If this is true, I really feel for all you folks who live in the Gulf states or along the South Atlantic coast. (Some NSFW language behind that link.)
Heck, every person with a heart already feels for you — and for the critters that dwell in the Gulf. Hoping it’s not really as much worse as the latest allegations imply. But satellite photos and other evidence from the last few days have been ominous.
Good luck to us all. (And be glad you’ve got some preps to get you through hard times.)
I have no idea what is going on 5,000 feet below the surface of the gulf. The well may or may not be blown. Certainly it is damaged, and certainly BP lost control of the well some days before the catastrophe.
Put this in perspective. 11 people have died. No one seems to mention that very often.
The gulf has natural oil seeps that put 500,000 barrels a year into the water.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/01/000127082228.htm
That’s nearly 1,400 barrels a day released into the gulf – for hundreds or thousands of years. This spill is bad, with 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day estimated. But it won’t go for even a year.
Mother Earth will cleanse and heal herself as she always does. It may take a few years, or even a few decades. Life may change for some folks. But 11 are gone forever, with no choices left for them. In 20 years, the only remnant will be whatever absurd regulations and laws are passed after this incident. Oil is temporary but stupid and ignorant politicians are forever. They will continue to impoverish us long after the oil is gone and the critters restored.
Thanks for the perspective -S. I, too, have noticed that nobody in the news cares much about the 11 dead. Haven’t seen a single profile on one of them or so much as an article about their widows or children.
“But it won’t go for even a year.” Yet a year will devastate millions of lives. Not to mention an economy that really doesn’t need one more punch to the gut.
“…and the critters restored.” Yes, if you think of the sea life of the Gulf only as a renewable product, that product will be restored. But if you think of the suffering of the creatures that are dying now … different story.
I know that the combo of warm waters and “lite” oil brings quicker healing than cold waters and heavy oil. I know oil-eating microbes rush to the rescue in the Caribbean. I know Mother Earth will heal. I know politicians will plague us always. I hope the spill (or spills) aren’t as much worse as they’re beginning to look. But that said, this catastrophe still looks deeper every day. And hitting a region that still hasn’t healed from Hurricane Katrina … I can’t even imagine.
The Gulf folks have had it rough with katrina and now the oil spill.
Sad thing is, after this fiasco, Oabam et. al. will shut down off-shore drilling and then all the oil jobs will be lost too.
The gulf folks will be done if cap and trade goes through.
From the report cited:
“7) The reservoir of oil in Macondo is way larger than most anybody realizes and certainly bigger than BP will admit. It is a huge mother lode. Could flow forever.”
I don’t live on the Gulf, but my understanding is that this is correct. I’ve seen a number of pix, both on surface and underwater, and they do not look good. The oil has reached both northern and eastern landfalls — Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida; I’ve not heard if it’s reached Texas, but with hurricane season coming, that might be a later possibility — and is far deeper than any oil spill I would have imagined possible. I think DEEP is the key to its devastation.
I’m not convinced “the critters” will be entirely restored, certainly not enough to help the Gulf’s economy, or even over a relatively long-term period. The oil is still spilling, and until it’s stopped, there’s no way to begin evaluating the damage.
I see some permanent changes to the Gulf region — “permanent” from the standpoint of we humans. If there were no people, any region could restore itself over time. But it was people who brought about this devastation in the first place, and it is people — politicians — who will evaluate it and get it wrong. And the people who live around the Gulf will not use reality to determine how they should continue their lifestyle there. They will cry for “somebody to do something”, but laws will not clean up the water or bring the “critters” back to life. Change is inevitable everywhere; change in the Gulf of Mexico is coming faster than anyone is prepared to contemplate or know how to handle.
My wilderness survival teacher used to say “A person can do in 5 minutes what takes nature a hundred years.” This applies whether it’s helping a region or hurting it. There are ways to speed the rate at which the gulf recovers, but I don’t trust the people in charge to know how.
In order to try to put a little levity into a bad situation, at least we have “top of the line” Scientific .gov inspectors to tell us if the sea harvest is bad.
http://federalnewsradio.com/index.php?nid=110&sid=1974232
“William Mahan bends over a bowl of raw shrimp and inhales deeply, using his left hand to wave the scent up toward his nose. Deep breath. Exhale. Repeat. He clears his palate with a bowl of freshly cut watermelon before moving on to raw oysters. Deep breath. Exhale. Repeat.
He’s one of about 40 inspectors trained recently at a federal fisheries lab in Pascagoula, Miss., to sniff out seafood tainted by oil in the Gulf of Mexico and make sure the product reaching consumers is safe to eat.
“Gerald Wojtala, director of the International Food Protection Training Institute, acknowledged that nosing around seafood may sound silly, but said it’s a time-proven technique.”
“The human nose has been used on a lot of (oil) spill response,” Wojtala said. “There are a lot of sophisticated tests, but when you think about it, do you want to run a test that takes seven days and costs thousands of dollars?”
1. Yes. I think running tests is a much better idea
2. 40 “sniffers” vs 55 .gov inspectors
Sometimes you just have to accept the silly side to let off the pressure valve.
ALittleLevity … Um, I think I’m with you on sniffers vs actual tests. I might trust a trained “shrimp-sniffing dog,” though. LOL.
And “Federal News Radio.” What the heck is “Federal News Radio”? I visited, took a quick look around, and couldn’t decide whether it was a put-on or a propaganda tool.
Propaganda tool. Less expensive than a movie and popcorn.
The BP president said that “the company would survive.” That’s like someone running over your dog and saying, “Don’t worry, my car is fine.”
Ragnar. Ain’t that the truth.
OTOH, I can also hear that BP is trying to assure its stockholders (which include a lot of retired people), “We will survive the remarks of idiot politicians.”
Hard to have much sympathy for BP. But when the disaster inspires the US pres to go on national TV (embarrassingly) talking about kicking ass, and when the USAG starts a criminal probe or three while BP’s scrambling to take care of business … that’s not real encouraging, either. I know BP’s just reaping what it sowed. But it’s a funny damned thing that the fedgov hasn’t also announced any criminal prosecutions of the government officials who enabled BP or the government officials who are currently fiddling while the Gulf burns (and who are in fact getting in the way of locals trying to manage the cleanup or prevent oil from reaching the marshes and beaches).
If BP has actually done anything criminal … Well, then the term “unindicted co-conspirators” comes to mind.
What I’m wondering is, why are they going after BP but not Transocean, the company that built, operated, and maintained the rig?
(That’s standard practice in the mining/drilling industry. One company fronts the exploration money in exchange for a contract to buy the output at a set price, while a different company actually does the exploring, building, drilling, mining, etc. Sometimes there’s a chain of contractors a mile long)
BP was leasing the rig. I’m not sure what the legal precedent is in this particular matter, but if one person is leasing a 2nd story apartment, and the furnace in the basement explodes, to my knowledge the tenant is not the one considered responsible?
There’s a whole lot about this I don’t know, partly because I get so sick of the accusations and misinformation that I just put on my headphones and go sew, but I do think there’s a bit of a scapegoating tendency in disasters like this, are we sure that’s not in play?
Add in the fact that these are foreign companies, and the legal side of this could twist itself in knots for decades.