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| Name: |
lotowner
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| Subject: |
Gulf Coast Property
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Date:
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6/4/2010 7:23:33 AM
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I really feel for homeowners, business owners, the fishing industry, boat captains, tourism industry, and others on the Gulf Coast. Cancellations are already evident for condos, etc. in Gulf Shore, Orange Beach, and Destin for tthis summer.
My question still is this - Did we utilize available technolgy such as burning, collecting, etc. to collect oil? This would not be 100% but 75% or more would absolutely have helped. I do not think that we did.
The Louisiana Coast is a mess. Birds covered with oil, dead Dolphins, and oil in marshes is readily seen.
The Gulf Coast is in a survival mode at this time. Sending Att. Gen. Holder to La. was noting but a political ploy. Everything Obama doees appears to be politically motivated. Lawsuits are for the future. Todays issue is oil containment.
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| Name: |
lotowner
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| Subject: |
Burning Technology
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Date:
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6/4/2010 8:02:46 AM
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Three weeks ago, BP officials arranged to have thousands of feet of fire boom shipped from Alaska's North Slope oil fields, then apparently withdrew the order 4 days later.
With 8,200 feet of fire boom staged in Anchorage pending approval for transport to the Gulf of Mexico, "BP determined that the need for fire boom was not as urgent as initially thought and retracted the request," according to an event log prepared by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.
More than two weeks after the initial request, the event log indicated that BP again arranged to have fire boom shipped to the Gulf to burn oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill.
Two shipments totaling 5,350 feet of fire boom left Alaska on May 25, according to the agency's website. An additional 4,200 feet of fire boom shipped on May 27 and represents "23 percent of the North Slope inventory."
BP CEO Hayward: "What is undoubtedly true is that we did not have the tools you would want in your tool kit."
The 9,500 feet of fire boom on the way from Alaska would represent nearly a 10-fold increase in the amount of fire boom at use in the Gulf as of Wednesday, according to figures provided by BP.
BP officials responded to the Press-Register Wednesday via e-mail but did not address the newspaper's questions about the shipments.
A U.S. Coast Guard official said BP told that agency Wednesday that the order was never canceled.
"It wasn't that we canceled the order. It was that Alaska was required to have a certain amount of boom on hand. Then, it was 10 days later they were able to get approval for that boom," said Coast Guard Lt. Mike Patterson, stationed at the Joint Information Command in Houma, La.
"We said we had this much available, they said they didn't need it. Then they came back and said, 'Yeah, we need some now,'" said Alan Wien, who compiles the event log for the Alaska environmental agency.
Wien said he relies on the companies to tell him what's going on with such shipments.
He said the 8,200 feet was "the excess amount of boom (a supplier) had available. Pending approval was primarily waiting to get the state's approval to verify that wasn't part of the supply we needed to keep available in the state."
While burning has emerged as one of the most effective means of destroying oil pooled on the surface of the Gulf, a lack of the required equipment has hampered burning efforts since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20.
There is no federal law that requires the government or oil companies to have fire boom staged anywhere on the Gulf Coast. The Press-Register previously reported that federal officials had to purchase a fire boom from a company in Illinois to conduct the first test burn more than a week after the spill began.
The 125 burns conducted so far, many in the last week, have destroyed 2.8 million gallons of oil. BP indicated that 700,000 gallons of that total were burned Tuesday alone. By comparison, skimmers collected 1.4 million gallons over five weeks.
Federal officials said there are now eight boats equipped to burn oil at the Deepwater Horizon spill.
"They are working on trying to get that number up to 14," said Patterson, with the Coast Guard. For the first several weeks, there were just two boats, according to earlier statements from federal officials.
A week after the spill, a former federal official in charge of oil spill response told the Press-Register that 40 or more such crews should be working the Gulf spill every day that conditions were favorable. Waves must be below 3 feet for booms to work.
Conditions have been favorable in terms of wave height every day since May 17, according to a federal data buoy near the site of the spill.
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| Name: |
lakngulf
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| Subject: |
Burning Technology
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Date:
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6/4/2010 8:47:23 AM
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The reason for part of my forum name is that we have a small condo at the gulf, and are sick. I am afraid this disaster will take a toll that probably will not be fully handled in my life time. The environmental, geographical and financial scope of this spill is mind boggling. The picture of the standard "gulf current" indicates no area of the gulf coast is safe.
As soon as it happened, I immediately had a picture in my mind of those poor birds on the shore of Alaska after the Exxon wreck. Those visions are coming true on the Louisiana coast, and reddish brown oil will not mix well with pristine sandy beachs. What will it do to sea life, sea oats, sand dunes, people, business, shrimp, etc?
I have no answers. I do not feel like enough is being done. Fed govt says it is "on the case". I do not know, I will defer to folks who are closer to the scene and higher up. I listened yesterday to the La governor BLAST the feds for inaction, for not approving possible remedy after remedy that the La folks were grasping at. Will all the remedies work? No, but try anything that is a possibility. When BP tried the MUD TOP KILL approach, the pumped in contents from one ship and ran out, but another ship is "on the way". Damnit, have the other ship ready and waiting so the pumping has a chance to work.
Enery sources in USA have taken a major hit this year, with this and the mining disaster earlier. BP talks about all the wells that have not had a problem (read, have not had any problems that we let you know about). Are environmentalists at fault, for pushing oil companines so far off shore that this kind of a disaster cannot be stopped by normal means? Are fed officials at fault for being in bed with oil companies and not requiring safeguards? Are oil companies at fault for not using their outrageous profits to provide better safeguards? Are we at fault for building a society so dependent on oil? Who knows, and who knows when we will see the worst of this disaster.
For more reasons than we know, on energy policy we can no longer "bury our head in the sand". Primarily, because it will be covered with oil.
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| Name: |
MartiniMan
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| Subject: |
Lots of insanity
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Date:
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6/4/2010 8:51:07 AM
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Six weeks ago the state of Louisiana requested from the Obama administration that they be allowed to construct about 100 miles of temporary berms to prevent the oil from reaching the marshes and to make BP pay for it. The original response from the Feds was no response, then they said they needed to study it but would only make BP pay for 2% of it and the state needed to find the other 98%. Finally, yesterday after six weeks and the oil having reached the marshes the US Army Corps of Engineers approved the diking plan and will force BP to pay for it. Talk about shutting the gate after the cows are already out......
It is now conceivable that one of BP's defenses will be that if they had been allowed by the Federal government to build the dikes that the damage to the marshes would have been prevented. Expect this defense and understand that your Federal government has once again proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that they are limited in what they can do and are incompetent in most things.
The sad fact is the Federal government has limited capacity to respond to a problem like this and as is the case with the dike request, can only be an impediment to common sense solutions. And I've read some of the objections to the diking concept and they are laughable......at best.
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| Name: |
Yankee06
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| Subject: |
Lots of insanity
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Date:
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6/4/2010 11:08:33 AM
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-I, like most of teh country, have watched with continually growing alarm the Gulf events unfold over the last six weeks thru the words and eyes of teh print and TV media.
-At first, I , like most people, based on what we were readiing, hearing, and seeing thought it would be stopped within days or maybe two to three weeks.
- But affter the first week or so, anybody with any resposibilities and experiences for damage control for any kind of problem, small to huge, knew we were in trouble.
-The major problem as I see it, is that the governemnt took way too long to put one man/woman in charge of teh whole crisis, and when it did, that person, Coast Guard Adm Allen, hasn't -in my mind- measured up to the task.
-When crisies this huge get beyond teh managegerial abilities of one or many civilians, the government often turns to teh military: Katrina, Haiti, Arizona border, etc. In Katrina the Coast Guard, after taking over from incompetent civilians, did a great job of briinging sanity to chaos; in teh Gulf, not so much.
-The problem is the focus on the damn pipe. No doubt the pipe is BP's and teh oil industry's job. They took an engineering approach to it. We all watched, fascinated. But the Coast Guard's duty was not to watch the pipe, but to watch teh coast. The booms, the burns, the scoops, the berms, the fishing boats, the storge ships, the etcs. were/are the Coast Guard's to imagine and to coordinate.
- From my admitedly long-distance perspective, thru the media telescope, the Coast Guard some how became captive to BP -or restricted by Washington. Whatever the reason, the Coast Guard has not taken charge in the way it should.
-One comment about the original posting in this thread, --The AG going to the coast and talking about law suits. Like we see the BP engineers trying to fix teh pipe, because that is what engineers do; like we see fishermen wanting to use their boats to protect the sea, because that is what fishermen do; like we see LA'ians wanting to build berms to protect their lands, because that's what citizens do; --we see lawyers wanting to sue somebody, because that's what lawyers do. Remember, a year or so aga when we had $4 a gallon gas? What did our congress do to help solve that problem? They passed a resolution to sue the OPEC nations. This administration is made up of lawyers; what do lawyers know how to do when faced with a crisi?
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| Name: |
Talullahhound
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| Subject: |
Gulf Coast Property
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Date:
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6/4/2010 6:09:22 PM
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I have no idea if everything that can be done is being done. We are repeatedly assured that the best minds in the world are working on the problem, and I have no idea if that is true or not.
What I do find disgusting is what is being done to our coastline and the environment. It makes me sick to see the wetlands and barrier islands awash in oil. My heart goes out to those who will pay the price in terms of their livelihood. Maybe a program can be started to "retrain" them for a new career.
Today, the oil is hitting the beach in Gulf Shores. We are trying to sell my MIL's house on Ono Island. It was already a depressed market, and now with the oil and the threat of a bad hurricane season, it is unlikely we will sell it any time soon. Rental? Forget about it. And insurance companies will not insure an empty house.
Drill, baby, Drill? I don't think so... Haven't heard that one out of anyone's mouth in a while.
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| Name: |
lotowner
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| Subject: |
Drill Baby Drill
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Date:
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6/4/2010 8:31:44 PM
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Why force drilling in 5,000 feet of water when we can drill in shallow water and on land? I do not think that this level of drilling was wise without some absolute fail systems. And that is not totally safe - Remember Apollo 13! Redundancy is wise but not 100%.
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| Name: |
MartiniMan
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| Subject: |
Wouldnt it be nice....
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Date:
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6/4/2010 10:10:12 PM
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if we didn't have to go offshore for oil but the environmental wackos and their leftist enablers in government have made it all but impossible to drill for oil in less hostile environments like ANWAR where a leak like this can be easily capped. But we have to face the fact that unless we want to send more money to our Mideast or South American enemies we either need to explore domestically or completely change our lifestyle and reduce our standard of living back 100 years to get off our oil addiction.
I do find it ironic all these idiot protesters that drive their cars to protest against oil exploration. My favorite sign was the one that said, "I don't need oil, I came here by bus". That is the average mental agility of the left.
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| Name: |
Talullahhound
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| Subject: |
Wouldnt it be nice....
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Date:
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6/5/2010 8:50:39 AM
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I really wish that the country would seriously explore alternative energy. Our reliance on oil has put us at the mercy of others and has not served us well. I had a boss who used to say that technology follows the money -- so maybe we need to put serious money towards serious developments of alternatives. Either that, or seriously take over one of the Middle East oil states so we can continue to feed our addiction from a distance.
I'm not a tree hugger, but I really don't want to see our environment destroyed so we don't have to change. The ecosystem is fragile enough, without our inflicting more damage to it. It's clear that they don't yet understand the full impact of this current, sustained oil spill, beyond the obvious impacts to the environment and the people trying to clean it up.
Up until now, I have through the environmentals were over the top about their reistance to off shore drilling, but now? I think I've changed my mind.
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| Name: |
MartiniMan
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| Subject: |
Wouldnt it be nice....
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Date:
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6/5/2010 9:30:36 AM
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Hound, alternative energy will be found when it becomes economically viable. Right now it just isn't. This is one area where the government can play a role by promoting research but they should focus only on technologies that are a true viable alternative to oil and not pie in the sky, economically non-viable or unreliable (i.e., solar and wind). We need to be able to run our vehicles, make our products, etc.
As for the long-term damage to the Gulf I would not be too worried. The Gulf has 643 quadrillion gallons of water so the total release is only a tiny fraction. What makes it appear worse is that it floats on the surface and is spread out in a very thin sheen. With the warmth of the water and the tremendous microbiological activity the oil biodegrades very quickly. By the time it reaches the surface it has weathered so much that it has lost almost all its toxicity to biota. Then the only issue is physical toxicity which will go away quickly. You probably don't realize this but in the 1970's there was a similar, slightly smaller (so far) spill in the Gulf by PEMEX. I have been going the beach in the panhandle since 1984 and have no recollection of problems caused by this spill where there was no cleanup attempted.
There will be short-term impacts for sure and oil in the water and on the beaches will be a problem for a while but not as long as you think. If I had the money I would be looking for cheap Gulf front property over the next several months as people panic for no reason. I am not trying to minimize the current impact or say this isn't a disaster but I am trying to give you a longer term, more realistic perspective. We heard all the same dire predictions after Exxon Valdez and we have seen how that area quickly recovered such that within a year or two you had to go looking to find any residual oil. So don't have too much sympathy for the environmental wackos that oppose all oil exploration. They know the truth about the long-term prospects
As for offshore drilling, this is but one accident among thousands of successful offshore operations in the Gulf. And I think as the facts come out, some of which I have been privy to working for one of the parties involved, you will see that the operation could have been safely completed and this event could have been avoided. Much like a plane accident where pilot error is involved, there were a series of decisions made that led to the blowout, a chain of events that were not intended to result in the blowout but did. We will have new regulations that will require operators to improve on procedures, etc. that will hopefully prevent a repeat. No human endeavor is without risk but responding with a prohibition because of one accident out of the tens of thousands of offshore wells around the world makes no logical sense. It is am emotional reaction and we really need to have a broader perspective.
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| Name: |
MrHodja
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| Subject: |
Wouldnt it be nice....
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Date:
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6/5/2010 10:20:04 AM
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There are extremists in all walks of life. Read a Tom Clancy book one time (forget which title) where the environmental extremists were engaged in significant, violent terrorism. The book painted clearly how completely insane this fictional group was being, and the punchline of the book is that the "good guys" managed to force them into their jungle headquarters (of course with all its backup generators, supplies, and so forth), then (and I can't recall how, but it was very clever) make them put all their clothes in a pile and step outside the building which was then destroyed. So, they got what they supposedly wanted -- to be back to pure nature with none of the comfort trappings they had come accustomed to yet railed against - naked and totally dependent on what they could accomplish with their brains and hands.
I agree with MM's post below. Human nature seems to dictate knee-jerk reactions to events like this. Should it have happened? From what I read it shouldn't. Is it reason to ban offshore drilling? Only if we want to continue to bleed our wealth to those more pragmatic nations and companies who keep drilling. On the Bloomberg energy web page today it was announced the Brazilians just found another 318 million barrels under the sea.....
I find it rather comical and shameful at the same time that the liberals in Massachusetts want clean energy but don't want wind farms off Cape Cod...I guess they want green energy as long as it is at someone else's expense.
Cheers,
NH
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| Name: |
Talullahhound
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| Subject: |
Wouldnt it be nice....
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Date:
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6/5/2010 8:04:47 PM
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I think this is much worse than Valdez. And I do believe that we shouldn't do a knee jerk reaction, but at the same time I wonder just how many disasters there have to be before we realize this is a bad idea.
I think there are likely viable alternative energy sources. I agree, at this point, we probably should not chase after solutions that don't have a wide spread application. It seems unlikely to me that wind farms are going to take off. I have long thought that we ought to give nuclear engergy another go.
As far as buying up cheap beach property, I've already looked into it and rejected it. There are bigger problems down there than just the oil on the beach... but if anyone wants a nice house on ONO island, I know where there is one for sale.. LOL
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