Hyperbole-Free Zone: What do you think are the near-, mid-, and long-term prognosises for the Gulf?

[Stinky The Clown]

I am monumentally unqualified to render judgment as to what's going on in the Gulf. I see some credible sources saying the Gulf is as good as dead. Other credible sources say its bad, but hardly unrecoverable.

Some credible sources say BP (or the larger oil industry) are the best equipped to handle the termination of the blowout and the clean-up. Other credible sources say the government needs to get involved.

These arguments are clouded by silly people saying things like Barak Obama can't walk on water, as if anyone suggested he could. Other silly people are saying we should trust that BP is fully prepared to make it all good again.

This is a complicated problem and the answers are complicated. Some of the answers are pretty much impossible to give. No one can dispute the Gulf is badly wounded. No one, however, can predict the final outcome.

Based on what I have read, heard, and considered, my uninformed, likely naive opinion is that BP would love to end this now but has no idea what will really work. I truly believe they did everything they could to fix it once the incident occurred. That said, I think they did everything they could beforehand to avoid more expensive safety devices and/or to avoid any safety devices at all. I believe they will do whatever it takes to avoid paying one thin dime more than the barest minimum; I honestly think they have as many lawyers as clean up workers, and they're paying the lawyers more. "Obstruct" is painted on the Lawyer Lunch Room.

I think the US government needs to take the lead. I think the US government needs to backcharge to BP every penny spent. If they refuse, we need to seize assets. I think the government is the only entity with the resources and motivation to do the right thing.

I have absolutely no expectation that Obama himself does or *should* know the actual, technical solution. I have every expectation he will do the right thing. That first statement is an absolute; I hold him blameless. The second statement is optimistic; I am sufficiently wounded, jaded, and cynical to not have complete confidence in *any* politician.

I think Gulf Shrimp will return to our food supply within three years. I think some part of the ecology will, indeed, die. I think the Mighty Mississippi will continue to clean and renew the Delta.

I expect little in the way of new regulations and almost no prohibition or slow down in offshore drilling.

I think any repubican who says "Drill Baby, Drill" is a certifiable cuckoo bird subject to being caught by men in white suits with nets.

[Codeine]

1. It is very rare I ever agree 100% with anyone on an issue

as complex and divisive as this, but I think you've knocked this one well out of the park.

[Donnachaidh]

2. prognosis --

fuck fuck fuckity fuck fucked.

Total freefalling fucked.

We're not going to get TRUTH about what is happening in the Gulf from the oil company OR our Government. They aren't going to admit they FAILED to protect the Gulf on such a mammoth scale.

I'm thinking that they may even keep independent scientists out of there, because of fear that the real truth about the devastation may get out.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

well...so much for the hyperbole free zone...a couple of replies in and WHAM!

it was a nice try.

sP

[Donnachaidh]

43. so you think they are actually going to get this mess cleaned up?

Got yer bottle of Dawn ready have you? :sarcasm:

Sorry if I'm not cheerleading about all the speechifying going on from Washington. Because all that is is a great wind. Period. If they were honestl they'd be saying just how f*cked that area is and it will be that way for DECADES.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

45. ok...

and yes...we have a home in Destin...so I do have my dawn bottle ready...if needed.

sP

[Swamp Rat]

25. ditto

And they are already blocking local, independent scientists from working here.

[Donnachaidh]

44. you won't see many posts about that little ditty surviving the unrec squad

That will get buried - probably has already.

[hlthe2b]

3. Given it remains uncontrollable... I have not a clue.

But, given the magnitude compared to Alaska Valdez, the wetlands that will be impacted and the fact that Alaska has never fully recovered decades later, I am not optimistic. Depressed, definitely. Hopeful? Well, maybe if we had some friggin idea how to stench the flow.

[Liberal_in_LA]

4. +1

[cherokeeprogressive]

5. Longterm prognosis: The Gulf will survive. n/t

[csziggy]

7. How longterm? a decade, a century, a millenium?

I'm 58. I do not expect the Gulf ecosystem to recover in my lifetime. The concern is if it will recover in the lifetimes of my nieces and nephews.

[cherokeeprogressive]

9. The Gulf has survived catastrophe before.

In 79/80 - 140,000,000 gallons of oil leaked from Ixtoc I in the Gulf. That's 14 Exxon Valdez tankers. It survived.

Let's say you can reasonably expect to live another 30 years. I think you'll see a healthy Gulf in your lifetime.

[Scuba]

10. I wish I were as optimistic....

...but considering there may be a trillion gallons of oil and gas in this baby, I think we've screwed the pooch.

[Statistical]

13. A trillion gallons won't spill out.

Relief wells have been used in past to seal primary shaft tight. It has been used hundreds if not thousands of times.

The only problem with relief wells is that it will take about 80 more days before first one is complete. Backup relief well will start soon and will take 100 days to complete.

So the well will be capped but is it requires relief wells then we are looking at 80-100 more days of oil spilling out.

[Scuba]

16. And the relief well is guaranteed to work because....

...because BP is so safety-conscience that they have this all ready?

...because they've done this a mile below the surface before?

...because a little bird told me so?

Why the faith? Wish I had some.

[Statistical]

19. It has been done many times in the past by BP and other oil companies.

The only problem is it takes very long time to drill a completely new shaft.

Hopefully BP uses some untested methods to seal the well long before relief wells are complete but relief wells are the slowest but most likely to succeed method.

[Scuba]

21. Again, I wish I shared your optimism. Hope you're right!!!

[Statistical]

23. Well it isn't optimism.

The other side of the coin is that relief well is 90 days.

At 5K barrels (BP/NOAA estimate) that is 450K barrels. Basically half million barrels. Likely more because relief well didn't start for 6 days and it will take some time to kill main well. That is at least 2 Exxon Valdez worth of oil spilled. :(

If the flow is higer. Say 25K bpd that would be 10 Exxon Valdez.

If while they drill say may wellhead blows out flow could easily reach 100K bpd. That would be 50 Exxon Valdez into the Gulf.

So it isn't optimism. I hope they seal it by alternate method much faster.

[csziggy]

40. I keep reading that the area of the Exxon Valdez spill has not yet recoverd

And that is twenty years ago. While the Gulf region may reach some percentage of return to its state prior to the oil volcano, it will never be the same in my lifetime.

It is not the same mostly healthy ecosystem it was when I was a child now, before the oil hits the coast closest to me. I can only imagine what it was like 85 years ago when my grandparents moved to Florida. We've already damaged the coastlines a lot and there is not a ten foot stretch that does not have garbage or traces amounts of oil or some indication that humans don't give a shit about their planet.

[Synicus Maximus]

6. I agree with most of your conclusions. Except I think the time frame to

recover will be a little longer say 5 years. But I'm not sure that the government has the expertise to take the lead. I certainly can see the government providing oversight but not necessarily making the decisions on how to proceed.

[ThomWV]

12. I'm not sure it will take that long

The stuff isn't going to cease to exist, but that doesn't mean it isn't going to go away. The gulf is hot, and that's going to help. Hurricanes tramp straight up, across, and sometimes back down and cross it again, and they mix up the water one hell of a lot - not to mention how much of the crap will be washed inland with anything like a storm tide. By that all I mean is that it will be dispersed, not that it will be any less harmful, only that the harm will be spread over a larger area than just the coast. And then finally there is that river and loop current. Sooner or later it will engulf the Keys and move up the coast - but every inch it moves it becomes more disperse and there is an awful lot of water in the Atlantic.

Anyway once they get it stopped I'm thinking about 3 hurricane seasons should spread it all over the south more or less equally.

[petronius]

15. I think that a big determinant will be whether or not a sustained effort

to protect and restore wetlands and coastal habitat occurs. If there is an across-the-board effort, including some real attempts to clean up the water flowing into the Gulf and careful management of harvesting, then I think recovery could be quick.

On the other hand, if we just go to business-as-usual when the obvious oil is cleaned up, then I suspect the Gulf will limp along at a reduced health for a decade or more...

[lib2DaBone]

8. Hey Stinky.. I agree..no Hyperbole

There is no Hyperbole needed... but if they can't stop this gusher... we are in serious trouble.

I don't think they understand.. this is not just the oceans they are killing..or the wildlife.... this thing can mushroom and kill many food crops in the midwest.. thanks to hurricanes that pick up oil and rain it inland...

Then.. add in a 7.0 earthquake somewhere in the United States... and the Feds are out of bullets.. we are on our own..

[IndianaJoe]

11. It's hard to speculate. I don't think anyone has enough info.

One of the things that bothers me so much about the BP Oil Spill is the lack of information. I've seen all kinds of numbers about how much is coming out; so many different news items (even today) about whether it's contained or not contained; about where it's going or not going; and what is being affected and what isn't that I question whether anyone really knows -- save BP.

The news media seems sort of bored with the story. And BP seems so secretive. And the Feds haven't really said much about the anticipated extent of the problem or what the fix-up cost is going to be.

And all of the above really troubles me.

[cornermouse]

14. I don't think I'll be eating seafood for a very, very long time

and we'll be lucky if the Gulf isn't a dead body of water. That is what I honestly think.

[tavalon]

17. There isn't any credible way to know what the long term implications are

because the gusher is still gushing and we don't know where all the oil is going. In human terms, if this gusher isn't stopped in the next few weeks and if it's gushing at the higher numbers provided by independent experts, then the gulf won't recover in three years and I wouldn't eat a single shrimp from the gulf any time soon. Worst case scenario, the underwater oil gets into the stronger gulf streams and goes into the keys and past it into? Again, there is so much we don't know that predictions are just guesses.

I think the gulf is a dead man walking, but that's just a guess, a gut feel. But that's really any of us have.

I'm feeling real insecure about it because the Obama administration decided to withhold information for three weeks. A very Rovian move and I worry that it means things are even worse than we've been told. More conjecture.

The only thing that isn't conjecture is that we've been lied to. Why we've been lied to leads down a huge and convoluted conjecture road.

I think this is a case of people drilling in places they had no real understanding about. What a fucking surprise.

[ixion]

18. The Gulf ecosystem is extremely fragile

and this will most certainly unbalance it for years to come. Oil balls up and will turn to black goo and dissipate over time, but a long time. The Exxon Valdez thing happened 20 years ago, and they're still trying to recover. This is worse. You do the math.

[tavalon]

20. What do you think the government's motivation was in hiding

the videos of the leak for three weeks?

[Uncle Joe]

22. The event it self is hyperbole brought in to reality so I don't see how that can be diminished.

I see this as potentially catastrophic; and I don't view that as hyperbole so much as a realistic, sober point of view.

As for a solution, I believe the world's best scientists should be brought in on it ASAP and the government should take the lead with BP; giving their resources and expertise to the project in a subordinate role.

Thanks for the thread, Stinky.

[Swamp Rat]

27. BP must be removed from the equation ASAP.

They are causing way more damage than the original oil gusher they created.

[Uncle Joe]

31. In what way?

[Swamp Rat]

32. All upper management should be removed, by force if needed, and all their personal and company

access and assets locked and seized. That would be a good place to start.

Then, bring in every (union) professional, from geologists to chemists to oil field workers to environmental assessors to clean up the mess.

BP's CEOs, major investors, lobbyists, and corrupt politicians should be locked up until after we get through the initial stages of this disaster. They are every bit as dangerous to animal and plant life on Earth as any of the dictators we fought last century.

[Blue_In_AK]

24. The Gulf will survive,

but it will take quite a while. You can still find oil on the beaches of Prince William Sound 21 years later, and some populations (herring) have not returned to their pre-spill levels and may never. Recovery is a long, slow process.

[Uncle Joe]

29. As bad as the Exxon Valdez spill was, I view the GOG as much worse.

On a level of magnitude, complexity in bringing about a solution and population density affected.

The Valdez was one tanker, this could be tens or hundreds of them.

[Blue_In_AK]

37. Absolutely.

There's no doubt that many, many more people will be affected. Theo nly thing you have going for you down there that we didn't is the temperature of the water.

[lunatica]

26. I think if we look at Prince William Sound and what the Exxon Valdez did

We'll see what will happen.

Every four days the oil gusher in the Gulf belches the equivalent of what the Exxon Valdez spilled. It's now been 4 weeks. 28 days which equals 7 Exxon Valdez spills. The Exxon Valdez dumped 11 million gallons of crude oil and destroyed 1,500 miles of coastline. The oil is still there. they say if you pick up a rock there's a pool of oil under it.

(snip)
In 1989, the Exxon Valdez ran aground, dumping 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound.

The spill blackened 1,500 miles of Alaska coastline, shut down fisheries, devastated wildlife and threw the residents of Cordova into an economic and psychological turmoil that lingers, in many ways, to this day.

Chief among the chill-inducing similarities mentioned by Cordova residents are the official statements released by BP in the days after the spill.

"Watching BP's executives, it's like listening to (former Exxon CEO) Lee Raymond come up here 20 years ago," said RJ Kopchak, 62, of Cordova. "These handsome, square-jawed, mid-life folks step to the microphone and tell you everything's going to be fine. ... It's hard to beat those guys."

Kopchak said there are differences between the Valdez and the Deepwater Horizon spill, but he said the underlying themes that plagued Cordova residents for decades already are surfacing on the Gulf Coast.

"It will all unfold on a different time line because of the nature of the spill, but all of the benchmark problems are going to be the same," he said.

more at the link...

[Blue_In_AK]

38. Many sources believe that the EXXON VALDEZ

was actually closer to 30 million gallons spilled as opposed to 11 million, but, in any event, it was at least a finite amount which makes it much different than this spill.

[kentuck]

28. It's hard to say what the long-term ramifications might be?

Much of the oil may settle on the bottom of the ocean. The fish and wildlife may be affected for a generation or more.

[marions ghost]

30. Depends on whether the whole ecosystem crashes

like it did in Alaska three years after the Valdez.

"It has the potential of being a disaster ecologically," said John Bente, the lead biologist for 13 coastal state parks in Florida. "It's just frightening."

More at:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/05/93610/biologists-fear-that-spill-could.html

I think that's the consensus of most marine scientists. There really isn't any such thing as a true "clean-up" of this. It will just be about the impact it makes. And that can't even be quantified by scientists accurately until it stops.

I won't be eating any Gulf seafood in the future I know that. Indefinitely. It may not be allowed to be sold anyway. Probably the problem will eventually be the lack of it. We really are in the realm of the unknown here. It has already been greatly impacted.

I agree that the government needs to take the lead in this-- making stopping it by any reasonable means the number one priority.

[katzenjammers]

35. But the ecosystem (at least globally) can not crash. It simply will, as it always has, adjust

to the external influences. 65 million years ago, whatever passed for an ecosystem was more or less vaporized - from the viewpoint of the current inhabitants back then, it surely did 'crash', but that was just true for THEM...future evolutionary organisms needed it to come into existence...which almost certainly includes what we now call Homo Sapiens, and our ancestors.

[marions ghost]

39. from a human perspective

most of us would rather not experience a radical crash of the earth's primary
ecosystems if we can do anything about it. Even if homo sapiens survives in some form.

I'm taking your post as an attempt at humor. Ha
Ha

[katzenjammers]

33. I think anyone who claims to know the answers to those questions is an idiot.

Unless he has a brand new V7.6.2 Magic Eight Ball, or a note from his preacher.

Nevertheless, the Gulf of Mexico will survive, as will the planet no matter what curve balls we toss at it...it very well may throw off humans as an annoying species (and it seems with good reason) but Terran geography will be around a lot longer than we will. Cockroaches, on the other hand, might be the ultimate survivalists.

[Bragi]

34. Not sure what hyperbolic means in this context

I think the key question raised here is not scientific, it is philosophic:

What ever makes us think we can extract a toxic substance a mile below the surface of the ocean and not expect an eventual and inevitable failure of our extraction equipment such that this harmful substance will pour into the surrounding waters, and the adjacent shorelines will also be spoiled? Why wouldn't this happen?

What this points to is this: a collective decision to engage in deep sea oil extraction includes a collective agreement that we will also despoil the oceans when and as extraction fails. It isn't a case of whether this will happen, the question is how long till it happens, how bad will it be, and what kind of workarounds do we envision, once the oceans are no-go zones.

Or put more simply, why are we so fucking stupid?

Hope that isn't too hyperbolic for you.

[katzenjammers]

36. You might consider asking that question of your friends who drive cars

and suggest they should stop doing so...most people (I am not defending their position, just pointing out what it is) don't give a rat's about a "little oil in the water."

Please don't chastise me for reporting the message :shrug:]

[Bragi]

42. No chastisement from me...

Thing is, I'm not blaming you or anyone. I just have zero confidence that we will do anything even remotely resembling what we would have to do to avoid the bad shit that is coming down. We *are* going to fuck up our oceans. *Regulation* will not change the fact that oil extraction will fuck up the oceans.

Similarly, I accept as fact that we are not going to do anything collectively resembling what we would need to do to avoid the worst effects of climate change. I am resigned to this. but I am absolutely confident that the bad shit is already happening, and will get worse.

[katzenjammers]

46. Thanks...and I obviously agree. as much as I hate to say so.

It sure does look like we human critters are wired to behave strangely...we will crank up a bank account for a newly orphaned kid, even one far away but we can't seem to extend that same sense of charity (or is it self-preservation) to our species as a whole. I confess, I don't 'get' it...(for the record, I don't believe altruism is or has ever been a real human trait)

[Feron]

41. Gulf won't die, but..

Fishing will be gone for awhile in some areas and maybe permanently where the oil/dispersant mix strongly accumulates. Ditto if the mix accumulates in an area that serves as a nursery or important part of the food chain.

Wetlands were in major trouble before the spill. A football field's worth is lost daily. This will only accelerate the loss as oil inevitably enters the wetlands. Even if we have a quiet season this year, the oil will be hanging around for some time for a wind event to push it ashore.

BP and the U.S. gov't are so intertwined it's hard to tell where BP ends and the gov't begins. As we've seen throughout this catastrophe, both will work together to minimize the damage/impact as much as possible and to screw the natives out of rightful redress.

I expect the locals to be Katrina'd and after some public harumphing nothing will really change. And Americans will believe that the spill really wasn't all that bad.

Maybe I'm bitterly cynical, but Katrina was a cruel teacher.