Posted by Peter Cross on April 30, 2010 at 6:03 PM
Has any member of NPN been to the Gulf Coast yet to document any of the unfolding of this ecological catastrophy? Photos or comments would be superior to what I can gather through the traditonal news media. Any links to particularly good sites that are covering this event.
Posted by David Chauvin on April 30, 2010 at 6:32 PM
Peter,
The light oil sheen reached the lower delta this morning with heavier slicks approaching. Rough seas from strong southeast winds are pushing the oil north and making containment extremely difficult. This oil is a light crude and is easily mixed into the water column by the wave action,,,,think of shaking a bottle of salad dressing,,,,so skimming becomes less effective. Also the wave action makes containment by floating booms less effective.
I was down on the coast this morning at Port Fourchon (no oil yet to the west of the river) and tides were above normal which is also not good. The entire LA coast is made up of low sand barrier islands and marsh. If oil gets into the intricate maze of grassy waterways that comprise the marsh, it will be catastrophic. The inland marsh is the nursery that drives life in the gulf and the barrier islands are the major seabird rookeries. This is right in the middle of the nesting and migration season for birds, spawning season for fish and oysters and the beginning of the brown shrimp season. All we can do now is hope they can stop the flow and minimize the damage that is sure to come.
I live in Northwest Florida. It is supposed to reach us early next week. Sounds like it could be quite disaster. It is really going to be terrible if our beautiful emerald water turns into glob of brown mess.
I live in the UK and of course watching this unfolding catastrophy with great sadness. Never been there, never been to the states but most of my photography is done in similar habitats, saltmarshes.
Hell's bells guys, I am really sorry about what seems to be about to happen, it is a nightmare.
Hope you get lots of help and can stop it getting too far inland.
Good luck.
I have been following this enviromental disaster since the first moment when many people (BP including) thought to manage to control the situation. I'm so sorry to see a catastrophe of such magnitude to hit the delicate ecosystem of Gulf coasts. I hope that soon the robots or other solutions will be able to stop the oil spill otherwise the situation will be even more terrible.
Having lived and worked through the Exxon Valdez disaster, I can relate all too well. But I'm lots more concerned about this one. The EV dumped its 11 million barrels or whatever in one big glop. It certainly spread into a 1,000 mile trail of ruin, but basically it was a "one shot deal" from the source.
Even at "only" 5,000 barrels a day, this thing could continue spilling for months, up to three by some projections. That encompasses a whole lot of weather changes including hurricanes. It's also lots warmer water and air (70 degree water or so, compared to 34 degrees at the time of the EV). That's going to do an even better job of helping the stuff spread.
Over and above the environmental effects, there's the economics. Lots of people up here lost their shirts as a result of the EV, plus whole communities lost their traditional natural food sources (and no stores in the villages). But that's nothing to the # of people whose livelihoods and lifestyles will be hammered around the gulf. And I mean hammered! Compensation and restitution? Gimme a break. My brother was averaging over $100k a year as a fisherman prior to the spill. His "settlement" from Exxon 20 years later? He got a whopping $5k.
Fasten your seatbelts folks. I'm really sickened this happened. Speaking as a photographer though, don't limit your vision to the environmental PJ shots. There's going to be a whole lot of shooting to be done of the human consequences.
Horrible. Just horrible. Don't forget too, that tourism in the redneck riviera is about to hit it's seasonal peak. No one will go to the gulf coast beach towns this summer. How will the beach towns be compensated? I think back to my past life as a nuclear engineer designing reactor safety systems, where critical safety items had to be triple redundant. No two failures could put the reactor at risk. Why can't we implement similar design concepts in the equipment we use to drill and pump oil? There ought to be three independent ways to plug that hole in place before the first drilling is done. One would be nice in this case... Environmental stewardship cannot take a back seat to our need for energy independence. They must co-exist peacefully.
I think one of the best things we can do as nature photographers is to document the incident with photos. It is the message we send through photography that will (hopefully) influence society to make the necessary changes to help avoid such disasters in the future.
For those of you who have not been to the Gulf Coast, here is an image of the Gulf of Mexico off of the coast of Northwest Florida that I took last year. They call this section of the beach the "Emerald Coast." I may go out to the beach tonight to do a final shoot before the mess hits.
Kelly,
I am an engineer working at an A&E. I am usually in Electric Power Generation, but have worked in other areas as well. From my experience, there should have been at least a dual redundant safety system in place. There should have also been a Safety Instrumented System in place and operational. I believe that this is a requirement of code. This should have been seen during the HAZOP review that should have been done before construction. If my memory is correct, this is an OSHA requirement. Yes, a requirement, not a suggestion.
I hope that the regulator do their job properly and that heads roll. Remember, it was BP that had the explosion at their refinery not too long ago. That was caused by an installation that would not pass code review nor HAZOP and by apparently ignoring maintenance procedures by the contractor doing the maintenance.
Compensation and restitution? Gimme a break. My brother was averaging over $100k a year as a fisherman prior to the spill. His "settlement" from Exxon 20 years later? He got a whopping $5k.
Hey Hank
It gets worse - I don't know the details, but a newer piece of legislation indicates liability will be capped at $75 million:
"The federal government has a large rainy day fund on hand to help mitigate the expanding damage on the Gulf Coast, generated by a tax on oil for use in cases like the Deepwater Horizon spill.
Up to $1 billion of the $1.6 billion reserve could be used to compensate for losses from the accident, as much as half of it for what is sometimes a major category of costs: damage to natural resources like fisheries and other wildlife habitats.
Under the law that established the reserve, called the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, the operators of the offshore rig face no more than $75 million in liability for the damages that might be claimed by individuals, companies or the government, although they are responsible for the cost of containing and cleaning up the spill."
The referenced Act says:
(a) General rule
Except as otherwise provided in this section, the total of the
liability of a responsible party under section 2702 of this title and
any removal costs incurred by, or on behalf of, the responsible party,
with respect to each incident shall not exceed--
(1) for a tank vessel the greater of--
(A) with respect to a single-hull vessel, including a
single-hull vessel fitted with double sides only or a double
bottom only, $3,000 per gross ton;
(B) with respect to a vessel other than a vessel referred to
in subparagraph (A), $1,900 per gross ton; or
(C)(i) with respect to a vessel greater than 3,000 gross
tons that is--
(I) a vessel described in subparagraph (A), $22,000,000;
or
(II) a vessel described in subparagraph (B),
$16,000,000; or
(ii) with respect to a vessel of 3,000 gross tons or less
that is--
(I) a vessel described in subparagraph (A), $6,000,000;
or
(II) a vessel described in subparagraph (B), $4,000,000;
(2) for any other vessel, $950 per gross ton or $800,000,,\1\
whichever is greater;
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ So in original. The second comma probably should not appear.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- (3) for an offshore facility except a deepwater port, the total
of all removal costs plus $75,000,000; and
(4) for any onshore facility and a deepwater port, $350,000,000.
Everyone has an opinion and have listened to so much "hearsay". I have been guilty of this myself. Friends in the industry pointed me to an excellent article in theoildrum....an industry discussion forum with articles.
Please go to this site to find out the details, as far as we know, about how the spill occurred.
The author threw out all information. He started with eye-witness accounts and real data and created a timeline of events that led to the oil spill
.I am an "ex" geologist and grew up on Perdido Key near Pensacola. The beach has been part of my heart and soul for all my life, but the publicity has been misleading.
Yes, BP is STILL at fault and cut corners, but you may want to find out what corners they cut! The cement! the safety of knowing how much weight and concentration is crucial the the integrity of the well! Any drilling engineer knows this.
Wells like this cost over a million dollars a day to operate. Some greedy "genius" at BP decided to "save" money! Well, this is the horrible result. This is why most oil companies are so scrupulous about every step in drilling a well. NO ONE WANTS TO DIE!!!
But, the workers on the rig rely on orders "from above" about technical details of the drilling. So, as I said, someone at BP thought they could save some money and "look good" to the higher ups, so that he/she could boast that they drilled the well at "below cost"!!!
If you would like to find out what a "PRO" has written about how this happened, please go to this site. http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6493theoildrum
Everyone talks about the Blow-out preventer failing, but the BOP failure was secondary. The primary cause appears to be a problem in the cement. The cement casing keeps the rock and fluid drilled sealed off from the "hole" itself.
The site, again, is http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6493 You will find it very illuminating.
Lucy
Posted by Douglas Graham on December 17, 2010 at 5:11 PM
I covered the oil spill for my paper a few weeks after it happened and was to return but a bigger story came along called Afghanistan and I was there for 4 weeks. The national media's attention span is short to say the least. Ill have to say I saw some horrific things in Afghanistan but the Gulf Coast brought me to tears for both the people and the wildlife.
Posted by Douglas Graham on December 17, 2010 at 5:17 PM
Heres a few more photos from that assignment.
Posted by Douglas Graham on December 17, 2010 at 5:18 PM
Discussion
16 repliesThe light oil sheen reached the lower delta this morning with heavier slicks approaching. Rough seas from strong southeast winds are pushing the oil north and making containment extremely difficult. This oil is a light crude and is easily mixed into the water column by the wave action,,,,think of shaking a bottle of salad dressing,,,,so skimming becomes less effective. Also the wave action makes containment by floating booms less effective.
I was down on the coast this morning at Port Fourchon (no oil yet to the west of the river) and tides were above normal which is also not good. The entire LA coast is made up of low sand barrier islands and marsh. If oil gets into the intricate maze of grassy waterways that comprise the marsh, it will be catastrophic. The inland marsh is the nursery that drives life in the gulf and the barrier islands are the major seabird rookeries. This is right in the middle of the nesting and migration season for birds, spawning season for fish and oysters and the beginning of the brown shrimp season. All we can do now is hope they can stop the flow and minimize the damage that is sure to come.
Hell's bells guys, I am really sorry about what seems to be about to happen, it is a nightmare.
Hope you get lots of help and can stop it getting too far inland.
Good luck.
http://topics.nola.com/tag/oil-spill-gulf-of-mexico-2010/index.html
There's s link for the latest photos including the oil reaching shore.
The second half of the video in this link describing the impact in the marsh habitat is telling.
http://videos.nola.com/times-picayune/2010/04/oil_spill_video_reporters_expl.html
Even at "only" 5,000 barrels a day, this thing could continue spilling for months, up to three by some projections. That encompasses a whole lot of weather changes including hurricanes. It's also lots warmer water and air (70 degree water or so, compared to 34 degrees at the time of the EV). That's going to do an even better job of helping the stuff spread.
Over and above the environmental effects, there's the economics. Lots of people up here lost their shirts as a result of the EV, plus whole communities lost their traditional natural food sources (and no stores in the villages). But that's nothing to the # of people whose livelihoods and lifestyles will be hammered around the gulf. And I mean hammered! Compensation and restitution? Gimme a break. My brother was averaging over $100k a year as a fisherman prior to the spill. His "settlement" from Exxon 20 years later? He got a whopping $5k.
Fasten your seatbelts folks. I'm really sickened this happened. Speaking as a photographer though, don't limit your vision to the environmental PJ shots. There's going to be a whole lot of shooting to be done of the human consequences.
http://videos.nola.com/times-picayune/2010/05/saturday_oil_spill_update_vide.html
I am an engineer working at an A&E. I am usually in Electric Power Generation, but have worked in other areas as well. From my experience, there should have been at least a dual redundant safety system in place. There should have also been a Safety Instrumented System in place and operational. I believe that this is a requirement of code. This should have been seen during the HAZOP review that should have been done before construction. If my memory is correct, this is an OSHA requirement. Yes, a requirement, not a suggestion.
I hope that the regulator do their job properly and that heads roll. Remember, it was BP that had the explosion at their refinery not too long ago. That was caused by an installation that would not pass code review nor HAZOP and by apparently ignoring maintenance procedures by the contractor doing the maintenance.
Hey Hank
It gets worse - I don't know the details, but a newer piece of legislation indicates liability will be capped at $75 million:
NY Times
"The federal government has a large rainy day fund on hand to help mitigate the expanding damage on the Gulf Coast, generated by a tax on oil for use in cases like the Deepwater Horizon spill.
Up to $1 billion of the $1.6 billion reserve could be used to compensate for losses from the accident, as much as half of it for what is sometimes a major category of costs: damage to natural resources like fisheries and other wildlife habitats.
Under the law that established the reserve, called the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, the operators of the offshore rig face no more than $75 million in liability for the damages that might be claimed by individuals, companies or the government, although they are responsible for the cost of containing and cleaning up the spill."
The referenced Act says:
(a) General rule
Except as otherwise provided in this section, the total of the
liability of a responsible party under section 2702 of this title and
any removal costs incurred by, or on behalf of, the responsible party,
with respect to each incident shall not exceed--
(1) for a tank vessel the greater of--
(A) with respect to a single-hull vessel, including a
single-hull vessel fitted with double sides only or a double
bottom only, $3,000 per gross ton;
(B) with respect to a vessel other than a vessel referred to
in subparagraph (A), $1,900 per gross ton; or
(C)(i) with respect to a vessel greater than 3,000 gross
tons that is--
(I) a vessel described in subparagraph (A), $22,000,000;
or
(II) a vessel described in subparagraph (B),
$16,000,000; or
(ii) with respect to a vessel of 3,000 gross tons or less
that is--
(I) a vessel described in subparagraph (A), $6,000,000;
or
(II) a vessel described in subparagraph (B), $4,000,000;
(2) for any other vessel, $950 per gross ton or $800,000,,\1\
whichever is greater;
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ So in original. The second comma probably should not appear.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
(3) for an offshore facility except a deepwater port, the total
of all removal costs plus $75,000,000; and
(4) for any onshore facility and a deepwater port, $350,000,000.
Cheers
Carl
Please go to this site to find out the details, as far as we know, about how the spill occurred.
The author threw out all information. He started with eye-witness accounts and real data and created a timeline of events that led to the oil spill
.I am an "ex" geologist and grew up on Perdido Key near Pensacola. The beach has been part of my heart and soul for all my life, but the publicity has been misleading.
Yes, BP is STILL at fault and cut corners, but you may want to find out what corners they cut! The cement! the safety of knowing how much weight and concentration is crucial the the integrity of the well! Any drilling engineer knows this.
Wells like this cost over a million dollars a day to operate. Some greedy "genius" at BP decided to "save" money! Well, this is the horrible result. This is why most oil companies are so scrupulous about every step in drilling a well. NO ONE WANTS TO DIE!!!
But, the workers on the rig rely on orders "from above" about technical details of the drilling. So, as I said, someone at BP thought they could save some money and "look good" to the higher ups, so that he/she could boast that they drilled the well at "below cost"!!!
If you would like to find out what a "PRO" has written about how this happened, please go to this site. http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6493theoildrum
Everyone talks about the Blow-out preventer failing, but the BOP failure was secondary. The primary cause appears to be a problem in the cement. The cement casing keeps the rock and fluid drilled sealed off from the "hole" itself.
The site, again, is http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6493 You will find it very illuminating.
Lucy