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Godfather
05-29-2010, 08:32 PM
If we had any leadership in this country, we'd get out of the way of the state and local mitigation efforts, and we'd tell BP to sit down and shut the hell up so a competent oil company like Chevron or Taylor Energy could stop the leak.

ETA: Sweet! Someone beat me to the first ever post on this board but I started the first thread in the Soapbox!

smokin3000gt
05-29-2010, 08:40 PM
If they haven't already, I think all of the oil companies should get together and put their brains and resources together until this thing is capped. This isn't just a BP problem.

vasteeler
05-29-2010, 09:24 PM
If they haven't already, I think all of the oil companies should get together and put their brains and resources together until this thing is capped. This isn't just a BP problem.

you right , even though they caused it its every ones problem

Godfather
05-29-2010, 09:31 PM
you right , even though they caused it its every ones problem

Good point. Every rig in the path of the oil slick had to shut down, and the worse the crisis gets the more public opinion turns against deepwater drilling.

smokin3000gt
05-29-2010, 09:32 PM
Yup. Especially when (if) the senate tries to ban all off shore drilling. Then they'll care.

steelerdude15
05-29-2010, 10:26 PM
[If they haven't already, I think all of the oil companies should get together and put their brains and resources together until this thing is capped. This isn't just a BP problem.
Yes, I agree with you, but it probably won't happen. It would be nice though.

GitNoLuv
05-29-2010, 10:40 PM
Unfortunately, all the CEO type's see is lost dollars...and all politicians see is lost votes. Until they get their heads around the real problem (which would involve all of them pulling their heads out of their bums), this will continue to be a HUGE issue.

silver & black
05-30-2010, 10:37 AM
If they haven't already, I think all of the oil companies should get together and put their brains and resources together until this thing is capped. This isn't just a BP problem.

That would require greed to take a back seat. It should be glaringly apparent that this is what NEEDS to happen... but, I wouldn't hold my breath.

SteelerEmpire
05-30-2010, 12:59 PM
They say the only real hope of plugging the well will not be until august.... unbelievable...

SteelersinCA
05-30-2010, 01:40 PM
It's a shame, and no one is talking about what is going to happen when a hurricane blows through there. Imagine the whole Midwest to East coast covered in oil. Hurricane season starts June 1, FYI.

SteelersinCA
05-30-2010, 01:42 PM
I lied first article I've seen about it.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j4d8XkzfNJMVGDSkCL64avnjGMHAD9G195800


VENICE, La. — As hurricane season approaches, the giant oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico takes weather forecasters into nearly uncharted waters.

The Gulf is a superhighway for hurricanes that form or explode over pools of hot water, then usually move north or west toward the coast. The site of the sunken rig is along the general path of some of the worst storms ever recorded, including Hurricane Camille, which wiped out the Mississippi coast in 1969, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The season officially starts Tuesday, and while scientists seem to agree that the sprawling slick isn't likely to affect the formation of a storm, the real worry is that a hurricane might turn the millions of gallons of floating crude into a crashing black surf.

Some fear a horrific combination of damaging winds and large waves pushing oil deeper into estuaries and wetlands and coating miles of debris-littered coastline in a pungent, sticky mess.
And the worst effects of an oil-soaked storm surge might not be felt for years: If oil is pushed deep into coastal marshes that act as a natural speed bump for storm surges, areas including New Orleans could be more vulnerable to bad storms for a long time.

Experts say there are few, if any, studies on such a scenario.

In this "untreaded water ... it's tough to theorize about what would happen," said Joe Bastardi, chief long-range hurricane forecaster with AccuWeather.com.
The lone precedent, experts agree, is the summer of 1979, when storms hampered efforts to contain a spill from a Mexican rig called Ixtoc 1 that eventually dumped 140 million gallons off the Yucatan Peninsula. Hurricane Henri, a Category 1 storm, damaged a 310-ton steel cap designed to stop the leak that would become the worst peacetime spill in history.

Still, while oil from that spill coated miles of beaches in Texas and Mexico, tropical storms and unseasonable cold fronts that year helped reverse offshore currents earlier than normal and drive oil away from the coast. Storms also helped disperse some of the oil, Bastardi said.

"That's what I think would happen this time," he said. "I'm sure a hurricane would do a great deal of diluting the oil, spreading it out where the concentrations would be much less damaging."
At least 19 million gallons, according to the latest estimates, have leaked from the seabottom 5,000 feet below the surface since the April 20 explosion of BP PLC's Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11. Syrupy oil has crept into Louisiana's marshes, coating plants, killing some birds and threatening wetlands.

The threat to the marshes could have implications lasting well beyond this hurricane season. Louisiana already has lost huge swaths of coastal wetlands in recent decades, and the oil is a major threat to the long-term viability of that delicate ecosystem.

If the plants that hold the marshes together were to die at the roots, the base would wash away, leaving deeper water and less of a buffer for hurricanes, said Joseph Suhayda, director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center.
"That would increase the amount of surge inland," Suhayda said.

Even without considering hurricanes, there is uncertainty about whether marsh cane and other plants will die to the roots or just above the surface from this oil spill. If the plants' roots survive, they could come back over time. If not, the results could be catastrophic.

"I don't think anybody is going to know precisely. It depends on the quantity of the oil," said David White, a biological sciences professor at Loyola University New Orleans.
There is a chance that a hurricane or tropical storm could offer wetlands a reprieve from the oil, at the expense of areas farther inland. A storm surge of several feet, even if it is carrying oil, would pass over the top of the outer, low-lying marshes and disperse the mess in less toxic amounts, Suhayda said.

But such a storm could also push oil into freshwater marshes where ducks and geese thrive, White said.

Experts are predicting a busy hurricane season with powerful storms. Bastardi predicts seven named storms, five hurricanes and two or three major hurricanes will have an effect on land this year. Colorado State University researchers Philip Klotzbach and William Gray predict a 69 percent chance that at least one major hurricane will make landfall on the U.S. and a 44 percent chance that a major hurricane will hit the Gulf Coast.

On Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted 14 to 23 tropical storms this year, including up to seven major hurricanes. "This season could be one of the more active on record," agency Administrator Jane Lubchenco said.

Hurricane season begins June 1 and runs through November. Early season storms are uncommon; the busy part of the season is in August through October. Stronger storms typically form during this time, like Katrina did in August of 2005.
A hurricane like Katrina "would be a worst-case scenario" with oil pushed far ashore, said National Wildlife Federation scientist Doug Inkley.

"It would suffocate the vegetation. You'd get oiled birds and other animals," Inkley said. "It's virtually impossible to clean up oil."

It could well be August before the current leak is stanched. After several failed attempts to contain it, BP has been siphoning some of the oil through a mile-long tube, but more continues to escape. BP is drilling another well to relieve pressure from the leak in hopes of a permanent fix, but that could take weeks.

And oil rigs are often evacuated ahead of hurricanes, which would interrupt those containment efforts.

"It wouldn't take a hurricane to create a mess, even a tropical storm could cause problems," said William Hawkins, director the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast research laboratory.
A hurricane could also push the oil in a new direction.

"I think what worries us most is the hurricane taking oil to areas that probably wouldn't be hit hard otherwise, like the Florida Panhandle and Texas," said Gregory Stone, director of the Coastal Studies Institute at LSU.
Even though the oil has yet to reach Florida, state Attorney General Bill McCollum recently sent a letter to BP asking the company to assure him it would pay up if a tropical storm or hurricane pushes oil ashore, which he believes "will capture the oil in its path and deposit it much further inland."

Bastardi said that in the near term at least, the storms themselves remain the chief threat.

"If a Category 3 hurricane is headed to the Texas Gulf Coast — and this is simply theoretical — I wouldn't be worried as much about damage from the oil, as the damage from the hurricane," Bastardi said.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Killer
06-01-2010, 01:43 PM
We are doomed - seriously.


Efforts to End Oil Flow From BP Well Are Over, Coast Guard Says

June 1 (Bloomberg) -- BP Plc has decided not to attach a second blowout preventer on its leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico and efforts to end the flow are over until the relief wells are finished, according to the U.S. Coast Guard’s Thad Allen, who spoke at a press conference today.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=akSN5OpOOiLg

Mach1
06-01-2010, 02:09 PM
Can't they bomb, torpedo it or something. Close the damn thing up.

suitanim
06-01-2010, 02:47 PM
No, they cannot...if they torpedo the thing, ALL the oil could spill out...it's really a huge mess now.

The Patriot
06-01-2010, 02:48 PM
Can't they bomb, torpedo it or something. Close the damn thing up.

They've been drilling relief wells, but that will take till August. Bombing it might destroy the relief wells.

smokin3000gt
06-01-2010, 02:52 PM
I don't know why they don't drop a monster crimper and pinch the damn thing shut?

SteelersinCA
06-01-2010, 03:43 PM
I think the difficulty lies in the fact that this is 5000ft below the water. That's deep. A scuba diver only goes down about 180 feet and for a very very short time. 5000 feet under water is incredibly different than 5000 ft off the ground.

Killer
06-01-2010, 05:20 PM
I DON'T CARE.

Natural, man-made - - - who gives a fuck?

JUST PLUG THE DAMN HOLE!

Wallace108
06-01-2010, 11:56 PM
No worries ... this is going to have a Hollywood ending:

"Titanic" director Cameron joins effort to plug Gulf spill

Tue Jun 1, 3:29 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Filmmaker James Cameron and another Canadian who built submersibles for the director's 1989 thriller "The Abyss" joined talks on Tuesday in Washington on innovative ways of capping the Gulf oil spill.

Cameron and Phil Nuytten, head of North Vancouver-based Nuytco Research, were to join several deepwater and oil sector experts meeting with Environmental Protection Agency officials, a spokeswoman for Nuytco told AFP.

No details of their talks were immediately available.

After failing to plug the leak with mud, BP has moved on to a plan to cut the leaking pipe and seal it with a tight cap. The company said this latest effort could stem the gushing oil within 24 hours.

The company is also drilling two relief wells, but these are not expected to be ready until August.

Nuytten is a diving pioneer who conceived of a rotary joint technology used in his company's renowned Newtsuit and other diving suits used in underwater exploration and rescues.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100601/sc_afp/usoilpollutionenvironmentfilm

Killer
06-02-2010, 08:55 AM
Nuke it from orbit - it's the only way to be sure

Mach1
06-02-2010, 11:02 AM
Just seen on the news that the saw is jammed on the pipe. :doh:

Wallace108
06-02-2010, 11:32 AM
Just seen on the news that the saw is jammed on the pipe. :doh:

http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/1615/threestoogess.jpg

vasteeler
06-02-2010, 05:50 PM
No worries ... this is going to have a Hollywood ending:

"Titanic" director Cameron joins effort to plug Gulf spill

Tue Jun 1, 3:29 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Filmmaker James Cameron and another Canadian who built submersibles for the director's 1989 thriller "The Abyss" joined talks on Tuesday in Washington on innovative ways of capping the Gulf oil spill.

Cameron and Phil Nuytten, head of North Vancouver-based Nuytco Research, were to join several deepwater and oil sector experts meeting with Environmental Protection Agency officials, a spokeswoman for Nuytco told AFP.

No details of their talks were immediately available.

After failing to plug the leak with mud, BP has moved on to a plan to cut the leaking pipe and seal it with a tight cap. The company said this latest effort could stem the gushing oil within 24 hours.

The company is also drilling two relief wells, but these are not expected to be ready until August.

Nuytten is a diving pioneer who conceived of a rotary joint technology used in his company's renowned Newtsuit and other diving suits used in underwater exploration and rescues.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100601/sc_afp/usoilpollutionenvironmentfilm


now they are consulting film directors, is this really what its come to?

The Patriot
06-02-2010, 06:04 PM
Here's a fun fact. Here are listed oil companies and their number of "egregious, willful safety violations" over the past five years.

Sunoco & Conocophillips - 8
Citgo - 2
Exxon Mobil - 1
British Petroleum -760 :dizzy:

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bps-dismal-safety-record/story?id=10763042

Killer
06-03-2010, 08:14 PM
I Blame Obama.

His incompetence is only making matters worse.

Impeach his ass NOW!





Obama biggest recipient of BP cash

BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64420A20100505