BP Oil Spill: Clean-Up Crews Can't Find Crude in the Gulf

[Buddha]

I don't know why, but the skeptic in me takes this with a kilo sized brick of salt. :)

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bp-oil-spill-crude-mother-nature-breaks-slick/story?id=11254252


For 86 days, oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico from BP's damaged well, dumping some 200 million gallons of crude into sensitive ecosystems. BP and the federal government have amassed an army to clean the oil up, but there's one problem -- they're having trouble finding it.
Managing director Bob Dudley is reportedly taking over from Tony Hayward.

At its peak last month, the oil slick was the size of Kansas, but it has been rapidly shrinking, now down to the size of New Hampshire.

Today, ABC News surveyed a marsh area and found none, and even on a flight out to the rig site Sunday with the Coast Guard, there was no oil to be seen.

"That oil is somewhere. It didn't just disappear," said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser.

Salvador Cepriano is one of the men searching for crude. Cepriano, a shrimper, has been laying out boom with his boat, but he's found that there's no oil to catch.

"I think it is underneath the water. It's in between the bottom and the top of the water," Cepriano said.

Even the federal government admits that locating the oil has become a problem.

"It is becoming a very elusive bunch of oil for us to find," said National Incident Cmdr. Thad Allen.

Skimmers Pick Up Less Oil

The numbers don't lie: two weeks ago, skimmers picked up about 25,000 barrels of oily water. Last Thursday, they gathered just 200 barrels.

Still, it doesn't mean that all the oil that gushed for weeks is gone. Thousands of small oil patches remain below the surface, but experts say an astonishing amount has disappeared, reabsorbed into the environment.

"[It's] mother nature doing her job," said Ed Overton, a professor of environmental studies at Louisiana State University.

[Heimdhal]

It had to go somewhere.........

[StackerKen]

"That oil is somewhere. It didn't just disappear," said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser.

Salvador Cepriano is one of the men searching for crude. Cepriano, a shrimper, has been laying out boom with his boat, but he's found that there's no oil to catch.

"I think it is underneath the water. It's in between the bottom and the top of the water," Cepriano said.

Even the federal government admits that locating the oil has become a problem.

"It is becoming a very elusive bunch of oil for us to find," said National Incident Cmdr. Thad Allen.

That almost kinda funny...like a bad syfi movie.

Its lurking beneath the surface ready to strike at any moment......"And many will die"

:oo-->

[Heimdhal]

"That oil is somewhere. It didn't just disappear," said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser.

Salvador Cepriano is one of the men searching for crude. Cepriano, a shrimper, has been laying out boom with his boat, but he's found that there's no oil to catch.

"I think it is underneath the water. It's in between the bottom and the top of the water," Cepriano said.

Even the federal government admits that locating the oil has become a problem.

"It is becoming a very elusive bunch of oil for us to find," said National Incident Cmdr. Thad Allen.

That almost kinda funny...like a bad syfi movie.

Its lurking beneath the surface ready to strike at any moment......"And many will die"

:oo-->



well, they've been saying that for a while. Due to the disspersants, its just like a massive oil bubble a couple hundred feet under water.

[ximmy]

All trustworthy sources indeed...

That oil is somewhere. It didn't just disappear," said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser.

Salvador Cepriano is one of the men searching for crude. Cepriano, a shrimper, has been laying out boom with his boat, but he's found that there's no oil to catch.

"I think it is underneath the water. It's in between the bottom and the top of the water," Cepriano said.

Even the federal government admits that locating the oil has become a problem.

"It is becoming a very elusive bunch of oil for us to find," said National Incident Cmdr. Thad Allen.

[Saul Mine]

Go to maps.google.com and type in New Orleans, LA. In the side bar is a link to track the oil spill: click that.

You can't see it!

Go to this animation (http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/gulf_of_mexico_oil_spill_anima.html) and move the slider toward Jul 26. The oil just disappears!

NY Times (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/01/us/20100501-oil-spill-tracker.html) - Same thing!

[Glass]

Still, it doesn't mean that all the oil that gushed for weeks is gone. Thousands of small oil patches remain below the surface, but experts say an astonishing amount has disappeared, reabsorbed into the environment.

"[It's] mother nature doing her job," said Ed Overton, a professor of environmental studies at Louisiana State University.

uh huh?

[TPTB]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't all that dispersant BP dumped on the spill intended to "disperse" the oil?

And BP's surprised they can't find it?

It's probably out there lining the gills of the Blue Fin Tuna that are floating belly up.

[StackerKen]

I guess that dispersant works

[gunDriller]

It had to go somewhere.........


all it takes is a stroke of the pen.

wonder why this didn't work for the Valdez spill ?

[keehah]

They lie about things as long as they can.

Who knows what sort of mix we are seeing.

This came out April 12, 2010 from 'British Scientists':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsPCGw6OHjQ&NR=1

[Joe King]

How can that much oil just "disappear" virtually overnight?
I think that the whole point of the dispersant was to get the oil into the environment in such a way that BP can now honestly say that there's no effective way to clean it up.


Many in Gulf are outraged at reports of vanishing oil

"There was more oil at South Pass Tuesday than I've seen since this whole thing started; it was really discouraging," Louisiana charter boat captain Mike Frenette told the New Orleans Times-Picayune's Bob Marshall. "I don't know where everyone else is looking, but if they think there's no more oil out there, they should take a ride with me."


Don Sutton, another charter boat captain, concurred, telling Marshall that he followed a line of floating oil "that stretched from South Pass to Southwest Pass probably two to three miles off the shore," more than 15 miles. "And that wasn't all we saw. There were patches of oil in that chocolate mousse stuff, slicks, and patches of grass with oil on them. The Gulf might look clear, but we're still seeing oil coming ashore." Recent satellite photos showing large swaths of discolored water seem to back up the claims by Frenette and Sutton.

You can read the rest here.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100730/bs_yblog_upshot/many-outraged-over-reports-of-oil-in-gulf-vanishing

[Silver Rocket Bitches!]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cp6fHINQ94

This video shows two experiments that help explain why and how an oil spill on the seafloor, similar to the current BP leak in the Gulf of Mexico, could form underwater oil plumes that do not rise to the surface.

The reasons include:

•whether a spill is released in the form of a turbulent jet, or is under less pressure
•the density of the surrounding water, due to temperature and salinity.

In both tests, the tank contains salt water that's denser at the bottom than at the top (bottom 1.06 g/cc, top 1.015g/cc). The first video shows a green-colored alcohol/water mixture being released into the tank; the second experiment shows red gauge oil being released. Both the oil and alcohol mixtures are about the same density (approximately 0.9g/cc) and are released at the same rate (about 0.8 gallons/minute).

As you can see, the first more turbulent jet is trapped underwater in a horizontal plume when it reaches the level where the surrounding water density changes; the second less turbulent jet is not trapped, and the oil rises to the surface.

The experiments were conducted by Richard McLaughlin, Ph.D., and Roberto Camassa, Ph.D., fluid dynamics experts in the mathematics department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

"We've been thinking that the recent news about underwater oil plumes is very reminiscent of these jet experiments, in which the effect of the strong turbulence is creating an emulsion which can lead to an underwater trapping," McLaughlin said. "In videos of the actual oil leak in the Gulf, the turbulent oil jet looks quite similar to our alcohol jet." He added that with the addition of dispersants, the effect would be further amplified.

He and Camassa along with students in their summer lab have also analyzed video of the current spill to try to determine how much oil is leaking into the Gulf.

"We estimated the flow rate to be about 56,000 barrels per day, quite a bit higher than BP's estimate of 5,000 barrels per day, and closer to the estimate recently in the news of 70,000 barrels per day," Camassa said.

Both researchers are professors in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences. Camassa is also director of the Carolina Center for Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematics.