Louisiana deep oil drilling disaster

[Peter Lemkin]

Thanks, Mark. Despite the comprehensive coverage which has been educational for me (one of the reasons I do this stuff), I am not an expert. People like me tend to be generalists who go about poking under rocks. But my best sense on question #1 is "Yes, in all likelihood.." The loop current has been documented and mapped, and it is apparent that tendrils are already into that current. The Gulf Stream, of course, is a "conveyor belt" that brushes across some of the best (now mostly depleted ) fisheries on the North American coast and eventually reaches Northern Europe. If oil toxicity is gauged in parts per million and we are dumping gazillions of gallons or barrels of oil and gas (and the gas may be even more deadly than the oil), then this amplifies what some have called "an extinction event". I am not an environmental biologist; I just live on the planet.

On question #2, my best sense is "No"... I suspect the solution, however toxic it is or will be, will remain too aqueous to be ignitable. Flammability exists in high concentration, near the source, and I have seen some expressions of concern about the tankers carrying inbound imported oil having to unload in a potentially flammable scenario. But since the source is deep underwater and subject to current, I would think dispersal would disallow flammability in most cases. Someone else postulated the theory of a flammable cloud of oily water picked up by a super-hurricane and then being ignited, but I doubt that would happen either as I suspect extremely high winds along with the aqueous nature would prevent or snuff out any ignition. There is concern, however, for the pollution of land, waterways, lakes, and farms from oily rain delivered by some tropical storms; each would vary depending on their course and speed and the location at which they took the moisture off the ocean. Also of increasingly obvious concern is the health effects upon those people working closely with the muck and the oil and the birds; I just noticed some news at Google suggesting that workers' boats are being recalled now because of acute health effects (which, of course, might become chronic). I will now also post a very good article on the political implications of all of this.

My graduate education is in Environmental Science and just to add to the answers above. Yes, some has and more will get into the Gulf Stream. Anything that gets into the oceans eventually disperses into the whole of the ocean system. However, the amounts, at this point, are such that the great effects will be in the Gulf [and bordering it in wetlands], with the effects tailing off [but less significantly so, the longer this leak goes on!] with greater distance from the source. Oil spills, not recorded in the MSM, are happening all the time and oil tankers regularly clean their interiors with sea water and dump the mix back into the ocean, etc. No, it will never be explosive and only if a largesurface slick forms can it be burned off or catch fire - even that is not too likely unless done deliberately or by lightning. Compounding this mess is the enormous use of surfactants to 'break up' the oil into blobs that float or sink and are seen as food by fish and plankton....so this lethal cocktail will be getting into the food chain and by a process of biomagnification in increasing concentrations as the top of the food chain is approached. [humans are often at the top]. For the Gulf at this point it is a catastrophe. Not yet for other places in the Atlantic or beyond...but that could change if the leak is not stopped. I've been watching the live cameras all day and NOTHING is changing at all. I think one can expect this to continue for another half year or more.....sadly. Wait until hurricane season to really mess-up the coast!!! The sea life is already ****ed!...and more so with each day.