http://tinyurl.com/25xlerr

Detail from SkyTruth image showing response vessels and Gulf oil slick on April 25.
We just got a detailed ALI satellite image from NASA that was shot two days ago, on April 25, when the oil slick was about 817 square miles in size (it has since more than doubled to at least 1,800 square miles). You can see several response vessels working at the periphery of the slick. The magnitude of the job they have to do is plain to see.

See more in our growing image gallery for this incident (click below).

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John Amos
John@skytruth.org
P.O. Box 3283
Shepherdstown, WV 25443-3283
phone: 304-260-8886
skype: skytruth.amos
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/energy/6976990.html

By BRETT CLANTON and MONICA HATCHER HOUSTON CHRONICLE
April 26, 2010, 8:27PM
As a major oil spill in waters off Louisiana tripled in area, a growing task force led by BP kept trying and failing today to plug a leaking well one mile below, damaged when a massive drilling rig sank last week into the Gulf of Mexico.

Efforts remained focused on the quickest fix – using robot submarines to close valves sitting atop the well. BP also said it has made progress with back-up plans to build a dome-like device to collect seeping oil at the sea floor, which could be installed in as little as two weeks, and with a worst-case plan – possibly taking months – to drill relief wells into the damaged one to stop the bleeding.

“We don’t know which technique will ultimately be successful,” said Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer of exploration and production, in a news conference. “Just like everyone, we want to bring this to conclusion absolutely as fast as possible.”
The leaking well was discovered Saturday after the Deepwater Horizon sank Thursday morning about 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana.

The rig, owned and operated by Swiss-based Transocean and under lease to BP, went down after an apparent blowout sent the hulking structure up in flames the night of April 20. Eleven of the 126 aboard at the time of the blast remain missing and are presumed dead.

The situation has cast a glaring light on the physical and environmental risks of offshore oil drilling at a time when the industry is pushing for greater access to domestic oil and gas resources and after the Obama administration recently called for opening more federal waters for energy exploration. And some political opponents of offshore drilling have seen an opening for attack.

“The explosion, ensuing fire, and continuing spill raise serious concerns about the industry’s claims that their operations and technology are safe enough to put rigs in areas that are environmentally sensitive or are critical to tourism or fishing industries,” Senate Democrats Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Bill Nelson of Florida wrote in a letter today to leaders of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
They requested a hearing on the Deepwater Horizon incident. “This may be the worst disaster in recent years, but it’s certainly not an isolated incident,” they wrote.

Aware perhaps of what could be at stake for the industry, BP has gone to great lengths to ensure the cleanup goes smoothly and quickly.

As of today, the British oil giant had tapped an army of more than 1,000 people to brainstorm fixes for plugging the well, and had marshaled a small armada of boats, planes and other resources to fight the spill as far from the shore as possible. Under a 1990 U.S. oil pollution law, BP is required to foot the bill for the clean-up.

The Deepwater Horizon spill now covers an estimated 1,800 square miles, the Coast Guard said today, dramatically increasing its estimate of 600 square miles on Sunday. But it noted that the slick was not continuous over that entire area, and that 97 percent of it is a thin sheen that dissipates easily, while the rest is thicker oil.

Government forecasters said the spill posed no immediate threat of making landfall, based on three-day weather models.

“Our biggest concern is that it continues to spill,” said Doug Helton, incident operations coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “We’re not expecting any landfall at this point, but at some point we’ll start to see some of the shoreline impacts.”
The Coast Guard has been working on contingency plans with state governments in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida, which would have ample time to respond if the spill came ashore, said Rear Adm. Mary Landry, commander of Coast Guard District 8.

But Chuck Kennicutt, professor of oceanography at Texas A&M University, doubts it will come to that. “This is far enough offshore that at least for the time being the likelihood of it washing up into the sensitive areas on the shore is probably fairly low,” he said.

As a precautionary measure, Houston-based Diamond Offshore Drilling said it evacuated more than 100 employees from its Ocean Endeavor drilling rig because the oil sheen had moved within a few miles of a well it is drilling for Exxon Mobil.

BP and Coast Guard officials said they remain hopeful of sealing off the well, which is leaking up to 1,000 barrels or 42,000 gallons a day, in two places – from a section of drill pipe near the wellhead and from the end of the long riser column that had connected the rig to the well and broke when the rig sank.

Workers were using up to four remotely operated vehicles  in an effort to activate shut-off valves on a giant piece of equipment called a blowout preventer that rests on top of the well at the sea floor. None of the multiple attempts to activate the 50-foot stack of valves had been successful yet, BP’s Suttles said.
Separately, the company has begun constructing three of the dome-like oil-collection devices that could be deployed in two to four weeks, he said. Also, BP was expecting the arrival of a rig tonight night to drill relief wells should they be needed, Suttles said.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.blogallovertheworld.com/2010/04/oil-rig-deepwater-horizon-leaking-into-gulf-of-mexico/
BlogAllOverTheWorld.com

NEW ORLEANS – The Coast Guard discovered Saturday that oil is leaking from the damaged well that fed a massive rig that exploded this week off Louisiana’s coast, while bad weather halted efforts to clean up the mess that threatens the area’s fragile marine ecosystem.

For days, the Coast Guard has said no oil appeared to be escaping from the well head on the ocean floor. Rear Adm. Mary Landry said the leak was a new discovery but could have begun when the rig sank on Thursday, two days after the initial explosion.

“We thought what we were dealing with as of yesterday was a surface residual (oil) from the mobile offshore drilling unit,” Landry said. “In addition to that is oil emanating from the well. It is a big change from yesterday … This is a very serious spill, absolutely.”

Coast Guard and company officials estimate that as much as 1,000 barrels – or 42,000 gallons – of oil is leaking each day after studying information from remotely operated vehicles and the size of the oil slick surrounding the blast site. The rainbow-colored sheen of oil stretched 20 miles by 20 miles on Saturday – about 25 times larger than it appeared to be a day earlier, Landry said.

By comparison, Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons in Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989 – the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

BP PLC, which leased the rig and is taking the lead in the cleanup, and the government have been using the remotely operated vehicles to try to stop the leak by closing valves on the well deep underwater. If that doesn’t work, the company could drill what’s called an intervention well to control the oil flow. But the intervention drilling could take months.

“Over the next several days, we should determine which method is the best one to follow,” said Doug Suttles, chief operating officer for BP Exploration and Production. “A huge number of engineers from ourselves, working with (the government) and across the industry are putting together the best technology and know-how to solve this problem.”
Complicating efforts to stop the leak is well head’s depth at 5,000 feet underwater, said Lars Herbst, the regional director for the Minerals Management Service. Leaks have been fixed at similar depths before, but the process is difficult, he said.

The bad weather rolled in Friday, bringing with it strong wind, clouds and rain that interrupted efforts to contain the oil spill. Coast Guard Petty Officer John Edwards said he was uncertain when weather conditions would improve enough for the cleanup to resume. So far, crews have retrieved about 1,052 barrels of oily water, he said.

The sunken rig may have as much as 700,000 gallons of diesel on board, and an undetermined amount of oil has spilled from the rig itself. Suttles said the rig was “intact and secure” on the seabed about 1,300 feet from the well site.

BP said it has activated an extensive oil spill response, including the remotely operated vehicles, 700 workers, four airplanes and 32 vessels to mop up the spill. The Marine Spill Response Corp., an energy industry cleanup consortium, also brought equipment.
The 11 missing workers came from Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Neither the Coast Guard nor their employers have released their names, though several of their families have come forward.

Karl Kleppinger Sr., whose 38-year-old son, Karl, was one of the missing workers, said he doesn’t blame the Coast Guard for calling off the search.

“Given the magnitude of the explosion and the fire, I don’t see where you would be able to find anything,” said Kleppinger, of Zachary, La.

The other 115 crew members made it off the platform; several were hurt but only one remained hospitalized. The most seriously injured worker was expected to be released within about 10 days.

Federal officials had already been working on new safety rules for offshore drilling before Tuesday’s blast.

The U.S. Minerals and Management Service is developing regulations aimed at preventing human error, which it identified as a factor in many of the more than 1,400 offshore oil drilling accidents between 2001 and 2007. An MMS review published last year found 41 deaths and 302 injuries during that period.

The cause of Tuesday’s blast hasn’t been determined.

The Deepwater Horizon was the site of a 2005 fire found to have been caused by human error. An MMS investigation determined that a crane operator on the rig had become distracted while refueling the crane, allowing diesel fuel to overflow. Records show the fire was quickly contained, but caused $60,000 in damage to the crane.

Environmentalists said the rig explosion and oil spill should push the nation to develop new energy sources.

“This should be a wake-up call,” said David Helvarg, the president of the Blue Frontier Campaign, a marine conservation group, and author of “Rescue Warriors: The U.S. Coast Guard, America’s Forgotten Heroes.”
“I would rather risk a ‘wind spill’ than an oil spill offshore,” he said, ruefully pointing out that the source of wind-powered energy can’t sully the environment.

___
Associated Press Writer Noaki Schwartz reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press Writers Jason Dearen in San Francisco, Mike Kunzelman, Kevin McGill and Alan Sayre in Louisiana contributed to this report.
_________________
BBC NEWS
Published: 2010/04/25 09:18:09 GMT

‘Serious spill’ from US oil rig

Oil is leaking from a damaged well feeding a rig that sank off Louisiana on Thursday, in what US officials are calling “a very serious spill”.

The well is estimated to be leaking at a rate of about 1,000 barrels (42,000 gallons) of oil per day.

Although the US coastguard said on Friday that no leak was detected, the latest evidence suggests a spill. Bad weather has hampered efforts to fix it.

Eleven workers are still missing after an explosion and fire on Tuesday.

The Deepwater Horizon had been burning for 36 hours when it sank on Thursday in 5,000 ft (1,500m) of water, despite efforts to control the flames.

It was carrying out exploratory drilling 84km (52 miles) south-east of the Louisiana port of Venice when the blast occurred.

BP has deployed a number of ships and equipment to contain the leak by closing valves on the sunken well.

“A huge number of engineers from ourselves, working with [the government] and across the industry are putting together the best technology and know-how to solve this problem,” BP Exploration and Production Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying.

Oil sheen

The US Coastguard said it had thought it was dealing only with a surface residual oil spill from the rig.

“In addition to that, is oil emanating from the well. It is a big change from yesterday… This is a very serious spill, absolutely, ” said Rear Adm Mary Landry.

A sheen of oil covering an area of about 20 square miles was visible on the ocean’s surface after the explosion and subsequent blaze.

In 2009, BP PLC was fined a record $87m for failing to improve safety conditions following a massive explosion that killed 15 people at its Texas City refinery.

But the US Mineral Management Services found no violations on the Deepwater Horizon rig when it carried out routine inspections in February, March and April this year.

President Barack Obama said on Thursday that the government was providing “all assistance needed” for both the rescue and clean up efforts in the troubled area.

He described the crisis on the BP-leased rig as his administration’s “number one priority”.

No cause for the blast has yet been identified.

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/8642518.stm

Published: 2010/04/25 09:18:09 GMT

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/where-fish/2010/04/bob-marshall-what-coastal-drilling-means-sportsmen
 April 23, 2010

Editor’s Note: Welcome to The Conservationist, a new blog on
FieldandStream.com, where at least three times per week we’ll be posting
conservation news, analysis, and commentary from Conservation Columnist Bob
Marshall, Contributing Editor Hal Herring, and Deputy Editor Jay Cassell.
—————————————————————————
So what does President Obama’s decision to open once-protected areas of our
coasts to energy drilling mean for fish, wildlife and sportsmen?

It could be terrible. It could be bad. Or it might not matter much at all.

The Terrible: If this derails the push for meaningful carbon reduction
legislation, it will be a black mark on his presidency, and a disaster for
fish and wildlife and sportsmen.

There is no greater threat to our outdoor pursuits than global warming, and
the major cause of that problem is the accumulation of carbon in the
atmosphere, primarily from fossil fuels. There are alternative fuels, but
the only way to encourage development and use of those fuels is to place a
penalty on the production of carbon. That’s what cap and trade is all about.

Even the energy industry agrees the known untapped sources in these offshore
areas can’t make a serious dent in our needs. During the Bush
Administration, the federal Energy Information Agency said the impact on
prices would be “negligible”- and even that wouldn’t happen for 30 years.
But the longer the nation believes we have a ready supply of cheap
carbon-emitting fuels, the longer it will resist converting to cleaner
technologies. No pain, no gain.

There is also fear this could lead us on a slippery slope. By opening these
previously protected areas off the coasts, the administration will be faced
with this question: If the energy emergency means those pristine oceans off
the east coast must be sacrificed, why should the Rocky Mountain front be
any different?

Throwing our petrol patriots a bone has never slated their thirst in the
past.

The Bad: As a lifelong resident of coastal Louisiana, which supports 4,000
oil and gas platforms – the largest such concentration in the world – I
think I can speak with some authority on the impacts of offshore drilling.

The first thing to understand is that the most obvious risk is not the most
serious.

While the nation this week has been gripped by photos of a rig that
exploded,  likely killing at least 11 workers and now pumping untold gallons
of crude into the Gulf, such disasters are the rare exception to the rule in
offshore drilling. Certainly the risks are great in any such event; we’ll
have to wait to see how much damage this does to the coastal estuaries and
beaches, if any. But if tightly regulated, constantly watched and slapped
with crippling fines when it breaks the rules, the offshore energy industry
can be safe and have very little impact on  fish and wildlife.

However, when allowed to bully a state, this industry can do horrendous
damage, most of which takes place onshore. This includes a deep and lasting
disruption to both natural and social infrastructure by the on-shore
component of development such as transmission pipelines, canal dredging,
refineries, and port facilities.

Since permitting was required in the 1970s, as much as 10,000 miles of
pipelines were dredged for oil and gas work through our coastal marshes. No
one has an accurate count of how many miles were dredged before that, but
some experts think it was at least as many.

Louisiana’s coastal estuaries – the largest and most productive in the lower
48, an ecosystem that 90 percent of all Gulf marine species depend on and
that is important to 70 percent of the continent’s migratory waterfowl –
has been reduced by 2,000 square miles in 70 years, and experts believe
almost 40 percent of that loss can be attributed to oil and gas industry
impacts.

Did that have to happen?

No. But efforts to force the energy industry to be more environmentally
sensitive  were defeated under heavy industry lobbying.

There are much greener ways to develop offshore energy than what happened in
Louisiana. But sportsmen in states now facing this challenge should be
prepared to hear from the petro-patriots that all those environmental
safeguards are just too expensive. Let them win that argument, and your fish
and wildlife habitat and quality of life will suffer greatly.
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