Posted on 06/04/2010 2:50:15 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
PENSACOLA BEACH, Fla. — The smell of oil hangs heavy in the sea air. Children with plastic shovels scoop up clumps of goo in the waves. Beachcombers collect tarballs as if they were seashells.
The oil has now reached the shores of four Gulf states — Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
Swimmers at Pensacola Beach rushed out of the water after wading into the mess, while other beachgoers inspected the clumps with fascination, some taking pictures. Children were seen playing with the globs as if they were Play-Doh.
Randy Ivie, a charter boat captain, broke down in tears as tried to explain how sad he was to think that his grandchildren might not see the same white beach and turquoise waters he enjoyed.
"It kills me," he said. "I grew up here."
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
I have an older married sister and BIL living in the Panhandle area, Navarre, FL. The beaches I have read are sugar white color beaches. This is not good.
Locals ought to each fill up a bucket of the oily tar balls and caravan to D.C. and deposit the contents on the White House lawn with a message to the Imposter telling him more will be arriving for the next 45 days.
I believe every hand was raised that drilling should continue.
BTW, I heard in the news last night that there was a much worse spill in the Gulf in the 80's. The Gulf recovered in less than a year.
If you're gonna make an omlette, you gotta break a few eggs.
Obama the Infallible. Where are those who declared him to be perfect, god-like and the smartest man who ever lived? (I won’t look myself, but anyone heard Joy Behar’s take on this?) Even worse than Katrina, this is a man-caused calamity, making it preventable!
Ixtoc 1 - it leaked for nine months in 1979.
Oh, please, let me be the first to say: Bush’s fault.
What's funny are the people swimming in the ocean behind the reporter.
Didn’t they manage to confine it early with booms and not disperse it to cover the world with an Illinois company’s toxic chemicals?
0bamao doesn’t really care. He only came to the coast because Comedy Central forced him to. Things will change when the oil starts washing up on the beaches of east coast states.
The Emperor has no clothes.
I lived in the Florida panhandle (Mexico Beach) back in the early 80’s.
It was routine to get out the bottle of 409 and paper towels
to get the tar off your feet after walking on the beach,
and that was 30 years ago.
Yes man-caused.
As is terrorism. As is global warming. This Administration is a man-caused disaster.
I wonder when the next volcano erupts or the next earthquake occurs if somehow that will be man-caused ...
because someone threw a candy wrapper in the volcano or there are too many people above the fault line (hint: LA).
Zero could get himself off the hook if he proclaimed this.
However, then his Sierra Club buddies would be furious at him for exposing how much of the environmental disaster rhetoric is hype.
I had a conversation about this last night with a fellow from Baton Rouge. A successful businessman, he bought an offshore fishing boat a few years ago and put it in a slip down at Cocodrie. He figured he'd enjoy it for a few years, as it was something he'd wanted for a long time. He, his family and his friends did enjoy it, just as he intended.
Now he'd come to the point of selling the boat before depreciation really kicked him in the teeth - but because of the BP mess, all he's getting is lowball offers out of Florida. He knows that he's a victim of fate in this instance, but does he think we should stop drilling in the Gulf? Hell, no.
I wonder what percentage of Louisiana’s GDP comes from the oil and gas industry? Or Alabama’s and Mississippi’s? Prior to the moratorium on drilling that is.
Apparently, the did use dispersants, but the it was requested that they stop using it north of 25°N. Wiki says: "Prevailing currents carried the oil towards the Texas coastline. The US government had two months to prepare booms to protect major inlets. Pemex spent $100 million to clean up the spill and avoided paying compensation by asserting sovereign immunity.['...71,500 barrels of oil impacted 162 miles of U.S. beaches, and over 10,000 cubic yards of oiled material were removed.']"
South Texas Coast
IXTOC IBahia de Campeche, Mexico
1979-Jun-03On June 3, 1979, the 2 mile deep exploratory well, IXTOC I, blew out in the Bahia de Campeche, 600 miles south of Texas in the Gulf of Mexico. The IXTOC I was being drilled by the SEDCO 135, a semi-submersible platform on lease to Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX). A loss of drilling mud circulation caused the blowout to occur. The oil and gas blowing out of the well ignited, causing the platform to catch fire. The burning platform collapsed into the wellhead area hindering any immediate attempts to control the blowout.
PEMEX hired blowout control experts and other spill control experts including Red Adair, Martech International of Houston, and the Mexican diving company, Daivaz. The Martech response included 50 personnel on site, the remotely operated vehicle TREC, and the submersible Pioneer I. The TREC attempted to find a safe approach to the Blowout Preventer (BOP). The approach was complicated by poor visibility and debris on the seafloor including derrick wreckage and 3000 meters of drilling pipe. Divers were eventually able to reach and activate the BOP, but the pressure of the oil and gas caused the valves to begin rupturing. The BOP was reopened to prevent destroying it.
Two relief wells were drilled to relieve pressure from the well to allow response personnel to cap it. Norwegian experts were contracted to bring in skimming equipment and containment booms, and to begin cleanup of the spilled oil. The IXTOC I well continued to spill oil at a rate of 10,000 - 30,000 barrels per day until it was finally capped on March 23, 1980.
Heh. What was that old line from Star Trek, delivered in a beautifully scornful, mocking, sarcastic tone? Oh, yes: "Behold the god who bleeds!"
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