And just to emphasise the point, it has been being said by yourself and other oilfield professionals here since day one also.

This well is a dead issue and BP surely wants nothing more than to lay it properly to rest.

You would know better than I, so I defer to your opinion.

No no, not me. I haven't seen much from the Fish Cam (although my initial impression when it first came online was to call it the Sex Cam - no further explanation on that), but early on before they put it on an Akamai feed I saw what surely must have been the CRAW-squashed end of a piece of drillpipe, and even with the info they released today I don't see how there could be any piece of DP in there above the stuck capping stack rams. Someone yesterday posted a screencap showing that piece of pipe. They had to be below the capping stack rams and down into the original riser adapter/top of flexjoint. Only other explanation is that somehow a piece of DP was pushed up into the new capping stack, above the now-stuck rams.

The black half-round part in the center is downhole

Thanks, MoA and Acornus, this is just what I was hoping for.

A bit more of a technical update on the fishing operation derived from discussions at the IRC #theoildrum channel.

There were three camera runs down the hole. They revealed some problems.
---
The first run was on the August 21 around 21:00 hours (CDT).

This run was done through a rather thin hose.

There is no video recording of this because BP had only a flash application up with the video. We have one screenshot though http://i38.tinypic.com/s6qc29.jpg

That run, according to people who saw it identified several pipes. According to Adm. Allen in today's conference call one piece is the 3000 feet long drill pipe string going down hole from the bop. A second one is from the shear ram of the old bop up to the transition spool. A third piece is about a foot long but he didn't say exactly where it was.
---
The second camera run was on Aug 22 at 18:00 hours. The camera was run inside a thicker tube (with a likely fishing tool at the end) from the Discoverer Enterprise. The video was available on a public feed.

This camera run revealed a serious problem. At least one RAM in the capping stack seems to be partly closed and the space to pass by with an overshot tool to remove the fish (the drill pipe) is much too small. There were some attempts to move the ram out of the way by hydraulically closing and opening it (ROV operation) but that did not succeed. Somewhere along the camera broke and the run was stopped.

A time laps video (6min) of the second camera run, thanks to RockyP, is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAhnQNc2EfU
---
The third camera run went down the early morning of Aug 23.

It was stopped at the second RAM of the stacking cap which was partly closed. An attempt was again made (by ROVs visible in other video streams) to hydraulically move the RAM part but this did not succeed. This camera run was aborted after some two hours. A timelaps video of the third camera run is available (again thanks to RockyP): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Ce6ntc38E
---

Diagnosis:
One half of the second RAM of the stacking cap seems to be stuck in a closed position and does not move as it should under general procedures.

This is a serious issue with regard to security of the well. As now only two (functional?) RAMs are left to stop another (unlikely but possible) blowout.

This is also a serious issue with regard to fishing the broken drill pipe out of the well. It seems impossible that any fishing tool could pass the half closed RAM.

What to do:
Probably the best procedure now would be to put on a new stacking cap, test it and only after that is successful start fishing the drill pipe pieces. It is unlikely that a second capping stack is readily available.

An attempt might be made to check/repair the operating hydraulics of the stuck RAM but even if that possible it does not guarantee that the stuck RAM half will move as there might be other mechanical reasons for its position.

A more brutal way is probably to cut through the stuck RAM with some tool on a drill pipe from the Discoverer Enterprise to widen the opening available to fishing. (This is what I would do :-))
---

Questions? Ideas?

Things like an electrical cable to give them a bit of light

They apparently were able to rig up some kind of electrical system from a source of current they had access to, so they have light.

I should think, barring an emergency of some kind, the grapefruit-sized hole would be big enough to supply them with whatever they need. If the heat becomes a problem, they could send down frozen cold packs and maybe some of those tiny portable battery-operated fans, and/or the kind of neckerchiefs you soak in water that are stuffed with an absorbent substance that releases the water slowly and cools you down for hours at a time.

Sanitation could be a problem.

They're really going to have to stay very disciplined, and they'll need guidance as to what they must and mustn't do to maintain health and safety, not to mention sanity. Hopefully those topside will be thinking beyond how to get them the bare necessities.

Heck, there are portable DVD players that run on batteries that would fit down the hole. Small videorecorders too. They could keep a video journal if there's enough light. Disposable flash cameras to take photos. Books and newspapers and magazines and cards and portable videogames...lots of possibilities.

You may think of 80 degrees as being warm, but if I spend the whole day in 80 degree water without a wetsuit, I am quite chilled by the end of the day.

Bad analogy ericy.

The physiology of being immersed for a few hours without a wet suit in 80 degree water compared to spending long periods in warm moist 80 degree air couldn't be more different in its consequences.

http://dictionary.sensagent.com/hypothermia/en-en/

Heat is lost much faster in water, hence the need for wetsuits or drysuits in cold-weather activities such as kayaking.[5] Water temperatures that would be quite reasonable as outdoor air temperatures can lead to hypothermia very quickly. For example, a water temperature of 10 °C (50 °F) can be expected to lead to death in approximately 1 hour, and water temperatures hovering at freezing can lead to death in as little as 15 minutes.[15] On the other end of the scale, in water even a temperature as high as 26 °C (80 °F) may eventually (after many hours) lead to mild hypothermia.[16]

Note: if you stay longer than that, eventually even being exposed to 80 degree water, will kill you.
I'm an Ex Scuba Instructor and Saturation Diver and I used to teach dive physiology and dive safety courses. Now I just dive alone...

On the other hand I can spend a summer exposed to 80 degree air in just shorts and a T shirt. I know, because that's what I do here in South Florida. Actually, sometimes I even run the airconditioner to cool off.

No, this will not be like being immersed in water. 32-36C is 90-98F and I would expect the humidity to be very high as the area has free water. It will be very unpleasant down there, 32C and 90% humidity is not fun. The big risk will be heat stroke and dehydration. Getting a shaft down with cool dry air would be a very big improvement for their situation. Lots of electrolytes need to be supplied to keep them hydrated and salt balanced.

Mucho suerte muchachos.

NAOM

We need to constantly ask ourselves what price is our lifestyle worth?.... What price our lifestyle?

I believe that question is asked in one from or another at least once a week here on TOD.

OK, I would jump on those ventilation shafts. If air is getting in, then there's a real possibility of widening that opening to get the men out. That would be my first hope. Methane isn't usually a problem in copper mines, but H2S certainly could be. It forms when air and water get to copper sulfides.

lotus -- In another life time I had done a little work down in a deep copper mine in Mexico. A thousand times scarier than any rig I've ever been on. And that mine hadn't collapse. But the lowest level flooded a month earlier and killed several miners. That's why we had to go down the last few levels on ladders (with wooden stays TIED to the runners) instead of using the elevator which was knocked out by the water. Never went down another mine after that experience. The news of the accident in Chile obviously brought those memories rushing back.

There was a comparable incident, though not as far down, in the 60s in Germany: Wunder von Lengede

The miners were initially trapped in the Alte Mann ("old man"), an abandoned tunnel in the Lengede-Broistedt mine near Salzgitter, on October 24, 1963, after 500,000 m³ of mud water from a sedimentation pond had flooded the mine and the tunnels between the 60 and 100 m levels. Out of 129 workers, 79 managed to rescue themselves during the first few hours, and although it first seemed as if there was no hope left for the other 50, one of the biggest and most dramatic rescue missions in the history of mining began after 7 more miners were found 23 hours after the catastrophe.
The efforts paid off: three more workers were found alive on November 1, and two days later, contact was established with another group of 11. After a few more days of drilling, this group was also brought to safety on November 7, after being trapped for two weeks. The remaining 29 workers died.

A page in German with a few pictures.

They used a kind of "bomb" about 20+ inch wide to pull people up through a bore hole. It seems the folks in Chile will try the same.

Here's lots more detail from Reuters. Jeez, getting to that refuge area -- the size of a small apartment, this says -- meant everything.

uni - Not specifically about that mine but it's very likely to be copper deposits in an igneous rock matrix. That's why the new shaft will take so long: probably some of the hardest rocks you'll ever have to cut. Even slower if they can't use exlosives for fear of causing more collapse. Another chilling thought about that Mexican copper mine I was in: on the hill sides there were hundreds of small white crosses for the miners whose bodies were never recovered. Didn't have any great ambition to be a mining geologist before I went down there and certainly none afterwards.

CNN Chile has a bit of tape showing one miner's very happy eyes.

Lotus, your link was to the NY Times blog, which doesn't have that tape. But CNN does have it.

they are going to be different men

Indeed. A less intense situation than that in the Tasmanian mine, but whether that will mean less or more stress in the long run is hard to say. I'd guess most or all of them are pretty religious, which should help.

Good article from AP:

Rescuers expand lifeline to trapped Chile miners

Apparently there's a lot of focus on their mental health. A few points:

--A team of doctors and psychiatrists are at the mine working on a plan to support the miners' psychological well-being.

--They're sending down questionnaires to evaluate the condition of each miner; also medicines and microphones, which could begin working almost immediately. Families are being organized into small groups to facilitate communication.

--Leadership has to be established among the men, and they need to be kept busy.

--A drilling machine with diamond-tipped drills is being sent to the site that should be able to drill 20 meters per day of a tunnel big enough to evacuate a person.

Very moving moments !

Indeed, Lady-li, just beautiful. Thank you!

(high-fives Lady)

JEC - sorry...can't offer a clue. I intensionally don't watch the ROV clips...just way too many more qustions than answers IMHO. Life is frustrating enough now that I'm on the Blue Bell wagon...don't need no more.

densely -- Sorry. I did mean to say a ...mud column is NOT required.... Thanks.

Den. Have a look at this one, Apology if it is too simplistic. There are some good explanations on this site, particularly measuring density in ppg pounds per gallon US. http://www.drillingformulas.com/category/oil-well-cementing/?lang=Array

hasbeen. I am imagining that there are few wet kitchen floors by now. Or even many small children being dangled in bathwater with a tape measure. If you drop a ship in the ocean, it will displace its own weight in water. The pressure at the bottom of the ocean stays the same; the ocean level rises a very very small amount.

Hydrostatic pressure (and head) is determined by volume, not height (except at great distances), even with pressure changes (non-compressible fluid). 1000 gallons of weighted mud in vertical pipe a mile long exerts the same pressure at the bottom as the same volume in a pipe 100 feet long. (Surface area at the bottom assumed to be the same).

Which wieghs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold?

ISA. Stirring up a shit storm is perfectly OK. What is Blue Bell, is it naughty stuff?

This is my 1st post here so be nice :-)
It is important to realize that pipe is steel with the a density +/-8 SGs. As long as the pipe is open ended no "shut-in" pressures to overcome, the pipe can be lowered and ectracted until the proverbial cows come home. Problems only occure when pipe is plugged and differential pressures act on one side or the other.

This is always when trouble occurs. "Cannot circulate". Gas Kick on Annulus. Size of Surface Casing to the size of the final liner. Show me diameter change, and there may be trouble....

Regards,

brat -- Not that knowledgeable about those plugs but your thoughts sound reasonable. In fact, it might explain why it popped so hard...the plugs may have been slightly leaking but then hit a tipping point and popped just like your cork analogy. I just have virtually no experience with a well being displaced like this. In 35 years I've never had a cased hole displaced with fluid of a lesser weight then what I drilled with. Not just a safety factor but costs: I already have mud in the hole that can control the reservoir. If I displace it with another that takes time. And then I still have to dispose of that extra mud. Eventually I would displace the drill mud with a heavy CLEAR completion fluid before I perforate the reservoir. But a completion rig day rate is a lot less than a drill rig so one more reason to leave the mud in the hole. But I learned an expensive lesson last January. I'll never leave OBM (oil based mud) in a cased hole I plan to re-enter and complete some time down the road. Earlier this year I re-entered a well that had been left with OBM in the csg for a couple of years. Instead of taking a day and $20,000 to circulate out that old OBM it took a couple of weeks and $500,000 thanks to a bunch of mechanical problems caused by the OBM. It essentially set up like an epoxy inside the csg. Probably from the high temps. So I would have definitely displaced the OBM out of the BP well but I would have used a rather cheap heavy brine water that would have balanced the well just like the drilling mud did.

Oilfield Brat,

That is an excellent point.

The shoe track on the Macondo Well is on the order of 200'. In other words, there was a 200' cement plug at the base of the casing. It's possible this plug stayed intact and moved up the 7" casing. When the plug passed thru the cross-over to 9 7/8" casing, the pressure below the plug may have caused a massive kick at the surface.

Even if the plug moved up the 7" casing as a broken mass, a surface pressure increase would have occured when the cement passed thru the casing-cross over.

NAOM -- Think about it: the lead weight is supported by the string...not the water. Granted when you dip it into the water there's a very minor loss of weight from the buoyancy factor. But imagine you're holding a 30# block of lead with one arm above your bath tub. Now lower it into the tub. Still feels pretty much like a 30# hunk of lead. remember in my silly little water glass model none of the water flow out of the glass when I lower the weight in.

Sometime later went down into the Ducktown copper mine in Tenn. A whole different world...felt like I was in a processing plant on the surface instead of being 2,000' below ground.

tow -- thanks for the update. Haven't been able to follow the ops in real time. So the cap ram is stuck. Just another day in the oil patch: there's the planned procedure and then there's what really happens. Long story short: had an operator tell me do something stupid once. Told him why I didn't think it would work. Did it anyway and stuck the logging tool in the hole. His response: we must have done something wrong because sticking the tool wasn't on the written procedures. Yes-- there really are some office managers in positions of responsibility who really are that stupid. I don't have to make up such stories.

Now this is where you seperate the boys with the gonads to get the job done vs. the other "managers". If they can't open the ram on the cap: pull the cap off, fish the DP out, put the new BOP on and finish plugging this bastard. Is there really another option? If the cap rams aren't functioning proeprly do you want to make the cut with RW1 knowing that cap might not function properly? If they have another cap standing by they could swap out. But at that point the well would be wide open to the GOM with nothing between it and the reservoir than the cmt plug. Would luv to be sitting in on that meeting right now.

So .. the introduced MW has to equal the removed DP weight in order to not cause a differential in pressure at the bottom of the well ? What would be the ratio of mass between the DP and the mud ?

Am I understanding this correctly, than bottomhole pressure is in this case, taking into account the weight of the DP ?..or not..? If hydrostatic load is using only the density of fluid normally, would having unknown quantities of a different density material contained in the fluid column throw off calculations ?

So in this case, it would be a matter of replacing weight without drastically increasing volume,...would they use a heavier MW ?

..crap, now I am even more confused, time to crack the books again.

Problem in the discussion is mixing tension in the drill pipe with its weight.

Immersed part of the DP becomes part of the mud volume not mass. If immersing DP increases the level of mud in the well, then pressure will go up, as it depends only on height and density (and g). Just like if you poured some extra mud instead of hanging pipe. This is true as long as pipe hangs from BOP and the casing and the mud is not compressed by the pipe and it's motion and there is no mechanical contact with cement at the bottom. Try the experiment by pushing in a rock and then piece of styrofoam same size into the water. You have to hold rock, push the foam, but extra reading on the scale will be the same.

So they can lift the pipe and should replace it's volume with mud of the density there is already in the well.

You are getting there guys. VGuy has introduced buoyancy into the mix. Now you have to get the books out and understand the affect of buoyancy on MASS and WEIGHT. When I buy fuel oil for a power plant with a MASS DENSITY of say 0.9966 kilogrammes per litre, I have to extract 0.0011 kilogrammes per litre to correct the MASS to WEIGHT. The mass density is the weight of the oil in a vacuum. When the oil is in the storage tank the atmosphere has a buoyancy effect on the oil; extremely small; but, exactly the same as the seawater floating the Battleship.

Turning to spousal love, if we measured the oxytocin level of 100 couples could we prove who loves who?

If you go back to the link I provided you'll find references to hormones and spousal love on the same page.

I am not aware of any actual studies that have been done in the area, however the conclusion is pretty obvious - love involves measurable physical changes.

Faith does not give any answers

If we go back to my original post -

"The problem comes with people who think they know what God's answers are."

Perhaps while we are very far apart in our philosophy there are some things that we can agree on.

"I'am pretty impressed with Judge Anderson already. Easygoing demeanor but certainly taking control, way better than Nyugen."

I agree....a refreshing change.

I think the testimony of the Haliburton Engineer will be interesting. It's bizarre that after weeks of hearings no one has even asked about the mud weight inside the casing.

The mud weight inside the casing is critical question. The cementing plan should dictate exactly mud weight (the tail) that was pumped behind the cement.

Pat O'Bryan was on the rig when the blow out occurred. He was one of the visiting managers....

RF. What is MBI? Is this a state or a federal thing? What power does this MBI have?

It is my opinion sufficient facts and testimony have already come out to (a) determine what caused the blowout, (b) determine what should have been done to prevent the blowout, and (c) make recommendation(s) for criminal indictment.

I would really disagree here. I don't think anyone has a clear idea at all. There are a range of smoking guns, but far from enough technical information to draw solid conclusions. The BOP is still on the well head. There has been no chance to do an in hole data gathering. There are a number of key people who have not testified.

Some vague thought that "clearly BP screwed up, and they should be charged" is not a useful answer.

Understanding the actual technical and human reasons for the failure are going to take a lot of effort. There are disturbing unanswered questions that are very likely much more important that simply painting BP black. The critical ones concern what happened in the last hour or so. There were a cascading set of failures, and at a number of times the well could have been saved. Understanding this is crucial. Otherwise the inquiry becomes a politically driven farce. No one actually learns the proper answers, the recommendations are political not technical, and sometime later we get another accident. Many decades of engineering failures, with many deaths, have taught us how to run these inquiries.

Reading the reports into the Challenger and Columbia accidents would give a good idea about the depth of effort needed and expected. This accident is of pretty much the same scale and importance. We should expect exactly the same amount of care. The fact that NASA lost two shuttles should give pause to assertions about how easy it is to fix safety culture issues.

I need help with the math.

The pressure on the BOP was 6700 PSI (when the well was initially shut in 7/15). This means the current reservoir pressure has been reduced to what? When the BOP was shut in there was 13,150' of hydrocarbons sitting on top of the reservoir. Plus, I assume the 4,996' of sea water must also be factored into the equation.

What is the current reservoir pressure?

RE: cement bonding. As a youth I worked for a farmer part-time. One day we were building a corral with used oil field tubing. Seems like it was 2.5" inch diameter or so. Some of the tubing had cement in it that didn't get pumped out for some reason. The pipe with cement was very heavy and hard to cut with a torch. The cement was bonded so well that a sledgehammer wouldn't break it loose. It was impossible for us to get the cement out. He got a special deal on that used tubing because of the condition it was in. We paid for it in much extra work trying to fabricate the corral.

Where did you find this, please.

Allen's briefing earlier today. The transcript is not up yet. The audio is at Allen 8/23

One long pipe, centered in the BOP, is likely the one that continues on down 3,000' into the well, held in place by ram(s). The other two were likely cut during the preparations for the lowering of the transition spool. One appears to have a smooth cut, from the diamond saw; the other is slightly crushed at one end from the shears that were ultimately used to cut the riser.

It is not clear how much they've observed directly via the camera and how much via the gamma ray checks. And Allen made no mention of what looks like a problem with one set of rams in the capping stack. He did say that BP is due to give him info' on how they will approach removing the BOP if, for some reason, they can't remove the drill pipe first.

BT, another plausible explanation is that the drill pipe was intact after the blowout, hanging from the BOP. A couple days later when the DH sank, the riser crumpled and broke a length of drill pipe which fell into the top of the LMRP/BOP.

All Alabama Waters Now Open for Fishing

August 16, 2010

The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Marine Resources Division (MRD) announces the re-opening to the harvest of fish from all areas previously closed as a precautionary response to the presence of oil from the Deepwater Horizon Incident. These areas include all Alabama Gulf of Mexico waters out to three miles and the remaining closed waters of Mobile Bay that are just north of the Fort Morgan Peninsula. These waters reopened at 6 a.m., Monday, August 16. This includes both commercial and recreational fishing. In addition to finfish, the area north of Fort Morgan is also open to shrimping.

ADCNR has worked closely with the Alabama Department of Public Health, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to ensure the health and safety of the public during the events following the Deepwater Horizon incident. In correspondence addressing the results of recent testing of seafood from the remaining closed areas, the FDA states that, “Sensory evaluation of 50 finfish and 16 shrimp samples for odors indicative of contamination was conducted on August 11-12, 2010. No samples demonstrated odors indicative of oil or dispersant contamination. After sensory evaluation, the samples were forwarded to a chemistry laboratory for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) analysis. Compositing of like species from like sample locations resulted in 10 separate finfish and three separate shrimp samples for PAH analysis. All samples were analyzed using the LC-Fluorescence method. The chemical analyses were completed on August 13, 2010. PAH levels in all samples are significantly below the levels of concern established in the reopening protocol, which was agreed upon by Alabama officials, NOAA and FDA.”

Harvest of crabs is still prohibited in all areas that were closed including the Gulf of Mexico, Mississippi Sound, Pelican Bay and the area in Mobile Bay north of Fort Morgan. Analyses are currently being conducted on blue crabs from affected areas. The results will be made public as soon as they are received.

The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources promotes wise stewardship, management and enjoyment of Alabama’s natural resources through five divisions: Marine Police, Marine Resources, State Lands, State Parks, and Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries.

Alabama Waters Opening for Crab Harvest

August 20, 2010

The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Marine Resources Division (MRD) announces the re-opening to the harvest of crabs from all areas previously closed as a precautionary response to the presence of oil from the Deepwater Horizon Incident. These areas include all Alabama Gulf of Mexico waters out to three miles, Pelican Bay, Mississippi Sound and the waters of Mobile Bay that are just north of the Fort Morgan Peninsula. These waters will reopen at 6 a.m., Saturday, August 21. This includes both commercial and recreational crabbing.

ADCNR has worked closely with the Alabama Department of Public Health, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to ensure the health and safety of the public during the events following the Deepwater Horizon incident. In correspondence addressing the results of recent testing of crabs from the remaining closed areas, the FDA states that, “The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has concluded that the conditions for reopening specified in our agreed upon reopening protocol have been met for crab in the areas and that such seafood should pose no food safety risk associated with contamination from the Deepwater Horizon explosion, fire and oil spill.”

The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources promotes wise stewardship, management and enjoyment of Alabama’s natural resources through five divisions: Marine Police, Marine Resources, State Lands, State Parks, and Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries.

Ding ding ding, we have a winnah: GOBBET, for Question of the Day! Oomboy, can't wait for this answer.

What's that sucking sound I hear?

I hope that is not directed at me. All I did was provide a link to a news article out today. Make of it what you will.

I have heard and read several such stories recently. The sources I have read don't say it is ongoing, but that it happened in the past. They do claim the dispersant are still there but not that BP is still spraying. What sources in the last few days have you read that say they are still doing this? I just listened to Dar Jamail on Democracy Now today. Just to be sure I listened again. He said the fisherman are now no longer going out looking for oil slicks and never says that they are spraying dispersants any longer. The fishermen he interviewed say (dispersed) oil and dispersants are still there but he does not say surface slicks are still there. If you don't listen carefully you could think he is saying this is still happening, but since he describes what happened to them as VOO workers and says earlier they are no longer with VOO as it is being shut down. http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/23/fishing_industry_in_gulf_still_wor... I was surprised to see your comment as I fully understood from listening to this that it was a past tense event. But I suppose others who don't pay attention could think it is still going on. I haven't read any article that says that BP is still spraying - can you point me to such a recent article?

Of course there is another leak at Barataria Bay and I haven't heard what the status of that is. Some spraying may actually be going on currently there.

i think they may be talking about the supposed separate subsea ROV operation going on at "Well B" that BP undertook cause it was getting too confusing trying to keep those video feeds off of the publicly accessible channels...

It's supposedly WHY there's NO surface oil to be seen...

Actually, Gobbet, I did a flyover on Saturday around Raccoon Island (LA)and saw several areas of what looked to be oil sheen on the water. I can't say that it was oil for certain, of course, but there were at least a dozen.

I didn't see any Corexit sprayers, though.

Please note that this is NOT my photo; it's a screen grab from an acquaintance of mine's video, who thinks this boat may be dispersing dispersants. :) You could do a service to the doubters by identifying the round tank at the back. As an aside, the captain of the vessel could be seen going to make a radio call, apparently when he noticed them filming; you can trust me on that.

Back when I was a kid my family rented a beach house at Gulf Shores every summer, and I remember there was always brown scum and dried out foamy bubbles at the tide line. And there was always a tarball or three to be found amongst the seaweed and dead fish left behind after high tide.

This is NOT an attempt to brush aside anything from this current event and say it's no big deal and everything will turn out peachy. For example, I also remember being able to dig a hole as deep as you like in the sand and not unearthing a superfund site.

Foam is entrained air in liquid. You can make an extremely transient foam in pure water buy shaking a bottle. This 'evanescent' foam is not stable. To make a stable foam you need an something in addition - pure liquids cannot make stable foams.

There are a LOT of things that can stabilize foam. Proteins, pectins, ionic surfactants of all types, natural or synthetic. Clay particles. Polymers. Long chain fatty alcohols. Microorganisms. Lignin.

There are so many types of foam stabilizers that it is silly to try to say anything about composition if foam is present except to note that the liquid cannot be pure if a stable foam is seen.

Nope

Please don't do that. It's unbecoming, Bernhard.

Hey, lotus! 5:23 here. I'm gonna pronk over to the cupboard where my glass is, then pronk into the pantry where is the wine, then pronk back to me chair. Pronk! Pronk! Pronk! Clink!

LOL

Atch'falaya
Crawfish pie
Filé gumbo . . .

Making me hongry, cha.

the Atchafalaya River Basin, which is where the Mississippi River would be flowing now if it weren't for man and his levees.

Hasbeen, this is a common but absolutely wrong belief. The Mississippi and Atchafalaya connect through the Old River as a result of dredging for navigation begun in the early 19th century. Without this dredging the two channels would be separate. The risk of the Mississippi leaving its current channel is exacerbated by the artificial levees constraining its flow during floods, and the channelization of the Atchafalaya which allows it to take more of the Mississippi's flow than it would naturally.

"Had the situation developed naturally, ... the Mississippi and the Red, the latter using the channel of the Atchafalaya, would have flowed in separate channels to the sea. However, dredging for maintenance of navigation through Lower Old River prevented such an occurence."
Geological Investigation of the Atchafalaya, Corps of Engineers, 1952, p.111, available through the link posted by TearsforGulf above

You should come to Los Angeles and see the 'San Gabriel River' - which has no water in it most of the year. The Los Angeles River gets most of its water in the Summer from runoff from lawn sprinklers going into the storm drains.

Flagged which, Pinkfud?

It's two months old but I just came across it. Full moon working on me, most likely.

I suppose the Sovereign Citizens of the United States of America think that they'll get the extra $9Q from Lord Rothschild's Reptilian Masters. Last I heard there was about $1Q total asset value on earth, and that was before the financial meltdown.

Thanks rainyday.

I found the airspace info and it is still closed.

Seems a little overkill and hinky to have it closed this late in the game.

There can't be that much air traffic above normal in the area.

http://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_0_0112.html