"BP cuts pipe, plans to lower cap over Gulf spill"

[Jellyfish123]

METAIRIE, La. – BP sliced off a pipe with giant shears Thursday in the latest bid to curtail the worst spill in U.S. history, but the cut was jagged and placing a cap over the gusher will now be more challenging, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said.

BP turned to the shears after a diamond-tipped saw became stuck in the pipe halfway through the job, yet another frustrating delay in six weeks of the Gulf of Mexico spill.

The cap will be lowered and sealed over the next couple of hours, Allen said. It won't be known how much oil BP can siphon to a tanker on the surface until the cap is fitted, but the irregular cut means it won't fit as snug as officials had hoped.

"We'll have to see when we get the containment cap on it just how effective it is," Allen said. "It will be a test and adapt phase as we move ahead, but it's a significant step forward."

Even if it works, BP engineers expect oil to continue leaking into the ocean.

The next chance to stop the flow won't come until two relief wells meant to plug the reservoir for good are finished in August.

This latest attempt to control the spill, the so-called cut-and-cap method, is considered risky because slicing away a section of the 20-inch-wide riser could remove kinks in the pipe and temporarily increase the flow of oil by as much as 20 percent.

Live video footage showed oil spewing out of the top of the blowout preventer, but Allen said it was unclear whether the flow had increased.

"I don't think we'll know until the containment cap is seated on there," he said. "We'll have to wait and see."

(yahoo news: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill)

[Scuba Claus]

I've always wondered this so it may sound kind of stupid but I want an honest answer. Does oil sink? And if so, how far?

[David]

Oil by itself is lighter than water, not a dumb question at all actually. Oil that's mixed with lots of heavy mud or other heavy materials will sink because collectivley they become heavier than water. The sinking of the oil in the Gulf seen on TV is due to the mixing with dispersants (whatever those actually are, apparently it's a secret) which break oil into smaller bits and then bond with it to make it heavier than water, hence the sinking.... Time will tell what effect that will have on marine life throughout the water column and on the sea floor itself.

One thing I wish the media would talk about is that as tragic as this catastrophe actually is, a similar amount of oil makes its way to the ocean every year from thousands of other sources such as storm drains and other runoff, and ships and boats, etc. Talk about dispersal. I stopped eating seafood long ago for that reason and the fact that all our sewage ultimately goes to the sea, much of which has hardly been treated.

[Scuba Claus]

Ah, I see, make it sink to the bottom where no one can see it. Probably the only cost-effective move these guys could think of.

Anyways, thanks David for informing me of that. That helps me a lot. But if water is denser than oil, why not find a method of simply "vacuuming" the sludge while it's on the surface?

[David]

From what I've been following they have been trying all sorts of methods to skim as much as oil from the surface as possible. The problem was the volume they feared that might end up washing up on shore... which would impact tourism, etc. The dispersants kept much of that from happening by doing what it does and on the good side, dispersants apparently do significantly increase the surface area of the leaked oil making more area available for microbes to break it down relatively faster. The bad side is the gigantic volume of dispersants used for the first time and the unknowns involving the impact of using that much in the ocean; what effects it will have on the microbes who naturally eat oil, the marine life that comes in contact with it, etc.

As many have said before me, we are running a global experiment on our only home while we're living inside it. I don't know about you but I don't remember signing up as a guinea pig... usually the guinea pig doesn't do to well from what I've seen. We've been experimenting with abnormal population numbers, insane depletion of all natural resources, widespread habitat destruction and the pollution of our air, land and sea since at least the 1960s. The evidence has been streaming in that we need to control ourselves, hopefully we'll start taking the actions necessary to address them soon.

[sea turtle lover]

I notice that the media is talking how bad the spill is, and how to clean it up, the people who died in the explosion. how the affect on tourism, and the way sea food is not fit to eat, and the fishermen are angry at BP.
The other day they said 500 sea birds died 80 were saved, and about 150 sea turtles have died covered in oil. They do not talk about the affect of the oil at the nesting seasons for many animals. Also mom told me they cut the camera off as soon as they put that cap on. That makes me angry because what if its still spilling oil.