While I certainly am not one to jump onto the bandwagon of doom, we have to be realistic. This Gulf of Mexico oil spill is temporarily being manged as best we can with all we have got to work with presently, but it looks like this thing could get a lot worse real soon.
We(the Cajuns) invented offshore drilling technology, and although we benefitted financially in the short term, the loss and expence of our environment to produce oil and natural gas has not been realized by most people here, who were not active commercial or recreational fisherman and hunters. Although we have the technology to drill in our fragile wetlands ecology with well blowout protection and have done it relatively safe untill we started this deep water stuff recently, the present scenario, causes one to realize that we should have never let this go this far. I don't want to get into a finger pointing as to who is to blame for the current scenario, but I will say this: We on the recieving end of the damage being done, will never be able to share with our visiting guests(tourists) or pass on to our children, the life we knew growing up in south Louisiana in the last half of the twentieth century, unless we can stop this spill and the odds are not in our favor.
If you are not from here, and have ever wanted to visit south Louisiana and indulge in the shrimp, crab, oyster, and crawfish we are famous for, do it now. Because I have every reason to believe that life as we have known it, will never be the same.
The truth about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is certainly not going to come from BP, and we know our government is lying like a rug too.
Because the reality about how bad this thing is going to get, will not be known for some time, we need to prepare for the worst now. I have feared it will get worse before it gets better and frankly, I am an optimist, but also a realist!
I will hope for the best, and I will not ignore the truth about how messed up this thing is and how much worse it can get.
I have witnessed a slow destruction of the coastal wetlands ecology all of my life.
I had great plans to change the course of history about the destruction and restoration of our coastal wetlands through my television programs by educating the public through an entertainment medium.
Those plans now seem futile in the face of what is happening in the Gulf Of Mexico.
I am not giving up, but likewise, I shall not bury my head in the oil soaked sand and pretend this oil spill and the resultant cultural and social collapse that follows such a disaster, is not happening.
Despite a great deal of concern and effort to protect, preserve and restore coastal Louisiana, we need to accept now that what we are about to witness is a very rapid destruction of our coastal ecology and a loss of our unique culture and lifestyle with it, and there is not much we can do about it unless we have the great luck of actually capping this well. And based upon the best engineering guesses, we have a very slim chance of pulling that off.
What many people fail to understand is our culture and lifestyle here in south Louisiana is based on and supported by the fragile wetlands environment presently being destroyed right before our eyes.
We presently have every reason to believe that this oils spill cannot be stopped and it will destroy the ecology of the Gulf of Mexico as well as the coastal wetlands from Mexico to Florida, and affect the quality of life here and many thousands of miles away. Not only human, but wildlife, will never be the same.
I have a link below which is the best engineering explaination of what is going on and what will most likely happen very soon.
It ain't pretty folks.
You can read the entire report by clicking on the link below or skip that and just read a summation I have copied and pasted below the dotted line.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6593/648967
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All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit...after that, it goes into the realm of "the worst things you can think of" The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out...as I said...all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more. There isn't any "cap dome" or any other suck fixer device on earth that exists or could be built that will stop it from gushing out and doing more and more damage to the gulf. While at the same time also doing more damage to the well, making the chance of halting it with a kill from the bottom up less and less likely to work, which as it stands now?....is the only real chance we have left to stop it all.
It's a race now...a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it's last gasp in a horrific crescendo.
We are not even 2 months into it, barely half way by even optimistic estimates. The damage done by the leaked oil now is virtually immeasurable already and it will not get better, it can only get worse. No matter how much they can collect, there will still be thousands and thousands of gallons leaking out every minute, every hour of every day. We have 2 months left before the relief wells are even near in position and set up to take a kill shot and that is being optimistic as I said.
Over the next 2 months the mechanical situation also cannot improve, it can only get worse, getting better is an impossibility. While they may make some gains on collecting the leaked oil, the structural situation cannot heal itself. It will continue to erode and flow out more oil and eventually the inevitable collapse which cannot be stopped will happen. It is only a simple matter of who can "get there first"...us or the well.
We can only hope the race against that eventuality is one we can win, but my assessment I am sad to say is that we will not.
The system will collapse or fail substantially before we reach the finish line ahead of the well and the worst is yet to come.
Sorry to bring you that news, I know it is grim, but that is the way I see it....I sincerely hope I am wrong.
We need to prepare for the possibility of this blow out sending more oil into the gulf per week then what we already have now, because that is what a collapse of the system will cause. All the collection efforts that have captured oil will be erased in short order. The magnitude of this disaster will increase exponentially by the time we can do anything to halt it and our odds of actually even being able to halt it will go down.
The magnitude and impact of this disaster will eclipse anything we have known in our life times if the worst or even near worst happens...
We are seeing the puny forces of man vs the awesome forces of nature.
We are going to need some luck and a lot of effort to win...
and if nature decides we ought to lose, we will....
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