Oil Spill in Santa Barbara

[S/V Illusion]

A large portion of the Gulf affected by the Deepwater H spill is called the 'dead zone'. It's very hard to kill dead stuff.

[rognvald]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

There hasn't been much about this story because frankly...it's not that big of deal. AHH...pants and hair on fire....4 pelicans died...you hater. Calm down.....calm down. The spill was found, stopped and is being cleaned up.

Oh I know, in this day and age you never want to miss out on using a tragedy to advance your agenda....but the spill just isn't that big. Only a small portion of the oil flowed into the water. More oil and gas bubble up (literally) from the ocean flow close to that area (Coal Oil Point) than this spill put in the ocean.

What is the "agenda" of those those who are not opposed to oil development but seek responsibility from the oil industry to maintain a safe and efficient system of oil transport? Perhaps you can explain. Where do we draw the line of acceptability for the size of oil spills which, in your opinion, would be categorized as acceptable or non-acceptable? Answers to these questions will better define your position and will be much clearer than the personal attacks and name calling in your first paragraph that neither state your position nor promote a serious discussion of the issue.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by S/V Illusion

A large portion of the Gulf affected by the Deepwater H spill is called the 'dead zone'. It's very hard to kill dead stuff.

In other words, pollution A (fertilizer runoff) already killed that area, so pollution B (Deepwater Horizon) was no biggie, amirite?

[nimblemotors]

Originally Posted by Sailmonkey

I also challenge the op to create a solar panel from scratch without petroleum.....and by scratch I mean every component.

And your point is what?

Everything in the modern world is made using oil in some manner, including delivering a baby and burning a corpse.

Using oil to make solar panels sounds like a great use of the material.
Burning it so you can drive a 4,500 lb suv to the grocery store isn't,
and polluting the California coastline to get oil isn't either.

[S/V Illusion]

Originally Posted by nimblemotors

And your point is what?

Everything in the modern world is made using oil in some manner, including delivering a baby and burning a corpse.

Using oil to make solar panels sounds like a great use of the material.
Burning it so you can drive a 4,500 lb suv to the grocery store isn't,
and polluting the California coastline to get oil isn't either.

Look at the bright side.
At least it wasn't the Florida coastline.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by svHyLyte

The unfortunate fact is that in the US and in California in particular, obtaining the necessary permits and clearances to construct new, state of the art, piping systems is so arduous, expensive and chancy, and with the likelihood that an operator will be further stymied for years by BS lawsuits filed by self appointed Environmentalists after they have obtained the 200 or so permits needed before work can begin, operators resign themselves to "making do" with the equipment they have. From the perspective of spills 100,000 gallons sounds impressive until one considers that a single tank-car typically carries 34,000 gallons and even with only 1.2% of the oil trains suffering derailments, the consequential spills from damaged tank cars is an order of magnitude greater. Moreover, the waters of the Santa Barbara Channel are virtually always covered with more or less of a slick as a consequence of the natural seepage of oil and gas from underground oil fields, particularly around Coal Oil Point which is estimated to be the largest natural oil seep in the world. That has been going on for thousands of years and will continue to do so for thousands more. Accordingly, the "spill" from this incident is literally merely a drop in the bucket. Moreover, I suspect that, as always, the amount spilled will prove to be far less than originally estimated (the spill amounts have already been revised downward several times).

FWIW...

Excellent post!


I'd also like to add that the worst piece of legislation ever enacted has to be the Endangered Species Act, which basically allows anyone to make a false claim of an endangered species with virtually no proof, or junk science, leaving the landowner or impacted party virtually no recourse to prove that it isn't a unique species, or that it isn't endangered.

The costs to fight them in court is huge, as are the costs to prove little or no environmental impact. A lot of these so-called "environmental groups" are merely a group of opportunistic lawyers supported by an unpaid volunteer staff. They file suit, (often with a US agency as co-defendant, such as the BLM) and when they win claiming that the BLM didn't even follow it's own ridiculously Byzantine set of rules, they win legal fees far above what their expenses are - it isn't about the environment - it's about making millions per year through ridiculous lawsuits.

There was a canal built through the sands of the desert near Brawley, CA. Tons of seepage allowed millions of gallons of water to seep down and get pumped out of the ground by the Mexican gov't, over and above the agreed upon amount sent over the border. An initial EIS was done at a cost of $50M to determine the impact to the local species of constructing a concrete lined canal. Since construction was delayed getting permits, the environmentalists howled that another $50M needed to be spent to determine the impact on the local indigenous fish population.

Hellooooo!!! Fish are not indigenous to the desert! The only reason that fish (and birds, etc) were there was because of the man-made canal to begin with! They finally completed the new canals at a cost of $500M, $100M of it directly caused by environmental studies and delays caused by those and ridiculous amounts of permits.

That's just one of hundreds of examples of crazy laws and bureaucracy run amok. All because legislators just aren't that bright.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by Greenhand

Tell that to the sea lions.

If only people were as concerned about the lives of servicemen and women who are risking their lives at this very moment...


and only 1 day after Memorial Day. Talk about a memory! Wow!

[SV THIRD DAY]

Originally Posted by socaldmax

All because legislators just aren't that bright.

As with the voters who elect them....

[SV THIRD DAY]

Originally Posted by rognvald

What is the "agenda" of those those who are not opposed to oil development but seek responsibility from the oil industry to maintain a safe and efficient system of oil transport? Perhaps you can explain. Where do we draw the line of acceptability for the size of oil spills which, in your opinion, would be categorized as acceptable or non-acceptable? Answers to these questions will better define your position and will be much clearer than the personal attacks and name calling in your first paragraph that neither state your position nor promote a serious discussion of the issue.

Here's the deal.
If you couldn't figure out that my line:

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

There hasn't been much about this story because frankly...it's not that big of deal. AHH...pants and hair on fire....4 pelicans died...you hater. Calm down.....calm down. The spill was found, stopped and is being cleaned up.

Oh I know, in this day and age you never want to miss out on using a tragedy to advance your agenda....but the spill just isn't that big. Only a small portion of the oil flowed into the water. More oil and gas bubble up (literally) from the ocean flow close to that area (Coal Oil Point) than this spill put in the ocean.

Was to mimic what the envirocrazies would say about ME for saying the spill wasn't that big a deal, but read the comment to be directed at you or other posters...you know Amigo...we could be past the point of having a reasonable intellectual discussion on the topic because we have a reading comprehension issue to deal with first....honestly.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by MidwestRefugee

Does it really matter? Since the deepwater horizon spill killed off all sea life there is nothing left to die.
Oh, never mind. Seems the deepwater horizon didn't kill off everything, not even in the gulf.....

They learned a lot from the Exxon Valdez incident. Mainly, what not to do. They used a lot of steam cleaners on the EV incident and that was a huge mistake, it drove the oil down between rocks, where a lot of it still remains.

On the DH spill they used dispersants (I still feel strongly that those should not be used, they introduce hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals in addition to "special ingredients" that were never disclosed despite repeated demands), oil booms for containment, lots of air support for spotting, suction rigs, workers with shovels, etc.

I have to say BP spared no expense, used every technology available (including tar sands equipment from Canada) and local talent plus huge numbers of workers housed in floating barges right on site. They attacked it from all angles and were extremely responsive to any and all suggestions.

The one thing that helped immensely that surprised many of us was how effective the oil eating bacteria was. After the well was capped, it wasn't that long before virtually all traces of oil were gone and the sea life was pretty much back to normal. I believe it was much faster than the initial estimates.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by SV THIRD DAY

As with the voters who elect them....

Which is why I'm strongly in favor of making voting a right granted only to those who can score above 100 on an IQ test.

I see no logic in letting the village idiots run the village.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by rognvald

What is the "agenda" of those those who are not opposed to oil development but seek responsibility from the oil industry to maintain a safe and efficient system of oil transport? Perhaps you can explain. Where do we draw the line of acceptability for the size of oil spills which, in your opinion, would be categorized as acceptable or non-acceptable? Answers to these questions will better define your position and will be much clearer than the personal attacks and name calling in your first paragraph that neither state your position nor promote a serious discussion of the issue.

I think the vast majority is in agreement with you, we need oil, but it needs to be transported responsibly.

It is the hyper emotional enviro-whackjobs bordering on Luddites who are currently protesting in Santa Barbara carrying signs that say, "OUT WITH OIL!" No matter how small the spill, they'll use it to further their agenda. I think they'd rather switch back to whale oil in their lamps, necessitating the return of whale hunting.

Hey. something's gotta give.

[mstrebe]

Saw this the other day. Guess what every one of those kayaks is directly made of?

Protest against Shell drilling in the Arctic: Kayaks and boats near Seattle in Puget Sound.

It takes about a half gallon of oil to make a pound of plastic, so this Santa Barbara spill was about 1,000 kayaks worth--right about the number that shows up to the Kayaktivism protest in Portland.

No thinking person is in favor of these kinds of accidents, and I think we can afford a lot more oversight of oil drilling operations. But thinking that we're going to stop using oil ever--even when we no longer use it for energy--is detached from reality.

We need to make all forms of energy production safer for humans and the planet on an ongoing basis, but mindless protest doesn't help.

[socaldmax]

Originally Posted by mstrebe

Saw this the other day. Guess what every one of those kayaks is directly made of?

Protest against Shell drilling in the Arctic: Kayaks and boats near Seattle in Puget Sound.

It takes about a half gallon of oil to make a pound of plastic, so this Santa Barbara spill was about 1,000 kayaks worth--right about the number that shows up to the Kayaktivism protest in Portland.

No thinking person is in favor of these kinds of accidents, and I think we can afford a lot more oversight of oil drilling operations. But thinking that we're going to stop using oil ever--even when we no longer use it for energy--is detached from reality.

We need to make all forms of energy production safer for humans and the planet on an ongoing basis, but mindless protest doesn't help.

Afterwards, all of the protesters strapped their kayaks onto the tops of their Excursion SUVs, and headed off to the suburbs where their thermostatically controlled forced air furnaces kept their hypocritical asses nice and warm all night.

[Islandnut]

Originally Posted by socaldmax

I have to say BP spared no expense, used every technology available (including tar sands equipment from Canada) and local talent plus huge numbers of workers housed in floating barges right on site. They attacked it from all angles and were extremely responsive to any and all suggestions.

The one thing that helped immensely that surprised many of us was how effective the oil eating bacteria was. After the well was capped, it wasn't that long before virtually all traces of oil were gone and the sea life was pretty much back to normal. I believe it was much faster than the initial estimates.

In pumping toxic chems into the ocean yes !!!
You have no idea what you are talking about. The chemical dispersant they pumped is banned in most of the world. In effects the size of the molecules of the oil itself. So instead of being able to "see" the oil....it disappears to the naked eye. How do you think it "disappeared" when more than one boat was following the plume ???????
The oil from the well was/is sitting at the bottom of the gulf. Most people do not even realize how big the wellhead was to begin with. The cameras gave a false impression of the size. It's several stories tall.

I have talked to several people that were either on the rig before it happened and/or part of the cleanup, which there was little to do since 95% of the oil is on the bottom of the gulf at the time.

Now before you get ready to hit the reply button with anger..... I am a completion engineer in the oilfield. That means I know geology, hydrostatic pressure, and volumes that can be produced out of a given size of casing, etc.
THERE ARE MILLIONS OF GALLONS OF OIL ON THE OCEAN FLOOR FROM THIS

Now, the oilfield is my career and I will stand behind it from all of the naysayers, But I will not stand by and say nothing when a company makes the wrong decisions. BP sucks.

Saying bacteria ate the oil all up is like saying your politician will have your back after he gets elected.