Where's the oil?

[HI54UNI]

So what happened to the oil in the gulf? Was clenz right?

Where's the oil?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews_excl/ynews_excl_sc3270

The BP Spill: Has the Damage Been Exaggerated?

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article ... 02,00.html

[89Hen]

Clenz!

[Skjellyfetti]

Where's the oil? It's underwater.....

It's essentially been swept under the rug and the media is too stupid to remember. They've been reporting about giant underwater plumes of oil for months. What do you think the "dispersants" do. The answer is obvious...

Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.

“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”

The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.

Dr. Joye said the oxygen had already dropped 30 percent near some of the plumes in the month that the broken oil well had been flowing. “If you keep those kinds of rates up, you could draw the oxygen down to very low levels that are dangerous to animals in a couple of months,” she said Saturday. “That is alarming.”

The plumes were discovered by scientists from several universities working aboard the research vessel Pelican, which sailed from Cocodrie, La., on May 3 and has gathered extensive samples and information about the disaster in the gulf.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/us/16oil.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So where is the oil hiding? Scientists say some of it is spreading underwater, in plumes that extend thousands of feet below the surface. But BP CEO Tony Hayward disputes those claims. "The oil is on the surface," Hayward said on Sunday while touring a staging area for cleanup workers in Louisiana. He said there was "no evidence" that enormous reservoirs of oil were suspended undersea.
However, two independent university research teams — from the University of South Florida and the University of Georgia (UGA) — have reported direct evidence of underwater oil. Samantha Joye, a marine scientist at UGA, has been aboard the university's ongoing research voyage in the Gulf and blogging from the ship; she reported on Monday that the team could see oil in water samples collected from plumes nearly 1,000 ft. (300 m) below the surface. "Seeing is believing," she blogged, and after nearly a month of continual obfuscation by BP on the technical details of the spill, Joye's words carry a lot more weight than Hayward's.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 46,00.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[HI54UNI]

Where's the oil? It's underwater.....

It's essentially been swept under the rug and the media is too stupid to remember. They've been reporting about giant underwater plumes of oil for months. What do you think the "dispersants" do. The answer is obvious...

Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.

“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”

The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.

Dr. Joye said the oxygen had already dropped 30 percent near some of the plumes in the month that the broken oil well had been flowing. “If you keep those kinds of rates up, you could draw the oxygen down to very low levels that are dangerous to animals in a couple of months,” she said Saturday. “That is alarming.”

The plumes were discovered by scientists from several universities working aboard the research vessel Pelican, which sailed from Cocodrie, La., on May 3 and has gathered extensive samples and information about the disaster in the gulf.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/us/16oil.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So where is the oil hiding? Scientists say some of it is spreading underwater, in plumes that extend thousands of feet below the surface. But BP CEO Tony Hayward disputes those claims. "The oil is on the surface," Hayward said on Sunday while touring a staging area for cleanup workers in Louisiana. He said there was "no evidence" that enormous reservoirs of oil were suspended undersea.
However, two independent university research teams — from the University of South Florida and the University of Georgia (UGA) — have reported direct evidence of underwater oil. Samantha Joye, a marine scientist at UGA, has been aboard the university's ongoing research voyage in the Gulf and blogging from the ship; she reported on Monday that the team could see oil in water samples collected from plumes nearly 1,000 ft. (300 m) below the surface. "Seeing is believing," she blogged, and after nearly a month of continual obfuscation by BP on the technical details of the spill, Joye's words carry a lot more weight than Hayward's.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 46,00.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Got any more recent articles? These are all 2-3 months old.

[Skjellyfetti]

Got any more recent articles? These are all 2-3 months old.

Seriously?

Here, let me google that for you.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=underwater+oil+plumes+july" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Researchers in Florida say they have the first scientific proof that two plumes of oil beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico came from BP's broken well.

University of South Florida scientists said Friday they linked the oil to BP's well based on chemical tests of two plumes discovered in late May. BP initially denied the plumes even existed.

Federal researchers say concentrations of underwater oil doubled last month over what they were in May.

Figuring out the oil's source is pivotal as the government assesses the environmental damage caused by the massive spill and how much BP will have to pay for it.

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=220&sid=2010068" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A research team will return to the Gulf of Mexico next month to map underwater plumes of oil and gas, a University of Georgia oceanographer said.

A team led by oceanographer Samantha Joye tracked one plume during research voyages in May and June. She said no one has made a systematic sweep around the massive oil spill in the Gulf to find other plumes.

"We could have totally missed something," Joye said Tuesday at a news briefing.
The plumes are a mixture of seawater and methane gas, oil and other hydrocarbons that are spewing from the broken well a mile below the water's surface off the coast of Louisiana.
A federal report released Friday confirmed the existence of oil plumes. Joye said plumes of methane and other gases could be as big a threat to deep-sea life as oil.
Joye says it's been about two months since anyone measured underwater oxygen in the area.
"We really don't know how these things have changed since then. I suspect the plumes have spread out quite a bit," she said.
Joye and other researchers plan to spend about four weeks looking for more oil and gas drifting from the well. They plan to use sound waves to map where methane from the broken well has moved.
"The presence of gas changes the speed that sound passes through the water," Joye explained.

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill ... derwa.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[bluehenbillk]

Where is the oil?

Ask the people who work in the fishing business where it is.....

[Rob Iola]

The oil's there. Either that or there are some mighty fat n' happy bacteria roaming around, probably rapidly morphing into some sort of "superbug" that'll bite fishermen, boaters, swimmers, etc. and turn 'em all into flesh-eating zombies (as opposed to vegetarian zombies?) - thanks BP...

The real questions are how and how long - how will the oil break down, and how long will it take? Because in the meantime they'll be finding the oil literally everywhere - surface, deep down, beaches, estuaries, fish guts, Iowa, etc.

[HI54UNI]

Got any more recent articles? These are all 2-3 months old.

Seriously?

Here, let me google that for you.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=underwater+oil+plumes+july" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Researchers in Florida say they have the first scientific proof that two plumes of oil beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico came from BP's broken well.

University of South Florida scientists said Friday they linked the oil to BP's well based on chemical tests of two plumes discovered in late May. BP initially denied the plumes even existed.

Federal researchers say concentrations of underwater oil doubled last month over what they were in May.

Figuring out the oil's source is pivotal as the government assesses the environmental damage caused by the massive spill and how much BP will have to pay for it.

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=220&sid=2010068" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A research team will return to the Gulf of Mexico next month to map underwater plumes of oil and gas, a University of Georgia oceanographer said.

A team led by oceanographer Samantha Joye tracked one plume during research voyages in May and June. She said no one has made a systematic sweep around the massive oil spill in the Gulf to find other plumes.

"We could have totally missed something," Joye said Tuesday at a news briefing.
The plumes are a mixture of seawater and methane gas, oil and other hydrocarbons that are spewing from the broken well a mile below the water's surface off the coast of Louisiana.
A federal report released Friday confirmed the existence of oil plumes. Joye said plumes of methane and other gases could be as big a threat to deep-sea life as oil.
Joye says it's been about two months since anyone measured underwater oxygen in the area.
"We really don't know how these things have changed since then. I suspect the plumes have spread out quite a bit," she said.
Joye and other researchers plan to spend about four weeks looking for more oil and gas drifting from the well. They plan to use sound waves to map where methane from the broken well has moved.
"The presence of gas changes the speed that sound passes through the water," Joye explained.

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill ... derwa.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Nobody has looked at anything for two months. They don't know what is or isn't out there.

Fail.

[Skjellyfetti]

Federal researchers say concentrations of underwater oil doubled last month over what they were in May.

[dbackjon]

The fail is on your part, HI5 - there are ongoing studies as to the oil, and the effect of the dispersents, which will probably be worse long term for the gulf than the oil itself.

[houndawg]

None so blind as he who will not see.

[grizzaholic]

The oil is now gone, just like UNIswf31 has been saying all along. A little oil is good for the environment.

[ALPHAGRIZ1]

The ocean has it and will be done with it in a few months.



The dispersants that Obama threw in there, well thats another story. He just forced BP to do that so he could further hurt the economy by putting more fishermen out of work. Everything he does is calculated.

[Gil Dobie]

Latest news from Florida.........

Link

On July 29 the NOAA Oil Spill Trajectory shows the BP oil plume 50 miles from Pensacola and 135 miles from Panama City.

While NOAA oil trajectories forecast oil patches to remain well south and west of Florida, with no direct oil impacts through at least Saturday, minor tarball impacts are still possible.

Offshore, no oil has been observed within or moving towards Eddy Franklin for over 4 weeks and there is no clear path for oil to enter the Florida Straits. Also, significant tropical activity is not expected through Friday.

[citdog]

only one thing could be responsible for the oil disappearing.



WOLVES

[JohnStOnge]

I have been involved in the oil leak thing all along and I said all along that Clenz is right. I mean, I didn't say "Clenz is right." But I said all along that it was a situation in which the oil...which was mostly light crude... was going into a very large, active environment that was "metabolizing" it very well. I said that the most toxic components were being quickly eliminated. I said that a year from now (well, "now" was then) things would be pretty much back to normal.

I don't know what to do about the media. We have to rely on them for information but they NEVER get it entirely right and tend to exaggerate on the scary side. Then there are the inevitable Chicken Little academics proclaiming doom and gloom.

[JohnStOnge]

I just read more of the posts and see that the Chicken Little academics are already at it. Well, I already knew they were but still.

Anyway, here is a prediction for you that we can talk about later when we see how it works out:

This "underwater plume" thing is not going to amount to anything. Academics will wring their hands about it for a while but in the end there won't be serious damage. Oh, if there's any damage at all the Chicken Little academics will make it seem as bad as they can possibly make it seem. But in the grand scheme of things it'll be nothing.

Guys, understand that in the context of the Gulf environment and its inputs and outputs the volume of oil out there was miniscule. It's like I said in an earlier post: The Mississippi River discharges a larger volume in a couple of seconds than that oil leak discharged in a day. And that's just one input that is not as large as the input of ocean currents. It's a very warm, active environment. The more volatile components of the oil evaporate quickly and the enviroment really does break down what's left. I've seen lab results. What was left was extremely weathered.

I've also seen results of monitoring for subsurface oil. I think this thing about the mysterious undersea plumes is seriously overblown. But we'll all get to talk about it a year from now if we think about it. Remember what I'm typing now when we do. And please remember that the media tend to exaggerate just about everything towards the negative.

Again: It's like the "toxic soup" around New Orleans after Katrina. Some academic used that term and it took off. The ignorant media people who were predisposed to believe it to begin with slurped it up. It never existed. There was never a "toxic soup." And this oil spill thing was not and is not "the greatest environmental disaster in US history." It's just not. Because of the circumstances it's not as bad, for instance, as the Exxon Valdez spill was even though less oil was discharged in that case.

I'm talking about actual environmental damage. It may well be more damaging in terms of economics but that's more because of perception and response than reality. People canceled beach vacations when the beaches really weren't all that badly impacted . Fisheries were closed when there really wasn't any health hazard. So on and so forth.

[JohnStOnge]

The dispersant thing is also way overblown. Let's talk about that too a year from now. I am familiar with analyses by toxicologists who know what's in the dispersants being used. It's not real toxic stuff. Of course people keep insisting on believing that it is.

[SeattleGriz]

only one thing could be responsible for the oil disappearing.



WOLVES

How about a complicit media not wanting Obama to look bad for shoving his thumb up his ass the whole time. Downplay the whole situation and Obama comes out looking much better.

[BlueHen86]

only one thing could be responsible for the oil disappearing.



WOLVES

How about a complicit media not wanting Obama to look bad for shoving his thumb up his ass the whole time. Downplay the whole situation and Obama comes out looking much better.

The media doesn't underplay stuff. They overplay things because it gets ratings.

[houndawg]

John has some good points, and I sincerely hope he's right.

Considering how long Louisiana has been flushing chemical waste into the Gulf, whatever hasn't been killed yet are probably very survivable life forms.

[D1B]

Clenz!

What a fucking dumbass.

[Gil Dobie]

Diane Sawyer just announced the Louisiana fisheries were now open and there were no signs of oil in the seafood, according to scientist.

[JohnStOnge]

Diane Sawyer just announced the Louisiana fisheries were now open and there were no signs of oil in the seafood, according to scientist.

There never has been a real problem with the seafood. There have rare been problems with seafood in areas impacted by ANY oil spill that's historically been studied. It is a public perception problem, not a real public health hazard to consumers of seafood. As I wrote earlier historical experience with oil spills shows that levels of concern are rarely reached in seafood samples. And even if they are reached in a small percentage of the samples that's not really a problem because the hazard is such that you have to regularly eat product contaminated to that level over many years in order to be affected.

In this case there have been thousands of seafood samples collected and not a single one has even come within an order of magnitude of a level of concern for any of the substances they're monitoring for. I am personally familiar with an instance in which they went and sampled oysters in oiled locations LOOKING for high levels. The closest they got to a level of concern was a chrysene level of about 5 parts per billion. The chyrsene level of concern they had established is about 140,000 parts per billion (140 parts per million).

[JohnStOnge]

John has some good points, and I sincerely hope he's right.

Considering how long Louisiana has been flushing chemical waste into the Gulf, whatever hasn't been killed yet are probably very survivable life forms.

Hen, the idea that there is this big chemical contamination problem down here is another example of the kind of exaggeration characterizing this culture. In 2009 I looked at all the NOAA Mussel Watch data going back to 2009. The idea is that bivalve molluscan shellfish are "sentinel" organisms because they filter and concentrate what's in the water. I looked at heavy metals, pesticides, PCBs, and hydrocarbons. The data indicated very little problem nationwide. Levels of concern were rare nationally. Louisiana in particular was very "clean." Areas like New Jersey and New York are more contaminated. If I went back and looked I'm sure I could find more. The point is that Louisiana didn't stand out at all. I wasn't thinking in terms of comparing States but I'm pretty confident it is by no means the "worst" in terms of chemical contamination in coastal waters as indicated by levels in bivalve molluscan shellfish. Of course, again, no place was really all that bad.