Coast Guard sets fire to portion of gulf oil spill

[seafan]

Source: St. Petersburg Times

.....

As the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico grew larger than the state of West Virginia, Coast Guard and oil company officials set a fire about 5:45 p.m. EDT to a 500-foot section in hopes of getting rid of some of the slick.
If the one-hour burn works — and officials should know today if it did — they will torch more of the slick in coming days.

.....

Worried Louisiana officials have already begun lining passes with boom lines to contain any potential oil.
But some parts of the swampy coastline will be impossible to protect, said NOAA ecologist Tom Minello. Once it hits those mangroves, he said, "it'll just kill all the vegetation. It's years before it will recover. The stuff's pretty toxic, and it will kill all the growth that supports the shrimp and crabs," hurting a seafood industry that's still recovering from Hurricane Katrina.

.....

Republican U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young and Democratic U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor joined forces to send President Obama a letter urging him to drop plans to expand drilling in the eastern gulf.

.....

As a result of the accident, the U.S. Minerals Management Service announced it was postponing its annual oil industry safety awards ceremony, scheduled for May 3 in Houston.



Read more: http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/water/coast-guard-sets-fire-to-portion-of-gulf-oil-spill/1091194

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Now, because of a carnal lust for oil by the greedy few, our seas are on fire and our air polluted with toxic particulates.

[Captain Hilts]

1. Do it at night so the smoke doesn't show!

[Xipe Totec]

2. Burn baby burn!

[seafan]

3. Louisiana coastline: 40 percent of the nation's wetlands now at risk from expanding oil slick

From David Usborne at the UK Independent:


Thursday, 29 April 2010

The US Coast Guard set fire to parts of a growing oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico last night in a desperate effort to keep it from reaching shore and hopefully avert an ecological calamity.

It was the first time a controlled burn of this kind had been attempted off the US shoreline. "Right now, it's a test burn. We're trying to see how it works," Chief Petty Officer Steve Lehmann said. "We want to make sure we do it right. You need to herd it up and group it a certain way, and then there's the whole lighting of it."

The slick, created by the explosion and fire that consumed a rig operated by British Petroleum over a week ago, is posing an increasingly grave risk to an area of the Louisiana coastline, where the Mississippi River empties into the ocean, that contains no less than 40 per cent of all the country's wetlands.

"If some of the weather conditions continue, the Delta area is at risk," warned Charlie Henry of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The oil is about 20 miles away from the Louisiana shore. But with more gushing from a broken well pipe almost 5,000ft below the ocean surface, at the rate of roughly 42,000 gallons a day, there seemed little doubt that the slick would expand and eventually touch land somewhere along the Gulf coast, an area especially rich in bird and fish species.

"It's going to happen," one US official said. By most recent estimates, the slick had grown to cover an area of 2,138 square miles.

.....

God help Louisiana and the rest of us.

[inna]

4. Wow. Just wow. & K&R

[Arctic Dave]

5. In situ burning is only going to get the "big stuff", the small stuff is going to keep going.

It's going to be ugly.

[daleo]

7. So this will be a smoke screen

In more ways than one.

[Arctic Dave]

11. Yep, and then you have to deal with "tar balls" that it will turn into. Nt

[Lone_Star_Dem]

9. True. I read they're estimating it will only deal with about 3% of the spill

The large "ball like" debris is the majority of what they're hoping to eliminate. Even then it's isn't really eliminated, but rather turned into a less toxic wax like substance.

[Arctic Dave]

12. Yep, you are correct.

[daleo]

6. Drill baby, drill

Spill baby, spill.

Burn baby, burn.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. I wonder who was going to win those safety awards.

How ironic.

[Libertas1776]

10. Drill, Baby! Drill!

Drill, baby! Drill! :sarcasm: :eyes: