The Gulf Oil Spill After 8 Weeks

The Deepwater Horizon / BP oil leak is now in its eighth week. Oil from the leak has come ashore in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. A containment device, the LMRP cap, has been successfully placed over the well riser and is capturing some of the crude oil and natural gas.

The oil on the surface of the the Gulf of Mexico is unevenly distributed, ranging from a sheen that can only be seen by satellite or from the air using special equipment to patches of sludge and tarballs. The movement of the oil has been determined by surface winds for the most part, since the Loop Current has temporarily created an eddy, Eddy Franklin, which is not allowing the oil into the current itself.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is conducting a number of research missions in the region. These several vessels are sampling water quality, as well as plankton and other life in and around the oil slick. They are also investigating deeper water, looking for the oil plumes that were reported by private research vessels some days ago.

The test results are taking some time to be released. NOAA has released its analysis of the samples from the RV Weatherbird II, operated by the University of South Florida. One sample was found to be consistent with the chemical makeup of the oil from the BP leak. Four samples were too dilute to determine the source. One set of samples taken about 142 miles from the leak were found to NOT be consistent with the BP leak.

NOAA is reporting a statistical increase is strandings of sea turtles and dolphins. Many have been coated with oil but it has not been determined if the oil is the cause. NOAA reports a spike in strandings during the 2009-2010 winter, prior to the leak. They cannot determine at this time if the current increase is due to increased detections of strandings, the spike during the winter or the oil leak.

Nearly 92,000 barrels of oil have been burned on the surface, to date, in 165 controlled burns. The Unified Incident Command also reports skimming has recovered 18.5 million gallons of an oi / water mix. 424 miles of containment boom have been placed and 549 miles of sorbent boom.

As of Friday, June 11 2010, the Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen reported the following resources in use:

"Just to summarize where we're at on this Friday regarding people - about 25,000 are on the ground down there. This has become the largest oil spill response in our nation's history. We have over 1,200 Coast Guardsmen, 1,400 National Guardsmen, 21,000 contractors and 700 volunteers.

A tremendous amount of equipment has flowed into the area. Most notably, we now have 400 skimmers on duty and around the gulf, 500 barges, 2,500 government and contract vessels and more than 2,000 vessels of opportunity utilizing local watermen and their knowledge and their vessels, 64 aircraft and 2.7 million feet of boom either deployed or staged and ready to deploy.

We're also removing as much oil as we can from the surface around the well site as you know and then further out as we get towards shore, significantly increasing our skimming capability.

We have skimmed, to date, about 18 million gallons of oily water-the oil has to be decanted from that(and) our yield is usually somewhere around 10 or 15 percent on that. We have burned 3.8 million gallons of oil. We've applied over a million gallons of dispersant."

BP continues to bring assets to the region. Two vessels from Europe are en route to take over the tasks currents being handled by lighter and less sea worthy ships, receiving the oil and gas from the LMRP cap and storing it. The vessels which are coming are able to operate in heavier seas, which may be the case at any time during this hurricane season.

Before they arrive, BP is adding some storage capacity and using existing systems to bring more of the flow from the fixed riser to surface storage or burning. A floating riser is being constructed to replace the current one, which will provide added flexibility for stormy weather. As the system is currently constructed, a severe enough storm could cause the ships to have to leave, and the oil would then flow freely into the Gulf.

Admiral Allen:

"But we will move from the two production vessels, the Discover Enterprise and the Clear Leader and the Q4000 will be removed and the Helix Producer and the tanker, yet to be named, and the Toisa Pisces and the Loch Rannoch will replace that with two production platforms and two tankers to off load to, that's the redundancy and the capacity we require due to the floating riser system."

BP reports that they have collected about 104,300 barrels of crude oil since the LMRP cap was placed.