Well, we'll see but I have remarkable faith in mother nature bouncing back. I don't beklieve that humans can have that kind of affect on the planet at such a global level. As far as the earth is concerned, we're a mild case of exczema. The planet will be here long after we kill ourselves off or mother nature rids herself of us. Thoughts otherwise are a product of man's arrogance, IMO.

We can always argue the small details, but the layman won't notice much of a difference and in the grand scheme of things, that's what matters. Will we be able to fish and make a living? Will we be able to drill? Will the marsh bounce back?

While it might take a shade more than two years, your claim of the spill affecting every ocean on the planet in due time" and the recovery lasting "13 generations" is just kneejerk and borderline ridiculous.

I think you are still missing my point. As long as the oil continues to flow, there is no argument and the matter of speculation continues to grow. Stop the flow and we can then discuss the possibilities for recovery. Until then it is ONLY getting worse. I hope you are right, I really do but today, this mess is only getting bigger. In a month, if BP can't stop this thing...That's what I am saying. Nothing knee-jerk about it.

Understand. From everything that has been said, the relief well s the best solution. We'll know in a few weeks...

What really irritates me, about this whole thing, and about deepwater drilling is that there is no safety plan in place in case crap like this happens. and this isn't just with BP, this is every other company drilling. Their safety plan is for an event like this, to just not happen at all. And that is no safety plan.

Well from my understanding the environmentalists are partially responsible for deep water drilling.

I oppose it because there is basically very little you can do when something goes wrong.
The unintended consequences always bite you in the behind.
We would have far better access to fixing problems on land and in shallow water.

Well, generally this type of thing doesn't happen. There are thousands of wells in the gulf and about 4500 rigs/platforms out there. This and the Ixtoc were the only two of this nature that happened here. Of course, this is a different case being deep water and all, but that should be all the more reason to stick to the established procedures, which BP didn't.

Typically with a blow out the BOP does not fail, as they're checked over and over and have a triple redundancy system in place to engage it. There were many large failures that happened with this particular one that prevented it from sealing the well.

On top of that, most drilling companies are of the opinion that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If the drilling company pays attention, doesn't cut corners, and follows procedure then this doesn't happen. If it does, there are multiple ways to shut the BOP off. BP, in addition to tapping into a nightmare scenario, cut corners all over the place when drilling this well, just because they were behind schedule. It's like running through 5 red-lights at 100mph on a 4 lane highway in rush hour traffic, and then wondering how on Earth you got in a wreck. This seems to be par for the course for BP.. They've had something like 700+ OSHA recordable incidents in the same amount of time Exxon had one.

So yes, there is a plan. The plan is, not to go poking holes in a mile of water as fast as can be done with no regard to procedure and engineers' recommendations. That's the crappy thing about this is in all likelihood could have been prevented. BP, in my opinion, shouldn't be allowed to drill anywhere in our waters anymore in addition to whatever other penalties or punishment comes their way.

From what seems to be coming out, it was no secret they were having problems with this well. Schlumberger had a crew on that rig just hours before it blew out and they tried to exercise what they call stop work authority because they knew it was unstable in a bad way.. This stop work authority basically says anyone on board the rig can essentially shut it down if they see something they think is unsafe or if procedure isn't being followed. Doesn't matter if it's the cook that does it.. they're supposed to stop. BP guys ignored the Schlumberger dudes and went forward anyway.... BP Fail.

I think what pisses me off so much about it is the fact that it probably wouldn't have happened if there were no negligence on BP's part. The MMS is to blame too for rubber stamping all of the paperwork for BP to drill there. We can talk about it for years to come though... If they don't get that thing under control soon, I think it might get a whole lot worse.


Damn.. I didn't mean to type that much.. How does that happen? lol

you read all that?

j/k! it was a great post swerved. :thumb:

Hope they get to use this thing.......


YouTube - World's Largest Oil Skimmer Positions in Gulf

FYI: This is my first post.....