BP's Gusher May Be Gushing Again. If So, It Cannot Be Stopped.

As they say, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck—a well-oiled one, as in Hunziker's redesigned BP logo.

by Heidi Stevenson

21 August 2011

22 August 2011: Click here for an important update!

At the time BP finally capped the Macondo Well in the Gulf of Mexico, there were concerns that the process had damaged the seafloor. That fear is now materializing. BP's Gulf Gusher may be spewing again—and if so, there is no way to stop it. It will continue until seafloor pressure and oil pressure have been equalized, which may take decades.

BP is aware. They've hired 40 fishing boats to string boom around the Deepwater Horizon site.

BP, of course, denies it. They claim to have sent several remote-controlled mini submersibles and concluded that the leak could not have come from their well. However, a United State Coast Guard undersea inspection at the site of the Macondo Well found that it was, indeed, leaking. They say that they have video footage of it. BP says it wasn't oil—it was silt.

Evidence

Oil is washing ashore in the same areas that were hardest hit last year. It has been tested and is clearly fresh oil from the Macondo well.

BK Lim is a geohazards specialist with over 30 years of experience. His résumé is shown here in PDF format. In January this year, he wrote to Fred Upton, Chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and John Shimkus, Chair of the Subcommittee on Environment and Economy, of his concerns about the Macondo Well, stating:

There is no question that the oil seepages, gas columns, fissures and blowout craters in the seafloor around the Macondo wellhead… have been the direct result of indiscriminate drilling, grouting, injection of dispersant and other undisclosed recover activities. As the rogue well had not been successfully cemented and plugged at the base of the well by the relief wells, unknown quantities of hydrocarbons are still leaking out from the reservoir at high pressure and are seeping through multiple fault lines to the seabed. It is not possible to cap this oil leakage.

The Stuart Smith Blog is written by a New Orleans-based attorney who specializes in combatting oil company pollution. He has been staying on top of the Gulf Gusher situation, and says that Lim's warnings are being borne out. He reports on the results of samples taken by Paul Orr, a director of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN). Smith reports on Orr's 28 March oil samples:

Mr. Orr took a sample from the southern end of Breton Island National Park – and sure enough, lab-certified tests results established a fingerprint match to BP's Macondo Well...

The most alarming part of the finding was not simply that the Breton Island sample had BP's fingerprint on it, but that the test results were nearly identical to those from the fresh oil seen in the early days of the BP spill – instead of the heavily weathered and degraded oil we've come to expect in recent weeks and months.

A couple of days ago, Scientific American reported a 35 kilometer long oil plume 1,100 meters below the surface, flowing at 6.5 kilometers per day from the Macondo Well. They report that physicist Richard Camilli stated, without equivocation:

It was created by the Deepwater Horizon Macondo well.

It gets worse. Scientific American also reports that the oil-eating microbes that are supposedly cleaning the spill up aren't having much of an effect on the plume.

BP and Ducks

There is, of course, a theory proposed by BP and Gulf Gusher apologists that oil washed ashore now is from the original spewing of the Macondo Well. They say that it's oil breaking away from the previously dispersed and sunk oil. However, Marco Kaltofen, a petroleum expert, says that such oil would be weathered—unlike what the tests show of the oil that's been washing up. It's fresh, not old—and it has the same fingerprint as the Macondo Well.

And more and more oil keeps washing ashore, while BP claims that it's no big deal and is just old oil. (As if that should give us comfort?) Though BP says that the Coast Guard's video is of silt, one must wonder how they propose silt is being spewed forth. (And just how trustworthy have any of BP's claims been during their Gulf Gusher disaster?)

As they say, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck—a well-oiled one, as in Hunziker's redesigned BP logo.

Here's a good video recapping BP's Gulf Gusher's effects (some strong language):

22 August 2011 Update: Flyover of BP's Macondo Well Show Oil

The Stuart Smith Blog now reports that a flyover of BP's Macondo Well clearly shows oil above the well. Samples will be collected to verify the source of oil.

Notice that the US Federal Government is doing nothing. Remember Obama and his family doing the dog and pony show of eating Gulf seafood to give us the impression that it was safe? The truth is that the food they ate came from a bay that hadn't yet been hit by oil. How much Gulf of Mexico seafood do you suppose they're eating now?

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