The Glade 4.0

What do you think is going to happen when we get our first hurricane with the current oil spill? I've read and heard several reports saying the storm is going to mix the oil into the water making it degrade faster? I keep thinking we're going to wind up with houses and towns and stuff covered in it.
Or worse....what if it gets in lakes and ponds and rivers and stuff? How are we gonna clean it up if a hurricane pushes it so far inland?

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

That's a very interesting question.

I suspect it's going to be a mess.

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Mook, I love the Michael Bay reference

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Along the same lines but slightly off topic what did they do about oil from oil tankers sunk durring WW2?

I can't see them spending the resources cleaning it up.

a) they didn't have supertankers like we do now
b) The ships were likely sunk and burning so much would have been consumed

Hmm good point.

Interestingly enough, NOAA has recently compared the amount of oil spilled so far with the amount of oil washed into coastal areas from hurricanes Katrina and Rita....

So far, this oil spill has not put as much oil into the gulf as they did.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

This sounds like an awful lot of spin to me.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Why?

The amount of oil that has spilled into the gulf so far is pretty small, on a comparative scale.

As yet, almost no environmental damage has been documented.

Initial reports of huge waterfowl deaths, on further investigation, revealed that to date of hundreds of deaths only 20-50 have been linked to the oil spill.

Here's the report- my bad, it was done by LSU, not NOAA.

According to the report, over 9 million gallons of oil were discharged into coastal areas from water and land based rigs in south Louisiana during Katrina. The number was also quite large during Rita. And this was all oil that actually impacted the coast. Of the BP spill, quite a bit will disperse into the gulf at large, or drift farther along the coast and minimize its local impacts.

Just something to think about.

Most of the discussion of damages are being blown way out of proportion to what is actually known. It is possible this could be quite bad, it also could have no significant impact. No one knows, and it's too early to tell.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Yeah, keep in mind, Rynar, that the Katrina area is a huge etoleum processing region. So we're not just talking a couple tanker trucks caught outside by a storm. The source of the Katrina and Rita oil would be all the storage facilities and processing centers associated with the industry. Remember how gas prices spiked after Katrina? It's because all that **** took a beating and had to be rebuilt.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Not just that, but there were blowouts and leaks from multiple onshore and offshore rigs.

And biologists at the moment seem divided on whether the oil will kill the marshes, have no effect, or even have some small benefits for them.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

For those of you comparing the current problem to Katrina and Rita, I ask, even assuming you are correct, so what?

You can't go to Haiti, knock some buildings down, and say hey, it wasn't as bad as the earthquake. Man-made disasters are not comparable to natural disasters for two main reasons: responsibility and prevention.

The impacts of the storms are a worthy discussion in their own right, but this is separate from the discussion of the current situation, and should not be used to dampen criticism of the current spill.

Oh, come on....

I question it because the information is coming out of a federal agency at a time when the federal government is taking a beating over this problem.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Why is that so far fetched?

What is coming out of the well so far is primarily light chain hydrocarbons.

There have been multiple studies that show that light chain hydrocarbons are degraded fast enough in many environments that they provide a nutrient boost to the ecosystem.

Oil in and of itself is not usually all that toxic- it's either additives/impurities in oil or the secondary effects of the oil that are usually toxic.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Since this thread was about the effects of hurricanes and oil spills, and that was the nearest precedent we have, I would say the comparison has a decent amount of merit. Those were the only other oil spills in coastal areas that we can use to predict the possible damage to the environment.

The current disaster, as you said, is worse because it was caused by human error, which makes it preventable. But now that it has happened, its important to look at what the possible prognoses and outcomes of the spill are.

Things like calling for a moratorium on deep water drilling, or halting the sale of any oil leases in the gulf are a ludicrous response to the problem, and will only further damage the Louisiana economy already hurting from the damage to the fishing industry.

As far as locations for the spill, a spill located smack in the middle of the 'dead zone' of the Gulf is a relatively good place.

I keep up on this quite well- my mom is the geological consultant for the Environmental Consulting firm that just got hired to do the environmental assessment for all of the Louisiana coastal parishes in preparation for their lawsuit against BP, not to mention the fact that I live in New Orleans, and these are the marshes I grew up fishing and playing in.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

First of all, carbon is not the limiting nutrient in any salt water marsh I’ve ever studied. So even if the marsh does get a boost of carbon, that will be excess carbon, and will not be productive. So, no “boost of nutrients” to the ecosystem. Secondly, the LAST thing the Mississippi delta needs is a burst of nutrients. The Mississippi River brings down much, much more than the system can handle. Eutrophication is a serious problem here – which I am sure you are aware since you mentioned the dead zone. Lastly, oil decomposes, and is broken down into the nutrients you mention and waste. This process requires oxygen, and therefore creates anaerobic, or hypoxic conditions. That dead zone you mentioned? It just got bigger.

So no 3G coverage there?

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The Dude abides.

You are confusing the coastal marshes with the shallow ocean environments directly off of them. The dead zone is certainly do to eutrophication, but it comes at the cost losing the nutrient rich sediment carried by the Mississippi into the gulf where they can cause algal blooms instead of into the marshes, where they are needed to keep the local ecosystems running.

This has been the biggest argument behind selective breaks in the Mississippi river levee north of New Orleans, as a means of replenishing both sediment and nutrients into the coastal marshes.

This is getting a bit sidetracked, however. My point was that there is a hew and cry that this will devastate the wetlands to the degree that they will never recover. And there has been no evidence that that will indeed be the case. Mild damage, a wash, or even slightly beneficial results was my prediction.

It is possible that the damage will be much more severe, but we'll have to wait and see.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Wetlands intercept the nutrients and sediment which keeps it from reaching the coast. Unless, yes, that water is leveed up and directed out to sea. You are correct on that, BUT that's what I was getting at anyway. This doesn't change the fact that carbon is not at all a limiting factor in the wetland life cycle. It doesn't need it. Wetland vegetation gets all the carbon it needs from, primarily, carbon dioxide. There is no shortage of nutrients in the gulf marshlands, especially not carbon. Sediment, yes. But it doesn't need any oil.

There is nothing about the oil that is needed for the wetlands. Especially the wetland inhabitants.

And I realized last night that BP executives are basically Spaceballs at this point.