For those of you who are interested, following is a Q&A from the New York
Times regarding the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of
Mexico.

Personally, I think that a picture is worth a thousand words, so consider
this first:

/202.128.64.54/Images/SimpleForum/misc/OilSpillVictims.jpg

Now is that a tragedy, or what?


Seeking Answers as Questions Mount

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

June 25, 2010


Since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April, killing 11 and setting off the biggest maritime oil spill in the nation's history, questions about the potential dimensions of the disaster have only multiplied from week to week. Readers have been asking whether the oil can
be contained, how serious the damage will be and what they can do to help. Following is a primer on the spill.

The Oil's Reach

Q. How far has the oil advanced along the Gulf Coast? How far could it
travel, and what variables are at play? Have any communities been bypassed
and spared?

A. So far, oil has made landfall along hundreds of miles of the Gulf Coast, from Freshwater Bayou in the middle of Louisiana's coastline, all the way to the Florida panhandle to just outside Panama City. The impact has not been uniform; some areas have been greatly affected, while others have been
spared. For example, Mississippi's mainland coast, excepting its barrier islands, has been largely untouched by heavy oil, though that appears likely
to change in the next few days.

The oil, either in the form of tar balls, sheen or heavier "mousse," is
brought near the coast by currents, but the wind is usually responsible for
the final push, bringing streams of oil onshore. Coast Guard officials frequently describe the oil as a series of spills rather than one big slick, and that is reflected in the impact: oil is heading in all directions at the same time.

Shoreline trajectories, based on currents and wind patterns, are only dependable for roughly 72 hours. But scientists using computer models at the National Center for Atmospheric Research have suggested that the oil
reaching the loop current in the Gulf of Mexico could come around Florida's southern tip within weeks.

After that, the modeling indicates, it would travel up the Atlantic Seaboard
to North Carolina's Outer Banks, before joining the Gulf Stream and heading east across the Atlantic toward Europe. They caution, however, that this is
not a forecast but merely a possibility, and that it is unclear how much the oil would dissipate as it traveled in these currents

Q. How much oil has spilled so far?

A. The exact rate at which oil is leaking from the well is not known.
Although estimates of the flow rate have changed drastically -- to 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day now, from 1,000 barrels a day originally -- it is also
not known if the actual rate has changed in the two months since the gusher began.

Calculating the spill to date using the current estimate, and factoring in
the approximately 365,000 barrels collected so far from the wellhead,
results in a total of about 1.9 million to 3.5 million barrels, or about 80 million to 150 million gallons since the rig exploded on April 20.

By contrast, the Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska in 1989 released an estimated 10.8 million gallons of oil.

Plugging the Well

Q. How might BP plug the leak?

A. BP has tried a lot of methods to seal the well or contain the leak and
until recently did not have much success. On June 3, however, technicians succeeded in cutting the riser -- the large pipe that connected the well at
the seafloor to the drilling rig and that collapsed when the rig sank -- and two days later lowered a containment cap on it.

Although the cap did not make a perfect seal, it collected about 15,000
barrels of oil a day.

In normal operation, the oil collected by the cap travels up a pipe to a
drill ship, the Discoverer Enterprise, where it is stored and later loaded
onto a tanker before heading to a refinery. Natural gas is separated from
the oil and burned on a long boom extending from ships.

On June 16, a second system began operating, in which oil is collected
through a pipe at the base of the blowout preventer, the stack of safety
valves at the top of the well on the seafloor. The oil flows up to a drill
rig, the Q4000, where both the oil and the gas it contains are burned using special equipment that produces far less soot than open-air burning of oil.

Q. Is there a sure long-term fix for the spill? When could that happen, best case and worst case?

A. Drilling experts say that two relief wells being drilled near the site of the blowout are the ultimate solution to stopping the gusher. Relief wells
have been used to "kill" runaway wells in the past, and the basic procedure
is straightforward.

The relief well is drilled at an angle to intersect the damaged well just
above the oil reservoir -- in this case, about 18,000 feet below sea level. Then heavy drilling mud is pumped down the relief well into the runaway
well. As more and more mud is pumped in, it builds up a column of mud that produces enough downward force to counteract the upward pressure of the gas
and oil, stopping the leak. Cement is then pumped into the well to entomb it permanently.

Only one relief well should be needed, but BP is drilling a second in case anything goes wrong with the first. Both wells should be completed by late
July or August, although they could be delayed. The wells have to find a seven-inch steel pipe that forms part of the runaway well, and although they have plenty of high-tech tools and data-gathering equipment to do that,
there is no guarantee they will succeed on the first try.

Mechanical problems or bad weather could also delay the work. A hurricane or other severe storm could also push back completion dates by a week or more,
as the drilling rigs would have to shut down and move to a safe location.
Bad weather would also affect the containment operation, as all the other vessels at the site of the blowout would have to depart and the well would
be left uncapped until the storm had passed.

Q. Doomsday scenarios described online suggest that the pipe that lines the well is deteriorating, or that there may be other problems with the well
that may cause it to fail completely, leaving an utterly uncontrolled gusher that could prove difficult or impossible to control. Is this true?

A. There is a lot of speculation about the condition of the well, but it is
not really possible to know what kind of shape it is in. BP suggested that
one reason that a procedure called the "top kill" failed was because there
may have been damage to the well lining about 1,000 feet down. But no one
knows for sure.

What does seem clear is that there is enough concern about not making the situation worse that BP is now pursuing only the containment option at the
top of the well. They have abandoned efforts to permanently plug the well
from the top because that would build up pressure that might cause damage.
The well will be permanently sealed starting from the bottom, using one or
both relief wells.

The Cleaning Crew

Q. Who is in charge of stopping the oil that is already spilled from
spreading and reaching the gulf shoreline?

A. The Coast Guard, led by Adm. Thad W. Allen, has been designated the lead agency. In practice, day-to-day decisions are made jointly by Coast Guard personnel and their BP counterparts. At the spill response center in Venice, La., BP officials or contractors in charge of a certain task -- setting
cleanup priorities, for instance, or allocating resources like containment
boom -- are matched with Coast Guard officials with the same responsibility. One Coast Guard petty officer described the division of authority in
percentage terms: "It's 51-49, and we're the 51."

A unified command center has opened in New Orleans and incident command
posts operate in Houma, La., Mobile, Ala., and Miami. Satellite posts exist elsewhere along the coast in places like Port Fourchon, La. and Venice, La.

Q. How many people are working on the response, and what are they doing?

A. Some 36,000 people are involved, according to the Deepwater Horizon
Response Web site overseen by BP. A BP official said that included 1,185
Coast Guard personnel, 1,282 National Guardsmen and 667 BP officials. But
the bulk of the personnel -- a total of nearly 31,000 -- work for
contractors hired by BP, ranging from United States Environmental Services, based in New Orleans, to O'Brien's Response Management in Houston.

Out on the waters around the broken well, some 27 vessels with 230 crew
members and support personnel are burning oil. Some 14,500 people are
serving as mariners, crew members or captains on 2,680 "vessels of
opportunity" recruited for the cleanup. Some are skimming oil -- either at
sea, from specialized skimming vessels, or closer to shore with so-called "drum" skimmers, cylinders with surfaces that attract oil, which is then squeegeed off as the drum spins.

Others are laying "hard" vinyl boom and soft absorbent boom -- more than 475 miles of it -- to protect the marshes and beaches.

The State of Louisiana has enlisted National Guardsmen to install 1.6 miles
of welded-mesh steel barriers on one coastline; the goal is to cover eight miles. The guardsmen are also deploying cylindrical "tiger dams" on Grand
Isle.



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