You are in the current BP disaster ROV, number 86. Number 85 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 Crashing Vor and Pam LaPier's diaries 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.
Garrett's Requiring a Relief Well: Let's Write a Bill! diary is, here.
The Sea Turtle
by David Soubly
She will not look up, not yet:
There is too much to do.
Across and above the surrounding beach
Gulls wheel, pivoting on wingtips
Over restless waves.
Crashing surf propels her,
Pushing her to heated sand.
She responds to generations,
One hundred million linked together
Year over year.
Neck cords stretched, parrot beak gaping,
She struggles against this grainy stuff.
Far easier, water, cool and inky,
Where she sails and dives at will.
Not so here
Under the blazed sky, the sun
Bakes her back. Bones under the shell
Feel the slow torment. She must hurry,
Push these flailing legs onward:
She is not done.
Her shell scrapes the stones, and her claws,
Splayed and hard, sweep the grains.
Inch by inch, she wills herself along
Until she discovers that special place
True to her.
Behind and beyond, in near and far spaces
Children gather shells, crack into buckets
Stuff of stars, squeal when they meet
The scuttling crab, dance to scatter
The regarding gulls.
Beyond, hunched and encroaching, the gates
Consume it raw, the belly
Bends and twists the iron, the stacks
Shove smoke skyward, and the drains
Void the waste.
Behind the gulls, stabbing the blue,
Electrons squeal, data screams.
Costs and purchases, shares and deals
Shriek across the horizon, binding the skies
For this time.
Her eyes blink and glitter,
A tiny sun pinned in each black.
Against the odds, she gains the appointed space,
Pushes her old rump into the hot, receiving earth,
And begins.
Her head sweeps back and forth;
She gathers up the landscape,
Edge of rock and water, embracing ages,
Whole populations rising and dwindling
To here and now.
Armies and children, joys and scourges –
These do not find their way
Behind her eyes. Light and water,
Time and heat, instinct and discipline
Guide her here.
She works now under circling gulls.
Sand will not reveal the destroyer,
Eggs scattered and exposed. Sky will not say
Which beak will pierce which infant.
She must lay sufficient.
Under the watching world, she withdraws,
Covers the clutch, heaves herself downward
To the sea. She will never see these children,
Nor know whether it will be three, or two,
Or one only
Who pulls itself from its shell
Who scrabbles across sand and avoids diving birds
Who gains the receiving depths
Who survives the predatory onslaught
who grows and mates and feels then the purpose
Who crawls upon this beach
One hundred million and one
Returning her ancient promise.
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.
The BOB and pressure drawings are viewable here. The CAD drawings come highly recommended by the techies among us. h/t Claudius Bombarnac.
Breaking News and new links:
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
- laundry basket: yellow thing that brings things up and down
cosmic debris put together a comprehensive list of links on oil health and safety info:
Thanks to dov12348 for publishing a diary on Oil Terminology.
Here is a tutorial on the sources of pressure on the well
H/t to Pluto for finding this:
Here is an excellent image of what is supposed to exist under the wellhead. Take the comments from Halliburton with a grain of salt since this is part of their "blame those two" PR campaign.
Images giving a rough idea of what's in place now and status of the kill wells
The video feeds we are watching:
==== ROV Feeds =====
44287/44668 - OceanInterventionROV1
44838/45135 - OceanInterventionROV2
46566/54013 - Viking_Poseidon_ROV1
55030/56646 - Viking_Poseidon_ROV2
31499/31500 - Boa_Deep_C_ROV_1
22458/23729 - Boa_Deep_C_ROV_2
45685/49182 - Skandi_ROV1 (BP player shows wrong feed)
45683/45684 - Skandi_ROV2
47175/21144 - Enterprise_ROV_1
21145/21327 - Enterprise_ROV_2
37235/37270 - Q4000_ROV1
35523/35624 - Q4000_ROV2
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):
The best multi-view feed Be patient as load time may take a bit.
Markey's multi-view page
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
- Another Gulf Oil Spill: Well near Deepwater Horizon has leaked since at least April 30
- White House endorses unlimited liability cap for oil spillers
- Lab tests confirm underwater layers of oil
- 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.
- Visualize the spill
- Nola.com
- dov12348's Ocean currents, wind currents, and hurricane links
- World newspapers oil section
- The Oil Drum
- Oil & Gas Journal
- Offshore Magazine
- Petroleum News
- Your Oil and Gas News
- World Oil
- Administration response to spill.
- Donate to SkyTruth here. SkyTruth helps environmental NGOs use remote sensing (pictures taken from space) and digital mapping to improve their scientific credibility, conservation decisionmaking, communications and public outreach.
- 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.
- Timeline of the Event from April 20th being maintained by blogroots.
- Department of Energy BP Deepwater Horizon Spill site updates.
- Bit Tooth Energy blog (technical discussions) by the famed Heading Out, well known key poster on The Oil Drum blog site.
- 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.
- BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Quantitative Data - from whitis
- Courtesy of profgoose here is a list of links from The Oil Drum links on newer developments, etc
- Maritime ship tracking -- courtesy of johnsonwax
- U.S. begins criminal investigation into oil spil
- NOAA Spill tracking site
- ERMA: Environmental Response Management Application
- BP has a good diagram of the cutting process that partially succeeded
- Documents show BP chose a less-expensive, less-reliable method for completing well in Gulf oil spill
- Norway freezes drilling in new deepwater blocks
- Worker on rig saw it coming
- BP Plans $10 Billion Dividend Payout
- BP doesn't want photos of dead animals
Previous liveblog ROV diaries:
BP Oilpocalypse Liveblog ROV 85 - Tomtech
BP Oilpocalypse Liveblog ROV 84 - Lorinda Pike
BP Oilpocalypse Liveblog ROV 83 - peraspera
BP Oilpocalypse Liveblog ROV 82 - Pam LaPier
BP Oilpocalypse Liveblog ROV 81 - khowell
BP Oilpocalypse Liveblog ROV 80 - Tomtech
BP Oilpocalypse Liveblog ROV 79 - peraspera
BP Oilpocalypse Liveblog ROV 78 - rubyr
BP Oilpocalypse Liveblog ROV 77 - papicek
BP Oilpocalypse Liveblog ROV 76 - khowell
BP Oilpocalypse Liveblog ROV 75 - conchita
BP Oilpocalypse Liveblog ROV 74 - Lorinda Pike
...
For a more complete list of Liveblog diaries, see the current mothership.