Oil spill - the end of fresh Florida seafood?

[Rich Z]

Man, this looks SERIOUS.

http://cnmnewsnetwork.com/111283/oil...s-action-suit/

Connie works part time for a fresh seafood market in Panacea, and the owner (Debbie Logan) is really worried that her business will be dead without product to sell. And quite rightly so. This could dramatically affect all of Florida. Tourism will be dead because who the heck wants to walk on oil soaked sandy beaches or swim in oil covered water? Both commercial and sport fishing will also be affected. So with those all being socked on the chin, how much impact will that have on the money that tourism brings to this state? The economy already sucks as it is, so things go get very serious financially with the state of Florida.

Not to mention that I'm PERSONALLY going to wither away and die if I can't get freshly caught Gulf shrimp to eat..........

Oh yeah, last I heard they don't know how to stop the flow of oil and there is a possibility that the pipe could blow out completely, increasing the flow 10 fold...... Lovely.... We could be talking about a completely sterilized Gulf of Mexico and surrounding wetlands.

This sounds like a disaster unfolding before our very eyes.

[als2052]

It could be the end of seafood in eastern US as we know it...if leak persists and is picked up by gulf loop current it would snake its way down west coast of Fl and meet up with gufstream on east coast and be in New England within a month...Suggest we all enjoy what seafood is available while it is still around...

[Shadow]

Not ready to throw in the towel just yet

There are too many people that actually have a clue (not necessarily gov't officials (other than the Coast Guard) how to deal with the issue that are hard at work on it.

A bigg factor is going to be the weather.

Clean up crews can't do thier job in foul weather. You can't skim oil or effectively boom and contain an area, in rough seas. (ask me how I know).

Dispersants and cooagulating agents aren't so effective when the wind whips them into a frenzy

And in some cases, the aircraft can't fly to disperse them

Let's hope the weather in the effected areas clears and stays that way.

[Rich Z]

Originally Posted by Shadow

Dispersants and cooagulating agents aren't so effective when the wind whips them into a frenzy

I'm curious about this. What exactly to dispersants DO to the oil? I know the general definition of the term, but when specifically applied to oil on water, what is the oil changed to and where does it go?

As for coagulating agents, that implies to me that the oil congeals in some manner and then likely becomes heavier than water and therefor sinks. Is the floorbed of the Gulf of Mexico being covered by this congealed mass really an effective solution to the potential environmental damage the oil being on TOP of the water can cause?

Can either of the above "fixes" fatally contaminate the entire Gulf of Mexico?

Yeah, this does have me worried.......

[Rich Z]

Someone on one of my other sites posted an email they received concerning this accident.

You may have heard the news in the last two days about the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig which caught fire, burned for two days, then
sank in 5,000 ft of water in the Gulf of Mexico. There are still 11 men missing, and they are not expected to be found.
The rig belongs to Transocean, the world’s biggest offshore drilling contractor. The rig was originally contracted through the year 2013 to
BP and was working on BP’s Macondo exploration well when the fire broke out. The rig costs about $500,000 per day to contract. The full
drilling spread, with helicopters and support vessels and other services, will cost closer to $1,000,000 per day to operate in the course of
drilling for oil and gas. The rig cost about $350,000,000 to build in 2001 and would cost at least double that to replace today.
The rig represents the cutting edge of drilling technology. It is a floating rig, capable of working in up to 10,000 ft water depth. The rig is
not moored; It does not use anchors because it would be too costly and too heavy to suspend this mooring load from the floating
structure. Rather, a triply-redundant computer system uses satellite positioning to control powerful thrusters that keep the rig on station
within a few feet of its intended location, at all times. This is called Dynamic Positioning.
The rig had apparently just finished cementing steel casing in place at depths exceeding 18,000 ft. The next operation was to suspend the
well so that the rig could move to its next drilling location, the idea being that a rig would return to this well later in order to complete the
work necessary to bring the well into production.
It is thought that somehow formation fluids – oil /gas – got into the wellbore and were undetected until it was too late to take action. With a
floating drilling rig setup, because it moves with the waves, currents, and winds, all of the main pressure control equipment sits on the
seabed – the uppermost unmoving point in the well. This pressure control equipment – the Blowout Preventers, or ‘BOP’s” as they’re
called, are controlled with redundant systems from the rig. In the event of a serious emergency, there are multiple Panic Buttons to hit,
and even fail-safe Deadman systems that should be automatically engaged when something of this proportion breaks out. None of them
were aparently activated, suggesting that the blowout was especially swift to escalate at the surface. The flames were visible up to about
35 miles away. Not the glow – the flames. They were 200 – 300 ft high.
All of this will be investigated and it will be some months before all of the particulars are known. For now, it is enough to say that this
marvel of modern technology, which had been operating with an excellent safety record, has burned up and sunk taking souls with it.
The well still is apparently flowing oil, which is appearing at the surface as a slick. They have been working with remotely operated
vehicles, or ROV’s which are essentially tethered miniature submarines with manipulator arms and other equipment that can perform work
underwater while the operator sits on a vessel. These are what were used to explore the Titanic, among other things. Every floating rig
has one on board and they are in constant use. In this case, they are deploying ROV’s from dedicated service vessels. They have been
trying to close the well in using a specialized port on the BOP’s and a pumping arrangement on their ROV’s. They have been unsuccessful
so far. Specialized pollution control vessels have been scrambled to start working the spill, skimming the oil up.
In the coming weeks they will move in at least one other rig to drill a fresh well that will intersect the blowing one at its pay zone. They will
use technology that is capable of drilling from a floating rig, over 3 miles deep to an exact specific point in the earth – with a target radius
of just a few feet plus or minus. Once they intersect their target, a heavy fluid will be pumped that exceeds the formation’s pressure, thus
causing the flow to cease and rendering the well safe at last. It will take at least a couple of months to get this done, bringing all available
technology to bear. It will be an ecological disaster if the well flows all of the while; Optimistically, it could bridge off downhole.
It’s a sad day when something like this happens to any rig, but even more so when it happens to something on the cutting edge of our
capabilities.

[als2052]

The dispersants work much dishwashing liquid...they break up oil and settle to bottom which is very detrimental to sealife and plants...Like Shadow says, our only hope is the weather...Lets pray for no TS's or hurrican until this mess is over with...Marine biologist cannot say at this time what is worse, the oil itself or the dispersants proposed...Lets all keep our fingers crossed...what else could possibly happen now?

[Rich Z]

Since the April 20, 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, as many as 798,000 gallons of crude were gushing into the ocean every day. The Gulf oil spill is now considered to be twice the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster. The Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989.

http://www.examiner.com/x-31031-Prov...-plug-oil-leak

That's quite a jump from the original 210,000 gallons per day I heard...

[Rich Z]

That being said, here's another interesting website I found -> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...er.html?ref=us

Note the text descriptions of the estimates of the actual amount of oil being expelled.

I'm thinking I might as well cancel those reservations on Sanibel Island this Fall. Might be better to take trips out west or up north instead and write off going to the Gulf beaches entirely.

Speaking of which, Connie and I went to St. George Island on Tuesday. We noticed some sort of black, grainy material was washing up on the beach and some was visible in the shallows of the Gulf. It's heavier than water and was laying between "waves" in the sand beneath the water. We were walking through this black stuff (honestly, it looked all the world to me as being "cricket poop", since we had raised crickets for the reptile business for years) and it would adhere to the bottoms of our feet, but did wash off with just a bit of effort without leaving any stains. The tide was going out and in some of the shallows left behind, there were shiny areas on the water that seemed to pick up some material from the beach. Kind of hard to describe, and I don't think the camcorder would have helped to view it. Not something I recall seeing before, but heck, I just might be seeing something natural that I just never noticed before. But both together did seem kind of odd and coincidental.

[vett boy]

Alaska still has oil residue after 21 years .If a hurricane hits the Gulf, oil will become airborne and spread inland for hundreds of miles.

I also doubt that any sea food will survive for decades .

I agree with the prediction that BP will just declare bankruptcy after hiding assets .Keep in mind it took Exxon 20 years to make finial payouts

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by vett boy

Alaska still has oil residue after 21 years .If a hurricane hits the Gulf, oil will become airborne and spread inland for hundreds of miles.

I also doubt that any sea food will survive for decades .

I agree with the prediction that BP will just declare bankruptcy after hiding assets .Keep in mind it took Exxon 20 years to make finial payouts

True, but not all seafood comes from the Gulf. We get a lot of seafood shipped in from other ares of the US and abroad.

As for Alaska, IIRC, wasnt' the shoreline rocky as compared to the gulfcoast?

That would be much more difficult to clean.

Either way, this is going to be a long lasting mess

And you're probably right about BP. The owner of the rig is already asking the government to limit thier liability...go figure?