The oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon rig wreck now covers about 1,800 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico. The oil spill is "48 miles by 39 miles at its widest points" and is expanding, the NY Times reported. Efforts to "engage a mechanism that could shut off the well" have proved unsuccessful so far.
The spill is roughly 30 miles away from the coast of Louisiana. The rig was about 50 miles from coast before it exploded and sank. Eleven crew members are still missing from the rig and presumed dead. The U.S. Coast Guard estimates 42,000 gallons of oil a day is gushing from two leaks in the riser, the 5,000 foot pipe that once connected the drill rig to the wellhead.
This is what the oil spill looked like from space as of yesterday:
No oil has reached the coast as of yet, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported U.S. Coast Guard officials as saying in a press conference Monday afternoon.
U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry said there is "no shoreline impact" by the oil at this time. "Our goal is to continue to fight this spill as far offshore as possible," she said.
The oil spill threatens hundreds of miles coastline in four states on the the Gulf of Mexico, the Associated Press reported. Not only is the coast of Louisiana threatened by the spill, but the white-sand beaches in Mississippi, Alabama and west Florida could be ruined by the slick washing ashore. These coastal waters hold prime fisheries and valuable oyster grounds.
"We've never seen anything like this magnitude," George Crozier, oceanographer and executive director at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama said. "The problems are going to be on the beaches themselves, that's where it will be really visible."
The oil is not expected to reach the shoreline for at least another three days, officials said. The winds and currents can change rapidly and drastically, so officials were hesitant to give any longer forecasts for where the spill will head.
The problem is that no one knows for sure and the oil is likely already having an impact on Gulf ecosystem and wildlife. The Coast Guard said in a statement that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spotted sperm whales by the oil spill, according to the NY Times.
"The unified command is monitoring the situation and is working closely with officials from Fish and Wildlife, National Marine Fisheries Service and NOAA to understand the impact the spill and response activities may have on whales and other marine wildlife in the area," the statement said.
The AP reported the oyster beds in Breton Sound on the eastern side of the Mississippi River are also threatened by the spill.
"That's our main oyster-producing area," said John Tesvich, a fourth-generation oyster farmer with Port Sulphur Fisheries Co...
He said oil and oysters are not a good mix... it's spawning season, and contamination could affect young oysters. But even if the spill is mostly contained, he said oil residue could get sucked in by the oysters.
"You will have off-flavors that would be a concern," Tesvich said.
As the spill grows in size by 1,000 barrels of oil a day, crews have been struggling to shut off the well. Their efforts so far have been unsuccessful. The NY Times reported:
The response team was trying three tacks to address a spill caused by an explosion on an oil rig last week: one that could stop the leaks within hours, one that would take months, and one that would not stop the leaks but would capture the oil and deliver it to the surface while permanent measures were pursued.
A robotic arm of a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) attempts to activate the Deepwater Horizon Blowout Preventor (BOP), Thursday, April 22, 2010. / incidentnews.gov photo |
The Houston Chronicle added the "efforts to staunch the flow were being complicated by the sheer depths at which remotely operated vehicles were being required to work."
BP, which was leasing the rig from Transocean, is responsible for the oil spill clean-up federal law. The oil corporation has mobilized a fleet of robotic submersibles in an effort to stop the fast-flowing leak. BP said this is a "first-of-its-kind" attempt to shut the well, BBC News reported.
By Sunday morning, four robotic submersible vehicles had been sent down to the wellhead, the Chronicle reported. There, according to Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer for exploration and production, they are "attempting to pump fluids into a 450-ton blowout preventer to shut a valve that would close off the well".
If the attempts with submersibles successfully engage the blowout preventer, the well could be sealed late Monday or Tuesday. If the use of submersibles fail, BP has dispatched another deepwater rig to the site to drill relief wells to help stop the flow.
A third option, according to the Houston Chronicle is a dome tactic that stopped spills after Katrina. BP said they "were engineering a system to lower a dome-like structure over the well to capture the oil and funnel it to a collection tank on the surface."
A procedure that successfully captured oil leaks in the Gulf for platforms and rigs damaged during Hurricane Katrina by using a dome or cone-shaped structure to corral oil before it could make its way through the water. Suttles cautioned that the system had only been tried in shallow waters and may not be possible at 5,000 feet.
"We don't know which technique will ultimately be successful," Suttles was quoted as saying bythe Times-Picayune.
The Chronicle reported that as of Sunday, BP said "48,324 gallons of oily water had been collected by surface skimmers" and "Planes dropped 7,715 gallons of chemicals... to break up the oil". One-third of the world's supply is available for use in the Gulf.
The explosion came almost three weeks after the Obama administration eased a ban on offshore oil drilling that opened up part of the Atlantic coast and more of the Gulf of Mexico to exploratory drilling. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he expected this disaster would not change the administration's position supporting more offshore drilling.
For background on this slow-motion disaster, please see my three previous diaries: