BP Oil spill hits US Coast

[CatInASuit]

The spill from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil platform is currently turning into the USA's greatest environmental disaster. Oil booms put in place to keep the oil back have not proved as effective as required and oil is now at the mouth of the Missisippi and the Louisiana coast.

How much effect is it having on the local economy and what is the likely effect if it hits the Florida coastline as well?

Also what is the political backlash against BP for causing it?

[OneCentStamp]

It hasn't had any massive effects on the local economies yet, but those won't be felt for months or years to come. As for backlash, I can't believe a bigger deal isn't being made out of this on the news. It's as if the media and public don't realize or care how big this mess is, and how devastating it may prove.

[What Exit?]

This does look bad.

The amount of oil flow right now is around 5000 barrels per day. It will end up passing the Valdez spill sometime in June at this rate. The capping process is expected to take as long as 3 months. So this is gonig to be bad. On the bright side BP will be starting the process before Monday.

Everyone seems to be getting ready to try and protect the marshlands and shores but the fishing and shrimping industry is going to be hit very hard by this and it is somewhere between 10-25% of the seafood provided to the US.

I wonder if this will help put a halt to the additional offshore drilling that was going to be allowed? I can hope.

A boat works to collect oil leaked from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico on April 28, near New Orleans.

[OneCentStamp]

Looks like we're going to be eating gamberetti alla 10W-40 for a few years.

[Cluricaun]

I agree that while this does stay up on the top stories on the news it seems that the overall reaction is decidedly in the "meh" camp. Maybe if our southern states would stop passing dickhole legislation then god would stop trying to destroy them.

[hatesfreedom]

We're pretty fucked, there's nothing good about this slick at all and it will probably destroy the coastal industries for every state bordering it, like not delay of game, total destruction. It's the saddest thing happening in my world.

[Cluricaun]

I wonder how much of the Gulf is going to be hit, I'd hate to never see the beach on Siesta Key again they way it is now.

[Marsilia]

Maybe if our southern states would stop passing dickhole legislation then god would stop trying to destroy them.

Yes, and American soldiers are dying in the Middle East because God's pissed about gay rights.

What I'm hearing down here (I'm in Gulfport, MS, which is as coastal as it sounds) is that there's a chance of effects anywhere from east Texas to Pensacola, FL. Long term, one of the biggest economic worries I'm hearing about is that the seafood industry is going to be hit on a massive level. Tourism is also likely going to see a decline in areas where the predominant draw is the beach itself. Environmentally, we're pretty fucked. South Louisiana has pretty sizable wildlife habitats that're in serious danger from this. Volunteer groups are already getting set up along the Coast, though. There are a couple of Facebook communities, information on civic websites. One thing we know how to do down here is mobilize.

[CatInASuit]

It looks as though that once the Oil rig once, it became a catalogue of errors. The US is blaming BP who were running the rig. BP are picking up the bill, but is now blaming Transocean who run the rig which is an American company. I sense many lawsuits after this is over.

Two interesting points have popped up.

The government did not have the technology available to carry out its emergency procedures from capturing and burning the oil off, that its emergency plans said it should have.

The cap required in many countries which could have prevented this is not required under US law and so wasn't fitted.

I also wonder would what the reaction to this disaster in the press would have been if it had been a US company instead of a British one.

[OneCentStamp]

I also wonder would what the reaction to this disaster in the press would have been if it had been a US company instead of a British one.

I think there would actually be more of a furor, or at least more headlines. Americans actually love to hate their big oil companies, and the big names are thought of as rather villainous around here. Of course there's Halliburton, with its Dick Cheney connections and plush Iraq contracts, but the average American still instantly associates the name "Exxon" with an oil spill that happened 25 years ago.

Since you rarely if ever see "BP" on a gas station in Iowa, it doesn't get as much play here as it might.