USVI-On-Line

I've been obsessed with watching the live feed from bp.com of the oil spill. Looks like they're pretty busy this morning. I have no idea what's going on though.

This just can't happen ever again. I feel so sorry for all the people who rely on these waters for a living. All the sealife. All the problems that will be here for so many years.

I just pray that this top kill works and I hope everyone else will say a prayer too.

I am upset about it too and will say prayers. This is terrible and yes it better never happen again!

I would go so far as to say my husband is obessed with the spill. He keeps thinking of different containment methods, some actually make a lot of sense.

I think if he could, he would grab the head guys at BP and knock their heads together.

sea-nile wrote:This is terrible and yes it better never happen again!

How can it NOT happen again? Not to get too soapboxy here, but isn't a spill like this just the risk you have to take in order to get cheap-eqsque oil?

Yea, this is catastrophic, but people who say "Stop drilling" need to ponder for a nanosecond just how much more of our country's future we'd like to mortgage to the Saudis.

If you ask me (and you didn't), the best thing that could come out of this is that people wake the hell up and start realizing that, with the proper incentive, an electric car can work. So can a wind farm, so can solar, etc, blah blah blah

Because if I'm BP, I look at it this way "Sure, we'll try to be safe but we know the US Government will eventually fix it for us if we screw up. Because, in the end, they all need the oil more than we need to spend to contain a disaster."

Prayers are a nice thought. However, the US is going to need more than prayers. Prayers are not going to undo the destruction, death, and damage that's been inflicted on the gulf coast by BP, TransOcean, and Haliburtan. Eleven lives have been lost, marshes are being destroyed, and an untold numbers of land and sea animals are dead and dying. Shrimpers, fishers, and oyster harvesters who have relied on the Gulf for years are now left without any means to support their families. America needs strong regulations combined with a strong regulatory agency that's not in bed with the industry it regulates. This is going to be a hard lesson for America. Pip is correct. Until we are willing to give up our addiction to oil and commit to the development of clean, renewable energy sources, this man-made disaster will occur again. Those who do not learn from their mistakes are destined to repeat those same mistakes. The choice is ours.

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Wind or solar will never be the answer we will still need coal or gas fired plants or nukes for when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine I drove by hundreds of windmills today that weren't turning because it was quiet. Yes they will help but you can't have them only and why isn't hydro plants considered green our utility has a bunch of them but they don't count toward their green power do you think it could be because they are existing and the politicians don't get their kick backs from the lobbyists

The Prius is working out great. As a matter of fact, we are now the proud parents of three sippers and reduced our Super America credit card bill by several hundred dollars per month. Thanks for asking.

Other than to repeat what I said above about stronger industry oversight, regulations. and stringent enforcement of those regulations, I don't have any reply other than to say it is shameful to politicize an issue that affects all of us as Americans. We're all in this together. What affects those in the Gulf, affects all of us. It's our environment that is being destroyed by corporations who don't give a damn. This is not the American way as I was taught as a child and is not the America I want to leave to my children.

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pipanale wrote: So can a wind farm, so can solar, etc, blah blah blah

Because if I'm BP, I look at it this way "Sure, we'll try to be safe but we know the US Government will eventually fix it for us if we screw up. Because, in the end, they all need the oil more than we need to spend to contain a disaster."

Wind farms are not a day at the beach either. They kill birds, and they kill lots of birds. Knowing most of the folks around here, I wouldn't think wind farms would be that popular. Certainly they weren't popular with Uncle Teddy, at least "NIMBY". I always though a wind farm stretching across Pillsbury Sound between STJ and STT would provide an abundance of good, cheap, green energy.

As for BP and their spending on cleanup...They have spent nearly $650 million on spill cleanup.

pjayer wrote:Until we are willing to give up our addiction to oil and commit to the development of clean, renewable energy sources, this man-made disaster will occur again.

Really? How long have we and the rest of the world been drilling in the Gulf (since the 1930's). And how many times has an oil rig been blown to smithereens (to the best of my knowledge...once).

Since the overreaction is to lurch irresponsibly towards less oil development, maybe we should all take hot air balloons to St. John this year.

"Never Let a Good Crisis go to Waste". - Rahm

This is interesting...With all of these spills throughout the world over the years of our oil addiction, it is a wonder that Mama Earth is still here.

Oil Spills and Disasters

The following list includes major oil spills since 1967. The circumstances surrounding the spill, amount of oil spilled, and the attendant environmental damage is also given.


1967
March 18, Cornwall, Eng.: Torrey Canyon ran aground, spilling 38 million gallons of crude oil off the Scilly Islands.

1976
Dec. 15, Buzzards Bay, Mass.: Argo Merchant ran aground and broke apart southeast of Nantucket Island, spilling its entire cargo of 7.7 million gallons of fuel oil.

1977
April, North Sea: blowout of well in Ekofisk oil field leaked 81 million gallons.

1978
March 16, off Portsall, France: wrecked supertanker Amoco Cadiz spilled 68 million gallons, causing widespread environmental damage over 100 mi of Brittany coast.

1979
June 3, Gulf of Mexico: exploratory oil well Ixtoc 1 blew out, spilling an estimated 140 million gallons of crude oil into the open sea. Although it is one of the largest known oil spills, it had a low environmental impact.
July 19, Tobago: the Atlantic Empress and the Aegean Captain collided, spilling 46 million gallons of crude. While being towed, the Atlantic Empress spilled an additional 41 million gallons off Barbados on Aug. 2.

1980
March 30, Stavanger, Norway: floating hotel in North Sea collapsed, killing 123 oil workers.

1983
Feb. 4, Persian Gulf, Iran: Nowruz Field platform spilled 80 million gallons of oil.
Aug. 6, Cape Town, South Africa: the Spanish tanker Castillo de Bellver caught fire, spilling 78 million gallons of oil off the coast.

1988
July 6, North Sea off Scotland: 166 workers killed in explosion and fire on Occidental Petroleum's Piper Alpha rig in North Sea; 64 survivors. It is the world's worst offshore oil disaster.
Nov. 10, Saint John's, Newfoundland: Odyssey spilled 43 million gallons of oil.

1989
March 24, Prince William Sound, Alaska: tanker Exxon Valdez hit an undersea reef and spilled 10 million–plus gallons of oil into the water, causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Dec. 19, off Las Palmas, the Canary Islands: explosion in Iranian supertanker, the Kharg-5, caused 19 million gallons of crude oil to spill into Atlantic Ocean about 400 mi north of Las Palmas, forming a 100-square-mile oil slick.

1990
June 8, off Galveston, Tex.: Mega Borg released 5.1 million gallons of oil some 60 nautical miles south-southeast of Galveston as a result of an explosion and subsequent fire in the pump room.

1991
Jan. 23–27, southern Kuwait: during the Persian Gulf War, Iraq deliberately released 240–460 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf from tankers 10 mi off Kuwait. Spill had little military significance. On Jan. 27, U.S. warplanes bombed pipe systems to stop the flow of oil.
April 11, Genoa, Italy: Haven spilled 42 million gallons of oil in Genoa port.
May 28, Angola: ABT Summer exploded and leaked 15–78 million gallons of oil off the coast of Angola. It's not clear how much sank or burned.

1992
March 2, Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan: 88 million gallons of oil spilled from an oil well.

1993
Aug. 10, Tampa Bay, Fla.: three ships collided, the barge Bouchard B155, the freighter Balsa 37, and the barge Ocean 255. The Bouchard spilled an estimated 336,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil into Tampa Bay.

1994
Sept. 8, Russia: dam built to contain oil burst and spilled oil into Kolva River tributary. U.S. Energy Department estimated spill at 2 million barrels. Russian state-owned oil company claimed spill was only 102,000 barrels.

1996
Feb. 15, off Welsh coast: supertanker Sea Empress ran aground at port of Milford Haven, Wales, spewed out 70,000 tons of crude oil, and created a 25-mile slick.

1999
Dec. 12, French Atlantic coast: Maltese-registered tanker Erika broke apart and sank off Britanny, spilling 3 million gallons of heavy oil into the sea.

2000
Jan. 18, off Rio de Janeiro: ruptured pipeline owned by government oil company, Petrobras, spewed 343,200 gallons of heavy oil into Guanabara Bay.
Nov. 28, Mississippi River south of New Orleans: oil tanker Westchester lost power and ran aground near Port Sulphur, La., dumping 567,000 gallons of crude oil into lower Mississippi. Spill was largest in U.S. waters since Exxon Valdez disaster in March 1989.

2002
Nov. 13, Spain: Prestige suffered a damaged hull and was towed to sea and sank. Much of the 20 million gallons of oil remains underwater.

2003
July 28, Pakistan: The Tasman Spirit, a tanker, ran aground near the Karachi port, and eventually cracked into two pieces. One of its four oil tanks burst open, leaking 28,000 tons of crude oil into the sea.

2004
Dec. 7, Unalaska, Aleutian Islands, Alaska: A major storm pushed the M/V Selendang Ayu up onto a rocky shore, breaking it in two. 337,000 gallons of oil were released, most of which was driven onto the shoreline of Makushin and Skan Bays.

2005
Aug.-Sept., New Orleans, Louisiana: The Coast Guard estimated that more than 7 million gallons of oil were spilled during Hurricane Katrina from various sources, including pipelines, storage tanks and industrial plants.

2006
June 19, Calcasieu River, Louisiana: An estimated 71,000 barrels of waste oil were released from a tank at the CITGO Refinery on the Calcasieu River during a violent rain storm.
July 15, Beirut, Lebanon: The Israeli navy bombs the Jieh coast power station, and between three million and ten million gallons of oil leaks into the sea, affecting nearly 100 miles of coastline. A coastal blockade, a result of the war, greatly hampers outside clean-up efforts.
August 11th, Guimaras island, The Philippines: A tanker carrying 530,000 gallons of oil sinks off the coast of the Philippines, putting the country's fishing and tourism industries at great risk. The ship sinks in deep water, making it virtually unrecoverable, and it continues to emit oil into the ocean as other nations are called in to assist in the massive clean-up effort.

2007
December 7, South Korea: Oil spill causes environmental disaster, destroying beaches, coating birds and oysters with oil, and driving away tourists with its stench. The Hebei Spirit collides with a steel wire connecting a tug boat and barge five miles off South Korea's west coast, spilling 2.8 million gallons of crude oil. Seven thousand people are trying to clean up 12 miles of oil-coated coast.

2008
July 25, New Orleans, Louisiana: A 61-foot barge, carrying 419,000 gallons of heavy fuel, collides with a 600-foot tanker ship in the Mississippi River near New Orleans. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel leak from the barge, causing a halt to all river traffic while cleanup efforts commence to limit the environmental fallout on local wildlife.

2009
March 11, Queensland, Australia: During Cyclone Hamish, unsecured cargo aboard the container ship MV Pacific Adventurer came loose on deck and caused the release of 52,000 gallons of heavy fuel and 620 tons of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer, into the Coral Sea. About 60 km of the Sunshine Coast was covered in oil, prompting the closure of half the area's beaches.

2010
Jan. 23, Port Arthur, Texas: The oil tanker Eagle Otome and a barge collide in the Sabine-Neches Waterway, causing the release of about 462,000 gallons of crude oil. Environmental damage was minimal as about 46,000 gallons were recovered and 175,000 gallons were dispersed or evaporated, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
April 24, Gulf of Mexico: The Deepwater Horizon, a semi-submersible drilling rig, sank on April 22, after an April 20th explosion on the vessel. Eleven people died in the blast. When the rig sank, the riser—the 5,000-foot-long pipe that connects the wellhead to the rig—became detached and began leaking oil. In addition, U.S. Coast Guard investigators discovered a leak in the wellhead itself. As much as 25,000 barrels (1,050,000 gallons) of oil per day were leaking into the water, threatening wildlife along the Louisiana Coast. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared it a "spill of national significance." As many as 1,000 people and dozens of ships and aircraft were enlisted to help in the cleanup. BP (British Petroleum), which leased the Deepwater Horizon, is responsible for the cleanup, but the U.S. Navy supplied the company with resources to help contain the slick. Oil reached the Louisiana shore on April 30, and there was widespread consensus that the spill would dwarf the Exxon Valdez in terms of environmental damage.

Look, if solar and wind can't hack it, then Nuke-u-lur can work.

If it's good enough for the French, it MUST be good enough for us. Discover Magizine (I like to pretend to be smart) had an article on mini-nukes (Small reactors). It could work.

But, there needs to be incentive to wean us off of oil; foreign or domestic.

I'm in no way an environmental weenie. I just think there must be a better way!

For years the oil lobby has successfully put roadblocks in the way of those looking to develop alternative energy to, among other things, reduce our dependence on oil (foreign and domestic).

Since the oil companies main concern is their profit, they don't really care where the oil comes from.

Accidents do happen, but I expect that we'll find out that in this case that there were some major shortcuts taken and some prescribed precautions ignored that contributed to this one.

Despite all of the above, the bottom line right now is that millions of gallons of oil have leaked out of this well, and untold damage has been and will be done as a result.

The original post said, in effect, "this is a shame, and I hope that the leak can be stopped".

Of course the folks that have turned the Off Topic Forum into the political pissing contest forum had to have their say.

I have a friend that believes the biggest tragedy from this event is that the anti-drilling "posse" will use this to further their agenda and that will cause him to have to pay more to fill up his truck's tank.

He said that the damage to the envornment, wildlife, and economy of the gulf coast areas affected by the spill is just media hype.

As to the the disenfranchised folks that made their livelihood, either directly or indirectly from the seafood industry, he said that they'll all get jobs cleaning up the oil, so it's no loss to them.

Furthermore he stated that anyone that uses even an ounce of any petroleum based product has absolutely no right to complain about any negative side effects of oil procurement, since they are part of the "addiction" (conveniently ignoring the fact that viable alternatives available on a large scale basis are currently unavailable).

I'm really at a loss as to how anyone can be that shortsighted.

To Connie and the others that have expressed their concern over this tragedy - I'm with you.

For those of you that want to use this as the latest excuse to point your fingers at the "other side", go ahead - but you can do so without my involvement.

augie wrote: I'm really at a loss as to how anyone can be that shortsighted.

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