Oil spill threatens habitat

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MCgunner

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Get this straight, I'm not an environmental "whacko", just a sportsman and conservationist, and I'm not anti-oil, but this spill is going to ruin a tremendous amount of beautiful coastal marsh and ruin it probably for the rest of my lifetime, I'm afraid. Now, I don't hunt or fish around the Mississippi Delta, but it's much like the delta area where I do hunt, just a lot bigger and more majestic. I'm just hoping they can keep that stuff away from the Texas coast. As a duck hunter and coastal fisherman, this could ruin my reason to be here. Might have to make a move to Arizona or New Mexico, after all. My heart aches for the people of South Louisiana at the moment.
 
I'm not enviromental "whacko" either but this is a hellava mess. This will be huge not only for the environment but for the economy...This will affect a lot more than has been discussed in the press so far. They have no way to stop it and thats really bad...It may very well be Obama's waterloo now that he's chimed in and devistate the economy again...
Can you imagine what will happen if this go's on leaking for 60 or 90 days before the drill the relief well.And they don't even know that will work...I hate to sound so gloomy but this will be a huge disaster for us all before its over. BP will pass the cost on to you...
 
Don't need to be a wacko to see and feel the heartache of this mess. And it isn't going to be "CLEANED UP" anytime soon. I love this earth we live on and this continous stream of oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico has me sick in my stomach. The shrimp, scallops, oysters and game fishing isn't going to be "RIGHT" for quite some time. Not to mention the families that made a meager existence from the Gulf. Wiped out over night! BAM like that it's gone.
My grandfather, GOD rest his soul. He woulld say that behind every great fortune lies a far greater crime. I wonder what sort of "CRAP" went on and continues to go on with regards to off shore drilling, that we don't know about. Have corners been cut to raise profits? BP is already pointing fingers at the platform company. And it's only just begun my friends, only just begun. I predict this black gold will hit the Florida shores of Pensacola and beyond, before they even know what to do, let alone do it.
Sick in my stomach is what I am, sick.
 
I agree it's a mess and will cause long term wildlife problems. With that said I find it disturbing there are people looking to government for political solutions. It's disturbing that one of the Feds solutions was to send a gaggle of attorneys to the site, like they know how to cap a well?

While we have Naval equipment that may help cap this, that's the extent I see the Feds getting involved. Gulf of Mexico offshore drilling is currently being done by every nation you can name. If this ends US oil exploration in the Gulf, you can bet the other countries will keep doing it....spill risk will not be reduced......and our gas money goes to people who hate us.
 
Seems to me there should be a way to 'bomb' the well to collapse it, or dump boulders down there to cover it...

BTW I don't think you have to be an environmental 'whacko' (whatever that means) to be concerned about this mess. We are really all to blame for our dependence on oil, plastics, and oil byproducts. We have created an insatiable appetite and these disasters will continue to our demise... the depletion of oil will certainly lead to war and enviornmental disasters over the remaining drops of it.
 
I don't know that BP will exist in this hemisphere after this. Look what happened to Union Carbide after the Bopal, India incident and all the lawsuits. BP is a bigger company, but this could potentially produce MORE lawsuits than Bopal did. And, petrol will go up, but not from BP passing on costs. I'll just stop at an Exxon station if BP just passes on the costs. Price of gas is going to go up from the political over-reaction to this incident. We simply cannot do without gulf oil. It's most of our domestic supply. There really is no alternative than to pump gulf oil.

All that aside, what really bothers me is what's going to happen to the habitat. I ain't worried about much else. The marshes are where the ducks come every winter. It's where much of the marine life spawn and what they depend on. Marshland is probably the MOST productive habitat there is, period. People would think that would be the rain forests for their diversity, but it is a desert in terms of productivity. The coastal estuarine systems are extremely productive for both marine and terrestrial animals. And, the Mississippi delta is one of the biggest estuaries around! This stuff couldn't be located in a worse place. :rolleyes:
 
You've got to wonder if most of the bird migration has already moved North and will be spared the mess....


Ironic.....it was Government regulations that forced Gulf drilling into deeper waters where this happened, big reason they're having trouble capping this is because of the depths.
 
What I don't understand is why there wasn't an emergency plan for this before drilling even started. The question was never if this was gonna happen, but when.....and no matter where this kinda mess goes ashore it's gonna be a environmental disaster.
 
buck460XVR said:
What I don't understand is why there wasn't an emergency plan for this before drilling even started.
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You are assuming there wasn't a plan......there was. Problem is high winds and rough seas made those plans ineffective. This was an older rig that did not have the newer type capping system now required on new drilling.
 
So far the Govt has put a lid on the news. No conservation groups have been barking so far. Will see how it turns out after a week from now. Looks like they have all the resources of the Federal and private entities capable of stopping this leak . THey plan to place a dome like structure on the gushing hole and hopefully cap this baby for good. But again, it may or may not work.
 
You've got to wonder if most of the bird migration has already moved North and will be spared the mess....
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Migratory species, sure, but there are hundreds of non-migratory birds that depend on those waters, like king fishers, osprey, various herons, egrets, bitterns, terns, sand pipers, curlew, pelican, avocet, gulls, dowitcher, and many, many more, even the mottled duck which is a game bird that summers and breeds on the coast. Also, if the slick makes it here, there are the tree ducks that summer here. Not thinking they're in the Mississippi delta of Louisiana, but not sure. And, I haven't even mentioned anything, but birds! Everything from the bacteria to the phytoplankton and up will be effected. It will kill major industries like shrimping and commercial and sport fishing in the area which is of major economic significance there.
 
We'll just have to wait and see how much oil comes ashore. I suspect that it will be a bit different from the Exxon Valdez situation. The time factor is significant on this one.
 
Good topic, but not much likely can be said at this point that's not rank speculation and that would also be on topic for THR.

I've had to delete some blatant off-topic posts. I'm not going to close this one yet, but let's keep discussions about BP and the politics of drilling off the table, OK?
 
If the flow is stopped in the next month, the damage will be bad but recoverable over time. My fear is that nobody is going to be able to stop it.
 
I don't think you have to be a "wacko" to care about the environment.
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There are those that think so, but we as sportsmen have been putting our money where our mouth is for 100 years or so. It's not the Sierra Club that funds things like migratory bird research, it's US.

They'll cap this thing, but if they have to drill a relief hole, it's going to take a while and at the rate it's dumping, that is not a good thing. If they shut the thing off today, it'd still be a HUGE problem. I really don't know, not an oil field guy, but capping that thing without a relief hole to drop the pressure strikes me as like trying to cap a fire monitor under full pressure with a rubber stopper. :rolleyes: I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see it happening soon. If it makes it here, Texas coast, it will shut down my fishing, for sure. Maybe they could string a boom across pass cavillo and the jetties at the channel to keep it out of the bay. Surely there will be some that gets in, though, in windy weather which we get more often than not until the dog days of August. We have green sea turtle nesting from here south, too, in spots.

Wow, what a cluster.......

And, thanks, rbernie, was not my intent to start a political rant. I'm just worried about my fishing and duck hunting. Call me shallow.....
 
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Interestingly, I just read an article stating that there exist remote "cut off" valving systems that BP lobbied Congress to not require....stating the things cost about a half million each. Apparently Brazil and at least one other oil producing nation require those things.

Anyway, I hope to hell that thing can be contained, it has just resulted in an immediate closing of both commercial and recreational fishing in the Gulf from West Florida to La. Damn sure, can't bode well for ducks & Geese.
 
For some perspective about long-term effects: During WW II, Nazi U-boats sank over sixty tankers along the Atlantic coast, from Florida to New York. (A very large amount of refining in New Jersey, then.) Gasoline, diesel, crude oil. The coast was often awash with those pollutants. By the end of the war, folks were back touristing and fishing.

Heat is the environment's friend in this sort of problem. The GOM is far more fortunate as to water temperatures than either the Atlantic coast or up in Alaska. Much more bacterial action.

The next year or two will be horrible, of course. Lots of tourism folks will go broke, and it will hurt the fishing-boat people. The old monthly payment problem, with much less income.

Watch the NOAA weather forecasts for wind direction and strength, to try to figure the impact areas. And remember that the Gulf Stream flows clockwise at about three miles per hour.

http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/book_shelf/1897_TMF24-2010-05-02-1200.pdf
 
I bet there will be few fishing in Galveston , Texas City and along Matagorda this coming summer. Its bec of fear of getting a contaminated fish.

A lot of fishing fanatics will go hunting hogs instead , lol
 
Hopefully someone is taking notes on what's working and what's not, so next time around the response will be far more effective.

Gonna be hard on them folks down there.
 
I sure hope they cap it soon but; the environment will not recover no time soon if this leak continues for 60 or 90 more days as they are suggesting. It will get out of the gulf by then and will be "the disaster of our lifetime " if its not already that...
sure is strange how subdued the environmentalist have been and the press in general to this point...Its just a hellava situation with no quik fix.
 
I'm beginning to think we, in Texas, are pretty safe. Everything I'm seeing is that this thing is going to stay in the eastern gulf, at least for the near future. And, Art is correct that in warmer waters, the microbes are king. I heard from some guy on TV today that the gulf floor leaks out hundreds of barrels of oil every year and yet we never notice it. I don't know how accurate that is. Guess I could research it.

They were talking today about dropping a big dome over the thing and pumping it off through a big flex hose or something. Apparently they have the equipment, but it's never been used at these depths before.

We went fishing today. Caught a couple of big, slimy gafftop and my buddy had a nice black tip shark on (a little early for 'em in the bay) that broke his 20 lb test. He had his drag set too tight. It looked to be about 4 ft, BIG for the bay and enough there for a good grilled shark meal for two. :D Oh, well, I got some frying meat.
 
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