Re: Oil Rig explosion/Gulf Oil Spill Okay, I guess I will share what my opinion has been for the last few weeks. This will not be resolved before a directional well can be drilled. None of these procedures have a shot and bp knows it. We are quickly going from catastropic to apocalyptic. I'll be in my lab studying whether or not bp can survive the sh!t storm that is about to be rained down on them. Maybe something good can come of this.
Re: Oil Rig explosion/Gulf Oil Spill My younger brother, who is a photojournalist for the AP, was interviewed for a PBS special about the spill...which he had been covering from the beginning, Here are a couple of links about him. [FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]PBS NewsHour | PBS Photographers Say BP Restricts Access to Oil Spill - Newsweek [/FONT]
Re: Oil Rig explosion/Gulf Oil Spill Probably the only good thing that can come out of this for everyone...including BP themselves. is if the damage to the wetlands is so devastating that the only way for Louisiana and the nation to recover would be for the president and congress to force the Corps of Engineers to quit managing the Mississippi river south of New Orleans by channelizing it. Maybe the nation will finally see the light and quit funneling all the sediments that build marsh off the continental slope into the deep blue sea. Maybe the Corps will be forced to dredge and pump all that sediment from the river channel into the marsh to simply cover the oil up and replenish/recreate new marsh to cover up the old. Those sediments are just wasted...totally wasted...and the marsh has been dying since the 1920's when they built those levees. Other than easily maintaining the ship channel there's no reason to have levees and jetties below say Myrtle grove or Jesuit Bend. The Corps won't take the morally right path though...They'll channelize that river even after the wetlands all disappear because between their arrogance and the shortsightedness of congress, channelization will always be the cheapest way of maintaining the Mississippi River channel to the proper depth for ocean going ships to navigate. I've always hoped that the Old River Control Structure fails, the Mississippi river changes course, and the levees below New Orleans disappear so that the natural system that promotes marsh building and maintenance gets restored.
Re: Oil Rig explosion/Gulf Oil Spill I'm with you Steve. For years, I've been telling anyone who would listen to my rants that the way to fix coastal erosion is quite simple and I could do it for 10 million dollars. 9 million for me and a million for dynamite to blow up the levees.
Re: Oil Rig explosion/Gulf Oil Spill So I assuming the lawsuits are going to be coming in droves? I haven't heard anything on this front, but they would have a slam dunk case in court over the fact that their businesses and livelihood have been ruined by BP. BP is done.
Re: Oil Rig explosion/Gulf Oil Spill Anybody have an idea of what this means to the fisheries and the impact of shortages and high prices in the market place months and years down the line? I guess it's too early to tell.
Re: Oil Rig explosion/Gulf Oil Spill I heard something on the radio that some of the fisheries up in Alaska to this day have not come back from that spill. What is sad is most of these people down here have passed their trades on from generations long since gone and not just the guys that go out and catch the stuff but the net makers and the boat people these are gonna be forms of art that if there is no need for them could die with this generation.
Re: Oil Rig explosion/Gulf Oil Spill oh, but havent you heard? according to bp, louisiana isnt the only place to get fish or shrimp. :rolleye33: arrogant pricks.
Re: Oil Rig explosion/Gulf Oil Spill the only thing with that is that is it will leave nola high and dry. id prefer that not happen. however, i have always found it interesting (for lack of a better word) that the original debacle of opening up the natural barrier between the mississippi and atchafalaya of old river was done by the army corps of engineers. i dont know tho if even this well help people outside louisiana understand why the marshs are so important and need to be rebuilt and protected. i dont think congress will ever get it.
Re: Oil Rig explosion/Gulf Oil Spill Not the levees. letting the river flood the backswamp with light silt isn't what builds up a delta plain. What builds a delta plain is allowing the river to change course. When the river is allowed to find the shortest path to the see, it keeps moving around and depositing heavy gravel and sand bedload that builds delta lobes. Blow up the Old River Control Structure at Morganza and in the next spring flood, the Atchafalaya will capture the Mississippi River and it will begin building a delta lobe in what is today Atchafalaya Bay. In 600 or 700 years, it will build it so high that it will switch again, probably to begin infilling Lake Pontchartrain. The goddamn Corps will spend a Trillion dollars in the next 100 years trying to prevent the capture but will eventually fail. The Atchafalaya is simply, relentlessly undercutting the Mississippi and offering it a quick way to the Gulf. It's going to happen. The sooner the better, in my view.
