Oil Spill - Source Plume & Blowout Mitigation Updates, Deep Horizon Blowout

[Water Monkey]

Good information Rick. We have had some great wind since Saturday here in the bay area.

I am saddened and angered by the events unfolding with the oil spill. After riding the past few days I started to wonder if these might be the last few days of good wind in oil-free waters!? It sucks that we even have to think that way but the forecast is not looking good. I hope I'm wrong.....

[ricki]

"As BP announced small but positive steps Monday in its fight to contain a spewing oil well a mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, southeast Louisiana parishes rallied their residents to brace their own defenses against the spill's attack on the local environment and economy.
Bad weather -- with some swells reported to reach 17 feet -- crimped response efforts during the weekend and much of Monday as crews around the Gulf region worked to contain the plume of oil rising unfettered since the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20 and sank a day later. Officials estimate 210,000 gallons of light crude are leaking into offshore waters each day."
Continued at: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-sp...lt_to_cap.html





"PORT FOURCHON, La. — BP PLC will place huge containment boxes over the well as the next available short-term strategy in fighting the Gulf oil spill.
BP spokesman Steve Rinehart said Sunday Wild Well Control is building three rectangular boxes that can be lowered onto each of the three leaks. The work is being conducted in Port Fourchon, La.
The concrete-and-steel chambers could be in place at the leak site in six to eight days.
Crews have had little success stemming the flow from the ruptured well on the sea floor off Louisiana or removing oil from the surface by skimming it, burning it or dispersing it with chemicals.
The blowout preventer typically activates after a blast or other event to cut off any oil that may spill. But Rinehart says the preventer failed."
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...n/6986186.html



"ROBERT, La. - The Transocean drillship, Discoverer Enterprise, prepares to conduct recovery operation for BP using a specially-built "dome" at the sea floor Monday, May 3, 2010. With the use of the dome and connection system to flow the leaking oil the crew of the Discoverer Enterprise will be capable of recovering up to 125,000 barrels of oil. Photo provided by Transocean."
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse....c/2931/538223/


"Fishing is halted on Gulf Coast as oil spill gets closer to shore

VENICE, La. | Federal officials shut down fishing from the Mississippi River to the Florida Panhandle on Sunday because of the uncontrolled gusher spewing massive amounts of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Although storms briefly grounded Coast Guard planes, reports of oil reaching land began coming in, along with confirmed sightings of dead sea turtles, crabs and birds washing ashore in Pass Christian, Miss.

The coast from Louisiana to Florida braced for the gooey mess on barrier islands of the Gulf Islands National Seashore and the sandy beaches and casino enclaves crucial to the region’s tourism industry"
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"The plan involves lowering 74-ton, concrete-and-metal boxes into the gulf to capture the oil and siphon it to a barge waiting at the surface. Whether this will work for a leak 5,000 feet below the surface is anyone’s guess.

If it doesn’t, and efforts to activate a shutoff mechanism called a blowout preventer continue to prove fruitless, the oil probably will keep gushing for months until a second well can be dug to cut off the first. Oil company BP PLC’s latest plan will take six to eight days because welders have to assemble the boxes."
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"Satellite images indicate the rust-hued slick tripled in size in just two days, suggesting the oil could be pouring out faster than before.

More than 6,800 square miles of federal fishing areas, from the mouth of the Mississippi to Florida’s Pensacola Bay, were closed for at least 10 days, beginning Sunday, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Administrator Jane Lubchenco said government scientists were taking samples from the waters near the spill to determine whether there was any danger.

The Coast Guard and BP said it was nearly impossible to know exactly how much oil had gushed since the blast, though it had been roughly estimated to be at least 200,000 gallons a day.

Even if the oil stays mostly offshore, the consequences could be dire for sea turtles, dolphins and other deepwater marine life — and microscopic plankton and tiny creatures that are a staple of larger animals’ diets.

Moby Solangi, director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, Miss., said at least 20 dead sea turtles were found on the state’s beaches. He said that it was too soon to know whether oil contamination killed them but that it was unusual to have them turning up across such a wide stretch of coast, spanning nearly 30 miles."
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Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/05/02...#ixzz0mxGpm0Oc



Cleanup operations
From: http://www.flickr.com/photos/49889869@N07/