Recent disaster shows dangers of oil drilling in Gulf of Mexico

[seafan]

(Credit: Palm Beach Post)

.....
The cause of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and fire could turn out to have similarities with what unleashed an Australian blowout last year that spewed oil into the sea for 10 weeks. In that incident, downplayed by Florida drilling advocates as the result of a foreign country's inferior capabilities, workers apparently failed to correctly pump cement into a well as part of the plumbing that controls crude oil and natural gas.

.....

Magne Ognedal, director general of Norway's Petroleum Safety Authority, said industry and regulators coordinate more closely with workers than their U.S. counterparts do to prevent deaths, fires, explosion and spills.

"It's one complexity," Ognedal said. "When I use the term ‘safety,' I mean protection of people, protection of the external environment, and protection of the economic values." Link

This satellite image shows an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana following an oil rig explosion on April 21, 2010 (NASA)



An image taken from a NASA satellite on Sunday shows the Mississippi Delta on the tip of Louisiana at the center. The oil slick is a silvery swirl to the right. (NASA)



Debris and oil from the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform float in the Gulf of Mexico after the rig sank, off Louisiana.
Photo: Reuters



More from Kevin Spear at the Orlando Sentinel:


April 26, 2010

.....

"This is the nightmare scenario that we supporters of offshore oil and gas development dreaded and worked so hard to prevent," Elmer "Bud" Danenberger, recently retired chief of offshore regulatory programs for the Minerals Management Service, said in comments posted on his blog, Bud's Offshore Energy.

"Is the challenge of drilling deep beneath the Earth from a floating facility in thousands of feet of water too great to achieve the level of perfection that is necessary and expected? I don't think so, but we clearly have a lot of soul searching to do," said Danenberger of Reston, Va.

.....

Among the worst U.S. disasters, a rig 80 miles off the Louisiana coast suffered a blowout in 1964 that resulted in 21 deaths. In 1989, seven workers died when a natural-gas platform exploded. Last year, a helicopter carrying workers to a Shell Oil Co. rig crashed, killing eight.

.....

Norwegian offshore drillers keep as many as 9,000 workers on duty in waters that include the treacherous North Sea. There were six deaths from 1999 through 2008 and no deaths during five years of that period.

.....

An offshore rig is part factory, part ocean-going vessel and part warrior doing battle with the tremendous forces of oilfield geology. Rigs bore miles deep into the Earth's crust to pierce what can turn out to be a poisonous, corrosive, high-pressure pocket of petroleum.

The work takes place on structures towering hundreds of feet above the water, with tons of iron pipe and steel cable swinging overhead. Powerful engines and rigging can hoist a million pounds of well pipe at a time. Fatal accidents, according to MMS records, are often sudden and violent but also occur amid an extraordinary variety of circumstances, including fires or explosions that occur at a rate of twice a week.

.....

In the 1970s and 1980s, operators of drilling rigs put up posters of "Rufus the Roughneck," a cartoon worker explaining how to avoid danger. Since then, ensuring safety has become much more sophisticated.

Transocean, owner of the Deepwater Horizon, has required workers to put colored dots on their hardhats that, based on psychological tests, indicate personality types, as way to get workers to better communicate during emergencies.

.....

"Some of the new drilling rigs, they are basically operating and doing the drilling by controlling a joy stick and not having to physically be right there with the metal," Saucier (of MMS) said.

.....

Donald Rumsfeld liked his joy sticks as well.





LINK to diagrams of the direction of current flow in the Gulf of Mexico. The Florida Keys and the Atlantic coast are now at growing risk.


For YEARS, we have screamed and fought pitched battles against Republicans and their Big Oil buddies, who relentlessly push for drilling off our coastlines.

To witness what is happening now in the Gulf is nothing short of numbing, of both body and spirit.


Mr. President, you, also, need a different course of action.




(bold and color emphases added)

[seafan]

1. Crist says oil spill proves drilling isn't safe, withdraws his support

Marc Caputo, Mary Ellen Klas and Craig Pittman write in the St. Petersburg Times:

April 28, 2010

The oil spill spreading across the Gulf of Mexico is sending ripples through Florida and national politics, giving Gov. Charlie Crist a reason to withdraw his support for offshore drilling.

After a 90-minute plane flight Tuesday above the spill, which was spreading in an 80-mile by 42-mile blob, Crist said, "Clearly it could be devastating to Florida if something like that were to occur. It's the last thing in the world I would want to see happen in our beautiful state.''
He said there is no question now that lawmakers should give up on the idea of drilling off Florida's coast this year and in coming years. He has said previously he would support drilling if it was far enough from shore, safe enough and clean enough. He said the spill is proof that's not possible.

"Clearly that one isn't far enough and that's about 50 to 60 miles out, it's clearly not clean enough after we saw what we saw today — that's horrific — and it certainly isn't safe enough. It's the opposite of safe," Crist said.

Earlier in the day the Legislature's main advocate of drilling, incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon, R-Orlando, said the disaster had him asking questions.
"It causes me to want to examine what happened and how it could have been prevented, and we need to figure that out before we make any further decisions," said Cannon, who has proposed allowing rigs as close as 3 miles off Florida's beaches.

.....


And (Senator Bill Nelson) welcomed Crist back, after the governor in 2008 said he had become more open to the possibility of drilling off Florida. Nelson said he was "very glad the governor realized the realities of what an oil spill could do to the beaches of the Florida coast."

.....

In the meantime, landfall of the oil slick is expected by the weekend, while anxious residents in 4 states, along with pristine wetlands, marine habitat, bird habitat, fishermen's livelihoods and the health of all of these, hang in the balance.


We must NEVER allow this risk to continue.



The article concludes:

The marshes of southern Louisiana and Mississippi appear to face the most immediate risk from the spill because they are closest to it, oceanographers say. However, if the leaking oil drifts far enough east to get caught in the gulf's powerful loop current, it could wind up coating beaches in the Florida Keys and then be swept north along the state's Atlantic coast.

New Jersey Democratic Sens. Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg said the spill calls into question the credibility of safety claims by the oil industry. In a letter citing government figures, they said that since 2006 there have been 509 fires on rigs in the gulf, causing at least two fatalities and 12 serious injuries — all before Deepwater Horizon.
"Big Oil has perpetuated a dangerous myth that coastline drilling is a completely safe endeavor, but accidents like this are a sober reminder just how far that is from the truth," the two senators said.

Despite the spill, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Friday that President Barack Obama is still sticking to his plan to open up part of the eastern gulf and areas of the Atlantic seaboard to oil drilling.

[Dappleganger]

2. As much damage as this will do, I truly hope that good will come of it.

There are LOT of Floridians asking questions about this now. When they see the actual devastation it makes a world of difference.

[amborin]

3. K&R

[lonestarnot]

4. Too fucking late to argue now isn't it.

Now who pays for cleaning the shit up? Life can't be replaced.

[flyarm]

5. TThe eco system once destroyed can;t be replaced either! We all depend on that to live! eom

[seafan]

6. St. Pete Times: Oil spill opens minds to threat to Florida beaches (What say you, Mr. President?)

St. Petersburg Times editorial today:


Oil spill opens minds to threat to Florida beaches


April 28, 2010

Now Gov. Charlie Crist wants to rethink his views on oil drilling. Incoming House Speaker Dean Cannon wants to call time-out. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson wants a federal investigation. If it stops the rush to drill off Florida's beaches, there ultimately may be a silver lining in the huge oil slick heading for the Gulf Coast.

Cannon, R-Winter Park, and incoming Senate President Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne, have argued for two years that offshore drilling is safe — so safe that oil rigs should be allowed within 3 miles of the Florida coast. Now oil from last week's deadly explosion of the rig Deepwater Horizon has spread in an area 48 miles long and up to 80 miles wide, and where it lands depends upon the prevailing winds and ocean currents. It's less than 80 miles from Florida's Panhandle beaches, and it could wind up in the Florida Keys or the state's Atlantic Coast. That sort of threat is apparently what it takes to open the closed minds in Tallahassee.

The rig is relatively modern technology, owned by the largest offshore drilling contractor in the world. But the Coast Guard had no idea in the early hours after the April 20 blast that Deepwater was leaking oil. The fire caused the rig to sink; 11 crew members are missing and presumed dead. As of late Tuesday, efforts to seal the leak using submersible robots had failed. If industry leaders and the best equipment cannot prevent or contain a rig disaster offshore, then the technology is hardly safe. It certainly makes no sense to bring these operations even closer to Florida's beaches.

Politicians in Tallahassee and Washington now are scrambling to get out in front of this mess.

.....

In the short term, Florida and other coastal states can only hope for the best. In the long term, perhaps some minds will change. This disaster underscores that oil rigs do not need to be seen from shore to pose a threat to the coastal environment. There are no oil royalties worth risking the state's tourism industry and its beaches. Too bad it took 42,000 gallons of crude a day spilling into the gulf for Florida's leadership to contemplate that reality.

We are waiting for Obama to reverse his stance on offshore drilling and publicly announce it.

Anything short of that will not stand up to the harsh reality we are watching unfold off our coast by the hour.