Cap Testing Thursday: July 15 BP Oil Spill Update

1. Oilcast

Today we configured NOAA's new interactive spill map for wind and wave projections over the next 72 hours (as above). It looks like the moderately light southerly breezes we saw on the beach yesterday will continue. By late yesterday afternoon, we made the wind out to be almost a two-club wind at times, or as brisk as 15 mph along unprotected shores. Small white caps dotted Pensacola Bay.

A southerly breeze generally means southerly currents near to shore. These days, with large sheets of oil hanging around offshore, that almost inevitably means at least some small tarballs and fresh oil mousse sloshing around in the surf. If the past is prologue, the farther west on Santa Rose Island one goes the more numerous and larger the tarballs even on days when the weather seems great.

2. Cap Test Delayed, Resumes, Delayed, Resumes, etc. etc. etc.

After a long day of on-again, off-again promises to begin the pressure testing on the new cap stack, late last night BP finally started the tests -- and discovered " a leak on a line on the choke valve of the new cap." Little wonder Energy Secretary Chu and his team thought it necessary to make BP re-check everything yesterday.

We shouldn't be surprised that BP's engineers missed something. For three months, BP has been acting as if they're filming "The Keystone Kops Drill for Oil." Even when the corporation stubbornly sticks to sharing only what little good news there is, and suppressing all of the bad, it screws up.

Yesterday, however, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen were more explicit about the risks BP is running than any official involved, government or otherwise, has been before. As the New York Times reported today:

Mr. Gibbs described the review as “a series of steps” that were being taken “in order to ensure that what we’re doing is being done out of an abundance of caution to do no harm.”

Among the concerns was that if the well was damaged during the test, oil and gas might leak from the seafloor around the well rather than up through the well bore as it is now.
* * *
Admiral Allen said the government had asked BP for more information on the structural strength of the well. And in allowing the test to proceed, the government stipulated that pressure be allowed to build up in intervals, with acoustic tests to gauge the well’s condition every six hours. That would most likely lengthen the duration of the test, which had been expected to last from 6 to 48 hours.

Earlier this morning, BP repaired the leaking hose. Now, says the New York Times in a late update, the "test can proceed." Remember that admonition of our dear old father. He wasn't a pessimist, just a clear-eyed realist.

3. Booms on the Water.

Even in a moderately light breeze, as mentioned above, the oil booms in unprotected waters don't fare well. Even low waves wash over them, twist them, and sometimes dislodge them altogether. Yesterday, the boom on the mainland at the Project Greenshores site at the north of the 3-mile bridge was close to breaking up in less than 2 feet seas (see photo, left).

It's disheartening to imagine what a stiff wind will do to them.

On the other hand, in protected waters like the entrance to Little Sabine Bay, the boom was doing fairly well yesterday:

4. The Story of O.

Yes, there are "oil impact notices" stuck here and there at Pensacola Beach warning visitors of the possible presence of "oil products." But what about the electronic sign? Nary a word that so much as starts with the letter "O."

Yesterday the sign read, "Swim with extra caution." Doesn't that sound almost like an invitation to swim rather than a health warning?

5. New Tourist Game: Tarballs and Mousse.

Not surprisingly, many land-lubbing tourists don't know a tarball from a mousse patty. Heck, most of us who've frequented the beach for years didn't know the difference either, until a couple of months ago.

It seems, now, that tourists well enough informed to know we're experiencing an oil emergency may be coming to the beach out of curiosity. Yesterday, we came across a small party beaching it along the road to Ft. Pickens. They were from Missouri, the "show me" state. They had to see for themselves.

Several were wading in the surf, playing at catching tarballs with each ebb and flow of the waves coming ashore. It's the latest tourist recreational activity, like shelling -- only for bits of oil pollution.

We saw Yvonne from St. Louis snatch something small and orange from the surf before it washed back into the Gulf.

"What's this?" she asked a friend.

He shrugged and shook his head. "A shell, maybe?"

"It's oil from the spill," we offered. "See how soft and pliable it is? They call that mousse."

"Really?" she said excitedly. "It doesn't look like oil."

We explained that the hard black things she had been grabbing out of the water are called tarballs. They are bits of oil that have weathered awhile in the air and water. The small orange glop she held in her hands now was unweathered oil. It had traveled from BP's well over a hundred and fifty miles away, probably under water for most of the time.

Yvonne was so excited that she proudly displayed her find to all of her friends. We obligingly took a photo:


We didn't mean to be censorious of our new-found acquaintances, but we couldn't help remarking that it seemed a little, well, inappropriate that she looked so happy about finding oil on the beach.

"You're right," she said after a moment's thought. "Here, take my picture again."

This time she wrinkled her nose and screwed her face into what she supposed would be the locally-accepted expression:


As they were leaving, we noticed that Yvonne took the mousse with her, despite our warning that it is toxic. A souvenir of her beach vacation.

6. Social Notes from Pensacola Beach.

Rick Outzen, publisher of the local weekly Independent News, reported yesterday that he's been getting complaints "from business owners that attended the SRIA cocktail party for the Blue Angels and their wives on Friday, July 9 at the Hilton."

First, the beach lifeguards were there and talked through most of the presentations. Second, the names and titles of the Blues were stated incorrectly. When the Blues wanted to make their presentation to the SRIA, no one could find the board chairman or a board member to accept it.

As one beach business owner and admitted Blues fan told me, "These men deserve our respect and admiration. That party was an embarrassment."

The most shocking lapse, to us, is the absence of anyone from the Santa Rosa Island Authority. SRIA executive car-counter Buck Lee likes to receive more awards than a TV exec at a sitcom convention. Once, he even had the SRIA give himself a Hummer.

7. Journalism Award.

Speaking of awards, Mac McClelland, who was on Pensacola Beach a couple of weeks ago, has won the Hillman Foundation's monthly Sidney Award for outstanding social consciousness in journalism. Her winning entry in Mother Jones magazine concerned BP's oil spill and the devastating effect it has had on the lives of families along the Louisiana coast. ["Depression, Abuse, Suicide: Fishermen's Wives Face Post-Spill Trauma"]

8. NPR Continues to Doze Through Its Oil Coverage.

National Public Radio this morning continued its miserably superficial coverage of the Great Oil-Poisoning of the Gulf of Mexico. At long distance from his sunny, eternally-optimistic desk in Washington D.C., where he's sure not to get his cuffs dirty, NPR'S science guy Richard Harris continues his completely credulous watch of the same robotic camera feeds that everyone else in the world sees. Then he reports what he thinks he saw.

Have time to waste? Give a listen. Then ask NPR, is this the kind of "serious, in-depth reporting" they claimed they would do with Joan Kroc's $200 million?

Presidential Tuesday: June 15 BP Oil Spill Update

1. Oilcast.

Temperatures should moderate slightly today and wind and water conditions will be much the same as yesterday: a light breeze and relatively calm waters. Except for moderately increased cloud conditions and a continuing Southwest-to-Northeast very light breeze, these are very nearly ideal conditions for any community facing an aggressive oil slick.

2. Oil in Pensacola Bay.

Yesterday afternoon, Southwest winds (bad) remained light (good). A very light chop (good) caused only small, scattered whitecaps (bad). Short of absolutely dead-still conditions, that's about as good as it gets this time of year in Pensacola.

Nevertheless, a large oil slick breached the orange booms at the head of Pensacola Pass, slipped past skimmers, divided at the western edge of the Gulf Breeze peninsula and now is sloshing around Pensacola Bay and Santa Rosa Sound.

Oil sheens were spotted as far inshore as the Bob Sikes Bridge on Santa Rosa Sound. Scattered clusters of tar balls, red weathered crude and mousse were observed across much of Pensacola Bay as well as inside Little Sabine Bay. Oil seeped into the grass beds in and around Lafitte Cove, where Pensacola Beach's Peg Leg Pete's restaurant is located.
* * *
During a ride aboard a Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission boat Monday afternoon, [Pensacola News Journal] reporters saw a 100-yard-long swath of quarter-sized brown tar balls floating more than a mile inside of Pensacola Pass.

3. What's Lies Beneath Mobile Bay?

In Mobile Bay, Ben Raines reports, the Mobile Press-Register on its own used depth finders to locate "dozens of places with... unusual readings at depths ranging from 10 feet to nearly 50 feet at the bottom of the ship channel."

In some cases, the anomalous readings began just below the surface and continued down to depths of 20 feet or more. In other cases, depth finders showed what appeared to be a layer of material floating above the seafloor, separated from the bottom by about 4 feet of water.
* * *
The areas yielding the unusual readings appeared to have defined edges. Moving away from the areas caused the depth finder image to return to normal. In some cases, areas with the abnormal readings were perhaps 20 feet across. In other cases, they were 100 yards or more across.

Divers descending to twenty feet below the surface found "nothing but murky water." No fish, no visible oil, no vegetation. Dauphin Island sea Lab's George Crozier "said that he was intrigued by the unusual readings."

He told the newspaper, "I don't know if that is oil down there. We'll send the boats out and try and get some samples taken."

4. Obama in Pensacola.

Well, we blew it with our beach hotel prediction. President Obama didn't take our advice and enjoy a night on Pensacola Beach. Instead, he checked into the Crowne Plaza Grand Hotel on the mainland.

That's the hotel that hides a charming nineteenth century railroad depot beneath its ample skirts, so visitors won't know it's there. The best view the Crowne Plaza offers guests, we would imagine, is a stunning look right in your face of Pensacola's hideous all-cement Convention Center. Just beyond that is St. Michael's Cemetery.

As the late Willie Junior once said, only in Pensacola would you see politicians building a convention center next door to a bunch of dead bodies. Willie may have been guilty as charged, but he was a funny man.

Staying at the Grand is so conventional. No change we can believe in. Visiting dignitaries, business tycoons, books authors on tour, and politicians always wind up there.

Some years ago a good friend of ours came through Pensacola. His publisher put him up at what was then known, simply, as the Grand Hotel. After the obligatory semi-formal author's dinner, we rescued him from all the hangers-on who wanted autographs and brought him out to the beach.

There, he spent the night amiably chatting with half a dozen of our friends in the locally famous driveway of our next door beach neighbor, Jamo Pihakis. Jamo, some people claim, lives in his garage.

However that may be, friends from all over the island drop by his place nightly to engage in that nearly extinct, pre-television custom known as "neighborly conversation." It's one of the most enjoyable charms of beach life. And, it's free! Later, our friend said it was one of the most enjoyable nights he'd ever spent on book tour.

Heck, if we'd known President Obama preferred cement, we're sure Jamo would have offered to bed him down in the driveway.

5. Cement Job.

Speaking of cement, New Orleans Times-Picayne's Rebecca Mowbray Monday had a superb article yesterday summarizing the similarities and differences between BP's oil well disaster on April 20 and the "blowout of Australia's Montara well" in August, 2009.

The Australian oil spill was in shallow water and it wasn't attributable to failure of blowout preventer (because there wasn't one). But, Mowbray writes, "what they do have in common is problems with the cementing job on the well, an oil release and missteps in shutting down the well and dealing with the oil."

Note to readers: We'll try to update the blog later today, after the president leaves our oil-stained beach.
minor edit 6-15am

Mellow Monday: June 7 BP Oil Spill Update

1. Three-Day oil forecast.

NOAA projects the leading edge of BP's oil spill, nudged by "persistent southerly winds" will continue hugging the coast of Northwest Florida over the next three days. (Click here or on graphic, above, for enlarged view.)

Monday morning on the beach, however, a light, hot wind was blowing north-to-south, just as weatherman Matt Barrentine (Channel 10, Mobile) predicted:

2. Clean beach.

Despite the new "don't touch oil" warning on the electronic greeting board for those entering the beach (see left), so far today there have been almost no reports of tarballs or oil sheen.

Of course, this disappoints all the robots inside the media trucks gathered at Casino Beach (see right). They're waiting impatiently for the chance to break into the news cycle with blood-stirring bulletins of an oil tsunami.

On the other hand, a good many of the human TV crew members we've met have fond personal memories of vacationing on Pensacola Beach. More than a few even lived here for a time in their younger days.

It's plain to see they're just as happy to see the oil stay away. Plus, the rest breaks are more relaxing:

3. Sarcastic Sand Sculptures.

Yesterday, as the local newspaper reports, "sand art" blossomed on the beach. More than one of the sand sculptures in the annual Five Flags Festival contest struck an oily theme.

One incorporated tarballs as the eyes of a large crab. Another was a gargoyle with a sickly green hue named "Mr. BP."

All were still visible this morning. Some were more at risk from the next high tide than any oil.

Our personal favorite, for both aesthetic and political reasons, is the sand art entry submitted by David and Kathy Bosso. Judging from the comments we overheard from discerning beach-goers, it's their favorite, too (click graphic for enlarged view):



4. Tarball Report.

On most of the 15 mile stretch of sugar white sand which we saw this morning there was no sign of oil. Beach walkers, curiosity seekers, surfers, swimmers, sunbathers, lifeguards, and park rangers, all told us they had seen no tarballs or new evidence of oil.

Apparently, however, one report had been made of small tarballs on a stretch of beach just west of Pensacola Beach's "Ft. Pickens Picnic Area," inside the federal park itself.

This is where we saw two of the best-equipped beach cleaning squads we have witnessed in the past week. They were all outfitted with hazmat suits, armed with appropriate tools and water for today's expected heat index of 105+, and afforded the shade of two tents for frequent breaks.

That's the way all clean-up crews should be outfitted. But we worry that BP Corp. has subcontracted to other companies much of the beach clean-up responsibility and then defaulted in its responsibility to ensure that subcontractors treat their clean-up employees with fairness and humanity.

5. Bay Booms.

Because the oil arrived last Friday and continues to hang around just offshore, booms now have been stretched at least part-way across the entrance to Pensacola Bay, known as Pensacola Pass, and the much narrower entrance to Little Sabine Bay at Pensacola Beach.

At the pass, frankly, it's hard to see what good they will do. Although the water was unusually calm this morning, most of the time the surface waters at the pass are choppy. That's where most tourists learn whether they're prone to seasickness. Large amounts of oil will have no trouble sloshing over the planned V-shaped boom.

The boom isn't quite closed at Little Sabine Bay, for good reason. Some charter boats anchored there are still hopeful of customers; many fishing boats have been hired by BP to scout the open Gulf waters for oil slicks. Both need to get in and out of Sabine Bay as well as Pensacola Bay.

6. Family Values on the Move.

Then there are the immigrant swans. They need access to Little Sabine Bay, too.

We happened to encounter a swan family moving into Sabine Bay this morning. Unlike human beings, swans are notoriously monogamous. They usually mate for life, although some Australia researchers think they have detected evidence that some of them are learning bad habits from humans.

Sorry, Arizona, we forgot to ask the swans for their papers. But we assume what we saw this morning was the more usual story-book "traditional American family unit" of a daddy swan, a mommy swan, and a baby swan.

Look carefully. Such an idealized family exists only among swans and in the fevered imaginations of right-wing preachers and hypocritical politicians.

7. EPA air monitors.

While we were wandering around the western tip of Santa Rosa Island, we spotted a number of multi-gas air quality detectors. They bear the ownership label of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and were placed inside the federally-maintained Ft. Pickens portion of the Gulf Islands National Seashore.

Not long after, we encountered a two-man team of environmental assessment specialists who also were touring the grounds of Ft. Pickens. They, too, were planning to monitor air quality. They claimed to be working for a private company "under contract" to someone else.

To whom were they under contract? They said they didn't know. But they were most interested in seeing our photos of the EPA's equipment.

One gets the notion, now and then, that BP's left hand doesn't know what the Government's right hand is doing, and vice versa.

'Worst Case' Oil Spill Scenario

UPDATED BELOW
Ben Raines in today's Mobile Register:

The worst-case scenario for the broken and leaking well gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico would be the loss of the wellhead currently restricting the flow to 5,000 barrels -- or 210,000 gallons per day.

If the wellhead is lost, oil could leave the well at a much greater rate, perhaps up to 150,000 barrels -- or more than 6 million gallons per day -- based on government data showing daily production at another deepwater Gulf well.

By comparison, the Exxon Valdez spill was 11 million gallons total. The Gulf spill could end up dumping the equivalent of 4 Exxon Valdez spills per week. [emphasis added]

That is a prospect so utterly appalling it leaves one stunned. To say nothing of this:

Thursday, federal officials said they were preparing for the worst-case scenario but didn't elaborate.

What kind of "preparation" could anyone make against the prospect of 6 million gallons of petroleum pollution a day bearing down on the Gulf Coast each and every day for two or three months until a new hole is drilled and the black crude river shut off? Abandon the coast?

A beach friend we were talking to today says this entire BP mess reminds her of nothing so much as 9-11. Because, she says, "It changes everything."

UPDATE
4-30 pm

National Public Radio is carrying the "worst case scenario" story, too. It is so painfully obvious the feds aren't "elaborating" on their plans because they don't have any.

We're not being critical, mind you. No one has a clue what to do right now with the consequences of "drill, baby, drill." Much less does anyone know what to do if 6 million gallons of crude a day begin gushing into the Gulf.

Meanwhile, Bryan at Why Now? reports newly "Independent" governor Charlie Crist has officially declared an "emergency" for the Florida Panhandle. North Escambia.com tells us what little that means.

UPDATE 2
4-30 PM

CBS has the BP oil leak, by the numbers.

Beach Perspectives on the Oil Spill Catastrophe

So far as we can see today, the only oil leak booms on Pensacola Beach are floating near the southwestern shoreline of Little Sabine Bay (click here or on the above photo). We can't be sure whether they were put in place anticipating the massive BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill reaching here, or are serving another purpose.

A New Orleans reporter, by the suitably sonorous name of Cain Burdeau, early this morning filed a report about the 'river of oil' bearing down on Louisiana today. ["Some Oil Begins to Ooze Ashore"]. Along the way, he mentions the marine weather forecast and how it impacts the delta:

The National Weather Service predicted winds, high tides and waves through Sunday that could push oil deep into the inlets, ponds and lakes that line the boot of southeast Louisiana. Seas of 6 to 7 feet were pushing tides several feet above normal toward the coast, compounded by thunderstorms expected in the area Friday.
* * *
Crews are unable to skim oil from the surface or burn it off for the next couple of days because of the weather, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Sally Brice-O'Hara said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Waves may also wash over booms strung out just off shorelines to stop the oil, said Tom McKenzie, a spokesman for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is hoping booms will keep oil off the Chandeleur Islands, part of a national wildlife refuge.

That same wind, for now at least, also is pushing the oil somewhat away from Pensacola Beach. Click here or on the photo to the left and you can see the familiar flag at Fort Pickens. At mid-day, a moderately strong southeast breeze was whipping it generally northwestward.

A number of beach residents we spoke with this morning are surprisingly sanguine about the oil spill. "I don't think it will reach us," one friend told us. "The winds are keeping it away," another said, "but I really feel for Louisiana."

Out at the westernmost point of Santa Rosa Island, beyond the point where Union-held Fort Pickens stares sternly northward toward the Confederate mainland, a handful of vacationers and locals are enjoying a cloudy but mild day at the beach, sheltered from the southeast breeze by the fort's old seawall (see below right).

Not everyone with a connection to the beach is as confident as the residents we spoke with. Last evening, we found ourselves in Gulf Breeze at a well known recreation center. In a corner near the entrance, a television reporter was announcing the latest alarming oil-leak news. A trim tennis player who looked to be in his in early 40's shook his head disgustedly and turned away muttering, "Looks like I'll never sell another house on Pensacola Beach."

The truth is, although Louisiana is not quite two hundred miles west of Pensacola Beach, we will be deeply affected -- and for a very long time -- by the BP oil spill, whether the tar balls reach us soon or never. So, indeed, will be the rest of the nation.

Louisiana's delta is the spawning ground for shore birds, sea life creatures of every description -- and countless plant and insect species upon which they depend. Millions of Americans depend upon all of that for their livelihood. Their misfortune can only worsen the national jobless recession.

Moreover, the entire nation depends upon the unique Louisiana wetlands to put food on the family table. Losing half the world's blue fin tuna, and a very high percentage of other sea-life dependent food sources, will be a severe blow to the overall economy.

As the Pensacola Journal perceptively editorializes today, "risk is not just the calculated numerical possibility of such an accident happening." Nor, we might add, is it measured, like hurricanes so often are, by whether it happens to hit us right here.

It is the calculated possibility of such an event happening — multiplied by the extent of the damage that could result if the event did occur. That's the risk we should focus on.

And when the potential extent of the damage is unacceptable? It should be clear that the risk is unacceptable.

What makes the BP oil spill so much more catastrophic than almost any other disaster you can conceive is the "potential extent of the damage." That "extent" reaches well beyond Louisiana -- and Pensacola Beach, for that matter. It will have a severe impact on the entire nation.

As McClatchy News reports --

Oil from a ruptured drilling rig could harm all kinds of marine life in the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic tarpon and bluefin tuna that have key spawning areas nearby to endangered sea turtles, commercial fisheries, migrating song birds and marine mammals.

Bluefin tuna, tarpon, red snapper, dolphins, sea turtles, shrimp, oysters, shore birds -- merely to glance at the top of a long list of wildlife life about to be extinguished -- do not respect state boundaries. They occupy and depend upon a healthy ecology that does not stop at the water's edge of the Chandeleur Islands, or Santa Rosa Island for that matter. Nor more so than the shrimp you buy in the grocery store or the shore birds that are nesting this year on Pensacola Beach.

All Americans will be deeply and directly affected by the BP oil spill, however far the oil itself may or may not reach, and whatever state's shorelines it may or may not pollute.
minor edit 4-30 pm