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BEACH CLEAN-UP: Workers clean up oil along a beach at South Pass, La. May 11, 2010 near where the the Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico. (Courtesy photo)
Image: Deepwater Horizon Unified Command
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More than 20 years after the Exxon Valdez foundered off the coast of Alaska, puddles of oil can still be found in Prince William Sound. Nearly 25 years after a storage tank ruptured, spilling oil into the mangrove swamps and coral reefs of Bahia Las Minas in Panama, oil slicks can still be found on the water. And more than 40 years after the barge Florida grounded off Cape Cod, dumping fuel oil, the muck beneath the marsh grasses still smells like a gas station.
"The conventional wisdom then was that the oil would only last for a few days," says marine chemist Chris Reddy of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who is part of the "third or fourth" generation of scientists to study the Florida spill. "But in this small area you have chemical warfare still going on."
That spill was only roughly 190,000 gallons—or less in total than the ongoing BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico has gushed every day since April 20. The lightest parts of the current catastrophe may soon wash ashore from Louisiana to Alabama, and the thicker stuff is just a few kilometers behind at this point. So how long will the damage from this oil spill last?
"If the [oil] mousse gets into the marshes, it can last a real long time," says environmental chemist Jeffrey Short of environmental group Oceana, who has studied the aftereffects of the Exxon Valdez spill. "Once there's no oxygen, it doesn't break down fast at all; it's a long-term toxic reservoir."
There is no cure. "The only way to remove it is mechanically, and that will destroy further the whole habitat," says marine biologist Héctor Guzmán of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama, who is part of a team that conducted a long-term study of the impacts of the Panama oil spill in 1986. "The priority is to set up barriers and stop the oil."
Oily fate
Adding up all the spills from natural seeps, drilling, leaky vessels or pipelines and refueling means roughly 78 million gallons of oil enter U.S. waterways each year, according to a 2003 report from the National Academy of Sciences—dwarfing the roughly 4 million gallons (at least) of BP's Gulf oil spill, so far, based on the spill rate of roughly 200,000 gallons per day. So the marine environment is already dealing with lots of oil—how bad can it be?
The toxic compounds in oil vary, but largely fall in the group known to chemists as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), such as napthalenes, benzene, toluene and xylenes. All are known human carcinogens with other health effects for humans, animals and plants. "These hydrocarbons are particularly relevant if inhaled or ingested," says environmental toxicologist Ronald Kendall of Texas Tech University. "In the bodies of organisms such as mammals or birds, these aromatic hydrocarbons can be transformed into even more toxic products, which can affect DNA." In other words, the effects of the oil spill will linger in the genetics of Gulf coast animals long after the spill is gone, resulting in mutations that could lead to problems ranging from reduced fertility to cancer.
The oil from the Mississippi Canyon 252 well, which started leaking on April 20 when BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, has been described as light, sweet crude, meaning that it may contain more such compounds that dissolve in water or evaporate. "There are components that make up that oil that will have some affinity to dissolve into the water, but how fast and to what extent I just don't know at 5,000 feet in this incredibly turbulent flow," Reddy says. "It's not how much of the oil got spilled, it's the concentration and the duration—how much of the components that have bioactive tendencies are in the water and are going across the gills of fish and for how long?"
Already, scientists in the Gulf have found plumes of oil floating roughly 1,000 meters beneath the surface—rather than rushing to the surface from the more than 1,500-meter-deep well as anticipated. And that means some of these compounds are literally washing off the oil and into the water. "It's going to be taking hours to get up," Reddy says.
Once the oil reaches the surface, it begins to evaporate, losing as much as 20 to 40 percent of the original hydrocarbons. "Evaporation is good; it selectively removes a lot of compounds we'd rather not have in the water," like PAHs, Reddy notes. It also emulsifies, forming the now ubiquitous mousse—a frothy mix of hydrocarbons and water—or clumps into so-called tar balls, like those found on the shore of Dauphin Island in Alabama on May 12.
The properties of the oil also change depending on whether it is at the release point more than 1,500 meters down, directly above the leak at the surface or a few kilometers east or west as it drifts. But "light [crude] components can be more pervasive in finding ways to infiltrate a salt marsh and impacting for a long period of time," Reddy says. And that's where the real problems begin.
Lifestyle choice
There are nearly 16,000 species of plants and animals in the Gulf of Mexico, according to marine biologist Thomas Shirley of Texas A&M University, "not counting microbes."
"There are a diversity of types of habitats in the Gulf, many very important in support of a variety of wildlife and fisheries," added marine biologist Jane Lubchenco, director of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), at a May 12 press conference on the oil spill. "Many are at risk of being affected, but we don't have any direct way to know which ones or in what amount."
Looking specifically at the area impacted by the spill, more than half of the species—from 1,270 kinds of fish to 1,461 types of mollusks—call that region home. "Those that live in the area and are air breathing are most at risk," Shirley says. "Anything that's in the upper water column is going to be exposed to volatiles coming out of the oil."
Worse, sunlight can interact with PAHs to turn them deadly. In essence, PAHs act as catalysts to shovel energy from the sunlight into oxygen molecules, shifting them into a more reactive form and thereby oxidizing living cells. If oxygen naturally existed in that state "the whole Earth would burn up," notes Short.
That's bad news for the millions of translucent sea creatures out there—zooplankton—and could ultimately end up having cascading effects up the food chain. "If you start removing pieces of this big food web out there, what's going to happen?" Shirley asks. "We don't really know but probably not good things."
And the dispersed oil more readily crosses membranes as well as being more easily taken up by filter feeders, such as the deep-water coral in the vicinity or oysters nearer to shore. "Oysters will bioconcentrate this so fast," Kendall says.
Plus, spring is breeding season for species ranging from migratory birds to sea turtles, all congregating along the Gulf shore. "This is the time of year for larvae," Shirley notes, meaning that entire generations of short-lived species such as shrimp or crabs may disappear. "It's going to take immigration to replace some of those lost-year classes for things to get back to the level they were."
And there is the potential for the impacts of this oil spill to reach west to the Flower Garden Banks reefs off Texas or east to the coral reefs of the Florida coast and beyond. "My big nightmare is that this oil is going to get carried around to the Florida Keys and up the Eastern Seaboard," Shirley says. "That will happen. It's a matter of how much and when."
But it's when the oil gets into the marshes that the effects really start to accumulate. "That's your nurseries," Kendall notes, for species ranging from fish to birds. Adds Short: "It sets the stage for impacts from embryo toxicity. It gets into the developing eggs and induces aberrations in development. Even the smallest aberration in the field is lethal.... These marshes are important nursery areas for pretty much everything."
How's the weather?
Whether the oil can be kept out of the wetlands all comes down to one thing: the weather. A relatively calm week has allowed containment efforts to proceed smoothly, but even one day of rougher seas—one- to two-meter swells—would swamp the booms keeping oil off the coast and would inundate the marshes in petroleum. "The longer [the oil slick] stays offshore and continues to weather and turn into mousse, the less likely it is to impact sensitive habitats on shore," Short says. And the oil that doesn't turn to mousse may clump into tar balls that "either land on a shoreline or become part of the ocean's immense tar ball population."
Unfortunately, NOAA predicts landfall of the leading edge of the slick from Isle Dernieres to the barrier islands off Gulfport in Louisiana by this weekend. And June 1 marks the official start of hurricane season, which would stir the Gulf dramatically. "A hurricane or even just a tropical depression could be catastrophic," Kendall says. "It will push oil into places that it's difficult to clean up."
After all, sea otters still routinely dig oil out of Prince William Sound in Alaska in their hunt for clams in the intertidal zone—and there are populations of sea birds, fish and other species that have never recovered from the Exxon Valdez oil spill there, Shirley and Short note.
Of course, the warmer conditions of the Gulf of Mexico will help bacteria and other natural forces more quickly degrade the oil in this case, particularly with the help of chemical dispersants—hundreds of thousands of gallons of which have been deployed, including an experimental deployment of more than 28,000 gallons at the site of the oil spill itself, 1,500 meters down, though they carry their own risks and toxicity. "When an oil spill occurs there are no good outcomes," Lubchenco said. "It's a trade-off decision to reduce the impact of the oil on the shoreline and to sensitive wildlife."
But "once the oil, because of high tides or high winds, gets into the coastal wetland, it gets trapped in the sediment," notes STRI's Guzmán. "Then for decades you continue to see oil coming back out, this chronic pollution." The coral reefs in Panama have never recovered, and oil is still found in the mangrove swamps.
The most important task is stopping the oil from spilling—a prospect that remains out of reach nearly a month after it began gushing from BP's deep water well in the Gulf of Mexico. "We've got to stop this spill. We have to shut off the valves," Reddy says. "This is like someone telling you I'm going to punch you in the face but I won't tell you when or how often. That's a miserable existence."
See what we're tweeting about
48 Comments
Add CommentWhy doesn't it stop on its own?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is, if the crude is under such pressure that it keep spewing on its own, why don't spills like this occur naturally in connection with seismic shifts, etc.?
This is like a deserving slap in the face for the American People. America wants oil? We got it! All over us! Is there an alternative? Google "Stan Meyers water for fuel!!!" I would love to see big money go broke over night! That would make my millennium!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs it my imagination or have the fossil fuel energy companies simply run amok in this country? A West Virginia coal mine operating company kills dozens of its own workers and endangers hundreds of others after hundreds of safety violations; an oil company in the Gulf of Mexico kills eleven of its workers while endangering perhaps a hundred others and shuts down the country's second largest seafood industry for God only knows how long.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMeanwhile it points its fingers at its subcontractors as the culprits but claims that "we will pay for all the damages anyway" while knowing full well
that the US Congress has limited its liability to a piddling $75 million in TOTAL damages out of what will likely be untold billions!
When will the US Government and the American people wake up and demand that we switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, if not to "Save the
Planet", but then simply to put a leash on these fossil fuel energy companies
that threaten our very way of life and well being with seeming impunity?
That lispy lady in the pantsuit touting "advanced subsea technology" has disappeared from our TV screens since the Gulf oil blow-out -- but could it be that the technology she promotes is responsible for this disaster?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe technology involves using a single oil drilling platform to service multiple wells up to 40 miles away. Do the economics of this "advanced subsea technology" dictate that redundant safety systems are eliminated as well? Did each well feeding the Deepwater platform have its own cut-off valve -- or did the system rely on a centralized safety system? If so, that would explain why oil continues to gush from three distinct locations on the sea floor.
Could someone at SciAm get a straight answer to this question? Perhaps a reporter could contact Dr. Jan Merta, an expert on such systems who works for the Canadian government.
The article states:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Adding up all the spills from natural seeps, drilling, leaky vessels or pipelines and refueling means roughly 78 million gallons of oil enter U.S. waterways each year, according to a 2003 report from the National Academy of Sciences—dwarfing the roughly 4 million gallons (at least) of BP's Gulf oil spill, so far, based on the spill rate of roughly 200,000 gallons per day. So the marine environment is already dealing with lots of oil—how bad can it be? "
This is a curious analogy masquerading as an analysis. That no estimate of the number of leak instances or sites included in this presumptive survey implies that it more realistically simply represents a guess. Presuming the 78MG guess occurred in only 20 sites would infer that there are 20 sites with leaks creating environmental damage comparable to the BP Gulf leak site. Of course, if the number of sites happens to be in the hundreds or more, no other site would have leaked as much oil as the BP Gulf leak.
No duration or period was given for the 78MG guess. If we presume this is an annualized total, annualizing the BP Gulf leak of (at least) 200,000 gallons per day yields an estimated (at least) 753MG, dwarfing the national guess of 78MG.
Of course that would be based on the guess of 200,000 gallons per day leaking from the BP Gulf site, which has no real basis.
Since the more reassuring analysis included in the report was not attributed to any other source, I can only presume it is the proud work of the author of the report, David Biello. Interesting reporting.
Here is a link to a video showing the leak that incompetent american engineers can't manage to figure out how to stop.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow about clamping a nice big rubber tube around the output of that pipe guys, and divert what is coming out to a ship floating about on top.
Or how about sending down some mechanical pincers to crush that pipe closed.
Or how about inserting a 3 foot long inflatable rubber cork, pushing it into the pipe deflated and then back filling it with 40 lbs of fast setting epoxy.
Or how about using a mechanical cork that compresses the sides against he side wall of the pipe.
Or how about sending down a robot to weld a sleeve onto the pipe that on the opposite end holds a valve, so you can turn it off once the sleeve is affixed.
Or how about taking that 100 tonnes of steel you used to make that worthless funnel and making it into a plate and just drop it on the pipe little end first, to crush the thing closed.
Incompetence... They state is America.
David Biello - I apologize for attributing the questionable estimate to you, when it's attributed to a (unnamed) 2003 report from the National Academy of Sciences in my own quote. It's still an estimate that seems highly questionable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisgaetanomarano - Any effort to block or seal the damaged riser (including BP's idea) will most likely simply produce a rupture in the next weakest spot nearest the wellhead.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI suggest that all effort be focused on closing the blowout preventer, since it was (presumedly) properly engineered to mechanically seal the wellhead.
"Any effort to block or seal the damaged riser (including BP's idea) will most likely simply produce a rupture in the next weakest spot nearest the wellhead." - JTDwyer
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat makes you think it needs to be blocked? Insert a vacuum into the break and maintain a negative pressure while injecting some cement between the tubes. to join them together. Then contine to pump the oil to the surface.
Oh My Gawad this multi tens of millions of barrels of oil problem is more complex than rocket science.
Worthless incompetence.
vendicar9 - My statement was directed to those who intend to seal the end of the end of the riser, including gaetanomarano, who I had addressed by comment to.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you're referring to the BP plan to insert a 6" vacuum tube into the riser, then seal the area between the vacuum tube ant the riser pipe, allowing the redirection of flow into the 6" extension, I hope it works.
However, the flow reduction into the 6" extension will produce an increase in pressure within the original, larger diameter, riser pipe, increasing the risk of rupture. Since the mechanical integrity of the original riser pipe was apparently compromised in the explosion, I'd consider this a high risk procedure. But if attempted I sure hope it works.
I suggest that all effort be focused on closing the blowout preventer, since it was (presumedly) properly engineered to mechanically seal the wellhead, but that's just my personal recommendation.
While you have managed to stop insulting other commentators personally, you continue to insult us collectively. I'm afraid you are not dealing with your personal problems effectively, especially since you continue to overestimate the value of your assessments. I hope that you can more successfully address these issues.
If, as others have inferred, BP is preferentially considering its options on the basis of their ability to complete the extraction of the oil in the deposit, other, more promising options that more effectively halt the leak may have been deferred.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince the current BP plan seemingly enables oil extraction, even though it appears to risk further damage to available resources, it supports the assertion that BP is not completely committed to stopping the environmental damage.
I haven't read anything about a shaped charge. You can do almost any type of mechanical work with it. A donut shaped charge around the pipe should be able to pinch it shut.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe oil is under a couple kilometers of sediment. Even if an earthquake displaces layers by several meters, the weight of those layers will keep a seal on the reservoir.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRalf123 - If you haven't already, review of video posted by BP on May 11 may help you to envision the immediate conditions of the leak site:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://bp.concerts.com/gom/crater_plume.htm
As can be seen in the video, the riser pipe was, in addition to being severed, damaged and misshapen. I had also read at least one unattributed claim that oil is actually leaking at three points along the pipe. I don't know if a shape charge could successfully seal the pipe, given the oil and methane flow pressure, but I doubt if it could be reliably accomplished in these conditions.
If the pipe could be sealed at any one site along its length, I'd expect that the next weakest point along the damaged pipe would then rupture.
But I'm just guessing like everyone else, since this problem has never been successfully solved in these conditions.
If the most paranoiac conspiracy scenario is considered, perhaps the blowout preventer was not activated as a matter of policy, since its closure would likely prevent any extraction of oil from this wellhead.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn that case, perhaps BP will eventually give up on alternative methods of rerouting the riser pipe to enable extraction and suddenly 'discover' a means of activating the BOP. Even the paranoid can hope...
Has anyone tried to create barriers to protect the marshlands?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHas anyone tried to create barriers to protect the marshlands?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHas anyone tried to create barriers to protect the marshlands?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The oil is under a couple kilometers of sediment. Even if an earthquake displaces layers by several meters, the weight of those layers will keep a seal on the reservoir. " - Whomever
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNatural oil seeps are natural in the gulf.
No doubt. But it's the best estimate going. Here's a link to the report, dubbed appropriately methinks Oil in the Sea III:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10388&page=2
Yes, that's what the booms are:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/oil_booms_work_in_limited_way.html
dbiello - Thanks very much for the report link. I was attempting to counter your apparent assertion that incidental U.S. leaks annually amount to far more than the BP gulf leak. The report pointed out than in many of these leaks are small or slow enough to be absorbed by the local environment without significant impact. Considered collectively, the report states:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Although these are imposing figures, they are difficult to interpret in terms of their ecological significance, as they represent thousands or tens of thousands of individual releases whose combined effect on the environment is difficult to clearly establish."
Again, the 78MG is an annual total estimate for all other U.S. leaks, requiring that the BP gulf leak be annualized for comparison. Since it's impossible to determine how much is actually leaking, much less how long it will persist, reasonable comparison is impossible, but the BP gulf leak could easily dwarf all other U.S. leaks before its through and its local environmental impact is certainly in a class of its own.
But then, I suspect you were really baiting your readers with the simplistic analysis...
Let's just hope BP are really trying to plug the well, rather than just waiting to find some way of recovering the oil and pumping it....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiseco-steve - What is the daily financial penalty for leaking the oil? How much has BP already invested in this well? What is the potential profit for successful extraction? The answers to those questions would reveal quite a bit regarding BP's motives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is the daily financial penalty for leaking the oil?" - Jtdwyer
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe daily penalty is ZERO.
Toatal liabilities beyond the cleanup are 75 million as set by Republicans after the Exxon Valdes spill.
Corruption.
Your figure of 200,000 gallons a day (the government's figure given on 27 April) is, at minimum, five times too small, according to separate estimates made independently by four scientists. Their estimates range from 1 million to 3.5 million gallons a day.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we "split the difference" on their estimates with a figure of roughly 2 million gallons a day, then more than 50 million gallons of oil have leaked into the Gulf in the 25 days since the accident occurred. This represents an annual rate of about 730 million gallons, which dwarfs the 47 million gallons estimated to leak naturally into all North American waters per year.
My dog - Thanks for the additional info. These new estimates certainly could be more accurate than the others.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe thing about this leak that makes estimating the oil flow difficult is the amount of methane that's also leaking out of this 21" pipe. Not that the amount methane released into the atmosphere isn't as important: it actually could be the most critical aspect of this disaster...
The human race is doomed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps it would be possible to put a bend in the broken pipethere by reducing or pinching off the flow of oil. The large dome, "top hat", might be heavy enough to do it. If not, perhaps a small sub might "blow balast" verticle to the pipe and pinch off the oil flow.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Perhaps it would be possible to put a bend in the broken pipethere by reducing or pinching off the flow of oil." - M33galaxo
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's just crazy talk. It would take a team of American engineers 15 years to solve a problem that complex.
"Your figure of 200,000 gallons a day (the government's figure given on 27 April) is, at minimum, five times too small, according to separate estimates made independently by four scientists." - My Dog
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYa, but according to Faux news, there can't be any oil spill because little of it has washed up on shore.
So where is it? Clearly it is a crisis manufactured by the Obama administration so that he can become king of take control the solar system, or something like that.
m33galaxo - Something like that might work, but I'd be concerned that the pipe is no mechanically sound considering its damage, and that any action that would pressurize its contents would produce a rupture at the next weakest spot.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe apparently failed blowout preventer (BOP) was designed to seal the wellhead. It should provide the most reliable mechanical seal possible, if it could somehow be made to function. However, activation would prevent oil recovery.
BP's website estimates it's now retrieving 2,000 barrels of oil daily (*55=110,000 gal/day?) from the 'insertion tool' and that the captured oil is being stored on the drill ship and the gas is being flared (burned). I see no estimate of how much is not being captured.
The 'Riser Insertion Tool Diagram' at:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/incident_response/STAGING/local_assets/images/RITT_1024xvar.jpg
illustrates a series of three rubber diaphragms on the inserted riser drill pipe that apparently partially seal against the 21" failed riser pipe. There is also a 'capped drill pipe' within the damaged riser pipe...
sometimes spills do naturally occur. it depends on the kind of oil and the nature of the hole it's coming out of and the surrounding ecosystem as to what it does: where it ends up, how long the leak persists...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.scientificblogging.com/hank/the_mystery_of_lake_baikals_oil_leak
http://www.isa.org/InTechTemplate.cfm?template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=76955
Didn't know where to post this, but this is important:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPublic Briefing on America's Climate Choices
Wednesday, May 19, 2010, 10 A.M. to 11:30 A.M. EDT
National Academy of Sciences
Washington, D.C.
As part of its most comprehensive study of climate change to date, the National Research Council will release three new reports examining how the nation can combat the effects of climate change. The reports are part of a congressionally requested suite of five studies known as America's Climate Choices.
Watch the live video webcast.
nas.edu or www.americasclimatechoices.org
I don't believe for one moment that the oil leak is unstopabble. With solutions like Stephen Colbert's Oil Containment Randomizer, how could it be? http://bit.ly/9hI65C
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot baiting, offering numbers for comparison. No question that when the final figures are out this could be bigger than Ixtoc... or not. More importantly, this is a disaster that will go on (even once the spill is stopped by the relief wells) for years if not decades. And no question that a sudden catastrophic release more than outweighs the slow bleed of annual spillage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisis the pipe made of ferrous material? if it is how about pumping / firing into it small powerfull magnets covered / or partially covered in a rubberized material that would'nt be affected in the short term by the oil itself creating a "thrombi"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiseffect
dbiello - Thanks - I certainly agree.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs long as our leaders are for sale to the highest bidder, nothing will change. We must get the money out of politics or die as a nation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMark Heinemann
Die, Flipper, Die!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's the bottom line when the slogan is Drill, Baby, Drill!
In the end, we'll all pay a truly horrific price so that we can Drive, Baby, Drive, until there's nowhere left to go.
Sad, America, Sad.
It's time to reevaluate what's valuable, what you want to leave for your children, for their children, for the future.
OK let's just make something clear: These "Incompetent Engineers" are not all American. BP (British Petroleum) is a British company, so let's get rid of this stupid anti American sentiment, because, really, its everyone's mess.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIxtoc I. Retrieved May 30, 2010 from http://www.incidentnews.gov/incident/6250
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn June 3, 1979, the 2 mile deep exploratory well, IXTOC I, blew out in the Bahia de Campeche, 600 miles south of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico&.The IXTOC I well continued to spill oil at a rate of 10,000 - 30,000 barrels per day until it was finally capped on March 23, 1980.
If I'm using my calculator correctly, that's between 2,930,000 and 8,790,000 barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico in 1979-1980. So what happened to the ecologies in affected areas? Does anybody know? Apparently the aftereffects weren't studied or documented the way the Exxon Valdez spill was. It would certainly be useful to know something about how that spill affected the Gulf.
Vendicar 9, are you an idiot? Do you not know the amount of pressure that is coming out of this? They have tried some of your suggestions and the problem is the pressure is to much. Why dont you send down a robotic vessel and see how far it gets thrown back by the pressure. There are alot of complications. But if we had been smart like the norwegians and installed a remote control shut off to the valve, most of this oil would not be a problem. Money got in the way. Well here is to being cheap! A lot more money is going to be spent to stop all of this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVendicar 9, Stop being so Naive. Do you not understand the amount of pressure that is being pushed out this very second by this leak? Any robotic vessel or anything trying to get put on it will simply be tossed off. Nothing can get put on top or even in the vicinity of it because the pressure is so great. So if you are going to sit here and talk trash and act all smart, you go fix it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem is the government got cheap. The Norwegians installed a remote cut off system so that if something like this happened, they could still stop it. Well our government decided it was to expensive and looked the other way. Now, more money is going to spent trying to invent something to stop this catastrophe. And just clamping it shut would only cause it to rupture in another part that has been weakened because of the built up pressure. so it would be unwise to clamp it vendicar.
bp is the responsible party which is a British company making it a british problem not the u.s scientist you described. You sound like your not from the U.S and you probably are not aware that all of your suggestions are obvious and not overlooked. If you want to point the finger then you should point it at the scientist and engineers that work for BP and all the oil companies who have not made a significant discovery in oil clean up in over 30 years of drilling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswell im only 11 but im trying to help i am reserching about the oil spill and im finding some interesting stuff this oil spill may take 10 20 30 years to clean up and some people are just sitting back and not taking a stand i say we should all come together and find ways to clean up the oil spill in the gulf!!!!!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this-Kimberly Tetuan age 11
well im only 12 but i am trying to help the dolphins because there is a big oil spill. All the dolphins are dying from the oil spill. I think they should stop the oilspill amidently !!! This oilspill takes 10 20 30 40 years to clean the oilspill up and some people should start throwing out there garbag in the trash can because if they keep throwing the garbage in the waters where all the fish live they will all die and the oilspill will keep overflowing. I think the people should throw their garbage in the trash can so all the fish in the waters will not die!!! They should all come together and help the envierment!- Hannah Eneman age 12
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this