Amateur Video of Gulf Oil Geyser

Yeah, this is a major screw-up. The repercussions will be felt for years, and that is an understatement. This video is a testament to how MASSIVE this thing is, and how MASSIVE things are going to be screwed up.

eww....

warwick.hoy said:

I've always been curious as to what importance fossil fuels have to the survival of the planet (not the convenience of the human race). What will happen to the Earth (not the human race) when we've sucked every last drop of oil and coal from the planets crust? Nothing? The crust crumbles?

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contrary to the notion of huge puddles of oil being sucked dry leaving a gaping chasm in its wake, drilling for oil is more like sucking water out of a sponge through a straw. The sediment that contains the oil is very porous. When the oil is removed, water moves in to fill the spaces. As such, there will be no massive holes in the ground once we take it all

While this is terrible news, the guy narrating the video is obnoxiously pessimistic.

bigblondeafro87 said:

While this is terrible news, the guy narrating the video is obnoxiously pessimistic.

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As he should be. Did you see the size of that oil slick? I bet he feels like Luke Skywalker when he first saw the Death Star.

He keeps saying "Oh its hopeless, its always going to be like this". I believe there is some sort of solution out there and we just haven't found it yet. I also find this incredibly disgusting, vile, depressing, and VERY alarming.

It brings to mind a saying, "You don't **** where you eat"

As a side effect of most of our actions, we are hurting the planet more and more, all the while never stopping to think that we've been pissing in the bathtub for the last hundred years.

It also brings to mind Easter Island...

bigblondeafro87 said:

He keeps saying "Oh its hopeless, its always going to be like this". I believe there is some sort of solution out there and we just haven't found it yet. I also find this incredibly disgusting, vile, depressing, and VERY alarming.

It brings to mind a saying, "You don't **** where you eat"

As a side effect of most of our actions, we are hurting the planet more and more, all the while never stopping to think that we've been pissing in the bathtub for the last hundred years.

It also brings to mind Easter Island...

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I doubt it will always be like that, but it will be like that for quite a long time...

agreed.

Not trying to stick up for BP or whomever it may be that has responsibility in this, but I call BS on lots of the info conveyed in this video.

He calls it "Mile 87" from Alabama to "Ground Zero". That means he's either flying out of Dauphin Island airport or Roy Rodgers air strip in Irvington, AL. Probably Dauphin Island, if he's flying straight-line. He says the odor was present at 9 miles out, and visible at 11 miles out on May 7th. That was last Friday. BS. I was on a charter fishing boat out of Dauphin Island on May 7th. We went out (SSE) about 60 miles. Didn't see or smell oil once. Granted, if he's flying straight-line out of Dauphin Island, he was heading a bit more westerly than we did on the boat. Fair enough. On the 8th, I had a ship come in to Pascagoula, MS that reported NO visible evidence of sheen or hull contamination. The track that ship charted would have taken it directly below this guy's flight path.

He mentions how many ships he sees on the horizon "doing nothing". No crap. The Mississippi River approach is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Any vessel approaching from the North Atlantic or from the Panama Canal takes roughly the same fairway approach to the deep-draft entrance to the River. He mentions 30 boats doing nothing. Yep, that's about right. BP only had 21 offshore vessels on charter for the cleanup as of last week. I know for a fact that 2 of those vessels "doing nothing" were carrying cargo on May 7th into and out of the Port of Gulfport, Mississippi. And by the way... those ARE small boats out there working. They're offshore supply vessels. 150-250ft length on average. That's small for an ocean-going vessel.

He says there's sheen behind Horn and Ship Islands in the Mississippi Sound. BS. I have a friend who lives water-front on the Gulfport, MS coast, and my company has 4 ships per week that come in to Gulfport, including the 2 that traversed in/out on May 6th, 7th, and 8th. NO interior sheen was reported by the vessels, or the Pilots who board the vessels MUCH further out than Ship Island, or my friend who boats almost daily in Gulfport. He also mentions tar balls coming ashore on Dauphin Island, AL on May 8th. I can remember finding tar balls on the beach as a kid. They are natural occurrences of oil bubbling up from the floor of the Gulf and washing ashore as a tar ball. IT HAPPENS! Besides, there were less than a dozen reported found. Still, even though it can be a natural occurrence, they were responded to by full Haz-Mat teams.

Like I said... not trying to stick up for anyone who may hold any blame, but calling out the BS as I see it. There have been reports that the Mississippi River and Port of New Orleans were going to be shut down due to this. The chances of that are so remote they're not even worth contemplating. As I type this I'm sitting in a hotel in New Orleans with 3 ships in port here and 2 in Pascagoula, MS. The USCG, while totally inept in their responses to this disaster, is doing everything the shipping industry could hope for in maintaining a normal flow of operations. Decontamination stations have been established for over a week all along the Coast for vessels that think they may have oil sheen on the hull, but so far, only 1 vessel has called to a decon station, and that was a Coast Guard Cutter that was working carrying a boom through the heart of the spill.

bigblondeafro87 said:

While this is terrible news, the guy narrating the video is obnoxiously pessimistic.

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I know what you mean but my biggest fear is that he may very well be right...

This is absolutely terrible.

EDIT: just read SoComsurfing's post. Thanks for posting that dude. It does make me personally feel a little bit better about this. This still just really sucks though.

Oil industry - lies
Environmentalists - lies
Government - lies
Media - lies

And when one of them is caught in mid-utterance of a bald-faced lie, there is no shame, just spin. But the real problem is that the liars, thieves, thugs and manipulators are not held accountable by voters, customers, viewers/readers, etc.

In reference to a previous post, I should mention that in Slidell (look it up kids) we could smell oil for several days in the week after the explosion, usually in the morning.

warwick.hoy said:

I've seen a few blurbs,...a lot of shady dealing going on in this. I saw mention that a part that is .004% of BPs profits could have help to prevent this "leak".

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In what way? That's a very specific figure with nothing much coming after it.

Lot's of intentional oversight on our governments part.

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I'm not in a position to argue intentional, but I do believe our government bears a bit o fthe responsibility.

As far as I can tell our government is dragging their feet on any kind of repercussions to the entities responsible for allowing this to happen.

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Again, in what way? How are they dragging their feet? I'd rather they wait to see how much damage there will be before they hang a price tag on it, if that's what you're getting at.

The planet is bleeding and there isn't enough outrage for this. Whatever outrage there is,...it isn't enough. Boycott BP? There should be busted BP kneecaps. BP owes the planet big time.

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What we don't need is blind outrage. BP? Is that as far as you'd prefer to carry this? That's the simple answer.

I've already mentioned this, but BP didn't own or operate the rig that blew. While they might be legally responsible for the actions of that crew, they didn't employ them and I bet no one on this website could say how much of a direct hand they had in the day to day operations of Transocean's rig. Generally, when you hire the planet's largest offshore drilling company, you pay them to drill so you don't have to.

Going one further, neither of those companies were spearheading the cementing of the well that day. Lastly, can anyone name the company that manufactured the BOP that failed?

I'm all for holding people accountable, but let's put a little effort into our outrage, shall we?

Totally off the subject, I was approached about being one of the "go betweens" in the expected negotiations between the scores of oyster fisherman likely to be affected and BP. I'm still on the fence.

Mike

mike_v_s said:

In reference to a previous post, I should mention that in Slidell (look it up kids) we could smell oil for several days in the week after the explosion, usually in the morning.

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I called out the cameraman/narrator for his BS on the part of where the sheen was visible/odorous, but I'll back Mike up on this. I crossed the twin-span of I-10 on the 3rd, 4th, and 7th, and despite the traffic and construction going on, could smell a bit of the fumes on the 3rd and early on the 4th. It wasn't evident when I crossed on the 7th, but winds and currents had shifted by that point.

The true concern and prayers should now be sent to lower Plaquemines, La Fourche, Terrebonnes, and even extreme southern Jefferson Parishes in SE Louisiana. These are the breeding grounds of probably a large majority of the seafood eaten in the US, and eastern Plaquemines is probably THE most fertile sport fishing grounds in the country.

SoComSurfing said:

The true concern and prayers should now be sent to lower Plaquemines, La Fourche, Terrebonnes, and even extreme southern Jefferson Parishes in SE Louisiana. These are the breeding grounds of probably a large majority of the seafood eaten in the US, and eastern Plaquemines is probably THE most fertile sport fishing grounds in the country.

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Lake Ponchartrain is getting hit as a result, as well. Last Friday when I crossed the Causeway the lake boating traffic was WAY up with fisherman. They're looking at lowering the limits to keep it in check, bu tI have an avid fisherman as a coworker and he's really concerned about the long term effect of having that many people do their leisure fishing/ boating there.

Mike