OFFSHORE OIL IS SAFE UNTIL IT ISN’T

Oil spill burned in Gulf of Mexico, in hope of saving coast
Steven Mufson, April 29, 2010 (Washington Post)

Rear Adm. Mary Landry, U.S. Coast Guard: "It's premature to say this is catastrophic…I will say that this is very serious."

"The Coast Guard and BP set fire to a portion of the crude oil floating in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday in a bid to limit the impact of a widening slick, which federal officials said could touch shore in parts of the Louisiana delta as early as Friday evening.

"With BP unable to stop the flow of oil from a deepwater exploration well that blew up last week, attention was turning to the gulf's coastlines, where the spill could threaten wildlife, tourism and the livelihoods of fishermen…[BP] corralled the thickest areas of the oil slick inside fireproof booms, lighted it and burned it…[which] could limit damage to coastal areas…[A] burn off U.S. shores and the prospect of oil landing on the gulf coastline could become powerful symbols of the perils of offshore drilling…"

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"The crisis in the gulf is likely to get worse before it gets better. It began April 20, when an oil and gas discovery blew upward, setting the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on fire. The rig, owned by Transocean and leased to BP, later sank, and 11 of its workers are missing and presumed dead…[O]il could be pouring out of the ground at a rate of up to 5,000 barrels per day…At that rate, this spill may already have surpassed the size of the 1969 Santa Barbara spill that helped lead to the far-reaching moratorium on oil and gas drilling off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, a ban that Obama recently said he wants to modify…

"BP said Wednesday that it has continued to try, in vain, to use submarine robotic vehicles to activate a malfunctioning blowout-preventer at the site of the well…[F]ederal inquiries into the cause of the accident [will] have to focus on Transocean's preventer…the "failsafe mechanism of the industry"…

"…[BP is] fabricating a 100-ton steel dome the company hopes to lower over the oil leak…but it would take two to four weeks to put it in place, if that can be done at all. The dome would funnel oil, natural gas and seawater into a pipe leading to a floating processing and storage facility. The technique has been used in shallow waters around 350 feet deep…but the current spill is leaking from pipes lying 5,000 feet deep…BP will [also] begin drilling a new well to intercept the leaking one…[but] it will take weeks…"

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"With that timetable looming, attention was turning to coastlines…Government agencies and BP have set up 100,000 feet of booms to protect sensitive coastal areas. BP has also hired a firm that specializes in rescuing birds…[A] forecast for the spill showed it touching land for the first time this weekend…BP and the Coast Guard are also using chemicals to disperse the oil, which for the most part is spread in a thin sheen…more than 150 miles long and about 30 miles wide.

"A BP official said controlled burns can get rid of 50 to 99 percent of oil within a limited area, but Robert Bea, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California at Berkeley who worked on controlling the damage of the Santa Barbara spill, warned that in open seas, companies have generally captured less than 10 percent of oil spilled."