PORT FOURCHON, LA.—British energy giant BP declined to say Saturday whether its latest effort to contain the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill worked, as BP’s chief executive appeared to dismiss the disaster as “tiny.” The accident is threatening an ecological and environmental calamity along the U.S. Gulf Coast. With crude oil gushing unchecked from […]
By RUSSELL GOLD About 11 hours before the Deepwater Horizon exploded, a disagreement took place between the top manager for oil giant BP PLC on the drilling rig and his counterpart for the rig’s owner, Transocean Ltd., concerning the final steps in shutting down the nearly completed well, according to a worker’s sworn statement. Michael […]
By Bob Marshall, The Times-PicayuneMay 14, 2010, 7:00PM To the watching world the environmental threat that BP’s oil disaster poses to the nature-rich Louisiana coast is captured in images of beautiful birds or furry creatures crippled by thick black goo. But scientists who know these estuaries best are more concerned about a less photogenic community. […]
NASA/MODIS images have been too cloudy to be much use for May 12 and 13 (see the most recent image we processed, for May 11). But a radar image taken by the Italian COSMO-SkyMed system clearly shows most of the slick in stark detail. The slick covers 4,922 square miles (12,748 km2) on the radar […]
NOAA continues to provide scientific support including: modeling the trajectory and location of the oil, getting pre-impact shoreline samples surveys and baseline measurements, and planning for open water and shoreline remediation. NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science and NOAA Fisheries Southeast Fisheries Science Center are conducting bottlenose dolphin studies in Mississippi and Louisiana. The […]
By Gregory Mone, Contributor (May 14) — Since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill began three weeks ago, most eyes and cameras have been focused on the widening, orange slick. But now, as experts argue that the flow rate could far exceed the government’s estimate of 210,000 gallons a day, a team of independent scientists […]
By Kim Chipman and Jim Polson May 14 (Bloomberg) — For Tammy Wolfer of Louisiana, the worst part about the oil slick looming off the Gulf of Mexico coast isn’t that it cut her income from working at a marina and ruined plans to buy a house this year. The worst part is waiting to […]
(AP) Undersea robots tried to thread a small tube into the jagged pipe that is pouring oil into the Gulf of Mexico early Friday in BP’s latest attempt to cut down on the spill from a blown-out well that has pumped out more than 4 million gallons of crude. The company was trying to move […]
By Mark Schleifstein, The Times-PicayuneMay 13, 2010, 8:56PM The 700-pound giant Atlantic bluefin tuna carrying satellite radio tag number 5108024 entered the Gulf of Mexico on March 23, 2009, hugging the coast of Cuba, and speeding along a straight line to the warm water body’s center. The huge fish meandered north toward what would become […]
By Robert Zullo, City Editor Published: Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 7:14 p.m. HOUMA — State officials closed an oyster bed off Terrebonne’s southern coast Thursday night, the latest in a dozen areas shut down as a result of the spreading oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. Designated Area 17, the oyster bed south […]
