Gulf Outsiders Little Understand What is Happening to People Inside

by Tim Gautreaux, Guardian

Those who live in Louisiana all their lives develop an understanding of disaster. We know a hurricane can turn over hundreds of offshore oil rigs in one pass and then come to land and do the same to our homes. Refineries explode, rigs blow up, pipelines burst, well pressures cause accidents that take fingers, feet, arms, legs and life itself.

There's hardly a family in the Gulf region that does not have a member involved in the oil industry. My father was a tugboat captain who handled barges of crude oil for the sprawling refineries, my brother sells oilfield equipment and technology, my nephew captains offshore supply vessels, my great-nephew operates a giant crane currently picking Katrina-smashed equipment from the Gulf floor. Cousins manage oil leases.

So, even though I am not an oil worker, the industry is part of my environment, my history, and when I saw images of the April Deepwater Horizon explosion and fire, I thought at once, "Wait a minute. Something's wrong. That rig is state-of-the-art, the size of a small factory, loaded with technology that rivals the space program in complexity. Why is the fire so enormous?"

And later, when the labyrinth of pipes and valves keeled over in a rumbling, hissing nimbus of flame, I was astounded, thinking, "Why didn't the blowout preventer shut down the well?" And days later, when it was revealed that the device was not functioning, a dark spill began to spread in my soul, a burgeoning realization that nothing could stop a runaway well 5,000 feet below the Gulf's surface. Nothing.

Fear of Well Rupture

FailureA wide open fire hydrant blasting a plume of water out of a four-inch opening operates on a pressure of 50 pounds per square inch. The oil and gas venting from the rig's seven-inch pipe is propelled by at least 3,000 psi. Or more. And if the pipe beneath the blowout preventer fails? The reservoir pressures, I understand, are 11,000 psi. Unchecked, the subterranean caverns of oil would roar to the surface for years.

BP has made a number of attempts to stop the fountain of oil and all have failed, except for the latest cap. But even this success poses many dangers, including a well rupture far below the ocean floor, initiated by the high pressure caused by the cap. No one knows what the result of such a failure would be, and this highlights the most frightening facet of the catastrophe: its unpredictability. The final solution is supposed to be the relief wells BP is drilling, and on the day I realized even these might not arrest the blowout, I decided to stop thinking about it all.

I drove into my south-east Louisiana town of Hammond to get something good to eat. At a seafood cafe I ordered Oysters Scampi. The TV was on above the bar, showing miles-long strands of red oil streaming across the face of the Gulf. I thought of the men killed in the explosion, how they spent their lives trying to avoid something like this. My oysters were large and plump; I ate the first fellow, then looked up at the oil.

Shrimp, Grass, Birds

Locally, it's well known that 60% of the US's oysters come from Louisiana's coastal regions. The oyster beds would be killed by the oil and take years to regenerate. Longer, if the oil kept coming next year. And the next. The spill inside me widened as I realized that the shrimp fisheries would soon be closed, the commercial taking of red snapper, grouper and all their delectable cousins banned. I remembered that Louisiana supplies 73% of the nation's shrimp. My God, what about the charter boat industry and sport fishermen from Texas to Florida?