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Massive Underwater Oil Plume From BP Spill Discovered
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May 28, 2010 10:08 a.m. EST
Topics: government, politics, environmental cleanup, oil and gas - upstream activities, environmental issue, economy, business and finance, national government, energy and resource, United States
Kris Alingod - AHN News Contributor
St. Petersburg, FL, United States (AHN) - Scientists checking an unexplored area of the Gulf Coast for effects of the BP spill have discovered a massive plume of oil in the depths of the sea. The finding came as federal officials revised their estimates of the rate of oil flow to between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels a day.
Researchers from the University of South Florida found the underwater slick south of Mobile, AL, about 22 miles northeast of the sunken and leaking rig. It had the highest concentrations of dissolved oil at depths of 400 meters.
"The discovery is significant because it verifies the presence of dissolved hydrocarbons in the deep recesses of the Gulf of Mexico that cannot be seen with the human eye but could eventually become a threat to marine life and habitats," the university said in a release.
The finding was first made Tuesday by scientists working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on the university's research vessel, the R/V Weatherbird II. Researchers returned to the same area the next day to repeat their experiments and found the same results.
Samples of the oil from the underwater plume will be further tested when the Weatherbird docks at St. Petersburg on Friday.
The federal government is undertaking the largest clean-up operation in the Gulf Coast in U.S. history more than a month after Transocean's Deepwater Horizon drilling unit exploded on April 20. Three sections of piping on the seabed were damaged in the blast that killed 11 people and left three others critically wounded
Officials announced a new estimate on how much fuel was spilling into the ocean on Thursday. The estimate, 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day, is more than double the previous rate of 5,000 barrels or 210,000 gallons a day.
About 11.5 million gallons of oil-water mix have been recovered from the sea, and operations including controlled burning and skimming by more than 20,000 personnel continue.
British Petroleum said early Friday its "top kill" procedure continued without any problems for the second night in a row. The method involves injecting heavy mud down into the rig's leaking well, and may take one to two more days to complete.
"The top kill procedure has never before been attempted at these depths and its ultimate success is uncertain," said the company, which owns the oil leaking into the ocean and operates the license on which Transocean's rig was drilling.
Preparations are being made for other methods to plug the leak, including a "cap containment system" and two relief wells.
The wells will relieve pressure from the sunken rig's existing well. Drilling of the two wells, one at 3,000 meters and the other at 2,500 meters, will take three months.
BP is facing increasing public anger over the disaster. The company had refused to release live footage of the fuel gushing out of the damaged well for federal scientists to examine until days after the blast.
It is now being investigated for ignoring safety issues and falsely informing the government that it had a contingency plan for large-scale spills. Its close relationship with the Minerals Management Service, which oversees offshore drilling, is also under scrutiny.
The director of the Minerals Management Service, Elizabeth Birnbaum, is said to have resigned on Thursday over the disaster and planned overhaul of her agency.
President Barack Obama refused to get into details of her departure during a speech about the leak on Thursday but said, "[Interior Sec. Ken] Salazar came in and started cleaning house, but the culture had not fully changed in MMS. And absolutely I take responsibility for that. There wasn't sufficient urgency in terms of the pace of how those changes needed to take place."
The oil reached the coastlines of the Gulf states over the past week as officials warned that wetlands and marshes would die five days after being hit.
The closure of recreational and commercial fishing in the Gulf was expanded this week, and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke declared a disaster to extend federal aid to affected fishermen and businesses in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.
A total of 220 sea turtles and two dozen dolphins have died from the leak, according to NOAA, while 223 other sea turtles are being treated in a rehabilitation center.
It is nesting season for sea turtles, which lay their eggs from March to June on or near the beach where they were born. Florida, which has begun efforts to rescue manatees, hosts the largest nesting population of sea turtles in the Northwest Atlantic.
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