No quick fix

The 100-ton containment dome that BP hoped would stop an ongoing oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico, has failed after clogging with ice crystals.

The dome, which was lowered to the seafloor last Thursday, was meant to funnel leaking crude into a rigger. The oil has been shooting into the Gulf at a rate of 5,000 barrels (210,000 gallons) per day, since an April 20 explosion off the coast of Louisiana that left 11 missing and presumably dead.

With no quick fix in sight now and the oil slick reaching shorelines, BP is calling on clever non-experts to come up with solutions.

One sure option

BP is putting a brave face on their current dilemma, which is bringing them tens of millions of dollars in new lawsuits, and costing them six million dollars (4.6 million euros) in cleanup each day.

"I wouldn't say it's failed yet," said Doug Suttles, BP's Chief Operating Officer, the day after ice crystals clogged the containment dome. "What I would say is, what we attempted to do last night didn't work."

BP is considering using a smaller containment dome that will be less prone to clogging. Admiral Thad Allen, head of the US Coast Guard, also told CBS television that a type of plug was also being considered.

"They're actually going to take a bunch of debris – shredded up tires, golf balls and things like that – and under very high pressure shoot it into the preventer itself and see if they can clog it up and stop the leak."

However, experts warn that if such a procedure failed, it could cause the flow of the oil to increase exponentially. The only sure option, geologist Lorenz Schwark told Deutsche Welle, is to drill a relief well to intercept the original well and to fill it with very heavy cement that would block the oil's flow. This process was used once in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979; at the time taking 10 months. This time, he estimates, it will take about three.

Hair-brained schemes?

Publically flummoxed – and threatened by a drastic loss of face – BP has launched the website www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com to collect creative ideas from the general public on how to solve the spill. Submissions are then forwarded to engineers.

BP spokesperson Bryan Ferguson told reporters in Louisiana that he had "no idea" to what extent these suggestions were being worked on, but said that BP had "flown in experts from around the world to collaborate and contemplate the ideas that are presented."

Most of the ideas being presented are probably not feasible, unfortunately. Professor Schwark at the University of Kiel said that he has received a number of emails himself in recent days from individuals wanting to present him their own ideas.

"Most of them were quite drastic, including planting a nuclear device on the seafloor and just blowing up the whole area," he said. "I was wondering whether people do consider the effects of such an event if carried out under water in the real world, and not just in a comic film."

A local initiative

Some initiatives led by non-experts are already underway along the threatened Gulf shoreline. In Walton County, Florida, Sheriff Michael A. Adkinson unveiled his plan to protect 42 kilometers of white, sandy beaches. Adkinson has hired a private contractor to float several barges loaded with 1,400 pound (635 kilogram) bales of hay into the Gulf, which will then be shredded and blown onto the surface of the water, where he believes it will absorb the oil.

As for the source of the problem, Schwark said, if his three-month estimation for relief efforts is correct and the oil flow remains constant, the amount spilled will total around 40 thousand tons, equal to the amount of oil leaked during the Alaskan Exxon-Valdez disaster in 1989 – the biggest in US history to date.

Schwark added that, given the 80-kilometer (50-mile) distance from the shoreline in this case, he didn't think the overall environmental impact would be as devastating as in Alaska.

Said Mary Landry of the US Coast Guard, "I don't think any of us know at this time what the impact will be on the environment, or the economic issues that are associated with this spill."

Author: David Levitz
Editor: Mark Mattox