[Bible Prophecy News] Florida fears deepen as current spreads oil spill
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Pastor Dale Morgan
May 20, 2010, 12:21:52 AM5/20/10
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Perilous Times
Florida fears deepen as current spreads oil spill
AFP
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) - – Heavy oil from a massive spill oozed into Louisiana's fragile marshlands Wednesday as other streams of crude entered a powerful current that could sweep it to Florida, Cuba and beyond.
A strong ocean flow known as the Loop Current is now dragging leaking crude from the giant slick off Louisiana toward Florida's popular tourist beaches and fragile coral reefs, threatening a whole new dimension to the unfolding environmental disaster.
Scientists laid out a worst-case scenario in which the oceanic conveyor belt would see the first oil wash up in Florida in as little as six days, before carrying it up the US East Coast and even into the Gulf Stream.
The grim outlook brought longtime foes Cuba and the United States together in a rare moment of cooperation as diplomats from the close neighbors -- which have no official ties -- discussed potential risks, as well as the cause of the spill and its projected movement.
Related article: Scientists fear oil slick damage to Florida coral
Experts warn the potential damage to the region's teeming marine life and fragile coastlines could be enormous.
"The Loop Current is a super-highway carrying babies of a wide array of fishes and other kinds of marine life from their spawning zones to the places where they will ultimately grow up," Environmental Defense Fund chief ocean scientist Doug Rader told AFP.
Nearly a month after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers, British energy giant BP has failed to stop the leak, although it says it has contained some 40 percent of the oil streaming from the wreckage.
"We saw some heavy oil stranded in the wetlands," Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said after a boat tour to inspect the thick, dark mess that made its way into the state's wetlands.
"This spill fundamentally threatens Louisiana's way of life. The oil is here and the time to act is now," he said.
Louisiana biologists said they had rescued an endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtle whose exterior was heavily oiled, the first found so far. Oil samples from the turtle, rescued on Tuesday, were being analyzed to determine whether they were due to the spill, officials said.
South of Venice, the seaport where BP has established its response headquarters, oil was seeping at an ever rapid rate into the marshes.
Shiny tar balls were caught in thickets of reeds where crabs swarmed about, their shells tainted orange by the crude. In some spots, a thick blanket of oil hung at the bottom of the marsh.
Meanwhile, European Space Agency satellites showed oil being pulled into the powerful clockwise-moving Loop Current that joins the Gulf Stream, the northern hemisphere's most important ocean current system.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the main US agency monitoring the spill, agreed that a small portion of the slick had entered the current "in the form of light to very light sheens."
But it tried to temper fears, saying the oil may never reach Florida and if it does, it "would be highly weathered" with evaporation and chemical dispersants having "significantly" reduced the volume.
Rader warned it was "inevitable" that the cocktail of oil and chemical dispersants would eventually make it to Florida, Cuba, the Atlantic and up to beaches on the southeastern US coast.
Cuba's southwestern coast is home to major coral and mangrove systems, as well as a nursery area that supports much of western Caribbean marine wildlife.
BP is continuing its efforts to siphon up as much of the oil as possible via a mile-long suction tube said to be pulling up some 2,000 barrels of crude a day gushing from the fractured rig pipe.
The firm estimates that some 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons, a day of crude is spewing from the wreckage of the Deepwater Horizon rig, although independent experts warn the flow rate could be at least 10 times higher.
BP hopes to stop the noxious flow with a so-called "top kill" operation in about a week, in which heavy drilling fluids would be injected into the well to stem the oil flow, followed by a cement operation to seal it up permanently. Related article: Florida tar balls not related to Gulf oil spill
With concerns mounting over lax federal oversight of the offshore oil drilling industry, top US Senate Democrats urged President Barack Obama to order "immediate and enhanced inspections" of drilling in US waters.
"As the Gulf Coast continues to be threatened by the lasting effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster, we are deeply concerned that this accident could be repeated elsewhere," they wrote to Obama.
Florida fears deepen as current spreads oil spill
AFP
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AFP) - – Heavy oil from a massive spill oozed into Louisiana's fragile marshlands Wednesday as other streams of crude entered a powerful current that could sweep it to Florida, Cuba and beyond.
A strong ocean flow known as the Loop Current is now dragging leaking crude from the giant slick off Louisiana toward Florida's popular tourist beaches and fragile coral reefs, threatening a whole new dimension to the unfolding environmental disaster.
Scientists laid out a worst-case scenario in which the oceanic conveyor belt would see the first oil wash up in Florida in as little as six days, before carrying it up the US East Coast and even into the Gulf Stream.
The grim outlook brought longtime foes Cuba and the United States together in a rare moment of cooperation as diplomats from the close neighbors -- which have no official ties -- discussed potential risks, as well as the cause of the spill and its projected movement.
Related article: Scientists fear oil slick damage to Florida coral
Experts warn the potential damage to the region's teeming marine life and fragile coastlines could be enormous.
"The Loop Current is a super-highway carrying babies of a wide array of fishes and other kinds of marine life from their spawning zones to the places where they will ultimately grow up," Environmental Defense Fund chief ocean scientist Doug Rader told AFP.
Nearly a month after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers, British energy giant BP has failed to stop the leak, although it says it has contained some 40 percent of the oil streaming from the wreckage.
"We saw some heavy oil stranded in the wetlands," Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said after a boat tour to inspect the thick, dark mess that made its way into the state's wetlands.
"This spill fundamentally threatens Louisiana's way of life. The oil is here and the time to act is now," he said.
Louisiana biologists said they had rescued an endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtle whose exterior was heavily oiled, the first found so far. Oil samples from the turtle, rescued on Tuesday, were being analyzed to determine whether they were due to the spill, officials said.
South of Venice, the seaport where BP has established its response headquarters, oil was seeping at an ever rapid rate into the marshes.
Shiny tar balls were caught in thickets of reeds where crabs swarmed about, their shells tainted orange by the crude. In some spots, a thick blanket of oil hung at the bottom of the marsh.
Meanwhile, European Space Agency satellites showed oil being pulled into the powerful clockwise-moving Loop Current that joins the Gulf Stream, the northern hemisphere's most important ocean current system.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the main US agency monitoring the spill, agreed that a small portion of the slick had entered the current "in the form of light to very light sheens."
But it tried to temper fears, saying the oil may never reach Florida and if it does, it "would be highly weathered" with evaporation and chemical dispersants having "significantly" reduced the volume.
Rader warned it was "inevitable" that the cocktail of oil and chemical dispersants would eventually make it to Florida, Cuba, the Atlantic and up to beaches on the southeastern US coast.
Cuba's southwestern coast is home to major coral and mangrove systems, as well as a nursery area that supports much of western Caribbean marine wildlife.
BP is continuing its efforts to siphon up as much of the oil as possible via a mile-long suction tube said to be pulling up some 2,000 barrels of crude a day gushing from the fractured rig pipe.
The firm estimates that some 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons, a day of crude is spewing from the wreckage of the Deepwater Horizon rig, although independent experts warn the flow rate could be at least 10 times higher.
BP hopes to stop the noxious flow with a so-called "top kill" operation in about a week, in which heavy drilling fluids would be injected into the well to stem the oil flow, followed by a cement operation to seal it up permanently. Related article: Florida tar balls not related to Gulf oil spill
With concerns mounting over lax federal oversight of the offshore oil drilling industry, top US Senate Democrats urged President Barack Obama to order "immediate and enhanced inspections" of drilling in US waters.
"As the Gulf Coast continues to be threatened by the lasting effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster, we are deeply concerned that this accident could be repeated elsewhere," they wrote to Obama.
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