oil spill update for gulf coast

[Chuck Creel]

As of today, pensacola beach is oiled up with oil. not balls but OIL.

Very sad day for us along teh coast.

And to make it worse, There is a cafe' / bar in fly creek with MANY MANY out of state people with boats working here but instead , they find it neccisary to belly up to the bar for a few cold beers before returning to theri boats to skim mobile bay.

As a long time gulfcoast resident, and a professional mariner, " 200 Gross ton masters ".

I find this not only un ethical but out right ILLEGAL to operate a commercial vessel upon these waters while drinking.

Am i the only one that takes this as a slap in the face ?

 

[RTB]

Hey Chuck...

Sorry to hear about the beach there. The wife and I were just there for the first time this past November. Hang in there, but I'm not sure the Gulf will ever be the same...

Ralph

 

[sailaway78]

It's a fiasco

Hey Chuck,
This whole thing is just one big fiasco. I talked to a friend of mine a couple of days ago who is a water patrol guy for the Shreiffs dept. in St.Tammany. First day he has had off in almost 60 days. His description of the situation was " A Dog and Pony Show". The shrimpers on the east end of the lake, at least the bait shrimpers, can still work. But the oyster boats, and a lot of the crab boats are sitting. Why don't they hire these guys to run skimmers. Lots and lots of out of state people working. The command post at Ft. Pike is packed with people and equipment, but nothing going on. And then you post up about these guys drinking and then going to work on boats. WOW The coasties stopped and turned back some barges last week because not enough fire extinguishers, life jackets or whatever. Just a whole lot of this doesn't make any sense. I am afraid that the gulf coast as we know it, will never again be the same. At least not in our life time.

 

[Stu Jackson]

It is NOT a "spill"

A spill is where you drop of cup of water on your kitchen floor. I think we're being misled by this inappropriate phrase. If BP is "containing" more oil as it "spills" up from the hole into their container ships, then why not put a giant umbrella on it and gobble it ALL up.

 

[Ross]

Re: It is NOT a "spill"

If this were an invading army instead of crude oil then every man woman and child would be welcome to join the fight and EPA, Coast Guard, and others be damned. It is time to put somebody in charge down there with a "Git her done" attitude. This fight could be lost on regulations that don't matter because this oil trumps everytihing.

 

[Bob16873]

Chuck,
I keep my boat across the bay and see the daily stream of pleasure boats heading out to spot oil. Each one is making $1,300 + per day. Once they spot oil no one is there to clean it up. Today they spotted a dead duck in the river and someone waited 4 hours for someone to look at it. The armada of day boaters is only for show. It is a shame that the shrimpers and the fishermen who's life depends on the water are not being used. I think that all of this is wasted money and it should be saved to compensate the people that are truly affected.

 

[Chuck Creel]

Amen BOB,
My point is this, Every boater i see from out of state represents a local man out of work and can't feed his family.

RUN THEM ALL OUT OF TOWN.

AND ROss your right on track also.

 

[sailaway78]

It's just so sad

I think it's horrible that they are bringing in out of state people when locals are out of work, and running out of money. Maybe I should go out and buy myself some little POS boat, and make some of that 1300 day rate. I am not backing off BP, but the gummit now has to shoulder most of the blame for the way things are being run.

 

[kenn]

Doesn't make sense.

Gotta say this "$1300/day to spot oil" figure sounds improbable. Can anyone confirm this and provide some links? Who's paying the alleged $1300 to these boaters - BP or the government?

 

[J Hunter]

Private, for profit companies (usually ones with the largest profit margins on the planet) lobby, cajole and bribe elected officials to auction exploration and drilling leases on public property (for decades). The absolute unabashed goal of bidding on these leases and coming up with the most efficient (read cheapest) way to extract ancient hydrocarbon (formed hundreds of miillions of years ago) from miles below the earth's surface is of course to maintain and increase the personal wealth of the owners of these companies.

When something goes terribly wrong, the company (and whole industry) that exists to drill, pump and profit is completely unprepared and incapable of responding adequately, a monster environmental and economic disaster is unleashed on what is already one of the most economically challenged areas of the wealthiest nation on earth, it is of course the government's fault that things aren't going that well. If only government were smaller.

 

[Ross]

Private, for profit companies (usually ones with the largest profit margins on the planet) lobby, cajole and bribe elected officials to auction exploration and drilling leases on public property (for decades). The absolute unabashed goal of bidding on these leases and coming up with the most efficient (read cheapest) way to extract ancient hydrocarbon (formed hundreds of miillions of years ago) from miles below the earth's surface is of course to maintain and increase the personal wealth of the owners of these companies.

When something goes terribly wrong, the company (and whole industry) that exists to drill, pump and profit is completely unprepared and incapable of responding adequately, a monster environmental and economic disaster is unleashed on what is already one of the most economically challenged areas of the wealthiest nation on earth, it is of course the government's (and especially the President's) fault that things aren't going that well. If only government were smaller.

All of the oil companies are publicly held. New York State owns 19 million shares of BP. The oil companies exist because there is a demand of petroleum products. If we can give up our fuel driven cars, our plastic boats, our polyester sails and ropes, our centrally heated homes and about a million other things made from petrochemicals then the oil companies will go out of business.
This well in the gulf of mexico is the biggest well in the world. It has spilled oil at an undiminished rate for 67 days and shows no sign of letting up.
The response of all parties involved is more like a drunken house guest has spilled wine on the carpet rather than treating this as an assualt on our shores by a deadly force.

 

[marty1000]

The oil continues to flow out at an alalrming rate. Believe it or not, BP are making money from the oil that they now capture. The well will be paying for iteself probably now, however. I've even heard it said on the TV that BP own the Deepwater Horizon. they don't. Transocean do. Transocean own the rig, the BOP, they are responsible for maintaining the BOP and keeping it in tip top condition, not BP. The ultimate decision on the rigs operations do not come from BP. The OIM who is on the Transocean payrole has final word on what happens for all operation and can overule BP. So less of this knocking BP, it seems like everyone is jumping on the bandwagon on this.
You can be sure that yes, BP will pay for the clean up, but you can gaurantee they will be seeing Transocean in the law courts to claim as much as they can from Transocean.......watch their stock!

 

[sailaway78]

Sorry Marty, but BP is not making money from this oil They are collecting somewhere around 20,000 barrels per day, depending on whom you listen to and how well their little suction device works. The oil that they are recovering does bring in money. But probably only in the 150 to 200,000 per day range. That does not come close to covering what the recovery ships and tankers cost them. the best numbers I'm hearing on that cost are well over 1 million per day. What they are doing is everything possible to save this well. They DO NOT want it completely closed down. It took ten years to jump through all the govt. hoops get the lease, ( from the gummit) and get all the required permits, which cost untold millions of dollars. That is what they want to avoid. Maybe not losing the ten years as much as knowing that with what went on with this well, they probably can not get another permit to drill out there. And there are untold billions of barrels of oil in this reservoir. When all said and done, it's still all about the money.

 

[Phil Herring]

FYI, I made a few small edits so we can keep this thread out of the war room. Thank you in advance for not taking this in a political direction.

 

[kenn]

FYI, I made a few small edits so we can keep this thread out of the war room. Thank you in advance for not taking this in a political direction.

Too late. Just move it, already.

 

[Scott B]

Too late. Just move it, already.

I've tried to keep out of these as much as possible. The mess in the Gulf has an impact on the environment etc. but also impacts sailing..... which is what this site is about...... discussions on sailing and our sailing areas and what affects our sailing etc.

Unfortunately, many on the forum will have the area in which they live, let alone their sailing grounds, greatly impacted by this event.