More on the oil spill 6/25/10

Po Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Greasy Kid Stuff
Or
So Who's Counting?
Okay, now it’s over two months and the oil is still vomiting into the Gulf of Mexico as rapidly and at such a great rate and in such the volume as it ever has or ever will. It, the oil, is spewing out of the well at such a rate that there is now oil within the oil and more oil to come and the toxic rain of oil and dispersants to follow.
Yes, we have rumors abounding here in River City and all that oil to back them up. Over 1,250,000 gallons of dispersant laid out over and under the spill, the reports posing as rumors posing as reports ask us to consider that this dispersant when warmed will become acid rain that will affect the east coast of the country as well as us here; and the effects will be with us for years if not decades. Some fun, eh?
How many gallons of oil in a barrel? Forty-two. How many barrels have been noted as gushing into the Gulf? BP says that the flow rate was never important; “its focus is stopping flow, not estimating it, exec says” –our newspaper further goes on to say that “estimates have steadily grown- starting at zero in the wake of the spill, and inching up to an early estimate of 1,000 barrels per day, then 5,000 and most recently up to 60,000 barrels a day” !!!!!!!
Pilgrim, that’s over two and a half million gallons a day. Want to see that in numbers? 2,520,000 GALLONS A DAY!!!
If you want to measure that in the familiar size of the quart of oil that you put in your engine to keep it running smoothly…. How does ten million of those puppies sound? Ten million quarts per day.
You’re probably not privy to be close enough to get accurate information because the press is not allowed within five miles of the site; however, if you worked in a restaurant and a couple instances of off duty Coast Guarders in uniform were to tell you that you have absolutely no clue as to the extent of the spill, it might give you great pause. You may ask yourself ‘where is that ten million quarts of oil a day going?’
The answer, of course is, it aint going nowhere but up our coasts, in our marshes, on our beaches and even some into the air that we breath. It’s killing organisms from the microscopic to the sea porpoises and turtles and air birds and nesting sites and it goes on and on. And BP never considered the flow rate important?
On the news earlier this week a reporter broadcast from five miles away and added to his report that even at that distance it was difficult to breath.
What BP IS interested in is capturing and processing oil from the well and there in lies the rub. When we asked why we couldn’t just blow the sucker up we were told that if we damaged to well it may just fall apart and explode with oil, for years into the waters. Hmmmm. What is more prudent, they told us, since nothing else has worked, is to wait (and wait and wait) for the relief wells to be completed. Then they will be able to capture it all, if it works, and it’ll be back to business as usual.
In the meantime, there is hue and cry against a moratorium on deep-water exploration and drilling for more oil costing jobs and I suppose if we can no longer put our fishermen to work we might as well put the offshore drilling teams to work and damn the consequences.
Do you know about Nigeria where this type of spill is commonplace and that protesters are beaten and sometimes lose their lives, all thanks to Shell Oil Company?
Are you following this at all or is the oil crimes and criminality only dredging up in your mind a ‘better in their yard than mine’ attitude?
Here’s what I’d like you to do for me: go purchase a quart of oil, the same kind that you put in your car engine, and pour it into your bathtub which you’ve filled with water. Now picture yourself cleaning that up ten million times a day. What, you say that you cannot do that all in a day? Well, give some to your neighbor to clean up and his neighbor and the cute couple that has just moved in across the street. Would you believe that you could give everybody that lives in New York City that task and still have enough to put the entire city of New Orleans to work also... every day. Think if it then as BP thinks of it; it’s not 10,000,000 quarts a day, it’s not even 2,520.000 gallons a day. It’s 60,000 barrels a day, except that it might be 35,000 barrels a day or maybe there is so much oil going into our life, livelihood and lives than we could never hope to shake a stick at it. BP has not considered that worth measuring.
Here’s more from the Times Picayune: “Ultimately, the flow rate will be important to the company, whether it wants to focus on it or not. The federal government is charged with imposing fines under various environmental laws on parties responsible for spills, and those fines will be based on total barrels spilled and range from $1,100.00 to m$4,300.00 per barrel.” Maybe it is time for them to count the barrels, what do you think?
And, this in the other day, one of their little robot submarines ran into the little thingy that was in place to capture spewing oil and knocked it off so that the flow of oil was unabated.
Oh, I tell you, it’s a barrel of laughs down here, or is that forty-two gallons?
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