Attorney gaming today: The deepwater wind R&D test site-enabling agency called Bureau of Parks and Lands recently gave me 100s of pages of records on how they chose the Monhegan test area. Then suddenly it occurred to me the deadline for responding to it loomed. 6 hrs left!
Then the phone rings: it's a mystic I've enlisted in the effort to convince the windgods to keep blowing the BP spill west and north. Away from the Loop and away from everything east of Florida's outer panhandle. Progress is encouraging; the plume of oil that was moving to the SE towards the Loop Current is being shoved west away from Florida and Cuba and toward the center of the Gulf of Mexico. Back, maybe, toward the home leak. That's it, slime-o, go home, mama's calling... \
With that under control for the moment, it's back to the other GOM - the Gulf of Maine. Suing on behalf of Beauty and the Beasts against that Mordor-in-sheep's-clothing we call nearshore wind extraction industry. First, I call the lawyers:
Atty 1 (State AAG) Cool. How about we arrange for you to pump BPL and SPO's Coastal Program's techies for those digital details you want?
Me: Okay, I'll drop those digital data details from the Motion; judge don't need'em. Next?
Atty 1. Summarized: You get your three week extension to peruse the official record then you can order the details from the BPL and SPO.
Me: (verbal fist bump with Atty 1) Then I ask: "U-Maine-ster?"
Atty 2 (UMaine's) Good to go if Atty 1 is. Yes? Then send us copies and, while you're at it, will you please think about cutting a deal before the case goes too much farther?
Me: Um...I'll be in touch. Later! (Deal? An idea starts to form....)
Operation Sargasso Sorrow. The surface currents that would transport the BP oil spill north of the Gulf of Mexico, can be diverted into an eastern heading, sending them straight east into the western core of the Sargasso Sea gyre.
UPDATE: BP HOrizon Cleanup HQ sends email declining to try current diversion:
--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Horizon Support <Horizonsupport@oegllc.com>
Date: Sat, May 8, 2010 at 5:43 PM
Subject: Horizon Call Center - Your Recent Submission
To: coastwatch@gmail.com
Dear Ron Huberr,
Thank you so much for taking the time to think about and submit your proposed solution regarding the Horizon incident. Your submission has been reviewed for its technical merits. Unfortunately, the team has determined that your idea cannot be applied under the very challenging and specific operating conditions we face. All of us on the Horizon Support Team appreciate your thoughts and efforts.
Sincerely yours,Horizon Support Team
But...the oil will tend to be contained within the gyre; there, remediation can be concentrated on a single shoreless location, rather than along the coasts of the Atlantic eastern seaboard.
HOW WHAT WHERE WHY: Deploy large numbers of upwelling devices (pumps, floating windmills,etc to pull up giant cold water plumes from the bottom to the surface, offshore from the southern tip of Everglades National Park to west of the Dry TortugasNtional Marine Sanctuary as could be done., setting up a cold water barriers - like giant oil boom 100 feet to keep the oil offshore. T See: Göran Broström, Norwegian Meteorological Institute's paper "On the influence of large wind farms on the upper ocean circulation" Navies should also tow as many large and medium icebergs south to join the line of spill diversion, Plenty of loose chunks floating about, east of Newfoundland
Enough deployed, the "thermal water walls": cold, dense and maintained there by the churning upwelling action of every pump that every navy and merchant vessel of the world can deploy there, every floating ocean wind turbine (dern! there's only one!) that can be towed there, will divert the less dense oiled waters out and eastward to the Sargasso Gyre. This could be genocidal toward American Eels, given their dependence on the Sargasso for reproductive purposes. Europe would likely get a short micro-ice age from the temporary diversion of the Gulf Stream east into the Sargasso Sea gyre instead of north into the NW & NE Atlantic. Sometimes there are no good choices, only bad ones versus terrible ones.
