You are in the current BP Catastrophe Morning Edition - AUV #407. ROV #406 is here.
The digest of diaries is here.
Please RECOMMEND THIS DIARY, the motherships have been discontinued.
Bookmark this link to find the latest Gulf Watchers diaries.
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!
Today as we celebrate Columbus and his historic voyage to the Americas,
I hope we can celebrate my first voyage into the world of blogs and diaries. This is my second attempt this AM to publish;quite ready to jump into a volcano at this point!
As of this morning all feeds are down. Yesterday DD2 was still jetting hydrates. We had a good view of the bullseye gauge, which according to a late comment by ovals49 has changed significantly (over 4 degrees) in the past seven days.
Yasuragi posted a link to an interesting blog which covers a lot of issues regarding the Deepwater Horizon.
from the author...
"I have an abiding love of tugs and unusual work vessels. The oil industry has both. Against this background, as events unfolded in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the note pad next to my easy chair began to fill with unexplained facts and unanswered questions, such as:
Is it a "box" "dome" or "contraption?"
What kind of vessel transported the "dome."
How do we end up with ice crystals at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico?
Finding facts and answers became the basis for the following story "M/V Joe Griffin and the Magic Box."
Sex scandals in MMS, information about the containment dome, visuals of the enormous physical resources taken up by big oil in the gulf are some of the topics covered.
More interesting, a powerpoint presentation to an independent chapter of the American Association of Drilling Engineers,that explains the dangers of releasing methane during the cementing process in a deepwater well.
Lastly,,an acoustic actuator that is required in Europe when deepwater wells are drilled and may have been able to activate the failed BOP.
As a backup to the BOP, Brazil and Norway require drillers to have a backup mechanism to activate the BOP totally different from direct wiring. One system, an acoustic method - variously called an "acoustic switch", "acoustic trigger", "acoustic trigger" - in which a unique sound wave turns on a BOP if an electric signal fails. BP uses them on many wells surrounding the United Kingdom.
In what can only be described as a supercilious argument, some American oil firms argue that "the acoustic system doesn't work well enough to require its use in U.S. waters."
Apparently U.S. water is different from Norwegian or Brazilian water.
Sadly, at the end of the day, Jim Hoffman, a former oil worker now with the University of North Texas' Professional Development Institute was recently quoted as saying, "Something broke down there. There are lots of ways to turn on the light, but if the bulb is burned out, it's not going to go on no matter what switch you use."
BP
says cleanup in the Pensacola area will be completed by March
2011.
BP put on a dog and pony show for the county commissioners.
There is no mention of any input from scientists as to whether or not
this is a realistic goal. - peraspera
More than 500 cleanup personnel still are working in
Escambia and Santa Rosa counties.
Buried oil has been discovered in varying amounts on beaches
from Perdido Key to Navarre. Thousands of pounds of oil continue to be
removed from local beaches each day.
A
newly designed piece of heavy equipment is used to clean Florida
beaches. Cleaning beaches of oil without causing further damage to
environment is not as easy as BP would wish us to believe. peraspera
The rolling machine can actually be a little too
effective, which alarms ecologists, who treasure the Panhandle's
beaches as something more than outdoor sets for sunbathing.
But the truck-sized "Sand Shark" is widely considered to be the best
way of digging up and removing the crude oil deposited here this
summer during the nation's worst offshore-drilling disaster.
...
"It's amazing," said Terry Morris, an oil-spill-response coordinator
for Gulf Shores National Seashore, which abuts both ends of Pensacola
Beach's commercial strip of hotels and restaurants. "It leaves
the sand as clean as a golf-course sand trap."
...
Daniel Brown, Gulf Island National Seashore's park superintendent,
said his staff is having an intense debate about how deep the Sand
Shark should be allowed to operate.
"Our concern is we don't do more harm by removing
oil," he said. "To us, beaches are a lot more than
sand and water."
The first few feet of sand contains crabs, insects and organic
material that provide fundamental support for a beach's
ecology, he said. And yet, when survey crews bored
408 holes in the seven miles of park seashore known as Fort Pickens,
27 percent of them contained oil as deep as 2 feet below the
surface.
==== ROV Feeds =====
20876/21507 - Development Driller II's ROV 1
32900/49178 - Development Driller II's ROV 2
41434/41436 - Olympic Challenger's ROV 1
40788/40789 - Olympic Challenger's ROV 2
39168/39169 - Chouest Holiday's ROV 1
40492/40493 - Chouest Holiday's ROV 2
Iron Horse ROV 1
47146/47147 - Development Driller III's ROV 1
43698/43699 - Development Driller III's ROV 2
==Multiple stream feeds (hard on browser/bandwidth)==
BP videos All the available directly feeds from BP.
Bobo's lightweight ROV Multi-feed: is the only additional up to date multiple feed site.
See this thread for more info on using video feeds and on linking to video feeds.
Previous Gulf Watcher diaries:
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #406 - Sunday Wrap - Lorinda Pike
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #405 - bleeding heart
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #404 - peraspera
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #403 - Darryl House
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #402 - Yasuragi
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #401 - Lorinda Pike
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #400 - Yasuragi
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #399 - Gulf Watchers/peraspera/story/
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #398 - Gulf Watchers/peraspera/story/
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #397 - Gulf Watchers/peraspera
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #396 - Gulf Watchers/peraspera
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #395 - Condition: transition - BP's Gulf Castastrophe - David PA
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #394 - Transitions - BP's Gulf Castastrophe - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #393 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #392 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - When Can we Share a Soda? - khowell
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #391 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Talking about Change - khowell
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #390 - Drips Redux - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #389 - Night of the Living Drips - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #388 - Sittin' Up With the Dead - khowell
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #387 - Time for a Wake? - khowell
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #386 - The Coroner Won't Pronounce - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Yasuragi
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #385 - Is it Dead? - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Lorinda Pike
The last Mothership has links to reference material.
Previous motherships and ROV's from this extensive live blog effort may be found here.
Again, to keep bandwidth down, please do not post images or videos.