule. The drill bit working on the deepest relief well is just 200 feet from the pipe, in fact, but the most difficult and time-consuming part of the operation is just ahead.
Here's how things stand in what's shaping up as history's biggest and most expensive single well-capping operation:
Oil-capture system near capacity
The BP oil company hit a new record on Thursday for most oil captured over a 24-hour period: About 16,020 barrels (672,840 gallons) of oil were brought up from the deep through a cap-and-riser system for processing aboard the Discoverer Enterprise, along with millions of cubic feet of natural gas that was flared off. That's close to the estimated daily capacity of 18,000 barrels. Another 9,270 barrels (389,340 gallons) of oil went through a different line to the Q4000 rig. That's also near the estimated capacity of 10,000 barrels daily. But the Q4000 doesn't have any processing facilities available, so all that oil has to be burned off.
Can burning oil be 'environmentally friendly'?
At current crude-oil prices, that burn rate suggests that $700,000 worth of petroleum is going up in smoke every day. Admittedly, it's not your usual "smoke." BP is using in a smokeless atomizing burner that is supposed to be more environmentally friendly than the usual equipment. However, the EverGreen Burner still carries an environmental cost. A report from Total E&P UK, prepared for North Sea drilling operations, says high-efficiency green burners are the "safest option" for burning oil, but they nevertheless produce irritating ozone, sulfur dioxide, greenhouse gases and nitrous oxides. Fallout from the burn can drift several miles (kilometers) away, according to the environmental study. The burning is said to pose a "moderate risk" to the environment - and that's upsetting to some activists. But in BP's view, at least, the risk is outweighed by the benefit of keeping that much more oil out of the gulf while reinforcements make their way to the site.
BP
This diagram shows how the oil-capture operation should look by the end of June. Click on image for full-size PDF graphics.
More ships are on the way
Sometime in the next 10 days, the Helix Producer processing ship is due to arrive on the scene - and start pumping up 20,000 to 25,000 barrels (840,000 to 1.05 million gallons) of oil daily from yet another line connected to the Gulf of Mexico well's broken blowout preventer. That will provide a huge boost to the oil-capture capacity. It's even conceivable that BP could discontinue the Q4000 oil-burning operation, if the output from the broken well is toward the low end of the current estimates (35,000 barrels leaking per day). By mid-July, still more processing ships (including the Toisa Pisces and the Clear Leader) will be collecting oil. The capture capacity would rise to 60,000 to 80,000 barrels a day, which would cover even the most dire estimates to date. By mid-July, the cap on the blowout preventer and the hookups to the well would be replaced with equipment designed to weather the hurricane season.
BP
This diagram shows how the oil-capture operation should look by mid-July. Click on image for full-size PDF graphics.
Relief wells close in on target
For weeks, two drilling rigs have been carving new holes through the seafloor, with the aim of intersecting with the 7-inch-wide pipe for the original, now-broken well at a depth of around 18,000 feet (which includes 5,000 feet of water plus 13,000 feet of drilling beneath the seafloor). As of Thursday, the well-drilling operations had reached depths of about 16,000 feet and 9,800 feet. More significantly, the deepest drill bit is only 200 horizontal feet away from the side of the well pipe, BP executive Kent Wells said today. But it will take weeks more to finesse those final feet. "We're actually going to go right beside it - that's what takes the time," he said.
BP spokesman Robert Wine told me that the team directing the drill is using magnetic sensors to get a fix on exactly where that pipe is in relation to the bit. Once the bit drills into the pipe, heavy mud and cement will be pumped down the relief well. It's expected that the gunk will flow up the pipe, harden and block the broken well completely. Wine said the drilling is proceeding ahead of schedule so far, but BP is still targeting August as the expected completion date. If the first relief well doesn't do the trick, then the second relief well would serve as a backup. But it could take several attempts to hit the pipe in the right place, as it did during a similar well-killing operation in Australia last August.
"It's a little bit like driving a car from the back seat," oil-industry observer Bob Cavnar told NBC News. "You can reach the steering wheel but it's a little hard to control."
Meanwhile, the disaster continues
As bad as it sounds to spray burning oil and gas into the air, burning the oil on the surface of the gulf raises more questions. "There are a couple of concerns," said marine biologist John Hocevar, Greenpeace USA's oceans campaign director. "One is the pollution. ... But also, where there is enough oil to make it worth skimming, along with the oil you find algae and other materials that tend to cause marine life to aggregate around it."
The oil and the fires pose a double threat to marine species such as sea turtles and dolphins. "Greenpeace has observed some of this from the air," Hocevar said. But the main concern is the cumulative impact of the oil that's been fouling the gulf and Louisiana's wetlands for weeks. As of Thursday, rescuers have collected 639 oiled birds and released 42 back in the wild. More than 100 sea turtles have been rescued alive, but only three have been released. Hundreds more dead birds and turtles have been collected. It's not clear, however, what role the oil spill played in their death.
When I spoke with Hocevar over the phone, he was on his way back from a tour of the barrier islands around Grand Isle, La. He estimated that there were 25,000 dead hermit crabs washed up on the shore. "It's awful to see," he said. "One of the reasons this is troubling is that this means the sand is no longer able to sustain life."
Bottom line? Let's hope that the reinforcements traveling in high gear, that the burning downshifts soon, and that the hurricane season stays stuck in low gear.
More on the disaster in the gulf:
- NBC video: BP increases capture capacity
- Methane adds to oil-spill concerns
- Interactive: The physics of oil spills
- Live leak video could hurt Obama
- Full coverage from msnbc.com
Join the Cosmic Log corps by signing up as my Facebook friend or hooking up on Twitter. And if you really want to be friendly, ask me about "The Case for Pluto."
Leave a Comment:
Contrary to what the Constitution says, the president does not run the executive branch of the federal government. It runs itself. Following Newton's Laws of Motion, it is "a body in motion that tends to remain in motion in the same direction and at the same speed unless acted upon by an outside force." The bureaucracy keeps doing what it is programmed to do unless someone intervenes. And that intervention is the proper job of the president. He has to step in, ask the right questions, get inside and outside advice, and decide how to intervene to move the bureaucracy one way or the other. President Clinton had an excellent sense of how to do this and when to get involved. President Obama does not. When the spill started, he and his campaign staff - now transplanted to the White House - reacted the way a Senator or a candidate would, blaming British Petroleum, framing an issue against the oil company, and holding it accountable. But what he needed to do was to review the plans for coping with the disaster and intervene to move the bureaucracy in untraditional but more appropriate directions. Instead, he let business as usual and inertia move the process. The president's tardy requests for international assistance and his government's bureaucratic response to their offers demonstrates his lack of command and control. The Washington Post reports that the Obama Administration initially "saw no need to accept offers of state-of-the-art skimmers, miles of boom or technical assistance from nations around the globe with experience fighting oil spills." Arrogantly, State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid told reporters on May 19th "we'll let BP decide what expertise they do need." Two weeks after the spill started, the State Department and the Coast Guard sought to figure out what aid they could use from abroad. On May 5th, the Department reported that thirteen international offers of aid had been tendered and the government would decide which to accept "in the next two days." Two weeks later, it said that it did not need any of them. Now, when it is too late, the U.S. has finally accepted Canada's offer of 10,000 feet of boom. In late May it took 14,000 feet from Mexico, two skimmers from Mexico, and skimming systems from Norway and the Netherlands. Too little too late. Why didn't the Administration act sooner? Bureaucratic obstacles stopped it and the president was not involved or active enough to sweep them aside. Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr Christopher T. O'Neil said that "all qualifying offers of assistance have been accepted." But this bureaucratic-speak did not mention that the Jones Act - an isolationist law passed in the 1920s that requires vessels working in American waters to be built and crewed by Americans - disqualified many of the offers of assistance. But Obama could have waived the Jones Act whenever he wanted to. A Norwegian offer of a chemical dispersant was rejected by the EPA - more bureaucracy. When Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal sought to create sand berms to keep oil away from the coastline, the Washington Post reported that he reached out to "the marine contractor Van Oord and the research institute Deltares...BP pledged $360 million for the plan, but U.S. dredging companies - which have less than one-fifth the capacity of Dutch dredging firms -- objected to foreign companies' participation." An activist, involved chief executive would have swept aside these impediments and demanded immediate action. He would have ridden roughshod over bureaucratic and political objections and gotten the cleanup underway. But this president is no executive. He is a legislator - he is now pushing new environmental legislation. He is a lawyer - his Attorney General is investigating criminal charges against BP. He is a populist - he is quick to blame BP. He is a big spender - he wants a fund to pay the spill's victims. He is all of these things. But he is no chief executive and that, unfortunately, is the job he was elected to do. =Optomyst-
While I live in the North east- volunteered day 10 to work.Am not looking for a paying job, but work.Was finally escalated by my BP conversation last night- will wait to hear about that.Have some specialized training that could be used- will not just show up, was told they have trained 4,000+ of their 16,000 volunteers- I am there"somewhere".While Obama has fiddled while the Gulf got more messed up-why would anyone push away a volunteer- who has specifically said if they got a paying job, would only want to cover transit then give back to the local communities, and I am far from rich.And while I have time, they can use it- will not donate, as there are no records on how much gets where
You see, I was always taught to leave a mark on the world- would like to think my contribution might be just that.This is a really sad group of errors
Optomyst, you make your point clearly and concisely. And, sadly, correctly.
We own an engineering company in Tampa and came up with a design 5 weeks ago. Our experience in these matters is excellent. This was actually an easy engineering solution compared to some of the other problems we have ahd to solve. We sent the design to many governement officials, senators, the President, the coast Guard, EPA, the news media, ets. So far, all we have gotten back is a few form letters. Our design would have captured 100% of the flow, and we factored in Methane gas, hydrate crystals, freezing, flow, pressure, currents, Hurricanes, etc. It has been peer reviewed. Sad, but true!
This is something that really needs to be looked at. Were viable alternatives available and what was the reason for not using them? Was other help offered and turned down----for what reason? What I've read so far is that rig design, shortcuts took, procedures not followed, led to what happened on this rig. OK, we may have negligence, but is it criminal? That requires proof and a good bunch of it. The 11 people that died on this rig may had held a lot of those answers.
What is your company and website?
If you had gotten yourselves an interview on TV you might have stood a chance. Your behavior is typical of engineering types. You thought that your idea would be given attention because it was well though out and proven. Silly you! Without grand-standing, you didn't stand a chance.
You have to remember that: you are dealing with an inept government - guys who need someone to hold their hands when they go to the bathroom, a Constitutional lawyer - who HATES the US CONSTITUTION, a Chicago politician - another way to say crook and in general, a DUNCE who thinks that he is leading the other lemings dunces off the ice flow. He is; right into the sea!
After using the kids urinal, this guy couldn't lead his way out of the men's room.
Dominion engineering. Search our web site engineerstampa.com You will see our design on there. It has been there for over 4 weeks. We even have a revision to make it more efficient!
If i could only get the word to President Obama on how i can shut the oil off in the Ocean. I am a Industrial Maintenance Director with over 38 years of problem solving experiances i have had over my career ,many kinds of experiances with dealing with all kinds of problems with leaks and breakdowns to fix on the fly in industrial settings. I am best at thinking off the cuff. All i need is to assemble a team of Engineers from three different manufacturers here here in the U.S. and i will make something to put in the hole that will stay. And also something that will allow us to use the sight again if needed. This will be a model to every well that is ever drill. Sounds like bull don't it. It will be so simple only 2 weeks to make.I can do this.Clyde P. Moore C.M.D.
Sorry......have no idea why my last post is spread all over the map.
Optomyst, apparently it's because of a <pre> tag in the post... I was just about to delete it just because of the hinky formatting, but could you pls edit or repost the comment ... you might have to copy it into a plain-text editor to remove that formatting.
thats what happens when you copy and paste your boiler plate derivative rants. Bad troll! No donut!
I swear, the PR trolls get more and more incompetent every day. Could you be any more obvious about flooding distracting BS into the middle of (any) otherwise productive conversation? These are the people destroying the fabric of our community, right here. And why? A damn paycheck? A higher security clearance? You f-ing sellout, you make me sick. You and all your little freeper buddies will act so amazed when the country is in tatters too. Absolutely repulsive. You should be brought up for treason, undermining the fourth estate with deliberate conspiracy. Please go back to Israel so when Iran nukes you and your little mossad friends I can rest assured that they got you too.
You, my friend, are an idiot. I am more American than you will ever be and refuse to be brainwashed by the media hype and this current administrations motto of "I am the government and I am here to help you." Go crawl back in your cave and wait for your government check to arrive. Oh, I forgot! You don't live in a cave. You live in government subsidized housing next to our great leader's Auntie.
please save this world this life of ours Lord God Jesus Father n Son n Holy Spirit..
It won't be until mid-July that there is enough processsing capacity to handle 60-80,000 barrels a day! The well will have been spilling for 3 months by then. Since they don't know, or won't tell, us how much oil and gas are leaking, that may not be enough capacity. Estimates have been as high as 100,000 barrels/day. BP should be staging more capacity and they should have moved it sooner. They are still trying to control their costs.
OPTOMYST,
Please don't bash the Jones Act if you don't know what you are talking about.
Optimist you are right about most things exept the Jones Act Laws. The Jones Act protects U.S. Mariners and reads as follows vessels leaving an American Port and returning to an American port must be crewed by at least 75% by Americans. It is not isolationist. Imagine an Russian tanker running in an out of American Ports with no Americans. Who is there to supply local knowledge? Also there are exemptions when the type of vessels are of special purpose. These laws are also an international standard in the maritime industry. The ship sucking the oil out is from Panama. Who would move our military around the world if America had no mariners? The Jones Act protects Mariners and civilains alike. The cold hard fact is that out of all the ships that are in U.S. Ports only 400 are of American registry.
It was hard to read with one eye, and scroll back and forth. The sentiment is correct though. All stopping points should have been dealt with to implement emergency strategies. By the fourth week, when it was obvious that this was a mega event, Obama should have issued orders to override any acts or laws that hindered the collection of surface oil.
Liberals still drinking the baRRy ObamE KoOlAid!!
sad....
Had a interesting meeting with a BP claims officer today, it ended with "you have bad timing on starting a business" even though everything was documented on March 30 way before the accident, my father and I have a ton of money out that is lost. The new trick is to not deny any claims because that will give you the right to have the Coast Guard investigate the claim, and of course without the denial page the Coast Guard cannot investigate it. So you basically float around in the system in limbo. This is their latest duck the claims scam. Please send it around.
My BP claim # is 6866124168193,
I think you should blog about it some, get a facebook group going for it, then stage a media spectacle to draw attention to it. Clearly thats the only way to get anything done anymore. Take care though, the trolls will take any opportunity to paint you as a terrorist, so think whimsical spectacle, definitely on the funny side of harmless. Maybe a satirical youtube video about your ordeals, etc.
Aquacraft- is the business in any form yet, or on paper- they are not looking at paperplans.If your plan has boats, or whatever- why not go in front of the WhiteHouse, you can, I believe protest on sidewalk- no closer,While you see the news is limited on these gaffes- I will bet you a news junkie with a camera will take your picture, as well as story.
With all the technology that we have now, and all the scientist from all around the world, there has to be a solution. If the people stop waisting time blaming, and start fixing this terrable problem, we just might get somewhere. Gather any and all resources from the world, including regular people that don't specialize in drilling, someone, or many might have a solution. Working together as not just a country, but a world, this can and will be fixed. Forget about all the polotics for awhile and put your minds together to stop this leak and cap the hole. Not only is this bad for all the animals that are dying, but for humans, and the very planet we live on. We (humans) are going to destroy the very place we live. Take any suggestions you can get, and try and save what we can now. Again FORGET polotics and Blame.
I am not an engineer, but I am a pretty good observer. So, I was wondering, what will keep the oil, which is under tremendous pressure, from blowing out the relief well? If I get a leak in my garden hose, (I know, poor analogy) the water will spew from that leak, thus decreasing the pressure at the end of the hose and if the leak is large enough and the pressure high enough it will pull the water back from the nozzle. It seems to me that the trouble all along has been the pressure and there has been NO transparency concerning that. From all of the data and memos that have surfaced we could conclude that it is/was a significant problem. We do not know what the pressure at the well head was before the spill, nor do we know now, even though there have been many who say it is a pretty straight forward calculation. As far as I know, BP has not released this information.
I pray that the relief wells work, but I won't be counting my chickens just yet, or my brown pelicans either.
So, I was wondering, what will keep the oil, which is under tremendous pressure, from blowing out the relief well?
The same thing that kept the original well from blowing, right up until the time they removed it, drilling mud.
@Kathy Stuart:
Excellent questions and observations!
One might expect that Murphy's Law applies in these situations, so one scenario is that instead of having just a single out-of-control blowout, there soon will be two blowouts, and a month or so later three blowouts, which could be followed by more "relief" wells and even more blowouts . . .
On the good side, since horizontal drilling was developed by an inventive group of folks along the East Texas side of the Sabine River toward the goal of gaining access to oil reserves on the Louisiana side, it has moved from a largely criminal activity to a fine art, and at the dawn of the early 21st century I think that a skilled horizontal well drilling team probably can drill a well with sufficient accuracy and precision to be able to retrieve a 12-ounce soda pop can from an unsuspecting Cajun's beverage cooler, perhaps from a starting location 5 to 10 miles away, which in some respects is a bit like hitting the center of the red metal cap of a 12-ounce glass bottle of Mexican Coca-Cola made with pure cane sugar with sling shot and a dried English pea at a distance greater than the length of several football fields, or maybe not . . .
I have no idea . . .
And I agree fully with your perspective that the disturbing aspect of the blowout is the pressure, which certainly appears to be intense . . .
There are a lot of variables, and from the well log of the BP "Macondo" well, it appears that the actual producing sections of the well occur in distinct layers at different levels . . .
[NOTE: For those folks who are no so conversant in the terminology, a "well log" typically is a diagram or chart of the geology at different depths of a well, and with older wells the general strategy was to have solid pipe for the non-producing sections but to use perforated pipe for the producing sections. I learned how to read well logs soon after graduating from college, where in a bit of temporary work I examined a few thousand well logs to get production data, and it certainly was an interesting few months of work, even though it was not in my specialty, which is the reason it was a temporary job. Over the years I have done other types of work for several oil companies, and it is an interesting industry, for sure . . . ]
I think that one can presume reasonably that the failed cementing operation was designed to pinch pennies and to make it as inexpensive to put the well into production as possible, which is an inference based on two facts:
(1) Only 51 barrels of "cement slurry" were used . . .
(2) The "cement slurry" was "foamed" with nitrogen gas, which according to the experts at 3M produces a very weak and porous type of cement that is highly prone to failure, even in shallow to medium depth wells, which might be due in part to 3M having an outstanding product (essentially tiny "glass beads") that works much better than nitrogen gas and is fully capable of withstanding the intense pressures of this type of deep sea well, except that it costs more than nitrogen gas, perhaps as much as a few thousand dollars more, which provides a few clues to the extent of penny pinching at BP, and even though the experts at 3M might be a tiny bit biased in their perspectives on additives for cement slurry, their information is accurate, for sure . . .
For sure!
And while I am very encouraged to see now retired Lt. General Russel L. Honoré becoming involved in the BP "Macondo" well crisis--since he was one of the brightest sources of common sense during the aftermath of hurricane Katrina--I am not the least convinced that anything currently is being managed by folks other than the two least science-qualified groups of people on the planet, specifically (a) accountants and financial advisors and (b) politicians . . .
From my perspective, the greatest concern is the ever expanding festival of disparate undersea technologies and surface vessels, as is shown in the outstanding diagrams Alan Boyle provided in this edition of his "Cosmic Log" (see above) . . .
No doubt, one might presume that the captains and crews of the various surface vessels are aware of the dangers for their particular vessels, but as the number of surface vessels increases, so does the complexity of the interactions among the various solid, liquid, gas, and perhaps even plasma state hydrocarbons, at least some of which are highly flammable, extraordinarily toxic, and quite explosive . . .
There are branches of mathematics and physics that focus generally on what one might call "chaos theory", where the basic concept is that systems can become so complex that strange and unexpected interactions are more likely rather than less likely, so while the blowout and oil spill certainly are troublesome from a high-level perspective, I suggest that the disturbing aspects involve interactions among the various clean-up technologies, surface vessels, undersea containment and siphoning equipment, and so forth and so on, because considered in toto, this is a Gestalt with which nobody on this planet has any experience, which makes it what in aviation is called a "seat of the pants" activity where one devises the rules on the fly, literally . . .
And as noted in several of my previous comments to what now is has become an ongoing series of outstanding "Cosmic Log" reports on the BP "Macondo" well blowout, I think that it is very reasonable to suggest (a) that there are several ways to decommission the BP "Macondo" well permanently, forever and forever, but (b) that none of them are being used because the ultimate goal of both BP and the federal government is to keep the door open to putting the BP "Macondo" well into full production sometime in the future, which simply will not be possible if the well is closed using permanent decommissioning techniques . . .
The reality, which at this point is undeniable, is that the BP "Macondo" well is gushing at least 50,000 barrels per day of oil per day, which at the current spot price of $77 a barrel (42 gallons) maps approximately to 4 million dollars per day or about 1.5 billion dollars a year, which is a lot of money, for sure . . .
For sure!
Based on the information I have been able to find in public documents and news reports, it appears that neither BP nor the federal government have any idea about the geology and other mechanisms of the oil reservoir, and when having few if any clues is combined with the obvious reality that the well is gushing oil under extreme pressure, there are some patently disturbing ways to connect the dots, where for example one scenario is that the two "relief" wells will blowout and then since there will be not just one but three avenues of exit for the intensely pressurized oil and natural gas, this might be sufficient to cause a major undersea geological event that could map to a catastrophic "dome collapse", in which case the entire oil and natural gas reserves would be released to the surface of the Gulf of Mexico in a matter of hours or days, thereby transforming the Gulf of Mexico into an uninhabitable toxic pool, at least some of which gnarly petrochemicals can travel to the Atlantic and Caribbean oceans, with the entire thing rising to the level of a planetary event in terms of the environment, weather, and so forth and so on . . .
All my petroleum industry work over the years has been with what now is Exxon-Mobil and always has been Shell, and while those companies make an occasional mistake, overall they have excellent records for safety and technical expertise, and I certainly think that the top experts from both companies need to be intimately involved in advising the federal government on the best ways to deal with what otherwise has every likelihood of evolving into a planetary disaster . . .
Even if BP somehow has issued new safety rules company-wide, the fact of the matter is that transforming a corporate culture does not happen overnight, and it takes a lot of work to cause people to abandon long-held practices and perspectives, if only because they simply have no prior experience with being diligent . . .
And while some of this might be a bit on the far side of what might happen, one of the most recent clues to the facdt that nearly nobody in the federal government actually is taking any of this seriously was observed over the past 24 hours when CNN reported that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) budget for having its hurricane plans fly over the BP "Macondo" well to make aerial observations of the oil spill, sea surface, and atmosphere is exhausted, which maps to no more flights, really . . .
http://www.aoc.noaa.gov/
Really!
This is what happens when the federal government and private corporations arbitrarily decide that highly literate, highly numerate, but older American citizens are too expensive and too gnarly in staff meetings, with the consequence that they are sent home with "pink slips" and replaced across the board by a combination of (a) offshoring, (b) onshoring foreign workers via temporary worker visas, and (c) virtual festivals of primarily uneducated "youth of today" who are motivated more by the opportunity to have free pizza and nachos, as well as virtually unlimited game console time than by keeping bad things from happening . . .
Older folks might not be a lot of FUN in staff meetings, and they might appear to sleep most of the day every once in a while, but we do our homework, and our stuff does not fail catastrophically, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous!
@ Baldenario:
That was an excellent response to Kathy's question. Do you know if oil companies usually keep some sort of geological map of the areas they're drilling in? Would pressure coming from the leak possibly create the setting for a shift under the ocean's floor? I wonder if it would increase the chances of a tsunami if there's a hurricane? And if the relief wells go, would it be more likely to cause that kind of reaction? I don't know the physics of it. Just wondering...
Also, are you a writer, besides a songwriter? Do you have a column of some kind? Alan should hire you, for sure...;-)
Baldenario - very good response, and well researched. I do differ with you on Shell/Exxon's record, especially when you take into account their ecological disaster currently in Africa.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/world/africa/17nigeria.html?src=mv
I too fear a dome collapse, especially after hearing that one of the reasons that BP stopped the top kill, was due to discovering more cracks and fissures in the rock around and below the wellhead during their top kill operation. This was due to various pressures (above and below) that are seriously cracking the rock below. This is vital/critical rock substrates that is currently blocking the oil.
I have also seen no reports that BP will be using redundant doubling of blowout preventer systems on their relief wells.
The thought of a dome collapse, and sinkhole with that much oil definitely sends a chill down my spine.
Oh and BTW - I too am a songwriter (keyboardist) mostly doing soundtracks for indy films. Creative minds think alike.
Cheers'
Remberasha,
Baldenario gave me a link to his band "The Surf Whammy's". I can't find the link to it on you tube right now, but here's another link:
http://www.surfwhammys.com/
He has a killer sense of humor, and uh...you should pay for that, Baldenario, absolutely.
Check out my home page here on Newsvine. I'm getting ready to write a story...of sorts.;-)
@Darrah:
Most of the time, the exploration folks at oil companies have considerable geological data long before they decide to invest millions or billions of dollars drilling wells, since it tends to work better when the probability of actually finding oil and natural gas is increased . . .
One of the big companies in the geological data side of the business is Schlumberger (pronounced "slumber-jay" in Texas), and one of their technologies involves using a combination of explosives and sound-monitoring equipment to make a sonic image of the underground, similar to an ultrasound test that a medical doctor might do, but a lot louder and covering a larger and deeper area . . .
http://www.slb.com/
There are quite a few ways that geologists and petroleum engineers get data which eventually leads to discovering oil and natural gas, but the most fascinating instance I have encountered so far is the one used by the fellow who discovered the vast oil fields in California, which was done based on his noticing in early photographs of settlers digging water wells that there appeared to be "black stuff" in a lot of the wells, and after doing a bit of research he had the idea that it might be a good idea to do an exploratory well, which as he explained it resulted in a discovering oil within a few minutes of drilling, since earlier in the last century the oil was so close to the surface and so fluid that it literally gushed from very shallow wells . . .
Today, most of the oil is tertiary at best, which maps to being so thick that after you melt it; pour it inside a one-quart jar; and then cool it to room temperature, you can hold the open-top jar upside-down and the oil will stay inside the jar, forever, because it basically is thick tar and very solid . . .
Nevertheless, this type of oil can be extracted, with the usual way several decades ago being to inject the reservoir with superheated steam, which melts the tar, thereby transforming it temporarily into a form that can be pumped, and some of this oil is used to create the heat and energy for making and injecting the superheated steam . . .
Regarding what might happen to the seabed floor and what I suppose is called the "substrate", the oil gushing from the BP "Macondo" well certainly appears to be under a lot of pressure, and as noted in my earlier comments, I continue to be a bit amazed that the well has not been permanently decommissioned (a fancy word for "closed"), since I think there are several ways to do this, and in one of those comments I provided links to two devices that Halliburton makes (RTTS Packer and SCS III), which specifically are used in perhaps as many as three-quarters of the wells in the Gulf of Mexico to take them offline during hurricanes, and these devices essentially are variations of my idea of building a "V2" rocket; filling it with a million tampons; and then firing it into the wellbore upside-down, which is patently goofy in some respects but has bits of a good idea in other respects, since when you examine the Halliburton devices, from a somewhat strange perspective they are pretty much like a tampon, really . . .
[NOTE: This is an excellent video with animated technical drawings of the RTTS Packer and SCS III in operation, and the music is outstanding, and while there are unlikely to be an videos like this used for advertising tampons, it is a bit amusing to imagine that instead of being a technical video for oil well equipment it is a prototype concept for tampons that was entirely too technical for anyone . . . ]
http://www.halliburton.com/public/tttcp/contents/Multimedia/web/SSCIII.wmv
Really!
If one is gracious and presumes for a moment that someone at BP actually has a clue, then I think this supports the inference that there is something extraordinarily gnarly about the geology of the oil reservoir that makes it highly dangerous simply to decommission the well, which could be a matter of the surrounding subsurface geology being weak, crumbly, porous, or whatever . . .
For me, the big clue is that intuitively something has to be causing the oil and natural gas to gush from the well at such extreme pressure . . .
Basically, using a bit of simple physics, if you visit an auto supply store or someplace that sells cans of oil, it is not so difficult to observe that the cans typically do not explode due to extreme pressure inside the cans, hence one might suggest that an oil reservoir is a much larger "oil can" . . .
And there are two things that cause oil and natural gas to expand inside a closed container--specifically (a) external pressure and (b) heat . . .
So, my best guess is that in this particular instance the driving force is gravity, where the weight of all the water in the Gulf of Mexico is pressing downward on the dome of the oil reservoir, as is the subsea sand, rock, and so forth and so on, which from my perspective tends to indicate that the dome of the oil reservoir is not so rigid and, in fact, is softer and more pliable, which is a bit of a problem if the BP "Macondo" well happens to be drilled in the exact center of a "weak spot" in the geological infrastructure . . .
Combine all that stuff with what now appears to be methane gas saturated sea water and the virtual festival of other petrochemicals, dispersants, pumping and siphoning equipment, surface vessels, cables, pipes, and so forth, and then sooner or later the probability of a cascading series of catastrophic events increases dramatically, which is one of the reasons that nobody is going to be allowed within 50 miles of the well with any type of explosive device, let along a small nuclear bomb . . .
And regarding writing, it is something that I do every day, in part because I like to touch-type, and it is more FUN to touch-type when what you are touch-typing makes a bit of sense or is amusing, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous! :-)
P. S. Although it took over a decade of writing something every day, at this point I compose my posts in real-time on the fly with nearly perfect grammar and spelling at the touch-typing rate of approximately 70 words per minute, although I always read a comment several times to fine-check the grammar and spelling, and if nothing comes to mind for a moment or so, I switch to writing about the aliens from outer space, which has the benefit of requiring virtually no actual research or fact-checking at all, really . . .
Really!
@Remberasha:
I agree with you regarding places other than the US, where it appears that the various oil companies have transformed Nigeria into a toxic wasteland, but in the US and surrounding waters Exxon-Mobil certainly got their act together after the Exxon Valdez disaster, and Shell has always had a good record in this part of the world, as for the most part have all the other companies--except BP . . .
Royal Dutch Shell is incorporated in England and Wales but is headquartered in the Netherlands, which from a Freudian perspective is like being headquartered in underpants, but this works for Shell, and it is fine with me, especially if they are Angela Gossow's underpants, for sure . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecAFV-6rQ7Q
For sure!
And on the topic of music, my primary instruments are bass, guitar, and drums, but I also play keyboards (mostly a KORG Triton Music Workstation with 88-keys), although the way I play keyboards is based on discovering how to get in touch with my inner idiot savant, which is one of the most fascinatingly strange things I have done, where the strategy was based on the premise that at some point skilled pianists do not think about every note they are playing in any immediately conscious way, so instead of actually practicing piano, I just thought about it and imagined myself playing piano for about two decades, during which time I watched a lot of Jerry Lee Lewis, Liberace, Chico Marx, and Floyd Cramer music videos, along with the video of John Lennon playing keyboards for "I'm Down" (Beatles) in one of their concerts, where Lennon is having a grand time being patently silly . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfvA6luvdAg
Patently silly!
The general strategy is based on idea that the unconscious mind knows a lot more than the conscious mind, so once you feed the unconscious mind sufficient information, it knows what to do, and at this point all you need to do is to discover how to cause the conscious mind to take a temporary vacation for a while, which basically is a matter of suspending nearly all conscious thought and critical thinking, with the following bit of keyboard lunacy being an example of a bit of real-time composing and playing on the fly with no advance preparation other than knowing the rhythm guitar chords, as is the case with the bass guitar which also was composed and played in real-time, since for the most part I like to do everything one time, which for a pretend band where one person plays all the instruments and does all the singing tends to be the best way to sound like a real band, for sure . . .
[NOTE: The particular stereo grand preset on the Triton included a bit of synthesized "fog" stuff, so there is a bit of what to me sounds like train whistles and fog every once in a while, but it is just one keyboard part and a lot of echo, which creates the illusion that it is more than one part . . . ]
http://www.surfwhammys.com/music/11_Starlight_2.2_Grand_Piano.mp3
For sure!
It helps to use a lot of long-delay echo with repeats and to focus more on playing the piano keys as if they were a drumkit, since at some point when you play so many notes rapidly, all that matters is the rhythm pattern, because one of the more fascinating aspects of aural perception is that the human mind will create logic when presented with a virtual festival of illogical aural lunacy, and another useful fact is that it is virtually impossible for most people--including me--to do anything which is even a tiny bit random, so while essentially berserking on piano appears to be strange at the time, when you listen to the recording later it is considerably more logical than it appeared to be when you were composing and playing it on the fly in real-time, really . . .
Really!
My most recently fascinating musical discovery is that I know enough about music composition and orchestration to compose elaborate stuff using Notion 3 music composition software, which I have been using for a Flamenco song in a new style that I created about a month or so ago (called "Surrealería™"), which is based on Bulería, except that the interlude has a 36-beat rhythm pattern rather than the standard 12-beat Bulería rhythm pattern of the verses and choruses, which is fabulous . . .
[NOTE: This is the basic rhythm section, and all the instruments are generated by Notion 3 using Miroslave Philharmonik and London Symphony Orchestra sound libraries which is done this way primarily because while I am a reasonably good drummer, these rhythms are too complex for me to do on a real drumkit. I will add real bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, keyboards, Latin percussion, and singing later, but the nice thing about Notion 3 is that I can import the stuff it generates into Digital Performer, where I can augment it with real stuff, which since I only discovered this about a month ago is a bit mind-boggling in a FUN way . . . ]
http://www.surfwhammys.com/Surrealeria-06-10-2010.wmv
Fabulous! :-)
Kathy- since you sound educated, why not fire off an email(whether or not you get credit) to your local new station, wherever you live- get your question answered!!!
While it is obvious to me that there is still not enough equipment on the scene to clean this mess up, 10,000 feet and 14,000 feet of boom is just a drop in the proverial bucket. While I agree that there has been too little too late from everyone, my concern is that there is still not enough equipment on site for the task.
I agree with some Abdula and Clyde that that there still are other ideas out there that could work better. The idea that only BP can fix this is ludicrous
Bla Bla Bla,
Nothing being done to fix the situation just a bunch of people looking busy. Back in the day burning it was the best way cause it was a quick fix and then we could focas on the animals and eco life. Now, its all political. Who can get the most attention? Spend the most money doing nothing and complain about how much is being spent not getting anything done eccept lining pockets. Dawn and other companies have raised money for years just for this type of situation so where is that money? The companies responsible for the spill have paid insurance just in case for years, where is that money? People say euthanize (spelling incorrect) the sick to save time and money but why kill the innocent when we've been pitching in to save them for years? It is ludicrous! I say burn the oil, clean up the ashes and stop the killing of more innocent animals and eco life!
Dizzzy- while in principle you are quite right, most apparently the burn off is quite toxic, and to humans.As hurricane season approaches- want to breathe it in, or if you have well water drink it?
This is a huge crisis !!!!!!!! No time to be pushing legislation and pointing the finger... I agree with Optomyst and Geeser and goldminor...To take the discussion to another level...
As the pirates of the Carribean used to say, "Dead men tell no tales"... I wonder what the 11 people killed at blast sight if one had survived would be able to tell the world what happened. It smells of sabotage, not that that lets BP off the hook it doesnt, cause BP should have had every State of the art, Security and or safety Systems in place per regulations, a back up well and skimmers in place...
Every one on the Gulf coast that has property and or vessels or land should take an active part in protecting their coast line... Berms should be built and booms with absorbant bought, if the president cant or wont make this a top priority the citizens of the coast should take matters in their own hands...Collection points for Americans to donate everything to clean this up..MATTRESSES, towels, chicken feathers, newspapers, paper towels, hay, bull dozers, old clothes ditches to catch the oil before it poisons our water supply.... Sending the bill to BP..
We might have been attacked, if this was sabotage...The Russians have stopped well leaks like this with a nuclear war head blast...to seal it....
The president moved to slowly to put everything in place all the experts, all the nations, all the American oil company ceo and engineers should have met within 48 hours...to figure this out.
The president would rather close the door after the horse escapes the barn...
I fear how slowly will he react in the next crisis...
Ebay is selling booms for oil clean up...gulf coast residents need buy them
and save their coast line save their way of life.....save themselves...
The spirit of Jefferson Davis, lives.....
Optomyst, you have captured perfectly the exact attitude of our president. I regret ever voting him in office. Though thinking back on it, there were only bad choices to pick from which sadly seems to be the case.
BP's arrogance in their handling of this issue is only part of the problem. We, the Americans in the country of the United States need to wake up. We're all or most of us anyways are pushing for global interaction, when we're the ones that actually need help for once, what do we do, we put a million bueracratic obstacles in the way.
The way our government is handling this reminds me strongly of knocking on the door and no one's home.
Stop blaming BP and blame our own government on the issue at this point. BP is a lost cause. Has been and will always will be a lost cause. When it became obvious BP will not be able to solve this issue, our government should have stepped in.
Dathias- I am sorry, but disagree- this is a president who has done nothing for 2 monthe then "strongarmed"BP for 20 B- they GAVE It, and will give more.
If the blame game needs playing, I think BP who has been barred by government red tape ought to be off the hook, Obama clearly on hook
Any and all sea life trapped in that oil is being burned to death. Check out you tube 'sea turtles' poster catherine8 to hear the coast guard captain explain how they were stopped from rescuing sea life by BP and then BP is burning the oil. All sea life is burned - dead or alive.
I do not have words to describe the disgust I feel for BP executives and their decisions which have cost animals, humans and the planet untold suffering and destruction. Take all of BP's money use it to rescue sea life, clean up the environment and implement alternative fuel technology NOW.
Now they are going to drill 'relief wells', not content with one oil volcano gushing they are going to stir up more trouble.
Totoally agree with you Blue Mirage. But I don't see why they can't gather what they can quickly so they can save the trying. Burn the dead and dying, a quick death is better then the tourture they are getting now. Clean quickly so they can save the ones that survived so far. If we let it sit more with become sick and ill causing more of a clean up... I say the public make a nation wide online vote to how things should be delt with. Something like a 48 hour online vote, majority rules. We all seem to lean toward one direction and tend to agree one way or another. I think its how all decisions should be made now a days. We are the government, right?!
Aqua craft, ...I'm glad you put this out there!!! I know first hand that insurance companys are not so quick to pay.
Generally you have to fight for your money.. Its an outrage.... I fear that BP will seek bankruptcy protection.
Some say and I agree that there should be a fast track if you have a vessel or vessels and or factorys, sea food processing plants marina and or coastal property you should instantly be paid...with ongoing condsideration payments for 5-10 years till the coastline comes back to some kind of normalcy...
This could be an attack on our soil by the black gold, texas tea.......explosion....
Its evil that this happened....I'm believing that everyone should contact and talk to Governor Jindahl
he tells it like it is.....Now heres a great leader.........
For Kathy...
The relief wells are being drilled with the KNOWN data (Final mud weight, final bottom hole location, bottom hole pressures, etc) from the MC-252 well that is blowing out.
The MC-252 blowout occurred AFTER the heavier drilling fluids were removed from the well bore and replaced with seawater, during the temporary abandonement process. The relief wells will not have that particular condition at intercept and the mud weight in the relief wells will overcome the blowout at their respective intercept depth. High pressure and high volume pumps will overcome the flow in MC-252 and once stable, pump cement into the MC-252 well bore and kill it FOREVER.
After that, CNN, et al can go find another crisis to sent AC360 to.....
also......Google the following and get some truth to GOM blowouts.....
PEMEX well IXTOC 1 blowout in Gulf of Mexico
Complain all you want, Be confused as much as you need to be; The fact remains 41% of BP is owned by JP Morgan Chase....Chase Bank is an integral part of the FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM....A private corporation.......So feed the fire if you must!!!! As knowledge is power ;"lack of" is not rewarded .All that is necessary for evil to triumph..is for good men to do nothing.
EXACTLY! well said.
The good news of the day is that Tony Hayward is no longer in charge of the daily operations. The good news for tomorrow would be to hear that he was fired. The good news for next month would be to hear that he spends some time in the poky.
Jeff Corwin is doing a great job reporting for NBC/MSNBC. This morning, he was wearing thick rubber gloves. He showed how the oil clung to his hand and was burning. It brought to mind an image of the animals being caught in that. I can't begin to imagine the pain they're in. Here's Jeff's link to field notes from a couple of days ago:
http://fieldnotes.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/06/15/4513390-this-is-the-last-line-of-defense
As for the people who are working and living in the regions, They're probably going to have health problems for yrs. from the burning toxins. Sometimes you don't see the effects of toxins for decades, but I'm sure it won't take yrs. in this situation. I just hope they will at least be able to get the money from BP for the present and future, but I seriously doubt it. People are still living in those "temporary" trailers in New Orleans and Katrina. People have gotten sick because of the asbestos.
Speaking of hurricanes, lightning closed down the operation on the first day of this new plan. So it wouldn't even take a hurricane to hit. A tropical storm could cause havoc. But it is suppose to be an "above active" hurricane season.
Hopefully, things will turn positive long enough to collect the oil and eventually stop the leak. I hope to hell someone's taking notes on how to clean up the next spill.
@Darrah:
The combination of a tropical storm or hurricane and high concentrations of atmospheric and sea surface hydrocarbons is disturbing, for sure . . .
For sure!
And there already is a currently approximately "30 percent" probable tropical storm forming off the northern coast of South America, which happens to be in perhaps the worst possible early location for gnarly Gulf of Mexico hurricanes, since the most severe Gulf of Mexico hurricanes that make landfall in the US tend to travel directly along the mountains in Cuba, really . . .
[NOTE: If you click on "Satellite" in the upper-left column of this National Hurricane Center webpage, there is a virtual festival of satellite images, most of which have time-lapse animations, as well as options to show more detailed atmospheric conditions, sea surface temperatures, prevailing winds, and so forth and so on . . . ]
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
Really!
In an odd way, I suppose it is a bit exciting and intriguing to witness firsthand the transformation of the Gulf of Mexico into a dead sea, but perhaps not, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous!
Baldenario, this is a strange question, but mine usually are.
So if the Gulf Coast had a hurricane, do you think some of the oil would actually slow down the waves coming to shore? I'm still wondering about an electrical storm and whether that would ignite the oil in a way that couldn't be controlled. I hope they have really savvy meteorologists on all the scenes that are being affected by the oil. I also hope they have some damn good first responders getting ready just in case...
@Darrah:
Oil is lighter than water, so it would alter the behavior of the waves but probably would not have a damping affect on the waves, although I need to ponder this for a while . . .
Yet, intuitively the most likely outcome will be that the salt-saturated water will push the lighter oil to shore faster and farther inland, since oil floats on water . . .
And based on some of the information Anderson Cooper has provided on CNN, it appears that it is not so easy to ignite the surface oil, since doing this for controlled burns requires using a combination of diesel fuel and flares to generate sufficient heat to ignite the surface oil . . .
The greater concern is that at some point the air near the surface will become so saturated with aerosol hydrocarbons that a particularly intense lightning strike could cause an explosion that might be sufficient to ignite some of the surface oil, but intuitively I think that there will be so much water and wind in a tropical storm or hurricane that the oil and natural gas will be circulated but not ignited . . .
On the other hand, I am quite intrigued by the idea that burning all the oil and natural gas might generate sufficient amounts of heat to augment the energy stored as heat in the surface water, which as you know needs to be 80 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer for tropical storms and hurricanes to form, which already is the case for significant parts of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, as well as a few parts of the Atlantic Ocean, which you can see in the POES Composite (Daily Sea Surface Temperature) image of the Atlantic Ocean, which includes the Gulf of Mexico, and is found at the lower-right bottom of the National Hurricane Center satellite image page . . .
The prevailing winds have shifted this year into a particularly gnarly path for Gulf of Mexico hurricanes, so one of the things I do every day, in addition to reading Alan Boyle's "Cosmic Log" and everything except Sports, Entertainment, and Travel (most of the time) on MSNBC.com, is to check the National Hurricane Center where there are very useful satellite images, most of which are animated with time-lapse images that usually include the option to chart the "Sea Surface Temperature (SST)", which is one of the key factors in determining what happens with respect to tropical storms and hurricanes, for sure . . .
[NOTE: When you see "30" or higher numbers on the SST chart, this indicates that the sea surface temperature is sufficiently warm to provide the necessary energy for a tropical storm or hurricane, and among other things tropical storms and hurricanes have a strange type of "brain" that instructs them to follow paths that lead to two things--specifically areas of low pressure and warm sea surface temperatures, which essentially is the optimal path that is a combination of lowest resistance (low pressure) and highest available energy, which in a sense is like the shortest path to the nearest fast-food outlet. Whether tropical storms and hurricanes actually have "intelligence" and "self-awareness" is another matter, but they definitely seek food, and for them "food" is the energy stored as heat in the surface water to a depth of approximately 50 feet or so, more or less . . . ]
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/satellite.shtml
For sure!
This is a big mess, but from the perspectives of oceanography, meteorology, and physics it is fascinating to observe . . .
And since the BP "Macondo" well is not capped and is not permanently controlled, as is the case with the two "relief" wells, if there is a significant tropical storm or hurricane--which according to every prediction will occur sooner or later this summer--then the result will be chaos, although one might hope that the "relief" wells have blowout preventers that actually work and that there might be Hallibutron RTTS Packers and SCS III control valves onboard to make it easier and safer temporarily to shutdown the "relief" wells when the rigs need to be abandoned for a while due to tropical storms and hurricanes, which for the larger surface vessels could be several weeks, which basically maps to everything having the great potential once again to become completely and totally out of control, perhaps for as long as a month or two, depending on the severity of a hurricane and what happens in its aftermath . . .
Everything might go along wonderfully with no problems, but if I were betting on the possible outcomes, I think the safe bet is on complete and total chaos at a level few people on this planet are likely to imagine, although since the aliens from outer space have not beamed any specific advance warnings to me at present, all I can do is guess, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous! :-)
So big deal. Tony Hayward isn't in charge. A scapegoat if I have ever seen one. Who IS in charge? Obama and his cronies? I think I would prefer Mr. Hayward.
I am still waiting for someone........anyone..........to publish who is going to be in charge of this huge fund, how it's going to be used, and who is going to be held accountable. If it is going to be run by the government, we can kiss the Gulf goodbye. There will be so much skimmed from the top for "expenditures, research, etc, trickle down will not be part of the scenario. Meanwhile, volunteers are cleaning and scrubbing beach and bird. That's right. Volunteers. And the government plan will be to do nothing but send checks to everyone they "think" has been affected. Another mishandled debacle. Doesn't it make you sick?
The only thing i can say or draw from this is the governmert has learned nothing on how to handle emergency situations. There is so much red tape in government and way too many people and channels to go thru to ever get anything done. Can you imagine for a minute a nuclear attack on this country and the utter chaos that would come after it??? The republicans and the democrats can't even fix a small problem without fighting to tv. LOOK at the zoo the oil spill has become. YET the oil is still rushing out and apparently NO ONE KNOWS what to do about it. WHERE were the goverment officials that i might add are very well paid when all these wells were being drilled????? SOMEHOW I dont think AMERICA is getting what were are paying for. lets think about this come election time. THIS IS WHAT YOU GET WITH BIGGER GOVERNMENT WHEN IS THIS GOING TO END????????????????
YUP! Funny isn't it, and we're supposed to be the the government and its dieing. Throwing money at these situations never fixed anything. It takes action, of this only a few have done so but what can us little people do to help. Nothing but go online and put in our 2 cents in, if I drove down there and said "I want to help", they would show me a hand and ask how much $ can I give? Like my pennies will do any good. You have to be a college educated or famous movie star to help. Rediculous!
If we ever have a national emergency in this country it will be every man for himself. Don't expect other than your friends and neighbors to help you. It won't happen.
I saw so many comments toward the president being the biggest mistake in all of this but if you think about it, in the end he only gets to have a say. He hasn't been making the final decision or should I say he isn't the only one making the decision. We have all these councel men and women who are voted into position just as he is and in the end its a mess... We should have the final say. what happened to we the people (of the UNITED states)? The way its set up now, everyone points the finger and the top guy because they don't want the finger pointed at them. HUMMM what now?
I live near what was once the most beautiful beach in the world, to me at least and we do have many, many visitors every year. What I'd really like to know is; why it has taken so long to do anything and why does it take 60 long days to figure out what to do? STOP the OIL and keep it from our beaches and away from our animals, period...it's not rocket science, just common sense!
The President and our Government has FAILED miserably!
You know IF this oil spill [gush is more like it] had taken place on the East Coast, not in the Gulf, the politicians would have stopped at nothing to end it ASAP and fined BP as well as sent them the bill!
We are part of the good old USA too! In case they have missed it we live here and we love to be here, but come on, pretend just for a week or two that ''this is your home'' your livelihood'' going to h...... and maybe you'd move a h.... of a lot faster to do something. Leave the 'red' tape in the store rooms, please, just get moving like it's just as important to you as it is to US.
Had a interesting meeting with a BP claims officer today, it ended with "you have bad timing on starting a business" even though everything was documented on March 30 way before the accident, my father and I have a ton of money out that is lost. The new trick is to not deny any claims because that will give you the right to have the Coast Guard investigate the claim, and of course without the denial page the Coast Guard cannot investigate it. So you basically float around in the system in limbo. This is their latest duck the claims scam. Please send it around.
My BP claim # is 6866124168193,