NASA has given us this amazing shot of the oil spill about 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana. To get an idea of the size of the spill, New Orleans is labeled on the left.
Of course, nowadays, drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico is perfectly safe, since any spill could be contained before say, 42,000 gallons of oil a day escaped into the formerly clean waters. And robots can be used to activate the blow-out preventer valves located 5,000 feet under water, except of course, when weather conditions hamper such efforts and days later, the wells are still pumping. The thing is, relief wells can also be drilled that isolate or “kill” the leaking well. And since it only takes months to construct one, we can expect good news in this case by oh, maybe sometime this fall. The bottom line is that, thanks to new technology, drilling for oil and gas off the shores of wildlife refuges and tourist meccas is perfectly safe, and at least 11 people will not go missing and be feared dead.
Update: And the Coast Guard would not have to consider burning the crude oil because it’s reached 42 miles wide by 80 miles long and is threatening land, and the people who live along the northern Florida Gulf coast wouldn’t report waking up to a strong, acrid chemical smell, and we could never have what is now being called the worst oil spill in the history of the country.
And let’s not forget the huge fines for the perpetrators that will help clean up the environment and set things right if god forbid, something does go wrong!
Except, when they’re not paid…
For the creatures from ocean surface to bottom sediments in an Over 2500 SQUARE MILE (AND GROWING) AREA, this spill is ALREADY a poisonous and oil-soaking catastrophe! The Obamanible dictator and the Company bet their BP on it and ALL involved LOST!! That means Not pause, but STOP, NOW! Otherwise, it’s perpetual Spill, Barry, Spill!
Wow, Vic, you tea baggers are so intellectually bankrupt that you don’t even bother to be consistent. Just 18 months ago, you were all chanting “Drill, baby, drill,” with Sister Sarah. Now you’ve got your drilling but you’re nonetheless blaming Obama for a spill on a rig that was put there when your Glorious Dear Leader Bush was in command?
The winds are about to shift to southerly or southeasterly and remain that way for a prolonged period of time, so much so that the NWS has issued a coastal flood statement for coastal Louisiana areas outside the hurricane protection levee system. What this means is that the spill will be blown towards the coast and the winds and swells they generate will make the operation to stop the flow of oil much more difficult. Meanwhile the spill sits ominously close to the Breton National Wildlfe Refuge. Stay tuned.
http://www.fws.gov/breton/