Undersea oil pipelines vulnerable to hurricanes

[thundley4]

As the 2010 hurricane season officially got underway Tuesday, a new report said underwater oil pipelines in the Gulf are extremely vulnerable to strong currents and waves from the hurricanes that roar by above.

The findings, based on data obtained during Hurricane Ivan's savage tear across the Gulf of Mexico in 2004, will appear in an upcoming edition of Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

The study found that the 31,000 miles of pipelines along the seafloor of the Gulf could crack or rupture unless they are buried or their supporting foundations are built to withstand hurricane-induced currents. "Major oil leaks from damaged pipelines could have irreversible impacts on the ocean environment," the authors wrote.

Researchers got a unique look at what a hurricane can do underwater during Ivan, a Category-4 hurricane with wind speeds of more than 130 mph in the Gulf. Ivan passed over a network of sensors on the ocean floor.

"This is the first time that anyone measured hurricane-induced stresses on the Gulf bottom," says study author Bill Teague of the Naval Research Laboratory in Mississippi.

USA Today

6 years to interpret this data?  Excuse me for not being overly concerned. Oh wait, once again NOAA is predicting a very bad hurricane season. Maybe there is cause for alarm, and this isn't just more political BS to campaign against more drilling. 

[The Village Idiot]

Someone on TV a while ago said that a hurricane would help disperse the oil...

DILUTION!!

[kenth]

The study found that the 31,000 miles of pipelines along the seafloor of the Gulf could crack or rupture unless they are buried or their supporting foundations are built to withstand hurricane-induced currents.

Oh, except the currents by the gulf hurricanes that were studied. But they COULD cause leaks that would just be awful!