Yesterday, marine scientists from the University of Georgia and the Georgia Sea Grant issued a report that directly contradicts National Incident Command's Happy Talk Report that most of the oil in the Gulf from BP's blowout magically degraded in less than two weeks after getting the well shut in. In a statement yesterday, Charles Hopkinson, director of Georgia Sea Grant and professor of marine sciences in the University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences said,
"One major misconception is that oil that has dissolved into water is gone and, therefore, harmless. The oil is still out there, and it will likely take years to completely degrade. We are still far from a complete understanding of what its impacts are."
The report contradicted the government's conclusion that the dispersed oil evaporated, saying that oil beneath the surface cannot evaporate. BP used an unprecedented amount of dispersants, 1.5 million gallons, over half of which was applied at 5,000 feet below sea level, which had never been done before. They assert that most of the dispersed oil stayed in the deepwater column, and therefore, could not be evaporated. Because of this, these five scientists have concluded that 79% of the oil from the blowout well is still out there, below the surface, causing continued damage to the Gulf eco-system. One bit of good news in the report (well, good for the East Coast) is that the Franklin Eddy in the Gulf is keeping the loop current from carrying the oil around Florida and up the eastern seaboard. That just means, though, that it continues circulating in the Gulf as it slowly degrades, a process that will take years.
I have heard there is evidence that formation has collapsed. Looks to me like we have an uncontrolled flow to the sea floor. Am I wrong?
What happens next? What would be the doomsday scenario of this, what would be the time table for that to happen, and what areas would that effect?
"Admiral Allen said that once the new preventer —
which was used by the rig drilling a backup relief well — was installed...'
@ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/science/earth/20well.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fscience%2Fearth%2Findex.jsonp
Obama's Gulf War –
"Robbing Peter to Pay Paul"
(Does BP dare?)
Hey, look again! Where's our second relief well?
Is BP suddenly cocky or what?
Are they planning to borrow its blowout preventer?
Instead of a new one, will they use what they've got?
Cheaper? You betcha. Why buy another?
Wherever possible, try to make do.
Will they again be allowed to cut corners?
How great they're so sure they won't need Number Two.
So who's to complain if they're robbing their Peter
To pay their Paul whose own wouldn't close?
Why should we worry? Relief wells can't fail.
Not when they're drilled by such consummate pros.
Bob Carlson
www.politicalboondoggles.com
On Twitter @PBoondoggles
8/19/10
To 'Well to Be Sealed After Labor Day'
To 'BP Incompetence'
Where is their Help BP?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xpnvq9zlQDk
You are so right mainer we don't need the scientists telling us that we have been lied to, it is showing up all on its own, if we just look.
However, I am glad they are throwing it out there and proving it, telling the public. Some people do need that professional confirmation. I would not want any information withheld.
Plus the ones who are lying, need to be shown this is unacceptable and we know exactly what they are doing.
They need to be called on it, and maybe the media will get on the ball here, pushing for more information that is the truth.
Kudos' to anyone who is doing something about this horrible problem we have.
I also have to agree with you that Bob is one smart guy. He gives us lots of information in a simple form that I can understand.
Do we really need scientists to tell us that BP is lying to us once again? I mean come on, who really thinks that over 200 million gallons of oil, millions of gallons of dispersents, and methane gas levels that were amazing scientists, has really magically disppeared...poooofff...and its all gone??? Right...Whats amazing is that so many people do believe that. And thats a sad statement on the thinking level of our Country as a whole. For people to actually believe oil just disappeared in a matter of 30 days, well thats pretty pathetic. Keep up the vigilant work, Bob, you are one of the lone voices of reason when it comes to this disaster.
Does anyone have a magic ball to tell us what is going to happen in the gulf?
Most people know that there are big problems in the gulf, and we know there is no quick fix.
What needs to be done at the gulf: sea floor, the BOB, pollution, and so on?
Can anything be done to help matters?
Is our Government going to protect our Country and get insight from non-corporate professionals who is not in this mess just to save their butt?
Or are they going to stick at being business men/women protecting the Corporation?
Thank you again Professionals, Officials, and all the People who care and who is working in this disaster, wanting and doing what is right.
My heart goes out to the people in the gulf, the ones that have lost family members and friends, and those who have lost their business's and homes. I am truly sorry.
Somehow this disaster has to stop, before it effects anyone else. We cannot make this situation worse. There has been to many mistakes already.
Isn't our Government suppose to Protect, Defend, and Secure our Country From Harm?
Lies...Corruption...Hurting the Environment Like This... Does Not make for a Safe Country
Thanks for the links George:
When University Scientists Found Underwater Oil Plumes, the Government Said Shut Up, Don't Tell Anyone ... and Then Tried to Discredit Them
Gulf Shrimpers Find Oil In Reopened Fishing Areas. Governnment Says "Shut Up". Sierra Club Alleges Areas Were Solely Reopened to Limit BP's Liability
Corexit Is Being Sprayed at Night, Even Now (According to BP Vessel of Opportunity Workers and Others)">
Thank You Bob for the information. I always have to check your site.
If I would have been in charge of this, from the first day you and some others would have been who I would have listened to, not BP.
Most everyone knows the oil and toxins are still there. I do not believe officials are surprised about this information. If I believe this with just the information I have heard, they definitely should have known.
I am just glad that the scientists are standing together to make this report and let it be known to the public. I give them all a high five.
If the Government thought, that a very large amount had evaporated, then doesn't it mean it would have gone into the air and polluted the air? Which means with that much concentrations of all that oil and toxins, people would be dropping like fly's around the gulf.
Now, I do believe this has polluted the air. However, if it had mostly evaporated I think the air would be extra thick with toxin particles. If they knew this was the case, why not warn the people to leave?
All of it didn't evaporate, they sank it. What they didn't sink is floating in the deep waters. It is also visible where people don't vacation.
It makes the clean up almost impossible now that they have sunk the majority of it. They should be charged more than they would have, if they had cleaned it up the correct way. They hurt the environment by their toxic dumping. BP hid this oil on purpose, this part was not an accident.
I think in the gulf areas that are hit the hardest they should invite the BP executives and also our officials who has backed BP, for a two week vacation party with fresh sea food with a tangy oily sauce, yacht sailing in the waters while their family drink the water, swim, and play on the beach while breathing in that pungent air.
Wonder how many would attend?
The amount of oil and dispersants in the water are bad, indeed. Here are a series of reports I've published on this issue (while I have carefully documented these, neither the opinions or facts alleged in any of these essays are in no way endorsed by Bob Cavnar or anyone associated with The Daily Hurricane, and I have no idea whether they agree or disagree with them):
When University Scientists Found Underwater Oil Plumes, the Government Said Shut Up, Don't Tell Anyone ... and Then Tried to Discredit Them
Gulf Shrimpers Find Oil In Reopened Fishing Areas. Governnment Says "Shut Up". Sierra Club Alleges Areas Were Solely Reopened to Limit BP's Liability
Corexit Is Being Sprayed at Night, Even Now (According to BP Vessel of Opportunity Workers and Others)">
Back in the late 90's, an old veteran oil patch hand told me that the #1 cause of a visible sheen on the water's surface was daylight. If its dark and you can't see it, it isn't a visible sheen, so it doesn't exist.
Who woulda thunk that old-school oil patch logic would become so widely accepted.
Why is none of this a surprize.
I catch some of those cams individually and can see the stuff gushing in twister-like columns right out of the sea floor.
No, this stuff will not 'rapture' itself 'away'.
bubbabobcat | August 17, 2010 9:48 AM:
I agree: all these stupid 'distractions' of inane
nonsense.
I think that warrants an emphatic...oops!
Well BP succeeded magnificently in the whitewash of this environmental disaster. We will hear about the effects of the dispersed oil AND the toxic dispersants for decades but no one cares anymore. But it's time to move on. We have Mooslims and Mexicans we need to beat up on and fake "mosques" violating an imaginary Maginot Line to generate faux manufactured outrage to get all venomously indignant and apoplectic about. Dead fish turtles, whales, dolphins, etc. out of sight at the bottom of the ocean are not really dead. Everything is hunky dory. Nothing to see here, move along now.
Back on 8/6/10 we observed:
Obama's Gulf War –
"EX-tra Strong Physics"
(As promoted by Carol Browner)
Where'd Carol Browner develop her theory?
Show us where her kind of physics is taught,
Where unwanted matter can cease to exist
Whenever Obama doesn't want what he's got.
Where in the world did his oil disappear to?
Where did she find Science guys who would claim
If she waved her wand, she'd be walking on water
And helping the oil return from whence it came
How else to make hay of its swift "disappearance"?
When science has taught it will always exist –
In one form or another. We can't destroy matter!
Sometimes it's transformed, but it's going to persist.
Evaporate it. It still ends up somewhere,
Blocking the sun or condensing with rain.
Disperse it in water to poison more seafood.
Politically, legally, it's an ongoing pain.
When Obama says hop, we'll see Carol hop.
When Obama says wave, she'll be waving her wand.
But how long will it be before Tom Cruise's guys
Are asked to explain why her wand won't respond?
Will they point their fingers at BP's cementers,
The same guys Thad Allen let plug up the well?
Was nobody warned of the grave complications?
Was Thad unaware of his team's Tinker Bell?
Bob Carlson
www.politicalboondoggles.com
8/6/10
To 'Principle of mass/matter conservatio'
To 'Happy Talk That Oil is "Evaporating Rapidly"
So, What the Hell is This?'
To 'The Oil Spill's Worst-Case Scenario'
To 'Brownwer: 'Oil will weather in the ocean''
To 'BP is still deciding what to do'
To 'Obama's Milquetoast Advisors'
To 'Tinker Bell, the fairy'
To 'British Petroleum Incompetence'
Like the NIC Budget, the Sea Grant Budgets are speculative, but Sea Grant's partitioning scheme is far better suited to gauging environmental impacts. Sea Grant gives a well earned kick in the butt to Govt. Officials and members of the Press (that would be most of them) who misinterpret dissolved and dispersed with GONE. Here's a link to the Sea Grant "Oil Spill Update"
http://uga.edu/aboutUGA/joye_pkit/GeorgiaSeaGrant_OilSpillReport8-16.pdf
Both NIC and Sea Grant assume 4.9 million barrels of oil emerged from the well head, but the Sea Grant budget focuses upon oil that actually entered the water column and ignores the captured 17% piped directly to ships. Of those 4.1 MB that entered the water, 10% was removed via burning and skimming. Sea Grant decouples the evaporated and dissolved categories (good call IMHO) and concludes 7-12% of the oil evaporated. Lower than expected if oil had not been chemically dispersed and roughly half the estimate made by NIC. Sea Grant cautions that this evaporative fraction raises health and environmental concerns: evaporation does not imply GONE. Sea Grant estimates 5% to 10% of the oil in the water has been microbally degraded but points out that the microbes work mostly on the less toxic short chain hydrocarbons present in oil, not the more toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). I would add that degraded does not really equate with GONE either, but by Sea Grants methods that leaves 70-79% in the "remaining" slice of the pie.
Just an aside, but the Wall Street Journal quickly took pains to report the Sea Grant assessment was not published or peer reviewed. Like the NIC report was, Rupert? One more while I'm at it. The latest issue of the Economist has a short article on new technology Big Oil is proposing to contain future deep water gushers. Think super cap and caissons.