Gulf Coast Tragedy

NOAA graphic of oil slick, 5.1.10
"The Size of Puerto Rico"

A wild weird clime that lieth, sublime
out of space . . . out of time!
--"Dream-Land", Edgar Allen Poe
_________________

There is one thing I really hate, and that is an outright lie. I hate lies from people, companies and the press. We are getting all three regarding the environmental impact of the blowout April 20th of the Deepwater Horizon Oil rig.

Why does this get to be on an anti-war site? Because Halliburton had just cemented the pipe on the ocean floor 20 hours before the explosion. Because Thad Allen is our new Condi Rice. Because the turnover rate on catastrophes and lies being fed the public are speeding up.

Today's WaPo quotes Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen, appointed Saturday by Obama to lead the government's oil spill response (Admiral Allen was in charge of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina -- brilliant choice) :

"We're breaking new ground here. It's hard to write a plan for a catastrophic event that has no precedent, which is what this was," Allen said, defending the company against not writing a response for "what could never be in a plan, what you couldn't anticipate" (Pressure Grows for Action by BP.)

Thad Allen has been tapped to be our new Condoleeza Rice -- Who could have known?

But how can a drilling company NOT anticipate a blowout when drilling a mile into the seabed? Why are there blowout protectors if such an eventuality could not be anticipated?

NO. The facts are always seamier. This had to do with money, and the Wall Street Journal is the one who reported this fact (Leaking Oil Well Lacked Safeguard Device):

"The oil well spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico didn't have a remote-control shut-off switch [an acoustic switch] used in two other major oil-producing nations as last-resort protection against underwater spills.

"[R]egulators in two major oil-producing countries, Norway and Brazil ... require them. Norway has had acoustic triggers on almost every offshore rig since 1993.

"The U.S. considered requiring a remote-controlled shut-off mechanism several years ago, but drilling companies questioned its cost and effectiveness," according to the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, which overseeing offshore drilling.

Here are some more facts, from the AP today (Gulf Oil Spill Quickly Balloons, Could Move East):

--"The Coast Guard conceded Saturday that it's nearly impossible to know how much oil has gushed since the April 20 rig explosion, after saying earlier it was at least 1.6 million gallons ..."

"Even at that rate, the spill should eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident as the worst U.S. oil disaster in history in a matter of weeks. But a growing number of experts warned that the situation may already be much worse."

--"The oil slick over the water's surface appeared to triple in size over the past two days, which could indicate an increase in the rate that oil is spewing from the well, according to one analysis of images collected from satellites and reviewed by the University of Miami."

--Due to the rig's position "at the end of one branch of the Gulf Stream [the oil] ... would flow around the southern tip of Florida and up the eastern seaboard."

"It will be on the East Coast of Florida in almost no time," said Hans Graber, executive director of Miami University's Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing."I don't think we can prevent that. It's more of a question of when rather than if."

--"As bad as the oil spill looks on the surface, it may be only half the problem, said University of California Berkeley engineering professor Robert Bea, who serves on a National Academy of Engineering panel on oil pipeline safety.

"'There's an equal amount that could be subsurface too,' said Bea. And that oil below the surface 'is damn near impossible to track.'" The surface slick is currently the size of Puerto Rice.

--"Louisiana State University professor Ed Overton, who heads a federal chemical hazard assessment team for oil spills, worries about a total collapse of the pipe inserted into the well. If that happens, there would be no warning and the resulting gusher could be even more devastating because regulating flow would then be impossible"

--"It is of grave concern," David Kennedy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The Associated Press about the spill. "I am frightened. This is a very, very big thing. And the efforts that are going to be required to do anything about it, especially if it continues on, are just mind-boggling."

--Dr. Moby Solangi, director of the nonprofit the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, Miss., said this is birthing season for the roughly 5,000 dolphins along the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts.

"It's very bad timing," he said. "We're looking at a colossal tragedy."

Dire Straits

--From Here to Eternity (1953)
[updated, 4/2010]

We're all doomed, you know.
The whole, silly, drunken, pathetic lot of us.
Doomed by the air we're about to breathe
--On The Beach (1959)

There let the way appear, steps unto heaven;
all that thou sendest me, in mercy given;
angels to beckon me
nearer, my God, to thee
--Nearer My God to Thee,
Adams and Mason

There's a fragrance that's here to stay
and they call it... Charlie.
Kinds fresh, kinda now, Charlie.
Kinda new, kinda WOW, Charlie!
--Charlie 70's fragrance jingle

As our investments begin to grow,
to quote from Davey Crockett at the Alamo,
"Will everyone here kindly step to the rear
and let a winner lead the way!"
--How Now Dow Jones? (1967)
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The Gulf Coast faces a dire situation in the upcoming weeks and months with the fast-approaching oil slick from the sunken Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Conservative estimates say 42,000 gallons of crude (1,000 barrels) are being spilled into the ocean daily, and the slick is over 300 square miles and growing (Oil Slick Probably Won't Hit Florida Beaches this Week.)

The Coast Guard will be burning the oil, which may remove between 50 and 90% of the petroleum distillates at the time of the burn, says Rear Adm. Mary Landry. However. she acknowledged the spill will still impact the shoreline: "It's premature to say this is catastrophic. I will say this is very serious," she said.

Efforts to activate a shut-off device that would halt the flow of oil on the sea bottom 5,000 feet below have been unsuccessful. The only alternative to staunch the oil flow is to drill a relief well nearby, which will take weeks to complete.

Transocean Ltd., owner of the lost rig, will begin drilling this week. This catastrophe was not supposed to happen according to all reassurances by the oil companies over the past 25 years. It now appears drilling in the Gulf is as safe as buying derivatives from Goldman-Sachs.

Our own Governor Charlie Crist seems to be channeling Christ at this desperate moment, always a good move in the Deep South and right before his election bid as a possible Independent.

"It's in God's hands now," Crist said after surveying the spill, possibly referring to the prevailing winds; possibly referring to the whole mess (Christ Tours Oil Spill Threatening Gulf.) Mr. Crist is also known to "pray away" hurricanes (see here).

In any event, neither would be a result of divine intervention. This tragedy was man-made; the winds are a meteorological phenomenon. That IS why we went through The Enlightenment, after all, that grand expansion of thinking which gave birth to our nation's Founders.

Now the taxpayers, through the Coast Guard and other government agencies, will be paying for the cleanup. The corporations skim the profits, while we pay to skim off the sludge from their mistakes. The AP reports the Coast Guard has not yet reported its expenses.

Channeling the public's fear mode, Sen. Mike Haridopolos, a Merritt Island Republican who is the Senate lead for proposed offshore drilling, said he wants to find out if this was "sabotage". Who is he kidding?

How now, Mr. Obama? Still going to allow drilling off our coast, after the unsinkable has sunk?

UPDATE, 4.29.10:

Gulf of Mexico Oil Slick Is Five Times Bigger than originally reported, releasing 5,000 barrels of crude oil into the Gulf for the next three months. This could shut down fisheries for years.