For anyone checking this blog for oil spill content, sorry my posts have ebbed. Developments that were fast and furious for a while have slowed down a bit now, but on the whole not much has changed since my post of June 2nd, when attempts to actually kill the well at the top failed. (A summary update follows – if you’re already current on events, skip to the excellent links I’ve found at the bottom).

The focus at the undersea wellhead is now to collect as much of the spewing oil as possible. A lot of cutting was done over the last week with some very impressive equipment, including a giant mechanical snipping-claw that would look completely natural on a giant mechanical crab. If you’ve been checking the links I provided in the last few posts, you stayed on top of this activity. The claw, a diamond-toothed band saw, and other saws and equipment were used to sheared away various pipes from the top of the blow-out preventer, in order to affix a “cap” (Lower Marine Riser Package – LMRP) that would suck up some of the leaking oil through a pipe attached to a tanker on the surface.

Unfortunately it doesn’t appear to work very well, judging from the large amount of oil still visibly gushing. Here’s a nice view showing the camera feeds from the 12 remote-operated submersibles (ROVs) working at the mile-deep site. BP claims to be collecting thousands of barrels of oil via the LMRP, and an operation is planned to collect more through a supplementary process.

The end game is for the relief well to be completed, so that the leak can be sealed at the bottom of the drill-hole, under two miles of rock where the huge pressurized pool of underground oil is flowing in. August is the predicted date for this “bottom kill” attempt, which we have reason to believe will succeed. That will stop the flow of oil, but we’ll just be at the beginning of the effort to clean up the massive amount that has spilled into the Gulf, is destroying the ecology there, and has washed up (or threatens to) throughout our coastal regions from Texas to Florida and beyond.

A new link:

Mark Bradshaw’s blog In the Noozroom has been featuring daily reports from Destin, Florida, right now on the very edge of the expanding threat zone. Engaging personal accounts and interviews with worried locals.

A new post at a link you should have bookmarked already:

Jaime Friedland (The Political Climate) takes on industry-led critics of the temporary moratorium on deep-water drilling in the Gulf.  Well-reasoned, insightful piece.

B