Now that we've reached and passed the 1-month mark since the start of this disaster, maybe it's a good time to look back and try to account for when events occured. I'll be going more or less day-by-day since April 20, when the explosion crippled the Deepwater Horizon platform, and started this mess. I'm not going to get into "why" things happened, just saying that they happened. Also, since diarists have been writing about events pretty much in real time, I'll link to various diaries for these events. I'm basing much of this timeline off of a few sites, such as SkyTruth and here, using the Deepwater Horizon and eKos tags. If I missed something important, or got something wrong, feel free to correct me.
Also, this might be a bit of a hit-and-run diary, because I'll be in and out of the house all day (e.g. two minutes after hitting "post"), so if I disappear for a while, that's why, but I'll try to cover all the comments when I'm around. Anyway, timeline over the fold.
For the time being, I'm leaving the links in their "raw" format, so you can see where you're heading. If people prefer that I replace them with something else, I'll do that instead.
April 20: An explosion on board the Deepwater Horizon kills 11, heavily damaging the structure
http://www.dailykos.com/...
April 21: Fire burning, reports that the rig was leaking about 13,000gal of crude oil per hour (~6500barrels of oil per day (BOPD) ).
http://www.nola.com/...
Unlinked: National Contingency Plan activated (I assume it's talking about ESF#10, but can't find a news story talking about it)
April 22 T+0 days: DH platform sinks. Oil slick begins to spread from site.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
April 23 T+1: Coast Guard reports no oil leaking from well head, BP mobilizes ROVs and 32 surface vessels for cleanup.
http://www.google.com/...
April 24 T+2: Coast Guard reports a leak of 1,000 BOPD (42,000gal/day), oil slick covers 400 square miles. BP says that 1,900 gallons of dispersants (probably Corexit) have already been used. As the SkyTruth post notes, it is already a "major" spill by Coast Guard standards, exceeding 100,000 gallons of oil. Robert Gibbs says "I don't honestly think it opens up a whole new series of questions, because in all honesty I doubt this is the first accident that has happened and I doubt it will be the last."
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://blog.skytruth.org/...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...
April 25 T+3: Oil slick now ~817 square miles. Total of 7,715 gallons of dispersants deployed.
http://blog.skytruth.org/...
April 26 T+4: Oil slick covers 1800 square miles. ROVs begin attempts to close BOP.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
April 27 T+5: Slick covers 2233 square miles. SkyTruth posts a rough analysis of the spill using claims by BP's execs: 3% of the spill was 100 microns thick, the rest was 1 micron (the exec actually said 1 molecule, but since 1 micron is the minimum thickness needed for a visible sheen, they went with that instead), setting this lower limit for the spill volume at just over 6 million gallons, or about 1.2 million gallons (28500 barrels) per day, and 28 times larger than what the "official" number was.
http://blog.skytruth.org/...
http://blog.skytruth.org/...
April 28 T+6: the official estimate is upped to 5000 BOPD (~20k gallons/day). SkyTruth comes out with another estimate of about 800k gal/day. Haliburton's role in cementing the plugs uncovered. ROV attempts to close BOP fail
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://blog.skytruth.org/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
April 29 T+7: Oil comes ashore.
http://blog.skytruth.org/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Bill Maher: "Every asshole who ever chanted 'Drill Baby Drill' should have to report to the Gulf Coast today for cleanup duty."
April 30 T+8: Administration places a hold on new offshore drilling projects. News reports start picking up on what SkyTruth published earlier, talking to the professor who gave them the initial estimate, 25,000 barrel/day estimate enters the (somewhat) mainstream. Obama stands by plans to increase domestic oil production.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
May 1 T+9: Slick covers 1786 square miles. SkyTruth cacluates that spill has exceeded Exxon Valdez, flow rate ~1.1 million gallons/day (MGD). NOAA video is leaked, saying that the worst case could be 4.6MGD. Government officials begin to complain that BP needs to work "harder, faster and smarter to get the job done."
http://blog.skytruth.org/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.chron.com/...
Diarist Unenergy posts his diary asking "Where are the photos?" - As of this date, only a bare handful of pictures, and zero video had been released to the public.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
May 2 T+10: BP spokesman calls the 5000barrel/day rate a "guesstimate". Napolitano says it could be "tens of thousands" of barrels/day. Skytruth's estimate starts getting more press. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen says that "Any exact estimate [of the size of the spill] is probably impossible at this time,". Coast Guard stops estimating oil flow rate.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://articles.latimes.com/...
May 7 T+15: BP gives up on trying to close the BOP. NOAA closes ~5% of federal Gulf waters to fishing.
http://www.reuters.com/...
http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/...
May 8 T+16: The "dome" fails to stop the leak.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
May 9 T+17: Kos diarist ericlewis0 comes up with the "permable stocking"
http://www.dailykos.com/...
May 10 T+18: Fishgrease starts his diaries on "Fucking proper fucking booming" (probably the longest I've seen a diary on the rec list, FWIW...)
May 12 T+20: Under some sort of pressure, BP finally releases a couple more images. Later releases one 30-second video. Information comes out that BOP had a known hydraulic leak, failed negative pressure test before explosion.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
May 13 T+21: Analysis of the video suggests flow rates ~70,000barrels/day. NPR gives estimate at about 50,000. Discovery that BOP was altered, BP had wrong documents.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
May 14 T+22: Oil slick covers 4922 square miles. Regulators approve underwater dispersant usage
http://blog.skytruth.org/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
May 16 T+24: Plumes of oil-water mixture found underwater in Gulf. 60 Minutes does its piece talking to a survivor of the DH explosion/fire, critical failures throughout the process highlighted. "Straw" inserted into larger spill point.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://blog.al.com/...
May 17 T+25: Slick enters the loop current
http://blog.skytruth.org/...
May 18 T+26: BP claims "straw" sucking 2000BOPD
http://www.dailykos.com/...
May 19 T+27: video of pipe with nonfunctioning straw released. Outside expert estimates flow rate ~95,000 barrels/day. US and Cuba in talks over slick impact.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
May 20 T+28: Rep Ed Markey (D-Ma) blasts BP and demands more information. White house does the same. EPA gives BP 24 hours to stop using Corexit. Federal Flow Rate team announced. Live video of one spill site made public. Permeable cone V3.0. Fishermen helping with cleanup getting sick. BP claims to be pulling 5000BOPD from the straw.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.dailykos.com/...
May 21 T+29: BP revises estimate to 2200 BOPD. Tells EPA that it will continue using Corexit("Corexit is an EPA pre-approved, effective, low-toxicity dispersant that is readily available, and we continue to use it.")
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.nola.com/...
May 22 T+30: Obama appoints Bob Graham and William Reilly to head independent commission to investigate the events leading up to the disaster. Obama: offshore oil drilling could only go forward if there were assurances that a disaster like the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill would not happen again.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
http://www.reuters.com/...
To date:
* Personnel were quickly deployed and approximately 24,900 are currently responding to protect the shoreline and wildlife.
* More than 1,100 vessels are responding on site, including skimmers, tugs, barges, and recovery vessels to assist in containment and cleanup efforts—in addition to dozens of aircraft, remotely operated vehicles, and multiple mobile offshore drilling units.
* More than 1.52 million feet of containment boom and 560,000 feet of sorbent boom have been deployed to contain the spill—and approximately 310,000 feet of containment boom and 1.27 million feet of sorbent boom are available.
* Approximately 9.7 million gallons of an oil-water mix have been recovered.
* Approximately 715,000 gallons of total dispersant have been deployed—630,000 on the surface and 85,000 subsea. More than 375,000 gallons are available.
* 17 staging areas are in place and ready to protect sensitive shorelines, including: Dauphin Island, Ala., Orange Beach, Ala., Theodore, Ala., Panama City, Fla., Pensacola, Fla., Port St. Joe, Fla., St. Marks, Fla., Amelia, La., Cocodrie, La., Grand Isle, La., Shell Beach, La., Slidell, La., St. Mary, La.; Venice, La., Biloxi, Miss., Pascagoula, Miss., and Pass Christian, Miss.
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse....
May 23 T+31: BP reports straw down to ~1350 BPOD.
http://www.nola.com/...
Sometime soon? Top Kill attempt.
And finally, if you'll forgive me, a little editorializing.
There's been a lot of talk in the last few weeks, centered mostly around whether the federal response to the disaster has been adequate or not. On the one hand, you have the critics of the administration's response saying that they should have been much more proactive. On the other, you have the defenders of the administration's response saying that there's nothing more that they could do to stop the disaster.
In this case, I happen to agree with both, but the defenders of the administration seem to be missing the point of the criticism. Maybe there were some that I missed, but I don't think I've seen anyone saying that the government needs to do more to close the spill. It's accepted, even by the critics, that there's very, very little that can be done on that end, so that's not what they're criticizing. The critcs, myself included, argue that it took far too long for the government to get information public. There's no reason why it should have taken 28 days for us to get video. There's no reason why it should have taken 28 days for the EPA to figure out that Corexit was more toxic and less effective than other dispersants. The Coast Guard should not have simply shrugged its shoulders and given up on trying to estimate the spill extent and flow rate. SkyTruth had been doing estimates from the beginning using solid techniques that could have been employed by the government (spill extent and appearance). Once video came out, it took experts in the field less than a day to get estimates. Why was there no public pressure put on BP to release ALL of their information? I'm not going to go as far as some others have, and call for daily press conferences, or anything like that, but I would have demanded that BP turn over any and all of the information on the well site, leak rate, videos, etc, within 24 hours. Even now, I believe we only have live video of one location. What about the other? And the third site was supposedly closed off, but where's the video backing that up? At DailyKos, we've had diarists and frontpagers asking for this stuff weeks ago. So to answer the question of "what do I want him to do", let's start by publicly pressuring BP to turn everything over to the public. But really, like so many other critics, the focus is more on "what did I want him to do", which is everything I still want him to do, just three weeks ago.
Miscellaneous
U.S. government slams BP for missed deadlines on spill
The U.S. government threatened on Sunday to remove BP from efforts to seal a blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico if it doesn't do enough to stop the leak, though it acknowledged only the company and the oil industry have the know-how to halt the deepwater spill.
Despite plan, not a single fire boom on hand on Gulf Coast at time of oil spill (This one could probably make a decent RAGE diary, if anyone wants it)
If U.S. officials had followed up on a 1994 response plan for a major Gulf oil spill, it is possible that the spill could have been kept under control and far from land.
The problem: The federal government did not have a single fire boom on hand.
EPA Officials Weigh Sanctions Against BP’s U.S. Operations
Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency are considering whether to bar BP from receiving government contracts, a move that would ultimately cost the company billions in revenue and could end its drilling in federally controlled oil fields.
Update 1: I'll tag things "Unlinked", for things that happened, but I can't find a source for, and add a "Miscellaneous" section down here (^ look up) for things which seem important or need more press (a subjective judgment, of course) but aren't necessarily a part of the above timeline. Thanks to gchauser2 for the info on the National Contingency Plan and bluicebank for the May 23 story about the straw.