You are in the current BP disaster ROV number 273 number 272 is here.
Please DO NOT Rec this diary, rather REC THE MOTHERSHIP instead. She needs your love to stay afloat.
Please be kind to kossacks with bandwidth issues. Please do not post images or videos. Again, many thanks for this.
PLEASE visit Pam LaPier's diary to find out how you can help the Gulf now and in the future. We don't have to be idle! And thanks to Crashing Vor and Pam LaPier for working on this!
For a description of the mothership/ROV liveblogging process, check out this thread.
Must read: Lax Oversight Seen in Failure of Oil Rig's Last Line of Defense. Watch video and interactive graphic page, too. Best overview of how the BOP works, and doesn't work, and the management interference that caused the accident.
Deepwater Horizon BP Oil Spill Reference Material - from Whitis is the best source for everything.. The quantitative data diary has also been moved there.
Kairos brought us a motherlode of technical data which includes a 19 mb 48 page BP Accident Investigation Overview and a 12 mb 147 page Confidential TransOcean Assurance Analysis of the BOP with detailed control diagrams starting at page 56.
Jeff Masters of Weather Underground posted his take on the effects of a hurricane passing through the Gulf and making landfall.
Please DO NOT Rec this diary, Rec the Mothership here.
BP put up a video explaining the LMRP procedure and the future plans.
Go to the Deepwater Horizon Data Summary for a wealth of actual data from the Department of Energy.
This is what BP DOES NOT WANT YOU TO SEE. The following images are guaranteed to make you SICK AT HEART.
These images are not for the faint of heart - DO NOT VIEW THEM LIGHTLY.
Really, I mean it. Hold somebody's hand. Grab a tissue.
A brief reference guide to nicknames you may see in the ROV diaries:
- Gertrude, aka Gerty: the oil volcano
- Lizzy: the diamond saw cutter
- Clampy: the cute ROV
- Crunchy: 30 ft shear. bit the pipe, now a movie star
- Wanda: the dispersant sprayer
- laundry basket: yellow thing that brings things up and down
- Thingy: those things, you know, those things
- Shiny Thing: those really neat things
- Ms. Blanche Flo, aka Blanche, aka Flo: the manifold thingy
Thanks to dov12348 for publishing a diary on Oil Terminology.
Technical Info
Here is a tutorial on the sources of well pressure.
H/T to Pluto for finding this:
Here is a much better well casing configuration diagram (PDF).
Technical look at the BP Spill Investigation (PDF)
The initial approach above will be followed by open hole and drill pipe magnetic ranging. After they get within 5 feet of the blown out well's lower casing they will ream, case and cement the relief well prior to reaming through the blown well's casing. (Photos from The Oil Drum)
Audio, a slide presentation, and a transcript from Kent Wells' 6-28 briefing is available.
Video feeds we are watching
==== ROV Feeds =====
44287/44668 - Ocean Intervention's ROV 1
44838/45135 - Ocean Intervention's ROV 2
46566/54013 - Viking Poseidon's ROV 1
55030/56646 - Viking Poseidon's ROV 2
31499/31500 - Boa Deep C's ROV1
22458/23729 - Boa Deep C's ROV 2
45685/49182 - Skandi Neptune's ROV 1 (Hercules 14)
45683/45684 - Skandi Neptune's ROV 2 (Hercules 6)
47175/21144 - Discoverer Enterprise's ROV 1
21145/21327 - Discoverer Enterprise ROV 2
37235/37270 - Q4000's ROV 1
35523/35624 - Q4000's ROV 2
41434/41436 - Olympic Challenger's ROV 1
40788/40789 - Olympic Challenger's ROV 2
24951/24975 - Discoverer Inspiration's ROV 1
30948/35246 - HOS Achiever's ROV 1
35461/36301 - HOS Achiever's ROV 2
==Possibly outdated or redundant links (from The Oil Drum)==
46245 - BP "Official" #1 (primary)
46260 - BP "Official" #2 (secondary)
46661 - BP mystery feed #1
46663 - BP mystery feed #2
==Restricted to web browser based viewing==
CNN Video Streams Note: multi-view is sometimes unavailable.
PBS (fewer security issues than some others)
BP videos Links to all available live feeds from BP.
WKRG - Mobile/Pensacola (Contains link for an iPhone app at the bottom.)
ABC 7 Chicago Live Video Multiple ROV Camera Views (h/t to temptxan for the great find).
==Multiple stream feeds (hard on browser/bandwidth)==
Bobo's lightweight ROV Multi-feed: A great low impact multi-view page
The best multi-view feed Be patient as load time may take a bit.
Markey's multi-view page
Lusty/papicek/sullivanst multi-feed page (originally created by papicek, small improvement by Lusty, and huge improvement by sullivanst)
Vote For America's awesome clickable multi-view Courtesy of one of our very own Kossacks.
A multi-view Contains feeds from BP, C-SPAN-2, WKRG, and PBS
High-def video feeds
See this thread for more info on using video feeds and on linking to video feeds.
Again, to keep bandwidth down please do not post images or videos.
Links, courtesy of several Kossacks
ACTION
- X Prize Competition for oil spill fix announced
- Requiring a Relief Well: Let's Write a Bill! A diary series by Garret
- National Science Foundation rapid response research grants for Gulf oil spill research
- ERMA: Environmental Response Management Application
BACKGROUND
- Google Crisis Response page for Gulf Oil Spill
- Wikipedia: Deepwater Horizon oil spill
- BP has a good diagram of the cutting process that partially succeeded
- VIDEO - CBS 60 Minutes Report on the Deepwater Horizon Blowout
CLEANUP INFORMATION
- BP Hides Use of Mostly Black Prison Labor for Oil Gusher Cleanup
By Kossak Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse
DATA
- Sketch Map of Subsea Operations - from Another Kevin
- GeoPlatform - Gulf Response: Mapping the Response to BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico
- Kent Wells' technical update, June 10, 2010
- dov12348's oil toxicity links
- dov12348's Ocean currents, wind currents, and hurricane links
- Visualize the spill
- SkyTruth
- Images of the Oilpacalypse, from Tomtech.
- Visit the Oil Spill Crisis Map to see where oil, mousse, tar balls, and eau de crude have been reported on the Gulf coast.
- The BP Deepwater Horizon Unified Command official website. Wherein you can read latest post warning of employment scams associated with the event and much more from the folks handling this.
- Timeline of response here.
- Department of Energy BP Deepwater Horizon Spill site updates.
- Department of Interior BP Deepwater Horizon Response site provides updates, reports, data, links to pictures, etc.
- Rigzone for specific disaster news and news about the offshore industry, in general.
- Courtesy of profgoose here is a list of links from The Oil Drum links on newer developments, etc
- Maritime ship tracking -- courtesy of johnsonwax
- Map of things on the sea floor there. -- outdated, based on unreliable data
- Calculator for distance from BOP. -- not reliable
- NOAA Spill tracking site
HEALTH AND SAFETY
- 2010 Gulf Oil Spill Crisis Wiki
- NIH National Library of Medicine Crude oil spills and Health
- ATSDR (Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry) Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPH): ToxFAQs™
- CDC Emergency Preparedness and Response: 2010 Gulf of Mexico
Includes fact sheets and health and safety information for Gulf Coast Residents, Response Workers, and Health Professionals
- Reducing Occupational Exposures while Working with Dispersants During the Gulf Oil Spill Response
- EPA Response to BP Spill in the Gulf of Mexico
Includes Air Monitoring Data Reports, Daily Average Particulate Matter, Air Sampling Data Files, Real-time Air Monitoring (including TAGA data), and Downloadable data set of hourly air monitoring
- Hester's Special Guest Mothership on Human Health Issues and the BP Disaster
LEGISLATION/FEDERAL RESPONSE
- Administration response to spill.
- Kossak Square Knot's diary on the limits of governmental authority
PERTINENT BLOGS and collections of Oil Spill-specific JOURNALISM
- The Daily Hurricane: Blog run by Bob Cavnar
- Nola.com Oil Spill News
- Sun Herald (Biloxi, MS) Oil Spill News
- Mobile (AL) Press-Register Oil Spill News
- St. Petersburg Times (FL) Oil Spill News
- World newspapers oil section
- The Oil Drum
- Oil & Gas Journal
- Offshore Magazine
- Petroleum News
- Your Oil and Gas News
- World Oil
- Bit Tooth Energy blog (technical discussions) by the famed Heading Out, well known key poster on The Oil Drum blog site.
WILDLIFE
- Help Cornell Lab of Ornithology collect bird information on the Gulf
- Center for Biological Diversity list of Gulf species threatened by the spill
- International Bird Rescue Research Center: Info on bird survival rates
- Summarized tally of affected wildlife
- US Fish & Wildlife Service Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Response h/t to CindyMax Left side of page has "Daily Wildlife Collection Reports" that details wildlife found oiled, alive, deceased, and/or released.
- BP doesn't want photos of dead animals
- Washington Post: People Come Together to Save Coast's Oil-Covered Wildlife (h/t Humphrey)
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There are times when something that's been "far away" is made undeniably real. I've had a handful of those moments in my life: when my Dad's best friend, my "Uncle Jerry," was diagnosed with AIDS, I saw first-hand the antipathy and hatred our society shows GLBT people and AIDS patients. When I dated a drummer on whom I had an epic crush, I saw the venom my small Mississippi hometown reserved for black/white relationships. When a grad-school friend died of malnutrition and exposure, I saw society's blindness for the unemployed, homeless, and depressed.
When I went home in May, I smelled the oil I'd only read about for the previous fortnight. It was there, on my beaches, in my marsh, killing my animals. It might seem odd, but I feel a fierce possession and protectiveness for the vistas of my childhood, and this amorphous threat promised to injure the Gulf that produced me.
Today, I found out that a family friend is desperately ill. L's had various and sundry immune system disorders for ages - she had lymphoma when I was a kid, and has struggled with all sorts of strange things ever since - from fibromyalgia to wonky anemia, and some sort of might-be-lupus thing, this friend is like a walking episode of House, M.D. It's just gotten worse, though. L was assured she'd be okay heading down to Grand Isle a few weeks ago, and she got in the water and did what people do when they go to the beach: slathered on sun screen, stayed in some UPF-Zillion shirts, and noodled around in the surf with her friends.
First, she had some sort of rash. By the time she got back, most of her legs were covered with weeping sores which have now ulcerated almost to the bone in some areas and deep into muscle tissue in others. Now, they have her in a clean room. From what the family's been told, her physicians think her exposure to chemicals in the Gulf is playing a role in this illness. They are treating her case carefully, running tests, and hoping they can forestall infection and get her to heal; we're waiting and hoping for the best.
Time will tell us many things: If spill-related chemicals in the Gulf didn't cause L's newest strange symptoms, we're hoping she'll begin to heal on her own, with the help of her doctors. Luckily, she's at one of the region's premiere medical centers, with one of the nation's best burn centers on site. Similarly, whether or not BP has successfully killed this well, it is folly to jump to conclusions at this early juncture. Luckily, we have well-respected industry professionals here to help keep us on track and remind us that it is okay to continue to ask questions about what we see here.
Today, some of my fears about the medical ramifications of this spill were realized. Yes, it's anecdotal, and yes, there's a distinct possibility that L's symptoms aren't related to the chemicals we've dumped in the ocean. I hope like hell I'm wrong, and we'll all keep hoping that L will be okay. But today, yet another chapter of this disaster became real for me: A friend is sick, and it might be due to the oil spill.
Please spare some good thoughts for our friend, the hard-working ROV pilots, and the men and women of the Gulf who are living in close proximity to this disaster every day. Regardless of what happens tonight, or tomorrow, or the next day, remember that for many, many, people what we've been watching on our computers for ... ever ... is "right-in-their-backyard-real". For some of us, this isn't just an exercise in blogging and watching strange and blobby pictures on the internet, it's wondering if our very own jobs and land and health will still be there tomorrow.
I'm also going to take the time to rephrase something that's become a part of every ROV:
Please treat each other with respect here. We can disagree all day long, but I'll ask everyone here to leave personal attacks elsewhere. I want it to be over, too - with every fiber of my being, desperately. But the fact remains that we just don't know yet. We all bring something to the table here, from the musician and the writer to the engineer and biologist. Let's all leave politics out of this particular issue as best we can, treat each other with kindness, and do our damndest to speak truth to power as we hope to reach the end of this interminably long nightmare.
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Previous liveblog ROV diaries:
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #272 - Static Yes, Kill Maybe? - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - bubbanomics
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #271 - What Static Kill? - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Yasuragi
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #270 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - GChaucer2
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #269 - Bubbly Static Kill - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Gulf Watchers Overnight/peraspera
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #268 - Too many bubbles - BP's Gulf Catastrophy - David PA
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV # 267 - Spill Kill, Part ?!? - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - bubbanomics
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV # 266 - Waiting for the Kill - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - gchaucer2
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #265 - Waiting for the Kill - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Gulf Watchers Overnight/peraspera
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #264 - Waiting for the Kill - BP's Gulf Catastrophe by Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #263 - Waiting for the Kill - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Yasuragi
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers Rov # 262 - gchaucer2
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV # 261 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Waiting for the "kill". - Gulf Watchers Overnight - peraspera
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV # 260 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Waiting for the "kill". - David PA
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV # 259 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - A Lady Called Camille - khowell
Information on our community can be found in Phil S 33's diary here. That diary having timed out, bigjacbigjacbigjac next took up the cause and posted a new bio diary here. The latest bio diary was posted by Ursoklevar on 7-25 and includes the bios from the previous diaries in alphabetical order by user name.
If you'd like, feel free to join in by sharing a little about yourself there.
in the dark time we held vigil,
we held vigil against the night,
we raged against the storm,
we moved with the force of nature
to right a great wrong,
to howl like the wind,
to hold the line,
to renew an ancient vow,
a sacred purpose,
to recall to life the human spirit,
to safeguard that which is most holy to us,
to forge and reforge,
this, above all, to be true,
to awaken our greater nature,
to commune from the deepest regions of our soul,
to heal this realm, to heal our people,
to guard all life, to guard life,
for this generation,
and all to come,
this is why we hold vigil ~
~ ArthurPoet ~
| We Are Here |
| We are here. |
| We are watching. |
| Years from now, |
| if anyone asks, |
| we will tell them: |
| We were there. |
| |
| Maybe it will not matter. |
| Maybe nothing matters. |
| But if we throw up our hands now, |
| maybe someday, |
| years from now, |
| we will ask ourselves, |
| why did we not at least keep watch, |
| why did we not? |
| |
| Maybe someday, some of us |
| will talk with someone younger, |
| and tell of the time we watched. |
| Maybe that someone younger |
| will try harder next time, |
| will do more next time, |
| remembering |
| the time we watched. |
| |
| -- bigjacbigjacbigjac |
We're all stunned and horrified by this disaster. Huddling with good people to calculate the damage and monitor progress, have a laugh when we can, share the sorrow we feel, and learn a lot in the process... That's what I'm really here for.
This is how I best cope. And if it turns out to be a useful thing to others, then that's great.
Kimberley
This is where you want to be for discussion, worrying, tearing up, and caring for each other. It's also where you're welcome to be angry and scream and curse and cry and rant at the criminal negligence and greed that have brought us all together. Most importantly, though, it's where we can learn from those kossaks among us (I'll not name names for abject fear of leaving one of you out, but you know who you are.) who bring the light of knowledge - sometimes with heat, sometimes without it - and teach us about what's happening beneath our Gulf of Mexico. On a personal note, I'll ask you to please be kind to each other in our little boats. There's enough hurt going on outside without bringing it here. - khowell
Bandwidth Warning: NO IMAGES and NO VIDEOS. Readers who are on DIALUP will thank you!