Louisiana oil spill making me homesick for Alaska

I'm in New Orleans, where the Deepwater Horizon oil well continues to spew oil into the Gulf of Mexico, and thinking about home in Alaska, where we fear a similar disaster awaits the Trans-Alaska.

The purpose of this post is to turn you on to an online petition, supporting a Citizens Advisory Council for the existing Trans-Alaska Pipeline. It's a great, proactive cause led by local fishermen and natives, that would allow locals to help keep the oil in the pipe. Failure here could mean a pipeline breach, disaster downstream in the Sag, Yukon or Copper River watersheds, and or loss of Alaska's entire supply of arctic crude. We need your help to put pressure on some apathetic congresscritters.

SIGN THE PETITION HERE

Back to the unfolding disaster in Louisiana. They say 1,000 bbls a day is spewing into the gulf. That sounds an awfully neat round number to me. (Anyone know how you estimate spill rate at 5,000 underwater with a remote control submarine?) In any event, a lot of oil. The best coverage is at Skytruth's blog, which posted the picture I used here, showing 2,233 square miles of slick and estimates 6 million gallons spilled so far. For the rosier party line, there's some good stuff at the official incident website.

The Deepwater Horizon's trouble with the undersea leak underscores a huge gap in spill preparedness— underwater oil. I studied up on the topic because we face the same problem in Alaska, where the glacial rivers are turbid and loaded with silt, so that any spilled oil would quickly become mixed in the water column, bind with silt, and sink.

The upshot is, there's jack you can do to deal with oil that is underwater. Can't tell where it's going or how much of it there is, let alone capture or recover it. Responders can, if they battle mightily and are lucky, sometimes protect valuable shorelines from surface slicks of oil. Subsurface oil? Forget it. Industry shrugs, the bureaucrats eye research grant opportunities, the regulators turn away.

I just hope the Deepwater Horizon doesn't go the way of the spill late last year off of Australia. (Skytruth submitted great testimony on that high-tech failure, posted here). That one went for ten weeks before a relief well could stop the flow. They're saying two to four weeks now to stop this leak. Godspeed.