BP oil clean-up efforts disrupted by 12-foot waves
CNN Wire Staff
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/06/30/waves_web.jpg width=292 height=320]
BP's efforts to contain the largest oil spill in U.S. history are being disrupted by towering waves reaching up to 12 feet in height, company officials said.
Even though Hurricane Alex - which was upgraded from tropical storm status late Tuesday night - is headed away from the area affected by the oil spill, its winds and the waves the storm is producing are forcing BP officials to send oil skimming ships back to shore, from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.
High tide and rough sea conditions are also restricting onshore personnel clean-up duties Wednesday morning, according to Charles Taplin, a spokesman at the Unified Command Joint Information Center in Houma, Louisiana.
Also under consideration is whether to continue the use of aerial dispersants while the storm is affecting the region, Taplin said.
|
|
Filed under: Gulf Oil Spill |
About this Show:
Anderson Cooper goes beyond the headlines to tell stories from many points of view, so you can make up your own mind about the news. Tune in weeknights at 8 and 10 ET on CNN.
Questions or comments? Send an email
Want to know more? Go behind the scenes with AC361°
Subscribe to the podcast
On Twitter
Search the AC360 blog
Wonder why BP don't show streaming video of the oil/gas/dispersant going up the water column the 5000 ft to the surface of the sea from the wellhead. All they show is the oil/gas leaking around the LMRP & the dispersent being injected into this mix. Is it going almost straight up to the surface or is it moving laterally. Surely one of their many submersables can monitor this with streaming video ? One would have thought by now that in order to efficiently handle this leaking oil/gas an idea of how it is rising to the surface would be of use.
At the rate they are going the well will dry up before they get it capped, and I understand that is enough oil to gush out for another year or two or three. BP is right that their main priority is getting the well capped and not leaking; but they also need to do more cleaning of the ocean and the shores even though they will probably have to do it over again every week or so. If the cleaning doesn't get done until the well is capped we are going to lose a lot of marine life in the interim and the Gulf will be more likely to have dead zones where nothing can live. None of us can afford for that to happen. Now that hurricane season is here and the first hurricane out there, the height of the barricades to the oil need to be higher before the next storm comes along.
I appreciate your compassionate and indepth coverage from the Gulf. It's maddening & confounding that our leaders have taken so little action to address the crisis, instead allowing lives & the environment to flounder in bureaucracy. Why not emergency measures to accept help from other countries? Why not use products like Oil Eaters Int'l which our military has used since 1989? It is beginning to look as though our government has something to gain by allowing the oil spill to grow into a worse disaster by the day. I want to cry for Billy Nungesser & the people who are suffering.
Denise I agree with you they had about 50 to 60 days of calm weather. Booming the oil above the wellhead, containint it & skimming it out there is part of the answer. Howevert BP/USCG ignore this and/or say increased vessel congestion above well head would be a problem . That is a better problem that the USCG could effectively police than letting the oil migrate over thusands of square miles of ocean & pollute hundreds of miles of coastline.
Great job Anderson, seems you, John King, James Carville, Billy Nungesser, and Gov. Bobby Jindal are a group of 5 all with the same mind & focus re the spill. Contain & handle it offshore at & above the wellhead. Do not let it migrate all over the ocean & onto shore. Fight it 40 miles from shore. I totally agree with you pity BP/USCG does not.
This could undo much of the work done up to this point to clean beaches and marshland.
Will the sand berms hold back the oil with 12 ft waves? Will there be damaging erosion along the berms with waves this high?
If BP really wanted to stop this catastrophe , they might want to share or disclose exactly what is going on . First give us a blue print of what is happening . Put it in every cover of the news paper or Internet . I know that someone is out their that can stop this from getting worse.
We have a lot of people who read blue prints . Pinpoint exactly were this leak is coming from ? I bet we can fix this much faster than they would like . I know I for one would love to see these blue prints . Give us all dimensions etc.
What are we waiting for !!!
Unbelievable! If they hadn't waited so long tostart clean up efforts there would be no worry about 12 foot waves.