Oil Spill, REACTION, concerns, ideas, help needed, tell us here, Deep Horizon Blowout

[ricki]

OIL ODORS IN TAMPA?!!!

What are you guys smelling where and how bad? Looking at the models and winds this didn't seem likely to happen so fast. Could it be from some bastard washing out his bilges as happened so often years past or is this the big one moving in?

Found this for today dealing with Pensacola, a lot closer to this mess:

"Smell that? Oil is in the air in Pensacola
Pensacola, Florida -- Pensacola Beach lifeguards reported about 5 p.m. Friday a kerosene-like smell that Escambia County officials say is likely related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

"Escambia County officials have deployed staff to check the waters. However, there is no oil sheen or slick sighted near our coastlines," Escambia County spokeswoman Sonya Daniel said in a news release.

A Friday afternoon breeze out of the south and southwest is believed to have carried the smell to the area, Santa Rosa Island Authority Public Safety Director Bob West said.

The smell was reported at various locations on Pensacola Beach as well as in the Navarre and Gulf Breeze areas.

"It's very minute; it took me a couple of seconds to smell it," West said. "It's nice to be able to document the first effects, but I'm not surprised."
Continued at:
http://www.wtsp.com/news/state/story...31613&catid=19

Found the following from a week ago:

"Once oil reaches the surface of the water, winds and currents are the two main mechanisms that can spread it.

Wind is the most obvious as we have already seen it spread the oil toward the coastline of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The wind can easily spread the oil in any direction according to the direction the wind is blowing from and the intensity of the wind. Just after the initial explosion and resulting oil leak, the winds in the spill area were blowing WNW in the 15-30 kts range. Those winds continued toward the west coast of Florida for several days. That spread the oil slick eastward extending it as far east as due south of Pensacola, Fl.

Here in the Bay area, there were widespread reports of an odor in the air. Air quality tests have proved to be inconclusive, but it is not a far stretch to believe the odor came from the incident. That possibility seems even more likely when you consider the smell went way once the winds here then turned SE-S. That would blow the odor back toward the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Recent winds near the spill site have blown SSE-SSW blowing the oil toward the Gulf coast and resulting in some oil washing ashore and with some sea life being affected The winds will remain out of the SSW-SW continuing to blow the oil near shore until Tuesday. "

Continued at:
http://www.wtsp.com/news/mostpop/sto...6&provider=top


p.s. - Nice idea and performance Flkiter thanks for posting!

[ricki]

"Smell Of Oil Reaches Beaches
Sunday, May 09, 2010 6:59:12 PM

ST. PETE BEACH -- The actual oil in the Gulf of Mexico may have stayed away from Florida, but that doesn’t mean the smell isn’t.

Some beachgoers on Florida’s Gulf Coast said the odor of oil 300 miles away was enough to make them sick late Saturday night.

From Hernando County to Manatee County, residents in the Tampa Bay area reported smelling something sickening in the area.

Some concerned residents even called 911 about the odor. Emergency medical responders confirmed that it was, indeed, coming from the oil slick in the Gulf, carried onto the Florida coast by winds from the west.

The smell Saturday night left many concerned about their Mother’s Day plans the following day, not to mention their health and safety.

Some residents reported nausea and nasal irritation.

The odor along the Gulf Coast did not seem to be as strong Sunday morning, as the winds have shifted."


VIDEO embedded at link below on reported odors and related complaints from west coast residents

http://cfnews13.com/News/Local/2010/...s_beaches.html

...

It seems the odors may have traveled a very long way (300 miles?) from limited information in this report and with the wind shift to the east, the odor disappeared. If anyone has new information about odors, confirmed plume sightings, concerning air or water quality information in Florida, please let us know.

[Danimal8199]

Rick, I live on the bay in Tampa and around 7pm Saturday night until the easterly wind from the cold front came through Sunday I could smell some petroleum product in the air. East wind most of the week should keep it away.

[ricki]

Wow, thank you for the information. Not good and an amazing distance for odors to travel from the spill. Just found a news report and video that indicates a lot of people along the west coast observed the same thing. I took a rapid look at ikitesurf wind directions for May off LA. In some years fronts cycle through the month bringing short periods of westerly winds while in others easterly winds govern. Hope this year, for the sake of folks in Florida, that easterly flow prevails from here on out. That may help the odors and keep the plume out of the Loop Current.


... and a blog from last year with concerns about Florida Beaches and Oil Spills from the Oil Patch in the Gulf. They even express concerns about the Loop Current spreading spills.



More at: http://protectfloridasbeaches.org/blogarchive.html

[firstcoastkite]

When I was in organic chemistry class at University of Florida, I will never forget my professor saying that he always gets gas at those stations with the suction device attached to the pump nozzle, and he goes around to the front of the vehicle upwind while fueling to avoid the fumes. Now crude oil coming out of the ground is not refined like gasoline, but there are still volatile hydrocarbons some of which have been known to cause cancer. So if you plan on volunteering on any cleanup crews, make sure to wear a respirator and other protective equipment. Makes you wonder though if you can smell the oil, does it have a negative long-term affect on your health?

http://www.countercurrents.org/galen100510.htm

[ricki]

Looks like all big oil isn't quite the same when it comes to safety. BP per the following NY
Times article comes up particularly short.

"For BP, a History of Spills and Safety Lapses
By JAD MOUAWAD Published: May 8, 2010

After BP’s Texas City, Tex., refinery blew up in 2005, killing 15 workers, the company vowed to address the safety shortfalls that caused the blast.

The next year, when a badly maintained oil pipeline ruptured and spilled 200,000 gallons of crude oil over Alaska’s North Slope, the oil giant once again promised to clean up its act.

In 2007, when Tony Hayward took over as chief executive, BP settled a series of criminal charges, including some related to Texas City, and agreed to pay $370 million in fines. “Our operations failed to meet our own standards and the requirements of the law,” the company said then, pledging to improve its “risk management.”

Despite those repeated promises to reform, BP continues to lag other oil companies when it comes to safety, according to federal officials and industry analysts. Many problems still afflict its operations in Texas and Alaska, they say. Regulators are investigating a whistle-blower’s allegations of safety violations at the Atlantis, one of BP’s newest offshore drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Now BP is in the spotlight because of the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, which killed 11 people and continues to spew oil into the ocean. It is too early to say what caused the explosion. Other companies were also involved, including Transocean, which owned and operated the drilling rig, and Halliburton, which had worked on the well a day before the explosion.

BP, based in London, has repeatedly asserted that Transocean was solely responsible for the accident.

However, lawmakers plan to question BP executives about their overall commitment to safety at Congressional hearings this week on the Gulf incident.

“It is a corporate problem,” said Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan, who has been particularly critical of BP’s operations in Alaska and will lead the House committee hearing, on Wednesday. “Their mentality is to get in the foxhole and batten down the hatch. It just seems there is this pattern.”

The oil industry is inherently more dangerous than many other industries, and oil companies, including BP, strive to reduce accidents and improve safety.

But BP, the nation’s biggest oil and gas producer, has a worse health, environment and safety record than many other major oil companies, according to Yulia Reuter, the head of the energy research team at RiskMetrics, a consulting group that assigns scores to companies based on their performance in various categories, including safety.

The industry standard for safety, analysts say, is set by Exxon Mobil, which displays an obsessive attention to detail, monitors the smallest spill and imposes scripted procedures on managers.

Before drilling a well, for example, it runs elaborate computer models to test beforehand what the drillers might encounter. The company trains contractors to recognize risky behavior and asks employees for suggestions on how to improve safety. It says it has cut time lost to safety incidents by 12 percent each year since 2000.

Analysts credit that focus, in part, to the aftermath of the 1989 Exxon Valdez grounding, which spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound in Alaska.

“Whatever you think of them, Exxon is now the safest oil company there is,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at Rice University.

In an interview last week, Mr. Hayward, BP’s chief executive, conceded that the company had problems when he took over three years ago. But he said he had instituted broad changes to improve safety, including setting up a common management system with precise safety rules and training for all facilities."

"Yet some government officials say that they are troubled by the continuation of hazardous practices at BP’s refineries and Alaskan oil operations despite warnings from regulators.

For example, last year the Occupational Safety and Health Administration found more than 700 violations at the Texas City refinery — many concerning faulty valves, which are critical for safety given the high temperatures and pressures. The agency fined BP a record $87.4 million, which was more than four times the previous record fine, also to BP, for the 2005 explosion.

Another refinery, in Toledo, Ohio, was fined $3 million two months ago for “willful” safety violations, including the use of valves similar to those that contributed to the Texas City blast.

“BP has systemic safety and health problems,” said Jordan Barab, the assistant secretary of labor for OSHA. “They need to take their intentions and apply them much more effectively on the ground, where the hazards actually lie.”"

Continued at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/bu...&sq=oil&st=cse

[ricki]

There are a number of carcinogens present in petroleum compounds. Allowable air concentrations for workers are published by OSHA. Some of the standards are time weighted averages. NIOSH provides guidelines that may be more conservative than OSHA in some cases. There are extensive references on the subject of air quality in oil spills and health and safety considerations at the following CDC site:

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/oilspillresponse/

For a proper cleanup, there should be a Health and Safety Plan in which potential contaminants, concentrations, exposure pathways, PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) and a good deal more are presented. This information should be provided to the workers along with PPE, training, oversight, etc.. In the instance of air emissions from petroleum, special respirator cartridges (activated carbon) or even SCBA may be indicated IF air concentrations are high enough.

The EPA has been doing limited air testing in LA reported at:
http://www.epa.gov/bpspill/air.html#vocs

They have reported fairly nominal air test results to date. Having no violations however doesn't necessarily mean you can't smell it.

.

[ricki]

"BP knew of problems hours before blast

By Steve Hargreaves, Senior writerMay 12, 2010: 2:35 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- BP knew of problems with an offshore well hours before it exploded last month, spilling millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, a House committee chairman said Wednesday.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said the oil company told the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight privately that the well failed a key pressure test just hours before it exploded on April 20.

The test indicated pressure was building up in the well, which could indicate oil or gas was seeping in and could lead to an explosion, said Waxman.

"Yet it appears the companies did not suspend operations, and now 11 workers are dead and the Gulf faces an environmental catastrophe," he said, asking why work wasn't stopped on the well."

Continued at:
http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/12/news...dex.htm?hpt=T1

[ricki]

Burning in the Gulf


This would be more impressive if there was apparent, material progress being made. Nice graphic though but a bit oily.
From: http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/

Lets bring all the expertise and expert execution we can to bear on the problem and get it done, soon! Mixed signals continue to come out.

[Unimog Bob]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/05/...irector.fired/

MMS collected nearly $10 billion in royalties from the energy and mining industries in 2009.