Posts from — June 2010

Via Dr. Cole of all people, a video: The BP Oil Spill Re-Enacted By Cats in 1 Minute.

Because someone finally explained the difference between “circumstantial” and “direct” evidence to Dr. Lubchenco: Under water oil plumes confirmed

NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said that the tests conducted at three sites by a University of South Florida research vessel confirmed oil as far as 3,300 feet below the surface 42 miles northeast of the well site and also oil below-surface oil 142 miles southeast.

Lubchenko said the analysis “indicate there is definitely oil sub surface. It’s in very low concentrations” of 0.5 parts per million.

Next I suppose the Doctor will have to be led to the EPA standards on pollutants to discover that many of the components of crude oil are considered hazardous when they occur in parts per BILLION, not parts per million. I would assume that as a marine biologist she is aware that most of the animal life in the Gulf filters the water for oxygen, and some for food, so oil in any concentration will eventually cause death.

So you are sick and tired of hearing me rant about the BP oil well spewing oil into the Gulf, so I guess I should talk about something else.

How about Another Gulf oil spill

The Deepwater Horizon is not the only well leaking oil into the Gulf of Mexico for the last month.

A nearby drilling rig, the Ocean Saratoga, has been leaking since at least April 30, according to a federal document.

While the leak is decidedly smaller than the Deepwater Horizon spill, a 10-mile-long slick emanating from the Ocean Saratoga is visible from space in multiple images gathered by Skytruth.org, which monitors environmental problems using satellites.

Federal officials did not immediately respond when asked about the size of the leak, how long it had been flowing, or whether it was possible to plug it.

Of course, the fact that all of this oil is leaking into the Gulf from wells doesn’t stop people from worrying about lost oil jobs.

Sorry, but we don’t profit from the drilling and it has put oil on our beaches, about which we care a great deal. Florida has an official 12% unemployment rate which translates into a real rate of un- or under-employment of almost 1 in 4 Florida workers. The summer tourist season gave people some hope about the possibility of earning some cash, and now we have oil on our beaches.

I guess we can’t depend on the government to tell us when industry has these problems, so now we have to depend on volunteers scanning satellite photos.

The flow rate on the Well from Hell keeps going up but you have to have your pencil ready and mind engaged when BP hints at the truth

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Monday at the White House that the government still doesn’t know how much oil is leaking from the damaged Gulf well despite the addition of a containment cap last week, but that BP hopes to pump up to 20,000 barrels (840,000 gallons) of oil a day to the surface.

His comments indicate that government panel’s estimates of a flow of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels daily are likely low — concerns first reported by the NewsHour.

There is still going to be oil leaking into the Gulf because BP isn’t even competent enough to cut a pipe in a professional manner, and BP only talks about recovering a “majority” of the oil that is leaking. A million gallons per day is a very conservative estimate.

BP has also poured a million gallons of Corexit dispersant into the Gulf, despite being told to find something else.

Today is the anniversary of the D-Day landings at Normandy in 1944, but it will now be remembered in Okaloosa County as the day the oil came ashore.

Instead of the “Jolly Roger”, we should hoist the “Smirking Tony” [I wish] and call it Bloody Polluter not Billy Bowlegs.

To replace the landing of the pirates we could construct an old fashioned oil derrick and put it on a pontoon boat to slam into the Landing with people dressed in black wet suits swarming ashore over and under a boom. Instead of fireworks, we could move the derrick to the barge in the Sound and burn it along a few selected effigies of politicians who backed drilling in the Gulf.

We have consistently voted against off-shore drilling. We make no money from drilling in the Gulf. We are 158 miles away from the well. None of that matters because we have oil on our beaches. Don’t try to tell us that this can be done safely, because it can’t. None of the regulations mattered, and no one was bothered about the possible cost if the well blew out. The people who did this proved that they are incapable of controlling the situation. The corporations failed and the governments failed because of greed, so, until there is a proven cure for greed, no drilling.

When he created the cartoon I doubt that Mike Lukovich knew that the man who wrote the parodied song was directly affected.

Deepwater Horizon is not what tropical troubadour Jimmy Buffett had in mind when he wrote “all of those tourists covered in oil” in his hit song “Margaritaville.”

On Saturday, Buffett stood by his buddy Gov. Charlie Crist and said the oil spill should prompt us all to pursue solar and wind power and stop using so much oil.

Buffett — decked out in flip-flops, shorts, shades and a tattered cap that said “All who wander are not lost” — is a partner in the $50 million, 162-room, Gulf-front Margaritaville Beach Hotel opening on Pensacola Beach next weekend.

Jimmy is no kin to the Head HedgeHog Warren.

Since it’s the weekend, via Avedon Carol a music video, a casual reminder of what corporations really represent.

The Local Puppy Trainer has an article on a science conference at Baton Rouge:

“We’re certain it’s oil,” said Ernst B. Peebles, a USF biological oceanographer and chief scientist aboard the college’s Weatherbird II research vessel, the ship that did the sampling. “We’ve done the analysis.”

Peebles said laboratory tests were performed on water drawn from two layers of oil, a 98-foot thick layer found about 1,300 feet down and a second, even thicker layer found at a depth of about 3,200 feet.

The tests were performed on water brought up by collection bottles and passed through filter pads, a web of glass fibers that trap tiny particles in water.
…

Chris D’Elia, the dean of LSU’s School of Energy, Coast and Environment, said NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco told scientists in Baton Rouge on Thursday that the oil under the water “did not look like they were in great concentrations.”

What is with Dr. Lubchenco? She has been downplaying things since she started commenting on the spill, and has seemingly been restricting information about what is going on under the water. This is her field, and she should be outraged by the damage this is causing in the Gulf. If she were a climate specialist, I might understand it, but oceans are her area.

You should definitely go over to the Pensacola Beach Blog and see his A Trip Down the Emer-Oiled Coast: Friday June 4 BP Oil Spill Update. These are only the “scouts”, the main force is still off the coast.

Local officials are starting to realize how bad this is, according to the Pensacola News Journal, Resources for Florida lag as oil comes ashore. With thousands of wells in the northern Gulf, there are only about two dozen real oil skimming boats available, and many of those are designed for rivers, bayous, and bays, not the open Gulf.

Everything has been left up to the oil companies, and they haven’t funded an effective system. BP had to go to the factory for the specialized booms used for burning off the oil on the surface, because there wasn’t any available on the Gulf Coast.

The specialized skimmer systems can store the oil and put the water back as they move across the surface. Instead of that, they are collecting oily water and taking it back for processing, a very poor use of resources.

The local county property appraisers are trying to adjust to the new reality by asking the governor to allow them to downgrade property values this year instead of waiting until January of next year. The Pensacola News Journal has the story: Appraisers want taxes to show loss from oil spill. This is just another way that the oil spill is screwing over the Gulf Coast. Local governments and schools are going to take a huge revenue hit because of this spill.

Because most people are not familiar with tools and tool use in the US, from time to time I’ll post a few hints on the easy way of doing things.

OK, let’s say you have a 21-inch carbon steel pipe that is standing vertically a mile under water and you need a “square” cut so you can attach something to the top. Oh, yes, there is a mixture of oil and gas moving through the pipe.

Now inexperienced people would probably go for a power tool, like a pneumatic grinder, with a cut-off blade. While this wouldn’t be a terrible choice if the pipe were horizontal and supported on both sides of the cut, on a vertical pipe with fluid passing through it, the blade is going to jam up.

The easiest way of accomplishing something like this is with a pipe cutter, a tool specifically designed to do the job. Reed Manufacturing makes a fine tool for the job, the RC20S Rotary Cutter with RCX cutter wheels and RC8-30XR rollers. It will cut through ¾-inch pipe wall with tool steel cutter wheels.

Of course you will need a chain wrench below the cut so your ROV just has to pull the lever on the cutter and the handle on the wrench together, since you don’t have the normal leverage of standing on the ground. It will go faster if you have a second ROV on the other side of the pipe to tighten the cutter every half turn.

It will be a bit slower, but the result will be professional. This is what a pipefitter would do, and the depth of the water doesn’t make a bit of difference.

The ABC reports on BP turning down outside expertise to deal with their problem in the Gulf: Oil spill ‘morons’ turn down Avatar director’s help

Film director and deep-sea explorer James Cameron says BP has turned down his offer to help combat the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Over the last few weeks I’ve watched – as we all have – with growing horror and heartache, watching what’s happening in the Gulf and thinking those morons don’t know what they’re doing,” Cameron told the All Things Digital conference.

Cameron, director of Avatar, Titanic and The Abyss, has worked extensively with robot submarines and is considered an expert in underwater filming. He did not say explicitly who he meant when he referred to “those morons”.
…

“The government really needs to have its own independent ability to go down there and image the site, survey the site and do its own investigation,” he said.

“Because if you’re not monitoring it independently, you’re asking the perpetrator to give you the video of the crime scene.”

Cameron has connections to the real experts in deep water vehicles, but he is not subject to anyone’s control, and will say what he thinks. If he sees something, the public will see it.

Cameron isn’t the only deep water expert BP has turned down. After requesting information from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, BP turned down their offer to send their submersible, Alvin, to help with the problem.

I’m more than a little sick of listening to the excuse that no one knows anything about working at these depths, after BP turns down offers of assistance from people who work at even greater depths.

Sleeping Like A Log

Zzzzzz…zzzzz…

[Editor: This is a power sleeper, or she is just annoying her littermate by ignoring the attempts to start a fight.]

Friday Ark

The ABC reports that Israel labels aid group terrorists

Israel says the Humanitarian Relief Fund (IHH) is a radical Islamic and anti-American group that has been linked to Al Qaeda.

IHH contributed aid worth about $10 million to the convoy, including banned building materials like cement, tiles and steel. It also provided three of the boats, including the one that was ultimately raided, the Mavi Marmara.

Sorry, but the ties to al Qaeda aren’t as strong as those of the Reagan administration, and the US backed Bosnia in that war. But that’s real history so it will probably be ignored, like the fact that Hamas “seized power” by winning a democratic election supported by the Hedgemony and Israel.

I don’t imagine Israel would care to explain why building materials are a threat, along with all of the stuff that Badux notes are banned.

Juan Cole notes that Israel is using old stock photos to prove people on the ship were “armed”. Apparently the Israeli government doesn’t know about the metadata attached to digital photos, which date the pictures as having been taken in 2006.

I did leave Dr. Cole a comment that what he was identifying as an axe, is a roofing hatchet, which is very useful in primitive conditions, and is the same size as a framing hammer.

I will let Mark Fiore sum things up on this situation. It may be time to start dumping Prozac in the Israeli water system.

Because the winds have shifted and are bringing the oil East, the local NPR station, WUWF, was talking to the tourist development officials along the coast about how Memorial Day went [not as bad as had been feared] and what the approaching oil means.

It was interesting to hear these marketing people make the point that you had to be honest with people and tell them the truth about the situation. They said that if you lie to people to bring them down to the coast, they’ll leave angry and won’t be back. But if you tell them the truth, they will believe you when you tell them it is alright to return.

Too bad major corporations haven’t figured that out.

On a happier note, A.B. “Tony” Hayward is toast. BP will dump him as soon as this is resolved, and he knows it, because he replaced the last CEO after the disaster at BP’s Texas refinery. BP dumps the CEO, tells the world they have reformed, and goes back to business as usual.

Starting next week there will be a new feature on the blog. Under the weather sticker in the left sidebar you will see “Okaloosa Island Beach Cam”. If the weather conditions continue as predicted, Dr. Jeff Masters writes:

Oil spill update
Moderate onshore winds of 10 – 20 knots out of the southeast to southwest are expected to blow over the northern Gulf of Mexico over most of the next week, resulting increased threats of oil to Alabama, Mississippi, and the Florida Panhandle, according to the latest trajectory forecasts from NOAA. These persistent southwesterly winds will likely bring oil as far east as Fort Walton Beach, Florida, by Monday.

So beginning on Monday you can click on the Beach Cam and watch the oil foul our sugar white sand.

This event is brought to you by Bloody Pollution, an oil company that can’t figure out how to cut a pipe.

Just in time to make today complete the St. Petersburg Times is reporting that Oil spill may reach Florida Panhandle beaches by end of week

The latest projections say the Deepwater Horizon oil spill’s leading edge could ooze onto Pensacola’s beaches sometime late this week, marking the spill’s first official landfall in Florida.

Winds that kept the spill 50 or more miles away from the Panhandle for the past six weeks have now shifted and are pushing the oil back toward Florida, said state Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Mike Sole. Federal officials have now banned fishing off the tip of the Panhandle, meaning 31 percent of the gulf is now closed to both commercial and recreational fishing.

The oil is arriving just in time for hurricane season. This is also when Florida is supposed to kick off its $25 million advertising extravaganza — financed by BP — touting how clean the Panhandle’s beaches are.

“Obviously if that happens we’ll have to pull the ads and rebrand,” said Gov. Charlie Crist.

Rebrand?!?!?! What the hell is that supposed to mean?! Call ourselves South Alabama? Become the “Land of black sticky beaches”?

This is what we get when we start running government like a business – everything is marketing, a façade. All problems are solved by the correct ad campaign. No need to actually fix anything, or do anything, just tell people it is “morning in America” and they will buy it.