Comprehensive Daily Updates

Here's a link to find out the daily events relating to the Gulf Oil Spill.

Here's what today's report includes:

HYDRAULIC LEAK

Rep. Henry Waxman said his committee's investigation into the Gulf oil spill revealed that a key safety device, the blowout preventer, had a leak in a crucial hydraulic system. The California Democrat said in a second day of hearings into the spill that the investigation also discovered that the well had failed a negative pressure test just hours before the April 20 explosion.

A SMALLER FUNNEL

BP PLC announced Wednesday that a new containment box — a cylinder called a "top hat" — was on the sea floor near the wild well that has spewed at least 4 million gallons into the Gulf of Mexico. Engineers hope to work out ways to avoid the problem that scuttled an earlier effort with a much bigger box before they move the cylinder over the end of the 5,000-foot-long pipe from the well. The 100-ton box filled up with an ice-like slush of gas and water, lifting it up and clogging its nozzle.

ANOTHER PIPE

BP also has another plan it might try to siphon oil away from the unchecked well. BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said Wednesday that engineers hope to link a second pipe to the end of the pipe that was supposed to pump oil from the sea floor before the Deepwater Horizon sunk. The pipe will funnel away the oil that's collected in that original piping, called the riser. Suttles said it could arrive Wednesday and be usable by Thursday or Friday.

LIKE STEAM FROM A GEYSER

Video released by BP showed oil spewing from a yellowish, broken pipe 5,000 feet below the surface. The oil looks like steam rushing from a geyser. The stream occasionally can be seen becoming lighter as natural gas mixes into the gusher. Natural gas has been flowing from the well since the beginning. Suttles said the rate natural gas has been flowing out hasn't changed in the 21 days since the Deepwater Horizon exploded.

FOOTING THE BILL

The White House has asked Congress to raise a liability cap that could limit how much BP has to pay in economic damages. The administration also wants to increase a per-barrel tax on oil companies to replenish a cleanup fund. President Barack Obama also sent a proposal to bring more unemployment assistance and food stamps to help fishermen along the Gulf Coast.

MORE TAR BALLS

The Coast Guard said 4-inch tar balls have been reported along beaches in eastern Alabama. Scientists still have to test the oil, which came ashore several miles west of the Florida state line, to see if it came from the spill. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said Wednesday that testing has confirmed tar balls that washed ashore west at Dauphin Island, Ala., on Saturday were from the spill. Landry said the Coast Guard also found tar balls at South Pass, La., at the end of the Mississippi River, and on the southern end of the Chandeleur Islands, east of New Orleans.

Louisiana officials also said tar balls were found on Whiskey Island off the coast of Louisiana, the farthest point west oil has been seen so far.

MEXICO

Mexican officials fear the Gulf oil spill could reach their coasts if the leak is not stopped by August, when seasonal currents start to reverse and flow south. So far, prevailing currents have carried at least 4 million gallons of spilled oil from a damaged BP well toward the north and east, away from Mexico and toward U.S. shores. But those currents start to shift by August. The currents will be completely reversed by October.

THE BLITZ

A Minerals Management Service official said a blitz inspection of deepwater drilling rigs turned up only "a couple of minor issues." At a hearing led by the MMS and the Coast Guard in Kenner, La., a Coast Guard official questioned whether the government had an effective safety net for the manufacturing and installation of blowout preventers. Michael Saucier of the MMS testified the government isn't required to inspect the safety devices before they are installed.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS' VIEWS

In the weeks after an oil rig exploded and killed 11 men in the Gulf of Mexico, worried environmental groups scoured the water for oil plumes, set up animal triage centers and stretched boom across shorelines. Activists hope their involvement doesn't end there. They contend this may be the catalyst that America's green movement needs to get Americans to pump less gasoline, buy hybrids and downsize their consumer lifestyle.

DEEPWATER DRILLING

The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig illustrates the energy industry's push to drill ever deeper in search of huge oil deposits, despite the mammoth risks and unique challenges associated with exploration in such a hostile environment. The lure of the deep is driven by technological advances that make previously inaccessible oil now reachable, and dwindling supplies at shallower depths due to years of exploration. High energy prices and lucrative government incentives have also made it more financially feasible.

DOLPHINS

Federal wildlife officials are treating the deaths of six dolphins on the Gulf Coast as oil-related even though other factors may be to blame. Blair Mase of the National Marine Fisheries Service said Tuesday that the carcasses have all been found in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama since May 2. Samples have been sent for testing to see whether oil contributed to the deaths.

Scuzzbucket of the week

This young man really needs to watch what he posts. He proudly states that he graduated from Dartmouth. Too bad they didn't teach him a little common sense.


Gus Lubin, cub reporter at businessinsider dot com

Here's the part of the article that gnaws at me


While oil infiltrates the coastline, astronauts are watching the beautiful patterns of 315,000 barrels of oil released onto the open sea.

If you're not directly affected by the oil slick, they make for a great show.


Little Gus, didn't mommy teach you any compassion?

H/T Adrastos via Karen G.

Sarah Palin Quote

SarahPalinU5A I'm so heartbroken about this spill in the gulf situation. All those animals. They're polluting our oil.

Very grim photos

here's a link to hi res pictures taken of the oil spill in ghe Gulf.
Looks like hell.

The Gulf is bleeding

Needed: Hair & Fur

Homemade oil booms

For info, go to this website

Our Pantry

Another article from the NY Times:

“That marsh is really our pantry, and that’s why we are so afraid,” said Frank Brigtsen, the New Orleans chef who runs two restaurants that serve an abundance of Louisiana seafood.

In New Orleans, people are more philosophical. It is the Katrina effect, they say. Once you have lost your house and your boat, even members of your family, you learn not to worry about things you cannot control.

“So you buy 20 pounds of shrimp and put it in your freezer,” said Mirta Valdes, who has lived in New Orleans since emigrating from Cuba in 1963. “Tomorrow, there could be another storm and knock out all the electricity, and then you lose your stash anyway.”

Here's the link to the whole story: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/us/07food.html?pagewanted=2&th&emc=th

 

NYT Article on Oil Spill

The only thing about this article that got me was they quoted someone talking about "crayfish" and not "crawfish".  What can you expect from them.

Here's the link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/us/07gulf.html?th&emc=th

And here's an excerpt:

The timing is a devastating blow to the city’s psyche. Since the Saints won the Super Bowl upon the backdrop of Mardi Gras, followed by the landslide election of a popular new mayor, Mitchell J. Landrieu, New Orleans had been, by all accounts, getting its groove back. Five years removed from Hurricane Katrina, the tangible signs of a real recovery are everywhere: in rebuilt homes and refurbished parks, in old restaurants come back to life and in new businesses thriving. With hurricane season still weeks away, people were feeling optimistic for the first time in a long time.

 

Another Friday, another odor in the air

It's four a.m. and I just walked out onto the patio to be greeted by the smell similar to burning crayons. My guess is that they're doing small in situ burning of the oil in the Gulf.

It's been more than two weeks since the blast that created this muck out in the Gulf. Every day I grow more and more depressed as I do my daily check of the current trajectory map of the oil spill. It looks worse each day and we've had a relatively calm week weather wise.

I recognize my emotions as similar to those post Katrina. A lot of anger and a boatload of sadness for both the fishers affected by this and the mass annihilation of wildlife. I pray that our estuaries are safe.

Yesterday's anger was focused on the fact that oil reached the Chandeleur Islands , a very small group of what appears to be large sandbars from a plane. There weren't enough booms to go around to protect these islands.

I'm angry over how the Asian fishers are being treated, but glad that there is a young lawyer helping in their plight. Spencer Aronfeld has been interviewed on WWL radio for few mornings this week and he's detailed how his clients are being treated by BP and how he intends to correct that.

Time to get to work. Wondering how strong the buring crayon smell will be at the spaceship factory. which is relatively close to the Gulf.

Be Wary of the National Media

from Although their livelihoods depend on knowing where the action is in the Mississippi River delta, charter fishing captains in Venice have never been so happy to bring their fares back empty-handed.

Angling for a big story, news reporters from around the world have been chartering boats to check out aerial reports of oil washing ashore from the massive Deepwater Horizon leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

A closer look has nearly always failed to substantiate the possible sightings, though reports of oil hitting the Chandeleur Islands were confirmed Thursday.

"I got more oil leaking out my boat's exhaust than they got in the west Delta," joked charter captain Brent Ballay.

Ballay and a couple of other captains took a 30-mile trip in and around Southwest Pass on Thursday morning to check out a news report of oil coming ashore there.

"The water's crystal clear and beautiful," he said, sitting on a dock at the Venice Marina. "There's no oil anywhere."

What they did find was brown foam along the current line, where fresh water meets salt water.

The foam is a natural phenomenon caused by decomposing vegetation bubbling to the surface, said David Ballay, Brent's father who founded the marina in the 1980s and sold it in 2002.

"Looking down from a plane, you might think that's oil, but it's not," David Ballay said. "I'll go put my sandwich out there on those booms, smear it around and eat it. That's how confident I am that there's no oil there."

Concerned about the spill's effect on the charter fishing industry, Brent Ballay said he has stopped taking people out to look for oil.

"We're just shooting ourselves in the foot by doing that," he said. "I'd rather take someone out with a camera to show people all the fish they can catch instead of all the death and destruction that we aren't having."

"There's the real story, right there," he added, pointing to a man stepping off a charter boat with a huge bucket of redfish and speckled trout.

That has been an all too uncommon sight during what is supposed to be the busiest time of year for charter fishing.

"We've had a tough time getting people to come down because of all the negative publicity," charter capatin Jeff Fuscia said as he filleted a red fish with an electric knife.

Fuscia said he saw a national TV news report about oil hitting the coastline Wednesday night.

"I thought, 'That's news to me, and I'm down here,'" he said. "I don't want to downplay it because there's a lot of oil out there; it just hasn't hit the coast."

Tennessee Floods

To those that know what it's like to live thru a flood and wait for help, please help those in Tennessee needing help. Here's a link. Thanks.