You are in the current BP disaster ROV, number 205. Number 204 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.
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.
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.
The BOP and pressure drawings are viewable here. The CAD drawings come highly recommended by the techies among us. h/t Claudius Bombarnac.
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.
Here is a tutorial on the sources of pressure on the well
H/t to Pluto for finding this:
The official casing configuration under the wellhead.
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.
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 (herc14)
45683/45684 - Skandi_ROV2 (herc6)
47175/21144 - Enterprise_ROV_1
21145/21327 - Enterprise_ROV_2
37235/37270 - Q4000_ROV1
35523/35624 - Q4000_ROV2
41434/41436 - Oly_ROV1 (Olympic Challenger's ROV1)
40788/40789 - Oly_ROV2 (Olympic Challenger's ROV2)
24951/24975 - Inspire_ROV1 (Discovery Inspiration's ROV1)
30948/35246 - Hos_ROV1 (HOS Adventure ROV1)
35461/36301 - Hos_ROV2 (HOS Adventure 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
Lusty's multi-feed page (originally created by papicek, but a huge improvement made by Lusty, who also kindly hosts it :^)
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
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
LEGISLATION/FEDERAL RESPONSE
- Administration response to spill.
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)
Previous liveblog ROV diaries:
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #201 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Gulf Watchers Overnight/peraspera
Gulf Watchers ROV #200 - Party and Community Celebration - Garrett
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #199 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Yasuragi
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #198 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - gulfgal98
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #197 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - khowell
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #196 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Gulf Watchers Overnight/peraspera
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #195 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Ekyprogressive
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #194 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - CindyMax
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #193 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Kimberley
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #192 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Gulf Watchers Overnight/peraspera
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #191 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Yasuragi
Previous motherships and ROV's from this extensive live blog effort may be found here.
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
Vigilance > Knowledge > Action
A few weeks ago I received email notifications about a June 26 international action called Hands Across the Sand. Cribbing from Hands Across the Sand's press release, it was an event with a powerful image and a simple message: NO to Offshore Oil Drilling, YES to Clean Energy.
On Saturday, June 26, Americans and the people of the world in solidarity events joined hands on beaches and in parks and cities united against the dangers offshore oil drilling present to our oceans and marine wildlife, fishing industries and coastal economies, in Hands Across The Sand.
Hands Across The Sand‘s mission is to change our energy policy away from its dependence on fossil fuels and into the light of clean energy. The aim is to convince our leaders to abandon expanded offshore oil drilling and adopt policies that encourage clean and renewable energy sources.
"The image is powerful, the message simple," said event founder Dave Rauschkolb. "No to offshore oil drilling, yes to clean energy. We are drawing a line in the sand against offshore oil drilling along America’s beaches and in solidarity events across America and around the world. No one industry should be able to place entire coastal economies and marine environments at risk with dangerous, dirty mistakes."
Hands Across The Sand was founded by Dave Rauschkolb in October of 2009. He organized a statewide gathering on February 13, 2010, to send a message to Florida‘s legislators and Governor Crist that Floridians did not want them to lift the bans on near and offshore oil drilling in Florida’s waters. Thousands of Floridians representing 60 towns and cities and over 90 beaches joined hands to protest the efforts by the Florida Legislature and the US Congress to lift the ban on oil drilling in the near and off shores of Florida. Thousands joined hands from Jacksonville to Miami Beach and Key West to Pensacola Beach. The lifting of the near shore ban would have brought oil rigs as close as 3 miles from Florida‘s shores. Shortly after the event the Florida Legislature tabled the effort.
I was drawn to the image posted on the website and held my breath as I checked the map for an event in York, Maine (where I was working on my family's summer home) and was pleasantly surprised to find that Andrew and Allie Hayford had organized an event at the local beach within walking distance of our house.
When I arrived at the beach on Saturday around 11 am, I found it already crowded on a beautiful sunny day and no line in sight in front of the designated meeting spot. Knowing that these things take some time to make happen, I hung around and watched for fellow activists. Not much later an older couple showed up with beach chairs and plunked down right where I expected folks to gather. Soon a small group approached them with clipboards. They looked a bit young, but were the closest thing on the beach to activists, so I made my move, thinking that the middle aged red head with them must be Allie. Not so. Andrew was her high school-aged son and Allie, his older sister. The older couple in the beach chairs were Andrew and Allie's grandparents. It was very much a family affair with the red head's husband, Andrew and Allie's father, the appointed photographer. I was moved and charmed.
I joined Andrew and Allie and their mum in canvassing the beach with fliers and encouraging others to join hands in the next fifteen minutes. We received a responses ranging from - "GREAT! I read about this and was hoping to participate" to "I'll be there, thanks so much for organizing this" to "Not interested". Andrew and Allie said they had received hundreds of emails in support prior to the event.
At noon we met back in front of the bath house and joined hands. Here we are, courtesy of a local photographer, Steve Ritchie, who published this and additional shots on flickr:
On the right, that's me in the denim skirt and back pack, the red head is next to me, Andrew and Allie to her right, and their grandparents to the right of them. People came from different directions on the beach and linked hands with others. The woman to my left had come from New Hampshire at 7:30 that morning with her daughter (in the hat and shorts to her left) writing messages in the sand while they waited for the event to start. We stood together for nearly an hour - all ages, all sizes, all there to say no to offshore drilling and yes to keeping our oceans clean. This message was left in the sand by a seven year old:
The next day I received an email from a friend in Seattle who included a link to an article in the West Seattle Herald about their Hands Across the Sand event.
Hands Across the Sand was only one event in York a few Saturdays ago and we admittedly didn't have the participation of everyone at Long Sands Beach. However, we knew while we stood in a line along the beach that our effect was larger. We had the attention of every beach goer within sight, and, as I learned in talking with others in the following weeks while in York, we captured the interest of many who were not on Long Sands that morning. I heard about it from neighbors, shop owners, and folks I met while on the beach with family. The reach of our line extended beyond the hands joined and beyond Long Sands Beach. Just as the Gulfwatchers are vigilant on the undersea mechanications in the Gulf, we need to be vigilant on the shore as well, raising consciousness and driving policy to oppose offshore drilling and in support of clean energy and protection of our environment and resources.
With the general skepticism of our resident experts re the integrity test and the rationale for it, it seems that we are in for some tense moments in the hours ahead. Fishgrease, in his inimitable manner has expressed his doubts, and PhilS33 posed the question well at the end of comments in #204. Whatever the outcome of the integrity test (if it happens and if there is any significant outcome at all) and, in future weeks, the kill wells, we cannot stop being vigilant. We cannot forget that when the oil stops flowing from the Macondo well, the crisis is not over. We must take vigilance and knowledge gained and turn it into action to ensure that this catastrophe does not repeat itself in the Gulf of Mexico or elsewhere in another guise. It really is about us and turning to our friends, family, and neighbors and sharing with them our knowledge and commitment and building solidarity throughout the country and the world helping each other to protect our environment while we can.
I suggested to Andrew Hayford that he consider organizing a Hands Across the Sand at Long Sands Beach in York as a weekly vigil, but he is busy with other environmental endeavors and wasn't able to take it on. A high school sophomore, he is one of 10 students nationally to receive a Planet Connect grant from the National Environmental Education Foundation for his proposal of a beach pollution reduction project in southern Maine. Articles in the Portland Herald and the SeacoastOnline.com describe his efforts in more detail.
My challenge to myself and others in writing this diary, is to ask how can we at DailyKos match the initiative of Andrew Hayford and founder of Hands Across the Sand Dave Rauschkolb? If Rauschkolb's efforts managed to stop legislation that would have lifted the ban on oil drilling in the near and off shores of Florida, what can we accomplish here with the DailyKos platform? Hands Across the Sand listed over fifty cosponsors and partners in its press release including the Sierra Club, Audubon, Surfrider, Oceana, Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife, Alaska Wilderness League, Ocean Conservancy, Friends of the Earth, Environment America, 350, MoveOn.org, Center for Biological Diversity and CleanEnergy.org. Why not do something similar at DailyKos? Garrett began an effort to initiate legislation to require kill wells to be drilled simultaneously with new wells. I talked about lobbying Congress to stop the spraying of dispersants, but honestly stepped back from it when I received serious pushback and realized that I didn't have the chemistry chops to fully analyze the data at hand to be able to argue effectively. FishOutofWater has an important diary on the rec list about lack of NOAA refusing to share information on dispersants with scientists that it has given to BP. While not a scientist, I suspect that there is a very strong likelihood of extreme damage being done to the Gulf and beyond by oil plumes formed as a result of the use of dispersants.
There are so many of us here who are devastated by what we see happening to our environment and our government. I have learned how empowering it is to work with others to make a difference. Hands Across the Sand was symbolic, but it was powerful. I am hoping that by telling this story it might suggest possibilities to others of ways to raise consciousness about what is happening in the Gulf and to our environment beyond and to spur us on to action. I recognize that it would be much easier if I were to announce a specific action plan, but I'm not - yet. At this point, I am suggesting a brainstorming session. What are your thoughts about what we can accomplish with our mass and our knowledge?
Bandwidth Warning: NO IMAGES and NO VIDEOS. Readers who are on DIALUP will thank you!