Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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here's a post from the oil drum that explains in more detail what can be pieced together about the leak in the choke line.
The Oil Drum | BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - Starting the Testing Program - and Open Thread
and a proposal to use the mississippi river itself to push oil away from the coastline.
i am not in a position to comment on the pragmatic aspects of this, but i quite like the idea aesthetically:
Restoration and Resilience Let The River Run Through It: Harnessing the Mississippi to Save Louisiana's Wetlands from the Oil Spill - Blogs & Podcasts - Environmental Defense Fund
meanwhile, the regional economic situation around new orleans doesn't look good, but it's the case that the bp disaster is but one explanatory factor amongst several.
Quote:
Avondale Shipyard closure expected to have broad impact on regional economy
Published: Thursday, July 15, 2010, 6:53 AM
Updated: Thursday, July 15, 2010, 8:40 AM
Rebecca Mowbray, The Times-Picayune
The year started so bright, with the New Orleans Saints winning the Super Bowl and the feeling that the New Orleans area had moved beyond its post-Katrina nightmare to the cusp of a better future.
Avondale Shipyard AerialsView full sizeEliot Kamenitz, The Times-PicayuneThe Avondale Shipyard, photographed Wednesday, will be closing by 2013.
But now, with the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, the ban on oil exploration, the last space shuttle external fuel tank rolling off the assembly line at Michoud Assembly Center, layoffs at University of New Orleans, and on Tuesday, the Avondale Shipyard announcing that it would cease production by 2013, eliminating 5,000 well-paying jobs, the outlook for the New Orleans area economy suddenly feels grim.
To University of New Orleans economist Janet Speyrer, the idea that the state's largest manufacturing employer could just pick up and leave, after all the other bad news, was almost unimaginable. "It took my breath away," Speyrer said.
Indeed, on Wednesday economists around the state were calculating the damage and political leaders were wincing at blown budgets while economic developers were brainstorming new pitches and re-uses for the shipyard site along the Mississippi River on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish.
No matter how you look at it, the loss of 5,000 jobs at Avondale is enormous.
Avondale singlehandedly represents about 1 percent of the about 520,000 jobs in the seven-parish New Orleans metropolitan statistical area. It's 15 percent of the area's 33,600 manufacturing jobs, Speyrer said, and it's more than half of the area's 9,300 jobs in the transportation, equipment and manufacturing category.
Given that the area's manufacturing sector is so small, Speyrer said, it will be challenging for Avondale workers to find other jobs that use their skills, opening the possibility that they will leave the area.
To understand how big a hit it is, Loren Scott, professor emeritus of economics at Louisiana State University, said just imagine what big news it would be if a new employer creating 5,000 jobs were moving into the economy, and then picture it in reverse.
"You'll be getting some very serious licks to the New Orleans economy," said Scott, who keeps having to revise his 2011 and 2012 forecasts for the state's economy downward because of the oil disaster, drilling moratorium and plans for winding down Avondale by 2013.
Enlarge Dinah Rogers, The Times-Picayune CHRIS GRANGER / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE Employees of Northrop Grumman gather outside of Quick Stop at the end of their shift on Wednesday, July 14, 2010. Co-owner Tauy Nguyen said her store has been there for about 18 years and said she will close if Northrop Grumman closes. She said about 100 percent of her business comes from people who work at the plant. Avondale Shipyard Closing in 2013 gallery (13 photos)
While the New Orleans area rate has been hovering at about 6 percent -- nearly four percentage points below the national economy -- Scott expects unemployment in the New Orleans to rise to something closer to the national rate.
The average wage at Avondale is $62,000, which can support a lot of restaurant meals, clothing, car and home purchases. Meanwhile, the shipyard itself may order other parts or supplies from other businesses in the region, diminishing their economic activity when it leaves.
Ivan Miestchovich, director of the Institute for Economic Development and Real Estate Research at UNO, noted that the housing market follows the job market. "You take that many jobs out of the economy in a period of two to three years, there's no way around it, you damage the housing market," he said. Job growth in the New Orleans area has been flat since 2008.
For every million dollars that would have been spent on ships at Avondale, Speyrer said, another $825,000 will be lost elsewhere in the local economy and more than 13 jobs will be lost.
Scott hasn't crunched the numbers yet, but he said he believes there will be two indirect jobs lost for every one Avondale job, meaning that the New Orleans area will lose 15,000 jobs.
State and local governments will also take a hit. For every $1 of earnings that the state loses, Scott said, Louisiana loses seven cents from its budget. That means the 5,000 direct jobs at Avondale alone will cost the state $22 million. When indirect jobs are added, Scott believes the total hit will be about $50 million to state coffers.
Scott said his LSU colleague Jim Richardson estimates that local governments lose 5.4 cents for every dollar of lost wages. That means that they would take an $18 million hit before the multiplier effect, which would make it about $40 million.
"The rock is being dropped into the pond in the New Orleans MSA(metropolitan statistical area)," Scott said. "The ripples will go out to Shreveport, but they'll be less strong there."
Bob Brown, managing director of the Business Council of New Orleans & the River Region, a private association of the largest businesses in the region, said that business council members are extremely concerned about Northrup Grumman Corp.'s decision to close Avondale and the notion that Lockheed Martin Corp. probably won't be able to continue using Michoud. But they think it's more productive to concentrate on being "courageous, nimble and imaginative" in coming up with new uses for the sites, Brown said.
"As far as Avondale is concerned, the die is cast. I am not sure that it is a wise use of energy to try to keep Northrup Grumman there. I think the same may be true of Lockheed Martin and the Constellation program," Brown said.
With the departure of two major employers against the anxiety of seeing oil-soaked pelicans and Anderson Cooper broadcasting oil glum on CNN while standing in front of the iconic Crescent City Connection bridge, some wonder whether the pall will make it harder to recruit people and businesses to the region.
But Mark Arend, editor of Site Selection magazine, said that businesses are more sophisticated than that. Companies won't worry about decisions to pull up stakes by businesses in other industries, he said of Avondale and Michoud. And unless a busiAvondness prospect is in the seafood processing business, potential corporate relocations probably won't be deterred by the oil plume in the Gulf.
"I don't necessarily see it as a barrier to additional investment. A company looks at an area for a lot of different reasons," Arend said.
Indeed, Michael Hecht, president and chief executive of the economic development group Greater New Orleans Inc., said that he believes that the Avondale and Michoud facilities have vibrant reuse potential that could ultimately help the New Orleans area diversify its economy. And GNO Inc. is doing studies right now to try to capture the "brand impact" of the oil spill on New Orleans so it can come up with a strategy to counteract it.
While economic damage is undeniable, Hecht said he's trying to look forward. "There's a reason why they call economics the dismal science," he said.
Rebecca Mowbray can be reached at rmowbray@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3417.[
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http://www.nola.com/business/index.s...sure_expe.html
but bp is saying that the choke line is fixed:
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-sp...sting_new.html
we'll see...
http://www.bp.com/sectionbodycopy.do...tentId=7063636
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Last edited by roachboy; 07-15-2010 at 07:31 AM..
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