Gulf Oil Spill ‘Could Go Years’ If Not Dealt With

Lamarr

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The Obama Administration and senior BP officials are frantically working not to stop the world’s worst oil disaster, but to hide the true extent of the actual ecological catastrophe. Senior researchers tell us that the BP drilling hit one of the oil migration channels and that the leakage could continue for years unless decisive steps are undertaken, something that seems far from the present strategy.

In a recent discussion, Vladimir Kutcherov, Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and the Russian State University of Oil and Gas, predicted that the present oil spill flooding the Gulf Coast shores of the United States “could go on for years and years … many years.” [1]

According to Kutcherov, a leading specialist in the theory of abiogenic deep origin of petroleum, “What BP drilled into was what we call a ‘migration channel,’ a deep fault on which hydrocarbons generated in the depth of our planet migrate to the crust and are accumulated in rocks, something like Ghawar in Saudi Arabia.” [2] Ghawar, the world’s most prolific oilfield has been producing millions of barrels daily for almost 70 years with no end in sight. According to the abiotic science, Ghawar like all elephant and giant oil and gas deposits all over the world, is located on a migration channel similar to that in the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.

As I wrote at the time of the January 2010 Haiti earthquake disaster, [3] Haiti had been identified as having potentially huge hydrocarbon reserves, as has neighboring Cuba. Kutcherov estimates that the entire Gulf of Mexico is one of the planet’s most abundant accessible locations to extract oil and gas, at least before the Deepwater Horizon event this April.

“In my view the heads of BP reacted with panic at the scale of the oil spewing out of the well,” Kutcherov adds. “What is inexplicable at this point is why they are trying one thing, failing, then trying a second, failing, then a third. Given the scale of the disaster they should try every conceivable option, even if it is ten, all at once in hope one works. Otherwise, this oil source could spew oil for years given the volumes coming to the surface already.” [4]

He stresses, “It is difficult to estimate how big this leakage is. There is no objective information available.” But taking into consideration information about the last BP ‘giant’ discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, the Tiber field, some six miles deep, Kutcherov agrees with Ira Leifer a researcher in the Marine Science Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara who says the oil may be gushing out at a rate of more than 100,000 barrels a day. [5]

What the enormity of the oil spill does is to also further discredit clearly the oil companies’ myth of “peak oil” which claims that the world is at or near the “peak” of economical oil extraction. That myth, which has been propagated in recent years by circles close to former oilman and Bush Vice President, Dick Cheney, has been effectively used by the giant oil majors to justify far higher oil prices than would be politically possible otherwise, by claiming a non-existent petroleum scarcity crisis.

Obama & BP Try to Hide

According to a report from Washington investigative journalist Wayne Madsen, “the Obama White House and British Petroleum are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP’s liability for damage caused by what can be called a ‘mega-disaster.’” [6] Madsen cites sources within the US Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, and Florida Department of Environmental Protection for his assertion.

Obama and his senior White House staff, as well as Interior Secretary Salazar, are working with BP’s chief executive officer Tony Hayward on legislation that would raise the cap on liability for damage claims from those affected by the oil disaster from $75 million to $10 billion. According to informed estimates cited by Madsen, however, the disaster has a real potential cost of at least $1,000 billion ($1 trillion). That estimate would support the pessimistic assessment of Kutcherov that the spill, if not rapidly controlled, “will destroy the entire coastline of the United States.”

According to Madsen’s Washington report, BP statements that one of the leaks has been contained, are “pure public relations disinformation designed to avoid panic and demands for greater action by the Obama administration, according to FEMA and Corps of Engineers sources.” [7]

The White House has been resisting releasing any “damaging information” about the oil disaster. Coast Guard and Corps of Engineers experts estimate that if the ocean oil geyser is not stopped within 90 days, there will be irreversible damage to the marine eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico, north Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. At best, some Corps of Engineers experts say it could take two years to cement the chasm on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. [8]

Only after the magnitude of the disaster became evident did Obama order Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano to declare the oil disaster a “national security issue.” Although the Coast Guard and FEMA are part of her department, Napolitano’s actual reasoning for invoking national security, according to Madsen, was merely to block media coverage of the immensity of the disaster that is unfolding for the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and their coastlines.

The Obama administration also conspired with BP to hide the extent of the oil leak, according to the cited federal and state sources. After the oil rig exploded and sank, the government stated that 42,000 gallons per day were gushing from the seabed chasm. Five days later, the federal government upped the leakage to 210,000 gallons a day. However, submersibles monitoring the escaping oil from the Gulf seabed are viewing television pictures of what they describe as a “volcanic-like” eruption of oil.

When the Army Corps of Engineers first attempted to obtain NASA imagery of the Gulf oil slick, which is larger than is being reported by the media, it was reportedly denied the access. By chance, National Geographic managed to obtain satellite imagery shots of the extent of the disaster and posted them on their web site. Other satellite imagery reportedly being withheld by the Obama administration, shows that what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public, according to Madsen’s sources.

The Corps of Engineers and FEMA are reported to be highly critical of the lack of support for quick action after the oil disaster by the Obama White House and the US Coast Guard. Only now has the Coast Guard understood the magnitude of the disaster, dispatching nearly 70 vessels to the affected area. Under the loose regulatory measures implemented by the Bush-Cheney Administration, the US Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service became a simple “rubber stamp,” approving whatever the oil companies wanted in terms of safety precautions that could have averted such a disaster. Madsen describes a state of “criminal collusion” between Cheney’s former firm, Halliburton, and the Interior Department’s MMS, and that the potential for similar disasters exists with the other 30,000 off-shore rigs that use the same shut-off valves. [9]

Silence from Eco groups?... Follow the money

Without doubt at this point we are in the midst of what could be the greatest ecological catastrophe in history. The oil platform explosion took place almost within the current loop where the Gulf Stream originates. This has huge ecological and climatological consequences.

A cursory look at a map of the Gulf Stream shows that the oil is not just going to cover the beaches in the Gulf, it will spread to the Atlantic coasts up through North Carolina then on to the North Sea and Iceland. And beyond the damage to the beaches, sea life and water supplies, the Gulf stream has a very distinct chemistry, composition (marine organisms), density, temperature. What happens if the oil and the dispersants and all the toxic compounds they create actually change the nature of the Gulf Stream? No one can rule out potential changes including changes in the path of the Gulf Stream, and even small changes could have huge impacts. Europe, including England, is not an icy wasteland due to the warming from the Gulf Stream.

Yet there is a deafening silence from the very environmental organizations which ought to be at the barricades demanding that BP, the US Government and others act decisively.

That deafening silence of leading green or ecology organizations such as Greenpeace, Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club and others may well be tied to a money trail that leads right back to the oil industry, notably to BP. Leading environmental organizations have gotten significant financial payoffs in recent years from BP in order that the oil company could remake itself with an “environment-friendly face,” as in “beyond petroleum” the company’s new branding.

The Nature Conservancy, described as “the world’s most powerful environmental group,” [10] has awarded BP a seat on its International Leadership Council after the oil company gave the organization more than $10 million in recent years. [11]

Until recently, the Conservancy and other environmental groups worked with BP in a coalition that lobbied Congress on climate-change issues. An employee of BP Exploration serves as an unpaid Conservancy trustee in Alaska. In addition, according to a recent report published by the Washington Post, Conservation International, another environmental group, has accepted $2 million in donations from BP and worked with the company on a number of projects, including one examining oil-extraction methods. From 2000 to 2006, John Browne, then BP’s chief executive, sat on the CI board.

Further, The Environmental Defense Fund, another influential ecologist organization, joined with BP, Shell and other major corporations to form a Partnership for Climate Action, to promote ‘market-based mechanisms’ to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Environmental non-profit groups that have accepted donations from or joined in projects with BP include Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club and Audubon. That could explain why the political outcry to date for decisive action in the Gulf has been so muted. [12]

Of course those organizations are not going to be the ones to solve this catastrophe. The central point at this point is who is prepared to put the urgently demanded federal and international scientific resources into solving this crisis. Further actions of the likes of that from the Obama White House to date or from BP can only lead to the conclusion that some very powerful people want this debacle to continue. The next weeks will be critical to that assessment.
 
Your credibility is shit!

Another corporatist oil company whore.

don't know how to respond, huh?

Can't admit the oil companies fund Greenpeace, Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club & all these other "green" ecological groups, huh?

Can't admit BP is lobbying Congress on behalf of climate-change initiatives, huh?
 
don't know how to respond, huh?

Can't admit the oil companies fund Greenpeace, Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club & all these other "green" ecological groups, huh?

Can't admit BP is lobbying Congress on behalf of climate-change initiatives, huh?


You must live in Bizarro world. You're mister anti government regulations. You're the one that defends capitalism. I view it as a necessary evil. You support Dick Armey's Freedom Works, which is bought and paid for by the corporations. I would have all corporations banned from lobbying the government.
 
You must live in Bizarro world. You're mister anti government regulations. You're the one that defends capitalism. I view it as a necessary evil. You support Dick Armey's Freedom Works, which is bought and paid for by the corporations. I would have all corporations banned from lobbying the government.

:lol: Dawg, you can't refute none of these facts so you try to discredit me? GTFOH! I support capitalism, not corporatism, understand the difference pimp! Let me leave you with this fact

Obama Voted For 2005 Bush / Cheney Energy Bill
 
Did you even read the article? A yes or no will suffice.


Yes!

I'm not disputing the facts of the article. My point is Lamarr's duty from the right is to deflect big oil capitalists of their responsibility of environmental terrorism and try and pin it on Obama. In actuality it is the so called free markets fault. This is exactly what happens when you have weak or no regulations.
 
Ghawar, the world’s most prolific oilfield has been producing millions of barrels daily for almost 70 years with no end in sight
Damn, that's scary:(
 
Yes!

I'm not disputing the facts of the article. My point is Lamarr's duty from the right is to deflect big oil capitalists of their responsibility of environmental terrorism and try and pin it on Obama. In actuality it is the so called free markets fault. This is exactly what happens when you have weak or no regulations.

huh?

you just continue to prove my points: It's not the facts you can't handle, It's ME!

What you need to admit is both sides, Repubs & Dems, was in BP's pockets. BP, and other multi-national corps have an agenda, and they use these sellout politicians to fulfill there agendas! Whatever you may think, we the people, will ultimately pay for this catastrophe. Whenever you have corporations working in collusion with govts to stifle the people, that my friend, is called FACISM.

Of course you'll take the issue and blame it on capitalism, instead of where it needs to be: Negligence on behalf of BP & inactivity on behalf of the govt :smh:
 
Yes!

I'm not disputing the facts of the article. My point is Lamarr's duty from the right is to deflect big oil capitalists of their responsibility of environmental terrorism and try and pin it on Obama.


Obama helped the same big oil capitalist that youre typing about.
 
huh?

you just continue to prove my points: It's not the facts you can't handle, It's ME!

What you need to admit is both sides, Repubs & Dems, was in BP's pockets. BP, and other multi-national corps have an agenda, and they use these sellout politicians to fulfill there agendas! Whatever you may think, we the people, will ultimately pay for this catastrophe. Whenever you have corporations working in collusion with govts to stifle the people, that my friend, is called FACISM.

Of course you'll take the issue and blame it on capitalism, instead of where it needs to be: Negligence on behalf of BP & inactivity on behalf of the govt :smh:

In your attempt to try and blame Obama for this we all know who is on the side of the big oil.



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Presto, chango, abracadabra 75% of the oil has disappeared! :)

"Throughout this whole thing, I feel — and a lot of those people feel down here — that BP was dictating [to] the United States government what to do," he said. "BP dictated [to] the FAA who could fly over the site. BP dictated to the Coast Guard and Thad Allen which boats can come and go. And BP dictated [to] the EPA — the EPA sent a letter to BP saying we have serious concerns about your dispersant, Corexit. They sent back [one] saying, we're going to use it anyway. So BP's been running things."

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`

Now that the blownout well has been capped and the media frenzy has waned, what were the facts in the alarmist article?

QueEx
 

Congress AWOL on BP spill response​



110414_menendez_landrieu_murkowski_oilslick_boxer_hastings_begich_ap_605.jpg


Partisan politics, a lack of focus and a forgetful public are all part of the problem. | AP Photos



p o l i t i c o
By DARREN GOODE
April 15, 2011


With next week marking the one-year anniversary of the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig and massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill that ensued, here’s the obvious question: Where’s Congress?

Lawmakers are nowhere close to responding to a disaster that killed 11 workers and spewed an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil in the Gulf.

Nowhere close may in fact be kind.

Partisan politics held up any action last year, as Democrats looked to find a way to use the BP spill to move broader energy legislation while Republicans and Gulf state lawmakers complained about a ban on deepwater drilling.

With a big-picture energy bill unlikely in 2011, lawmakers are now pulling each other in different directions. The priority for some, especially in Gulf states, is to divert fines toward restoration efforts along the coastline. Others want to raise the liability cap for companies. And still others want to ensure offshore oil drilling will continue and expand.

One year later, the nation may have also simply forgotten what happened.

"The explosion, the deaths, just the real tragedy that went on with that, the nation was fixated on what was happening in the Gulf of Mexico as we watched on our TVs, as we read about the efforts to plug that hole,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told POLITICO.

“And then they find success and they plug the well and the cleanup continues and no longer is this incident in the news," she added. "And then, it seems like the pressure is off of us here in the Congress to act legislatively.”

Also helping distract Congress was the oil industry's response in D.C. to the spill, despite the constant pictures of oil flowing from the Macondo well.

“The oil industry as a whole actually seemed to react pretty well after a stumble out of the gate,” a former Clinton White House official and expert on energy public relations said last month. “They were slow to understand the implications after the first week or two, but once they [did], they seemed to get on top of the situation.”

BP also agreed, after White House pressure, to a $20 billion claims fund for victims of the spill, along with the company’s heavy advertising and hands-on presence in the Gulf.

“Unfortunately, the oil industry is very powerful here, and, you know, they worked very hard at preventing the type of effort we want to move forward on,” said offshore drilling critic Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.). “But we have not given up on it. We still believe it is necessary.”

On a mostly party-line basis, the House last summer passed spill-related legislation that would have, among other things, removed a $75 million per spill liability cap for companies, but the Senate never acted before the big Republican wins in November. Menendez, Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska) continue to haggle over how to do it as to not price smaller, independent companies out of the market due to higher insurance costs.


Landrieu is also working with senators in all five Gulf states on enacting the recommendation from President Barack Obama’s spill commission that 80 percent of Clean Water Act penalties go to long-term restoration of the Gulf. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has backed the idea as well.

Such a bill would “score” a cost to the federal government and the hope is to drive it through Congress before BP reaches any settlement with the federal government worth billions of dollars and create a greater amount of needed offsets in a bill.


“If BP settled tomorrow and said we’re going to pay you $10 billion … the score is what they settled for. It’s unspeculative, it’s known revenue” that would be diverted for Gulf restoration, a Landrieu aide said. “So there is a sense of urgency.”

The amount of money would be based on the official amount spilled into the Gulf. BP would pay $1,100 a barrel if the company is found to be guilty of simple negligence by a federal court, or $4,300 a barrel if found to be grossly negligent, a potential difference of many billions of dollars.

“We have two major issues, they’re not easy issues, they’re huge issues,” Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) told POLITICO. “I’d rather take time and get a bipartisan deal done rather than having a vote in our committee and it’s Democrats versus Republicans and they hold it up on the floor."

House Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) dissed last year's late summer party-line vote. “I think it was more of a rush to, OK, let’s get something out there when not everything was known,” he said.

Landrieu pointed to the Obama administration's decision to suspend deepwater drilling permits in the wake of the spill last summer as poisoning the well with Congress.

“Had the president not put a blanket moratorium on the situation, we would be a lot further along on legislation,” Landrieu told POLITICO. “But that blanket moratorium caused so much trouble and so much angst and so much anger along the entire Gulf Coast that now people have almost … forgotten the impacts of the spill because the impacts of the moratorium have been so devastating.”

It took Congress about 17 months to respond when the Exxon Valdez oil tanker hit a reef and dumped 11 million gallons of crude oil (about 262,000 barrels) into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in March 1989.

Congress eventually passed the 1990 Oil Pollution Act — sweeping legislation requiring companies to take steps to prevent spills and to develop detailed containment and cleanup plans. It also included the $75 million liability cap that the House last year voted to repeal.


That bill also only moved after some strange bedfellows — including Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young and Northeastern Democrats crafted a deal.

Young said the Exxon Valdez and Gulf spills are different and that he is not surprised at all that Congress is no closer to a deal this time.


“No one has the answers yet. They don’t know really what happened” in the Gulf, he said. With Valdez, “We knew exactly what happened."

“Right now if we do something that doesn’t make sense for political reasons I think it is the wrong move to make,” he said. “I’d rather take our time to make sure we can do it right.”

Hastings has stressed a desire to wait for the other pending investigations to finish. “We want to make sure that whatever we do, we do with the best information that we have,” he said. “And we haven’t gotten all the investigations.”

A joint Interior Department and Coast Guard investigation is still examining, among other things, the blowout preventer that failed to keep the Macondo well from rupturing. That investigation team — unlike the president’s commission — has access to forensics evidence related to the blowout preventer.

But Hastings went ahead Wednesday with a trio of bills aimed at making the administration quickly consider permits that were suspended when the Gulf spill occurred and address drilling elsewhere, most notably along the Arctic and Atlantic coastlines.

Obama’s spill commission also called on Congress to act on several items before the other probes are completed. That included setting up an independent office within the Interior Department to oversee offshore drilling safety, with a director similar to the FBI director in the Justice Department.
Interior — undertaking its own reorganization designed to separate safety and environmental enforcement actions from that of leasing decisions and royalty collection — has been cool to that idea.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Tuesday said the lack of a major congressional response to the spill is not hampering the department's efforts to continue rolling out new offshore safety, technical and other reforms moving forward.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman has said he wants to quickly move legislation to ensure Interior "has the authority and resources they need to maintain proper regulation of oil and gas drilling on the outer continental shelf."





http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/53240_Page3.html
 
<font size="5"><center>
Deepwater trouble on the horizon: </font size><font size="4">

oil discovered floating near source of Gulf of Mexico spill</font size></center>


9926511-standard.jpg

Oil bubbles to the surface of the Gulf of Mexico within one mile northeast of BP's Macondo well on August 23,
2011. (Press-Register/Jeff Dute)



MOBILE, Alabama -- Oil is once again fouling the Gulf of Mexico around the Deepwater Horizon well, which was capped a little over a year ago.

Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of small, circular patches of oily sheen dotted the surface within a mile of the wellhead. With just a bare sheen present over about a quarter-mile, the scene was a far cry from the massive slick that covered the Gulf last summer.

Floating in a boat near the well site, Press-Register reporters watched blobs of oil rise to the surface and bloom into iridescent yellow patches. Those patches quickly expanded into rainbow sheens 4 to 5 feet across.

Each expanding bloom released a pronounced and pungent petroleum smell. Most of the oil was located in a patch about 50 yards wide and a quarter of a mile long.

The source of the oil was unclear, but a chemical analysis by Louisiana State University scientists confirmed that it was a sweet Louisiana crude, and could possibly be from BP PLC’s well.


The oil could be flowing from a natural seep on the seafloor near the wellhead, experts said. Other possibilities include oil trapped within the wreckage of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, or oil deposited on the bottom during the spill that is slowly working its way to the surface.


<SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">The most troubling possibility, according to petroleum engineers, is that oil is leaking up through the seafloor surrounding the sealed well pipe</span>.


BP DENIAL

Last week, in response to Internet postings by lawyers and environmental groups describing a leak, BP issued a blanket denial, stating, “None of this is true.”

Subsequently, the Gulf Restoration Network and Bonny Schumaker with On Wings of Care took aerial photographs of circles of oil floating in the area Friday. The group filed a report with the National Response Center, the federal clearinghouse for pollution incidents. ¶


“We stand by what we said last week, neither BP nor the Coast Guard has seen any scientific evidence that oil is leaking from the Macondo well, which was permanently sealed almost a year ago,” BP spokesman Justin Saia wrote in an emailed statement Wednesday. “We welcome the opportunity to test any hydrocarbon sheens detected in the area of the well.”

U.S. Coast Guard officials said Wednesday that the earlier reports were investigated by flying over the site.

The Coast Guard determined that the reported sheens resulted from “natural seeps” and permitted pollution releases at other oil drilling sites. Coast Guard officials did not elaborate when asked how those determinations were made, and said that no boats had visited the well location since the reports were filed.

“I think the primary source with high probability is associated with the Macondo well,” said Robert Bea, an internationally prominent petroleum engineer and professor emeritus at the Berkeley campus of the University of California. Bea responded to Press-Register questions via email after examining photographs taken by the newspaper.

“Perhaps connections that developed between the well annulus (outside the casing), the reservoir sands about 17,000 feet below the seafloor, and the natural seep fault features” could provide a pathway for oil to move from deep underground to the seafloor, Bea said.

“Looks suspicious. The point of surfacing about 1 mile from the well is about the point that the oil should show up, given the seafloor at 5,000 feet ... natural circulation currents would cause the drift,” Bea said. “A Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) could be used to ‘back track’ the oil that is rising to the surface to determine the source. This should be a first order of business to confirm the source.”

Oil analysis

Samples collected by the newspaper Tuesday were provided to Scott Miles, a chemist at LSU. Together with oil chemist Ed Overton, Miles conducted the chemical analysis that federal officials used to fingerprint the Deepwater Horizon oil — known as MC252.

“Looking at the fingerprinting, the samples were low concentration, so it is not giving a real good picture. It is possible it could be MC252. It’s south Louisiana crude for sure,” said Miles. “You can’t say 100 percent that it is from the spill itself, but they do need to get somebody out there to investigate further.”

Miles said he could smell the oil in the samples as soon as he opened the jars.

“The fact that it is right over the Macondo well site is pretty tantalizing,” said Overton, who was one of the first people contacted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration after the spill began in April 2010.

“There is no way to say for sure whether the well is leaking, based on what is on the surface,” he said. “Of course it is suspicious.”

Overton noted that a number of natural seeps had been found within 12 miles of the well, and that those nearest the well would bear a similar chemical signature.

Phillip Johnson, author of the Standard Handbook of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering and a professor at the University of Alabama, said that photographs from the site were intriguing, but it appeared that a fairly small amount of oil was reaching the surface.

“There are two broad categories you would consider. One is leakage, and two is residual oil. I’d say leakage is pretty unlikely. That would imply that the seal on that well — which is about 5,000 feet of cement — failed. That’s unlikely,” Johnson said. “Then you think of residual oil that might be present in the 5,000 feet of riser pipe that wound up on the bottom. Large amounts of the platform ended up on the bottom. Those things could have oil in them that is slowly working its way to the high points and floating out.”

Riser pipe connected the well to the Deepwater Horizon rig on the surface. Neither the pipe nor the rig has been salvaged.

Johnson also suggested that heavier fractions of oil may have settled to the bottom during the spill. Over time, as bacteria degrade oil on the seafloor, the lighter fractions might be released and float to the surface, he said.

The Press-Register reporters located the area where the oil was rising to the surface by going to a point directly over the Macondo well and then moving in the direction of the prevailing surface current. The first blobs of oil seen on the surface were detected about a half-mile from the well. The frequency of the sightings increased gradually over the next half-mile.

In the Olympic swimming pool-sized area where the oil was rising most frequently, new sheens were erupting every few seconds on all sides of the 36-foot boat.

Marcus Kennedy, who piloted his fishing boat, the Kwazar, 115 miles from Dauphin Island to the well site, said he was stunned by the heavy petroleum scent in the air. A nearby data buoy recorded winds of less than 2 mph at the time.

Mahi-mahi and blue runners were schooling in the area. In the distance, yellowfin and blackfin tuna could be seen churning the water to a froth as they attacked bait. A 40-foot whale shark also surfaced in the area.






http://blog.al.com/live/2011/08/deepwater_trouble_on_the_horiz.html

 
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