Scientists Discover Giant Oil Plumes Forming Deep In Gulf

Scientists say that the discovery of giant oil plumes forming deep in the Gulf of Mexico indicate that the flow rate of the crude oil spewing from the ruptured oil well some 5000 feet below the surface is much higher than British Petroleum or the US government first indicated.

Rather than the 5000 barrel per day flow rate estimated by BP, scientists state that the flow rate may be as much as 80,000 barrels per day. To date, BP executives seem to be in a state of denial as to the full extent of the DeepWater Horizon oil rig disaster.

Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf said there’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water. There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”

The plumes are rapidly depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, a great concern to scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.

Dr. Joye stated that the oxygen had already dropped 30 percent near some of the plumes in the month that the broken oil well had been flowing. “If you keep those kinds of rates up, you could draw the oxygen down to very low levels that are dangerous to animals in a couple of months,” she said Saturday. “That is alarming.”

Scientists have requested that BP give them permission to use sophisticated instruments that would be deployed near the well head in order to accurately measure the rate of flow of oil spilling forth from the broken well. “The answer is no to that,” a BP spokesman, Tom Mueller, said on Saturday. “We’re not going to take any extra efforts now to calculate flow there at this point. It’s not relevant to the response effort, and it might even detract from the response effort.”

At this stage of the disaster BP seems to be more interested in attempting to play down the potential environmental disaster that will likely be caused by oil plumes spreading out in the Gulf of Mexico rather than to assist the research scientists in collecting more accurate information as to the extent of the oil flow rate. Unfortunately for BP and for the population of the states bordering on the gulf the extent of the disaster will likely be monumental, far worse than the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

The United States government must immediately take a more direct role in attempting to contain the oil spill. The government should insist that BP fully cooperate with the scientific community in determining the amount of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico as well as drawing upon the scientist’s experience and knowledge as to how the spill might be contained.

A tremendous problem is that there is just not much knowledge about how the release of so much crude oil in a deep water environment can be controlled and alleviated. The formation of giant oil plumes that are spreading out several thousand feet beneath the surface is as unprecedented as it is alarming. There is a growing fear that the oil plumes will eventually find their way into what is called the loop current. Should that happen, the oil plumes would migrate into the Key West region and from there enter into the Gulf Stream.

Should that occur the potential environmental and financial disaster would be devastating. Not only would the beaches, fishing industry, and tourism industry of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida be drastically affected but the oil plumes could be carried by the Gulf Stream along much of the eastern seaboard of the United States.

BP is now frantically trying to cap the broken oil well. Should their efforts fail it may take until August for a relief well to be drilled that would intersect the broken well and hopefully allow for the oil now flowing into the Gulf to be routed through the relief well and captured by surface ships.

We should know within a few days just how disastrous the oil spill will be. We already know that a considerable amount of environmental and financial damage will occur. Oil is already entering the environmentally sensitive wetlands along the Gulf. Reportedly, BP has already occurred $450 million in expenses related to the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Financial analysts that follow the oil drilling industry are beginning to fear that if oil is flowing at the much higher rate of 50,000 to 80,000 barrels per day, and there is a 2 to 3 month delay in capping the oil well, the liability to BP may become so great that it may bring down the giant oil firm. The United States government has been seeking assurances from BP that the oil company will fully cover the cost of the oil spill.

No doubt, that if giant oil plumes are forming in the Gulf to the extent as determined by initial scientific exploration, the Deepwater Horizon disaster will be the greatest natural disaster ever experienced by the United States. It is a humongous disaster that will likely take decades to fully rectify and is likely not only worse than we imagine but is worse than we can imagine.