‘Top kill’ has halted flow of Gulf spill, USCG says
It’s still too early to celebrate, or even breathe a sigh of relief. But the attempted “top kill” of the Gulf oil spill may be working.
Reports the Los Angeles Times:
“Engineers have stopped the flow of oil and gas into the Gulf of Mexico from a gushing BP well, the federal government’s top oil spill commander, U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said Thursday morning.
The “top kill” effort, launched Wednesday afternoon by industry and government engineers, has pumped enough drilling fluid to block all oil and gas from the well, Allen said. The pressure from the well is very low, but persists, he said.
[For the record ... an earlier version of this story termed the effort "successful." Officials clarified that neither government nor BP officials had declared the effort a success yet. They caution that only after the cementing is complete and the well is sealed can the top kill be called successful.]
If the flow of oil is indeed halted, hallelujah. But all that means is that a very very bad situation will now stop getting even worse. An enormous amount of oil has been dumped into the Gulf over the last 37 days, and I fear we’re not even close to comprehending the scale of damage it will do.
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220 comments Add your comment
Soothsayer
May 27th, 2010
2:39 pm
John Birch: We hate that Multinational Corporations control our government and therefore pass laws in their best interest at the expense of the general populace.
Bosch
May 27th, 2010
2:39 pm
sfd,
He had a rather tragic event right before Christmas — so, yeah, I could see him needing to find some peace.
stands for decibels
May 27th, 2010
2:45 pm
Yep, Bosch, I heard about JCB’s loss as well.
John Birch
May 27th, 2010
2:50 pm
stand for – If it was ‘personal responsibility’ the gov wouldn’t have to force it on the peeps by punitive gas tax causing their prices not to reflect the true cost. The soc dems would just voluntarily quit driving personal vehicles and demand only electric mass transit. Also American capitalism has been so successful that our per capita income is great enough that a significantly larger percentage of our population can afford cars and gas and not have to rely on mass transit.
md
May 27th, 2010
2:52 pm
sfd,
I appreciate the explanation, and I mentioned it more as a “funny” than a serious matter. As for the blog, it is what it is – a microcosm of the real world – and there will always (most likely) be those that march to their own drummer.
As I explained to soco awhile back, I personally look at Jay as just another blogger, he just happens to be first all the time. The only difference between he and I is in this particular environment – he sets the rules.
Mick
May 27th, 2010
2:56 pm
md
So, you just consider bookman another blogger? I think he writes a pretty good column whether you agree with him or not. Do you think you have the skills to be a weekly columnist?
John Birch
May 27th, 2010
2:57 pm
Sooth – I agree with you there, except that I see that more as a function/failure of the government than the corporations. Perhaps I’m wrong though. Twits like Lincoln have rambled on about government of, by, and for the peeps but the reality is politicis has always been about the legitimization of power. We theoretically limit campaign contributions than allow all the PAC’s and lobbyists, etc.
stands for decibels
May 27th, 2010
2:58 pm
The soc dems would just voluntarily quit driving personal vehicles and demand only electric mass transit.
In America that’s as good as saying they’d commit personal and professional suicide. Na gone duit, sorry.
(I do hear this argument from online folks all the time. I probably shouldn’t even dignify it with an answer, because I suspect you know better.)
Doggone/GA
May 27th, 2010
3:00 pm
“I hope he’s ok”
I’m pretty sure it has to do with still trying to recover from losing “Mr Jewcowboy”
stands for decibels
May 27th, 2010
3:03 pm
This is kinda on topic–this morning I heard a very interesting chat with the Former Shell Oil president John Hofmeister (whose new book is called “Why We Hate the Oil Companies”).
I don’t agree with everything he says–being the good progressive that I am, I think he is deliberately mis-characterizing Al Gore at one point, although he takes shots at Newt Gingrich as well–but hearing an insider like that give a prescription for getting ourselves weaned off the filthy stuff is illuminated, and highly recommended.
(there’s a link to an mp3 download on that page if you need to pick it up and run with it, literally…)
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
3:07 pm
theyeshaveit, Jimmy Carter isn’t an old white guy?
Do you doubt King Obama’s inauguration? from the AllBarrackChannel:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Inauguration/president-obama-inauguration-cost-170-million/story?id=6665946
Umm, what other facts would you care for.
Bosch
May 27th, 2010
3:19 pm
sfd,
Interesting what he said about the Waxman/Markey Bill – and how some of these companies are working on renewable energy that will work. It’s nice to hear people who actually know what they are talking about instead of bloggers stuck on the stoopid.
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
3:20 pm
Here’s a fact, err, riddle that’s not funny.
What do King Obama and BP both have in common (besides BP donating Obama the most money of any presidential candidate)?
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
3:21 pm
Both have spent almost 1 trillion dollars in just over 1 month, to create 20,000 temporary jobs.
Bosch
May 27th, 2010
3:23 pm
sfd,
And the Federal Energy Resources Board? Hmmm….interesting. Sounds practical– I liked how he determined that changes in policy we need can not come about by our current system of legislation. I have to say I agree with that.
Scout
May 27th, 2010
3:35 pm
Mick:
The book just helps you understand who he is ……… what’s between his ears.
Eli Jones
June 1st, 2010
3:03 pm
“THE OBAMASPILL”
When “The Obamaspill” first occurred, Obama should have utilized every means possible to stop the massive oil ecological disaster. Obama was very busy at that time planning how to shove his next piece of Marxist Change down our throats so he was super slow in his response! Precious time was lost while Obama slouched! In the year of our lord “1993″, the Saudi’s used super tankers to clean up their massive 1993 Persian gulf oil spill with great results. The tankers sucked up the Saudi oil while it was still out at sea and removed it. Now The Gulf Of Mexico oil is destroying our beaches and marshes. Obama could have stopped it before it got to the shoreline by mobilizing those super tankers. As I said the Saudi’s did it 17 years ago! “The Obamaspill” is the worst oil spill the USA has ever had! It is sad for the Gulf Of Mexico, Planet Earth, & us that Obama was so indecisive on this catastrophe of Biblical proportions! ………………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………………………..
THE SAUDI PERSIAN GULF OIL SPILL:
(May 14) — Even as proposals pour in for cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, one veteran of a massive (and secret) crude spill in the Persian Gulf says he has a tried-and-true solution.
Now if only the people who could make it happen would return his calls.
“No one’s listening,” says Nick Pozzi, who was an engineer with Saudi Aramco in the Middle East when he says an accident there in 1993 generated a spill far larger than anything the United States has ever seen.
Eric Gay, AP
A shrimp boat collects oil with booms in the waters of Chandeleur Sound, La., on May 5. An engineer who witnessed a crude spill in the Persian Gulf in 1993 says BP should use a fleet of empty supertankers to suck crude off the water’s surface.
According to Pozzi, that mishap, kept under wraps for close to two decades and first reported by Esquire, dumped nearly 800 million gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf, which would make it more than 70 times the size of the Exxon Valdez spill.
But remarkably, by employing a fleet of empty supertankers to suck crude off the water’s surface, Pozzi’s team was not only able to clean up the spill, but also salvage 85 percent of the oil, he says.
“We took null out of the water so it would save the environment off the Arabian Gulf, and then we put it into tanks until we could figure out how to clean it,” he told AOL News.
While BP, the oil giant at the center of the oil spill, works to stanch the leak from the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig, Pozzi insists the company should be following his lead.
FOR MORE ON THE SAUDI OIL SPILL GO TO THIS SITE BELOW:
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/could-cleanup-fix-for-gulf-oil-spill-lie-in-secret-saudi-disaster/19476863
Eli Jones
June 1st, 2010
3:16 pm
“Only 16 Percent Approve of Obama’s Handling of “The Obamaspill” /// ZOGBY SURVEY
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Positive opinion about Obama’s government’s handling of BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill is down 13 points from two weeks ago, dropping from 29 percent to 16 percent, a new Zogby Interactive survey finds.
Currently, only 16 percent rate Obama’s government’s response to The Obamaspill as excellent or good. The same question in a May 7-10 Zogby Interactive survey found 29 percent giving a positive rating. Opinion of BP’s handling of the spill is also down from the previous poll, going from positive ratings of 25 percent then to just 15 percent now.
The Zogby survey of 2,085 adults was conducted from May 25-27
Almost 60 percent agreed with the assessment that The Obamaspill is “a disaster that will cause long-term environmental and economic damage.”
A CONSERVATIVE
June 2nd, 2010
6:59 am
SENDING A.G. ERIC HOLDER & a plane load of lawyers to the GULF will not stop the OIL from gushing…AS USUAL…LIBERALs have their priorities backward….
A CONSERVATIVE
June 2nd, 2010
7:04 am
GULF SPILL PROVES THE LEFT has been completely wrong all along…They are always wrong….there is trillions of barrels of OIL in the earth..