Tar Balls Found Off Key West

KEY WEST, Fla. — The U.S. Coast Guard says 20 tar balls have been found off Key West, Fla., but the agency stopped short of saying whether they came from a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Some 5 million gallons of crude has spewed into the Gulf and tar balls have been washing ashore in several states along the coast.

Scientists are worried that oil is getting caught in a major ocean current that could carry it through the Florida Keys and up the East Coast.

The Coast Guard says the Florida Park Service found the tar balls on Monday during a shoreline survey. The balls were 3-to-8 inches in diameter.

Coast Guard Lt. Anna K. Dixon said no one at the station in Key West was qualified to determine where the tar balls originated. They have been sent to a lab for analysis.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/1 ... 79660.html

Federal government extends area of fishing ban in Gulf of Mexico
By the CNN Wire Staff

Washington (CNN) -- The federal government has shut down fishing in more of the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the massive oil spill there, a government official said Tuesday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has shut down fishing in 19 percent of the Gulf over which the federal government has jurisdiction, NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco said.

That's up from 10 percent that NOAA had ordered closed to fishing Monday. The agency had closed 8 percent of the portion of the Gulf under federal jurisdiction Friday.

The expansion to 19 percent means 45,728 square miles are now closed to fishing.

The closure comes on the second day of Senate hearings assessing the response to the spill in the Gulf, where a ruptured well continues to gush thousands of barrels of crude.

Three hearings are scheduled, with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar testifying to lawmakers in two of them. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen and BP America Chairman Lamar McKay will speak at the third.

On Monday, oil company BP touted its progress toward plugging the massive spill, but the Obama administration said the disaster is far from over.

"We are in the middle of this crisis. We are not at the beginning," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a Senate committee Monday afternoon. "We've been at it a month almost, but we are not near the end as well."

BP has successfully inserted a siphon into the damaged riser pipe from the underwater well at the heart of the spill.

The procedure has allowed the company to collect more than 1,000 barrels (42,000 gallons) of oil a day that would otherwise spill into the Gulf, said Doug Suttles, the company's chief operating officer.

That, combined with the use of chemical dispersants to break up the spill, has reduced the amount of oil reaching the surface, he said.

"This is probably the smallest amount of oil I've seen on the surface since the effort began," Suttles said.

But the well has been spewing an estimated 5,000 barrels a day into the Gulf since late April, when the Deepwater Horizon drill rig blew up and sank about 40 miles off Louisiana. Eleven workers are presumed dead after the sinking, and the cause has not been determined.

Some of the oil has washed ashore on the Louisiana coast, and tar balls related to the spill have turned up as far east as Dauphin Island, Alabama.

The U.S. Coast Guard said it is investigating a report of 20 tar balls at Key West to determine whether they are from the oil spill.

Some estimates put the amount of oil gushing from the well far higher than the 5,000-barrel-per-day estimate made by NOAA a few days after the spill began. Samples taken by scientists offshore have raised concerns that large plumes of oil are settling below the surface.

Officials grilled on oil spill

Samantha Joye, a professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia, told CNN's "American Morning" that the size of the suspected plumes is hard to determine.

"Nothing like it has really ever been seen in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico before," she said Monday. "It's not only a large feature, but it's a very complex feature. There's a lot of vertical structure to it."

But federal officials said the results have not been fully analyzed. And Charlie Henry, a scientific adviser from NOAA, said descriptions of "layers of oil" beneath the Gulf were "totally untrue."

"They were able to detect what we think is hydrocarbons in the water column. It was stated as oil, but it wasn't like oil you could see," Henry told reporters Monday afternoon.

The researchers were looking into the effects of the undersea dispersants used to break up the oil near the mouth of the well, nearly a mile beneath the surface, Lubchenco, the NOAA administrator, said in a statement issued Monday.

But she said the agency does not consider dispersants -- which have their own hazards -- "a silver bullet."

"They are used to move us towards the lesser of two environmental outcomes. Until the flow of oil is stemmed, we must take every responsible action to reduce the impact of the oil," Lubchenco said.

Suttles said the next step in capping the well is a "top kill" procedure, in which a large amount of heavy "mud" -- a fluid used as a lubricant and counterweight in drilling operations -- is inserted into the well bore. If that succeeds, the well will be cemented shut, he said.

"That is the method we think we will be deploying later this week or this weekend," Suttles said. Another option -- putting debris in the well to stop the flow -- may also be used, he said. And once the leak is sealed off, "We intend to fill up the bottom of this well with cement and it will never be produced."

BP, as the well's owner, is responsible for stopping the underwater gusher and paying for the cleanup, and Napolitano said the company has paid out more than $9.6 million so far without denying a claim.

McKay, the BP America chairman, who appeared with Napolitano before the Homeland Security Committee, said the company was concentrating on plugging the leak and limiting the economic damage.

"We will put blame, liability, and those kind of things over to the side. That's not our concern right now," he said.

But the April 20 explosion aboard Deepwater Horizon has left BP, rig owner/operator Transocean and oilfield services contractor Halliburton pointing fingers at each other over the cause of the blast. The doomed rig's chief electronics technician told the CBS news program "60 Minutes" on Sunday that Transocean was being pushed to complete the well quickly because it was taking longer than expected -- an allegation Suttles would not discuss during an appearance on "American Morning."

"I know people are talking about various things that occurred that night on the rig, but I actually haven't seen any of the results of these interviews or investigations ... I don't actually have any knowledge that that was the case," he said.

President Obama has decided to establish a presidential commission to investigate the disaster, an administration official told CNN.

The panel will explore "a range of issues," including federal oversight of offshore oil drilling, safety aboard rigs and environmental protection, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of an official announcement.

And a top official of the Interior Department agency that oversees offshore drilling is retiring a month earlier than planned.

Chris Oynes told his bosses after the Deepwater Horizon explosion that he would retire at the end of June, an administration official told CNN, but announced Monday that he would step down at the end of May instead.

Oynes has been associate director of the Minerals Management Service's Offshore Minerals Management Program since 2007. In the past, critics have accused MMS of being too cozy with the industries it regulates. Most infamously, a 2008 report from the Interior Department's inspector-general found MMS employees received improper gifts from energy industry representatives and engaged in illegal drug use and inappropriate sexual relations with them.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/18/gulf.oil.spill.main/index.html?hpt=T1

caveat lector - I don't know the source of this article, and haven't had time to do any research yet, so TIFWIW

Thursday, 20 May 2010
Benzene the killer! Plans in place to evacuate The Gulf Population

Plans to evacuate the Gulf are BEGINING TO FLY AROUND THE NET.
Benzene, incredible amounts of Benzene are being released into the atmosphere and is a clear and present danger not only for the old and people with respiratory problems but the general Gulf population as a whole.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has determined that benzene is a human carcinogen, and can cause various forms of cancer from prolonged exposure.Exposed to high levels of benzene show association with leukemia cancer; including acute myelogenous leukemia, acute lymphocytic leukemia, and chronic myelogenous leukemia. Benzene-related leukemias have been reported to develop in as short as nine months,(read more below)
This is much more serious than they are letting on, especially as one of the options here is to burn the escaping oil!

Florida Gulf oil spill: Plans to evacuate Tampa Bay area expected to be announced

Plans to evacuate the Tampa Bay area are expected to be announced in the coming days as FEMA prepares for what is now being called the worst oil disaster in the history of the world.

Read more: http://gazbom.blogspot.com/2010/05/benz ... z0oTxodQGz

from OSHA

Table 1. Hazardous Chemicals and Their Effects

Hazardous Chemicals Adverse Health Effects
Benzene (crude oils high in BTEX, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene) :
Irritation to eyes, skin, and respiratory system; dizziness; rapid heart rate; headaches; tremors; confusion; unconsciousness; anemia; cancer

Benzo(a)pyrene (a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon reproductive [see below], formed when oil or gasoline burns):
Irritation to eyes and skin, cancer, possible effects

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) (occur in crude oil, and formed during burning of oil) Irritation to eyes and skin, cancer, possible reproductive effects, immune system effects

I've been seeing bits and pieces of this rumor over the web for a couple of days. Held off posting because I could not confirm it. Now the Times Picayune AND Huffington Post have both broken it. So here ya go!

Understand that this is a very, very rare event and the awl men forums are all abuzz!

http://adropofrain.net/2010/05/rumor-schlumberger-exits-deep-horizon-hours-before-blowout/

Rumor Schlumberger Exits Deep Horizon Hours Before Blowout
Posted: May 14th, 2010 by: h-1

This may or may not be the story ROCKMAN referred to (read down a bit for the quotes I included towards the end of the posting) in the current oildrum Deep Horizon blowout thread.



This is almost exactly what ROCKMAN was hinting out, and he further noted these guys won’t say this in public now for fear of legal reprisals, but they certainly will say it under oath.

If true, things are going to be very very bad for BP, since that makes this event not only avoidable, but deliberately done almost, at least the decision to not stop, if this report is true, was deliberate.

Keep in mind that BP was celebrating the completion with high ups at the day the blowout happened, which would give credence to the idea of the BP supervisor not wanting to stop the well just when the top brass were on the rig. Human all too human indeed…

ROCKMAN has been hinting that the causes here were human error all along, but he since his sources I assume are company insiders, he can’t say more. But this might be the explanation…



[[Update]]Part of this story has now been confirmed, that is, Schlumberger was on the Rig but was sent back 11 hours before it blew.

However, this is still early in the information phase, and as nola notes:



Since the original story was probably either partly untrue, totally true, or partly true, we’ll have to wait a bit more to get the actual details.

One thing however worth noting, ROCKMAN when discussing a rumor he’d heard but would not himself reveal, stated that it was unlikely you’d hear the truth until the actual parties were under oath, in court, for what should hopefully be somewhat obvious reasons.

So keep a watch on this one, but really, the 60 minutes expose on BP safety, or rather lack of safety, practices, is in a sense all you really need. This Schlumberger story, while interesting, is just a side-note, though I admit to wondering about it, it has a ring of truth to my ears, and I think the guy who leaked it was told it by an insider, with much better information than this new story of May 19. We shall see.

Overall it’s not looking very good for BP legally though. Hopefully the top kill will work this Sunday, this blowout is too severe to engage in any type of schadenfreude, this is a significant part of the planet’s ecosystem under attack by our insatiable desire for more consumption, more people, more driving, at any price… sad really to watch as a world sucks itself dry in a desperate attempt to achieve… what exactly?

Grand Isle closes beaches due to oil on shore

By Jenny Hurwitz, The Times-Picayune
May 21, 2010, 12:07PM

Government officials in Grand Isle are closing all beaches until further notice, citing the fact that oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill is washing up on the shore.

"They're starting to see dead wildlife," said Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts.

Roberts said there is more oil offshore, and he's concerned it will continue washing ashore when the high tide comes in this afternoon. He is heading to Houma to meet with BP officials, in an attempt to address the situation, he said.

The beach closure went into effect at noon, to allow workers to begin cleaning up the oil, according to Nora Combel, with the mayor's office. People are advised to stay off the beaches, and they will be asked to leave if they are caught trespassing, she said.

The state Wildlife and Fisheries Department has closed the state waters off Grand Isle, including Elmer's Island.

The back bays on the north side of the island are still open for fishing, as is the fishing pier in Caminada Bay, Combel said.

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/grand_isle_closes_beaches_due.html

just read this tweet from a trusted source:



Part of natural gas, as mentioned in a prior post, is methane, as well as benzene, and other toxic gases.

That is awful, and no one seems to be stopping it or have any ideas as how to, successfully. I am shocked that the rigs are not made to have all the emergency equipment and plans worked out in case of this. What were they thinking?? This day would never happen?? All of this should have been forseen and protocols set in place.

As usual the lawmakers are late on this as well!!

Now what is going to happen to the Gulf? Can it recover or have we destroyed it, for generations? Just how much Oil is gushing out each day, and how much gas??

There certainly won't be oil rigs off BC!! And I bet Alaska has a change of heart as well.

We are going to have to get into the wind farm business, really seriously, and more Solar as well. Our MH runs on solar panels and we can stay out as long as there is Sun, even cloudly days we are okay, as long as we are not parked in under a lot of trees.

Louisianans take oil cleanup in own hands as frustration mounts (We're sitting on a time bomb, in more ways than one.)
May 23 06:00 PM US/Eastern

Frustrated Louisianans took the oil cleanup into their own hands Sunday, heading out in boats to lay protective booms around a bird sanctuary threatened by a black tide.

"We're going out to Cat Island right now where a thousand pelicans are breeding," Billy Nungesser, president of the coastal Plaquemines Parish told AFP.

Some of the birds at the island sanctuary have already been coated in oil and have carried it back to the nests, he said.

While they're not trying to rescue the oiled birds for fear of doing more harm than good, Nungesser said local residents refused to stand idly by as more oil lapped up into the fragile wetland.

"Our crews are out there laying the absorbent boom," he said, adding that he couldn't understand why BP and the Coast Guard weren't doing more to protect his coastal parish.

In neighboring Jefferson Parish an emergency manager commandeered all 40 boom-laying boats hired by BP which were sitting idly at Grand Isle as oil sloshed onto beaches.

Bloggers and callers to a radio talk show cheered the dramatic action late Saturday night, promising the official their votes if he sought elective office.

Earlier in the day, WWL-AM radio station repeatedly replayed a taped interview in which a Coast Guard official in Terrebonne Parish took the blame for not ordering BP to do more, then flippantly said: "I guess I'm just slow and dumb."

Frustration has reached a boiling point as more delays stymie efforts to cap a pipe which has been gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico from the wreckage of a BP-leased rig some 52 miles off the coast of Louisiana since April 22.

Favorable winds and currents have kept the bulk of the massive slick offshore, but the heavy oil began to seep into coastal marshes on Wednesday and some 66 miles (106 km) of coastline and 30 acres (12 ha) of marshes are now affected.

The amount of oil being suctioned up to a waiting boat from a mile-long tube has slowed to 1,360 barrels a day from the previous average of about 2,100, BP said Sunday.

Meanwhile, a "top kill" attempt to plug the leak by injecting heavy drilling mud into the pipe which was originally set to begin Sunday has now been delayed to Wednesday.

The delays have fueled the outrage of locals, who are already wary of relying on government as a result of the chaos which followed after Hurricane Katrina tore through coastal Louisiana in 2005.

"Stop at any of the coffee shops here at Plaquemines Parish and people talk about the spill with disbelief," Nungesser said.

"Number one, you hear -- 'there is no plan to stop it'. Second, we keep hearing this oil could come ashore for a year or longer even if they do seal the well.

"After Katrina, we knew what we were dealing with and went to work and things got a little better each day. With the spill, every day it gets a little worse and we don't know what the worst-case scenario is going to be."

Charter boat captain Brent Roy gloomily pondered BP's failed efforts to seal the gushing well and government attempts to curb the damage.

"Until they kill that leak, I just don't think the clean up is going to be very effective," Roy said. "It just seems fruitless."

Noting that June 1 -- the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season -- is only one week away, the boat captain worried how a major storm would impede BP's contingency plan to stop the leak by drilling a relief well.

"Even after (hurricane) Katrina, we knew things would eventually get back to normal," Roy said. "With the spill, we're just unsure."

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id ... _article=1

Track methane to gauge size of BP spill -scientist
23 May 2010 17:00:18 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Amount of dissolved methane linked to volume of oil

* Wide range on estimates of escaping oil

WASHINGTON, May 23 (Reuters) - To figure out how much oil has spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, experts should measure the plumes of dissolved methane coming from the wrecked offshore rig, a marine scientist said on Sunday.

Methane gas is the most abundant compound coming from the April 20 blowout and spill, making up about 40 percent of the leaking petroleum by mass, David Valentine of the University of California-Santa Barbara wrote in an opinion article in the journal Nature.

"Although methane from surface-vessel spills or shallow-water blowouts escapes into the air, I expect that the vast majority of methane making the long trip to the sea surface from a deep-water spill would dissolve," he wrote.

Unlike oil, methane dissolves uniformly in seawater so it could be measured accurately and scientists could use that measurement to calculate the amount of the spill, Valentine said.

Estimates of how much oil and other compounds are coming from the ruptured BP wellhead have varied widely. The company initially put the leak at 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons/795,000 litres) a day but some published estimates have ranged to 70,000 barrels (2.9 million gallons/11 million litres) or more daily.

To determine how much methane -- and by extension, how much oil -- is leaking, Valentine suggested dispatching floats that would track water flow and any plumes of methane in the water.

This, in addition to spot analyses and followed by a two-vessel expedition to the area, would be able to set a lower limit on the total amount of spilled oil, Valentine wrote.

Measuring how the methane plumes move could help estimate the rate of the spill, he said.

Valentine said the U.S. academic research fleet has a dozen vessels that could do this job "at costs of probably a few million dollars or less."

"Capitalizing on this idea requires immediate action," he wrote. "I am calling for a concerted community effort, with appropriate commitment from the U.S. government, the trustees of the Deepwater Horizon incident and BP. The likely rewards far exceed the costs."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdes ... tionreport

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/bus ... 11584.html

Florida State scientist: NOAA ignores spill findings


By MONICA HATCHER
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
May 18, 2010, 10:42PM
Share Del.icio.usDiggTwitterYahoo! BuzzFacebookStumbleUponEmail Close [X]A prominent oceanographer, who was among the first to say official estimates understated the volume of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, charged Tuesday that a federal agency is punishing scientists whose findings disagree with government figures.

Ian MacDonald, an oceanographer with Florida State University, who more than two weeks ago said the oil spill was likely five times as large as the 5,000 barrel-a-day estimate from the National Oceanic Atmospheric and Administration, said the agency is attacking scientists who challenged government estimates, while itself doing little to glean new information about the spill size.

“The scientific community in the Gulf of Mexico is fairly small ... and we've been very dedicated for a long time and not only is nobody listening to us in this, but it seems like they really want us to shut up,” MacDonald said. “It's very, very punitive and anybody who is doing this is getting attacked by NOAA.”

A NOAA spokesman did not address MacDonald's claims directly, but said that the agency's spill response includes scientists with key federal agencies as well as partners in the scientific community and the private sector.

80,000 barrels a day?
The stinging criticism comes amid debate about the size of the oil spill emanating from BP's Macondo well about 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana. An April 20 blowout in a well under 5,000 feet of water triggered the oil spill, destroyed the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, and killed 11 workers.

Some independent scientists have made estimates that sharply depart from NOAA's estimate, which equates to 210,000 gallons a day.

Based on various models, including measurements of satellite imagery of the surface slick and an analysis of wellhead video released by BP, some scientists estimate the volume of oil spilling from the well as 25,000 to 80,000 barrels a day.

NOAA and BP have stuck with the 5,000-barrel estimate, although Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday the government is preparing new estimates.

Oceanographers, environmentalists and government officials say knowing the true size of the oil spill is critical in determining how the spill will affect ocean and coastal ecologies, as well as the extent of clean-up costs and liabilities.

MacDonald's comments were prompted partly by a NOAA news release Monday that characterized as “misleading, premature and, in some cases, inaccurate” media reports about spill research aboard a government vessel in the Gulf

Reports this weekend quoted independent ocean scientists as saying they had discovered large underwater plumes of oil suggesting the scope of the spill could be bigger than estimated based on the surface area of the slick.

MacDonald said NOAA hasn't substantiated its own estimate, leading MacDonald to assume it “was just made up — literally in the middle of the night.”

Lawmakers have scheduled a subcommittee hearing today to investigate the scope of the spill.

Scientists to testify
Several scientists, including Steve Wereley, a professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, who made headlines last week after estimating the well could be pumping out as much as 80,000 barrels a day, will testify and examine new video of the leak BP released Tuesday.

As holder of the federal lease containing the Macondo well, BP is responsible for capping the well and cleaning up the spill. MacDonald says NOAA and the Coast Guard should press BP harder for information to help scientists quantify the spill.

Some Houston oil and gas professionals questioned spill estimates from academics outside of the energy industry, but they said BP must have information by now that could lead to more accurate estimates.

Flaring off natural gas
On Tuesday, the company said it is siphoning 2,000 barrels of oil a day from a tube it inserted into a pipe break it says is the source of 85 percent of the leaking oil.

BP also says it is flaring off natural gas as it rises with that captured oil to a vessel on the surface, and some reservoir engineers say that should yield important data about the amount of gas mixed in with the fluid.

Wereley has said his estimate could be off by as much as 20 percent because he didn't know the oil-gas ratio in the leaking hydrocarbons.

Allen Barron, a reservoir engineer and president of Houston-based Ralph E. Davis Associates, an energy consulting firm, said congressional investigators should ask BP for more than video. “Why don't they provide everything they have and let the educated community come up with a range of numbers?” Barron asked.

BP repeatedly has said it is focused on containing the spill rather than measuring it, while the Coast Guard says the response plan is based on worst-case scenarios.

More than half a dozen industry professionals who test wells flow and study oil formations were skeptical in interviews about estimates as high as 80,000 barrels a day, given the production rates of nearby deep water wells that yield 15,000 to 30,000 barrels a day.

“We work hard to maximize flow rates in deep-water wells and I don't know any well in the Gulf of Mexico that made that kind of rate,” said Stuart Filler, president of the Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers.

Without knowing how much the flow might be restricted in the damaged well, however, it's nearly impossible to say how much oil may be coming out.

Chronicle reporters Jennifer Dlouhy and Brett Clanton contributed to this report.

monica.hatcher@chron.com

There are lots of rumors flying around on GLP about the oil spill disaster. One says that this morning on FOX news a talking head started a report that the Navy had set off an explosion to close the oil spill, but it had gone wrong, and left a big hole in the ocean floor, allowing much more oil and gas to escape. The AC went on to say that suddenly the reporter's eyes went big, he was listening to his earpiece, and he broke off and abruptly started another report. At last reading, nobody had been able to substantiate this. I haven't checked in the last hour.

Another has an article that, with a little digging, I confirmed was written by Sorcha Fail, saying that North Korea had torpedoed the rig on the 20th, and then a "suicide" submarine had struck it from below on the 22nd (Earth Day, BTW) causing it to sink. One interesting little piece of info in that report, which I confirmed on Wikipedia, is that the rig was built in South Korea by Hyundai Heavy Equipment Llc.

There are also reports linked to several blogs that state that a new hole in the ocean floor has opened up and there have been new undersea explosions. One site does show a screen shot of a hole in the ocean floor, but I don't know if it is new or not.

Here's a link to folks who are drillers/roughnecks and have experience. I trust them. See for yourself:

http://www.drillingahead.com/profiles/blogs/your-thoughts-on-the-bp-spill

No, there haven't been any undersea explosions. See the link below and compare it to the CNN feed, too:

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/homepage/STAGING/local_assets/bp_homepage/html/rov_stream.html

I was watching it last night and nearly freaked! There was tons of white stuff and bits floating everywhere but it turned out to be BP spraying more of that dispersant.

Blue, the link to the Drillers' thread is really interesting, thanks for posting it.

Markey: BP to terminate Gulf oil feed during 'top kill'

Rep. Edward Markey said his office was notified the feed of the oil spill will be shut down while BP tries the "top kill" procedure.

BP has told the chairman of the House subcommittee on energy and the environment that it will be killing the live feed video of the spill at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico while it attempts to seal the well using the "top kill" procedure, Rep. Edward Markey said in a statement.

The statement said BP informed Markey's office the feed would be "terminated" sometime Wednesday.

“It is outrageous that BP would kill the video feed for the top kill. This BP blackout will obscure a vital moment in this disaster,” Markey said in a statement. “After more than a month of spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP is essentially saying to the American people the solution will not be televised.”

CNN is currently trying to obtain a comment from BP on the issue.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/25/markey-bp-to-terminate-gulf-oil-feed-during-top-kill/?hpt=T2

That's because if their "Solution" fails they won't have to worry about it being televised.

This is becoming a GONG SHOW with THOUSANDS of Plant, Sea Life Birds & Mammals being killed in the process.

Why is the Obama Administration NOT stepping up to the plate and forcing BP to do the right thing.

If they don't do it move them out of the way and charge them for the costs to fix the problem, why is that so difficult

God dammit this situation really pisses me off

It had better L, cause we are going to pay for it, both the loss of the oil and the clean up! Gas Prices will skyrocket before this is over, BP is not going to be the loser, we will!!!!!!!

Hat tip to zephyr at GLP

LA NINA IS HERE, TOXIC RAIN COULD REACH AS FAR AS OHIO AND PENN....

It is pretty radically bad, that much has become fairly clear. Current underground conversations are converging on fairly large estimates of flow from this Oil Volcano. We may have a Exxon-Valdez spill each and every day going on.

But this is not just tanker oil. This is a hot geyser of natural gas and a whole complex of 200+ hydrocarbons with a lot of light factions (more fluid, more gaseous) flowing out a river of highly toxic chemicals and fumes which are killing everything in its path in a 'bathtub". The Gulf is basically enclosed for the most part and the materials in the lower depths will swirl around and around for a long long time. BP may be laying a gigantic petro Turd which is solidifying and may hang in the Gulf for a very long time.

Imagine going to a concert and some one comes in on stage a lays a turd on stage. Then the audience quickly discover that a turd is under everyone's seat. That is kind of like the situation into which we have suddenly awakened.

At the same time, the Gulf is warming up from the Oil Volcano and the oil with radically reduce the reflectivity of the water which will cause the Gulf to absorb a lot more heat from the Summer Sun. This will serve to rise up a major pillar of oil fumes and water vapor over the Gulf at the front end of hurricane season. This pillar will draw Atlantic tropical storm fronts like a bee to honey. La Nina in the Pacific will strengthen the potential for hurricane formation in the Gulf.

Take a Katrina hurricane, heck even a lot weaker one, barreling into the Gulf. It will pick up the sheen, goo, toxic chemicals, gases, the dissolved methane in the water, and all, maybe some dead fishermen as well, and mix it well with huge amounts of water and broadcast it as a driving shit storm up the central U.S., to even as far as Ohio and Pennsylvania, coating many a city with brown goo. The next hurricane could come barreling into the Gulf through western Cuba and turn on a dime under the influence of the hot oil slicks to hit northern Florida before barreling up the Atlantic seaboard to paint old Dixie brown. If we are really unlucky with a vigorous hurricane season this year, the same will happen to Texas and perhaps the northern Gulf coast a couple more times before the end of the year. Or think about the slick moving up the Gulf Stream and a tropical storm front pushing it onto the Carolinas, Virginia, heck, even Maine.

And, the beaches and fisheries of Europe could eventually be faced with warding off this noxious mess.Through all of this, A HUGE PORTION OF THE HEAVIER PORTION IS LIKELY TO REMAIN NEAR THE BOTTOM FOR A LONG TIME...constantly seeping out contamination into what were once the most fertile fisheries in the Western Hemisphere.

At the moment BP appears to have its eyes fixed on drilling a hole into the hole from well over ten thousand feet way, hoping to hit the hole and then force in enough concrete and other fillers to seal the hole. All this blind with robotic derring-do to hit a virtual straw from well over two miles away. . Anybody want to take the bet? If so, I have serious money for the don't come line.

Others have suggested taking a nuclear bomb and blowing the hole up. The hope is to cause it to collapse somewhat and heave so much bottom material over the top of the hole that it gets sealed up. Since the rock will become so pulverized and fractured, it is very difficult to "believe" that this will necessarily work. YOU COULD JUST CREATE A BIGGER SEEP COMPLEX which is even harder to plug.

If you haven't watched Disney's classic, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", you really ought to. The Socerer's Apprentice was playing with powers far beyond his ken and everything he did to stop the actions he had initiated only made the situation worse.

In the end, we have not a clue how or when this problem gets solved.

The capping is not likely to happen before August, which is plenty of time for a couple of hurricanes. Pray, pray, pray, for a long delayed season. (sing this to the tune of Magic Man)

Meanwhile the seep of poisonous gases through the Gulf make some portions at sea and near the shore line inhabitable for those who enjoy living. Right now! Unless you are wearing a toxic hazmat suit and your own supply of oxygen, you probably should not be around the goo for more than a few minutes.

STAY AWAY FROM IT.

This is BP's Turd. MAKE SURE YOU INSIST THEY PAY FOR THE WHOLE FULL MONTE OF THE IMPACT..

P.S. BP is playing fast, loose, and aloof on all of this in a state of thinly disguised English stiff upper out-of-touch-lip As is the White House. They all have mechanics who know how to manufacture "gestures". Beyond the posing, I strongly smell people who simply do not understand what is transpiring before their faces. The top dogs are surrounded by a sycophancy who feed them horse shit sandwiches because none of them have enough imagination and knowledge to undertake an aggressive solution. As I keep suggesting, immediately place the USN in charge. It is full of engineering talent and mega-machine capabilities. Their huge ships can pump enormous volumes of water and they have endless amounts of nuclear energy to accomplish the task. Let them tow in the surplus tanker fleet and fill them with oil.

Good Luck! I am pretty sure you are going to need it.

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The Earth Changes Bulletin Updates are usually published in a brief form and distributed free on a weekly basis.

BP will continue live video feed during 'top kill' attempt
By the CNN Wire Staff
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The situation in the Gulf keeps getting worse, and so far, there's no end in sight. Anderson Cooper reports live tonight from the region as BP makes another attempt to stop the leak. Watch "AC360°" tonight at 10 ET on CNN for the latest on stopping the leak.

Venice, Louisiana (CNN) -- BP says it will continue to provide a live video feed of the ruptured pipe gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico during Wednesday's planned top kill procedure to seal the well.

Earlier Tuesday, there had been some consternation on Capitol Hill when it wasn't certain BP would maintain the live feed.

Democratic Rep. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts expressed concern that BP might terminate the images during the top kill attempt.

"It is outrageous that BP would kill the video feed for the top kill," said Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Massachusetts before BP's announcement to continue the live video, which CNN.com carries.

Markey chairs the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming and the Energy and Environment Subcommittee in the Energy and Commerce Committee.

With the Gulf of Mexico oil slick growing thick and public patience growing thin, BP put equipment in place Tuesday for the top kill, a procedure that has never been tried under a mile of water.

All of BP's previous attempts to cap the Gulf oil spill have failed.

There's a 30 or 40 percent chance that the top kill won't work. Nevertheless, it's a pivotal moment for the London-based oil giant.

After diagnostic testing that could take up to 12 hours, BP plans to pump 50,000 pounds of thick, viscous fluid twice the density of water into the site of the leak to stop the oil flow. The well can then be sealed for good with cement.

Gulf of Mexico oil spill: Day 36

Depending on the pressure readings, the top kill could start as early as Wednesday, said BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells.

"Normally you'd spend months to do what we've done in days and weeks," Wells said Tuesday in a conference call with reporters.

It's a method that has succeeded on above-ground oil wells in the Middle East but has never been done on the ocean floor.

Wells said a team of experts will examine conditions inside the five-story blowout preventer to ascertain how much pressure the injected mud will have to overcome. A blowout preventer is a device that is supposed to stop oil from gushing into the sea in the event of a problem like the one triggered when the oil rig Deepwater Horizon sank a month ago, triggering the leak.

Congressional investigators reported Tuesday that BP had three indications of trouble aboard the doomed drill rig Deepwater Horizon in the hour before the April 20 explosion that sank the offshore platform.

A memo released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee said the well unexpectedly spouted fluid three times in the 51 minutes before the explosion, and pressure on the drill pipe "unexpectedly increased" before the blast.

The memo summarizes preliminary findings of BP's own investigation into the disaster, which left 11 workers dead and triggered an undersea gusher that has spewed crude oil into the Gulf for more than a month.

BP's latest troubles come amid a memorial service for 11 victims of the oil rig collapse and new controversy surrounding federal inspectors overseeing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

A report from the Interior Department's inspector general found that inspectors in the Minerals Management Service accepted meals and tickets to sporting events, such as the 2005 Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl game, from companies they monitored.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who has ordered a widespread shake-up of the agency since the massive oil spill now fouling the Gulf of Mexico, called the report "yet another reason to clean house."

In Jackson, Mississippi, the 11 men who died in the oil rig explosion were remembered Tuesday in a poignant memorial service. Some of them have sued BP and Transocean, owner of the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig.

Meanwhile, Carol Browner, the assistant to the president on energy and climate change, told CNN Tuesday that she is optimistic about BP's attempt at a top kill.

"We want this to work and will do everything in our power to make sure it works," the former Environmental Protection Agency administrator said. "We need the BP technology -- they know how to operate the little robots, how to operate the vessels. But we're not relying on them."

Browner said the federal government will have its own experts analyze and evaluate the top-kill procedure.

"We want this thing shut down," she said.

But there was a "remote possibility" that BP would have to call off the top kill, Wells said. Or that it will not work at 5,000 feet under the surface.

If the top-kill procedure fails, BP will try to fit a second, smaller containment dome over a ruptured pipe. A first containment dome did not succeed in stopping the leak.

The company said it has other options, too: One of those options would be to install a second blowout preventer at the leak site.

The blowout preventer did not function properly after the rig sank about 40 miles off Louisiana, and oil has been gushing into the Gulf ever since at an estimated rate of about 5,000 barrels a day (210,000 gallons).

Some estimates have put the amount of oil spewing from the well far higher.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke has declared a fishery disaster in the Gulf.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has closed nearly 22 percent of the federal waters in the Gulf for commercial and recreational fishing. Locke's declaration will allow the federal government to give Gulf states additional resources to soften the blow.

With the Obama administration under increasing criticism for its handling of the spill, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the government considers BP the responsible party. President Obama will be visiting the Louisiana coast on Friday, according to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. It will be Obama's second visit to the area since the oil spill.

This week, the anger and frustration in oil spill-affected coastal communities came through loud and clear.

"BP We Want Our Beach Back" read one of many signs posted in Grand Isle, Louisiana, where fishing is a $2.4 billion industry.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/25/gulf.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=T1

That's weird - they are showing 2 different images. The link directly to BP is different from the one on CNN.

Are they putting on the blow out preventer? HMMMM

BREAKING - BP Begins Top Kill - no linky yet - breaking now on CNN.

BP starts 'top kill' by injecting mud into well
updated 1:26 p.m. CT, Wed., May 26, 2010

COVINGTON, La. - BP said Wednesday it had begun injecting mud into the blown-out well in the hopes of stopping the Gulf oil disaster, shortly after the Coast Guard gave it a green light and its chief executive issued an apology of sorts.

The oil giant said the operation started at 2 p.m. ET.

Earlier, CEO Tony Hayward said the risky procedure would take a day or two to see if it worked.

Speaking on NBC's "TODAY" show, Hayward also said he "felt devastated and gutted" after viewing damage to a coastal beach on Tuesday.

"We have let people down in our defense of the shore and we are going to redouble our efforts," Hayward said when asked why last week he said the environmental impacts seemed "very, very modest."

The top kill involves pumping enough mud into the gusher to overcome the flow of the well, which has leaked millions of gallons of oil into the water since an April 20 rig explosion. Engineers then plan to follow it up with cement that the company hopes will permanently seal the well.

The top kill has been successful in above ground wells but has never been tried a mile beneath the sea. Hayward earlier pegged its chances of success in this case at 60 to 70 percent.

It is the company's latest effort to stem the spill and comes as politicians and Gulf residents are losing patience with the company over several failed attempts to stop the leak.

snip

[url]URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37353392/ns/gulf_oil_spill/[/url]

Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmm
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http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64P5ZX20100526


(Reuters) - Before rig workers aboard a doomed drilling platform performed a procedure that BP Plc says may have been a "fundamental mistake," there was a "skirmish" between BP and Transocean staff about whether to proceed, the rig's chief mechanic told federal investigators on Wednesday.

Around 9:53 p.m. CDT on April 20 (0253 GMT on April 21), Swiss-based Transocean Ltd's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded while it was drilling a well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico under contract for London-based BP Plc. Eleven rig workers are presumed dead.

The Transocean mechanic's account could give the company more ammunition in its verbal battle with BP to assign blame for the disaster, which caused what is likely the biggest oil spill in U.S. history.

Around noon, rig workers met in a room adjacent to the rig's galley and "there was a slight argument that took place and a difference of opinions," said Douglas Brown, the rig's chief mechanic, speaking to a federal board of investigators in Kenner, Louisiana.

Brown said "a skirmish" took place between "the company man" from BP -- whose name he said he did not know -- and three Transocean employees.

"The company man was basically saying, 'Well this is how it's going to be,'" and Transocean rig workers "reluctantly agreed," Brown said.

The argument concerned "displacing the riser," Brown said, a reference to a decision made by rig personnel to remove heavy drilling mud from the drill pipe and replace it with water, in an attempt to wrap up drilling operations and plug the well with cement.

Drilling mud is a mixture of synthetic ingredients that is pumped into the well to exert downward pressure and prevent a column of oil and gas from rushing up the pipe.

Because water is lighter and less dense than mud, the procedure allowed a flood of flammable methane gas to surge up the drill pipe, which ignited and led to a catastrophic fire, according to documents from the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee.

Congressional investigators say BP and Transocean made a decision late on April 20 to begin removing mud from within the drill pipe despite pressure tests from within the well that a BP official described as "not satisfactory" and "inconclusive."

'FUNDAMENTAL MISTAKE'

Earlier in the day, well pressure tests showed an imbalance between the drill pipe choke and kill lines running from the drill deck to the blowout preventer. The pressure in the drill pipe was 1,400 pounds per square inch, while the choke and kill lines read zero PSI, according to BP documents gathered by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

In BP's internal investigation, made public by the committee, BP said it might have been a "fundamental mistake" to continue with the procedure because there was an "indication of a very large abnormality."

As methane surged up the drill pipe and enveloped the rig, Brown said, a loud hiss of gas escaped from the well, which set off a stream of alarms.

"Gas alarms just kept piling up on top of each other more and more and more," Brown said. The rig was hit by a power blackout, and the explosion came soon after, he said.

"The first explosion basically threw me up against the control panel that I was standing in front of," Brown said.

As Brown raced to reach the rig's lifeboats, "it was just complete mayhem, chaos, people were scared, they were crying," Brown said.

The rig worker taking a muster of workers boarding the lifeboat, a man that Brown said he had known for nine years, did not recognize him.

"This is a man that has known me for nine years and he cannot even remember my name," Brown said.

"It was just completely chaotic and nobody was really paying attention in my opinion," Brown said. "They were more concerned about just getting off the rig - escaping."

(Reporting by Chris Baltimore; editing by Mary Milliken and Mohammad Zargham)

Duh, shouldn't that have been the thing to do?? Who cares what his opinion is at that point, people were dying!

He sure down played the disagreement!!