Anatomy of an Oil Spill, part II

Ok, so on Monday, July 26, 2010 we went back up over the Gulf and pretty much followed the same flight path.  The difference in just 3 days was very dramatic....on surface level there was a fraction of the stuff we saw on Friday.  I was truly shocked at the difference.  I am not sure what is going on with the oil, I believe it's sinking and in some cases was visibly floating below the surface but it's very, very hard to distinguish exactly what you're looking at when you're out there.

Having said that, in this post I am going to just publish the pix I took and provide some conjecture and some fact below them...I will do my best to differentiate between the two.  I have a panoptic post I want to make after I publish these photos, but I want to save it until after I get these up for your viewing pleasure...or horror....whichever sentiment you're inclined to.

On this flight I took a still camera up instead of a video camera.  The stills provide much better definition and I was able to zoom a lot closer to specific objects.  Camera is a Nikon D50.

The first shot is from an area just to the east of Cocodrie:

The Yellow Arrows note actual oil in the water, the white arrrows note oil which has actually soiled the land mass.  You can see where the water washed over this land mass and receded, leaving oil stains.  Note that Cocodrie is pretty far inland.

Racoon Island:  This water had a distinct sheen you may be able to notice on the left side of the pitcure.

Racoon Island:  Failed Boom

Racoon Island:  Still a very large amount of birds on this island as opposed to neighboring Islands.

Racoon Island:  Brown Pelicans in flight.

Racoon Island: I am not sure if the discoloration in this picture is representative of oil but the white arrows clearly show signs of the dispersant.  This phenomenon was noticed all through the Gulf.  These color changes were always marked with dispersant floating directly above them.  I will expound on this later.

We passed over another Island just East of Racoon:

These are bags of contaminated sand that workers had gathered on this Island.  I still think the human presence on the neighboring islands drove the birds to settle on Racoon.

We then made our way out to the source.  The difference in oil on the surface was dramatically less apparent than last Friday.  I really can't stress this enough...it was like a different ocean.

Here is your gratuitous spill site porn for all the engineers and geeks.

A wide shot of "The Source" as it is called on the airwaves of air traffic control.

Enterprise Explorer

Enterprise Explorer dead on.

Tight shot of Enterprise Explorer's deck for engineering geeks.

TransOcean rig tight shot.

TransOcean rig wider shot.

This boat is the Gulf Fleet's Monica Ann.  I was told that Edison Chouest did in fact get a contract to spread dispersant at the source but I am not totally sure if this is Corexit 9500 or some variant, or if it's something else.  I do not think it is prop wash because these boats were shooting this stuff out the sides, I have multiple pictures of it. 

On our way back towards the MS. coast, I was looking at these massive dark plumes right beneath the ocean surface.  I was going back and forth with Bonnie on whether or not these dark masses were oil or something else.  I can't help but think it had to be oil plumes because we were in very deep water.  I've flown out over the Gulf numerous times to shoot videos on rigs and I never, ever saw anything that looked liked this.  I can buy the arguments that black masses near the shore are seaweed or ocean floor discoloration, but we were off the shelf and in very, very deep water.  There was cloud cover but these plumes extended pass the obvious cloud cover.  I have to believe that these dark masses were massive oil plumes which were floating below the surface.  They covered a huge area all the way into the coast.

These discolored patches were much different than the Friday trip.  They have now broken up into massive splotches as opposed to constant lines which run to the shoreline.

The "plumes" always seem to have the brown dispersant lines directly above them.

Here you can see the dispersant clouds are clumping closer together.  What I believe is happening is that the dispersant is degrading the oil under the surface and these brown "clouds" are then floating to the top and dissipating.

These type of brown dipsersant clusters dissolve very rapidly...you can actually watch them break apart.

This is one of the "splotches" or "plumes" which is massive in size, half mile to over a mile in some cases.

It's hard to see the color differences so I used the white arrows as a reference in this photo.  This is in very, very deep water right next to the source.

This is the same picture as above but I altered the contrast and shadowing to accentuate the color differences.  Imagine you are looking down on the Gulf and there are splotches of dark areas miles wide and long....this is what it looked like.

This is closer in shore and obviously in shallower waters but that color change is marked by floating dispersant right above it running in tandem with line between dark green and light green.

This is right above Ship Island off the MS. shoreline.  Please blow this picture up and look at it closely because what your're looking at is ABSOLUTEY oil plumes and you will see it in detail in the following photos.

Once we got to the Mississippi coast we circled Cat and Ship Islands.  There was clearly oil encroaching on the islands and into the Ocean Springs/Gulfport coastline....dont' let anyone tell you it's not there....it is there.

This is the east end of Ship Island.  I can't say for certain that the discoloration is oil but notice the black stuff on the beach, I don't think that's seaweed but I could be wrong.

Ok...this shot is looking SouthEast at ship Island.  Some of the dark black areas are just pockets of seaweed on the ocean floor but the arrows that I made are large trails of brownish oil streaks running horizontally.  I will show you closer shots in a second.

Same angle as above.

That's an oil streak running over a dark splotch on the ocean floor.  Keep in mind that we are very close to the MS. shoreline and this stuff was running right into it.  There are people swimming on those beaches.  Ship Island looked to be closed but the MS. shoreline beaches are open and populated.

This is a closer shot of the same streaks between Cat Island and Ship Island.  You can't tell me that is  discoloration on the ocean floor....sorry dude.

A higher shot lookingback towards the MS shoreline

That's Cat Island on the left side of the frame

Pretty sure that is Cat Island on left but it may be Ship Island

Little blurry...sorry...but a tighter shot of one of the streaks next to Cat Island.

Very wide shot looking back towards MS shoreline.  Blow it up and look at the striations and discoloration in the background.  I don't know what the striations are, but the dark stuff in the background is the same stuff you are looking at above.

Cat Island and a nasty oil streak

One of the most harrowing things I saw was on our approach back to Lakefront Aiport, I couldn't believe how far the oil had encroached on Pontchartrain....it was in the south end of Pontchartrain and had covered Lake Borgne.

Lake Borgne...it was everywhere.

This is the pass between Borgne and Pontchartrain.  The boats off to the left are skimming.  It has clearly worked it's way into Pontchartrain and from what I can tell stops right below the Twin Span to Slidell....I guess it's now the Quad Span.

This is a little bit further west...I put this shot here to add perspective.  You can see the Twin Span and Pontchartrain in the top left.

Ok...I am going to stop here and I have a summary post I want to make on exactly what I think is happening with the spill.  Right now I'm exhausted as this stuff takes an enormous amount of time to prepare and post....and it's not nearly as much fun as the sneaky snake countdown stuff.

Suffice to say the MSM reports that the oil is gone are utter bullshit and propaganda....nothing is "gone".

AND HEY!!!!!   I hate to beg, but any donations would be greatly appreciated as I will redirect them directly to Bonnie and her non-profit, "On Wings of Care".  She is donating all her time to do this and I would like to help get her as much money as possible for her gas and plane maintenance bills.

Thanks all.

CORRECTION:  The Monica Ann is a Gulf Fleet boat, not Edison Chouest.

Anatomy of an Oil Spill, Part I

Now that the well is reportedly capped...reportedly...it would seem a collective sigh of relief is in order.  That is if you don't stop to think about the damage already done.  In the past few days, I had the grand opportunity to survey some of that damage.

I have had the good fortune of being able to fly out over the BP/Macondo site, and over other Gulf areas affected by the oil spill, twice in 4 days.  I say good fortune...I nearly lost my breakfast 20 or 30 times, but it was well worth it.  I took a video camera up with uber-eco-warrior, fearless pilot, PhD of Theoretical Physics, and 2nd mate of the Sea Sheperd's anti-whaling boat, the Bob Barker (featured on Animal Planet's Whale Wars),  Bonny Schumaker.  (more here...scroll down)

Bonnie is one amazing woman, one of the most amazing I've ever met.  A spirit of unyielding intent...she flies her single prop plane, Beautiful Bess, with the same determination and fearlessness she portrays in her fight to save the world's oceans and marine life.  While I was never scared riding shotgun in Bess, I am prone to motion sickness and I sure as hell wasn't ready for the banks and turns she pulled the moment we hit our first destination.  On the first trip there were two other folks in the plane (in the back seat) and I didn't want to wimp out and be the dude who puked on the flight, but it took everything I had to hold back the upchuck.  Once my body adjusted to it I was fine, but the first couple of hours felt like I dropped the brown acid at Woodstock and was trapped on a tilt-o-wheel.

That first destination was Racoon Island in Caillou Bay.  From there we scanned the waters on our way to the Macondo site and finally took a break at Ocean Springs, MS.  I am going to put up a short video of the excursion, but I wanted to put up some stills and a post as soon as I could because the trip is still fresh in my mind.

1st Trip - Friday, July 23, 2010

Here is the rough flight path we took on Friday:  Lakefront Airport, N.O. >  Racoon Island, LA > BP/Macondo site > Horn Island, MS. > Ocean Springs Airport, MS. (Yellow lines).  Then we flew directly from Ocean Springs to Lakefront Airport in N.O. (Orange line).

Our first off shore stop was Racoon Island.  We had been told that there were a number of distressed birds there and we wanted to check it out first. (You can click on the pix to blow them up.)

There were a ton of birds on Racoon Is. as opposed to neighboring Islands....it was very strange.  I did  notice that neighboring islands such as Whiskey Island and the Timbalier Islands seemed to show significant signs of human activity and clean up crews as opposed to Racoon.  I suspect the human presence on those islands may have scared the birds off to neighboring Racoon.

One thing which became immediately apparent was the large amount of failed boom, not just at Racoon, but all over the barrier islands.
 

Not only could I not understand the logic behind it's placement, it just simply wasn't working.  I'm not sure if those barriers you see in the picture above were built to stop the oil spill, but neither the land barriers or the boom were doing much to stop the oil invasion.

After leaving Racoon, we took off toward the Horizon well site.  We immediately ran into signs of oil and dispersant, on a rather large scale.  We spotted a small pod of dolphins right about a mile from the Racoon area, but after that....nada.  I've flown over the Gulf before and been out in boats, and I was very spooked at the overall absence of dolphins.

As we progressed, the oil became more and more apparent in different forms and textures.  It was like Baskin Robbins 32 flavors of Hell....here are some examples.

I call these the diarrhea clouds.  They appeared to be Corexit-diluted oil which was breaking up in massive running clouds stretching up to a mile.  I'm pretty sure that's Racoon Island in the background.

In some areas the oil had broken down pretty heavily and you could see these little islands.  We saw multiple pelicans trying to land right on these things, I think they were confused and thought it was some kind of land mass.

These guys were like striped blobs which ran on for only about a 100 to 200 yards.  It just looked like an oil leak on the road.

As we got closer to the site, we started noticing a very weird phenomenon.  There were lines of what appeared to be dispersant and on one side of the line the ocean was a deeper, darker greeen or blue, and on the other side it was a more brownish color.  It was almost like a thermocline separation (I know that's not the case) in how distinct the line was.  At first I expected to it last just a mile or so but as we progressed toward the well site I realized it ran on forever, tens of miles, all the way to the site.  I was told the brown part on the bottom is the oil.

At some point the colors shifted from brown/green to blue/green.  I suspect that was due to an increase in water depth.  Once again....this was endless all the way to the well site.  Supposedly the oil is the green side on these photos.

We flew over this boat which was cutting an iridescent wake.  Hard to tell in this pic, but it was a very vivid rainbow effect.

There were no methane flares that day, I assume because they were evacuating the site as tropical storm Bess was still posing a threat.  Still, the amount of vessels had increased significantly since I was last there 2 1/2 months ago.

The Enterprise Discovery.

1 of 2  TransOcean drilling platforms.

The Helix Producer....I think this boat takes in the oil being siphoned off the wellhead.

We saw about 3 of these support boats which were jettisoning something out the sides.  I'm assuming it's Corexit.  These ships had large yellow tubes running on deck and they were clearly blowing shit out the sides as seen in the photos.

After 4 flyovers of the site, we headed towards Ocean Springs Airport.

About 8 to 10 miles north of the site, we ran into the weirdest of all the spill flavors.  I called this stuff the ghost sheen.  I cant begin to describe how spooky this stuff was.  It was moving like a cloud pattern just below the surface of the ocean.  It kind of reminded me of the ghosts floating below the surface in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.  It was just freaky...it was changing patterns almost like clouds in a rapid storm system.

Right next to the ghost sheen we spotted a school of Golden Manta Rays.  In fact we saw about 4 groups of these guys on the trip.  There was a shark in close pursuit right behind this group, not sure if he was hunting them or looking for scraps.  I was told these guys don't normally surface like this, I don't know if that's true but we saw a lot of them.

Upon approaching Horn Island off the Mississippi shore, I started to get a little sick to my stomach.  This time it wasn't the flying, I had already leveled out....when I saw the amount of oil that was encroaching on the shoreline and realized there were people swimming on the beach at Ocean Springs, I got nauseated all over again.  I became increasingly mortified looking down and seeing all this nasty shit right off the shore and wondering just how much nastier the shit I couldn't see was.

You can see this boom off Horn Island's north side is black and covered in oil....that's right....north side.  Oil plume is in the bottom left hand corner.  Horn Island is a little under 7 miles from the MS. shoreline.

This is a shot of the south side of Horn Island....that black stuff on the beach is oil.


We landed at the Ocean Springs Airport and met with a local lawyer and conservationist who gave us a tour of the city and beach.  I was in a state of disbelief when we drove past the beach area and saw kids on the beach and in the water.  I wanted to run out and scream bloody murder, but I realized it was futile and that there were hundreds if not thousands of people out in that water from there to Panama City, FL.  Man, if they could only have seen what I saw from the air.  I don't know what the state of Mississippi is telling people, but I can absolutely, positively assure you that this spill is in the waters off their beaches.

Another shocking revelation which occurred on the flight....and I almost don't want report this because I'm afraid of how it will be interpreted....the plane was coated in a rather thick layer of oil when we landed.

What does that mean?  I don't know.  Yes I'm the same guy that was railing on the douchebag that claimed it was raining oil a month ago....and I still stick to that lambasting.   But I can't deny what I saw, the plane was covered in a layer of oil after the flight.  That doesn't mean it can rain oil but I now have to question the capacity for the oil to somehow evaporate into the atmosphere along with water.  I don't know if that is what is happening, I just know the oil had to get on the plane from the air and we never dipped down low enough to get sprayed from the ocean surface.  I am going to post a video clip of it tomorrow and I welcome any speculation as to how it got there....and it didn't come from the engine of the plane.

I have a lot more to say, but I am going to wait and post part II tomorrow before I rant.  In the meantime, I would highly recommend not going to the beach and I would vehemently recommend you don't go swimming in the affected areas of the Gulf.  But hey, it's your life.

More to come tomorrow.