"One-fifth of the oil captured"

I hate to have to keep coming back to this, but it is important to keep the issue at the forefront, and to continue to highlight the duplicity of British Petroleum.



You remember their well that has been leaking 5,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico?



Well, they made some progress. A couple of days ago, they managed to insert a smaller pipe into the broken well pipe and then use a collar around the smaller pipe to seal it off inside the larger one. There was a hose that lead from the smaller pipe to an oil tanker on the surface. Neither British Petroleum nor the U.S. government ever thought or claimed that this would solve the leak, but if it worked, it would at least reduce the amount of oil escaping into the ocean.



Unfortunately, two of their remotely controlled submarines collided and knocked the smaller pipe loose. Yesterday, they finally got the smaller pipe working again.



So, British Petroleum announced that, while it wasn't a solution, and they were still working, they were now siphoning off one-fifth - twenty percent - of the oil that was leaking. They still needed to try the same procedure with two other leaks, and the real solution - drilling a slant well that would intersect with the damaged pipe - was, of course, still months away. August, to be precise. It is May now.



One-fifth of the oil? Well, that assertion was based on the fact that with this siphon pipe they were siphoning off 1,000 barrels of oil a day, and the claim that the well was leaking only - only - 5,000 barrels a day.



However, independent scientists, studying the underwater video they have of the oil gushing out of the broken well pipe, have come to the conclusion that the well is not leaking 5,000 barrels of oil a day, but something between 25,000 to possibly as much as 80,000 barrels of oil a day!



That, however, didn't seem possible. This is because, when you look at the oil slick(s) on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, there just isnt' that much oil. So, how could it be that the well is actually leaking 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day, not 5,000 like British Petroleum claimed?



Explanation: Scientiest have discovered several sub-surface oil plumes. One is about ten miles - yes, miles - long and three miles wide and 300 feet deep. That's where the difference between 5,000 and 25,000 to 80,000 is - below the surface.



Why isn't the oil in these plumes rising to the surface, like oil normally does? Scientists think it is because of the chemical dispersant that British Petroleum is spraying into the stream of leaking oil almost a mile below the surface. That dispersant is causing the oil to float below the surface, instead of rising to the top.



Why is this a problem? Because the combination of the oil and the dispersant is sucking the oxygen out of the ocean water. The water around the underwater plumes already has 30% less oxygen than normal.



If the oxygen levels fall too low, sea life canot survive in the areas. This is called a "dead zone," for obvious reasons. This spill could create huge dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico.



So, British Petroleum is not only polluting the environment on the surface, and along the coast, it is polluting the environment far below the surface, in ways that the ocean life may never recover from. On the surface, it looks like the oil slick(s) are now moving toward the Florida keys - and the fragile, beautiful coral reefs there.



Meanwhile, there is another rig, just like the Deep Water Horizon that drilled this well, exploded, burned, and capsized, drilling another well even farther out and even deeper down. If something happens there, it will be even harder to fix than the mess British Petroleum has caused currently. And ... one of the employees from that well says the rig has not been fully inspected for safety and does not have any "as-built" plans. So, if something goes wrong, no one will actually know exactly how the rig is built when they go in to try to fix it.



When will it ever end? Not until we insist that it ends. Not until we stop shouting, "drill, baby, drill!"