Disasters of the Past, Present, and Future

Arrest For Filming Oil Spill, BY BP CONTRACTORS: BP's Rules, NOT OURS [A Third Of The Waters]

2010-07-17T21:59:00.002-07:00

Maximum Chaos: BP Doesn't CARE About Cleaning The OIL SPILL. Neighter does OBAMA

2010-07-17T20:24:00.000-07:00

BP OIL RIG DISASTER HALIBURTON SABOTAGED THE RIG -ILLUMINATI WARS- CHENEY VS BEATRIX

2010-07-08T22:25:00.000-07:00

NASA | Satellites View Growing Gulf Oil Spill

2010-07-07T23:59:00.000-07:00

World War 3

2010-07-03T18:25:00.000-07:00

Disclose.tv - Secret World War 3 2010 Leaked Illuminati New Worl Video

Leaked BP memo gives far worse spill figure

2010-06-22T19:26:00.000-07:00

Gulf Disaster Pictures: Disturbing Facts

2010-06-19T13:05:00.000-07:00

A breached well has been pouring oil into the Gulf of Mexico for two months now. Nonstop. According to the Associated Press, as much as 125 million gallons may have flowed so far. (Yahoo! News has a roundup of weekend developments. And continuous updates on the story, often many a day, are available from AP and from Reuters.)

[Photos: See hundreds more images from the oil spill]

Over the weekend, drilling crews raced to build relief wells and Gulf Coast residents were infuriated by reports of BP CEO Tony Hayward attending a yachting competition. BP — which leased the oil rig that exploded April 20, killing 11 workers — pledged last week to set up a $20 billion fund to help relieve people whose businesses and lives have been affected by the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

With an earthquake or tornado, the damage is immediately evident. But the oil spill isn't like that. Officials can't survey the damage and begin rebuilding. The oil keeps coming and coming, and cleanup workers can only try to keep the oil from the shores, from the animals, from the way of life that people in the Gulf know and rely on.

— Laura E. Davis is an editor for Yahoo! News.

A supply vessel passes through oil floating near the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana on May 31. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

APTN photographer Rich Matthews takes a closer look at oil in the Gulf south of Venice, La., June 7. His dive was also videotaped. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Patches of oil from Rich Matthews' underwater vantage. (AP Photo/Rich Matthews)

A bird covered in oil flails in the surf at East Grand Terre Island, La. This photo was one in a series shot June 3 by AP's Charlie Riedel that reverberated worldwide. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

A cleanup worker dredges up oil from the mouth of Barataria Bay on Queen Bess Island in Plaquemines Parish, La., on June 4. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Oil clings thickly to the absorbent material used at the mouth of Barataria Bay. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Oil covers a trawler and the booms it pulls through Barataria Bay on June 4. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

The owner of a seafood business planted crosses in his front yard in Grand Isle, La., to mark casualties of the oil spill. "Our soul is dying," said the graveyard's creator, Patrick Shay. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Hermit crabs struggle to cross a patch of oil on a barrier island near East Grand Terre Island, La., on June 6. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

A brown pelican coated in heavy oil wallows in the surf June 4 on East Grand Terre Island. Oil from the Deepwater Horizon incident is coming ashore in large volumes across southern Louisiana coastal areas. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

A hose sucks oil from the shoreline June 9 in Belle Terre, La. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Oil slicks move toward sunbathers lining the coast of Gulf Shores, Ala., on June 5. Its beaches are closed to swimming, but Alabama's Tourism Department recently unveiled an ad — funded by BP — to assure travelers that the area is safe. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

A marine reef ecologist tries to get oil off his hands June 7. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Absorbent pads are applied to soak up oil that has washed ashore June 6 in Grand Isle. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

A sea turtle on Grand Terre Island, June 8. (Reuters/Lee Celano)

Workers collect oil June 1 on Louisiana's Fourchon Beach. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Absorbent material collects oil near the base of a Gulf Shores fishing pier June 14. (Chris Graythen/Getty Images)

Workers pass decontamination brushes across orange Tiger Dams on June 6 in Grand Isle. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Plaquemines Parish's coastal zone management director, P.J. Hahn, wades in the oily muck June 5 on Queen Bess Island. "You'd think there would be a flotilla of people out here," Hahn told AP. "As you can see, we're so far behind the curve in this thing." (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

An oiled brown pelican tries to fly from Barataria Bay while oil slicks float past June 6. Sea creatures have been trying to flee the oil, sometimes gathering in unusually shallow water. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

BP must speed up oil-leak plans: Washington

2010-06-18T19:01:00.000-07:00

Nuclear option feasible for BP spill

2010-06-16T20:58:00.000-07:00

By MERLIN FLOWER for OIL-PRICE.NET,

The nuclear option is, possibly, an expedient road to stop the spill.

The odds are stacked against: potential radioactivity, more pores, more spills and a whole array of add-ons. Put that way, it sure doesn't seem to come from a sapient mind, the provocative option of a nuclear explosion to contain the oil spill. But then, what has been wise about the whole action on the Gulf of Mexico?

Some efforts seen so far to plug the spill from Deepwater Horizon: Oil booms, controlled burning, use of chemical dispersants-more harm than good, giant cofferdams, 'top-kill', and a failed attempt to install a second blow-put preventer. According to Government estimate, a staggering 83.3 million to 181.7 million litres of oil have leaked out of the well so far. The scale prompting calls for drastic action.

Indeed, when President Obama appointed a five member team headed by US Energy Secretary Steven Chu, there emerged a possibility of a nuclear option. However, the speculations were quashed with a spokesperson for the Energy Department ruling out the option of a nuclear blast to seal the spill.

At the heart of the discussion is the experience of Soviet Russia. The former Soviet Union had used controlled nuclear blasts to seal burning gas wells at least five times from 1966 to 1981, as reported by the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. The first one used in 1966 was in Uzbekistan on September 30, 1966 when a subterranean nuclear blast, 1.5 times the strength of the bomb used in Hiroshima, was used to seal a well that had been blazing for three years. Then, conventional means had failed to stymie the fire from the gas well. The nuclear blast deep underground melted the rock and the well was plugged in twenty three seconds. However, the Soviet blasts were on land and not on oil wells.

Still, a nuclear blast on the Gulf of Mexico is not some hastily packed mumbo- jumbo. In case of a controlled nuclear blast, the intense heat generated from the explosion will melt the rock surrounding the well to form a glass plug. This plug will seal the oil spill completely, and the sea floor detonation would be the first of its kind. Matt Simmons, a Houston energy expert said, "Probably the only thing we can do is create a weapon system and send it down 18,000 feet and detonate it, hopefully encasing the oil."

Admittedly, the question which begs for answer- what about the radiation hazards for the marine ecosystem? Contrary to popular belief the surest way to plug the well is not to detonate the bomb underwater above the wellhead but in an underground gallery nearly parallel to the well. All radioactivities then remain contained underground under water with zero chance to contaminate underwater wildlife. The costs and impact are minimal to the ecology. In fact, the environmental effects are to be juxtaposed to the million gallons of oil leaking every day.

A nuclear charge is placed in a gallery parallel to the well then detonated, sealing the oil leak shut.

Asked about the nuclear option, the Coast Guard commander co-ordinating the Federal response to the spill, Admiral Thad Allen, said, "I think that's really on the peripheral of things we ought to be talking about right now." On other explosive devices being used, he said that a blast could worsen the situation by exposing oil-bearing rock formations directly to the sea bed. Indeed, conventional explosion may not work as they do not produce enough heat to fuse rock and they may even end up destroying the wellhead, and thus the efforts to work from the top.

On the petulant question of paranoia associated with the nuclear blast, consider this: According to IAEA's Power Reactor Information System (PRIS) there are 438 nuclear power reactors in operation. And with Project 885 and 935, it's the fourth generation of nuclear submarines in the US.

The nuclear option is, possibly, an expedient road to stop the spill. The weight of the water exerts a massive pressure which will enable to lessen the range of the aftermath. At the same time, a word of caution, its better if the scientists test for the presence of underground pockets of methane hydrate or fire ice, which might intensify the blaze after an explosion.

But more to the point, would the option be used? Not very likely. The US has been campaigning for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty since 1996, when it was adopted by the UN General Assembly. The treaty bans the use of nuclear arms for civilian or military purpose. A nuclear explosion would also violate the arms treaties signed by the US, and President Obama has been vociferous for global nuclear disarmament and a nuclear-free world. So, it would be nothing short of a miracle for the present administration to use a nuclear device.

The latest efforts

Meanwhile, some flavour of success on the 48th day with the breakthrough in the form of a 'containment cap'. The capping device was placed over one of the vents using remotely operated robots, and the cap has been instrumental in capturing about 10,000 barrels a day. Though there are three more vents releasing oil into the sea, this is still a success.

The initial plan was to cap all the four vents but engineers decided to keep some vents open, as the oil captured from one of the vents was more than the estimated level for the drill ship to process, and also for the stability of the system. The drill ship Discoverer Enterprise is able to process only 15,000 barrels a day which is close to the 10,000 a day collected from one vent itself. Since hydrates-formed when water mixed with oil- prevented the deployment of cofferdams, methanol was pumped into the containment cap.

Real difference would arrive only when the two relief wells become operational by August. Adm. Thad W. Allen, appearing on CBS said, "The spill will not be contained until that (relief well) happens," adding, "But even after that, there will be oil out there for months to come. This will be well into the fall."

Additionally, BP has plans to use a new device in the form of a free standing riser pipe to funnel the oil through a manifold built during the 'top-kill' procedure. Also on the anvil is the plan to use an 'overshot tool' over the containment cap to for tighter seal, and to capture more oil.

For now, though, the effects of the oil spill have reached the predators of the food chain, and the number of birds emerging doused in oil has been increasing. The cap will be able to stem only some of the oil-10,500 barrels of oil diverted as on June 6-while the remaining is still getting added to the ocean water.

Significantly, June 1 was the start of the hurricane season with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimating up to 14 hurricanes this season. The weather can force the ships on the surface to desert the efforts to stem the flow, even the latest containment cap. If the nuclear option is debated seriously, now is the time to consider.

Oil in gulf may be double initial estimate

2010-06-12T19:27:00.000-07:00

Sinkhole Guatemala 2010

2010-06-05T00:03:00.000-07:00

Gulf oil leak gets new robot assault

2010-05-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

Oil spill companies blame each other at inquiry

2010-05-13T19:17:00.000-07:00

Dome lowered over Gulf oil leak

2010-05-09T19:21:00.000-07:00

Oil hits Louisiana shore

2010-05-03T19:18:00.000-07:00

Gulf oil leak may be 5 times worse

2010-04-30T19:22:00.000-07:00

Hell on Earth: Ecological disaster tourism

2008-12-13T12:14:00.000-08:00

Don’t have a guilt trip for your next holiday! Become an eco-tourist. Better yet, turn eco-tourism on its ear and witness some of the world’s worst man-made disasters for yourself.

Eco-tourism is one of the fastest growing segments of the tourism industry. What better way to bear witness for our planet than to travel to some of the atrocities we have visited upon it?

The number of polluted and contaminated sites world-wide is mind-boggling, so Sympatico/MSN Green has put together a short list of some of the worst ones for you. For all but two, you don’t even have to leave Canada.

1. Windsor, Ontario: the most polluted city in North America (search for photos)

This is a day trip for Ontarians. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has declared Ontario’s border town the most polluted city in North America. Kennedy made the declaration last spring prior to announcing that his Riverkeeper watchdog group is taking U.S. companies to court under Canada’s Fisheries Act. Riverkeeper alleges that DTE Energy’s power plants are depositing mercury into the Canadian side of the St. Clair River.

More on Sympatico/MSN Green:

• Visit them while you can: Endangered destinations
• Eco-tourism: Real or ruse?
• Ontario’s roadkill hotspot
• Canada’s worst polluters
• The world’s most beautiful beaches

Kennedy also blames Windsor’s high rate of lung cancer on the city being downwind from industrial polluters in Detroit.

2. Alberta’s oil sands: the ‘most destructive project on earth’ (search for photos)

A report issued in August by Environmental Defence declared oil extraction projects in Canada’s Athabasca, Peace River and Cold Lake oil sands to be “the most destructive project on earth.” The Athabasca Oil Sands is the largest such deposit in the world.

The production of bitumen and synthetic crude oil from the sands has been held responsible for the largest greenhouse gas emissions growth in Canada, accounting for 40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year. Canadian First Nations groups also complain that the oil sands projects contaminate local water supplies.

Forty-four percent of Canadian oil production in 2007 was from our oil sands. Canada is now the largest supplier of oil and refined products to the United States, nosing ahead of Saudi Arabia and Mexico.

3. The Sydney Tar Ponds (search for photos)
A hazardous waste site on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, the Sydney Tar Ponds are filled with coal-based contaminants and sludge created by coke oven runoffs from Sydney Steel Corporation's decommissioned steel mill.

The two ponds cover 31 hectares and contain 700,000 metric tonnes of contaminated sediments, along with an estimated total of 3.8 metric tonnes of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). There is also an estimated 560,000 tonnes of contaminated soil at the former coke ovens site.

4. Hamilton Harbour (search for photos)

Thanks to chemical, industrial and thermal pollution from area steel mills, this branch of Lake Ontario was listed as a Great Lakes Areas of Concern in The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between the United States and Canada. Reparation projects that included sealing land contaminated with heavy metals and other pollutants under a cap of clay commenced in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

In addition, Randle Reef in Hamilton Harbour is considered one of the most contaminated sediment sites identified as a Canadian Area of Concern in the agreement. A remediation proposal includes encasing the sediments, which contain concentrations of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons.

5. Port Hope Harbour (search for photos)

Next to the mouth of the Ganaraska River on the north shore of Lake Ontario about 100 kilometres east of Toronto, Port Hope Harbour has been declared an Area of Concern by Environment Canada, thanks to harbour sediments contaminated with uranium and thorium series radionuclides, heavy metals, and PCBs.

A $260 million cleanup is planned for these low-level radioactive wastes, attributed to historical discharges from Eldorado Nuclear Limited, a former crown corporation.

6. James Bay, Quebec (search for photos)

Creating the source of Quebec’s cheap and non-polluting hydro power was a double edged sword because damming and diverting rivers to create the hydroelectric project’s reservoirs drowned almost 13,000 square kilometres of land. Phase 1, which constructed generating stations on the La Grande River and diverted the Eastman and Caniapiscau rivers into the La Grande watershed, created five reservoirs that covered an area of 11,300 kilometres. Phase 2, which constructed five secondary power plants on the La Grande River and its tributaries, created three reservoirs that covered an additional 1,600 kilometres.

7. The north Pacific garbage patch – a dump the size of Texas (search for photos)

If you set sail from Vancouver, follow the coastline south until you hit Los Angeles and then turn west toward Hawaii, you could see one of the newest wonders of the world: a sea of plastic garbage that equals the size of Texas floating in the north Pacific gyre. Be sure to pack your scuba gear, as the most interesting view of this ecological disaster between Los Angeles and Hawaii is from underneath.

Getting to this testament to consumer waste will be an adventure, unless you own your own boat. Most chartered boats won’t go there. If you sail there, be prepared to paddle back out. It’s avoided by sailors because there’s rarely any wind, one of the reason these plastics get there and stay there.

8. Smokey Mountain in the Philippines (search for photos)

Our last destination is a feel-good story. By the 1970s, what started as a local garbage dump in Manila in the 1950s had turned into a 2 million-ton mountain of stinking refuse that covered more than 800 hectares. The mountain of rotting garbage got its name from the haze of methane mist that hovered over it when there was no wind to carry it away.

For thousands of poverty-stricken Filipinos, Smokey Mountain became not just a place to forage but home to shantytown squatters who had nowhere else to live. With the help of missionaries and foreign volunteers, the scavengers lobbied local government and in 1993 succeeded in getting a government-sponsored housing project on the site.

About 30,000 people now live in clean housing, and have turned Smokey Mountain into a solid waste management company called the Samahan ng Muling Pagkabuhay Multi-Purpose Cooperative, which sorts and recycles the waste.

Apocalypse2012

2007-10-10T21:28:00.001-07:00

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