Massive underwater oil plumes found in US Gulf Coast

[jannyk]

Source: BBC

Scientists have found vast underwater plumes of oil, one 10 miles (16km) long and a mile wide, in the Gulf of Mexico, following last month's rig disaster. A Georgia University expert warned oxygen levels had fallen 30% in some areas of the sea, and it could take decades to repair the damage.

The find suggests the scale of the potential environmental disaster is much worse than previously feared since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blew up on 20 April, killing 11 workers. Samantha Joye, a marine science professor at the University of Georgia, said: "It could take years, possibly decades, for the system to recover from an infusion of this quantity of oil and gas.

"We've never seen anything like this before. It's impossible to fathom the impact."

The experts say the oxygen depletion is likely to continue, endangering sea life and raising the prospect of underwater dead zones. The scientists said the chemical dispersants BP has been dumping underwater may be preventing the oil from rising to the top of the ocean.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8685368.stm

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As long as we can't see it, it can't hurt us - right???

[IndianaGreen]

1. The dispersant is causing this!

We are being lied to by Big Oil and by government officials trying to protect the industry!

BP has resisted entreaties from scientists that they be allowed to use sophisticated instruments at the ocean floor that would give a far more accurate picture of how much oil is really gushing from the well.

“The answer is no to that,” a BP spokesman, Tom Mueller, said on Saturday. “We’re not going to take any extra efforts now to calculate flow there at this point. It’s not relevant to the response effort, and it might even detract from the response effort.”

The undersea plumes may go a long way toward explaining the discrepancy between the flow estimates, suggesting that much of the oil emerging from the well could be lingering far below the sea surface.

The scientists on the Pelican mission, which is backed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency that monitors the health of the oceans, are not certain why that would be. They say they suspect the heavy use of chemical dispersants, which BP has injected into the stream of oil emerging from the well, may have broken the oil up into droplets too small to rise rapidly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/us/16oil.html?hp

[lib2DaBone]

6. I don't think anyone realizes what this is going to do to the foodchain..

.. and the eco-system. What if hurricanes suck up this oil from the Gulf and drop it on row crops in the midwest? ( Corn, Soybeans and wheat)

Hurricanes hit along coastal areas.. but the rain systems from these storms travel far inland.

-------------------------------------
An Above-Average Hurricane Season:

■On April 7, 2010, Colorado State University issued its annual report on the year's hurricane forecast predictions.http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/07/forecasters-predict-above-average-atlantic-hurricane-season/8 University forecasters William Gray and Phil Klotzbach each stated that El Nino conditions will likely dissipate by summer. In addition they believe that the warm tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures will not drop and will remain at the current temperatures. These temperatures have reportedly been much warmer than usual.http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/07/forecasters-predict-above-average-atlantic-hurricane-season/9 Because of this phenomenon, Gray and Klotzbach indicate that the 2010 hurricane season will be above-average. Specifically, they said that the warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures will " to favorable conditions for hurricanes to develop and intensify."http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/07/forecasters-predict-above-average-atlantic-hurricane-season/10

[meow mix]

2. better have it tested.. possibly related to the "spill"

those drops in the bucket seem to be growing

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Damn! How do you fix 10 miles that are 1 mile under water?

[TheEuclideanOne]

16. I have no clue what this means.

I am interpreting this the way you are? Does this mean that there is a 10-mile long "equivalent" of the current leak? That can't possibly be true, can it? I must assume that we are both reading this story wrong.

[no_hypocrisy]

17. Here's my citation.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8346188

[TheEuclideanOne]

19. apparently I was confusing leak with plume

For some reason, I was picturing a "leak", similar to a crack of sorts. At least it is way under water and not noticeable. phew :sarcasm: That gives them plenty of time to pass new legislation before it becomes so clear about how much damage is being done.

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, jannyk.

[Trillo]

5. Find an underwater plume, then vacuum and recover.

Maybe we'll need a new kind of oil harvesting platform designed, though speed seems of the essence, before the plume farther disperses.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

7. As long as it makes rich people richer, tough shit camposinos.

[WinkyDink]

15. They've been known to die, too. Masque of the Red Death.

[lonestarnot]

8. Plumes (plural)

[Laughing Mirror]

9. Sonar hearing dolphins coughing and cries of panic from the whales

Soon they will be gone.

[defendandprotect]

10. Terrible news . . . who's reporting that . . . in fact, do we have any

official reports yet that any of this oil has hit land?

A lot of info seems to be very slow coming thru!!???



PS: Don't know if it means anything, but in NJ yesterday someone was saying that

had seen a whale about 1/4 mile off beach -- approximately Sea Girt/NJ --

[Laughing Mirror]

11. This is not on land, but under the sea where the toxic chemicals are displacing the oil

Which is only making things worse for the sea life. This is being reported in the French press, but I don't know about U.S.

[defendandprotect]

12. Understood -- it was two separate comments . . . .

OK . . so French press is reporting dolphins/whales in trouble -- thank you!!!

Terrible to hear but what else could we possibly expect to hear?

And wondering if it is unusual for a whale to be in our NJ waters in summer?

Don't actually know --



HOWEVER . . . NEW SUBJECT . . .

One of the photos I've seen seems to suggest oil reaching out islands . . .

Does it seem to you that news of where the oil is vs any land seems slow in coming????





PS: IMO, using dispersants on this is going to make everything worse -- breaking it up

means that it would be harder for larger animals like dolphins/whales to avoid it --

will travel farther and faster thru water -- at least that's my view -- !!??

[Laughing Mirror]

13. Keep putting in chemicals to keep the oil deep down in the water where nobody can see it

So what if it kills everything? That seems to be the focus of this so-called clean-up effort.

[defendandprotect]

14. Agree . . . Thom Hartmann was saying last week that was the reason for dispersants -

I've also heard that BP could have closed this well in a way

that would have prevented getting future oil out of it -- ????

they didn't want to do that --

Obama has to jump in here --

[democrank]

18. K & R