First Underwater Footage: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill at Source

Update on the latest underwater oil leak video 5/12/10 5:47pm:

The Deepwater Horizon Incident Response Center has released a shocking new video of the BP oil pipe leak.

See below for the first video released by the Coast Guard last week from the spill.

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BP (NYSE:BP) has released footage of their remote operating vehicle (ROV) successfully capping one of the three leaks that is pouring an estimated 5,000 barrels of oil a day into the waters off the Gulf of Mexico.

This is the first video I've seen of the oil leak itself . The sheer volume of oil gushing out is quite incredible - you can see it at about the 2 minute 15 second mark of the video.

The ROV used a robotic arm to cap the leak, which did not reduce the total volume of the oil leak, but according to officials makes the task of capping the other two leaks much easier. Time is getting short for BP as reports are coming out this afternoon that oil has begun to wash up on the shores of a major Louisiana wildlife refuge.

Video footage provided by BP via the United States Coast Guard.

 

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Comments

[Matt Osborne]

02:01 AM on 07/03/2010

I'm posting this comment on the 3rd of July and BP is saying it might be til August.

BP's flow estimates were lowballed from the beginning and the government's conservative estimates are still low.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3ltFHcdZko

[GlobalGramma]

01:37 AM on 05/14/2010

According to NPR, new estimates of the daily volume by 3 very credible experts, place it at between 50,000 and 70,000 barrels of oil per day. That is an Exon Valdez every 4 days. This is a 20 inch pipe. There is no limit to the damage this is going to do, and there should be NO LIMIT ON THE LIABILITY OF THE COMPANIES INVOLVED. They pay. Period. They pay for all of the damage. True cost. We are never going to have a viable planet until that happens.

[Idiocracy666]

04:19 AM on 05/13/2010

Difficult to believe that engineers would consider the need for a device that can slip over a broken pipe O.D. and close it, but ignore the need for an I.D device, when the O.D is obstructed. If these goofs designed cars, we'd have one bumper.

Add a government that allows mile deep drilling when "the backup solutions that we have are not proven at this depth" pure genius

A friggan hair dryer has more layers of "what if" safety built in than this. Unreal

We are truly stupid and will all die.

[Sean Larabee]

07:15 AM on 05/13/2010

"Difficult to believe that engineers would consider the need for a device that can slip over a broken pipe O.D. and close it, but ignore the need for an I.D device, when the O.D is obstructed. If these goofs designed cars, we'd have one bumper."

I agree but would go one further to say that the bumper would be on the roof.

[Gerald Lankford]

09:34 AM on 05/19/2010

very well said ya send a ball valve down open slide it over pipe there turn it off

[pene]

10:32 PM on 05/12/2010

has anything like this ever happened as a result of an earthquake? When there is an earthquake under the sea, what exactly happens? does water go in the hole or does stuff come out? If stuff comes out, what kinds of stuff?
We need a science page so people can understand and compare evidence when this kind of thing happens.

[kingofthenet]

11:02 PM on 05/12/2010

It sometimes does, although in this particular case it would have to cause a crack two or three miles deep.

[pene]

11:13 PM on 05/12/2010

ok, thanks. when the earthquake hit banda ache, it was pretty deep. but i guess it still wouldn't gush as much because the oil rig was pushing water in there under pressure to extract it, right? so the spills would still be lots smaller?

[That Guy]

10:03 PM on 05/12/2010

What is the diameter of that pipe?

[w4s]

10:41 PM on 05/12/2010

good question. A length scale would help.

[Katzencats]

09:46 PM on 05/12/2010

When there's a volcano, I say it's the Earth throwing up. Now I know what it looks like when the Earth starts bleeding.

[Lahonda]

09:43 PM on 05/12/2010

They're all so good at find this stuff. So good at covering up the bribery, influence, patronage and lobbying.

But plugging it? Noooo!

Jebus will be mad.

[Bernique]

09:20 PM on 05/12/2010

If it's from ... BP ... this footage could be "manufactured"/photoshopped? How would we know otherwise?

In earlier years there were impartial, reliable scientific organizations that would provide credible, irrefutible testimony.

Where are they?

[pene]

10:34 PM on 05/12/2010

Bush put xtians in charge of them all and now they haven't any reliable scientific evidence or research...just tablets from the b1ble.

[TCPITS]

10:40 PM on 05/12/2010

yep!

[Tom Joad]

09:17 PM on 05/12/2010

...assuming this is an 8 inch diameter pipe, I estimated the flow rate to be about 5 gallons per second = 300 gallons/minute = 18000 gallons/hour = 432,000 gallons/day, or about twice the reported amount.

[CuHead]

10:07 PM on 05/12/2010

More than that. Its a 12 inch pipe.

[Tom Joad]

10:35 PM on 05/12/2010

...then it's about 1M gallons/day!...

[Sean Larabee]

08:57 PM on 05/12/2010

Looks like chocolate milk. :)

[azatrox]

09:30 PM on 05/12/2010

That would be funny if it weren't so sad :-(

[Sean Larabee]

07:14 AM on 05/13/2010

Yeah sad does not begin to describe it does it.

[Deborah Beck]

08:35 PM on 05/12/2010

So this is what a LEAK looks like? Gives a whole new meaning to the word. This is just crawling under my skin sickening.

[livesimply]

09:53 PM on 05/12/2010

This looks to me like a gusher, not a leak. Really, really horrible.

[TCPITS]

10:41 PM on 05/12/2010

This is not a leak. It is an open wound.

[goplayrabbit]

08:35 PM on 05/12/2010

BP should tell us exactly how much is leaking.

[democles]

09:01 PM on 05/12/2010

You mean tell the truth? Wouldn't that contradicting their business plan?

[Tom Joad]

09:04 PM on 05/12/2010

knowing the diameter of the pipe and timing the flow rate from the video, one could calculate the discharge.

[kingofthenet]

09:10 PM on 05/12/2010

Yeah, it's GOT to be WAY higher than the current estimate, Does that look like 2.5 gallons a second? No WAY!

[Paul Brannon]

08:33 PM on 05/12/2010

If corporations are = people, why aren't the execs of the companies responsible for this travesty sitting in jail with their bail set at, oh, let's say the estimated cost of the cleanup.

[PDXer]

10:20 PM on 05/12/2010

Corporations are only "persons" when it comes to increasing rewards, not increasing risks.

"Privatize the gains, socialize the losses." -- Bringing you Renegade Capitalism since 1892.

[EqOrbit]

08:19 PM on 05/12/2010

I want to see the surrounding area around that. The black gold covering all corners of the earth.

[kingofthenet]

08:01 PM on 05/12/2010

I don't think that 'little' two ton 'Top Hat' is going to work, it is too light weight to stand up to that flow.