Mystery blob eating downtown

[sabbat hunter]

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_3529716

from the LA daily news.

[The Witch]

1. The HELL?!

Monster movie!?

[file83]

72. Here is VIDEO of a news story on it:

http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_051181505.html

The video is in the upper right part of the the webpage. You can see water coming up through cracks in the street - the water looks dark and it's STEAMING!!! That means geo-thermal heat is causing that old oil bed to boil up. NOT GOOD.

[TygrBright]

2. Dang! I was hoping for pics of Steve McQueen... n/t

[mike_c]

3. this is HUGH!!11

:rofl:

[phantom power]

4. Wasn't there a Tommy Lee Jones movie that started a bit like that?

[expatriot]

35. Volcano.Yeah. my thoughts exactly. I got chils when reading this part:

While outside temperatures struggled to break 60, sidewalks in the vicinity steamed at 103 degrees, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Ron Myers said.

[MADem]

5. Wow, I got pictures--at first I thought this was a damn spoof!

http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_051181505.html

CBS) LOS ANGELES Residents of a downtown Los Angeles apartment building have been evacuated after oil began oozing into their basement, and out of cracks and manhole covers along their street.

Authorities say they think the problem occurred because workers at a petroleum drilling site two blocks away were shooting high pressure hot water into old wells to blast out leftover crude.

A bulge in the street (South Olive Street) began to subside and the oil seepage slowed when the Saint James Oil Company stopped pumping in the water.

Residents of the three-story apartment building say they began smelling a pungent odor shortly after midnight yesterday.....

More, and video, at the link!

[phantom power]

7. There's an oil well in downtown LA?

[MADem]

11. The apartment was built on an OIL FIELD!!!

It's 99 years old!!

Well, if oil companies are pumping water into citified locations in an effort to extract oil, I'd say we're pretty friken close to peak oil, eh???

[phantom power]

14. Why yes, one might be forgiven for thinking so :-)

[henslee]

41. As I understand it, when oil is pumped from the ground, it is replaced

by water... which does not have the same thickness and therefore is not as stable.

[Up2Late]

44. It has more to do with Oil being over $60 per barrel (and rising)

The L.A. Oil fields peaked in the 1930-40's.

And to the person you were replying to, Yes, if you look at pictures of L.A. in the 1930's and 40's, you'll see oil wells everywhere. I'm not sure when they started drilling for oil in L.A., but the La Brea Tar Pits were the tip off.


...When this photograph was taken around 1910, the location depicted was described as "the Salt Creek oilfields, 7 miles west of Los Angeles." Today, this spot is in the middle of downtown Los Angeles, eloquent testimony to urban sprawl...

<http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/quaternary/labrea.html>

[DavidMS]

68. Its no diffrent from the South Africans reprocessing mine trialings

That happen to be sitting in one of their major cities.

Unfortunately any sort of heavy industry or mining tends to have things like this occur (accadents). Best thing to do is to learn from the accadent, clean up and bill the company for it. Hopefully the company's insurance covers it, the building's insurance policy covers it and the Bush admin didn't exempt the practice from liability.

That said the sooner that we cut our oil consumption the better off we are.

Also early oil drilling opporations were known to have left quite of bit of oil in the ground.

[TX-RAT]

45. Used to be hundreds.

http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/la/historic/oil.html

[Roland99]

13. Ah...that seems to explain it.

[henslee]

30. Theat area is only about 5 miles from the La Brea tarpits.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

43. I was wondering...

It wouldn't be hot if it was just old crude being flushed out.

[TX-RAT]

46. Down hole temps in that area can run over 300 degrees.

[Up2Late]

50. They are injecting Hot Water into old oil wells to force what remains...

...up to the surface two blocks away.

Good thing Bush and his buddies are making those "Frivolous Law Suits" harder to bring for stuff like this, huh?

[LizW]

31. It's the oily aliens from the X-Files! n/t

[senaca]

38. Hydraulic Fracturing and environmental concerns

Someone in California might want to get in touch with Rep. Henry Waxman to see if the hydraulic fracturing used here used fracturing fluids containing a benzene mix.

http://democrats.reform.house.gov/features/politics_and _science/example_oil_and_gas.html

[senaca]

57. Above link and getting it to work

I'm terrible at trying to make links work, but after clicking on democrats.reform.house.gov
please look at the top for investigations and click on that and then click on environment. There has to be an easier way, but I don't know how to do it.

The above link is entitled "Research on Oil and Gas Practices".

The problem comes with the fracturing fluids that are used to hold open the area of rock that the water has fractured so that oil, coal etc can more easily be extracted. I'm not sure what the percentage of usage of fracturing fluids in hydraulic fracturing, but it would not hurt to see if the company used them or not. I'm sure someone more knowlegeable on this topic could better explain this and what the risk factors vs. non risk factors would be.

[BadGimp]

6. wtf!!

I am on 7th anf Fig :o

[ChairmanAgnostic]

8. remember: Klatu Baratas Nikto.

[Jose Diablo]

69. May Klato bless you and you be among the first eaten. n/t

[Megahurtz]

56. Hope you have a good raft

or something you can float on.:+

[Lone_Wolf]

9. I was expecting a picture of Rush Limbaugh or Karl Rove...

eating in a trendy LA restaurant...

[Roland99]

10. How close is that to the La Brea Tar Pits?

[shoelace414]

15. Wasn't that taken out by a Volcano?

I think Tommy Lee Jones saved the rest of LA tho'..

[Bridget Burke]

19. About 8.3 miles, according to MapQuest

There's tar bubbling up under several buildings in downtown LA.

[TygrBright]

12. Morons looking for oil pumping hot water into a disused oil field.

Halfwits, Inc. didn't find any new oil sources, but they discovered a world of trouble.

disgustedly,
Bright

[bluethruandthru]

16. Come listen to a story 'bout a man named Jed....

.....when up from the ground come a bubblin crude.. oil that is,

Sorry, couldn't help myself!

[VegasWolf]

17. Must be from that lab sample Bush knocked over. nt

[On the Road]

18. What a Joke -- This is No Mystery!

Listen to the news report:

The buildings are located over an old oilfield. Two blocks away, an oil company is pumping large amount of hot water into the ground trying to extract more oil. No wonder they have foul-smelling sludge coming out the manholes.

I guess it's more exciting for the TV stations to portray it as a mystery slime.

[phantom power]

26. The mystery is...

why are we trying to squeeze oil out of a 100-year-old oil field? That speaks to a level of desperation that not even I suspected.

[rodeodance]

48. ok--with the steam blasting in--this ooze has to come out somewhere.

got it.

[Warpy]

20. The Golgothan has been summoned!

Grab your cans of deodorizer and run for your lives!

[YOY]

33. LOL

[Up2Late]

51. Hey, I've never seen that picture of KKKarl Rove!

He's not very attractive. :evilgrin:

[underpants]

54. C.H.U.D.s!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:scared:

[Betsy Ross]

21. Aside from the humor, this is extremely serious.

Is the damage to buildings unrepairable? What is the long-term impact on utilities infrastructure? This could be very expensive for the drilling firm unless *Co signs an executive order absolving them from responsibility, because their efforts were in the interest of national security.

[951-Riverside]

22. Did they just say OIL?

I think Los Angeles may have nuclear ambitions!!!! :sarcasm:

[SaintLouisBlues]

23. I hear it is also invading the apartment of Barton Fink

Interfering with his ability to come up with wrestling scenarios

[Whoa_Nelly]

24. Could this be a precursor to an earthquake?

just wonderin'...
:popcorn:

[htuttle]

66. Wondered the same thing

[savemefromdumbya]

25. The war of the worlds!

first sight of aliens?

[InternalDialogue]

27. Who ya gonna call?

[LiberalEsto]

62. SLIME busters! nt

[hedgehog]

28. Reminds me of the vacant lot down the street from grandma's

Grandpa always warned us not to play down ther because it was actually an old mine shaft. This was in th middle of a suburb, but Grandpa remembered when!

[DBoon]

29. Tour the Urban Oil Fields of Los Angeles

http://www.laspe.org/URBANOILFIELDSTOUR.htm

"A field trip for petroleum engineers, geologists and science teachers.

Thursday July 26, 2001

Presented by the Los Angeles Basin Section of the

Society of Petroleum Engineers"

No pics on the Web site, dang! there is actually an oil well on the property of Beverly Hills High School.

[DBoon]

36. The oil well at Beverly Hills High School

in all its floral glory:

[Up2Late]

52. Is that true?

Did they just leave an old Oil Derrick and let them add the "floral glory." Before you laugh at the idea, L.A. did have a LOT of Oil Wells back in the 1930's

[DBoon]

60. It is a real, producing well

and the school district get royalties from it.

[MGKrebs]

32. That is f***ed up.

That company better be made to pay up. They have breached the sewers! They wrecked that building, displaced a bunch of people, and caused a huge cleanup and repair.

If you or I did something like that, we would be in JAIL, and paying somebody money for the rest of our lives. They must be made to be responsible to that community. Companies cannot be allowed to think they can do this kind of thing with little or no consequences. They have to learn to think twice BEFORE they do stupid shit. It is not our responsibility to prove what they did was stupid, it is THEIR responsibility to prove what they were going to do was safe. And the state should freeze all their assests right now so they don't disappear before the bankruptcy.

Do they even own the property they were pumping into?

[flvegan]

40. Probably owns (or leases) the oil and mineral rights and therefore

can probably do this all they want.

[Up2Late]

53. They'll have to file what Bush and the RW call a "frivolous law suit"

Frist probably owns stock in the company or has passed an exception already to protect corporations doing this sort of crap.

[Demeter]

34. Revenge of the LaBrea Tar Pits!

Ghastly!

[NorthernSpy]

42. tomorrow's fossils!

That might be the fate of anyone unfortunate enough to end up snared in the blob's tarry embrace...

:think:

When I was a kid, we had a copy of a National Geographic volume titled Our Continent. The stuff about the la Brea tarpits used to freak me out pretty badly. There was this picture. I didn't see why that saber-toothed tiger didn't just climb onto the back of that elephant-type thing and jump out of the pit. It looked as though he at least still had a shot.

I dunno. It just made me feel really bad for all those animals that got stuck in the goo.


Anyway, best of luck to all who are menaced by the current blob!

[Tummler]

37. In a related story, Daryn Kagan has dumped Rush for the mystery blob

The blob is more charming and has a better odor.

[onehandle]

39. Only if the blob has a better chance of furthering her career.

Then she'll be on it like stink on.....

[rodeodance]

47. well, does not appear to be "texas tea"

.... "We were called back because there was a gooey substance, a tarry-type substance, coming out the underground electrical vaults, out of manhole covers in the street, through the sidewalks and possibly in one older apartment building," Myers said.

[reprobate]

49. Is this in any way related to "The Breast that Ate Milwaukee"?

[William Seger]

55. Well, Bush** did say we were on the "verge of an energy breakthrough"

[Megahurtz]

58. Oh No! IT'S REAL!

[Buck Turgidson]

59. It was a double feature...

"The Blob" and "The Fly" together.

1958 -- Baytown, Texas.

I still have nightmares!

[OldLeftieLawyer]

61. You, too?

When "The Blob" creature finally started bubbling out, my little girlfriend, Rosemary Martinelli, screamed out, "It looks like my Mom's sauce!"

Black-and-white was SO much scarier.

[eppur_se_muova]

71. AHA! No wait...that's "Earl Rowe", not "Carl Rove". nt

[sakabatou]

63. The BLOB!

[IndianaGreen]

64. LA Times: Oil Buckles Street and Damages Building

Oil Buckles Street and Damages Building

Apartments are evacuated after a nearby petroleum operation apparently causes black goo to bubble up from underground.

By Bob Pool, Times Staff Writer

They struck oil Monday at an apartment house in downtown Los Angeles. But residents were not in a celebratory mood.

The black, tar-like substance that oozed into the basement of the three-story Iris Apartments forced authorities to red-tag the 99-year-old building and evacuate its 130 occupants.

The 1200 block of South Olive Street was also shut down when its pavement suddenly began to bulge and the oily liquid bubbled from cracks and manhole covers.

Families grabbed what they could and fled to a parking lot across the street from the brick apartment building and watched as Department of Water and Power, Gas Co. and city sanitation workers huddled with police and firefighters trying to figure out where the steaming-hot liquid was coming from.

By midafternoon South Olive Street seemed ready to deliver a gusher.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ooze21feb21,0,5594636.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[yasmina27]

65. I thought it was Karl Rove!

Until I saw the article :)

[cmutt]

67. This just in: Bush ok's drilling in downtown LA (nm)

[neuvocat]

70. He has to invade LA now.

He will make a special address to the american people to let them know that the residents of LA need to be liberated from the liberal fringe dictatorship.