Oil Skimmer is Tested for Its Oil Skimming Effectiveness
A Whale, the massive Taiwanese oil skimmer that has been hauled in along the Gulf of Mexico to help skim and filter the oil-fouled water and return it to water has been undergoing rigorous testing to determine just how well it will be able to carry out its tall task.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, A Whale’s capacity is said to be 300,000 barrels of oil (12.6 million gallons) collected in a 10-hour period, a 125-fold improvement over the next-largest skimmer working the spill.
The tanker, which spans the length of three football fields and stands more than 10 stories high, survived quite well given the 15-foot waves that hit region’s waters over the weekend thanks to Hurricane Alex.
Yet whether it can accomplish the overwhelming and dirty task that lies ahead, remains to be seen. But A Whale’s does offer hope for the oil-spill clean-up efforts.
“The increased focus on research and development in oil-spill response is long overdue,” says Dennis Bryant, a former Coast Guard officer and now a maritime consultant in Gainesville, Fla. ”The other thing that’s going to happen is that the amount of response resources that are kept stockpiled in the United States will increase. Right after the Exxon Valdez accident [in Alaska in 1989], the response capability of this country ramped up rapidly and then slowly dropped over time because we weren’t having big spills. Now we have a big spill and we’ve discovered that we don’t have the necessary boom and skimmers.”
Hurricanes and Oil Spills: What Will the Effects be?
The disaster created by the Gulf oil spill, which happened on April 20 2010, has the potential to become one of the biggest disasters in human history, especially with the hurricane season in bloom. Hurricanes have a long history of being some of the worst natural phenomenon and they can create billions of dollars worth of damage in just a few hours. This leaves the question of what will happen if a hurricane strikes the Gulf coast? What will happen considering the amount of oil already spilled out into the waters? What kind of impact will the two forces combined have on the environment?
Experts are disagreeing when it comes to the projected outcome of the hurricane oil spill mix. Some say a hurricane could have a good effect on the oil slicks, dispersing them so as to not cause any more damage to the water life and helping the environment to clean itself. These scientists, from the National Geographic Society, insist that the more the oil slicks disperse, the smaller the oil drops become. The smaller the droplets become, the faster the oil will evaporate by itself. Additionally, the smaller the oil drops or slicks are, the easier it is for the natural bacterium to devour it, as it already is doing in many marshlands and other areas affected by the slicks.
Yet most other experts insist that a future hurricane would simply endanger the marshlands and wildlife even more, should more of the oil slicks and tar balls wash up onto shore. While it is certainly true that the coming torrential winds and rain will make it much more difficult to contain the oil slicks and that more of it will be pushed towards the shores, how much more damage could be done remains to be seen.
Toxic Oil Found on Florida Beaches
The effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are deeper and more massive than previously anticipated. Toxic oil patches were found underneath “clean” areas of water, according to the University of South Florida geologists, who have been intricately involved in the rescue and investigative efforts of the worst man-made environmental disaster in the nation’s history.
Because the buried oil is both harder to clean and slower to break down, it could be a long-lasting threat to beach-goers, both animal and human, experts told National Geographic News.
The oil patties and tarballs were found two feet deep beneath the Pensacola beaches. Throughout the two-month-long research and rescue efforts, the deepest toxic oil remnants were found at six inches beneath the beach. This latest finding suggests that the oil spill efforts to date are only superficial and that the new and dire consequences of the environmental disaster will continue to be revealed.
So why is this deep toxic oil so harmful?
In contrast to surface oil, which breaks down and erodes through natural means like oxygen, sunlight and oil-feasting microbes, deep oil survives for much longer. Not only does it pose a threat for beach-goers who are digging in the sand, but also for sea creatures that nest and feed deep along the coast, like the sea turtle.
To address this wildlife issue, the the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is relocating 70,000 turtle eggs from 700 Gulf Coast nests. After the babies hatch in a Florida facility, they will be dispersed throughout numerous Atlantic Ocean beaches on the non-Gulf side of the state. The turtles internal magnetic maps will then direct them back to their native waters.
While this attempt at saving the sea turtles is new, researchers and scientists remain hopeful that it will save and preserve this aquatic species.
Mississippi Sound Closes Due to Oil Spill
Just a little over two months since the Deepwater Horizon spill resulted in the most disastrous man-made environmental event in the nation’s history, the Mississippi Sound closed its ports to all commercial and recreational fishing.
The announcement was made by the State Department of Marine Resources and the Department of Environmental Quality.
Any fish, oysters, shrimp or crab caught along the shores must be immediately returned back into the water. While the state’s bays and rivers continue to remain open for fishing, the Sound’s closure is a necessary and cautious measure given the recent oil slick sightings in the waters and the potential impact on the marine resources.
Just last week, 400 swimmers in Pensacola, Florida complained of feeling sick after swimming along the beaches of the area, raising continued concerns about the safety of many of the beaches affected by the Gulf oil spill. The immediate and long-term health risks associated with being exposed to the oil-fouled water still remains a mystery to many health and environmental experts.
Right now, the EPA is cautioning locals to swim at their own risk and to alert health officials if they experience any health effects or if they observe any signs of oil in the water. The federal agency has also set up decontamination stations so that beach-goers can clean off their bodies from any oil residue.
Oil Spill Relief Wells
With all the hullaballoo, finger pointing and hyperbole that surrounds the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the general population is getting a crash course in the lingo of the petroleum industry. Thanks to massive media coverage, many of us now know what a blowout preventer is; we know what Top Kill means and that it didn’t work. Now, hopes rest on the success of relief wells, another high-tech solution that bears some explanation.
The first thing to remember is that deepwater oil reserves present certain logistical problems. That oil is not just sitting there placidly, it’s under tremendous pressure. Think about how heavy just ten gallons of water is; it’s almost a hundred pounds. The water is about 5,000 feet deep at the oil spill site – for perspective, the deepest human dives without a submersible vehicle have only been to 2,000 feet or so.
We’re talking about billions upon billions of gallons of water here, not to mention the extra ten thousand feet of seafloor that also sits above the oil. This equates to millions, if not billions, of tons weighing down on the oil layer. Once the original well punched through the solid layers, all of that pressure finally had an escape route. That’s why they can’t simply “turn it off.”
Massive Tanker, “A Whale” Helps with Oil Spill Clean Up
In order to assist in the clean-up efforts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, an old Taiwanese -flagged tanker, named “A Whale” will help to sop up as much as 21 million gallons of oil-infused water daily in the Gulf of Mexico.
This massive vessel spans the length of three-and-a-half football fields has been called in by federal experts and environmental engineers.
According to the Associated Press, the ship looks like a typical tanker, but it takes in contaminated water through 12 vents on either side of the bow. The oil is then supposed to be separated from the water and transferred to another vessel. The water is channeled back into the sea.
But keeping with the mistake-laden oil spill recovery efforts, the tanker has never been tested with the recently assigned duties of skimming off oil, cleaning it and then redistributing back into the water. And the process is not as simple as it sounds, as trace amounts of oil are left in the cleaned water. The Environmental Protection Agency will then make a final call as to whether or not the filtered water can be allowed back in the Gulf.
But despite these concerns, rescue officials are hopeful that A Whale can prevent some of the leaked oil to spread into the water, beaches and wetlands of the surrounding Gulf regions.
As of Thursday, July 1, the vessel remained stationed in the Louisania coastal waters where Coast Guards will decide just how operational and functional the oil-skimmer may be at helping with the clean-up efforts.
Clear Water Tested Positive For Oil
According to Dick Snyder:
Dick Snyder, director of the Center for Environmental Diagnostics and Bioremediation at the University of West Florida, began conducting water samples May 3 on Pensacola Beach every Tuesday and Thursday because beach and health officials were only doing visual assessments.
What you can’t see in the water may be more dangerous than what you can see, he said. …
It can’t been [sic] seen and it poses health risks… [W]ater samples taken Thursday in the surf zone, where most people swim, at Casino Beach, did reveal small amounts of alkanes, hydrocarbon molecules found in oil, he said. …
http://www.pnj.com/article/20100626/NEWS01/6260322/1001/RSS
Oil On Gulf Beaches
The Inevitable Results Of Oil On Gulf Beaches
Oil and water do not mix. Salt water and oil create small balls of tar as oil is carried along with currents. This is the inevitable results of anti-coagulation of salt water and oil where oil is excessive as it is at present in the Gulf of Mexico. Waters of the Gulf of Mexico are bounded by land on all but a tiny strait between the state of Florida and Cuba. Though the Gulf of Mexico is the world’s 9th largest body of water, it is actually a large basin. Beaches littered with chemically toxic tarballs would make them hazardous.
To get a better picture of damage, the Gulf of Mexico’s beaches include several states: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Texas. The countries of Mexico, Belize, Cuba and Honduras also rest within the parameters of this body of water. The Gulf of Mexico, in addition to its attractive tourism industry is a large supplier of seafood products via the vast fishing industry located in Gulf waters. The Gulf currents are sometimes referred to as the “Loop Current”, flowing northward from the Cuban Yucatan Peninsula; it moves like a “loop” northward before it exits through the Floridian strait to the Atlantic Ocean. The currents in the Gulf of Mexico will inevitably produce the most impact of oil on Gulf Beaches.
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