Major oil spill near my dad's house.

[Xelah]

They had to evacuate the area last night after a barge ran into an oil tanker and spilled 450,000 gallons (about 11,000 barrels). Not quite as bad as the Exxon Valdez, but its still pretty bad. =/

Hit up google for "port arthur oil spill" for more info.

[Rosemary]

No wonder I hadn't heard of this on the news- I thought you meant Port Arthur, Australia!

I hope that the marine life there will not suffer.

[Xelah]

I probably should have specified Port Arthur, Texas, USA.

But yeah, the seafood in the area had only relatively recently become edible again.

[Rosemary]

Oh, that's ok. I'm always getting told that I don't live in the 'original' Perth!

I'm glad to hear that the seafood is now edible for you. What about the sea-birds - were they affected very much?

[BookStop]

Oh, yuck. They evac because of fumes?

how is the weather there this time of year? I imagine a storm would really stink right about now.

[Werewoman]

I saw this story on the local news, Xelah. Apparently the fumes were really bad, though I believe no one was seriously injured by them. How's your dad? Is he back home yet?

Rosie, an oil spill ALWAYS hurts the wildlife. When the Exxon Valdez accident happened, I was working at a medical diagnostics lab (yes, the one I'm trying to go back to...LOL!) and we had to recalibrate some of the desktop analyzers for use by otters and seabirds. No kidding! The company sent about 100 of those machines up there to help the vets treat the animals. It was a huge success. A lot of the animals were saved who probably would have died otherwise. There are a always lots of volunteers here to help take care of any wildlife affected by these disasters.

I always wonder what the pilots are doing when these kinds of things happen. I mean, come on! What? The tugboat pilot didn't see that very large barge right in front of him? Geez! Give me a break, will ya?

[Xelah]

@rosemary
In terms of edible, I was referring to prior to this. I have no idea if it's edible now or not. It's going to kill the local economy and piss off a bunch of people that like cajun food if it isn't. According to the news, everything should be okay though, but in answer, a friend that works with the fire dept's hazmat team says that they've been scaring birds away from the spill, but have still had a couple (like five or so) that they've had to catch and clean off.

@Bookstop
The weather's been pretty cooperative. No storms or anything and the coastguard reported that the spill's been contained. But yeah, they left from the fumes, but everyone's back in their homes.

@Werewoman
Yeah, he's fine. Having been fishing out in the ship channel where the spill happened, I can tell you exactly what the two captains were thinking, "He'll move, I'm sure as hell not though."

[Ursa major]

Sorry to hear about this, Xelah.

Originally Posted by Werewoman

When the Exxon Valdez accident happened, I was working at a medical diagnostics lab (yes, the one I'm trying to go back to...LOL!) and we had to recalibrate some of the desktop analyzers for use by otters and seabirds.

I don't know how to break this to you, WW, but you're never going to be able to compete on price (i.e. wages) with otters and seabirds.

[Boneman]

And what is concerning, is that the tanker was double hulled, but split open fairly easily. I know tankers in rivers go incredibly slowly, so what speed was the barge doing?

Thankfully, most of it seems to have been contained, and I did like the comment by the head of AET, the owner of the Tanker, who said "It was our product that spilled and right now, we are the ones responsible for cleaning it up" even though they didn't know whose fault it was.

[Xelah]

Double hulls are really only good for running aground. Running into ship from different direction is another matter entirely. You'd need battleship hull thickness to prevent that from ending badly... at least for your ship, the other one with a normal hull would still be pretty effed.

[Werewoman]

Originally Posted by Ursa major

Sorry to hear about this, Xelah.






I don't know how to break this to you, WW, but you're never going to be able to compete on price (i.e. wages) with otters and seabirds.

Oh. Perhaps I should have said "for use on otters and seabirds"?

The otters might have managed pressing the buttons on the keypad, but the birds would have to peck at them, and it would have just poked holes in the plastic, and well, the machines would just start malfunctioning again, and then someone in Alaska would start asking questions about whether that chick in Texas had escaped and been using their machines again and well...it would just be an even bigger mess than the one they started with, so, there you have it.