A DISASTER WITHOUT PRECEDENT

Portland Press Herald ^ | May 1, 2010 | STEVEN MUFSON AND MICHAEL D. SHEAR

[tiger63]

” $7.00 dollar a gallon gasoline “

No! Here comes $10.00 per gallon gasoline.

[Cedar]

$10 gas? In that case, here comes the electric car to the forefront!

[dalereed]

It’s no disaster!

When I was a kid more oil than that boiled to the surface NATURALLY 24/7 and wound up on the braches from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border and the only harm was that when i went to the beach I got scrubed down in a washtub with kerosene to remove the tar before I could come in the house.

I doesn’t happen today because of the offshore oil drilling that reduced the gas presure and only a small amount, comparatavially, boils up today.

[Cedar]

Didn’t realize. How did the wildlife survive along those beaches?

[Natural Born 54]

Read the article excerpt posted at this link:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2504240/posts?page=49#49

“25,000 barrel-a-day leak rate” is the current estimate and it could go to 100,000 barrels a day. At just the 25K rate, it rivals the Exxon Valdez spill.

This really is a disaster, unfortunately.

[dalereed]

“How did the wildlife survive along those beaches?”

The ones that dies of old age washed up on the beach covered with tar!

[dalereed]

“This really is a disaster, unfortunately.”

No damn way and neither was Valdez!!!!

[happinesswithoutpeace]

just bookmarking an interesting article. :)

[Natural Born 54]

OK, I am just a bystander and have no special knowledge of the area nor the oil industry. You do. So question, please. Was there that much oil washing up on the coast when you were a kid? Those enviro programs about the Valdez spill made it look so bad that I would never have guessed that things could be that way naturally.

I did not mean to offend you, I just have never heard anyone talk about that nor have I ever read it anywhere.

[dalereed]

There was so much tar on the beach atr Goleta that in the 1500s the Spanish beached their ships to tar thew bottoms.

In the 50s when I was going with my wife you couldn’t even go on the beach at slough U, UC Santa Barbara, because there was so much tar.

Clear into the late 60s there was an oil slick from the Horshoe Kelp to the Mexican border because of the oil boiling to the surface from that spot 7 miles off Long Beach.

[Natural Born 54]

I’ll bet you very few people know that. The ironic thing about what you said is that the whole area is a lot better off today BECAUSE of the oil rigs in the Gulf, even with the rare spill like this one. I wish someone would write an article about it and come up with some old photos that showed what it looked like with the natural oil to prove it.

[pardisdain]

I don’t think eco-nuts would want to cause a ecological disaster of this scale just to stop off-shore drilling. The drilling itself is absolutely nothing ecology-wise compared to what this oil is going to do to the coastal wetlands of Louisiana.

[Natural Born 54]

Amazing.

It wouldn’t have been very good advertising for the tourist industry - maybe that’s why no one seems to know about it other than people like you who had personal experience. Or maybe it just suits the enviro agenda to ignore it. That knowledge would sure mess with them now.

[pardisdain]

Eh, I hope not. This is only one of thousands and thousands of rigs in the Gulf alone.

[napscoordinator]

The people in Mississippi and Louisiana who are in the fishing industry are in huge trouble this year financially...they better find another career asap...at least for five years or so. Alaska fisherman felt the financial burden for about that long.

[dennisw]

You ever hear of the LaBrea tar pits? There is a lot of oil and tar close to the surface in Southern California. Offshore of Santa Barbara there are natural seeps where oil seeps up out of the ocean floor. It’s still going on but due to our oil wells there is less. Due to less pressure. Our oil wells relive that pressure

[thecodont]

There was so much tar on the beach atr Goleta that in the 1500s the Spanish beached their ships to tar thew bottoms.

Beachcombing at Goleta Point (posted June 6, 2002)

http://www.greatoutdoors.com/published/beachcombing-at-goleta-point

"What you'll need: Be sure to wear surf-shoes or old sneakers to avoid getting tar on your feet on the beach near the tidewater oil field. Bring sunscreen, a hat or visor and two quarts of water for today's long beach walk. Dogs are not allowed on the beach."

Downtown Los Angeles has natural tar seeps (most famously, the La Brea Tar Pits seeps at Curzon and Wilshire). It's a part of the landscape.

[dalereed]

There’s a pretty small percentage of the population that were beach goers in So. California in the 40s and 50s that are still around.

Besides that no one gave a damn back then since environmentalists hadn’t been invented!

If we could get rid of the enviro nuts and use the oil in So. California on shore and off we vould supply the US for a few hundred years.

The main reason that the California wells have been shut down is taxes, which when added up from the ground to pump were 78% in 1954, the last year that it was quoated to me by the President of the independant oil producers of Calif. and VPs of Union Oil.

The crowning blow was the 10% wellhead tax that Carter put in in 74 that he called an excess profit tax.

Joe Shell, a friend of mine had 3 wildcat wells going and the day Carter put in that tax BofA who was financing them called him up and pulled his financing.

After that their attitude was that import the oil and let the Arabs pay the taxes and that someday they will take off the tax and the oil will be worth something.

He said that it might be his grand kids or great grand kids but that there wasn’t any reason to give most of it away to the government and only produce enough to make a good living.

[dalereed]

“Beachcombing at Goleta Point (posted June 6, 2002)”

By 2000 there wasn’t 10% of what it was in the mid 50s because of the oil rigs in the Santa Barbara channel reducing the natural flow.

In the 50s, no one but a stupid tourist would ever go to that beachQQ

[thecodont]

Before this is scrubbed: a tidbit from Geology.com:

http://geology.com/news/2009/natural-oil-seeps-gulf-of-mexico.shtml

Natural Oil Seeps: Gulf of Mexico
February 25, 2009 | NASA / Geology.com
Oil spills caused by humans almost always make big headlines but did you know that natural seeps contribute significant amounts of oil to the environment? Here is a pair of satellite images from NASA’s Earth Observatory that illustrate natural oil seeps.

Satellite image of natural oil seeps in the Gulf of Mexico by Jesse Allen, NASA. See zoomed-in below.

Satellite image of natural oil seeps in the Gulf of Mexico. Jesse Allen, NASA. See above for reference.

This was just last February--February 2009.