http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/TODAY/Sections/aNEWS/2010/07-July%2010/ScientistsConsensusStatement.pdf

July 16, 2010

We oppose the use of chemical dispersants in the Gulf, and demand an immediate halt to their application. We believe that Corexit dispersants, particularly in combination with crude oil, pose grave health risks to marine life and human health, and threaten to deplete critical niches in the ocean food web.

We urge federal and state agencies to fund independent research NOW to produce transparent, timely information that will protect the health of Gulf response workers, residents, and wildlife.

Background
Since the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, BP has applied almost two million gallons of dispersants, both on the surface and beneath Gulf waters. Government officials acknowledge that the quantity and manner in which dispersants have been applied in the Gulf are unprecedented. The application of dispersant at the source of the discharge, 5,000 feet under the surface of the water, is also unprecedented.

By enhancing the amount of oil that physically mixes into the water column, dispersants reduce the amount of oil that reaches shoreline habitats. Although called for in the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 as a tool for minimizing the impact of oil spills, chemical dispersants are controversial (NRC, 2005) because of the toxicity of dispersed mixtures and their potential negative impacts on ocean life. Another point of controversy is that once oil is dispersed in deep water, it cannot be recovered. Oil, when combined with dispersants in the water column is more toxic to marine species than either oil or dispersant alone.

At a Senate hearing on June 15, 2010, EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson stated, ―In the use of dispersants we are faced with environmental tradeoffs.‖ In fact, the use of dispersants does not represent a science-based, quantifiable ―tradeoff‖ but rather amounts to a large-scale experiment on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem that runs contrary to a precautionary approach, an experiment where the costs may ultimately outweigh the benefits.

Moreover, this ―trade-off‖ has been confounded by the lack of a vigorous, technologically adequate effort to collect crude oil from the surface. Berms and booms quickly proved to be ineffective in this deepwater system. As a result, crude oil has penetrated 30 miles into the coastal wetlands of Louisiana and has reached the shores of other Gulf states.

Dispersants applied by BP have resulted in widely disseminated undersea plumes of oil, confirmed by NOAA on June 8. (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/06/government-confirms-undersea-oil-in-gulf-of-mexico.html). Samples were collected by scientists from University of South Florida on the MV Weatherbird II and tested by NOAA’s lab. Subsequently, the plumes have migrated outward from the discharge source and over time are likely to travel with prevailing currents to the Florida Keys, Cuba, Mexico, and the eastern seaboard of the US. The vast quantities of dispersed oil in these plumes can enter the marine food chain and bioaccumulate in animal tissue, potentially impacting marine ecosystems over many years and over a broad geographical area.
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Corexit Dispersants Used in the Gulf
Two dispersants, Corexit 9500 and 9527A, produced by Nalco of Naperville, Illinois, have been used in the Gulf (http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/site/2931/). Although listed among EPA-approved dispersants, Corexits are oil industry-insider products, and are ranked by the EPA as more toxic and less effective than other approved dispersants, which has raised questions about their use in the Gulf (Scarlett et al 2005). A comprehensive report on the health hazards of crude oil and the known ingredients of Corexits is available at: http://www.sciencecorps.org/crudeoilhazards.htm.
Corexit 9527A contains 2-BTE (2-butoxyethanol), a toxic solvent that ruptures red blood cells, causing hemolysis (bleeding) and liver and kidney damage (Johanson and Bowman, 1991, Nalco, 2010). Both Corexit dispersants contain petroleum solvents that mix with the crude oil mass and move through it, thus increasing the uptake of oil by organisms (NRC, 2005, Nalco, 2010).

The properties that facilitate the movement of dispersants through oil also make it easier for them to move through cell walls, skin barriers, and membranes that protect vital organs, underlying layers of skin, the surfaces of eyes, mouths, and other structures.

Crude Oil & Corexit Combined Are More Toxic Than Either Alone
The combination of Corexit and crude oil can be more toxic than either alone, since they contain many ingredients that target the same organs in the body. In addition, Corexit dispersants facilitate the entry of oil into the body, into cells, which can result in damage to every organ system (Burns and Harbut, 2010).

Exposure to chemicals in crude oil and dispersants can occur through skin contact, inhalation of contaminated air or soil/sand, and ingestion of contaminated water or food. These can occur simultaneously.

Chemicals in crude oil and dispersants can cause a wide range of health effects in people and wildlife. Crude oil has many highly toxic chemical ingredients, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), that can damage every system in the body. These include:
respiratory system nervous system, including the brain
liver reproductive/urogenital system
kidneys endocrine system
circulatory system gastrointestinal system
immune system sensory systems
musculoskeletal system hematopoietic system (blood forming)
skin and integumentary system disruption of normal metabolism

Damage to these systems can cause a wide range of diseases and conditions. Some may be immediately evident, and others can appear months or years later. The chemicals can impair normal growth and development through a variety of mechanisms, including endocrine disruption and direct fetal damage. Some of the chemicals, such as the PAHs, cause mutations that may lead to cancer and multi-generational birth defects (Burns and Harbut, 2010). Of note, benzene, a human carcinogen, is a VOC that is released by crude oil (CDC, 1999). It is not known what additional VOCs (if any) are added to the crude oil mix by dispersants, due to a lack of disclosure about dispersant ingredients.

Potential human health effects include burning skin, difficulty breathing, headaches, heart palpitations, dizziness, confusion, and nausea — which have already been reported by some workers — as well as chemical pneumonia and internal bleeding (Burns and Harbut, 2010, US EPA 2010). These are more often noticed than more serious effects that don’t have obvious signs and symptoms – lung, liver and kidney
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damage, infertility, immune system suppression, disruption of hormone levels, blood disorders, mutations, and cancer. Coastal communities could also experience more extreme health consequences, including long-term neurological effects on children and developing fetuses, and hereditary mutations. As of June 21, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals reported 143 cases of illness “believed to be related to oil exposure”, including 108 response workers (mostly men) and 35 coastal residents (two-thirds women) (http://www.dhh.louisiana.gov/). The most common symptoms were headache, nausea, throat irritation, vomiting, cough and difficulty breathing.

Corexit Dispersant Ingredients Have Not Been Fully Disclosed
On June 8th, US EPA provided a list of chemicals they stated were in the two Corexit products used to date. Companies are not required to list all ingredients in their products, or to provide detailed information on those that they do list. They can claim ingredients are “proprietary” to avoid disclosure. Ingredients in a product may be listed as a group rather than a single chemical.

For example, the group “petroleum distillates, hydrotreated light” is listed on the MSDS for Corexit 9500. There are hundreds of chemicals within this group. Similarly, “organic sulfonic acid salts” are listed as an ingredient, but these may include many potential organic components. Without specific information, it isn’t possible to fully assess short or long-term human health hazards or ecological effects.

Toxic Impacts on Marine Life
Oil spill impacts can occur by 1) physical contact (oiling), 2) toxicity, and 3) loss of food web niches. Some of the effects of this spill are visible – 1866 dead oiled birds, 463 sea turtles, 59 dolphins, one sperm whale (DH Response Report July 14). Many scientists suspect that the worst of the impacts on the Gulf are yet to come and will not be apparent without deliberate tracking and scientific assessment.

Since the 1970s, it has been known that application of dispersants to oil spills increases toxicity by increasing oil and hydrocarbon exposure to water column species. A review of the literature by Dye et al (1980) reported that “virtually every author who has investigated the toxicity of oil-dispersant mixtures reports dramatic increases in mortality compared to oil or dispersant alone, indicating the existence of supra-additive synergy.” Today, many scientists are concerned about the likelihood of severe, acute impacts on a wide range of Gulf species that are now being exposed to Corexit and oil in the water column. For vulnerable species such as seagrass, corals, plankton, shrimp, crabs, and small fish, acute effects can be lethal, particularly during the spring spawning season (Ibemesim et al, 2008, Barron et al, 2003, Rhoton et al, 1998, Bhattacharyya et al 2003, Chapman et al 2007, Anderson et al, 2009, Couillard et al, 2005, Ramachandran et al, 2004, Fisher et al, 1993, Gulec et al, 1997). Coral larvae are extremely sensitive to the combined effects, with 0% fertilization rates in the presence of dispersant and dispersed oil, compared with 98% fertilization in the presence of oil alone (Negri and Heyward, 2000, Shafir et al, 2007, Epstein et al 2000).

As plumes of dispersed oil form in the water column, globules of oil and dispersant envelop and kill floating plankton, fish eggs and larvae – and everything else at sensitive life stages. Planktivorous species like herring and whale sharks indiscriminately feed on these globules and may break the oil down to more toxic by-products. Already, vast numbers of bottom-feeders and filter-feeders have been decimated in heavily oiled areas such as Louisiana’s Barataria Bay (Shaw, CNN 2010). Depletion of these critical niches in the food web can set the stage for “trophic cascades,” causing the collapse of higher organisms (Peterson et al. 2003).

At the top of the food web, large fish (amberjacks, tuna, grouper) and marine mammals are exposed to oil and dispersant through feeding on contaminated fish. Air-breathing animals like dolphins and sperm whales are exposed to volatile petroleum fumes every time they surface for air – and taking oil into the blowhole can cause chemical pneumonia and liver and kidney damage. Skin contact with Corexit and oil can cause ulcers
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and burns to membranes of the eyes and mouth. Corexit 9527, which was used in the Gulf until supplies ran out in May, contains the toxic solvent, 2-butoxyethanol, that ruptures red blood cells, causing animals to undergo hemolysis (internal bleeding) (Burns and Harbut, 2010, Nalco 2010). Fishermen in the Gulf have reported that dolphins spouting oil from the blowhole have approached their boats (Shaw, TEDXOilSpill, 2010). These dolphins are likely suffocating from petrochemical solvent-related burning of lung membranes (―chemical pneumonia‖) and thus are dying before our eyes. As scientists, the question is, how will we know?

Finally, dispersing oil at depth means that a significant volume of oil is not able to be recovered at the surface. This dispersed oil can enter the marine food chain at many points and bioaccumulate in animal tissue, potentially impacting marine ecosystems over many years and over a broad geographical area.

Scientists Express Concerns
On July 10, 2010 the journal Nature reported concerns expressed by scientists about the implications of the use of dispersants (Nature News, July 10, 2010). David Valentine, a geomicrobiologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, described BP’s use of dispersants as ―an experiment that’s never been performed before – to dump that much of an industrial chemical into the ocean.‖

Susan Shaw, a marine toxicologist and director of the Marine Environmental Research Institute, responded to the EPA’s announcement on 30 June that its initial round of toxicity testing on eight dispersants, including Corexit 9500 found no “biologically significant” endocrine-disrupting effects on the small estuarine fish and mysid shrimp tested. “We already know that dispersants are less toxic than oil if you compare the two,” says Shaw. “But because Corexit contains a petroleum solvent, we’re actually putting petroleum solvent on top of a petroleum spill. So it’s increasing the hydrocarbons in the water column.” Furthermore, says Shaw, the dispersant can increase the toxicity of the oil for those marine organisms that encounter it. “It’s like a delivery system,” says Shaw. “The [dispersed] oil enters the body more readily and it goes into the organs faster.”

Dispersion is thought to speed up oil degradation because tiny droplets can be more readily metabolized by oil-eating microbes. Samantha Joye, a biogeochemist at the University of Georgia in Athens disagrees: “It assumes that the dispersant doesn’t impact the microbial community, and we have no idea if that’s true or not. There’s just as good a chance that this dispersant is killing off a critical portion of the microbial community as it is that it’s stimulating the breakdown of oil.”

Federal Agencies Need to Fully Disclose Test Results
Although EPA has listed extensive sampling and analysis plans on the federal spill website, they have not provided most of the results that they have. They do not describe the chemicals that people are inhaling, nor do they warn people that many volatile organic chemicals from crude oil can have serious long term health consequences, including cancer.

Similarly, NOAA has been accused of ―hoarding‖ its Natural Resources Damage Assessment (NRDA) data on the extent and effect of undersea oil plumes. Despite early urgent warnings from independent scientists that oil suspended in the water column is likely killing wide swaths of sea life, NOAA was slow to send out research vessels to probe the extent of the problem. To date, very little of the NRDA data has been released to researchers, presumably because of pending litigation. However, the raw data is being immediately turned over to the Joint Incident Command, and thus to the lead defendant, BP.

The Need to Know
Beyond the 11 men who were killed in the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, the human toll of the Gulf oil spill is unknown. In past disasters, inadequate public information and protections have caused serious health problems among responders and local communities that were poorly informed about hazards.
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To mitigate past and future damage to human and wildlife populations as well as the ocean ecosystem, it is critical that the federal government and state agencies provide the results of their air, water, seafood, and other testing to the public as soon as the information becomes available.

Withholding information, however well-intentioned, is dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. Testing results must be made available as quickly as possible to enable Gulf officials, response workers, and individual citizens to make informed decisions regarding potential health risks and the best courses of action.

We urge federal agencies to provide the following to ensure the best possible health for people and wildlife in the Gulf Region:
1. An immediate halt to the use of chemical dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico, particularly the application of dispersants at depth.
2. Full disclosure of all the chemical ingredients in the Corexit formulations and full toxicity data on these chemicals in combination with oil – this information should be posted on a website and should include studies submitted by the manufacturers to EPA, not meaningless summaries.
3. A federal site that provides adverse effects information from the previous uses of Corexit dispersants. This should cover environmental media, wildlife, and human populations. This information was collected after Corexit 9527 was used in the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.
4. Access to the extensive monitoring data that EPA and NOAA have collected documenting what chemicals are in the air and water and their observed adverse impacts. Only limited summary data have been provided to the public.
5. Funding for independent research on short-term and long-term impacts; money that is available to qualified researchers NOW, not months later (as in the Exxon Valdez spill) when exposure has lessened and impacts will be difficult, if not impossible, to document.

References
Anderson, B.S., Arenella-Parkerson, D., Phillips, B.M., Tjeerdema, R.S., Crane, D., 2009. Preliminary investigation of the effects of dispersed Prudhoe Bay Crude Oil on developing topsmelt embryos, Atherinops affinis. Environmental Pollution 157, 1058-1061.
Barron, M.G., Carls, M.G., Short, J.W., Rice, S.D., 2003. Photoenhanced toxicity of aqueous phase and chemically dispersed weathered Alaska North Slope crude oil to Pacific herring eggs and larvae. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 22, 650-660.
Bhattacharyya, S., Klerks, P.L., Nyman, J.A., 2003. Toxicity to freshwater organisms from oils and oil spill chemical treatments in laboratory microcosms. Environmental Pollution 122, , 205-215.
Burns, K. and Harbut, M.R., 2010. Gulf Oil Spill Hazards, Sciencecorps, Lexington, MA, June 14, 2010. Available at http://www.sciencecorps.org/crudeoilhazards.htm
Chapman, H., Purnell, K., Law, R.J., Kirby, M.F., 2007. The use of chemical dispersants to combat oil spills at sea: A review of practice and research needs in Europe. Marine Pollution Bulletin 54, 827-838.
Couillard, C.M., Lee, K., Légaré, B., King, T.L., 2005. Effect of dispersant on the composition of the water-accommodated fraction of crude oil and its toxicity to larval marine fish. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 24, 1496-1504.
Deepwater Horizon Response Consolidated Fish & Wildlife Report July 14, 2010. Available at: http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/site/2931/.
Dye, C.W., Frydenborg, R.B., 1980. Oil dispersants and the environmental consequences of their usage: A literature review.
Technical Series. State of Florida – Department of Environmental Regulation.
Epstein, N., R. P. M. Bak, et al. 2000. Toxicity of third generation dispersants and dispersed Egyptian crude oil on Red Sea coral larvae. Marine Pollution Bulletin 40(6), 497-503.
Fisher, W.S., Foss, S.S., 1993. A simple test for toxicity of Number 2 fuel oil and oil dispersants to embryos of grass shrimp, Palaemonetes pugio. Marine Pollution Bulletin 26, 385-391.
Gulec, I., Holdway, D.A., 1997. Toxicity of dispersant, oil, and dispersed oil to two marine organisms. 1997 International Oil Spill Conference, pp. 1010-1011. 6
Ibemesim, R.I., Bamidele, J.F., 2008. Comparative toxicity of two oil types and two dispersants on the growth of a seashore grass, Paspalum vaginatum (swartz). International Oil Spill Conference – IOSC 2008, Proceedings, pp. 875-880.
Johanson, G., Boman, A., 1991. Percutaneous absorption of 2-butoxyethanol vapour in human subjects. British Journal of Industrial Medicine 48, 788-792.
Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, Office of Public Health, 2010. Oil Spill Health Effect Summary: MS Canyon 252
Oil Spill Surveillance Report Week 24 06/13/2010 to 06/19/2010. Available at http://www.dhh.louisiana.gov/.
NALCO 2010. Material Safety Data Sheet Corexit EC9500A. http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/posted/2931/Corexit_EC9500A_MSDS.539287.pdf NALCO 2010. Material Safety Data Sheet Corexit EC9527A. http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/posted/2931/Corexit_EC9527A_MSDS.539295.pdf
National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, 2005. Oil Spill Dispersants: Efficacy and Effects. Available at: http://www.hap.edu/catalog/11283.html
Negri, A.P., Heyward, A.J., 2000. Inhibition of fertilization and larval metamorphosis of the coral Acropora millepora (Ehrenberg, 1834) by petroleum products. Marine Pollution Bulletin 41, 420-427.
Peterson, C.H., Rice, S.D., Short, J.W., Esler, D., Bodkin, J.L., Ballachey, B.E., Irons, D.B., 2003. Long-term ecosystem response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Science 302, 2082-2986.
Ramachandran, S. D., Hodson, P.V. Khan, C.W. Lee, K. 2004. Oil dispersant increases PAH uptake by fish exposed to crude oil. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 59(3), 300-308.
Rhoton, S.L., Perkins, R.A., Richter, Z.D., Behr-Andres, C., Lindstrom, J.E., Braddock, J.F., 1998?. Toxicity of dispersants and dispersed oil to an Alaskan marine organism. International Oil Spill Conference, pp. 8485-8488
Scarlett, A., Galloway, T.S., Canty, M., Smith, E.L., Nilsson, J., Rowland, S.J., 2005. Comparative toxicity of two oil dispersants, Superdispersant-25 and Corexit 9527, to a range of coastal species. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 24, 1219- 1227
Shafir, S., Van Rijn, J., Rinkevich, B., 2007. Short and long term toxicity of crude oil and oil dispersants to two representative coral species. Environmental Science and Technology 41, 5571-5574.
Shaw, S.D. 2010. Imperiled Gulf: A Marine Toxicologist’s Perspective. TEDXOIlSpill, Washington, DC, June 28. http://www.tedxoilspill.com/
Shaw, S.D. 2010. CNN Live Rick’s List, New Orleans, July 9
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry 1999 Toxicological profile for total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH). Atlanda GA. Available at:
U.S Environmental Protection Agency 2010. Toxicological Review of Ethylene Glycol Monobutyl Ether (EGBE) (CAS No. 111-76- 2) Washington DC Available at
Signatories
1. Sylvia A. Earle, PhD, Oceanographer, Ocean Explorer-in-Residence, National Geographic Society, Washington DC.
2. David E. Guggenheim, PhD, Marine Biologist/Conservationist, President, 1planet1ocean – a project of The Ocean Foundation, Washington DC
3. Susan D. Shaw, DrPH, Marine Toxicologist, Founder, Marine Environmental Research Institute, Blue Hill, ME
4. David Gallo, PhD, Oceanographer, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA
Many others to be added during the next few days….

Let’s hope it makes it intact through the Senate. DV

July 30, 2010

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-bill-20100731,0,1548806.story

The bill, passed 209 to 193, would impose new safeguards for offshore drilling, remove a liability cap for spill damages, and hit energy producers with a new tax to fund conservation measures.
By Richard Simon, Reporting from Washington
July 31, 2010

In its most sweeping response to the gulf oil spill, the House on Friday approved legislation that would impose new environmental safeguards for offshore drilling, remove a liability cap for spill damages, and slap industry with a new tax to fund conservation projects nationwide.

The Democratic-drafted legislation passed on a largely party-line 209-193 vote but faces trouble in the deeply divided Senate.

“The Deepwater Horizon explosion and the subsequent damage that has occurred over the past 102 days is indeed a game-changer,” said Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

The measure, which follows dozens of Capitol Hill hearings into the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, would remove a $75-million liability cap on oil firms for economic damages caused by spills. It would also hit energy producers with a new $2 per barrel tax to fund land purchases for national parks, forests and wildlife refuges.

The House bill would set new standards for blowout preventers, the safety device that apparently failed on BP’s blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico. And it would repeal an 1851 law that rig owner Transocean has sought to use to limit its liability for the disaster.

The bill, which has become entangled in election-year politics, was backed by Democrats who said it would help prevent another oil spill disaster and hold oil companies more accountable for spills. It was opposed by Republicans who argued it would raise the cost of domestic energy production and increase U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

“Let’s vote to ensure that a spill of this kind never happens again,” said Rep. Lois Capps, a Democrat whose Santa Barbara district was the scene of a devastating oil spill in 1969.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), who heads the House GOP campaign committee, urged Republican colleagues heading home Friday for summer recess to tell voters that Democrats were “sticking it to the consumer again at the gas pump.”

“If you want to apologize for Big Oil, go ahead,” responded Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.). “The American people are not on your side on this one.”

Gulf Coast lawmakers were among the bill’s sharpest critics.

“This isn’t the answer to help the gulf,” said Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), contending that the bill would increase the cost of domestic energy production. “It only helps OPEC.”

The oil industry accused lawmakers of acting in haste without waiting for the results of multiple investigations into the April 20 Deepwater Horizon explosion.

“Congress has not taken the steps to understand not only the causes of the oil spill, but also the full impact of this legislation on the economic and national security of our nation,” said Barry Russell, president and chief executive of the Independent Petroleum Assn. of America.

Rahall dismissed industry criticism as “sheer hyperventilation” and urged critics of the legislation to “take a look at the spill in the gulf to see how an overly permissive attitude can turn into a real horror story.”

The bill would repeal a provision of the 2005 energy law that exempted projects, including the Deepwater Horizon drilling, from detailed environmental analysis. It would bar companies with poor safety and environmental records from receiving new offshore drilling leases. And it would require offshore drilling rigs to operate under the U.S. flag, requiring tougher safety rules than those in effect for the Deepwater Horizon, which was registered in the Marshall Islands.

The measure would prohibit oil companies from bidding on new offshore leases unless they renegotiate royalty-free offshore oil leases that were approved in the 1990s. It would establish new ethics rules for drilling regulators; increase fines to $10 million, from $100,000, for willful violations of drilling rules; and establish new procedures for use of oil dispersants.

A separate measure to provide whistleblower protections to offshore drilling workers was approved.

The House approved an amendment that would lift the Obama administration’s deepwater drilling moratorium for companies that meet new safety rules. Gulf Coast lawmakers have said the moratorium is damaging their region’s economy.

What effect the provision would have is uncertain since a final bill is unlikely to go the White House until September at the earliest. The moratorium is due to expire Nov. 30, but Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has said it could end earlier if drilling can proceed safely.

Senators could take up their version of the legislation before they leave town at the end of next week. The Senate Democrats’ bill, like the House bill, would remove the liability cap. Republicans object to this provision, however, saying that removing the cap would drive smaller companies out of the gulf.

Even though Democrats hold a majority in the Senate, they lack the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican-led filibuster. Also, energy politics can sometimes divide lawmakers by region, instead of party affiliation. Democrats from energy-producing states like Alaska and Louisiana may be reluctant to support any measure they believe will hurt an industry that is important to their state’s economy.

One common feature of the House bill and the Senate Democrats’ proposal would provide $900 million a year for land purchases for national parks, forests and wildlife refuges.

That would provide a level of funding reached only once since President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 signed the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act. Environmentalists already are drawing wish lists of projects.

A funding increase would provide “the catalyst to complete our land acquisition plan” for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, said Woody Smeck, acting deputy regional director of the National Park Service’s Pacific West Region. “We have 22,500 acres still to acquire from willing sellers.”

The legislation also would write into law the Obama administration’s revamping of the scandal-plagued federal agency that oversees offshore drilling, in order to reduce potential conflicts of interest.

richard.simon@latimes.com

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Just 31% of Garden State residents are in favor of drilling for oil or gas off the New Jersey coast while 63% are opposed
also:
“When asked to choose between two priorities for U.S. energy policy, more New Jerseyans would emphasize protecting the environment (55%) over keeping energy prices low (28%). Democrats (66%)

and independents (56%) are more likely than Republicans (37%) to place a higher priority on environmental protection over lower energy prices.”
Richard Charter

Opinion marks about-face from two years ago

Two years ago, most New Jerseyans supported off-shore drilling near the state’s coast. Today, not so much. The latest Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Press Media Poll also finds some concern that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill could eventually wash up on Jersey beaches.

Just 31% of Garden State residents are in favor of drilling for oil or gas off the New Jersey coast, while 63% are opposed. This marks a turnaround from two years ago, when a majority of 56% favored this energy option compared to only 36% who opposed it.

By comparison, support for both wind and nuclear energy remains basically unchanged. Fully 8-in-10 residents support the placement of energy-generating windmills off the New Jersey coast (80% today, compared to 82% in 2008) and just under 4-in-10 support building another nuclear power plant in the state (37% today, compared to 41% in 2008).

Interestingly, support levels for any of these energy options – drilling, wind, nuclear – are no different among those living in the state’s six coastal counties (i.e. Monmouth, Ocean, Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, Salem) than they are for those living further inland.

“New Jersey has historically been concerned with environmental issues and the specter of
anything washing up on our beaches may heighten anxiety over off-shore drilling. The fact that concern is the same for coastal and inland residents may speak to how much all New Jerseyans value our shore as a state asset,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.

The three month old oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has captured the attention of Garden State residents, with 85% saying they have read or heard a lot about this incident. More than half of New Jerseyans think that remnants of the oil spill washing up on our state’s shores is a possibility. This includes 17% who consider it very likely to happen and 36% who say it is somewhat likely. Another 22% say the chances of this happening are not too likely and 20% rule it out entirely. [Note: the poll was conducted just prior to the tentative capping of the well on July 15.]

Only 25% of New Jerseyans approve of the U.S. government’s handling of the spill. Another 68% disapprove, including 83% of Republicans, 75% of independents, and 55% of Democrats.

Nearly 6-in-10 residents (59%) believe the accident indicates there are significant safety problems with off-shore drilling. Only 36% view this as an isolated incident that does not suggest there are fundamental problems with such drilling activity. Republicans (53%) are more likely than independents (37%) and Democrats (27%) to believe that the accident was unusual rather than indicative of systematic problems with off-shore drilling.

When asked to choose between two priorities for U.S. energy policy, more New Jerseyans would emphasize protecting the environment (55%) over keeping energy prices low (28%). Democrats (66%) and independents (56%) are more likely than Republicans (37%) to place a higher priority on environmental protection over lower energy prices.

The Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Press Media Poll was conducted by telephone with 801 New Jersey adults from July 7 to 11, 2010. This sample has a margin of error of + 3.5 percent.

The poll was conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute and originally published by the New Jersey Press Media newspaper group (Asbury Park Press, Courier-Post, Courier News, Daily Journal, Daily Record, and Home News Tribune).

Please attribute this information to:

Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey

Press Media Poll

For more information:

Monmouth University Polling Institute

West Long Branch, NJ 07764

www.monmouth.edu/polling

Monmouth University Polling Institute 7/21/10

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.ppic.org/main/pressrelease.asp?p=1037

I hope this translates into support for renewable energy legislation. DV

Support For Policies To Counter Global Warming Holds Steady

SAN FRANCISCO, July 28, 2010- Three months after a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Californians’ support for more drilling off their coast has plunged, according to a survey released today by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). A solid majority of the state’s residents now oppose more offshore drilling (59% oppose, 36% favor)-a 16-point increase in opposition from last year (43% oppose, 51% favor). The PPIC survey was conducted with support from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and is the 10th in a series about Californians and the environment.

In contrast to the shift in opinion on drilling, Californians’ views on another contentious environmental policy issue have held steady since last year. Two-thirds (67% today, 66% in 2009) favor the state law (AB 32) that requires California to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

AB 32 is the focus of renewed debate because Proposition 23 on the November ballot asks whether the law should be suspended until unemployment drops to 5.5% or below for a minimum of one year. Because the ballot language has not been finalized, we posed a more general question about timing: Should the government take action to reduce emissions right away or wait until the state economy and job situation improve? A slim majority (53%) say California should act right away, while 42 percent say the state should wait.

“Two crises-a major oil spill and a major recession-have affected Californians’ views on environmental policy in very different ways,” says Mark Baldassare, PPIC president and CEO. “After consistently opposing more offshore oil drilling, residents began to waver as gas prices increased. But events in the gulf appear to have renewed opposition to more drilling here. In contrast, the lingering effect of the recession and a continuing state budget crisis haven’t changed Californians’ overall view of AB 32. While support has declined somewhat since 2007, a solid majority still favors the law.”

Little Confidence in Federal Spill Response
Partisan divisions are stark in many of the environmental survey findings. On the question of allowing more drilling, Democrats (72%) and independents (64%) oppose it, while Republicans (64%) favor it.

Californians are more united in their low levels of confidence in the federal government’s handling of the oil spill. Just 21 percent have either a great deal (8%) or good amount (13%) of confidence in the government to make the right decisions in dealing with the spill. Fewer than one in five residents across political, regional, and demographic groups express a great deal of confidence. Residents also lack confidence in the federal government’s ability to prevent future spills. About three in 10 are very (7%) or fairly (21%) confident; 32 percent are not very confident and 37 percent are not confident at all.

Build More Nuclear Plants? Californians Divided
The question about oil drilling is one of four that PPIC asked about U.S. energy policies. On another issue-nuclear power-Californians are divided (49% oppose, 44% favor) about building more nuclear power plants at this time to address the country’s energy needs and reduce dependence on foreign oil sources. On this question, too, partisan differences emerge: 57 percent of Democrats are opposed, while 67 percent of Republicans and half of independents (51%) favor building more plants now.
There is considerably more consensus on the two other policies. To address the country’s energy needs and reduce dependence on foreign oil sources, overwhelming majorities favor increasing federal funding to develop wind, solar, and hydrogen technology (83%), and favor requiring automakers to significantly improve the fuel efficiency of cars sold in this country (83%). Strong majorities across parties, regions, and demographic groups hold these views.

(This year we asked these energy policy questions in two ways. Half of our sample was asked the questions as we have in the past, with the introductory phrase, “Thinking about the country as a whole, to address the country’s energy needs and reduce dependence on foreign oil sources, do you favor or oppose the following proposals?” Half of the sample was asked the policy questions without this introductory phrase, to test whether or not the framing of the question influenced responses. Results for the four questions asked with the introductory phrase and without it are similar. Details on page 31.)

Will Action To Curb Warming Lead To Lost Jobs? Most Say No
Most Californians (54%) say global warming is already having an impact but are somewhat less likely to hold this view than they were last July (61%). Today 28 percent say global warming’s effects will be felt sometime in the future-up 6 points since last year-while just 16 percent say they will never happen. Nearly three-fourths say global warming is a very serious (44%) or somewhat serious (29%) threat to California’s future economy and quality of life. These findings are similar to last year but have declined since July 2007 (54% very serious, 28% somewhat serious).
Against a backdrop of state and national debates over climate change policies, Californians (76%) support government regulation of emissions from sources like power plants, cars, and factories, with 85 percent of Democrats, 81 percent of independents, and 51 percent of Republicans holding this view. Although a majority (67%) support the idea of AB 32, party divisions are strong: 80 percent of Democrats and 73 percent of independents are in favor, but only 39 percent of Republicans share this view.

Proposition 23 would suspend AB 32 until unemployment in the state is 5.5 percent or lower for four consecutive quarters. We asked Californians how the state’s actions to reduce global warming would affect employment. Forty-five percent say the result would be more jobs, 23 percent say fewer jobs, and 24 percent say the number of jobs wouldn’t be affected. Most Democrats (57%) and half of independents (50%) foresee more jobs in California as a result of action on global warming. Forty-three percent of Republicans foresee fewer jobs; half of Republicans say there would be more jobs (24%) or no effect on jobs (25%).

About half of Californians say the state (48%) and federal (52%) governments are not doing enough to address global warming. When it comes to ideas about state and federal actions to address global warming, strong majorities of Californians think the government should require: increased use of renewable energy sources by utilities (85%); industrial plants, oil refineries, and commercial facilities to reduce emissions (81%); all automakers to further reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases from new cars (79%); and an increase in energy efficiency for residential and commercial buildings and appliances (75%). They also favor encouraging local governments to change land use and transportation planning so that people can drive less (77%). Support for all of these policies is similar to last year.

Most Californians (54%) have not heard of one policy being discussed, the cap and trade system of setting limits on carbon dioxide emissions. After being read a brief description of the idea, 50 percent would support a cap and trade system and 40 percent would oppose it. They are much more likely to support a carbon tax (60% favor, 33% oppose).

Close Races For California Govern.or And U.S. Senate Seat
With the November election approaching, an overwhelming majority (79%) of likely voters say the gubernatorial candidates’ positions on the environment are at least somewhat important. Likely voters are closely divided between Democrat Jerry Brown (37%) and Republican Meg Whitman (34%), with 23 percent undecided. Of those saying that a candidate’s environmental positions are very important in determining their vote, 50 percent would vote for Brown and 16 percent would vote for Whitman. Among those who say a candidate’s environmental positions are somewhat important, Whitman is favored (42% to 33%). Preferences follow party lines, with independents split (30% Brown, 28% Whitman, 30% undecided). (The survey questionnaire lists results for all six candidates listed on the November ballot.)

Most likely voters (79%) also view the U.S. Senate candidates’ positions on the environment as at least somewhat important. Thirty-nine percent of likely voters support Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, 34 percent support Republican Carly Fiorina, and 22 percent are undecided. Those who view candidates’ positions on the environment as very important are three times as likely to support Boxer (54%) as Fiorina (18%). Among those who say candidates’ views on the environment are somewhat important, support is evenly divided (37% to 37%). Each candidate has the support of her party’s likely voters. Among independents, 35 percent support Boxer, 29 percent support Fiorina, and 25 percent are undecided.

President Barack Obama’s approval rating has dropped 9 points since last July and 16 points since his record high (72%) in May 2009. Approval of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s handling of environmental issues (34%) is higher than his overall rating (25%). The state legislature’s approval rating is 15 percent.

Most Support Tougher Pollution Standards For New Vehicles
When asked the open-ended question of what is the most important environmental issue facing Californians, air pollution is most often mentioned, as it has been since 2000. But it has declined in importance to residents from 33 percent in 2000 to 23 percent today. Other frequently named issues this year are water supply (12%), energy and oil drilling (11%), and water pollution (6%).

Similar to last year (23%), one in four Californians consider air pollution in their region a big problem (25%). Majorities of residents in Los Angeles (63%), the Inland Empire (57%), and the Central Valley (54%) consider air pollution a very serious or somewhat serious health threat, and 43 percent of Californians say they or an immediate family member has asthma or other respiratory problems.

When it comes to air quality policies, a strong majority (70%) would be willing to see tougher air pollution standards on new passenger vehicles. But there is much less agreement across party lines: 86 percent of Democrats and 73 percent of independents are willing to see stricter standards, compared to 45 percent of Republicans.

The California Air Resources Board is poised to consider easing or delaying implementation of diesel pollution rules because of their economic impact on truck owners and businesses. Asked about tougher air pollution standards on diesel engine vehicles, an overwhelming majority (75%) of Californians are willing to see stricter standards, a view held by solid majorities across political, regional, and demographic groups. Similarly, 75 percent would be willing to see tougher air pollution standards on commercial and industrial activities. A smaller majority (58%) would be willing to see tougher standards on agriculture and farm activities.

ABOUT THE SURVEY
The PPIC Statewide Survey has provided policymakers, the media, and the general public with objective, advocacy-free information on the perceptions, opinions, and public policy preferences of California residents since 1998. This is the 10th survey on the environment since 2000 and is part of an annual series conducted with funding from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. It is intended to inform policymakers and encourage discussion about environmental issues. Findings are based on a telephone survey of 2,502 California adult residents reached by landline and cell phones throughout the state. Interviews took place from July 6-20, 2010, and were conducted in English, Spanish, Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese), Vietnamese, and Korean. The sampling error is ±2 percent for all adults, ±2.2 percent for the 1,971 registered voters, and ±2.7 percent for the 1,321 likely voters. For more information on methodology, see pages 25-26.

Mark Baldassare is president and CEO of PPIC, where he holds the Arjay and Frances Fearing Miller Chair in Public Policy. He is founder of the PPIC Statewide Survey, which he has directed since 1998.

PPIC is dedicated to informing and improving public policy in California through independent, objective, nonpartisan research on major economic, social, and political issues. The institute was established in 1994 with an endowment from William R. Hewlett. As a private operating foundation, PPIC does not take or support positions on any ballot measure or on any local, state, or federal legislation, nor does it endorse, support, or oppose any political parties or candidates for public office.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Mike Soraghan, E&E reporter

The Obama administration today formally cancelled two lease sales that were once part of President Obama’s plan for “the largest expansion of our nation’s available offshore oil and gas supplies in three decades.”

But in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the administration filed notices for the Federal Register that state the Interior Department needs time to do environmental reviews, scientific analysis and gather public input.

“Cancellation,” the notices say, “will allow time to develop and implement measures to improve the safety of oil and gas development in Federal waters, provide greater environmental protection, and substantially reduce the risk of catastrophic events.”

One of the lease sales was off Virginia and the other was in the western Gulf in waters as deep as 10,975 feet.

Obama had announced the decision on May 27 when he suspended the 33 deepwater exploratory wells then being drilled in the Gulf of Mexico. Publication in the Federal Register will make it official. The notices will be published tomorrow, over the signature of Michael Bromwich, the head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, the agency formerly known as the Minerals Management Service.

The filing drew praise from one of the environmental groups most critical of the Obama administration’s handling of the Deepwater Horizon spill.

“Obama’s decision to cancel these lease sales recognizes that risky offshore drilling needs reform,” said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Halting controversial lease sales is among the most proactive steps that Obama has taken toward the Gulf disaster.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/40316.html

read more at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/40316.html#ixzz0uyfIm5wL

I hope the Democrats hold a majority in Congress so we can continue to make at least minimal progress…DV

House and Senate Democratic leaders Tuesday rolled out their big “spill bills” – the main legislative responses to the Gulf oil spill. The proposals are packed with aggressive offshore drilling reforms that Republicans have long fought and were immediately met with fierce pushback from the GOP and the oil industry.

That could make it tough to get the bills passed, especially in the Senate, where a handful of oil-state Democrats may cross the aisle to vote against the package. But strategists say the Republican “no” votes will also benefit Democrats politically – and some Republicans say that’s why the so-called poison pill provisions were included.

“If, after the worst oil spill in the history of the country, Republicans were to vote no against new offshore drilling protections – can you imagine the ads?” asked one senior Democratic aide.

Campaign strategists certainly can. “Republicans have found themselves on the defensive on that issue, and they are sitting on piles of big oil contributions,” said a Democratic strategist. “Absolutely, this is something we will be playing up before Election Day.”

Democratic campaign committees are already preparing lists of Republicans to target with ads over the August recess in the event that they vote against the oil reform package, the strategist added.

Democrats say the spill bills simply represent a robust and long-overdue effort to reform the offshore drilling industry – which hasn’t been subject to a major overhaul since 1978. And they point out that many of the core provisions have already won bipartisan support. For example, at the heart of the Senate bill are provisions to reorganize the Interior Department’s oversight of offshore drilling, co-sponsored by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and the panel’s ranking member, Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska); a title to retrofit heavy vehicles to run on natural gas, co-sponsored by New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez and Utah Republican Orrin Hatch and the Homestar energy efficiency rebate program, Cash for Caulkers, co-sponsored by Bingaman and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham. The House bill includes elements of the Blowout Prevention Act, which passed through the House Energy and Commerce Committee on a unanimous vote, even drawing an “aye” from Texas Republican and BP
apologist Joe Barton.

But Republicans and the oil industry say that, in addition to those core bipartisan measures, Democrats have intentionally shoehorned provisions that are so onerous to the oil industry that Republican allies will be forced to vote no.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

It is so utterly senseless that our government is not only allowing, but is actually facilitating the poisoning of its people. There is no other way to interprete this. DV

http://www.truth-out.org/toxic-dispersants-causing-widespread-illness61604

Thursday 22 July 2010
by: Rose Aguilar, t r u t h o u t | Report

George Barisich has been a fisherman in New Orleans for over 40 years. Some experts are concerned that toxic chemicals being used to help clean up the oil spill in the Gulf are seriously endangering the health of those living near the water. (Photo: bbcworldservice / Flickr)
When Louisiana residents ask marine toxicologist and community activist Riki Ott what she would do if she lived in the Gulf with children, she tells them she would leave immediately. “It’s that bad. We need to start talking about who’s going to pay for evacuations.”
In 1989, Ott, who lives in Cordova, Alaska, experienced firsthand the devastating effects of the Exxon Valdex oil disaster. For the past two months, she’s been traveling back and forth between Louisiana and Florida to gather information about what’s really happening and share the lessons she learned about long-term illnesses and deaths of cleanup workers and residents. In late May, she began meeting people in the Gulf with symptoms like headaches, dizziness, sore throats, burning eyes, rashes and blisters that are so deep, they’re leaving scars. People are asking, “What’s happening to me?”
She says the culprit is almost two million gallons of Corexit, the dispersant BP is using to break up and hide the oil below the ocean’s surface. “It’s an industrial solvent. It’s a degreaser. It’s chewing up boat engines off-shore. It’s chewing up dive gear on-shore. Of course it’s chewing up people’s skin. The doctors are saying the solvents are making the oil worse.”
In a widely watched YouTube video, from Project Gulf Impact, a project that aims to give Gulf residents a voice, Chris Pincetich, a marine biologist and campaigner with the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, said Coast Guard planes are flying overhead at night spraying Corexit on the water and on land.
Ott says people who are experiencing discomfort of any kind, especially children, pregnant women, cancer survivors, asthma sufferers and African-Americans because they’re prone to sickle cell anemia, should wear a respirator and see a doctor that specializes in chemical poisoning immediately. She also recommends contacting the detox specialists at The Environmental Health Center in Dallas, Texas. “People don’t have the information to know that the burning sore throat is actually chemical poisoning,” she said. “And this isn’t getting any attention, but it’s very important. There are no vaccinations for chemical poisoning. None.”
Because she’s gotten to know the locals and has done a number of national media interviews, she’s now receiving a barrage of daily phone calls and emails from people who are concerned and don’t know where else to turn. She recommends they read this Sciencecorps resource about potential health hazards.
In the video above, author and journalist Summer Burke talks about her experience being sprayed with the toxic dispersant Corexit.
Ott shared these stories on a recent trip to the Bay Area with Diane Wilson, former Texas shrimper turned rabble-rousing activist. Ott was coughing and constantly clearing her throat during our two-hour conversation. “I can still smell the oil,” she said.
Media outlets have been reporting on public health concerns and taking water quality samples, but Ott says they’ve only scratched the surface. “If I were in charge of the media, I would be talking be about public safety and public health every day. They should also be exposing the truth about how our federal standards are outdated and no longer protective of public health or worker safety. We knew in 1989 that OSHA had a loophole in it that’s big enough to drive every single sick worker through. It exempts the reporting of colds and flus. That loophole has not been closed since Exxon Valdez.”
Ott expressed her concerns during a May meeting with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lisa Jackson. “I was sitting across from her. She said, quote, ‘I am walking a fine line between truth and hysteria. We don’t want to create a panic.’ This shows you how much our government is beholden to oil and cannot imagine a future without oil. We the people have got to imagine this. We have to. This is way worse than people think.”
On Tuesday, Mother Jones’ Kate Sheppard reported that Hugh Kaufman, a whistleblower who works as a senior policy analyst in the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, is accusing the agency of deliberately downplaying public health threats and its own role in regulating the chemicals being dumped into the Gulf “to protect itself from liability and keep the public from getting too alarmed.”
The cause for alarm can’t be more apparent. In addition to the health problems people are already experiencing, WKRG News 5 reporter Jessica Taloney recently collected samples of water and sand from five Alabama beaches and took them to a local lab to be tested.
Bob Naman, a chemist with nearly 30 years of experience, told Taloney that he wouldn’t expect to see more than five parts per million of oil and petroleum in the water. The sample of the water taken in Gulf Shores beach, where adults and kids were swimming and playing, showed 66 parts per million. The sand had 211 parts per million. When Naman began to test the sample collected from Dauphin Island Marina, it exploded. “We think that it mostly likely happened due to the presence of methanol or methane gas or the presence of the dispersant, Corexit.”
“What’s going on in the Gulf is the same cover-up that was going with the 9/11 environmental issue,” the EPA’s Kaufman told Sheppard. “The Bush White House ordered EPA to lie about the environmental and public health situation at the World Trade Center because of economic ramifications. So they did.”
On Democracy Now!, Kaufman accused the EPA of being “sock puppets for BP in this cover-up.”
I called Kaufman to find out if he agrees with Ott’s decision to sound the alarm about evacuations. The short answer? Yes. “If you’re getting sick, it’s because you’re being poisoned,” he said. “Those chemicals can cause cancer 20 years down the line and that’s why Riki Ott is saying some areas have to be evacuated. That’s true. We don’t know how bad it is because the EPA is not doing adequate air testing. They’re taking some measurements so they can tell the public that everything is safe [when in fact the public has] an increased risk of getting cancer and dying early. They’re pawns in a money game.”
Kaufman and Ott both say the media need to follow the money. The reason why the EPA is covering this up, they say, is because the cost to BP would be astronomical. “The dispersants hide the oil,” said Ott. “If you put dispersants in the water, you don’t know how much oil was really spilled. Oil fines are based on how much oil was spilled, so it’s all about money.”
If a group listed as a terrorist organization had caused the oil disaster, Kaufman says their assets would be seized immediately and their members would be arrested. So, why hasn’t the US government seized BP’s assets? Kaufman points to an April Vanity Fair article about Larry Fink, one of the most powerful men on Wall Street. Fink’s BlackRock money-management firm controls or monitors more than $12 trillion worldwide, including a billion shares of BP. According to the article, BlackRock “has effectively become the leading manager of Washington’s bailout of Wall Street,” thanks to Fink’s close relationship with former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
“It’s all about money,” says Kaufman. “Follow the money.”
So, where does this leave the people whose lives have been destroyed by this disaster? Where does this leave the people who will face long-term health problems? Where does this leave our oceans, wildlife and environment? What’s next?
“The more the public knows, the more the media cover it, the more the people tell officials to help, the better it is,” says Kaufman. “It’s a game of momentum.”
Ott says she plans to stay in the area to assist where she can (getting respirators for workers is near the top of her list), get the truth out and continue the conversations and community meetings she’s having with self-described Tea Partiers, evangelicals and fifth and sixth generation fisherman. “Here’s something positive for you,” she said. “I’m starting to hear, ‘We all live on one planet and there really is a climate crisis here. This can’t continue.’ I’m having conversations with the Christian Right. I’m staying in an oilman’s camper. Oilmen are starting to see that we need alternatives. I’m having tea party people come up to me and say, ‘How can I help?’ Corporations want to divide the nation into red and blue, Democrat and Republican. I’m seeing that crashing down. The frames are dissolving. The South is rising. I’m talking about the Deep South. This is the most hopeful sign I’m seeing.”
Former shrimper Diane Wilson hopes to see more direct action. “This is a crisis. If this oil gusher does not move people to force a change in Washington, then it will never happen. We are seeing the end of the United States as we know it. If people hold their planet dear, they better be out there. Folks are too well behaved. We need to be unreasonable.”

FAIR USE NOTICE: This may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, political, human rights, economic democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a “fair use” of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes. For more information on this topic go to: http://www.law.Cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html

Special thanks to Ashley Hotz

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/07/storms_passage_reveals_problem.html

Published: Monday, July 26, 2010, 8:45 AM Updated: Monday, July 26, 2010, 8:46 AM
Jeff Adelson, The Times-Picayune

Photo by Eliot Kamenitz / The Times-Picayune
Drilling rigs and support ships return to the Deepwater Horizon accident site on Sunday after their evacuation from Tropical Storm Bonnie.

As officials surveyed a coastline left nearly unchanged by the passage of Tropical Storm Bonnie on Sunday, crews worked to restart key operations aimed at permanently stopping the flow of oil from the damaged BP well into the Gulf of Mexico.

Though Bonnie had little effect on the oil in the Gulf, the storm’s passage revealed some new problems with the booms used to protect the coastline, and it strained the relationships in the web of local and federal officials charged with defending the area from the oil.

Now that the latest threat of stormy weather has passed, officials are working on new plans to scale back the amount of boom they deploy, to prevent the barriers themselves from damaging sensitive marshes.

Officials are also working to refine plans to prevent the “misunderstandings” that led to a series of complaints and threats from parish leaders over the redeployment of resources as Bonnie approached.

Of the spill-fighting vessels returning to the area around the damaged well, “the critical ones are out there right now,” said Thad Allen, the National Incident Commander overseeing the response to the Deepwater Horizon response, in an 11 a.m. news briefing. All assets should be back at the site sometime today, said Allen, a retired U.S. Coast Guard admiral.

The waters above the spill off the Louisiana coastline were emptier of ships than they have been since the immediate aftermath of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig. Oil began flowing into the Gulf after that explosion, which killed 11 workers on the platform, and the subsequent sinking of the rig.

During an overflight Sunday afternoon, the two rigs working on relief wells could be seen back at the site, and several other large support vessels had already moved back into the area. There was no sign of heavy oil near the wellhead.

Work resumes

Crews are working to re-extend the pipeline running from the rig working on the primary relief well and expected to have latched back onto the well by midnight Sunday, Allen said. The “static kill, ” which will be attempted after the relief wells connect to the well that was attached to the Deepwater Horizon, will pump material into the well in an effort to staunch the flow of oil. Officials believe they can go ahead with that effort sometime during the first week of August.

The relative quiet in the Gulf was a blessing of sorts for responders who had a chance to conduct seismic tests without interference from other vessels, Allen said.

The cap on the Macondo well is still holding, and its pressure has risen above 6,900 pounds per square inch, he said. That should be taken as a sign of “a well that has integrity, ” Allen said. More resources are being moved into the area to allow about 80,000 barrels a day to be pumped out of the capped well, he said.

In St. Tammany, crews began to redeploy the barges that guard the Rigolets from oil, though crosswinds delayed those efforts. Parish President Kevin Davis said they will be put into place as soon as possible and noted that a skimmer used to gather oil in the area had been brought back into service Sunday.

Throughout the day, flights searched for oil near the coast. Much of the oil now seems to have moved toward the Mississippi Sound, the Chandeleur Islands and Breton Sound, and responders will be sent to protect those areas and determine what, if any, damage has already been caused, Allen said.
There was no sign that oil had been pushed closer to Lake Pontchartrain, Davis said.

‘Family fight’

As the threat from Bonnie passed, officials found themselves dealing with the aftermath of another storm, one of words and proclamations. With a tropical storm bearing down on the area, Allen ordered that oil-cleanup vessels and equipment not needed on the scene to deal specifically with the storm be moved to be kept out of danger.

This drew protests by Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nunngesser and threats from Davis, who issued an executive order calling for the arrest of anyone who attempted to move equipment needed to protect the Rigolets and the Lake Pontchartrain.

Both officials worried that the order would leave their parishes vulnerable just as they needed the most protection from oil borne by storm surge.

Federal and local officials downplayed their disagreements Sunday, with New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu referring to the spat as “typical family fight.”
“I’m very happy with what I saw today,” Landrieu said. “We were concerned about the ability to redeploy assets quickly, and the Coast Guard has done that, I think, with great expertise. Everyone is back in the fight.”

Allen did not back down from his earlier stance Sunday, recalling scenes from his work with the Coast Guard after Hurricane Katrina to drive the point home. He said he is “still haunted” from a flyover of the city on Sept. 6, 2005, when he saw lines of school buses that could have been used to aid in an evacuation sitting flooded in a lot.

Whenever there is a threat of gale-force winds, those over 39 mph, “for the safety of the personnel, we need to pull them back,” Allen said.
But, he added: “We didn’t pull them way far away.”

Practice run

To plan for future storms — and prevent similar “misunderstandings” between local and federal officials — Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft said he plans to meet with local leaders this week to discuss how the government will respond to storms from here on out.

The effort has given officials the practice of a dry run and a chance to work out these issues before a serious storm hits, said Zukunft, the federal on-scene coordinator for the response.

And, responding to concerns that once equipment left the area it would not be brought back, Zukunft said: “At no point are we talking about any diminishment of the level of effort.”

But the relief over Bonnie’s dissipation was mixed with a seemingly counter-intuitive regret that the storm had not kept its strength and continued on its path, an outcome that could have helped clean contaminated marshes.
Steve Lehmann, a scientific support coordinator at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, said the northern winds that would have hit New Orleans had Bonnie remained a cyclone and come from the east would have flushed oily water out of the marshes.

Officials have also discovered a new problem with the strategy aimed at protecting those marshes. Boom that surrounded marshes in some areas were pushed into the wetlands by the rising water, becoming bludgeons that smashed the delicate plant life they once protected.

“Just the mechanical action of the boom being dragged over the marshes is not desirable,” he said. “That may cause more damage to the marsh than the oil would if it was there.”

Lehmann later referred to the issue by noting that the boom are “terrific technology that has become a liability.”

With evidence that the boom that was laid around hundreds of miles of coast may now be a threat, officials are considering a much more scaled-back deployment in the future. Rather than string boom around the coast, the floating barriers will be kept ready for deployment and laid out in areas only when it appears oil will shortly become a threat.

“We’ll be more surgical about where we put boom,” Zukunft said.

Jeff Adelson can be reached at jadelson@timespicayune.com or 985.645.2852.

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marlinfish July 26, 2010 at 9:00AM
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NOAA maps show new oil landing all along the LA Coast. Where are the reports on this? And when is someone going to start testing for the toxic dispersant COREXIT. Scientist Terry Hazen from Berkeley, CA reported that after the 1970′s oil spill in NORMANDY France, areas untreated with dispersants recovered in 5 years but that areas treated with dispersants have still not recovered.

Special thanks to Richard Charter.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2010/0725/Activists-frustrated-at-Obama-s-environmental-record

Environmental activists were delighted to have Barack Obama replace George W. Bush as president. But greens are increasingly unhappy with Obama’s record – especially on climate change.

President Barack Obama surveys damage along the Louisiana coastline caused after a BP oil line ruptured in the Gulf of Mexico. Environmental activists say Obama should have used the Gulf oil spill to push for a cap on carbon emissions linked to global warming.
Larry Downing/Reuters

By Brad Knickerbocker, Staff writer / July 25, 2010
When Barack Obama took over the White House from George W. Bush, environmental activists breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Under Bush and vice president Dick Cheney, resource extraction – logging, mining, drilling for oil and gas – as often as not were favored over protection of habitat and endangered species. So was carbon-emitting energy production over conservation and “green” renewable energy.

No surprise there, since both Bush and Cheney had been oil men. It was more than symbolic that environmentalists got short shrift in the backroom meetings of Cheney’s energy task force.

But things would be different with a progressive, young Democrat in the White House, enviros thought.

‘A green, dream team’

Just as important to those looking for a change in direction were Obama’s appointments to high environmental offices: Carol Browner, who’d headed the EPA under Bill Clinton, as White House climate and energy policy chief; Lisa Jackson, former head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, as EPA administrator; former director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources and US Senator Ken Salazar as secretary of the Interior; and as secretary of Energy, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu.
Together, they were seen as “a green dream team,” as Gene Karpinski, head of the League of Conservation Voters, put it at the time.

Indeed, things did change – particularly regarding climate change and declared energy policy as it relates to creating jobs and improving the economy. And from the California Bay Delta to the Great Lakes to Chesapeake Bay, the Obama administration pushed new strategies for environmental protection and restoration.

But recently, Obama and his administration have been taking flak from the left on the environment.

This past week, the Center for Biological Diversity sued the US Forest Service for failing to monitor and protect endangered species and habitat in Arizona and New Mexico national forests.

“The big picture for species recovery in southwestern national forests is grim,” said Taylor McKinnon, the group’s public lands campaigns director. “In addition to failing to monitor and protect endangered species while implementing the current forest plans, the Forest Service is aiming to roll back species protections in its new plans. In the long run, that’s a recipe for extinction.”

Another lawsuit

A week earlier, the same organization sued Interior Secretary Salazar for not turning over emails, phone logs, and notes from his meetings with oil-industry lobbyists before the BP oil spill when the administration agreed to more offshore oil and gas drilling.

“We want to know who Salazar was talking to, what was said, and what deals were made,” said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the organization. “The Obama administration pledged to be open and transparent in its decision-making, but when it comes to meeting with oil industry lobbyists, this administration is as secretive as the Cheney-Bush White House.”

In the Pacific Northwest, environmentalists are urging Obama to not allow the shipping of large equipment up the Columbia and Snake Rivers – habitat for threatened and endangered salmon – to a tar sands oil project in Alberta.

“Canadian tar sands development is one of the largest, most destructive industrial projects on earth,” warns Save Our Wild Salmon, a coalition of conservation groups and businesses.

Meanwhile, some government scientists say they still feel pressure to adjust their work for political considerations.

“We are getting complaints from government scientists now at the same rate we were during the Bush administration,” Jeffrey Ruch, who heads the whistleblower group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, told the Los Angeles Times.

But it is the inability to get comprehensive energy and climate legislation that environmental advocates see as Obama’s biggest failure.

“Obama is the first president in history to articulate in stark terms both the why and how of the sustainable clean energy vision,” writes physicist and author Joseph Romm. “But the question now is whether he really believed what he said.”

Writing in the current issue of Rolling Stone, Tim Dickinson says, “Obama, so far, has shown no urgency on the issue, and little willingness to lead – despite a June poll showing that 76 percent of Americans believe the government should limit climate pollution.”

‘Did Obama kill the climate bill?”

The headline on Josh Harkinson’s piece in Mother Jones reads “Did Obama Kill the Climate Bill?”

“After BP’s well blew out, Obama’s infamously milquetoast address from the Oval Office never connected the disaster with the need for a cap on carbon,” Harkinson writes. “All of this wasn’t for a lack of pressure from his allies. Nine high-profile environmental groups wrote a letter to the president pleading that ‘nothing less than your direct personal involvement’ will break the logjam in the Senate.”

This past week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid acknowledged that he didn’t have the votes to pass the kind of cap-and-trade energy reform bill approved by the House a year ago. Instead, Reid is expected to detail a much-slimmed-down energy bill, minus any climate provision that would have capped carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.

Many of Obama’s critics in the environmental community are spring-loaded to sound the alarm – or file a lawsuit – no matter who is in the White House. For some, it’s a good fund-raising tactic.

But for now, activists are finding that the “dream team” they once rejoiced in is not so green.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Big surprise…..DV

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/23/98088/researchers-confirm-subsea-gulf.html

Posted on Fri, Jul. 23, 2010

Sara Kennedy | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: July 24, 2010 01:33:33 PM

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Through a chemical fingerprinting process, University of South Florida researchers have definitively linked clouds of underwater oil in the northern Gulf of Mexico to BP’s runaway Deepwater Horizon well – the first direct scientific link between the subsurface oil clouds commonly known as “plumes” and the BP oil spill, USF officials said Friday.

Until now, scientists had circumstantial evidence, but lacked that definitive scientific link.

The announcement came on the same day that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that its researchers have confirmed the existence of the subsea plumes at depths of 3,300 to 4,300 feet below the surface of the Gulf. NOAA said its detection equipment also implicated the BP well in the plumes’ creation.

Together, the two studies confirm what in the early days of the spill was denied by BP and viewed skeptically by NOAA’s chief – that much of the crude that gushed from the Deepwater Horizon well stayed beneath the surface of the water.

“What we have learned completely changes the idea of what an oil spill is,” said chemical oceanographer David Hollander, one of three USF researchers credited with the matching samples of oil taken from the water with samples from the BP well. “It has gone from a two-dimensional disaster to a three-dimensional catastrophe.”

The other scientists involved in making the link, USF said, were biological oceanographer Ernst Peebles and geological oceanographer David Naar.

The finding is important because oil that escaped from the mile-deep, blown-out well had been treated with dispersants, which broke the oil in the water column into tiny droplets, and therefore did not form an oil slick at the surface, said Richard H. Pierce, senior scientist and director of the Center for Ecotoxicology at Sarasota’s Mote Marine Laboratory.

“It’s more readily taken up and absorbed and ingested by marine animals,” he explained.

Although dispersed oil degrades more quickly over the long-run, in the short-term, it poses a more toxic threat to marine life, Pierce said.

“So, we’ve been very concerned, and it is critical USF has verified it,” he said.

The full report was not released Friday, but will be available sometime next week, USF spokeswoman Vickie Chachere said.

BP declined to comment on the USF discovery. “We have only seen media reports, and have not yet seen the report and underlying data,” BP spokesman Phil Cochrane said in an e-mail.

USF scientists found microscopic droplets of biodegraded oil at varying depths beneath the Gulf’s surface, the university said in a statement.

One layer was 100 feet thick; it was found 45 nautical miles north-northeast of the well site, officials said.

The researchers found the plumes after models created by a USF expert in ocean currents, Robert Weisberg, predicted subsurface oil from the Deepwater Horizon well would move toward the north-northeast, USF said.

“The clouds were found near the DeSoto Canyon, a critical area that interacts with Florida’s spawning grounds,” USF said.

The NOAA study made similar findings. According to the report, which was reviewed by 19 scientists known as the Joint Analysis Group, data collected by five research ships deployed in the Gulf from May 19 to June 19 showed oil suspended in the water between 1,000 and 1,300 meters – about 3,280 feet to 4,265 feet.

The NOAA scientists detected the oil by measuring its fluorescence – many of the droplets are too small to detect otherwise – and said that that measurement linked it to the BP well.

The report said the oil had been detected in heaviest concentrations near the BP well and that its concentrations dropped as the ships moved away from the well, but that not enough samples had been taken to determine the full “horizontal extent” of the plumes.

The report also said the impact of the oil on sealife had yet to be determined. Even at low concentrations, the report said, the oil “might be biologically meaningful” because of the length of time fish and other organisms would be exposed to it.

The report also said that scientists had detected lower levels of dissolved oxygen in the water at depths below 3,280 feet, but that they couldn’t determine why the levels were low with certainty. They said the levels were not so low as to be fatal to sealife.

Steven Murawski, chief scientist for NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service, said the data confirm that the subsea plumes of oil were the result of the Deepwater Horizon well.

“That’s a real smoking gun, as far as we’re concerned,” he said. “It really is a flow” from the well.

In May, when scientists first reported that they had discovered oil beneath the Gulf’s surface and blamed it on the Deepwater Horizon spill, they were denounced by both BP and NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco.

BP CEO Tony Hayward denied that such plumes existed and Lubchenco called the reports “misleading, premature and, in some cases, inaccurate.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

By Coral Davenport
July 23, 2010

SENATE PULLS PLUG ON ENERGY/CLIMATE BILL. HERE’S HOW IT FELL APART – “It would seem the stars had been aligned like never before for climate legislation. But by Thursday, the White House’s biggest energy and environmental initiative sat in tatters, relegated to an unknown election-year abyss after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he didn’t yet have 60 votes and would instead move to the lowest hanging energy fruit. Exactly when the Senate legislation came apart will now be open to historical interpretation – but the blame game has already begun.” http://politi.co/aZbpan

JOIN THE DEBATE – In Energy Arena, POLITICO asks: How have the political fortunes of Govs. Haley Barbour, Bobby Jindal and Charlie Crist been affected by the Gulf oil spill? Have they helped or hurt their chances for higher office? Join the conversation at: http://www.politico.com/arena/energy/

Good Friday morning and welcome to Morning Energy, and the aftermath of yet another failed Senate climate change bill – the chance many advocates say was the last, best shot of getting a bill through for the foreseeable future. What comes next? Email thoughts on the new climate landscape to cdavenport@politico.com

AMERICA PUNTS ON CLIMATE; CHINA ACTS – Chinese officials have decided to move ahead with a carbon cap-and-trade system. http://bit.ly/duKY4A

FINGER-POINTING – No surprise that Ds blame Rs, Rs point to Ds’ fractured caucus, advocates blame election-year timeline and chide Obama for not pushing the issue. But here’s a new one: White House blames enviros: As Darren reports, ” One exasperated administration official on Thursday lambasted the environmentalists – led by the Environmental Defense Fund – for failing to effectively lobby GOP senators. ‘They didn’t deliver a single Republican,’ the official told POLITICO. ‘They spent like $100 million and they weren’t able to get a single Republican convert on the bill.’”

THE BILL THAT WILL go to the floor: will have at its core a package of provisions aimed at tightening offshore drilling safety regulations and codifying the restructuring of the Interior Department, plus the Home Star building efficiency program, a clutch of provisions to boost natural gas vehicles, and full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Each of these pieces has already moved through committee or been co-sponsored with bipartisan support, and none represent a major change in energy policy — so it’s expected the package as a whole will move through fairly quickly. Final details aren’t yet available – Reid’s staff will spend the weekend stitching together pieces from the existing bills, and we’re told reporters will be briefed on the final product on Monday.

** A message from America’s Natural Gas Alliance: Natural gas is helping small businesses grow across the country, meaning more jobs for hard-working Americans. See how natural gas production in Texas has helped Mindy’s family trucking business. http://bit.ly/9jsZjC **

STILL NOT GIVING UP – At least in spirit, are disappointed Senate Democrats. It’s no surprise that the ever-passionate Kerry and dogged Joe Lieberman say they refuse to give up the ghost on climate – both now characterize Reid’s dumping of climate as a new time window to win over electric utilities before bringing up a power-plant-only bill this fall. But even Midwestern and coal-state moderates like Ohio’s Sherrod Brown and Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey said they want to keep pushing, despite the odds. “I think a lot of people are disappointed. But we still have time this summer to keep working and lining up votes, and September as well, and we just have to keep working,” Casey tells Morning Energy. “What the leader has proposed is a series of important steps but I think it’s still only one chapter. We’ve got some bigger chapters to go and we’ve got to work to try to get the votes, work with the White House, work to get votes on the other side. Š One thing we can’t do is let this be the end of the discussion. None of us will accept that. We’re still going to do awful lot of climate and energy work between now and [August recess]. The leader can go though the bill he’s got but we’re going to work on this. I don’t see that as starting in September.”

GLIMMER OF HOPE? – The Hill reports on a July 19 draft outline of agreement on key points between utilities and major environmental groups, whose earlier failure to reach a compromise had seemed to doom prospects for a bill. http://bit.ly/9Xdfrv

MORE PAINFUL IRONY – A staffer notes that one of the biggest losers in Thursday’s news was John Kerry, who over the past year has devoted untold hours and effort to the cause of a climate change bill, only to see it thrown under the bus in the face of midterm elections. One of Thursday’s biggest winners: T. Boone Pickens, the oil magnate who financed the Swift Boat ads during Kerry’s presidential campaign. As he worked to build support for his climate bill, Kerry made a tremendous diplomatic gesture in reaching out to Pickens, and promised to include pieces of the “Pickens Plan” to promote natural gas-fueled vehicles in a comprehensive climate change bill. In the end, Reid jettisoned the big energy and climate package, and instead will offer a narrow spill bill bundled with cherry-picked energy provisions – including pieces of the Pickens Plan. So Pickens’ provisions are slated to move through the Senate with relative ease next week – on a bill sponsored by the Senate Majority Leader, no less – while the work Kerry staked his political comeback on molders on the cutting-room floor.

NEW BATTLEGROUND: RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY – Groups on both sides of the debate tell Morning Energy that while the fight for carbon caps seems lost for the year, they’re still marshalling their forces to debate the other key energy policy dumped from the package: the renewable electricity standard. Renewable power companies are now lobbying Democrats to introduce Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s 15 percent standard as a floor amendment to the spill bill next week. “It is incredibly urgent for the industry, the head of a major U.S. renewable energy company tells Morning Energy. “We believe we have 60 votes for that, probably more.” It remains to be seen whether Reid will even allow amendments to be offered next week. But a fossil-fuel lobbyist tells Morning Energy that if it doesn’t come up next week, their industry is gearing up to fight it in the fall. Meanwhile, a former Senate Democratic aide closely involved in the climate negotiations says that if Dems are willing to be flexible on the definition of the electricity standard – allowing clean coal and possibly nuclear energy to count under the mandate, which Republicans such as Richard Lugar and Lindsey Graham support -there could still be room for a compromise bill this fall. “In the shadow of the ballot box, it’s either a bigger tent or fold up tent,” said the former aide.

SPILL SITE EVACUATED AS TROPICAL STORM BONNIE APPROACHES – From Thad Allen at midnight: “Due to the risk that Tropical Storm Bonnie poses to the safety of the nearly 2,000 people responding to the BP oil spill at the well site, many of the vessels and rigs will be preparing to move out of harm’s way beginning tonight. This includes the rig drilling the relief well that will ultimately kill the well, as well as other vessels needed for containment. Some of the vessels may be able to remain on site, but we will err on the side of safety Š While these actions may delay the effort to kill the well for several days, the safety of the individuals at the well site is our highest concern. We are staging our skimming vessels and other assets in a manner that will allow us to promptly re-start oil mitigation efforts as soon as the storm passes and we can ensure the safety of our personnel.”

SALAZAR PLEDGES TO LIMIT INTERIOR’S REVOLVING DOOR – WaPo reports: “Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told lawmakers Thursday that he will use his regulatory authority to impose strict new rules to remedy the revolving-door problems in his department Š His statement came after Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) asked about a Washington Post article that reported that dozens of former Interior officials had crossed over into the oil industry and that three out of four industry lobbyists had once worked for the federal government. The rate is more than double the norm in Washington, where industries recruit about 30 percent of their lobbyists from the government, according to data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. With more than 600 registered lobbyists, the industry has among the biggest and most powerful contingents in Washington, The Post reported.” http://bit.ly/bmLmkx

HOUSE PANEL VOTES TO HALT OFFSHORE DRILLING LEASING – And to boost funds for climate change research. CQ story: http://bit.ly/9awnbH

Go to Morning Energy Now >> http://www.politico.com/morningenergy

Special thanks to Richard Charter

July 22, 2010

http://www.examiner.com/x-58009-Oil-Spill-Recovery-Examiner~y2010m7d22-Oil-spill-updatl-EPA-whistleblower-speaks-on-Corexit-says-dolphins-people-hemorrhaging–video

http://www.democracynow.org/embed_show_v2/300/2010/7/20/story/epa_whistleblower_accuses_agency_of_covering

EPA whistleblower Hugh Kaufman spoke on Democracy Now about the BP coverup regarding Corexit and the effects it is having on the Gulf of Mexico and the life forms that it comes in contact with. He also alleges that the EPA is covering up the toxic effects that will result from using nearly 2 million gallons of the chemical dispersant since the start of the catastrophic oil spill.

Hugh Kaufman is a former US Air Force Captain and joined the EPA in its beginning stages in 1971. He also helped write the laws that are on the federal books regarding the disposal, storage, handling and treatment of solid and hazardous waste. Though the EPA has approved the use of Corexit as an oil dispersant, Hugh Kaufman alleges that it is extremely toxic, dangerous and shows proof that the chemical was linked to many health problems when used in the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Hugh Kaufman also believes that BP’s conspiracy includes using the chemical dispersant to dissolve as much oil as possible to prevent the public from ever truly knowing how vast the spill actually is. Kaufman also alleges that people who are coming in contact with Corexit now, are suffering internal bleeding and hemorrhaging. You may see the full report in the video player, but here is a clip.

“… Consequently, we have people, wildlife, we have dolphins that are hemorrhaging. People who work near it are hemorrhaging internally. And that’s what dispersants are supposed to do. EPA now is taking the position that they really don’t know how dangerous it is, even though if you read the label, it tells you how dangerous it is.

And, for example, in the Exxon Valdez case, people who worked with dispersants, most of them are dead now. The average death age is around fifty. It’s very dangerous, and it’s an an economic protector of BP, not an environmental protector of the public.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/21/1741164/judge-halts-oil-gas-development.html

Posted on Wednesday, 07.21.10
BY DAN JOLING
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A federal judge on Wednesday stopped companies from developing oil and gas wells on billions of dollars in leases off Alaska’s northwest coast, saying the federal government failed to follow environmental law before it sold the drilling rights.

The lease sale in February 2008 brought in nearly $2.7 billion for the federal government from the sale of 2.76 million acres in the Arctic waters of the Chukchi Sea, including $2.1 billion in high bids submitted by Shell Gulf of Mexico Inc.

U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline said that the Minerals Management Service failed to analyze the environmental effect of natural gas development despite industry interest and specific lease incentives for such development.

The agency analyzed only the development of the first field of 1 billion barrels of oil – despite acknowledging that the amount was the minimum level of development that could occur on the leases.

Beistline enjoined all activity under the lease sale pending additional environmental reviews.

The decision comes after the massive oil spill from a BP PLC well in the Gulf of Mexico and is a blow to the unit of Royal Dutch Shell PLC, which had hoped to drill three exploratory wells this summer in the Chukchi Sea. Those plans were halted with President Barack Obama’s decision in May to delay offshore oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean until at least 2011.

Offshore drilling is strongly supported by Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell and other elected officials in the state, where upward of 90 percent of general fund revenue is provided by the petroleum industry.

However, environmental and Alaska Native groups have long contended it would be impossible to clean up a spill in icy Arctic waters, far from deep water ports and airports.
The nearest Coast Guard base is on Kodiak Island more than 1,000 miles away.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/21/1741164/judge-halts-oil-gas-development.html#ixzz0uMvKy8OK

++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.kgw.com/news/business/98974654.html

KGW-TV

Business News

Judge halts oil, gas development on Chukchi Sea
Posted on July 21, 2010 at 6:00 PM
Updated today at 6:00 PM

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – A federal judge on Wednesday stopped companies from developing oil and gas wells on billions of dollars in leases off Alaska’s northwest coast, saying the federal government failed to follow environmental law before it sold the drilling rights.

The lease sale in February 2008 brought in nearly $2.7 billion for the federal government from the sale of 2.76 million acres (1.12 million hectares) in the Arctic waters of the Chukchi Sea, including $2.1 billion in high bids submitted by Shell Gulf of Mexico Inc.

U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline said that the Minerals Management Service failed to analyze the environmental effect of natural gas development despite industry interest and specific lease incentives for such development.

The agency analyzed only the development of the first field of 1 billion barrels of oil – despite acknowledging that the amount was the minimum level of development that could occur on the leases.

Beistline enjoined all activity under the lease sale pending additional environmental reviews.

The decision comes after the massive oil spill from a BP PLC well in the Gulf of Mexico and is a blow to the unit of Royal Dutch Shell PLC, which had hoped to drill three exploratory wells this summer in the Chukchi Sea. Those plans were halted with President Barack Obama’s decision in May to delay offshore oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean until at least 2011.

Offshore drilling is strongly supported by Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell and other elected officials in the state, where upward of 90 percent of general fund revenue is provided by the petroleum industry.

However, environmental and Alaska Native groups have long contended it would be impossible to clean up a spill in icy Arctic waters, far from deep water ports and airports.
The nearest Coast Guard base is on Kodiak Island more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Pipeline repaired as China works to contain spill

In this photo taken Wednesday, July 21, 2010, workers clean and collect crude oil near a polluted beach after a pipeline explosion in Dalian, in northeast China’s Liaoning province. China National Petroleum Corp. said Thursday the vital pipeline has resumed operations after an explosion caused the country’s largest reported oil spill. (AP Photo)

By CARA ANNA (AP) – 1 hour ago

BEIJING — China and environmental observers said cleanup efforts on the country’s largest reported oil spill were progressing Thursday, but the environmental and economic damage was clear.

The cleanup — marred by the drowning of a worker this week, his body coated in crude — continued over a 165 square mile (430 square kilometer) stretch of the Yellow Sea off the northeastern city of Dalian, one of China’s major ports and strategic oil reserve sites.

China National Petroleum Corp. said Thursday that the pipeline that exploded and caused the oil spill last Friday had resumed operations. The blast had reduced oil shipments from part of China’s strategic oil reserves to the rest of the country. The cause of the explosion that started the spill was still not clear.

The company, Asia’s biggest oil-and-gas producer by volume, also said more than 400 tons of oil had been cleaned up by 9 a.m. Wednesday, according to a posting on its website.

The environmental group Greenpeace China released photos Thursday of local fishermen cleaning up oily sludge at Weitang Bay with shovels, and of an employee scooping up dead snails at Guotai Water Products Farm, about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from the site of the explosion and spill.

“Dalian’s seafood farming and tourism industries have taken critical hits,” Greenpeace China said in a statement. It estimated 10,000 shellfish farms have been contaminated.

Fishing in the waters around Dalian has been banned through the end of August, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

Greenpeace China also saw progress in the cleanup at Jinshitan, one of Dalian’s most popular beaches.

“On Jinshitan beach, several hundred fishermen, citizens and paramilitary police were using straw mats to absorb the oil,” said Zhong Yu, a Greenpeace China worker. “The cleanup there was almost done, but the air still remained smelly.”

The Dalian Daily newspaper cited an official in charge of cleanup efforts as saying the polluted area was shrinking, but no update on the spill size was issued Thursday.

It remained unclear exactly how much oil has spilled, but state media has said no more is leaking into the sea.

China Central Television earlier reported an estimate of 1,500 tons of oil has spilled. That would amount roughly to 400,000 gallons (1,500,000 liters) — as compared with 94 million to 184 million gallons in the BP oil spill off the U.S. coast.

The ecological harm from the spill could last a decade, Zhao Zhangyuan, a researcher with the China Environmental Science Research Institute, told the Shanghai Morning News earlier this week.

“The most critical is the effect on people, the effect on health,” Zhao said, because the decomposing oil will produce some carcinogenic substances that could move along the food chain to humans.

Associated Press writer Gillian Wong and researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed to this report.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-07-22-storm-approaches-gulf-oil_N.htm

Image By Chris Graythen, Getty Images

Pelicans sit on boom that is protecting Queen Bess Island on Wednesday in Grand Isle, Louisiana. A possible storm that may head into the Gulf of Mexico where BP is drilling a relief well would suspend oil spill containment projects.

ON THE GULF OF MEXICO (AP) — Dozens of ships were preparing Thursday to pull out of the Gulf of Mexico as a tropical storm brewed in the Caribbean, halting deep-sea efforts to plug BP’s ruptured oil well.

Though the rough weather was hundreds of miles (kilometers) from the spill site, officials ordered technicians to suspend work Wednesday as they would need several days to clear the area. The government’s oil spill chief was waiting to see how the storm developed before deciding whether to order the ships to evacuate.

Anxiety was building among the 75-member crew aboard the cutter Decisive, the Coast Guard’s primary search and rescue vessel, which would be the last of about 65 ships to leave in the event of an evacuation.

“It’s a controlled chaos out there,” Lt. Patrick Montgomery told an Associated Press reporter aboard the cutter heading to the spill site from Pascagoula, Mississippi.

The technicians were forced to halt their work just days from completing a relief well to permanently throttle the free-flowing crude.

Worse yet, foul weather could require reopening the cap that has contained the oil for nearly a week, allowing oil to gush into the sea again while engineers wait out the storm.

“This is necessarily going to be a judgment call,” said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government’s point man on the crisis, on Wednesday.

The cluster of thunderstorms passed over Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Wednesday, and was forecast to move into the Gulf over the weekend with a 40% chance it would becoming a tropical depression or tropical storm by Friday.

Crews stationed some 50 miles (80 kilometers) out in the Gulf had planned to spend Wednesday and Thursday reinforcing with cement the last few feet (meters) of the relief tunnel that will be used to pump mud into the gusher and block it once and for all. But BP instead placed a temporary plug called a storm packer inside the tunnel in case it has to be abandoned while the storm passes.

“What we didn’t want to do is be in the middle of an operation and potentially put the relief well at some risk,” BP vice president Kent Wells said.

If the work crews are evacuated, it could be two weeks before they can resume the effort to plug the well. That would upset BP’s timetable for finishing the relief tunnel this month and plugging the blown-out well by early August.

Scientists have been scrutinizing underwater video and pressure data for days, trying to determine if the capped well is holding tight or in danger of rupturing and causing an even bigger disaster. If the storm prevents BP from monitoring the well, the cap may simply be reopened, allowing oil to spill into the water, Allen said.

BP and government scientists were discussing whether the cap could be monitored from shore.

As the storm drew closer, boat captains hired by BP for skimming duty were sent home for five or six days, said Tom Ard, president of the Orange Beach Fishing Association in Alabama.

In Florida, crews removed booms protecting the Panhandle’s waterways, as high winds and storm surges could carry the booms into sensitive wetlands.

Also, Shell Oil began evacuating employees out in the Gulf.

The storm could affect oil containment and cleanup efforts even if it does not hit the area directly. Last month, Hurricane Alex stayed 500 miles (805 kilometers) away but skimming in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida was curtailed for nearly a week.

The relief tunnel extends about 2 miles (3 kilometers) under the seabed and is about 50 to 60 feet (15 to 18 meters) vertically and 4 feet (1.2 meters) horizontally from the ruptured well. BP plans to cement a final string of casing, or drilling pipe, into place and give it up to a week to set before attempting to punch through to the blown-out well and kill it.

BP’s broken well spewed between 94 million and 184 million gallons (356 million to 697 million liters) before the cap was attached. The crisis — the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history — unfolded after the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers.

The cause of the blast is still under investigation, but rig workers have repeatedly questioned the rig’s equipment and safety conditions.

The New York Times reported early Thursday that rig workers expressed concern in a confidential survey before the blast about safety and the condition of equipment.

The Times said another report for Transocean by Lloyd’s Register Group found that several pieces of equipment — including the rams in the failed blowout preventer on the well head — had not been inspected since 2000, despite guidelines calling for inspection every three to five years. Transocean said most of the equipment was minor and the blowout preventer was inspected by manufacturer guidelines.

A spokesman for Transocean, the owner of the rig leased by BP, confirmed the existence of the reports to The Associated Press.

“As part of Transocean’s unwavering commitment to safety and rigorous maintenance discipline on all our rigs, we proactively commissioned the safety survey and the rig assessment review,” Transocean spokesman Lou Colasuonno said in an e-mail Thursday. “A fair reading of those detailed third-party reviews indicates clearly that while certain areas could be enhanced, overall rig maintenance met or exceeded regulatory and industry standards and the Deepwater Horizon’s safety management was strong and a culture of safety was robust on board the rig.”

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/20/v-fullstory/1739673/florida-legislature-rejects-oil.html#ixzz0uKhdudTj

Posted on Wednesday, 07.21.10

How they voted:
The House voted 67-44 Tuesday to end the special session on oil drilling. Here’s how members of the South Florida delegation voted. A “yes” vote is a vote to end the session.

Yes

Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale
Bovo, R-Hialeah
Fresen, R-Miami
Gonzalez, R-Hialeah
Hasner, R-Delray Beach
Hudson, R-Naples
Lopez-Cantera, R-Miami
Rivera, R-Miami

No

Braynon, D-Miami Gardens
Bris, D-North Miami
Bullard, D-Miami
Clarke-Reed, D-Deerfield Beach
Garcia, D-Miami Beach
Gibbons, D-Hallandale Beach
Jenne, D-Dania Beach
Kiar, D-Davie
Llorente, R-Miami
Porth, D-Coral Springs
Robaina, R-Miami
Rogers, D-Lauderdale Lakes
Sands, D-Weston
Saunders, D-Key West
Skidmore, D-Boca Raton
Steinberg, D-Miami Beach
Thurston, D-Plantation
Waldman, D-Coconut Creek
Zapata, R-Miami

Absent/Not voting

Bush, D-Miami
Flores, R-Miami
Planas, R-Miami
Yolly Roberson, D-Miami
Schwartz, D-Hollywood

THE Senate voted 18-16 on Tuesday to end the session. Here’s how the South Florida delegation voted.

Yes

Atwater, R-North Palm Beach
Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami
Ring, D-Margate

No

Gelber, D-Miami Beach
Smith, D-Lauderdale Lakes
Sobel, D-Hollywood
Villalobos, R-Miami

Absent/not voting

Bullard, D-Miami Garcia, R-Miami Rich, D-Weston Wilson, D-Miami

By STEVE BOUSQUET MARY ELLEN KLAS, LEE LOGAN AND JOHN FRANK
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
TALLAHASSEE — Moving with extraordinary speed, the Florida Legislature took just two hours Tuesday to reject Gov. Charlie Crist’s proposal to give voters the chance to amend the state Constitution and ban offshore oil drilling.

In a brief special session, Republicans carried out a plan to block Crist from scoring political points by leading the charge for what they see as a symbolic ban on near-shore drilling, something already barred by state law.

The referendum is strongly supported by Democrats and independents whose votes Crist covets as an independent U.S. Senate candidate.

Lawmakers said they would work on another special session in September, one focused on long-term measures to provide economic relief to people affected by the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf.

A fired-up Crist heaped scorn on lawmakers, criticizing them for an “arrogance of power” and urging voters to throw them out of office in November.

“They are the do-nothing Legislature,” said Crist, who called the special session in hopes of beating the Aug. 4 deadline to add a referendum to the Nov. 2 general election ballot.

“I can’t believe that this Legislature has shirked their duty so badly,” Crist said. “How arrogant can a Legislature be? I can’t believe that they would have that much of a lack of respect for the people of Florida.”

Neither the House nor the Senate debated the issue itself. Instead, both chambers debated whether the drilling ban proposal should be debated.

As scores of drilling opponents looked on wearing “Let the People Vote” stickers, the House voted 67-44 to curtail debate after 10 minutes, and senators followed with a vote of 18 to 16.

Two Democratic senators who sided with Republicans played key roles in blocking a vote on the measure: Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate, and Gary Siplin, D-Orlando. Their influence was magnified by the absences of three Democrats and two moderate Republicans who are both Crist allies.

Eight Republican senators, four from the Tampa Bay region, voted against ending the session prematurely. They were Lee Constantine of Altamonte Springs, Victor Crist of Tampa, Paula Dockery of Lakeland, Mike Fasano of New Port Richey, Dennis Jones of Treasure Island, Evelyn Lynn of Ormond Beach, Steve Oelrich of Gainesville and Alex Villalobos of Miami, who sponsored the drilling ban, and who threw in the towel when the House adjourned after 49 minutes.

“I can’t prevail because they left,” Villalobos said.

In the House, four Republicans sided with Democrats in support of debating the ban. They were Reps. Kevin Ambler, R-Tampa and three Miami lawmakers: Reps. Marcelo Llorente, Julio Robaina, and Juan Zapata. One House Democrat, Rep, Leonard Bembry of Greenville, voted with Republicans to block debate.

House Speaker Larry Cretul, R-Ocala, pounded his gavel at 12:02 p.m., quickly rejecting Crist’s call for a constitutional drilling ban and criticizing the governor for calling lawmakers to work on short notice.

“The fact remains that he has called us here at the last possible moment to consider a constitutional amendment for which he never proposed any language and permitted far too little time for reflection and review,” Cretul said. “This is a terrible way to propose constitutional changes.”

Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, said he tried to persuade Crist and Cretul to expand the scope of the session to discuss tax relief and creation of a claims advocate, but got no takers: “Unfortunately, I did not receive a receptive audience.”

But Crist said neither legislative leader asked him to expand the session’s agenda.

Later Tuesday, the Senate convened a select committee on Florida’s economy for a two-hour hearing on relief measures.

The House immediately went home, but Cretul created six work groups of lawmakers to seek solutions ranging from economic aid to the need for tougher criminal penalties for environmental disasters.

The leaders of all six work groups are Republicans who are not part of the House leadership and who oppose Crist’s Senate candidacy. Even though the Panhandle is currently the area most directly affected by the disaster, the chairman of the work group on meeting the needs of affected areas is Rep. Marlene O’Toole, R-Lady Lake, from The Villages in Central Florida.

Two busloads of drilling opponents arrived at the Capitol only to see their hopes quickly dashed. Wearing green “Let the People Vote” stickers, 150 cheered, and some squeezed through the crowd to shake the hand of Crist, who, in the presence of eight TV cameras, stuck one of the stickers on his suit lapel.

Ed Berry, who owns a natural food store and massage therapy business in Walton County, made the two-and-a-half hour bus ride to the Capitol, and pleaded for the chance to permanently ban drilling off Florida’s coast.

“Big Oil is destroying our communities. It’s destroying our lives,” he said. “Fifteen years of hard work is going down the drain.”

Now that the Legislature has rejected Crist’s call for an anti-drilling amendment, the question is which side will reap any political benefit. Even if Crist’s anti-drilling ban were in the Constitution, it wouldn’t have prevented the Deepwater Horizon spill, which was beyond the reach of state jurisdiction.

Three leading candidates for governor all had strongly-worded reactions to the Legislature’s action. Republican Rick Scott blasted lawmakers for not taking his advice and enacting an Arizona-style immigration law. “The career politicians in Tallahassee have yet again wasted taxpayer dollars for a political stunt,” Scott said.

Scott’s GOP primary opponent, Bill McCollum, said a constitutional amendment to ban drilling was unnecessary, but if it went forward, he would favor it. “I’d want to see us address the economic and environmental concerns, particularly in the Panhandle,” added McCollum, the state attorney general.

Democrat Alex Sink, the state’s chief financial officer, called the lawmakers’ truncated session a “complete failure,” adding, “Instead of action, the tone deaf Florida Legislature has been twiddling their thumbs.”

Crist’s Republican U.S. Senate rival, Marco Rubio, described the session as “Charlie Crist’s meltdown” that “embodies everything that’s wrong with government today. Instead of presenting solutions, he points fingers and blames others.”

Tuesday’s short-lived session was not the shortest in Florida history. On Nov. 17, 1970, lawmakers convened for just 36 minutes to provide money for then-Gov.-elect Reubin Askews transition program.

Cristina Silva contributed to this report.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/deepwaterhorizon/7115411.html

By ERIC NALDER

July 20, 2010, 9:27PM

Mario Tama Getty Images

A worker adjusts an oil boom in Louisiana in the area where the Pointe Aux Chenes tribe lives. The tribe is concerned about leakage spotted near BP’s newly installed oil well cap.

Dangerous and short-tempered subterranean gases have erupted to kill 29 oil drillers since 1979, and despite repeated recommendations aimed at quelling blowouts, years and even decades have passed as accidents continued unabated.

The Houston Chronicle reviewed 66 blowouts in the Gulf of Mexico – one of the most dangerous places on Earth to drill for oil – and found that time and again, federal investigators’ calls for improvement were either largely ignored or delayed amid industry consternation.

In the last 10 years, blowouts triggered explosions on five rigs in the Gulf, a minefield of Mississippi mud deposits, and caused the evacuation of 17, according to the Chronicle’s examination of scores of documents.

Blowouts, known technically as “loss of well control incidents,” range in seriousness from slow old leakers to explosive killers that can open the earth and swallow a rig while spewing gas, drilling mud, water vapor, sand and oil.

There are so many man-made holes in the Gulf, 50,000, that the government has lost track of at least 4,500 old wells, records show.

And preventing blowouts may be more difficult than curbing airline disasters. Unlike airplanes, no two wells are alike. Building an oil well is like building a ship in an opaque bottle, threading massive pipes and intricate tools through a dark, narrow hole.

Documents show the top two causes of blowouts are failed cement jobs and surprise encounters with shallow gas pockets. Also common are well-design mistakes and poor maintenance.

Yet, solutions have been elusive, according to records.

“The administrative process has gotten extremely burdensome,” said Alan Spackman, vice president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors, adding that it takes too long for the government to change regulations. Spackman once worked as a Coast Guard marine safety officer.

Jo Ann Freeman needs no convincing. Her husband, Ben Freeman, 61, was killed in 2001 even as oil executives and government bureaucrats pondered for years an equipment requirement that might have saved his life.

Freeman told his wife as he headed for the waters off the Texas coast that he was “going to a bad job.” During his second week on location aboard the jack-up rig Marine IV, the crew encountered natural gas 90 feet sooner than expected 26 miles off Surfside Beach.

Shortly before dawn, hell blasted up the drill pipe.

Thirty-nine crew members drifted in escape capsules before noticing Freeman was missing. He was last seen helping others down slippery stairs, and his body was never found. Over 35 years, Freeman had risen from roughneck to high-paid consultant.

Mineral Management Services records show the blowout preventer failed because a section of drill pipe jammed inside it, preventing it from closing over the gas geyser. The blowout preventer lacked a “blind shear ram” specifically designed for such jams.

When it works properly, the shear ram cuts through most pipe jammed in a BOP so it can control a wild well.

During the 25 years leading up to Freeman’s death, shear rams might have prevented a dozen other blowouts that caused nine deaths, records show. As a result, federal agencies including the U.S. Coast Guard and MMS on six occasions had recommended requiring them on rigs like the Marine IV.

Fight over shear ram rule

The oil industry successfully opposed it, citing costs and worries that shear rams might hamper other well-control efforts or cut pipe needlessly. Even after Freeman died, the peril continued.

Nineteen months later, 600 feet of steel tubing jammed a BOP during an Anadarko operation. An Anadarko spokesman said the BOP complied with federal regulations, even without a shear ram. Again, MMS accident investigators recommended requiring them.

Not until 2006 did the shear ram become the rule.

“Certainly in hindsight it makes sense,” admitted Spackman, whose group opposed it at the time.

In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon blowout, Spackman and others say more rule changes are needed. Upgrading blowout preventers isn’t enough, he said, because “when you get to the point of using it, a lot of other things have gone wrong.”

A cementing failure likely contributed to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. MMS attempted in 2000 to create new regulations to prevent cementing failures, but records show it faced opposition from the Offshore Operators Committee, representing 70 companies in offshore exploration and oil and gas production.

OOC executive director Allen Verret wrote at the time: “We have serious reservation with MMS prescribing any type of ‘Best Cementing Practices.’ ”

Verret told the Chronicle the industry prefers guidelines to prescriptions: “It hasn’t been uncommon for there to be some sort of knee-jerk reaction by government. They throw a lot of stuff at the wall. Some sticks and some doesn’t.”

The other leading cause of Gulf blowouts, the shallow gas problem, has plagued drillers for 50 years. Gases roam the Gulf’s subsea geology, moving from crevice to crevice, launching surprise attacks on drillers who don’t detect them before starting operations. The vapors change locations because of natural forces and even drilling activities.

Crater swallows ship

The hazard hit the headlines back in 1964, when a blowout near Louisiana set fire to the C.P. Baker drill ship and opened a crater that literally swallowed it. After C.P. Baker, devices were required on rigs that divert gases safely out to sea, away from the machinery.

However, certain pre-drill tests weren’t required on wells planned near existing holes on the theory the hazards would be clear, though MMS repeatedly recommended conducting them.

A Chevron crew was surprised by shallow gas in April 2003, just 100 feet from the tracks of four previous wells. Records show shallow gas caused or contributed to 10 blowouts in the last decade.

In 2001 and 2002, two rigs were set ablaze in 18 months, one a BP operation and the other Forest Oil. Both companies declined comment.

The government sent out a notice to oil field lessees calling for more testing in 2008, 44 years after C.P. Baker.

A 2008 Chevron blowout appears in hindsight to have been a rehearsal for Deepwater Horizon and its design problems. Like BP, Chevron was in the final stages of drilling a well aboard Transocean rig Discoverer Deep Seas. Because of the blowout, drillers lost 500,000 gallons of drilling mud into the earth below the wellhead, and spilled 293 gallons onto the ocean floor.

Afterward, Chevron adopted its own well-design guidelines for deepwater operations – guidelines that might have prevented the Macondo well disaster had BP adopted them. Key was a casing pipe, or “tieback string,” not employed on Macondo, that provides superior barriers against blowouts, records show.

But federal regulators did not issue a safety alert to other companies.

Maintenance woes afflict wells of all types. On a modern deepwater BP well in May 2003, the entire riser pipe, which connects the floating rig to the wellhead, broke apart because of a failed joint, reports say.

Because of that close call with a blowout, MMS investigators recommended twice-a-year thorough inspections of deepwater risers, rather than one.

No such change has been made to the industry standard, according to the American Petroleum Institute.

ericnalder@hearst.com
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.offshoreenergylawblog.com/07-20-2010boemtoholdpublicmeetingsonoffshoredrillingsafety/

July 20, 2010 by David L. Wochner, Benjamin Norris, Caileen N. Gamache

Michael Bromwich, Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (“BOEM”) announced yesterday that he will lead a series of public meetings to collect information and views on offshore deepwater drilling safety, well blowout containment, and oil spill response. The meetings are designed to collect input from industry representatives, environmental organizations, the public, state and local leaders, and experts in an effort to enhance the safety of deepwater drilling. The meetings are scheduled to occur in August and September in the following cities: New Orleans, LA; Lafayette, LA; Mobile, AL; Pensacola, FL; Santa Barbara, CA; Anchorage, AK; Biloxi, MS; and Houston, TX. Director Bromwich plans to release dates and specific locations soon. Written comments will also be accepted at the meetings, online, and by mail.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38337393/ns/world_news-world_environment

Jiang He / AP
In this photo released by Greenpeace, a firefighter submerged in thick oil during an attempt to fix an underwater pump is brought ashore by his colleagues in Dalian, China on Tuesday.by CARA ANNA

updated 7/21/2010 7:51:14 AM ET
Share Print Font: +-BEIJING — China’s largest reported oil spill more than doubled in size to 165 square miles by Wednesday, forcing nearby beaches to close and prompting one official to warn of a “severe threat” to sea life and water quality.

The oil slick started spreading five days ago when a pipeline at a busy northeastern port exploded, sparking a massive fire that took more than 15 hours to contain. Hundreds of boats have been deployed to help with the cleanup.

At least one person has been killed in those efforts, a 25-year-old firefighter, Zhang Liang, who drowned Tuesday after a wave threw him from a vessel and pushed him out to sea, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. Another man who also fell in was rescued.

Beaches near Dalian, once named China’s most livable city, were closing as oil started reaching their shores, Xinhua reported.

“The oil spill will pose a severe threat to marine animals, and water quality, and the sea birds,” Huang Yong, deputy bureau chief for Dalian, China Maritime Safety Administration, told Dragon TV.

Crude oil started pouring into the Yellow Sea off a busy northeastern port after a pipeline exploded late last week, sparking a massive 15-hour fire.

The cause of the blast was still not clear Wednesday. The pipeline is owned by China National Petroleum Corp., Asia’s biggest oil and gas producer by volume.

Images of 100-foot-high flames shooting up near part of China’s strategic oil reserves drew the immediate attention of President Hu Jintao and other top leaders. Now the challenge is cleaning up the greasy brown plume floating off the shores of Dalian.

The environmental group, Greenpeace China, shot several photographs at the scene Tuesday before their team was forced to leave. They showed oil-slicked rocky beaches, a man covered in thick black sludge up to his cheekbones, and workers carrying a colleague covered in oil away from the scene.

Activists said it was too early to tell what impact the pollution might have on marine life.

Largest spill in recent memory
Officials told Xinhua they did not yet know how much oil had leaked, but China Central Television reported no more pollution, including oil and firefighting chemicals, had entered the sea Tuesday. It was not clear how far the spill was from China’s closest neighbor in the region, North Korea.

Dalian’s vice mayor, Dai Yulin, told Xinhua 40 specialized oil-control boats would be on the scene along with hundreds of fishing boats. Oil-eating bacteria were also being used in the cleanup.

“Our priority is to collect the spilled oil within five days to reduce the possibility of contaminating international waters,” he said.

But an official with the State Oceanic Administration has warned the spill will be difficult to clean up even in twice that amount of time.

The Dalian port is China’s second largest for crude oil imports, and last week’s spill appears to be the country’s largest in recent memory.

“In terms of what is known to the public, this is definitely the biggest,” said Yang Ailun, spokeswoman for Greenpeace China.

“Government and business leaders have been telling the media that there’s no environmental impact. From Greenpeace’s perspective, that’s very irresponsible,” she added. “It’s too early to tell. Oil is still floating around.”

While the Chinese public has not seized on the accident as its own version of the massive BP spill in the United States, warnings over the country’s increasing dependence on oil were clear.

The International Energy Agency said Tuesday that China has overtaken the United States as the world’s largest energy consumer, using the equivalent of 2.252 billion tons of oil last year. China immediately questioned the calculation.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Dear Friends of Florida’s waters:
I’m sure that each of you are doing the same thing I am, which is watching the television with bated-breath in hopes that the gushing hole in the Gulf of Mexico will soon cease to flow permanently. As we have been told, that will not be the end of this nightmare, but the end of the beginning. There is a tremendous amount of information available now, but the main problem that I have on a regular basis is figuring out what is credible and what is not. The news and information spans the spectrum between pure PR spin on the one hand to wild speculation on the other. This leaves many of us confused, discouraged and/or scared. What are we supposed to think?

Here’s what I have learned since our last update:

STATE AND FEDERAL RESPONSE EFFORTS – Local governments are reporting that coordination with the state has improved in recent weeks. Escambia County finally got reimbursed for the millions of dollars that they have spent up through the end of June and the state is in the process of taking over the private contract that Escambia County had negotiated to protect its coast and resources. The problem that was created for local governments when the state was changing its policies and procedures on a daily basis sometimes, has improved.

Another recent change is that BP now has a representative at several Panhandle local response sites. Early in the process, Escambia County offered its Emergency Operations Center as a central coordination site, but BP declined the offer. An operation center is now established at Bayou Chico and serves Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties. Other similar centers are established in counties to the east.

HEALTH AND SAFETY ISSUES:

Air quality – The DEP and EPA websites have air quality data from their monitoring stations but they are averaging the data over 24 hours or longer (maybe up to a week as far as I can tell), so that data is not helpful in my opinion. Lately the air quality in the western panhandle has been much better in terms of not smelling the oil like we have in previous weeks and months. However, our members in Panama City and Port St. Joe reported strong oil odors last week. They contacted the local health department who told them that the air was fine and that they were imagining the odors. Whatever.

Water quality – If you visit the FL DEP website, you will find air and water quality data. The problem is that they only have two basic findings: non-detect or detected but not believed to be related to the BP oil disaster. Hmmmmm . . . Just across the Florida/Alabama line, the water and sand were tested by the local TV station WKRG and they found high levels of oil in the beach and sand where children were swimming and playing.

There has been less oil coming ashore in the Panhandle over the past week or two and that seems to be mostly by the graces of Mother Nature, more than a great improvement in the mechanical efforts to keep the oil at bay. The NOAA website and others shows the concentration of surface oil to be about 80 to 90 miles off the coast of Pensacola today. There is essentially no way to keep the oil out of Pensacola Pass due to the depth and swift currents. The only thing that is being done is to try to clean it up after it enters the pass. It has moved at times as far as the Bob Sikes Bridge.

To track oil, the Coast Guard is using a hot-air blimp that cruises back and forth along the coast, which is actually quite impressive. They report that the oil is visible from above but is impossible to see from down in the water until late in the afternoon. They often see swimmers in the water with oil and they are completely unaware of its presence. All of the Florida beaches are open and ready for business.

At Perdido Pass, booms are being used with marginal success apparently. Destin Pass has a different technology in place, which is apparently being somewhat successful as well. The lengths of coastline that have no passes cut or maintained (for natural passes) seem to be getting a lot less oil on the beaches, such as Navarre Beach. I have no scientific information to support this observation, but it makes sense when you think about it.

Methane – http://204.90.20.174/oilspill/documents/methane_fact_sheet.pdf

This is DEP’s fact sheet on the concern that has been raised regarding the possibility of a tsunami that would be induced by a methane explosion under the floor of the Gulf at the well site. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. I truly don’t know what to think about this.

HURRICANES – Everyone on the Florida Gulf Coast should think about how a hurricane in the Gulf might affect their property and/or their ability to return home after a major hurricane. I have inquired of state Emergency officials if there will be a statewide policy regarding whether homeowners would be able to return home after a hurricane, if there was land contamination from oil/chemicals. I have been told that state emergency officials are discussing this issue but all decisions will be made on a county level.

In discussing this with NW Florida emergency operations officials, I was told that in the event that a storm washes oil/chemicals onto the land and/or into residences and businesses, there would be several factors to consider. If it is fresh oil that has not weathered and contains high levels of VOCs (volatile organic compounds), then that would be the worse case scenario as that would likely pose a health concern. If there is a health risk, then people will not be allowed to return to their homes as long as that risk is present.

If the debris is contaminated, or the roads are contaminated with oil/chemicals then that will dramatically slow down the removal and recovery process and time. In advance of a storm scenario, officials have no way of knowing if the oil would come ashore, how much oil could come ashore, where it would appear or whose property would be impacted. The prudent thing to do would be to remove anything that is important to you from your home or business that you aren’t willing to part with permanently.

There are many unknown answers to questions concerning liability in the event of a hurricane. You should definitely check with your insurance agent about what your coverage will offer you in terms of protection. One thing for sure is that federal flood insurance does not offer loss of use coverage. So, if there is a storm surge that deposits oil/chemicals on your property, making it unusable for a period of time and that is the only damage you have (meaning there is no wind damage that would trigger a wind policy claim) then even if you are prohibited from returning to your home by local authorities, you will have no loss of use coverage from your flood policy.

If there is wind and oil damage then the answers will vary depending on whom you have wind insurance with. Most wind policies exclude pollutants in the definition of damaged. Like I said, there are many unanswered questions at this point. As I find out more, I will pass the information on to you. There is a meeting of state Emergency Operations directors next week and this is one of the many discussions that will happen there.

Any liability that BP should assume will likely be addressed in a court setting and will probably not be settled quickly. I’m trying to think positively that the hurricanes are going to miss all of us for the next couple of years (at least).

Financial impact – one final bit of unwelcome news that I learned today from my insurance agent is that in the past week, he personally knows of two different mortgage companies that are refusing to write mortgages for homes on Pensacola Beach because of the oil. This is very troubling news and I’ll let you know when and if I learn more about it.

That’s probably enough information for one update. Much of this is not water quality related per se, but as we are seeing, the quality of our water can affect many aspects of our lives. We have seen in previous hurricanes that contaminants do get washed on shore and into peoples homes when storm surges occur. For instance, during hurricane Ivan, dioxin and arsenic contaminated sludge was dislodged from the bottom of Perdido Bay and washed into the yards and homes of hundreds of families living around the Bay. In that case the state and local governments couldn’t have cared less that a discharge from the International Paper Company mill in Pensacola had caused thousands of people to be at risk from exposure to these toxic chemicals. Local residents had to get the sludge tested to determine their risk level.

It is impossible to know how a similar situation involving BP’s oil will be handled. As individuals, we have little or no control over BP’s oil right now. But, facilities that are willfully discharging toxic chemicals into our coastal waters (many without current permits) while the FL DEP looks the other way, are putting us at risk and this lax implementation and enforcement of the Clean Water Act should end. These polluting industries include papermills, phosphate mines, coal-fired power plants, chemical plants, sewage plants, and others. If you live within 50 miles of any of these types of facilities, then you may want to check into your exposure risk in the event of a storm surge.

In closing, if you live anywhere along the Gulf Coast, I want to still urge you to make sure that your local government is ready to protect your local beaches and waters in the event that the oil makes its way to your area. It is better to be prepared and never have to use the plan than to suddenly find yourself facing oil contamination and have no precautions in place.

For all of Florida’s waters,
Linda Young
Director

What a pathetic political move. DV

The Senate took the next hour and a half to decide whether to stay and do something. Then voted 18-16 to go home, too.

Earlier in the day 300 representatives of people circled the Capitol joining hands, then filled the galleries of the House and Senate.

Sierra Club and the Tampa Bay Beaches Chamber of Commerce will hold a press conference at the Alden Beach Resort on St. Pete Beach at 4 p.m. to express our outrage at the Legislature for its refusal to let Florida voters decide whether to ban drilling in Florida’s near shore, territorial waters. We’ll send you all a copy of our statement.

Frank

“It ain’t over ’till it’s over, and even then it ain’t over” – Yogi Berra

–
Frank Jackalone
Senior Field Organizing Manager/ FL & PR
Sierra Club
111 Second Avenue, Suite 1001
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
(727)824-8813
frank.jackalone@sierraclub.org

I’m alarmed by the extent of dangerous activities allowed in offshore oil drilling. Where’s the enforcement of safety laws? DV

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/17/AR2010071702807.html?sub=AR

By Marc Kaufman, Carol D. Leonnig and David Hilzenrath
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 18, 2010

A year and a day before BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, crew members on a neighboring oil rig found themselves bracing for their own potential disaster.

A dangerous gas bubble surged up a well pipe, and the blowout preventers hadn’t worked. The crew reported hearing a “deafening roar” as fluids shot up, knocking over huge metal equipment on the deck. Alarms sounded. Some workers ran to lifeboats, while others stayed behind to control the well.

The accident on the rig, leased by Louisiana Land Oil and Gas (LLOG), was one of the 12,087 oil-related incidents in the gulf reported over the past five years to the federal Minerals Management Service — the now-revamped agency investigating the BP oil spill. The number of accidents, spills and deaths regularly occurring in the region has far surpassed the agency’s ability to investigate them.

Until now, 60 inspectors were tasked with investigating all types of incidents. Between 2006 and 2009, those included 30 worker deaths, 1,298 injuries, 514 fires and 23 blowouts that left wells out of control. They conducted 378 investigations in the gulf in roughly the same time period, with 21 considered worthy of more rigorous and extended scrutiny by a panel.

As federal inspectors work to dissect the underlying causes of the BP accident — an issue to be probed this week in a new round of joint panel hearings in Kenner, La. — The Washington Post reviewed several dozen serious MMS investigations in recent years to assess how they were conducted and found large variations in aggressiveness and outcome.

In some cases, investigators ran their own tests, tracked down witnesses and did complicated technical calculations. In others, they relied heavily on information and witness interviews provided by companies. Once their findings were forwarded to agency officials for review, many probes resulted in small fines or none at all.

MMS levied financial penalties 154 times in the past five years, agency officials testified last month. Although the agency now may assess fines of up to $35,000 per day, in five years it collected only $8.5 million. Its largest fine between 2000 and 2009 was $697,500, according to an MMS Web site.

It took 11 months for MMS to finalize its report in the LLOG case, and along the way it sometimes accepted the accounts of company officials without probing more deeply, the report shows.

Investigators asked to see a safety valve provided by a subcontractor, Halliburton Corp. When Halliburton told investigators the device was under repair and couldn’t be examined, an inspector accepted the company’s assertions and data. Kendra Barkoff, an Interior Department spokeswoman, said Saturday that the valve played no role in the accident.

The inquiry concluded that no rules had been broken, no fines were warranted, and the agency’s response should be to alert the industry to potential risks. Barkoff noted that “some accidents are just that: accidents that involve no wrongdoing or criminal or negligent behavior.”

The team looking into that case was led by Frank Patton, a veteran investigator also responsible for monitoring the Deepwater Horizon rig. In recent weeks, Patton has testified that he approved a BP drilling plan that other oil companies and drilling experts have said was deeply flawed.

The supervisor who approved the LLOG report was J. David Dykes, co-chairman of the joint panel with the Coast Guard that on Monday begins its second round of hearings into the BP blowout. Dykes referred questions to Barkoff, who also answered for Patton. “Frank Patton and David Dykes . . . are committed to ensuring the safety of offshore energy operation,” Barkoff said.

In an interview, Michael Bromwich, director of the MMS successor agency, the Bureau of Ocean Energy, declined to look back on specific MMS investigations but said he believes performance will improve with the addition of up to 200 new inspectors in coming years. He said there are many dedicated and hardworking inspectors examining the industry.

“I’ve certainly heard and read the agency wasn’t aggressive in the past,” he said. “And given the revenues coming into the companies, the fines seem like a paltry amount. But going forward, when we find violations we will really impose sanctions that fit those violations.”

Some observers, like Christopher Jones of Baton Rouge, want assurances that the joint panel looking into the BP accident will hold industry accountable. Jones, whose 28-year-old brother, Gordon, was among the 11 who died in the Deepwater Horizon explosion, said the oil companies should not be left to “brush aside their inspections and continue doing whatever they want to do.”

Some panel investigations reflect rigorous scrutiny. They show accident inspectors analyzing complicated calculations, including gas pressure, fluid chemical compositions and equipment strength.

Even when inspectors documented long-standing problems, sometimes the companies were not fined, the Post review found. Even the toughest fines appeared to have little impact. Dan Donovan, a spokesman for Dominion Exploration & Production, said he could find no evidence of a $675,500 fine cited against the company on an MMS Web site and questioned its accuracy.
“That’s the largest fine? That’s unbelievable,” Donovan said.

MMS focused on delinquent paperwork in 2007 after chronicling a leaking pipeline near a Stone Energy platform that had needed attention for six months. The company at first denied responsibility when five small oil slicks showed up near its production platform. A few days later, a larger oil slick, 30 miles long and six miles wide, was reported near the Stone platform.

When the larger spill surfaced and an MMS inspector visited the platform, “the Operator initially questioned the possibility” that it was responsible, the report said. Two tests that day requested by MMS verified that the Stone pipe was leaking. In reviewing Stone’s paperwork, MMS discovered that required corrosion tests had not been performed for some time. Divers who went down to inspect the pipes found four holes. At the end of its investigation, the MMS team wrote that the corroded pipes had been vulnerable for “at least six months.” It did not recommend a fine, penalty or industry warning. Instead, it suggested the agency “reanalyze its procedures” to track delinquent reports. Stone spokesman Tim O’Leary said the company believed the pipeline damage “was not caused by corrosion but by mechanical damage, such as an anchor dragging over the pipeline during Hurricane Katrina.”

In March 2000, Dykes was called upon to help investigate one of his former employers, Burlington Resources. A crane operator was seriously injured when his crane collapsed while carrying too much load at an unsafe angle.
Working at night and in heavy winds, the Burlington rig workers tried to move a heavy tank from a boat onto the rig deck. The crane operator radioed the boat master to reposition, and the master explained the weather conditions were making the task difficult. A supervisor ordered work to proceed anyway. After lifting the tank six feet, the crane snapped in four places. Parts tumbled — with the operator — onto the boat. Co-workers pulled him from the wreckage before the rest of the crane toppled.

Dykes’s team found that Burlington “failed to ensure that daily crane inspections were performed . . . failed to ensure that all onside supervisors adhere to [safety] guidelines” and learned little from a similar 1996 crane failure on one of its platforms.

The team cited no violations, and no fines were imposed. The investigators recommended a safety alert instead and urged MMS to audit outdated cranes.
While the safety of oil-rig work has improved over the years, death and injury remain ever-present threats. In July 2006, for instance, a crew member of the vessel Lorelay stood in the “pinch point” between two giant pipe segments. As he worked, one of the pipes moved along a conveyor and pinned him from behind, crushing him.

MMS investigators tried to assess what set the second pipe in motion. They visited the scene the next day, interviewed some of the crew, gathered documents and reviewed the findings of an investigation by the ship owner.

Two workers were nearby at the time of the incident but said they saw nothing. Closed-circuit cameras also monitored the area, but the investigators reported that the cameras did not work on the day of the accident.

The panel’s findings were inconclusive. “The fatality was caused by the inside conveyor system becoming inadvertently energized,” it noted, “causing uncontrolled pipe movement.”

Staff writer Steven Mufson contributed to this story.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.ecorigs.org/EcoRigsOilSpill.html

Report:
On July 15th 2010, Scott Porter, a member of EcoRigs, observed a new type of subsurface oil and dispersant signature. It consisted of a large plume of white stringy mucus like materials. It was observed at two locations (Grand Isle (GI) 93 & GI 90) approximately occupying the area between 40 ft and 120 ft below the surface (maybe deeper). The substance varied in size from small flakes to long strings that extended up to 6 feet. (See video July 15, 2010)
There were two distinct plumes of oil and dispersants on July 15th at GI 93 and 90, there was the more common subsurface plume, the brown cloudy plume consisting of fine particulate matter located in the upper 30 ft of the water column. The last time we visited GI 93, on June 16th, we saw the same brown particulate signature except that it was confined to the upper 20 feet of the water column. The white mucus-like plume was not present during the June 16 dive and the depth of the more common brown plume did not appear to be as large. There was no surface oil or sheen on either day.
There was a third plume observed on the bottom We could not verify the depth of the plume or whether the plume on the ocean floor consisted of oil and dispersants. The soils in the area are often composed of silts deposited there by the Mississippi River or other tributaries. Sediment could have been re-suspended by active currents; the structure was near the Mississippi Canyon area. Also, the area experiences hypoxic areas during the summer months, and the plume above the seafloor could be a part of the nephloid layer that appears every year.
EcoRigs has observed similar mucus-like material in the water before; however, it was brown and different in shape and was not as persistent. At Main Pass (MP) 311, on June 6th, large globs of semi-translucent mucus like materials were present below the brown particulate type of plume (See June 6th 2010 video). On this day, the common brown oil and dispersant plume consisting of fine particulates, occupied the upper 20 feet of the water column. (See video June 6th 2010)
Finally, EcoRigs is presenting base line data of water conditions found at GI 93. Please view video captured in July 2009 and October 2008 at GI 93. The fish population observed during pre-spill visits appeared different from the current population. There was and still remains a large population of fish at GI 93 and 90 although the species composition has appears to have changed. Large populations of red snapper and amberjack were present on July 15th far more than we have seen there in the past. Video and analysis of fish and invertebrate populations are forthcoming.

Best Regards, Steve Kolian 225-910-0304 cell

Special thanks to Steve Kolian of ecorigs.org

In the wake of the BP drilling disaster, state Sierra Club chapters across the country are working to limit, restrict, etc. off shore drilling in their state legislatures. We picked up our first win in North Carolina last week. Here’s a quick write up:

Limiting Off-shore Drilling in NC

SB 836 “Oil Spill Liability, Response, & Preparedness” enacted. The bill aims to increase the protection of North Carolina’s coastline from offshore drilling and potential spills. The Act removes the current cap on the amount recoverable by the State for the cost of clean up and any resulting damages to public resources in the case of an oil spill. The Act also modifies the state’s Coastal Area Management Act (CAMA) by requiring, in the case of a consistency review, significant planning and preparation for potential spills regarding offshore activities before any leases could move forward. The act directs the Coastal Resources Commission to review existing laws and regulations that pertain to offshore energy production and exploration in light of the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon spill and to recommend modifications to the law as they see fit. Lastly, the act directs the department of Crime Control and public Safety to immediately review and update the state oil spill contingency plan in order to prepare the state in the event of oil from the BP spill reaching our shores.

WHEN: 2010.07.08
WHERE: NC

Tactical Highlights:

The spill in the Gulf of Mexico moved public opinion from somewhat supporting off-shore drilling in NC to being against. The bill remained realtively unaltered as it moved through the legislative process. The few changes the bill saw were mainly focused on logistics and legal wording. The North Carolina Chapter worked closely with North Carolina Conservation Network, Conservation Council of North Carolina, Environment North Carolina, and Coastal Federation to achieve the bill’s passage.

*********************************************************
Athan Manuel
Director of Lands Protection
Sierra Club
408 C St. NE
Washington, DC 20002
202-548-4580 / fax 547-6009
cell: 202-716-0006
athan.manuel@sierraclub.org

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gIXWYBTpLtSayJtg41LKXpxSxVPAD9H1N4B05

By COLLEEN LONG and HARRY R. WEBER (AP) – July 18th, 2010

NEW ORLEANS – A federal official says scientists are concerned about a seep and possible methane near BP’s busted oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Both could be signs there are leaks in the well that’s been capped off for three days.

The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Sunday because an announcement about the next steps had not been made yet.

The official is familiar with the spill oversight but would not clarify what is seeping near the well. The official says BP is not complying with the government’s demand for more monitoring.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) – The custom-built cap that finally cut off the oil flowing from BP’s broken well held steady Sunday, and the company hopes to leave it that way until crews can permanently kill the leak.

That differs from the plan the federal government laid out a day earlier, in which millions more gallons of oil could be released before the cap is connected to tankers at the surface and oil is sent to be collected through a mile of pipes.

Federal officials wary of making the well unstable have said that plan would relieve pressure on the cap and may be the safer option, but it would mean three days of oil flowing into the Gulf before the collection begins.

Both sides downplayed the apparent contradiction in plans. Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who will make the final decision, said the containment plan he described Saturday hadn’t changed, and that he and BP executives were on the same page.

“No one associated with this whole activity … wants to see any more oil flow into the Gulf of Mexico,” said Doug Suttles, BP PLC’s chief operating officer. “Right now we don’t have a target to return the well to flow.”

Allen said more work is needed to better understand why pressure readings from the well cap are lower than expected. There could be two reasons, he said: either there’s less oil in the reservoir because so much has flowed out, or oil is leaking out underground.

“While we are pleased that no oil is currently being released into the Gulf of Mexico and want to take all appropriate action to keep it that way, it is important that all decisions are driven by the science,” Allen said.

Both Allen and BP have said they don’t know how long the trial run will continue. It was set to end Sunday afternoon, but the deadline – an extension from the original Saturday cutoff – came and went with no word on what’s next.

After little activity Sunday, robots near the well cap came to life around the time of the cutoff. It wasn’t clear what they were doing, but bubbles started swirling around as their robotic arms poked at the mechanical cap.

Work continued on the permanent fix: two relief wells, one being drilled as a backup. The company said work on the first one was far enough along that officials expect to reach the broken well’s casing, or pipes, deep underground by late this month. Then the job of jamming the busted well with mud and cement could take “a number of days through a few weeks.”

Some boat captains were surprised and angry to learn that their work helping with the cleanup will mean less money they’re eligible to claim from the $20 billion compensation fund set up by BP.

The fund’s administrator, Kenneth Feinberg, told The Associated Press on Sunday that if BP pays fishermen wages to help skim oil and perform other cleanup work, those wages will be subtracted from the amount they get from the fund.

Longtime charter boat captain Mike Salley said he didn’t realize BP planned to deduct those earnings, and he doubted many other captains knew, either.

“I’ll keep running my boat,” he said Sunday on a dock in Orange Beach, Ala., before heading back into the Gulf to resupply other boats with boom to corral the oil. “What else can I do?”

It will take months, or possibly years for the Gulf to recover. But there were signs that people were trying to get life – or at least a small part of it – back to normal.
The public beach at Gulf Shores, Ala., had its busiest day in weeks on Saturday despite oil-stained sand and a dark line of tar balls left by high tide.

Darryl Allen of Fairhope, Ala., and Pat Carrasco of Baton Rouge, La., came to the beach to throw a Frisbee just like they’ve been doing for the past 30 years. With oil on people’s minds more than the weather, Allen asked what’s become a common question since the well integrity test began: “How’s the pressure? I hope it’s going up,” he said. “You don’t want to be too optimistic after all that’s happened.”

People also were fishing again, off piers and in boats, after most of the recreational waters in Louisiana were reopened late this week. More than a third of federal waters are still closed and off-limits to commercial fishermen.

“I love to fish,” said Brittany Lawson, hanging her line off a pier beside the Grand Isle Bridge. “I love to come out here.”

And even though it has been only days since the oil was turned off, the naked eye could spot improvements on the water. The crude appeared to be dissipating quickly on the surface of the Gulf around the Deepwater Horizon site.

Members of a Coast Guard crew that flew over the wellhead Saturday said far less oil was visible than a day earlier. Only a colorful sheen and a few long streams of rust-colored, weathered oil were apparent in an area covered weeks earlier by huge patches of black crude. Somewhere between 94 million and 184 million gallons have spilled into the Gulf, according to government estimates.

Weber reported from Houston. Michael Kunzelman in New Orleans and Jay Reeves in Orange Beach, Ala., also contributed to this report.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20100718/OPINION/7181011/2078/OPINION

Published: Sunday, July 18, 2010 at 1:00 a.m.

Hopefully, this is the beginning of a rational overhaul of oil policies….DV

Many oil industry officials and leaders in Louisiana oppose a deepwater drilling moratorium, saying that it is economically harsh, overly broad and unjustified.

But a new memorandum from the U.S. Secretary of the Interior lays out a startlingly clear case for systemic overhaul — not just a pause — in deepwater oil exploration.

A new Bloomberg poll indicates that the nation sees the BP oil spill more as a freak accident than an industrywide indictment of deepwater drilling practices.

However, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s words provide ample reason to reconsider that viewpoint. “I cannot conclude at this time that deepwater drilling can move forward in a safe and environmentally sound manner,” Salazar states in his July 12 “decision memorandum.”

Newly identified concerns

The document outlines his reasons for a new moratorium on deepwater exploratory drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific. An earlier moratorium — enacted after the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig triggered the BP Macondo spill — was suspended by the courts.

“The current regulatory regime for offshore operations is not sufficient to ensure safety and environmental protection,” Salazar explained. “Until the Department can implement rules to address newly identified deepwater drilling concerns, rig by rig compliance reviews conducted under the current regime cannot ensure safety.”

Salazar imposed the new deepwater moratorium until Nov. 30, allowing time for investigations to wrap up and regulatory changes to get under way. Yet he noted that the moratorium might have to be extended “if the results of the various investigations reveal significant unexpected risks.”

We question whether the needed safety changes can be implemented in just a few months. The concerns raised by Salazar involve significant issues of design, industrial practices, response training, equipment and expense.

‘Not an isolated incident’

For example, the memo said that testing has raised new worries about the reliability of blow-out preventers (BOPs) — critically important equipment whose failure is believed to be a chief cause of the Gulf spill.

“It is clear that the apparent performance problem with the Deepwater Horizon’s BOP is not an isolated incident,” Salazar asserted. “Performance problems have also been identified in recent weeks with the BOPs on the relief wells that BP is drilling. The problems have been uncovered during new testing requirements that were imposed on the relief wells after the BP Oil Spill, thus providing more evidence that prior testing requirements were inadequate. It is unlikely that these problems are unique to BP.”

Elsewhere in the memo:

He noted endemic challenges posed by deepwater conditions, including inaccessibility of wells; the formation of methane hydrates; pressure problems that complicate well-cementing procedures; and limited availability of remotely operated deepwater vehicles to effect repairs.

He cited the impact hurricanes would have on spill-containment efforts and cited shortcomings in drillers’ emergency response plans.

“This is not a question of a specific operator’s record, but a measure of the adequacy of the entire industry’s containment plans and capacity to address major spills in the deepwater environment,” Salazar stated. “BP was not the only operator drilling with inadequate plans.”

He explained that deepwater oil fields can have five to 10 times the flow of oil seen in shallow-water wells, so an accident would discharge much larger quantities.

BP’s 86-day struggle “to contain the Macondo blowout and spill provides continuing evidence that BP — and the rest of the industry … had not prepared to contain a blowout in the deepwater environment,” the secretary stated. “Substantial improvement in the industry’s safety practices and procedures relating to offshore drilling, particularly with respect to deepwater drilling conducted from floating rigs and production facilities, is necessary.”

‘Any responsible government’

Salazar’s 22-page memo calls for a moratorium, not the abolition of deepwater drilling. But his critique all but admits that, in its current state, the industry is not ready for prime time.

The BP disaster is even causing doubts in Europe, where deepwater drilling has a longer history.

“I think it is really not justifiable to be issuing licenses or permits for further drilling operations at this moment,” Gunther Oettinger, Energy Commissioner of the European Union, was quoted as saying last week. He called for a moratorium on new deepwater drilling until the cause of the BP spill is better understood.

“Given the current circumstances, any responsible government would at present practically freeze new permits for drilling with extreme parameters and conditions,” he told the European Parliament.

In the U.S., drilling-related industries seem likely to contest Salazar’s new moratorium on economic and other grounds.

Certainly, a suspension of deepwater exploratory oil drilling will cause economic disruption, but dollar signs shouldn’t blind anyone to the rest of the picture: oily tides swirling through Gulf waters, shores and wetlands; paralyzed seafood and tourism industries; dead dolphins and wildlife.

Until deepwater drilling can be done right, it should not be done at all.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www2.highlandstoday.com/content/2010/jul/18/la-lets-step-back-and-pass-good-laws-about-offshor/

Highlands Today
Published: July 18, 2010

Drilling for offshore oil is a touchy subject these days, and rightfully so. The thought of more drilling and possibly more accidents makes most of us ill, considering the damage already done by BP’s recent spill in the Gulf. But we should hold off before making decisions about more drilling until everyone’s thinking rationally. This is important, and we must think it through.

Gov. Charlie Crist is calling a special session of the Florida Legislature to discuss banning offshore oil drilling in Florida’s waters. He wants a Florida constitutional amendment to make sure the Legislature doesn’t mess with the law once it’s in place.
We don’t necessarily disagree with Crist’s idea on this. We are as horrified as anyone about the disaster that’s happened in the Gulf and it is fouling our beaches and killing business and the environment. If passing a constitutional amendment fixes that, we’re all for it.

Truth is, though, the BP spill wasn’t in Florida waters. Other big offshore rigs are nowhere near us, but if they spill, it likely will affect us as much as anyone. And if we ban drilling in offshore waters, just one foot past these forbidden zones could be oil wells.
The bottom line is let’s try to calm ourselves a bit before making nearly permanent decisions. We must consider everything, and make sure decisions we make now in anger are really the right decisions for Florida.

Perhaps they are the perfect solution. And maybe with Crist in office for a few months more, this is the absolute best time to do this. But we must make decisions like this with a clear mind and considering every possible ramification. If we don’t, we might be making a bad decision while trying to fix a bad situation.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/us/20oilspill.html

By HENRY FOUNTAIN
Published: July 19, 2010

A pressure test of BP’s undersea well that has kept fresh oil from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico will be allowed to continue for another day, despite concerns about potential new problems near the well, the government official overseeing the spill response said Monday.

Late Sunday, the government ordered BP to step up monitoring of the well after “undetermined anomalies” were discovered on the seafloor nearby. The government’s top official in the Gulf response, retired Coast Guard admiral Thad W. Allen, said that government scientists had talked late Sunday with BP about a seep and the possible detection of methane around the well.

“I authorized BP to continue the integrity test for another 24 hours and I restated our firm position that this test will only continue if they continue to meet their obligations to rigorously monitor for any signs that this test could worsen the overall situation,” Admiral Allen said in a statement.

On Sunday, after three days of encouraging pressure tests, a senior BP official said that the company’s recently capped well in the Gulf of Mexico was holding up and that BP now hoped to keep the well closed until it could be permanently plugged. BP’s plan differs sharply from the one the company and the federal government had suggested only a day earlier, to eventually allow the flow of oil to resume temporarily, collecting it through pipes to surface ships.

If BP succeeds in keeping the cap atop the well closed until a relief well is finished, that would mean the gusher would effectively be over, three months — and tens of millions of gallons of oil — after it began. It would be a major turnaround after weeks of failure for the oil giant, which had been harshly criticized as being unprepared for such a disaster.

“We’re hopeful,” Doug Suttles, the company’s chief operating officer for exploration and production, said in a conference call with reporters Sunday morning.

“Right now we do not have a target to return the well to flow,” he said.

The federal government was more cautious, saying Sunday in a letter to the company, that tests had detected a seep — usually a flow of hydrocarbons from the seafloor — “a distance from the well.” A seep could be evidence that oil or gas or both are escaping from the well up to the seafloor. But seeps also occur naturally.

And while the letter said the federal government would allow the test to continue for now, the discovery of a seep and the unspecified anomalies suggest that the well could be damaged and that it may have to be reopened soon to avoid making the situation worse.

The pressure testing, which began Thursday with the closing of valves on the cap and is designed to assess the condition of the well, was originally expected to last 48 hours. “We need to be careful in predicting how long it will go,” Mr. Suttles said.

If a problem crops up, he said, collection systems could be restarted, some within a few hours. In a few weeks there should be enough capacity to collect more than the high estimate of 60,000 barrels a day. But Mr. Suttles said that if valves on the cap were reopened to restart collection, oil would pour anew into the gulf for up to three days.

If the well is not reopened, it could mean that the precise volume of oil that leaked — the well has been estimated to be flowing at a rate of 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day — may never be known. That raises the question of whether the company might escape some liability for the spill.

It has been an encouraging several days for BP, but it comes after many engineering efforts that produced little but a lexicon of strange terms, all defining failure: containment dome, junk shot and top kill among them.

Even the good news about the test and the new cap, which was installed last week, left many wondering why the project could not have happened earlier.

BP has pointed out that the concept — essentially, putting a new blowout preventer atop the existing one that failed when the Deepwater Horizon drill rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers — had been in the works since shortly after the disaster occurred. They have said, and diaries and other documents tend to bear out, that ideas were worked on in parallel, with those that were easier to accomplish and had a greater chance of succeeding being tried first.

In a discussion with a reporter in mid-May, Kent Wells, a senior BP vice president in charge of the subsea work, and others described in broad terms an option to install a second preventer if the top kill, in which heavy drilling mud was to be pumped into the well to stop oil and gas from coming up, did not work.

The top kill failed and one proposed explanation at the time was that the well was damaged. That put a halt, for a while, to talk of putting another blowout preventer or other tight-sealing cap on the well, out of concern that a buildup of pressure could further damage the well.

But the idea was revived, and in June BP considered using the blowout preventer from the Development Driller II rig, which was working on the second relief well, for the job. The company halted drilling of the well, aiming to bring the blowout preventer to the surface. But the federal government intervened and ordered BP to continue drilling the well as a backup in case anything went wrong with the first relief well.

The cap that was eventually used was designed and built more or less from scratch, although off-the-shelf valves and rams were used. And as with any engineering project, particularly one being conducted by remotely operated submersibles a mile underwater, installation procedures had to be devised and practiced.

That practice appeared to pay off last week when the cap was installed. It was by far the smoothest operation of the many that had been undertaken in the three-month disaster.

With the valves on the cap closed and the gulf still free of fresh oil on Sunday, Mr. Suttles said that skimming ships near the site were collecting far less oily water. Only one controlled burn was conducted Saturday, compared with 19 the day before, he said. And there were no new reports of oil reaching the shore.

“There is less and less oil to recover,” he said.

Barring bad weather, the relief well, which will be used to pump heavy mud, followed by cement, into the blown-out well to seal it permanently, may be ready by the end of July, although it may take several more weeks for the process to be completed, Mr. Suttles said.

Jack Healy contributed reporting from New York.

Note that House leaders still plan on blocking the vote. It is imperative that we generate thousands of calls to House members and get out to their offices on Monday to deliver a strong message that they must let the voters decide this issue.

- Frank Jackalone, Sierra Club frank.jackalone@sierraclub.org

July 16, 2010

By Mary Ellen Klas, Lee Logan, Steve Bousquet and Cristina Silva, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
Next week’s special session may test Republican leaders’ brawn.
TALLAHASSEE – Fearing a major victory for Gov. Charlie Crist, Florida Republican leaders are prepared to take drastic action – even blocking a historic vote on a constitutional amendment banning offshore oil drilling.
Legislators are expected to reluctantly convene a special session next week called by the governor, then swiftly reject a plan that would attract his supporters to the polls.
A survey of House Republicans shows the party’s caucus is so deeply divided over the amendment that leaders fear it would be difficult for Republicans to stand up to Crist and vote against bringing the issue to the voters.
At least 14 Republicans and one Democrat who supported legislation in 2009 to open Florida waters to oil drilling now support asking voters to decide on a ban, according to a survey of legislators by the St. Petersburg Times and the Miami Herald.
Combined with 43 Democrats who are expected to support the constitutional amendment, there are at least 58 solid votes in support. Another eight Republicans, most of them in coastal districts, declined to state a position and 23 Republicans could not be reached.
”If we vote on it, I believe it will pass,” said Rep. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, a Miami Republican and majority whip, who last year supported a plan to open Florida waters from three to 10 miles off shore to oil and gas drilling.
He said that if he were voting on the constitutional ban, he would be ”leaning yes,” but instead is angered that the governor called the session ”for selfish reasons.”
Legislators need 72 votes in the House and 24 votes in the Senate to put the amendment on the November ballot, but rather than take up the governor’s proposal and soundly defeat it, the House is expected to convene and adjourn without taking a vote.
Rep. Sandy Adams, R-Oviedo, wants them to at least vote on her bill to chastise Crist for wasting taxpayer money by calling for what she considers an unneeded session.
Rep. John Tobia, R-Satellite Beach, echoed the comments of many Republicans about Crist’s proposal, calling it ”nothing more than a political stunt.”
Even legislators who support the ban are critical of Crist for failing to use the session to address more immediate needs, such as passing legislation to give economic relief to businesses and families in northwest Florida.
Rep. Anitere Flores, R-Miami, said that while she supports putting the amendment on the ballot ”you have to question the governor’s motives.”
Rep. Marcelo Llorente, R-Miami, said that while he would like to vote to put the amendment on the ballot, taxpayer money could have been better spent to ”address all those issues while we are up there.”
Tuesday’s no-vote would mark a new low in the steadily deteriorating relationship between the former Republican governor and GOP lawmakers.
Since Crist abandoned the Republican Party in April and announced he is running for U.S. Senate as a non-party candidate against former House Speaker Marco Rubio, a Republican, and Democrats Kendrick Meek and Jeff Greene, he has hinted he would call a special session in time to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot by the Aug. 4 deadline.
But the sharply partisan House leadership stonewalled the governor, even refusing to answer his phone calls. Meanwhile, Senate leaders suggested they were open to a special session, especially one that would also provide economic relief to regions crippled by the oil disaster.
Crist instead scheduled the four-day session to deal with the constitutional amendment alone, saying there was no urgency to the economic issues.
”For them to put their animosity toward me above the will and what’s right for the people of this state would be stunningly shortsighted,” Crist told theTimes/Herald.
Democrats also believe Republicans are out to punish Crist and prevent him from using the issue to drive supporters to the polls. ”It’s a bunch of kids that want to take their ball and go home,” said Rep. Scott Randolph, D-Orlando.
Some legislators oppose using the Constitution to impose a ban, while others say it is wrong to preclude future generations – especially since there are the known deep natural gas reserves along Florida’s Gulf Coast.
”Safe offshore oil drilling ought not to be prohibited in our Constitution,” said Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, who is also chairman of the Republican Party of Florida.
He acknowledged that the party has conducted a poll on the issue but the decision to not take a vote on the proposed amendment was not intended to offset popular support for a ban, but to give voters more time to determine the causes and consequences of the oil spill before amending the Constitution.
”Why rush into approving a constitutional amendment when we already have a statute that bans oil drilling,” he said.
Other lawmakers lament the bitterness the issue has spawned.
”There’s not going to be any winners out of this special session,” warned Rep. Mike Weinstein, R-Jacksonville. ”We’ll all be looked upon as wasting the taxpayers’ money and time because we don’t have our act together.”
Rep. Clay Ford, a Gulf Breeze Republican agreed. By not allowing voters a voice on the oil ban, ”It may intensify the anti-incumbent feeling already out there,” he said. ”It’s sort of a calculated risk. I don’t think it’s worth taking that risk. Most of us are up for re-election.”
Mary Ellen Klas can be reached at meklas@MiamiHerald.com

Here’s how House Republicans contacted by the Times/Herald said they plan to vote on the proposed constitutional ban on oil drilling if it comes before them. Nearly all 44 House Democrats are expected to support the proposal.

Yes:
Rep. Marti Coley, Marianna
Rep. Faye Culp, Tampa
Rep. Greg Evers, Baker
Rep. Anitere Flores, Miami
Rep. Clay Ford, Gulf Breeze
Rep. Jim Frishe, St. Petersburg
Rep. Ed Homan, Tampa
Rep. Marcelo Llorente, Miami
Rep. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, Miami
Rep. Peter Nehr, Tarpon Springs
Rep. Jimmy Patronis, Panama City
Rep. J.C. Planas, Miami
Rep. Ron Schultz, Homosassa
Rep. Juan Zapata, Miami

No:
Rep. Sandy Adams, Oviedo
Rep. Dean Cannon, Winter Park
Rep. Larry Cretul, Ocala
Rep. Steve Crisafulli, Merritt Island
Rep. Chris Dorworth, Lake Mary
Rep. Rich Glorioso, Plant City
Rep. Eddy Gonzalez, Hialeah
Rep. Denise Grimsley, Lake Placid
Rep. Alan Hays, Umatilla
Rep. Ed Hooper, Clearwater
Rep. Mike Horner, Kissimmee
Rep. Mike Hudson, Naples
Rep. Kurt Kelly, Ocala
Rep. Paige Kreegel, Punta Gorda
Rep. Debbie Mayfield, Vero Beach
Rep. Seth McKeel, Lakeland
Rep. Dave Murzin, Pensacola
Rep. Pat Patterson, DeLand
Rep. Scott Plakon, Longwood
Rep. Ralph Poppell, Vero Beach
Rep. Ron Renuart, Ponte Verda Beach
Rep. Julio Robaina, Miami
Rep. Matt Gaetz, Fort Walton Beach
Rep. Will Snyder, Stuart
Rep. John Tobia, Satellite Beach
Rep. Will Weatherford, Wesley Chapel
Rep. Mike Weinstein, Jacksonville
Rep. Rich Workman, Melbourne

Declined to answer/unsure:
Rep. Ellyn Bogdanoff, Fort Lauderdale
Rep. Adam Hasner, Delray Beach
Rep. Doug Holder, Sarasota
Rep. John Legg, Port Richey
Rep. Marlene O’Toole, Lady Lake
Rep. David Rivera, Miami
Rep. Rob Schenck, Spring Hill
Rep. Kelli Stargel, Lakeland

Could not be reached:
Rep. Janet Adkins, Fernandina Beach
Rep. Kevin Ambler, Tampa
Rep. Tom Anderson, Dunedin
Rep. Gary Aubuchon, Cape Coral
Rep. Steve Bovo, Hialeah
Rep. Jennifer Caroll, Fleming Island
Rep. Carl Domino, Jupiter
Rep. Brad Drake, Eucheeanna
Rep. Eric Eisnaugle, Orlando
Rep. Erik Fresen, Miami
Rep. Tom Grady, Naples
Rep. Dorothy Hukill, Port Orange
Rep. Charles McBurney, Jacksonville
Rep. Bryan Nelson, Apopka
Rep. Steve Precourt, Orlando
Rep. Bill Proctor, St. Augustine
Rep. Lake Ray, Jacksonville
Rep. Ron Reagan, Bradenton
Rep. Ken Roberson, Port Charlotte
Rep. Nick Thompson, Fort Myers
Rep. Charles Van Zant, Keystone Heights
Rep. Trudi Williams, Fort Myers
Rep. John Wood, Winter Haven

Yes only if it is temporary ban
Rep. Baxter Troutman, Winter Haven

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/07/bp_buys_up_gulf_scientists_for.html

Published: Friday, July 16, 2010, 5:00 AM Updated: Friday, July 16, 2010, 4:14 PM
Ben Raines, Press-Register

For the last few weeks, BP has been offering signing bonuses and lucrative pay to prominent scientists from public universities around the Gulf Coast to aid its defense against spill litigation.

BP PLC attempted to hire the entire marine sciences department at one Alabama university, according to scientists involved in discussions with the company’s lawyers. The university declined because of confidentiality restrictions that the company sought on any research.

The Press-Register obtained a copy of a contract offered to scientists by BP. It prohibits the scientists from publishing their research, sharing it with other scientists or speaking about the data that they collect for at least the next three years.

“We told them there was no way we would agree to any kind of restrictions on the data we collect. It was pretty clear we wouldn’t be hearing from them again after that,” said Bob Shipp, head of marine sciences at the University of South Alabama. “We didn’t like the perception of the university representing BP in any fashion.”

BP officials declined to answer the newspaper’s questions about the matter. Among the questions: how many scientists and universities have been approached, how many are under contract, how much will they be paid, and why the company imposed confidentiality restrictions on scientific data gathered on its behalf.

Shipp said he can’t prohibit scientists in his department from signing on with BP because, like most universities, the staff is allowed to do outside consultation for up to eight hours a week.

More than one scientist interviewed by the Press-Register described being offered $250 an hour through BP lawyers. At eight hours a week, that amounts to $104,000 a year.

Scientists from Louisiana State University, University of Southern Mississippi and Texas A&M have reportedly accepted, according to academic officials. Scientists who study marine invertebrates, plankton, marsh environments, oceanography, sharks and other topics have been solicited.

The contract makes it clear that BP is seeking to add scientists to the legal team that will fight the Natural Resources Damage Assessment lawsuit that the federal government will bring as a result of the Gulf oil spill.

The government also filed a NRDA suit after the Exxon Valdez spill.

In developing its case, the government will draw on the large amount of scientific research conducted by academic institutions along the Gulf. Many scientists being pursued by BP serve at those institutions.

Robert Wiygul, an Ocean Springs lawyer who specializes in environmental law, said that he sees ethical questions regarding the use of publicly owned laboratories and research vessels to conduct confidential work on behalf of a private company.

Also, university officials who spoke with the newspaper expressed concern about the potential loss of federal research money tied to professors working for BP.

With its payments, BP buys more than the scientists’ services, according to Wiygul. It also buys silence, he said, thanks to confidentiality clauses in the contracts.

“It makes me feel like they were more interested in making sure we couldn’t testify against them than in having us testify for them,” said George Crozier, head of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, who was approached by BP.

“It makes me feel like they were more interested in making sure we couldn’t testify against them than in having us testify for them,” said George Crozier, head of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, who was approached by BP.

Richard Shaw, associate dean of LSU’s School of the Coast and Environment, said that the BP contracts are already hindering the scientific community’s ability to monitor the affects of the Gulf spill.

“The first order of business at the research meetings is to get all the disclosures out. Who has a personal connection to BP? We have to know how to deal with that person,” Shaw said. “People are signing on with BP because the government funding to the universities has been so limited. It’s a sad state of affairs.”

Wiygul, who examined the BP contract for the Press-Register, described it as “exceptionally one-sided.”

“This is not an agreement to do research for BP,” Wiygul said. “This is an agreement to join BP’s legal team. You agree to communicate with BP through their attorneys and to take orders from their attorneys.

“The purpose is to maintain any information or data that goes back and forth as privileged.”

The contract requires scientists to agree to withhold data even in the face of a court order if BP decides to fight such an order. It stipulates that scientists will be paid only for research approved in writing by BP.

The contracts have the added impact of limiting the number of scientists who’re able to with federal agencies. “Let’s say BP hired you because of your work with fish. The contract says you can’t do any work for the government or anyone else that involves your work with BP. Now you are a fish scientist who can’t study fish,” Wiygul said.

A scientist who spoke to the Press-Register on condition of anonymity because he feared harming relationships with colleagues and government officials said he rejected a BP contract offer and was subsequently approached by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with a research grant offer.
He said the first question the federal agency asked was, “‘is there a conflict of interest,’ meaning, ‘are you under contract with BP?’”

Other scientists told the newspaper that colleagues who signed on with BP have since been informed by federal officials that they will lose government funding for ongoing research efforts unrelated to the spill.

NOAA officials did not answer requests for comment. The agency also did not respond to a request for the contracts that it offers scientists receiving federal grants. Several scientists said the NOAA contract was nearly as restrictive as the BP version.

The state of Alaska published a 293-page report on the NRDA process after the Exxon Valdez disaster. A section of the report titled “NRDA Secrecy” discusses anger among scientists who received federal grants over “the non-disclosure form each researcher had signed as a prerequisite to funding.”

“It’s a very strange situation. The science is already suffering,” Shaw said. “The government needs to come through with funding for the universities. They are letting go of the most important group of scientists, the ones who study the Gulf.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2010/07/16/noaa-admits-toxic-dispersants-may-be-in-bp-gulf-oil-spill-seafood/

Posted by Alexander Higgins – July 16, 2010 at 2:18 am –

I originally wrote about an investigation into the safety of Gulf seafood that raised some shocking concerns on July 2nd.

I followed up on that with a warning from CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta who warned us that contrary to the Government’s claims no one can assure as that Gulf seafood is safe.

Today at a congressional hearing NOAA admitted that the neurotoxin pesticide Corexit that BP has used to disperse the Gulf oil spill may be in Gulf seafood and that the organization really does not care to much about testing for it.

During the hearing NOAA also admitted that unlike previously reported that the toxic dispersants bioaccumulate in the food chain.

Here is a transcript of the start of video below retrieved from Florida Oil Spill Law.

Rush Transcript Excerpts (Apologies for all caps)

Senator Lisa Murkowsi (R-AK):

HAVE YOU DETECTED ANYTHING THAT IS NOTICEABLE OR REPORTABLE IN THE SEAFOOD THAT YOU’VE BEEN TESTING?

Larry Robinson, assistant secretary of Commerce for oceans and atmosphere/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):

OUR SEAFOOD TESTS ARE MORE ALL — IT’S WHAT IS DISPERSED ON OUR PROTOCOLS ARE NOT SPECIFICALLY LOOKING AT DISPERSANTS OR THE BYPRODUCTS OF DISPERSANTS.

Senator Murkowski:

ARE YOU INTENDING TO DO THAT [testing seafood for dispersants]?

NOAA Assistant Secretary:

I THINK THAT WOULD BE AN EXCELLENT THING TO CONSIDER BECAUSE WE’RE LEARNED FROM THIS SITUATION THAT THERE ARE OTHER POTENTIALS HERE, PERHAPS EVEN FROM BIOACCUMULATION OF DISPERSANTS AND THEIR BYPRODUCTS INTO SEAFOOD. SO THAT’S SOMETHING WE HAVE ON OUR LIST OF THINGS THAT WE WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT.

Senator Murkowski:

IS FDA TESTING THIS… ARE THEY TESTING FOR DISPERSANTS?

NOAA Assistant Secretary:

I DON’T THINK THE PROTOCOLS, PRESENTLY CALL FOR THE TESTING OF SEAFOOD, WITH REGARD TO SEAFOOD SAFETY WITH REGARD TO DISPERSANTS OR BYPRODUCTS.

IT’S REALLY THE OIL THAT WE’RE — AND THE OIL BIPRODUCTS THAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR IN SEAFOOD AT THE MOMENT.

Picking up the transcript where the the previous transcript left off.

Senator Murkowski:

Then how can we give the consumer the assurance that the seafood that is coming from the Gulf in these waters is safe for consumption?

NOAA Assistant Secretary:

The evidence that we presently have is that the dispersents are broken down rather quickly and biodegrades fairly quickly.

Rather quickly? I don’t consider the reported 28 days it takes to break down to be fairly quickly.

NOAA Assistant Secretary:

We don’t know with absolute certainty senator that there are no traces of dispersant in seafood.

Our tests, however, looking at the more toxic agents in seafood focused on the oil and the oil by products.

More toxic? Corexit is far more toxic than oil and so is the arsenic that scientists are sounding the alarm is on the rise in the Gulf of Mexico because of the BP Gulf Oil Spill.

In fact a fisherman merely splashed with Corexit sufferred from rectal bleeding and G4 has reported that Corexit is eating through boat hulls as well causing damage to internal organs.

Senator Murkowski:

I understand that but it seems to me that we have got an issue here where we are not certain.

I mean the administrator was not able to tell me with certainity wether or not that we consider these dispersants as pollutants if they get into that food chain at whatever level.

Seriously, NOAA will not even admit that Corexit is a pollutant. Amazing.

Senator Murkowski:

Are we testing for this?

It sounds like at this point in time, NO.

We are looking for the oil products on the fish, that’s one thing most certainly.

But it would seem to me as we to the reasearch on the effectiveness on these dispersants and the trade off YOU HAVE to consider the impact to our fisheries, to mariculture as a whole when we are looking at this.

I want to be able to give a level of assurance that whether your are eating wild Alaska salmon from Prince William Sound or wether you are taking it from the Gulf that the dispersants have not had an impact on the safety.

So if we are not testing for that I would certainly hope that we be doing that now, yesterday.

That is something, a level of assurance, that we need to be able to provide the consumer and give them that certainty.

These dispersants, the purpose of them, is to disperse the oil quickly.

If we have dispersed the oil but we have replaced it with another substance that has toxicity levels that impact that seafood that is something that we all need to be concerned about.

Special thanks to Erika Biddle

http://trueslant.com/oshagraydavidson/2010/07/16/more-douche-baggery-from-bp/

I try to cover BP press conferences via phone, but I wasn’t able to dial in to this morning’s technical briefing (conveniently held at 5:30 AM PDT time). Following company advice, I called BP’s Houston press office for an update.

I was transferred to BP spokesman Tony Odone.

Here’s the exchange, taken from my admittedly rough notes made while we talked.

——————————————————————————–

Me: Can you tell what the pressure is currently in the well integrity test?

Odene: I don’t know. Why would you want that?

Me: Isn’t the pressure reading the most important information from the test?

Odene: Yes.

Me: Well, that’s why I want to know.

Odene: [BP spokesman] Kent Wells said at this morning’s briefing the pressure was 6,700 psi.

Me: OK, so at the time of the briefing it was 6,700 —

Odene: — No, he announced at the briefing that the pressure was 6,700.

Me: The pressure reading was taken when?

Odene: At some point before the announcement.

Me: But you can’t tell me what it is now?

Odene: (Incredulous) Look, we are not about to give a minute-by-minute update on what the pressure reading is!

Me: What about hour-to-hour, since it’s so important?

Odene: (growing more petulant): It does…not…have….any significance. A team of experts is looking at it and interpreting it. Why do you want to know?!

Me: At the briefing, Wells said to call this number if we have any questions before the next presser, so that’s what I did. I’m trying to get an update.

Odene: A pressure reading will be announced at the next press conference, at 2:30. (CDT — four hours from this point.)

Me: But nothing until then.

Odene: (Steely, now) We will give you the information when it is necessary.

Me: What determines when it’s necessary?

Odene: When we feel it is required. Are you an engineer?

Me: No, I’m a reporter.

Odene: Well, you will get the information as it is required.

Special thanks to Osha Davidson

http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/shock-water-sample-exploded-when-chemist-tested-for-oil-most-likely-methane-or-corexit

July 17th, 2010
Share102TOP1K48retweetKids playing in water found to be 221 parts per million oil and walking in sand that is 211 ppm; Normal is ‘none detected’

News 5 Investigates: Testing The Water, WKRG Channel 5 Mobile/Pensacola, July 16, 2010:

More than a week has passed since Alabama’s beaches have seen significant oil… [S]ome swimmers are taking their chances.

News Five collected samples of water and sand from Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, Katrina Key and Dauphin Island. To our eyes, the samples appeared normal…
Newscast Transcript Excerpts:

“When testing for oil… how much would be normal on the beach?”

[Bob Naman, analytical chemist said,] “I wouldn’t think you’d find very much on the beach. there’s no real ‘normal’ amount. normal is ‘none detected.’”… a chemist with nearly thirty years of experience… he wouldn’t expect to see any more than 5 parts per million of the greasy stuff…

Gulf Shores beach water, right where people were swimming, showed 66 parts per million. The sand, where beachgoers are walking, has 211 parts per million.

[Another] sample was a spot in Orange Beach, where again, we found kids playing. and we found our highest content of oil and petroleum. 221 parts per million. …

When Naman added an organic solvent to separate the oil from the water [collected at Dauphin Island Marina, near some boom], just like he did with all the other samples, this sample exploded right in his lab. “It was almost instantaneous. Actually, maybe one second. that’s just weird.” The result surprised even our chemist.

“We think it most likely happened, either due to the presence of methanol, or methane gas. or the presence of the dispersant, Corexit.”

Even if you don’t see oil on the beach or in the water… chances are it’s there. All of our tests from orange beach to Dauphin Island showed an abnormal presence of oil…

News 5 will [again attempt to] test that water [which exploded] for chemicals, specifically chemicals linked to the dispersant… Corexit.

Special thanks to Erika Biddle

From: Audubon of Florida
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 18:00:02 -0500 (CDT)

Tell Your Friends Send this message to friends and family members. Tell them to help Florida’s birds and wildlife too.

Special Session to Ban Drilling in State Waters

Call on Florida’s Legislature to Let the People Decide

We were all thrilled yesterday with news reports that the BP Deepwater Horizon oil well has been capped. Yet hundreds of millions of gallons of oil are still awash in the Gulf and we need to focus on long-term protection for Florida’s beaches.

Join us in Tallahassee on Tuesday to Ask Legislators for a Constitutional Ban on Drilling in State Waters.

Governor Charlie Crist has called a special session of the State Legislature to craft a permanent ban on oil drilling in state waters and place it on the ballot in November. Crist has proposed amending Florida’s constitution to make our nearshore waters off limits for oil production.

Conservation groups are organizing a Hands Across the Capitol event at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday in Tallahassee. Hands Across the Capitol is an extension of Hands Across the Sand. Join us in Tallahassee and then meet with your legislators to urge them to give the people of Florida the power to protect our beaches, ecology and economy.

Tell Your Representatives to Let the People Decide: Amend Florida’s Constitution to Permanently Ban Drilling in Florida’s Waters.

Some legislators argue that Florida already has a ban in general law. Unfortunately, this ban can easily be overturned with legislation. In fact, for the last two years, a coalition of advocates for Florida’s coastal environment and economy have only narrowly staved off the attempts of the oil industry and certain legislators who would open Florida’s nearshore waters to oil drilling.

The BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster makes it clear that the time has come to permanently ban oil drilling in Florida’s jurisdictional waters. We can act right now to make our beaches safer. Click here to write to your legislator today and come to Tallahassee on Tuesday.

Let’s make sure a Gulf oil disaster never happens again in Florida by permanently banning oil drilling in our state waters. We can win this fight so our children don’t have to.

Bring Your Passion to Tallahassee

Find your state legislators’ info so you can schedule an appointment.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1219829320100712

Seafood, tourism industries feeling pain of spill
* Groups plead their cases before presidential panel on oil (For full spill coverage link.reuters.com/hed87k)

Mon Jul 12, 2010 3:40pm EDT

By Alexandria Sage

NEW ORLEANS, July 12 (Reuters) – Sal Sunseri’s P&J Oyster Company has worked Louisiana waters since 1876, making it the oldest operating oyster processor in the United States.

But the future is grim, he told a presidential panel on Monday, due to the devastating BP Plc (BP.L)(BP.N) spill that has been gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico since late April.
“Due to this unnatural catastrophe in our water, P&J may forever be extinct,” he said.

Sunseri, who has laid off 11 workers, was among a group of speakers from the fishing, seafood and tourism industries sharing stories of loss with the seven-member commission investigating the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

Keith Overton, chairman of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, said tourism operators across his state were already suffering even though tar balls had been found only on the Florida Panhandle in the north.

At his company, TradeWinds Island Resorts near St Petersburg, calls from potential customers are down 25 percent, he said.

“These losses have occurred in our area without a single drop of oil reaching our shore,” said Overton.

He implored the panel not to overlook legitimate claims from businesses hit by a public misperception that all Gulf Coast areas should be avoided.

“I think our losses are going to be scrutinized. Give us the benefit of the doubt,” Overton said.

JOBS IN JEOPARDY

President Barack Obama set up the commission with an executive order in late May, a month after a rig drilling a well for BP, the Deepwater Horizon owned by Transocean Ltd (RIGN.VX)(RIG.N), sank after an explosion.

Eleven workers were killed and the damaged well has been spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico from a mile (1.6 km) under the surface. BP is using a containment system to capture some of the oil and hopes to finally plug the leak by mid-August.

Michael Hecht of Greater New Orleans Inc, an economic development agency, warned the panel not to underestimate the damage of a moratorium on deepwater drilling sought by the Obama administration.

“The economic impact from the oil spill itself, however broad and long-lasting, will likely be dwarfed by the impact of the moratorium,” Hecht said.

A drilling freeze threatens 24,000 jobs in Louisiana alone, representing nearly $2 billion in wages, he said.

While commercial fishermen and seafood operators are at risk of losing their livelihoods and way of life due to the spill, the crisis is also hurting sport fishing.

That pastime supports a wide variety of small business, from bait and tackle shops to marinas, charter vessels, hotels, and gas stations, said Jeff Angers, president of the Center for Coastal Conservation, a group that advocates sport fishing.

“If the entire Gulf were closed to recreational fishing from May to August, the region would would lose … $1.1 billion and about 19,000 jobs,” Angers told the panel.

The spill has wreaked havoc on delicate coastal ecosystems, killing birds, sea turtles and dolphins and threatening the spawning season of fish.

Containment and cleanup have taken too long, said Sunseri of P&J Oyster, expressing a common complaint in the area.

“Our livelihoods have been drastically jeopardized,” he said. “I don’t see a future in the oyster business as it once was.”

(Editing by John O’Callaghan) Special thanks to Richard Charter

I personally hope that everyone will suppor this effort to ban oil drilling in Florida; our endangered coral reefs, our beaches, fisheries and tourism economy demand it! DeeVon

Dear Friend:

We urgently need your help.

So do all of Florida’s citizens, our beautiful beaches and our imperiled marine life.

This Tuesday, the Florida Legislature will meet in a Special Session called by Governor Charlie Crist. The Governor is asking our Representatives and Senators to send the voters a proposed constitutional amendment that would permanently ban oil drilling off our coasts. (Governor’s proclamation attached.)

But House leaders are threatening to kill the proposal when they arrive in Tallahassee, denying the voters the right to decide. Here’s a link to a news story that ran today in the Miami Herald and St. Pete Times describing this horrible state of affairs:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/07/16/1732883/special-session-on-oil-drilling.html#ixzz0tr8OBncO

It is imperative that the Legislature put the drilling ban on the ballot and let the voters decide. We must take action quickly to mobilize our friends, organizations and communities as effectively and visibly as we did last month when more than 40,000 Floridians joined hands at 242 beaches across the State.

There are three things we are asking people to do:

1) Call and write your Florida Representative and Senator and urge them vote yes to place the drilling ban amendment on the ballot.
2) Hold a Hands gathering in front of your State Representative’s district office on Monday and/or Tuesday at Noon (& alert the media). You don’t need 100 people — 10 or more would work just fine.
3) If possible, travel to Tallahassee on July 20th to join Hands Around the Capitol and to lobby legislators during the first day of the special session (see below for more details).

Together we can mobilize tens of thousands of Floridians to persuade the Legislature to do the right thing:

Let the voters decide!

Frank

–
Frank Jackalone
Senior Field Organizing Manager/ FL & PR
Sierra Club
111 Second Avenue, Suite 1001
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
(727)824-8813
frank.jackalone@sierraclub.org

HELP US SEND THIS MESSAGE TO OUR LEGISLATORS:

JOIN HANDS WITH FLORIDIANS AND

LET THE VOTERS DECIDE!!

An important message from Dave Rauschkolb (founder of Hands Across the Sand):

This is the most important week in the battle to keep oil drilling out of Florida’s waters. I am calling on every Floridian who joined hands with us on February 13 and June 26 to join hands once again and do one or all of 3 very important things.

1. Join us this Tuesday, July 20 in Tallahassee for an important gathering to JOIN HANDS (details below.)

2. Take five minutes and call your Legislators at this link. (TALKING POINTS BELOW)

http://myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Representatives/myrepresentative.aspx?Address=&City=&Zip5=&

3. Take 2 minutes and write this pre-prepared letter to your legislator at this link.

https://secure3.convio.net/nasaud/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=815

There is no more important thing you can do right now than join hands with us in one or all three of these ways. Help us put the decision to drill in our waters firmly where it belongs, in our hands!! Join hands Florida!! Special thanks to the Coalition of organizations (listed below) which has joined hands to bring this event together.

Very best,

Dave Rauschkolb

A JOINING OF HANDS AT THE CAPITAL IN TALLAHASSEE
FOR THE SPECIAL SESSION ON OIL DRILLING

WHEN: Tuesday, July 20, 2010

WHERE: The Capitol Courtyard (between the old and new Capitol)

Tallahassee, FL

TIME: 11:30 am EST

Please join Crude Awakening, Hands Across The Sand, The Florida Wildlife Federation, 1Sky Florida, Audubon of Florida, Clean Water Action, Emerald Coastkeeper, Defenders of Wildlife, Progress Florida, Save Our Shores! Florida, Sierra Club Florida and other organizations for a Hands at the Capitol Event to ask our legislators to let Florida citizens decide the question – Should drilling be banned from our state territorial waters?

Join us on Tuesday July 20 at 11:30 am EST in the Capitol Courtyard for this important event then stay to visit with your elected representatives to ask them to let the voters decide.

Goal: at least one caravan from EVERY legislative district! Please tell all your supportive friends in Florida!

The Legislature has been called into Special Session on Tuesday, July 20 -23 to consider a Joint Resolution that would place the question of drilling in state waters on the ballot for November. This event will show the statewide support for this ballot initiative. Our message to the legislators is – Let the people decide!!

For more information on this important event, including finding out about places to stay and other events in Tallahassee that week, please go to Crude Awakening’s link –

http://sites.google.com/site/crudeawakeningtally/home/events

or contact Kim Ross at crudeawaketally@gmail.com

To assist Crude Awakening in the lobby portion of the day, please complete the following form to help us better organize: http://bit.ly/9tnuN6

Talking points when calling your Legislators:

Support a Permanent Ban on Oil Drilling in Florida’s Waters

Let the People Decide. Tell your Legislators to put the Oil Drilling Ban on the State Ballot and make the ban on drilling in Florida’s coastal waters permanent.

The oil that has been washing up on Florida’s beaches is a stark example of why oil drilling should never be allowed in Florida’s coastal waters.

While state law limits drilling in Florida waters the Legislature can undo the ban in a matter of days. (At the request of the oil companies they almost did that last year).

To protect Florida’s beaches now and for our children and grandchildren we need to give the people a chance to vote on an amendment banning nearshore drilling on November’s ballot.

Once the people of Florida place this ban in the Constitution, only the people of Florida can remove it.

Friday, July 17th, 2010
by CNN news wire staff
New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) — The verdict Friday: so far, so good. But don’t break out the champagne just yet.

Cautious optimism blossomed after BP stopped the oil gushing from its ruptured undersea well, especially when a top company official reported Friday that pressure within the new well cap was steadily rising.

President Barack Obama, who expects to return to the Gulf Coast in the next few weeks, tempered the good news in remarks Friday morning. He said the new capping stack BP lowered in place this week is successfully containing the oil, but definitive answers won’t be known until the testing and data evaluation are complete.

“I think it’s important that we don’t get ahead of ourselves here,” he said. “You know, one of the problems with having this camera down there is that when the oil stops gushing, everybody feels like we’re done, and we’re not.

“We won’t be done until we actually know that we killed the well and have a permanent solution in place,” he said.

Pressure was up to 6,700 pounds per square inch inside the well’s capping stack, said BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells. The company is looking for a pressure above 8,000, which would indicate that no oil was being forced out through a fresh leak and that the well was undamaged and able to withstand the pressure of the cap.

Video: Obama’s ‘good news’ on oil spill

Video: The leak’s stopped, now what?

Video: BP exec: ‘Too early to celebrate’

Video: Berms good for cleanup? RELATED TOPICS
Gulf Coast Oil Spill
BP
Gulf of Mexico
Two robots trolling the sea floor in the area of the well bore and two others capturing sonar data have not detected any breaching yet, Wells told reporters on a conference call Friday. BP is “encouraged by those results,” he said.

The “well integrity test” began Thursday after two days of delays, first as government scientists scrutinized testing procedures and then as BP replaced a leaking piece of equipment known as a choke line.

The oil stopped gushing out Thursday afternoon, the first time BP has been able to gain control since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded three months ago and triggered the catastrophe.

A series of cameras below the surface clearly showed the halt — a far different scene from the images day after day of a relentless flow.

BP and government engineers and scientists are scrutinizing the test data at six-hour intervals.

The testing could go on for 48 hours. The longer it goes, the better indications are that the well is holding with the custom-made sealing cap.

BP planned a second seismic run Friday to check for a breach in the well. It will take 24 hours to evaluate the seismic tests.

Meanwhile, Wells said work restarted Friday on the drilling of the first of two relief wells, seen as a more permanent way to plug and seal the breached well.

BP cautioned that the oil cutoff, while welcomed, isn’t likely to go beyond the 48 hours.

Valves are expected to open after that to resume siphoning oil to two ships on the surface, the Q4000 and Helix Producer, as government and BP officials assess the data and decide what to do next. Two more ships are due to join them in coming weeks, bringing containment capacity to 80,000 barrels (about 3.4 million gallons) of oil a day, more than high-end estimates of how much oil had been leaking.

“It felt very good to see no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico,” Wells said. He said company officials are “obviously very encouraged” but they are “trying to maintain a strict focus” on remembering the whole purpose of the test, which is to gather data and decide how to proceed.

“I don’t want to create a false sense of excitement,” he said. “We want to move forward and make the right decisions.”

And BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said on CNN’s “Situation Room” that while no leaks were apparent, it’s too early to celebrate.

However, that did not stop Gulf residents from being cautiously optimistic about the leak being stopped.

“See the smile? That’s my reaction,” said Jamie Munoz. “But it’s cautious optimism. Obviously I’m very happy. It’s been our goal for 88 days now. It’s been a long run. But hopefully we get it done right and begin the cleaning. That’s the most important part. Let’s clean up and get our fishermen back to work.”

Retired Adm. Thad Allen, government’s oil response manager, issued a statement saying that it “remains likely” that sending the oil to containment ships will be the avenue officials decide to pursue after the test, until the relief wells are ready.

The relief wells are expected to be completed in August. The second one serves as a backup to the first.

By JEFF DONN and MITCH WEISS (AP) – July 7, 2010

More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one — not industry, not government — is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The oldest of these wells were abandoned in the late 1940s, raising the prospect that many deteriorating sealing jobs are already failing.

The AP investigation uncovered particular concern with 3,500 of the neglected wells — those characterized in federal government records as “temporarily abandoned.”

Regulations for temporarily abandoned wells require oil companies to present plans to reuse or permanently plug such wells within a year, but the AP found that the rule is routinely circumvented, and that more than 1,000 wells have lingered in that unfinished condition for more than a decade. About three-quarters of temporarily abandoned wells have been left in that status for more than a year, and many since the 1950s and 1960s — eveb though sealing procedures for temporary abandonment are not as stringent as those for permanent closures.

As a forceful reminder of the potential harm, the well beneath BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig was being sealed with cement for temporary abandonment when it blew April 20, leading to one of the worst environmental disasters in the nation’s history. BP alone has abandoned about 600 wells in the Gulf, according to government data.

There’s ample reason for worry about all permanently and temporarily abandoned wells — history shows that at least on land, they often leak. Wells are sealed underwater much as they are on land. And wells on land and in water face similar risk of failure. Plus, records reviewed by the AP show that some offshore wells have failed.

Experts say such wells can repressurize, much like a dormant volcano can awaken. And years of exposure to sea water and underground pressure can cause cementing and piping to corrode and weaken.

“You can have changing geological conditions where a well could be repressurized,” said Andy Radford, a petroleum engineer for the American Petroleum Institute trade group.

Whether a well is permanently or temporarily abandoned, improperly applied or aging cement can crack or shrink, independent petroleum engineers say. “It ages, just like it does on buildings and highways,” said Roger Anderson, a Columbia University petroleum geophysicist who has conducted research on commercial wells.

Despite the likelihood of leaks large and small, though, abandoned wells are typically not inspected by industry or government.

Oil company representatives insist that the seal on a correctly plugged offshore well will last virtually forever.

“It’s in everybody’s interest to do it right,” said Bill Mintz, a spokesman for Apache Corp., which has at least 2,100 abandoned wells in the Gulf, according to government data.

Added spokeswoman Margaret Cooper of Chevron U.S.A., which has at least 2,700 abandoned wells in the Gulf: “It is our experience that the well abandonment process, when performed in accordance with regulation, has been accomplished safely and successfully.”

Greg Rosenstein, a vice president at Superior Energy Services, a New Orleans company that specializes in this work for offshore wells, maintained that properly plugged wells “do not normally degrade.” When pressed, he acknowledged: “There have been a few occasions where wells that have been plugged have to be entered and re-plugged.”

Officials at the U.S. Interior Department, which oversees the agency that regulates federal leases in the Gulf and elsewhere, did not answer repeated questions regarding why there are no inspections of abandoned wells.

State officials estimate that tens of thousands are badly sealed, either because they predate strict regulation or because the operating companies violated rules. Texas alone has plugged more than 21,000 abandoned wells to control pollution, according to the state comptroller’s office.

Offshore, but in state waters, California has resealed scores of its abandoned wells since the 1980s.

In deeper federal waters, though — despite the similarities in how such wells are constructed and how sealing procedures can fail — the official policy is out-of-sight, out-of-mind.

The U.S. Minerals Management Service — the regulatory agency recently renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement — relies on rules that have few real teeth. Once an oil company says it will permanently abandon a well, it has one year to complete the job. MMS mandates that work plans be submitted and a report filed afterward.

Unlike California regulators, MMS doesn’t typically inspect the job, instead relying on the paperwork.

The fact there are so many wells that have been classified for decades as temporarily abandoned suggests that paperwork can be shuffled at MMS without any real change beneath the water.

With its weak system of enforcement, MMS imposed fines in a relative handful of cases: just $440,000 on seven companies from 2003-2007 for improper plug-and-abandonment work.

Companies permanently abandon wells when they are no longer useful. Afterward, no one looks methodically for leaks, which can’t easily be detected from the surface anyway. And no one in government or industry goes underwater to inspect, either.

Government regulators and industry officials say abandoned offshore wells are presumed to be properly plugged and are expected to last indefinitely without leaking. Only when pressed do these officials acknowledge the possibility of leaks.

“Once a well is plugged with cement, it’s deemed no longer a risk,” said Eric Kazanis, an MMS petroleum engineer for the Gulf of Mexico. “It’s not supposed to leak.” He said no special financial guarantees are required to assure that repairs can be made if they are needed.

Despite warnings of leaks, government and industry officials have never bothered to assess the extent of the problem, according to an extensive AP review of records and regulations.

That means no one really knows how many abandoned wells are leaking — and how badly.

The AP documented an extensive history of warnings about environmental dangers related to abandoned wells:

_ The General Accountability Office, which investigates for Congress, warned as early as 1994 that leaks from offshore abandoned wells could cause an “environmental disaster,” killing fish, shellfish, mammals and plants. In a lengthy report, GAO pressed for inspections of abandonment jobs, but nothing came of the recommendation.

_ A 2006 Environmental Protection Agency report took notice of the overall issue regarding wells on land: “Historically, well abandonment and plugging have generally not been properly planned, designed and executed.” State officials say many leaks come from wells abandoned in recent decades, when rules supposedly dictated plugging procedures. And repairs are so routine that terms have been coined to describe the work: “replugging” or the “re-abandonment.”

_ A GAO report in 1989 provided a foreboding prognosis about the health of the country’s inland oil and gas wells. The watchdog agency quoted EPA data estimating that up to 17 percent of the nation’s wells on land had been improperly plugged. If that percentage applies to offshore wells, there could be 4,600 badly plugged wells in the Gulf of Mexico alone.

_ According to a 2001 study commissioned by MMS, agency officials were “concerned that some abandoned oil wells in the Gulf may be leaking crude oil.” But nothing came of that warning either. Told of his employer’s supposed worry nearly a decade ago, Kazanis conceded the possibility that sealing jobs “could be bad.”

The study targeted a well 20 miles off Louisiana that had been reported leaking five years after it was plugged and abandoned. The researchers tried unsuccessfully to use satellite radar images to locate the leak.

But John Amos, the geologist who wrote the study, told AP that MMS withheld critical information that could have helped verify if he had pinpointed the problem. “I kind of suspected that this was a project almost designed to fail,” Amos said. He said the agency refused to tell him “how big and widespread a problem” they were dealing with in the Gulf.

Amos is now director of SkyTruth, a nonprofit group that uses satellite imagery to detect environmental problems. He still believes that technology could work on abandoned wells.

MMS, though, hasn’t followed up on the work. And Interior Department spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said agency inspectors would be present for permanent plugging jobs “only when something unusual is expected.” She also said inspectors would check later “only if there’s a noted leak.” But she did not respond to requests for examples.

Companies may be tempted to skimp on sealing jobs, which are expensive and slow offshore. It would cost the industry at least $3 billion to permanently plug the 10,500 now-active wells and the 3,500 temporarily abandoned ones in the Gulf, according to an AP analysis of MMS data. Many such jobs take more than $200,000 and 10 days. Difficult jobs in deep water can cost several million dollars, and some companies own hundreds of wells.

The AP analysis indicates that more than half of the 50,000 wells ever drilled on federal leases beneath the Gulf have now been abandoned. Some 23,500 are permanently sealed. Another 12,500 wells are plugged on one branch while being allowed to remain active in a different branch.

Government records do not indicate how many temporarily abandoned wells have been returned to service over the years. Federal rules require only an annual review of plans to reuse or permanently seal the 3,500 temporarily abandoned wells, but companies are using this provision to keep the wells in limbo indefinitely.

Petroleum engineers say abandoned offshore wells can fail from faulty work, age and drilling-induced or natural changes below the seabed. Maurice Dusseault, a geologist at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, says U.S. regulators “assume that once a well is sealed, they’re safe — but that’s not always the case.”

“Many of the wells are leaking because they had been inadequately plugged,” added Dusseault, who co-authored a study in 2000 about why oil wells leak.

Even fully depleted wells can flow again because of fluid or gas injections to stimulate nearby wells or from pressure exerted by underlying aquifers. In a 2007 report, the EPA said of depleted inland wells: “Although no longer producing, these wells still represent significant sources of oil pollution and must be properly plugged.”

“Even though the fields are depleted, you don’t get all the hydrocarbons out,” acknowledged Radford of the petroleum trade group.

Permanently abandoned wells are corked with cement plugs typically 100-200 feet long. They are placed in targeted zones to block the flow of oil or gas. Heavy drilling fluid is added. Offshore, the piping is cut off 15 feet below the sea floor.

Wells are abandoned temporarily for a variety of reasons. The company may be re-evaluating a well’s potential or developing a plan to overcome a drilling problem or damage from a storm. Some owners temporarily abandon wells to await a rise in oil prices.

Since companies may put a temporarily abandoned well back into service, such holes typically will be sealed with fewer plugs, less testing and a metal cap to stop corrosion from sea water. “Remember, the sea water penetrates,” said Iraj Ershaghi, a University of Southern California petroleum engineer who has also worked commercially and for the state of California on regulating offshore wells.

In the Deepwater Horizon blowout, investigators believe the cement may have failed, perhaps never correctly setting deep within the well. Sometimes gas bubbles form as cement hardens, providing an unwanted path for oil or gas to burst through the well and reach the surface.

The other key part of an abandoned wells — the steel pipe liner known as casing — can also rust through over time.

“I’ve seen casing they’ve pulled out of these old wells. It looks like a worm has eaten it,” said petroleum geologist Norman J. Hyne, who owned inland oil and gas wells in the 1980s as a small independent producer.

Any holes, cracks or spaces can open a path for repressurized oil or gas to surge to the surface slowly or, in extreme cases, as a bigger blowout.

Petroleum engineer John Getty, who studies cement properties at Montana Tech, said it is reasonable to expect that some abandoned offshore wells would leak after decades of aging.

At sea, huge blowouts, like the one at BP’s well, would presumably be noticed by nearby rigs or passing ships. But otherwise these environmental violations generally go unnoticed.

MMS personnel do sometimes spot smaller oily patches on the Gulf during flyovers. Operators are also supposed to report any oil sheens they encounter. Typically, though, MMS learns of a leak only when someone spots it by chance.

In the end, the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Laboratory handles little more than 200 cases of oil pollution each year.

And manager Wayne Gronlund says it’s often impossible to tell leaking wells from natural seeps, where untold thousands of barrels of oil and untold millions of cubic feet of gas escape annually through cracks that permeate the sea floor.

Oily patches are often attributed to natural leaks. A 2002 report by the National Academy of Sciences estimated that 60 percent of the oil in North American waters comes from natural seeps, with most of the remainder from urban runoff, polluted rivers, discharges from boats — and very little from oil drilling operations.

But no industry or government records are kept on oil leaks from abandoned wells. And the academy’s report cautioned: “Even a small amount released at the wrong time or place can have a severe impact.”

Barkoff, the Interior Department spokeswoman, said discussions are under way on possible ways of finding leaks from offshore abandoned wells, including the use of undersea robots.

Without strong federal encouragement, though, few researchers are working on the problem.

The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate(at)ap.org
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20100715/ARTICLES/100719641/-1/opinion?p=1&tc=pg

Published in the Houma Today newspaper, Lafourche Parish, Louisiana
July 15, 2010

by Thomas Linzey, Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

For months, BP’s oil spill has dominated the news.

The blame game between the government and the corporation began mere minutes after the Deepwater Horizon explosion – the corporation blaming the regulators, the regulators blaming the corporation.

Been there, done that.

The only exceptional thing about the finger-pointing is that it isn’t exceptional at all.

Although it’s rarely said out loud, the regulators allow the energy corporations to write their own regulations – and when it becomes too expensive to comply with the regulations, the regulator simply exempts the corporations from them or the corporations simply rewrite the regulations to eliminate the added cost.

In the eyes of the regulators, after all, it’s the energy corporations that are the experts on methods for extracting oil, gas, and coal, not the government.

What gets missed in all of the blather is the recognition that “we the people” can’t protect ourselves through the regulatory system.

In fact, most of us aren’t even awake enough to understand that the regulatory system is used by corporations to legalize practices that would otherwise be harmful and illegal.

It’s not called “permitting” for nothing.

But that’s not the only problem with the way that the system works.

Consider this – for the past 3,000 years, nature and ecosystems have been defined under the law as mere property.

Whether private property – the land that you own; or property owned by government or the public – such as bayous, rivers, or zones of the ocean, nature is still defined as property by the law.

Rights, of course, can’t belong to property – rights belong only to people. That means that when nature and ecosystems are destroyed, courts don’t inquire about how much it would cost to restore those ecosystems back to their undamaged state.

Instead, courts solely examine how much damage has been caused to the people or corporations whose use of that property has now been denied.

Which means that the natural environment (even though it may be the most damaged of all) is invisible to courts and judges.

With the BP spill, the only damage deemed compensable by the legal system is the financial damage caused to those who can’t use the Gulf ecosystem anymore.

But that’s not enough to make the coast of Louisiana whole.

The law has always recognized that damages awarded after an injury should be equal to the cost of remedying the injury.

Compensating fishermen and other businesses is a good and necessary thing, but it doesn’t come close to fixing the mess that has been made of sportsmen’s paradise.

Creating a system that makes ecosystems whole may not be as crazy as it sounds.

In 2009, the people of Ecuador adopted a new constitution recognizing that ecosystems themselves have a right to exist, flourish, and evolve.

Closer to home, over a dozen municipal governments in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Maine and Virginia have done the same. Those laws authorize residents to sue to restore damaged ecosystems, which, of course, allows them to depend on those ecosystems once again.

Municipal governments in the coastal regions of Louisiana, Alabama and Florida should consider adopting similar local laws, which would enable those governments and residents to hold BP to a standard well-recognized by the law – that of fixing what you have broken.

Without those laws, these nightmares will repeat themselves over and over again – and once again, we’ll be resigned to watching the oil coat our beaches and destroy the ecosystems upon which our livelihoods depend.

Thomas Linzey is executive director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which is based in Chambersburg, Pa.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

Sent: Thursday, July 15, 2010 10:07 AM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 15, 2010

CONTACT:
Blake Androff, 202-226-9019

Washington, D.C. – Capping a decade of investigations and dozens of oversight hearings held on the beleaguered Minerals Management Service, the House Natural Resources Committee today approved landmark comprehensive legislation authored by Chairman Nick J. Rahall (D-WV) to address the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and to implement reforms of America’s federal offshore and onshore oil and gas leasing program.

“While the incident in the Gulf does not signal the end of drilling off America’s coasts, it certainly is a game changer and is proof positive that broad reforms are needed to ensure that oil and gas development on federal lands and waters is done efficiently while protecting human safety and the environment,” said Rahall. “The problems we have identified and addressed in this legislation are not merely the result of one incident, but rather are the product of more than a decade of investigations, hearings, and prior legislative efforts into the pressing need to improve the management of America’s public energy resources.”

The “Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources (CLEAR) Act” (H.R. 3534), approved today by a vote of 27 to 21, was introduced by Rahall on September 8, 2009. As introduced, the bill would make several important changes to current law in an effort to create greater efficiencies, transparency, and accountability in the development of energy resources on federal lands and in the Outer Continental Shelf. In light of the enormous sea change caused by the Deepwater Horizon incident, the updated version of the bill approved by the Committee today includes significant and wide-ranging reforms to ensure that oil and gas development on federal lands and waters is done efficiently while protecting human safety and the environment.

“It’s unfortunate, but as I have said on multiple occasions, every mine safety law we have on the books was penned in the blood of coal miners. It often takes a tragic incident such as the one at the Massey mine or the one in the Gulf of Mexico, both in April, before these lapses in safety laws come to light and are properly addressed,” said Rahall. “Whether it is a coal miner in West Virginia or an oil rig worker in the Gulf of Mexico, I firmly believe that no one should have to risk their life to secure their livelihood.”

The legislation would abolish for good the scandal-ridden Minerals Management Service and divide it into three separate entities: The Bureau of Energy and Resource Management (BERM), to manage leasing & permitting and conduct necessary environmental studies; The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), to conduct all inspections and investigations related to health, safety and environmental regulations; and The Office of Natural Resource Revenue (ONRR), to collect all offshore and onshore oil and gas and renewable energy-related revenues.

Responding to a recently released Department of the Interior Inspector General investigation that raised serious concerns about the “ease with which [safety inspectors] move between industry and government,” the CLEAR Act contains a strong “revolving door” provision that would broaden the scope of prohibited activities and add a 2-year ban on accepting employment with certain companies. The provision would also add new recusal requirements and provide stricter penalties for violations.

“We need professional, highly-trained inspectors who aren’t just pushing paper and rubberstamping what the industry tells them but rather are out there asking the tough questions and are truly holding these oil companies accountable,” said Rahall. “Too often we find MMS is playing around with – instead of keeping an eye on – the oil operators they are supposed to be regulating. I know a few bad apples tend to taint the bunch, but the Deepwater Horizon is a perfect example of how there is very little room for error when it comes to the safety of these oil rigs.”

The CLEAR Act would also provide mandatory full funding, beginning in 2011, for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF), and the Oceans Resources Conservation and Assistance Fund (ORCA).

As the Committee with primary jurisdiction over offshore drilling, the House Natural Resources Committee has led congressional efforts to vigorously investigate the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the broader context of what it means for future energy development both offshore and onshore. In addition to dozens of oversight hearings held on MMS since becoming Chairman in 2007, Rahall has led the Committee in holding six oversight hearings on the oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

A section-by-section summary of the legislation is available on the Committee’s Web site.

-30-

BLAKE J. ANDROFF | Communications Director
Committee on Natural Resources
U.S. House of Representatives
1324 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Phone: 202.226.9019
Fax: 202.226.4631

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/

Special thanks to Richard Charter

On Saturday, July 10th at sunset, Key Westers gathered at the White Street Pier to protest the BP and its lack of corporate responsibility since the Deep Horizon blowout. Kelly Young and Erika Biddle led the event. Many citizens spoke out and signed a pledge to reduce their oil comsumption by 10%. Everyone hoped to send a message for a clean energy future.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0713/Drilling-moratorium-US-cites-weak-spot-in-blowout-preventers

The Obama administration on Monday cited control systems on subsea blowout preventers as one reason for its offshore drilling moratorium. But more than a year before the BP oil spill, authorities learned that balky control systems were the most common cause of blowout preventer failure.
*
Oil and gas escape from the top of the new containment cap (black discharge at top-center) at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, in this image captured from a BP live video feed July 13.
BP/Reuters

By Mark Clayton, Staff writer / July 13, 2010
Before he leaped into a lifeboat in the middle of the night on April 20, Christopher Pleasant tried to trigger a deep-sea safety device to squelch the oil-well blowout and fire raging aboard the Deepwater Horizon drill rig.

In those last frantic minutes in the rig’s central control room, Mr. Pleasant – a subsea superviser for Transocean, the rig’s owner – pressed two buttons simultaneously to activate a 450-ton blowout preventer sitting 5,300 feet below the sea surface. If its massive “shear ram” valve closed, it would slice through the drill pipe and stop the torrent of burning gas.

For one fleeting moment, the control panel lights offered a ray of hope – showing the shear ram and other BOP valves apparently closing. Valve indicator lights flicked from green (open) to red (closed), he told federal investigators in May in New Orleans.

Yet something wasn’t right. Another set of gauges just above the BOP control panel showed no hydraulic pressure at all – “no flow,” he testified. Also, the fire was still burning. So, despite BOP control system lights showing the shear-ram closed, it was not.
“I knew it was time to leave,” Pleasant testified.

No one knows yet just why the rig’s BOP did not work – or why the device’s hydraulic-electric control system gave Pleasant the wrong readings. That mystery won’t be solved unless the BOP is pulled off the sea floor months from now. But when the Obama administration on Monday issued a revised moratorium on drilling in the Gulf, it cited fresh concerns about the reliability of BOP control systems as one reason for its action.
Indeed, more than a year before Pleasant’s frantic efforts to stop an inferno, a large study of BOP reliability in the Gulf of Mexico had warned industry experts and federal safety officials that balky control systems were by far the most common cause of BOP failure – and apparently getting worse.

Altogether, 63 percent of blowout preventer test failures cited in that 2009 study, a joint effort by the industry and the regulatory US Minerals Management Service (MMS), involved control systems. By contrast, a similar study a decade earlier had found control systems were responsible for 51 percent of BOP failures.

Control systems are vulnerable to leaks

Blowout preventer control systems are hydraulic and electrical units housed in two waterproof pods – the electronic brains of the school-bus-size BOP stacks. The pods – one blue, one yellow – are identical systems, each a backup for the other. Hydraulic and electrical conduits run from the rig deck above the ocean’s surface to the pods on the sea floor.

But these control systems, many of them newer-generation units activated by microprocessors, are vulnerable to leaks and failures that can render a BOP useless, according to the closely held study, first reported by the Monitor.

Those microprocessor-based, or “multiplex,” control systems enable BOPs to respond in an instant to an electrical signal from the rig – a rate much faster in deep water than that of older, hydraulic-only systems. But there is a downside, too.

“These systems are newer within the industry and thus efforts to improve reliability have not been as extensive,” the 2009 study found. They “are much more complex, with more subsea components.”

Because the newer systems “have electrical and electronic components in the water; leaks are more likely to have significant consequences in these systems,” the report warned. After noting that hydraulic fluid may leak to the sea in some circumstances, the report states: “Leaks in electrical systems can be expected to render them inoperative.”

It was not the first such warning. A smaller 1999 study of BOP reliability in the Gulf had warned that “a single leakage can jeopardize complete BOP control.”

But the big new 2009 study, funded by the industry and the MMS, was focused on finding ways to cut the cost of BOP safety testing – with potential savings of about $193 million annually, the study’s prospectus estimated.

In fact, the study authors – West Engineering Services, a Texas consulting firm specializing in BOP technology – did recommend that the MMS relax its standards concerning how often to test several subsea BOP components. The study, for instance, recommended a reduced schedule for pressure testing of some BOP valves, from at least once every 14 days to once every 35 days. It recommended testing the shear ram valve just once in 77 days instead of once in 30 days. (See related story.)

Emphasis on testing control systems

But because control systems were found to be the part of the BOP most susceptible to failure, the report recommended no change to rules for testing control systems: at least once a week.

“It is important to understand and focus on the fact that control system failures are the most likely category of failures on subsea BOP equipment,” the authors wrote. “Even though control systems seem to have the larger margin of failures, due to redundancy there were not any cases where a control system failure would have compromised the well control abilities.”

While the control system failure rates may be accurate, the study’s conclusions are questionable, some industry veterans say.

Leaks of hydraulic fluid in deep water are the bane of BOP control systems and need more, not less, oversight, says Robert Bea, an engineer at the University of California at Berkeley who was a chief engineer for Shell Oil for 18 years and an expert reviewer for President Obama’s recent 30-day safety study on offshore drilling.

The BOP hydraulic lines of the Deepwater Horizon were leaking, according to the drill logs, he says.

“It’s like the brakes on your car. Those brakes get mushy when there’s a leak,” Dr. Bea says. “At some point they just won’t work. With a BOP, you don’t need much of a leak for that control system’s hydraulics to fail.”

The complexity of newer BOP control systems makes them vulnerable, says another BOP engineer who asked not to be named because he is still active in the industry. “The biggest problem with a BOP is the control system,” he says. “If a BOP has maybe 50 parts, then its control system has 500 parts. Many of them are vulnerable to water leaks.”

As part of the Deepwater Horizon’s last line of defense, a “dead man’s switch” in the BOP unit was supposed to trigger the shear ram, if both electrical and hydraulic communications with the rig were lost. But this system failed, too.

“We already know one of the battery pods [providing power to the BOP control system] was dead,” Bea says. “The other one was functional. But you have this system designed for redundancy, and because of neglected maintenance it is no longer redundant. It’s like going parachuting, but without a backup chute. We were relying on this BOP like a parachute – and when it came time, the backup didn’t work.”

‘The problem child’

The study shows that industry representatives reviewing the findings wrestled with their meaning and sought clarification about the vulnerability of control systems on BOPs. In an appendix to the 2009 study, unidentified industry officials commented on control system failures and asked the consultant about it.

“What’s being said [in the report] is that the control system is the problem child in the system, but redundancy is the savior?” the industry officials commented.

“Yes, control systems are the problem and redundancy is the savior,” the authors responded.

Officials at West Engineering did not return Monitor e-mails or phone calls. MMS officials, along with the Department of Interior, responded to e-mailed questions but refused requests for an interview.

Asked if the MMS had changed, or considered changing, its testing frequency for control systems, MMS said: “No, MMS has always required operators to function test annular and ram BOPs every 7 days between pressure tests.”

The MMS added that the 2009 study “is not an MMS study” and therefore the high frequency of control system failures was “proprietary” information that never became part of the agency’s safety research program data.

But key people at MMS did know of the control system problem. The agency provided funding for the study, several industry experts told the Monitor. Moreover, a prospectus for the study and the study itself both refer to a close partnership between BP, at least eight other oil companies, and the MMS.

Three senior MMS officials are listed in the study as involved and raising questions about it: Lars Herbst, regional director of the Gulf of Mexico OCS Region; William Hauser, chief of the Regulations and Standards Branch, and Kirk Malstrom, an agency petroleum engineer.

The Interior Department, which is coordinating media requests for the MMS during its reorganization, did not grant requests to interview those MMS officials. In review comments on the report, MMS officials asked questions about rig performance, failure detection, and a few other issues. None questioned the report’s central finding: the high rate of control system failures.

“This sort of touch-and-feel evolutionary approach to loosening testing standards is not good engineering,” says Bea, who has read the study. “I would never want to fly on an aircraft whose safety margins are regulated this way.”

Paul Helfer, a former senior engineer with BOP-maker Cameron International, who now does consulting work in the industry, says control system standards need reexamination and a new set of testing requirements.

“It’s a pretty good chore to ensure a control system works and stays working,” he says. “That has to include some serious testing.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

BUSINESS
JULY 14, 2010

By STEPHEN POWER

NEW ORLEANS-The leaders of a presidential panel investigating the Gulf of Mexico oil spill expressed skepticism Tuesday about a six-month moratorium on deepwater oil drilling and said they would press the Obama administration on why a prolonged ban is needed.
“We’re going to look over their shoulder and have some comments to make as to whether we think the judgments they made are appropriate,” said Bob Graham, one of the two co-chairmen of the National Commission on the BP-Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.
The comments by Mr. Graham and William K. Reilly represent a sharp shift. A day earlier, both men had said that assessing the merits of the moratorium wasn’t part of their panel’s mission.
But on Tuesday, during a break in the second of two days of hearings on the environmental and economic impact of the spill, Messrs. Reilly and Graham said they had been persuaded by Louisiana elected officials, business people and ordinary citizens to weigh in on the issue.
Mr. Reilly said he was “quite moved” by the testimony of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D., La.), who said the government should be able to move faster than six months to determine the safety levels of the 33 rigs covered by the ban. Mr. Reilly said he was also surprised that representatives of Louisiana’s fishing industry, which has been rocked by the spill, had called for lifting the moratorium.
“Frankly, I have less understanding why it’s going to take so long to reassure people that the existing rigs are safe,” Mr. Reilly said during a news conference with Mr. Graham. Mr. Graham drew an analogy to a recent order by the Federal Aviation Administration directing airlines to inspect the cockpit window heaters on roughly 1,200 Boeing airliners, amid concerns that the heaters could have contributed to incidents involving in-flight fires, smoke and shattered windshields.
“I’m sure they [aviation companies] didn’t wait until all 1,200 airplanes had been evaluated to release the first ones” back into service, Mr. Graham said. “Why couldn’t we have something like that with these [drilling] rigs, once we’re satisfied they have met safety guidelines and the [Interior] Department is satisfied with its capacity to” carry out and enforce relevant safety rules.
Messrs. Graham and Reilly spoke after hearing testimony from the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, Michael Bromwich. Mr. Bromwich said the administration continues to believe a temporary ban on deepwater drilling is necessary, not only to give the government sufficient time to implement new safety measures but also to investigate the cause of the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig.
Mr. Bromwich said the oil and gas industry needs to “show us and show the public they have developed more effective containment strategies” for dealing with oil spills “than they have developed to date.” The administration has said its moratorium on deepwater drilling will continue until Nov. 30 or “such earlier time that” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar determines that such operations can proceed safely.
The Interior Department on Monday issued an order banning most new deepwater-drilling activities until Nov. 30. The ban replaces an order issued by the department in May that was struck down by a federal court last month, and sets up the possibility of a fresh legal challenge. Hornbeck Offshore Services, which challenged the initial moratorium, declined to comment.
It’s not clear how the Interior Department’s new moratorium will affect litigation between the oil industry and the Obama administration over the earlier ban. A Justice Department spokeswoman said that Mr. Salazar’s new order “expressly supersedes” the earlier one. As a result, she said, the administration plans to ask the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the oil industry against the government over the earlier ban.
But Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, said he thought it unlikely that the judge in the case, Martin Feldman, would grant the administration’s request. “It’s a new order, but he still has jurisdiction over the subject matter,” Mr. Tobias said. “I think he’d try to maintain that.”
Messrs. Graham and Reilly didn’t commit to issuing a formal conclusion on the moratorium by a specific date. Mr. Reilly said the speed with which the commission could move to examine the issue would be determined by how quickly it can hire additional staffers. The Obama administration is seeking $15 million to fund the panel, but Congress has yet to approve the request, forcing the panel to rely on temporary funding from the Energy Department.
Nevertheless, Mr. Reilly said, “we probably have a contribution to make to the thinking” on the moratorium.
Mr. Reilly said he also wants the panel to quickly address the use of chemical dispersants in combating the spill, and whether they have affected the environment even more than the spill.
“The major question for this commission, and one we haven’t fully resolved, is whether this [accident] was a one-off event or [evidence of] a systemic weakness in the technology of deep-sea drilling,” Mr. Reilly said.
Write to Stephen Power at stephen.power@wsj.com

Special thanks to Richard Charter

In support of research on oil spills, response, and restoration, the
NOAA Central Library published the /Oil Spills Bibliography/.

Below please find some general information about this product:

Librarians, Anna Fiolek, Linda Pikula, and Brian Voss, in collaboration
with the Library Staff, developed a document entitled: /Resources on Oil
Spills, Response, and Restoration: a Selected Bibliography/. This
document, also called /Oil Spills Bibliography/, has been prepared as an
aid for those seeking information concerning the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and information on previous spills
and associated remedial actions. Various media products (web, video,
printed and online documents) have been selected from resources
available via the online NOAA Library and Information Network Catalog
(NOAALINC). Many of the resources included have been produced by NOAA
offices and programs. The content of the Bibliography includes
information sources concerned both with the harmful effects of oil and
chemical spills to marine habitats and their associated living marine
resources and with the cultural and economic impacts caused by such spills.

The /Bibliography/ is published online as Library and Information
Services Division current references 2010-2 at:

http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/noaa_documents/NESDIS/NODC/LISD/Central_Library/current_references/current_references_2010_2.pdf

(PDF version)

http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/noaa_documents/NESDIS/NODC/LISD/Central_Library/current_references/current_references_2010_2.docx

(Microsoft Word version).

We hope the Coral-List Community will find this product useful.

Cheers, Anna.

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NOAA Central Library
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This song is written and performed by Katherine Archer, who lives in St. Augustine.

Let’s hope this is the beginning of the end of the blowout. DV

July 12, 2010

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704288204575362821280847274.html?mod=djemalertNEWS

By SUSAN DAKER And CASSANDRA SWEET

HOUSTONBP PLC said Monday night it had installed a new sealing cap that could halt the oil spewing from its broken well in the Gulf of Mexico, raising the possibility that a nearly three-month long environmental crisis could soon be contained.

It could be another 48 hours before the company knows if the cap has entirely sealed the well. During that period, the company will perform a series of pressure tests to check the well’s integrity. Concerns have been raised that the well could be even more damaged than previously known and that another uncontrolled leak could occur at any time.

The sealing-cap system hasn’t been used before at these depths or conditions, BP said, adding that the system’s “ability to contain the oil and gas cannot be assured.”

But if all goes according to plan, BP’s latest effort could finally bring the runaway well under control and make headway toward ending a saga that has cost the company billions of dollars and put it at odds with much of the American public and U.S. government.

.”We have to recognize that this is a complex operation,” said Doug Suttles, the company’s chief operating office, during a teleconference early Monday. “Our confidence is growing.”

The success of the U.K. oil company’s latest effort hinges on a variety of complex procedures. Some other efforts the company had been optimistic about in the past failed or were abandoned as too difficult in water so deep robots are required to do the labor.

BP has been working to contain the mile-deep leak since shortly after Transocean Ltd.’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 people.

“There are challenges with each of these steps. We have to understand that some of these operations could take longer than forecasted,” Mr. Suttles said.

As BP tests the new cap, a high pressure reading would be good news, indicating that the well is in fine shape and the new cap is confining all the oil.

Even if the cap doesn’t capture all the oil, installing it was a necessary step to prepare for an expected busy hurricane season. The new cap can allow containment vessels to more quickly disconnect from the system and flee a storm.

In the absence of bad weather, the cap will also allow more ships to connect to the well and therefore increase the amount of oil BP collects.

Mr. Suttles stressed that no matter how things work out with the cap, the company was still placing its faith in the ability of a relief well to permanently kill the overflowing well. The relief well could be finished by the end of the month, he said.

Also Monday, BP said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that the cost of its response to the crisis has risen to roughly $3.5 billion so far.

The company launched a new containment vessel Monday, the Helix Producer, and expected to have oil from the well reaching it by Monday evening. The ship has been near the well for about two weeks but was delayed from taking part in the operation by bad weather and technical problems.

With the Helix Producer still not up to full speed, only one ship was siphoning oil from the well, the Q4000, which flared off more than 4,000 barrels of oil during the last 12 hours of Sunday, the company said.

The rest of the oil is flowing into the Gulf, where about 50 skimmer ships were working to catch it when it reached the surface, Mr. Suttles said. Some oil was also being burned away on the surface of the water, he said.

Federal and independent scientists have estimated that between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels of oil have flowed into the Gulf from the broken well each day since the crisis began. The oil has fouled the shores of at least four coastal states and has damped tourism and seafood industries in the area.

For the past several weeks, the more loosely fitting cap and the Q4000 system have managed to keep as much as about 25,000 barrels a day out of the Gulf. The new sealing-cap system, plus additional measures, will allow the recovery of 60,000 barrels to 80,000 barrels a day in two to three weeks, BP has said.

Write to Susan Daker at susan.daker@dowjones.com
and Cassandra Sweet at cassandra.sweet@dowjones.com

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/jun/19/naomi-klein-gulf-oil-spill

The Deepwater Horizon disaster is not just an industrial accident – it is a violent wound inflicted on the Earth itself. In this special report from the Gulf coast, a leading author and activist shows how it lays bare the hubris at the heart of capitalism
*

‘Obama cannot order pelicans not to die (no matter whose ass he kicks). And no amount of money – not BP’s $20bn, not $100bn – can replace a culture that’s lost its roots.’ Photograph: Lee Celano/Reuters

Everyone gathered for the town hall meeting had been repeatedly instructed to show civility to the gentlemen from BP and the federal government. These fine folks had made time in their busy schedules to come to a high school gymnasium on a Tuesday night in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, one of many coastal communities where brown poison was slithering through the marshes, part of what has come to be described as the largest environmental disaster in US history.

“Speak to others the way you would want to be spoken to,” the chair of the meeting pleaded one last time before opening the floor for questions.

And for a while the crowd, mostly made up of fishing families, showed remarkable restraint. They listened patiently to Larry Thomas, a genial BP public relations flack, as he told them that he was committed to “doing better” to process their claims for lost revenue – then passed all the details off to a markedly less friendly subcontractor. They heard out the suit from the Environmental Protection Agency as he informed them that, contrary to what they have read about the lack of testing and the product being banned in Britain, the chemical dispersant being sprayed on the oil in massive quantities was really perfectly safe.
But patience started running out by the third time Ed Stanton, a coast guard captain, took to the podium to reassure them that “the coast guard intends to make sure that BP cleans it up”.

“Put it in writing!” someone shouted out. By now the air conditioning had shut itself off and the coolers of Budweiser were running low. A shrimper named Matt O’Brien approached the mic. “We don’t need to hear this anymore,” he declared, hands on hips. It didn’t matter what assurances they were offered because, he explained, “we just don’t trust you guys!” And with that, such a loud cheer rose up from the floor you’d have thought the Oilers (the unfortunately named school football team) had scored a touchdown.

The showdown was cathartic, if nothing else. For weeks residents had been subjected to a barrage of pep talks and extravagant promises coming from Washington, Houston and London. Every time they turned on their TVs, there was the BP boss, Tony Hayward, offering his solemn word that he would “make it right”. Or else it was President Barack Obama expressing his absolute confidence that his administration would “leave the Gulf coast in better shape than it was before”, that he was “making sure” it “comes back even stronger than it was before this crisis”.

It all sounded great. But for people whose livelihoods put them in intimate contact with the delicate chemistry of the wetlands, it also sounded completely ridiculous, painfully so. Once the oil coats the base of the marsh grass, as it had already done just a few miles from here, no miracle machine or chemical concoction could safely get it out. You can skim oil off the surface of open water, and you can rake it off a sandy beach, but an oiled marsh just sits there, slowly dying. The larvae of countless species for which the marsh is a spawning ground – shrimp, crab, oysters and fin fish – will be poisoned.

It was already happening. Earlier that day, I travelled through nearby marshes in a shallow water boat. Fish were jumping in waters encircled by white boom, the strips of thick cotton and mesh BP is using to soak up the oil. The circle of fouled material seemed to be tightening around the fish like a noose. Nearby, a red-winged blackbird perched atop a 2 metre (7ft) blade of oil-contaminated marsh grass. Death was creeping up the cane; the small bird may as well have been standing on a lit stick of dynamite.

And then there is the grass itself, or the Roseau cane, as the tall sharp blades are called. If oil seeps deeply enough into the marsh, it will not only kill the grass above ground but also the roots. Those roots are what hold the marsh together, keeping bright green land from collapsing into the Mississippi River delta and the Gulf of Mexico. So not only do places like Plaquemines Parish stand to lose their fisheries, but also much of the physical barrier that lessens the intensity of fierce storms like hurricane Katrina. Which could mean losing everything.

How long will it take for an ecosystem this ravaged to be “restored and made whole” as Obama’s interior secretary has pledged to do? It’s not at all clear that such a thing is remotely possible, at least not in a time frame we can easily wrap our heads around. The Alaskan fisheries have yet to fully recover from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill and some species of fish never returned. Government scientists now estimate that as much as a Valdez-worth of oil may be entering the Gulf coastal waters every four days. An even worse prognosis emerges from the 1991 Gulf war spill, when an estimated 11m barrels of oil were dumped into the Persian Gulf – the largest spill ever. That oil entered the marshland and stayed there, burrowing deeper and deeper thanks to holes dug by crabs.

It’s not a perfect comparison, since so little clean-up was done, but according to a study conducted 12 years after the disaster, nearly 90% of the impacted muddy salt marshes and mangroves were still profoundly damaged.

We do know this. Far from being “made whole,” the Gulf coast, more than likely, will be diminished. Its rich waters and crowded skies will be less alive than they are today. The physical space many communities occupy on the map will also shrink, thanks to erosion. And the coast’s legendary culture will contract and wither. The fishing families up and down the coast do not just gather food, after all. They hold up an intricate network that includes family tradition, cuisine, music, art and endangered languages – much like the roots of grass holding up the land in the marsh. Without fishing, these unique cultures lose their root system, the very ground on which they stand. (BP, for its part, is well aware of the limits of recovery. The company’s Gulf of Mexico regional oil spill response plan specifically instructs officials not to make “promises that property, ecology, or anything else will be restored to normal”. Which is no doubt why its officials consistently favour folksy terms like “make it right”.)

If Katrina pulled back the curtain on the reality of racism in America, the BP disaster pulls back the curtain on something far more hidden: how little control even the most ingenious among us have over the awesome, intricately interconnected natural forces with which we so casually meddle. BP cannot plug the hole in the Earth that it made. Obama cannot order fish species to survive, or brown pelicans not to go extinct (no matter whose ass he kicks).

No amount of money – not BP’s recently pledged $20bn (£13.5bn), not $100bn – can replace a culture that has lost its roots. And while our politicians and corporate leaders have yet to come to terms with these humbling truths, the people whose air, water and livelihoods have been contaminated are losing their illusions fast.

“Everything is dying,” a woman said as the town hall meeting was finally coming to a close. “How can you honestly tell us that our Gulf is resilient and will bounce back? Because not one of you up here has a hint as to what is going to happen to our Gulf. You sit up here with a straight face and act like you know when you don’t know.”

This Gulf coast crisis is about many things – corruption, deregulation, the addiction to fossil fuels. But underneath it all, it’s about this: our culture’s excruciatingly dangerous claim to have such complete understanding and command over nature that we can radically manipulate and re-engineer it with minimal risk to the natural systems that sustain us. But as the BP disaster has revealed, nature is always more unpredictable than the most sophisticated mathematical and geological models imagine. During Thursday’s congressional testimony, Hayward said: “The best minds and the deepest expertise are being brought to bear” on the crisis, and that, “with the possible exception of the space programme in the 1960s, it is difficult to imagine the gathering of a larger, more technically proficient team in one place in peacetime.” And yet, in the face of what the geologist Jill Schneiderman has described as “Pandora’s well”, they are like the men at the front of that gymnasium: they act like they know, but they don’t know.

BP’s mission statement

In the arc of human history, the notion that nature is a machine for us to re-engineer at will is a relatively recent conceit. In her ground-breaking 1980 book The Death of Nature, the environmental historian Carolyn Merchant reminded readers that up until the 1600s, the Earth was alive, usually taking the form of a mother. Europeans – like indigenous people the world over – believed the planet to be a living organism, full of life-giving powers but also wrathful tempers. There were, for this reason, strong taboos against actions that would deform and desecrate “the mother”, including mining.

The metaphor changed with the unlocking of some (but by no means all) of nature’s mysteries during the scientific revolution of the 1600s. With nature now cast as a machine, devoid of mystery or divinity, its component parts could be dammed, extracted and remade with impunity. Nature still sometimes appeared as a woman, but one easily dominated and subdued. Sir Francis Bacon best encapsulated the new ethos when he wrote in the 1623 De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum that nature is to be “put in constraint, moulded, and made as it were new by art and the hand of man”.

Those words may as well have been BP’s corporate mission statement. Boldly inhabiting what the company called “the energy frontier”, it dabbled in synthesising methane-producing microbes and announced that “a new area of investigation” would be geoengineering. And of course it bragged that, at its Tiber prospect in the Gulf of Mexico, it now had “the deepest well ever drilled by the oil and gas industry” – as deep under the ocean floor as jets fly overhead.

Imagining and preparing for what would happen if these experiments in altering the building blocks of life and geology went wrong occupied precious little space in the corporate imagination. As we have all discovered, after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on 20 April, the company had no systems in place to effectively respond to this scenario. Explaining why it did not have even the ultimately unsuccessful containment dome waiting to be activated on shore, a BP spokesman, Steve Rinehart, said: “I don’t think anybody foresaw the circumstance that we’re faced with now.” Apparently, it “seemed inconceivable” that the blowout preventer would ever fail – so why prepare?

This refusal to contemplate failure clearly came straight from the top. A year ago, Hayward told a group of graduate students at Stanford University that he has a plaque on his desk that reads: “If you knew you could not fail, what would you try?” Far from being a benign inspirational slogan, this was actually an accurate description of how BP and its competitors behaved in the real world. In recent hearings on Capitol Hill, congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts grilled representatives from the top oil and gas companies on the revealing ways in which they had allocated resources. Over three years, they had spent “$39bn to explore for new oil and gas. Yet, the average investment in research and development for safety, accident prevention and spill response was a paltry $20m a year.”

These priorities go a long way towards explaining why the initial exploration plan that BP submitted to the federal government for the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon well reads like a Greek tragedy about human hubris. The phrase “little risk” appears five times. Even if there is a spill, BP confidently predicts that, thanks to “proven equipment and technology”, adverse affects will be minimal. Presenting nature as a predictable and agreeable junior partner (or perhaps subcontractor), the report cheerfully explains that should a spill occur, “Currents and microbial degradation would remove the oil from the water column or dilute the constituents to background levels”. The effects on fish, meanwhile, “would likely be sublethal” because of “the capability of adult fish and shellfish to avoid a spill [and] to metabolise hydrocarbons”. (In BP’s telling, rather than a dire threat, a spill emerges as an all-you-can-eat buffet for aquatic life.)

Best of all, should a major spill occur, there is, apparently, “little risk of contact or impact to the coastline” because of the company’s projected speedy response (!) and “due to the distance [of the rig] to shore” – about 48 miles (77km). This is the most astonishing claim of all. In a gulf that often sees winds of more than 70km an hour, not to mention hurricanes, BP had so little respect for the ocean’s capacity to ebb and flow, surge and heave, that it did not think oil could make a paltry 77km trip. (Last week, a shard of the exploded Deepwater Horizon showed up on a beach in Florida, 306km away.)

None of this sloppiness would have been possible, however, had BP not been making its predictions to a political class eager to believe that nature had indeed been mastered. Some, like Republican Lisa Murkowski, were more eager than others. The Alaskan senator was so awe-struck by the industry’s four-dimensional seismic imaging that she proclaimed deep-sea drilling to have reached the very height of controlled artificiality. “It’s better than Disneyland in terms of how you can take technologies and go after a resource that is thousands of years old and do so in an environmentally sound way,” she told the Senate energy committee just seven months ago.

Drilling without thinking has of course been Republican party policy since May 2008. With gas prices soaring to unprecedented heights, that’s when the conservative leader Newt Gingrich unveiled the slogan “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” – with an emphasis on the now. The wildly popular campaign was a cry against caution, against study, against measured action. In Gingrich’s telling, drilling at home wherever the oil and gas might be – locked in Rocky Mountain shale, in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and deep offshore – was a surefire way to lower the price at the pump, create jobs, and kick Arab ass all at once. In the face of this triple win, caring about the environment was for sissies: as senator Mitch McConnell put it, “in Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana and Texas, they think oil rigs are pretty”. By the time the infamous “Drill Baby Drill” Republican national convention rolled around, the party base was in such a frenzy for US-made fossil fuels, they would have bored under the convention floor if someone had brought a big enough drill.

Obama, eventually, gave in, as he invariably does. With cosmic bad timing, just three weeks before the Deepwater Horizon blew up, the president announced he would open up previously protected parts of the country to offshore drilling. The practice was not as risky as he had thought, he explained. “Oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced.” That wasn’t enough for Sarah Palin, however, who sneered at the Obama administration’s plans to conduct more studies before drilling in some areas. “My goodness, folks, these areas have been studied to death,” she told the Southern Republican leadership conference in New Orleans, now just 11 days before the blowout. “Let’s drill, baby, drill, not stall, baby, stall!” And there was much rejoicing.

In his congressional testimony, Hayward said: “We and the entire industry will learn from this terrible event.” And one might well imagine that a catastrophe of this magnitude would indeed instil BP executives and the “Drill Now” crowd with a new sense of humility. There are, however, no signs that this is the case. The response to the disaster – at the corporate and governmental levels – has been rife with the precise brand of arrogance and overly sunny predictions that created the disaster in the first place.

The ocean is big, she can take it, we heard from Hayward in the early days. While spokesman John Curry insisted that hungry microbes would consume whatever oil was in the water system, because “nature has a way of helping the situation”. But nature has not been playing along. The deep-sea gusher has bust out of all BP’s top hats, containment domes, and junk shots. The ocean’s winds and currents have made a mockery of the lightweight booms BP has laid out to absorb the oil. “We told them,” said Byron Encalade, the president of the Louisiana Oysters Association. “The oil’s gonna go over the booms or underneath the bottom.” Indeed it did. The marine biologist Rick Steiner, who has been following the clean up closely, estimates that “70% or 80% of the booms are doing absolutely nothing at all”.

And then there are the controversial chemical dispersants: more than 1.3m gallons dumped with the company’s trademark “what could go wrong?” attitude. As the angry residents at the Plaquemines Parish town hall rightly point out, few tests had been conducted, and there is scant research about what this unprecedented amount of dispersed oil will do to marine life. Nor is there a way to clean up the toxic mixture of oil and chemicals below the surface. Yes, fast multiplying microbes do devour underwater oil – but in the process they also absorb the water’s oxygen, creating a whole new threat to marine life.

BP had even dared to imagine that it could prevent unflattering images of oil-covered beaches and birds from escaping the disaster zone. When I was on the water with a TV crew, for instance, we were approached by another boat whose captain asked, “”Y’all work for BP?” When we said no, the response – in the open ocean – was “You can’t be here then”. But of course these heavy-handed tactics, like all the others, have failed. There is simply too much oil in too many places. “You cannot tell God’s air where to flow and go, and you can’t tell water where to flow and go,” I was told by Debra Ramirez. It was a lesson she had learned from living in Mossville, Louisiana, surrounded by 14 emission-spewing petrochemical plants, and watching illness spread from neighbour to neighbour.

Human limitation has been the one constant of this catastrophe. After two months, we still have no idea how much oil is flowing, nor when it will stop. The company’s claim that it will complete relief wells by the end of August – repeated by Obama in his Oval Office address – is seen by many scientists as a bluff. The procedure is risky and could fail, and there is a real possibility that the oil could continue to leak for years.

The flow of denial shows no sign of abating either. Louisiana politicians indignantly oppose Obama’s temporary freeze on deepwater drilling, accusing him of killing the one big industry left standing now that fishing and tourism are in crisis. Palin mused on Facebook that “no human endeavour is ever without risk”, while Texas Republican congressman John Culberson described the disaster as a “statistical anomaly”. By far the most sociopathic reaction, however, comes from veteran Washington commentator Llewellyn King: rather than turning away from big engineering risks, we should pause in “wonder that we can build machines so remarkable that they can lift the lid off the underworld”.

Make the bleeding stop

Thankfully, many are taking a very different lesson from the disaster, standing not in wonder at humanity’s power to reshape nature, but at our powerlessness to cope with the fierce natural forces we unleash. There is something else too. It is the feeling that the hole at the bottom of the ocean is more than an engineering accident or a broken machine. It is a violent wound in a living organism; that it is part of us. And thanks to BP’s live camera feed, we can all watch the Earth’s guts gush forth, in real time, 24 hours a day.

John Wathen, a conservationist with the Waterkeeper Alliance, was one of the few independent observers to fly over the spill in the early days of the disaster. After filming the thick red streaks of oil that the coast guard politely refers to as “rainbow sheen”, he observed what many had felt: “The Gulf seems to be bleeding.” This imagery comes up again and again in conversations and interviews. Monique Harden, an environmental rights lawyer in New Orleans, refuses to call the disaster an “oil spill” and instead says, “we are haemorrhaging”. Others speak of the need to “make the bleeding stop”. And I was personally struck, flying over the stretch of ocean where the Deepwater Horizon sank with the US Coast Guard, that the swirling shapes the oil made in the ocean waves looked remarkably like cave drawings: a feathery lung gasping for air, eyes staring upwards, a prehistoric bird. Messages from the deep.

And this is surely the strangest twist in the Gulf coast saga: it seems to be waking us up to the reality that the Earth never was a machine. After 400 years of being declared dead, and in the middle of so much death, the Earth is coming alive.

The experience of following the oil’s progress through the ecosystem is a kind of crash course in deep ecology. Every day we learn more about how what seems to be a terrible problem in one isolated part of the world actually radiates out in ways most of us could never have imagined. One day we learn that the oil could reach Cuba – then Europe. Next we hear that fishermen all the way up the Atlantic in Prince Edward Island, Canada, are worried because the Bluefin tuna they catch off their shores are born thousands of miles away in those oil-stained Gulf waters. And we learn, too, that for birds, the Gulf coast wetlands are the equivalent of a busy airport hub – everyone seems to have a stopover: 110 species of migratory songbirds and 75% of all migratory US waterfowl.

It’s one thing to be told by an incomprehensible chaos theorist that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas. It’s another to watch chaos theory unfold before your eyes. Carolyn Merchant puts the lesson like this: “The problem as BP has tragically and belatedly discovered is that nature as an active force cannot be so confined.”
Predictable outcomes are unusual within ecological systems, while “unpredictable, chaotic events [are] usual”. And just in case we still didn’t get it, a few days ago, a bolt of lightning struck a BP ship like an exclamation mark, forcing it to suspend its containment efforts. And don’t even mention what a hurricane would do to BP’s toxic soup.

There is, it must be stressed, something uniquely twisted about this particular path to enlightenment. They say that Americans learn where foreign countries are by bombing them. Now it seems we are all learning about nature’s circulatory systems by poisoning them.

In the late 90s, an isolated indigenous group in Colombia captured world headlines with an almost Avatar-esque conflict. From their remote home in the Andean cloud forests, the U’wa let it be known that if Occidental Petroleum carried out plans to drill for oil on their territory, they would commit mass ritual suicide by jumping off a cliff. Their elders explained that oil is part of ruiria, “the blood of Mother Earth”. They believe that all life, including their own, flows from ruiria, so pulling out the oil would bring on their destruction. (Oxy eventually withdrew from the region, saying there wasn’t as much oil as it had previously thought.)

Virtually all indigenous cultures have myths about gods and spirits living in the natural world – in rocks, mountains, glaciers, forests – as did European culture before the scientific revolution. Katja Neves, an anthropologist at Concordia University, points out that the practice serves a practical purpose. Calling the Earth “sacred” is another way of expressing humility in the face of forces we do not fully comprehend. When something is sacred, it demands that we proceed with caution. Even awe.

If we are absorbing this lesson at long last, the implications could be profound. Public support for increased offshore drilling is dropping precipitously, down 22% from the peak of the “Drill Now” frenzy. The issue is not dead, however. It is only a matter of time before the Obama administration announces that, thanks to ingenious new technology and tough new regulations, it is now perfectly safe to drill in the deep sea, even in the Arctic, where an under-ice clean up would be infinitely more complex than the one underway in the Gulf. But perhaps this time we won’t be so easily reassured, so quick to gamble with the few remaining protected havens.

Same goes for geoengineering. As climate change negotiations wear on, we should be ready to hear more from Dr Steven Koonin, Obama’s undersecretary of energy for science. He is one of the leading proponents of the idea that climate change can be combated with techno tricks like releasing sulphate and aluminium particles into the atmosphere – and of course it’s all perfectly safe, just like Disneyland! He also happens to be BP’s former chief scientist, the man who just 15 months ago was still overseeing the technology behind BP’s supposedly safe charge into deepwater drilling. Maybe this time we will opt not to let the good doctor experiment with the physics and chemistry of the Earth, and choose instead to reduce our consumption and shift to renewable energies that have the virtue that, when they fail, they fail small. As US comedian Bill Maher put it, “You know what happens when windmills collapse into the sea? A splash.”

The most positive possible outcome of this disaster would be not only an acceleration of renewable energy sources like wind, but a full embrace of the precautionary principle in science. The mirror opposite of Hayward’s “If you knew you could not fail” credo, the precautionary principle holds that “when an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health” we tread carefully, as if failure were possible, even likely. Perhaps we can even get Hayward a new desk plaque to contemplate as he signs compensation cheques. “You act like you know, but you don’t know.”

Naomi Klein visited the Gulf coast with a film-crew from Fault Lines, a documentary programme hosted by Avi Lewis on al-Jazeera English Television. She was a consultant on the film. Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/07/post_18.html

Published: Monday, July 12, 2010, 6:31 AM

Metro New Orleans residents will always be grateful for the heroic performance of the U.S. Coast Guard after Hurricane Katrina. Even before tropical force winds subsided, its pilots began rescuing thousands of people, mostly New Orleanians stranded after the levee failures. That was the Coast Guard at its best, and its phenomenal service stood out amid a shameful federal response.

The agency has been tepid at times, and that has delayed cleanup efforts. The performance of some federal officials, including Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, has often left the public wondering whether the Coast Guard or BP is in charge. The Coast Guard’s emergency plans for a spill were inadequate, assuming as a worst-case scenario a finite spill like the 1989 Exxon Valdez in Alaska. The ongoing spill caught the agency flat-footed.

The agency’s problems handling the spill may also reflect a broader problem. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Coast Guard’s national security portfolio was expanded considerably. Aside from traditional duties, including search and rescue, aiding navigation and enforcing fisheries and environmental laws, the Coast Guard now provides security at more than 300 ports, patrols about 95,000 miles of coastline and supports military command overseas.

That has left the Coast Guard stretched thin. The agency, for example, was ordered in 2004 to crack down on barge operators that were overlooking safety rules. But the Coast Guard was slow in creating regulations and lacked resources to appropriately enforce them, leaving the industry to police itself.

Those deficiencies were exposed by the July 2008 collision between a barge and a ship that caused a 280,000-gallon oil spill in the Mississippi River at New Orleans, shutting down the waterway for days.

Further evidence of the Coast Guard’s strain came this week, when Adm. Robert Papp, the agency’s commandant, worried about the limited number of reservists available for the BP oil spill response. Many Coast Guard reservists have already been called to the Gulf or have been tied up in national security missions overseas.

Adm. Papp said he is forming a panel to draw lessons from the BP spill response. That’s good. But that discussion should also examine whether the Coast Guard should remain in charge of responding to this type of disaster in the future.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

JULY 12, 2010

Q1. Why is Secretary Salazar issuing new deepwater drilling suspensions?

A1. Secretary Salazar has issued a new decision to suspend deepwater drilling activities based on an extensive record of existing and new information. The Secretary has concluded new suspensions are necessary because he has determined that new deepwater drilling would pose a threat of serious, irreparable, or immediate harm or damage to the marine, coastal, and human environment. The temporary pause on deepwater drilling will provide time for the implementation of safety reforms and for:

1. The submission of evidence by operators demonstrating that they have the ability to respond effectively to a potential oil spill in the Gulf, given the unprecedented commitment of available oil spill response resources that are now being dedicated to the BP oil spill;

2. The assessment of wild well intervention and blowout containment resources to determine the strategies and methods by which they can be made more readily available should another blowout occur; and

3. The collection and analysis of key evidence regarding the potential causes of the April 20, 2010 explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig, including information collected by the Presidential Commission and other investigations.

In addition, suspending these particular operations until November 30 will allow BOEM and the Department to develop the interim rules required to address the safety issues that have recently come to light. Some of these interim rules are expected to be issued within 120 days of the issuance of the May 27, 2010, Departmental report entitled “Increased Safety Measures for Energy Development on the Outer Continental Shelf” (the “Safety Report”), and additional time will be required after these rulemaking actions are completed for operators to implement the new requirements established by those rules. Other rules will have a longer development or implementation timeline, and Secretary Salazar will determine whether their implementation is essential before suspended operations may resume.

Q2. What are the differences between the May 28 deepwater drilling moratorium and the new deepwater drilling suspension?

A2. Like the deepwater drilling moratorium lifted by the District Court on June 22, the deepwater drilling suspensions ordered today apply to most deepwater drilling activities and could last through November 30. The suspensions ordered today, however, are the product of a new decision by the Secretary and new evidence regarding safety concerns, blowout containment shortcomings within the industry, and spill response capabilities that are strained by the BP oil spill. Moreover, the new decision by the Secretary establishes a process through which BOEM will gather and analyze new information from the public, experts, stakeholders, and the industry on safety and response issues, which could potentially provide the basis for identifying conditions for resuming certain deepwater drilling activities. In addition, the May 28 moratorium proscribed drilling based on specific water depths; the new decision does not suspend activities based on water depth, but on the basis of the drilling configurations and technologies.

Q3. What is the purpose of the meetings that Secretary Salazar is directing BOEM to hold?

A3. During the suspension, BOEM should continue to develop information about the relative risks posed by the various types of drilling activity, compliance with workplace and drilling safety requirements, status of blowout containment capabilities, and compliance with oil spill response requirements. Specifically, Secretary Salazar has directed Michael R. Bromwich, Director of BOEM, to conduct public meetings and outreach to gather additional information, on an expedited basis, on the primary issues that the Secretary identified as raising the most significant risks regarding the resumption of deepwater drilling:

1. Drilling and workplace safety requirements as outlined in the Safety Report and a timeline for the implementation of such safety requirements and others that may be necessary to ensure safe drilling practices;

2. Well intervention and blowout containment technology and methodology designed to effectively address and expeditiously contain any blowouts that could occur;

3. A review of additional and necessary oil spill response plans for offshore drilling and production facilities, and an evaluation of industry capacity to address a worst case discharge scenario under 30 CFR part 254.

This information gathering will be critical to addressing the serious risks presented by oil and gas drilling activities in deepwater environments. This additional information potentially could provide the basis for identifying conditions for resumption of drilling activities if certain conditions are met, and/or the identification of any oil and gas drilling activities that might be allowed prior to the expiration of the suspensions based on the relative level of risk associated with those activities.

Q4. The Secretary’s decision memo said that inspections of the BOPs on the new relief wells has identified unexpected performance problems with those BOPs. What were those performance problems and does that mean that the drilling of the relief wells is being conducted in an unsafe manner?

A4. The BOPs used in BP’s relief wells were subject to augmented testing procedures. These tests identified and allowed the repair of several problems, including:

During ROV hot stab testing, the Lower Marine Riser Package disconnect function was unsuccessful because of a leaking shuttle valve.
A failed shuttle valve caused an unsuccessful test of the All Stabs Retract function.
A failure of the deadman test because a shuttle valve was installed that should not have been.
A broken solenoid connection on the blue pod that prevented that pod from closing the casing shear rams.

Because these problems were identified by the new testing procedures, they were repaired, and the tests were successfully re-run. Interior is closely monitoring the drilling of the relief wells to ensure safety.

Q5. The Secretary’s decision allows certain low risk operations to occur in deepwater in spite of the suspensions. What are these activities and what’s the rationale for allowing them?

A5. Secretary Salazar has directed BOEM to direct the suspension of any authorized drilling of wells using subsea or surface BOPs on a floating facility. Secretary Salazar has further directed BOEM to cease the approval of pending and future applications for permits to drill wells using subsea or surface BOPs on a floating facility. These suspensions shall apply in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific regions through November 30, 2010, subject to modification if the Secretary determines that the significant threats to life, property, and the environment set forth in this memorandum have been sufficiently addressed.

These suspensions do not apply to production activities, drilling operations that are necessary to conduct emergency activities, such as the drilling operations related to the ongoing BP Oil Spill, nor do they apply to drilling operations necessary for completions or workovers (where surface BOP stacks are installed, they must be utilized during these operations), abandonment or intervention operations, waterflood, gas injection, or disposal wells. The exceptions to the drilling suspensions have been carefully considered based on their relative risk and their necessity to maintain ongoing production. Waterflood, injection and disposal wells are drilled into production reservoirs for which all the relevant geologic information is known to the operator. The drilling equipment and procedures, including the casing and cementing programs, are similar to those already used for the project. Such wells are typically considered routine and low risk. Completion and abandonment operations are conducted when the drilling of the well has been finished, and are necessary to, respectively, allow the well to produce or to secure and close the well. Workover operations are performed on wells drilled into a production reservoir with known geologic information and these operations are necessary to maintain production from these wells. All of these drilling operations must comply with NTL-N05.

Q6. How many drilling operations are affected by the suspensions ordered today?

A6. Any count of deepwater offshore drilling rigs in a particular region represents a snapshot in time. When the BP Oil Spill occurred, there were 36 floating drilling rigs that were either operating in the Gulf of Mexico, were between wells in the Gulf of Mexico, or were scheduled to come to the Gulf of Mexico to begin operations before the end of 2010. In addition, there were 19 platform rigs on floating production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico at that time. When the May 28 suspensions were put into effect, there were a total of 33 drilling rigs conducting operations in water depths of at least 500 feet – 26 floating rigs and 7 platform rigs. A total of 21 rigs of these rigs were required to reach a safe stopping point and to suspend drilling operations, and all have done so. The remaining 12 rigs have been conducting operations allowed under the moratorium.

Q8. What is the status of shallow water drilling permits?

A8. BOEM has been tracking drilling permit requests and well modification permit requests that are required to include the information outlined in NTL-N05 (Safety NTL) and/or NTL-N06 (Environmental NTL).

As of Monday, July 12, 9:00 a.m. EDT:

For those applications required to comply only with NTL-N05, 16 applications have been approved and 16 are pending.

For those applications required to comply with NTL -N05 and NTL-N06, 12 requests are pending.

This information is updated every business day, and can be found at: http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/offshore/safety/well_permits.html

In addition, since June 8, BOEM has approved 18 other shallow water permits, and 4 others are pending, to which there were no permit-specific requirements in either NTL. However, the applicants had to comply with NTL-N05′s general (company-wide) certification requirements before these applications could be processed.

The requirements of the NTLs affect the timing of the approvals.

One of the requirements of NTL-N05 was that the companies needed to submit certifications that they were complying with BOEM regulations and the joint BOEM-Coast Guard safety alert, and that they had conducted 4 specific reviews of their operations. These certifications were due on June 28. All but one operator has complied (the lone exception being in bankruptcy proceedings).

NTL-N06 requires companies to submit additional information on blowout and worst-case discharge scenarios, as well as measures to prevent a blowout, reduce the likelihood of a blowout and to conduct early and effective intervention in case of a blowout. This NTL was issued June 18. Currently, there are 33 submitted exploration or development plans to which NTL-N06 applies. Companies have submitted information for 11 of these plans, 5 of which have been returned for additional information and the other 6 of which are currently being reviewed.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Dear Friends of Florida waters:

It has been two weeks since I sent you an update on the oil disaster as perceived through my eyes, ears and nose. I have learned a lot in that time period and much has happened in terms of government action/inaction and of course to our waters and wildlife. It’s hard to know where to start, so I’ll just start and hope that it flows in a direction that makes sense to you.

First for some good news: There is definitely more information about what is happening to clean up the oil, now available on the internet. There are numerous links that you can follow, but the two that I find most helpful are these:

http://www.dep.state.fl.us/deepwaterhorizon/news.htm

http://map.floridadisaster.org/gator/

They both have further links inside of them, so if you are acutely interested in this situation, I would suggest that you spend time looking over these sites. The CERT-GATOR site is pretty amazing. As I have followed these sites over the past couple of weeks, one thing that really jumps out to me is the fact that there are so many boats and resources being committed to Destin and Panama City as compared to, for instance, Pensacola. But when you look at the oil recovered, the amount at Pensacola is enormously higher. Some oil has been getting over as far as Walton and Bay Counties, but relatively small amounts. Yet, the effort to protect these areas is remarkable. While I don’t know the reason for this seeming inequity, I would guess that its political, as in St. Joe Development Corporation put in a phone call to Tallahassee and said something like, “Don’t you dare let that oil get to the beaches where we own resorts and rental properties, etc.” For those of you who are not familiar with the incredible power of St. Joe, just take my word for it, when they demand something from the state or federal government . . . They get it. Other possible reasons could be that St. Andrews Bay is a very high quality estuary (or was before the state and federal government donated $400 million to build a new airport which has trashed a large part of the bay) and should be protected; there is a US Fish & Wildlife office and a National Marine Fisheries office there and so the federal government is more concerned; or the tax dollars that are generated by Panama City Beach are so high that the state doesn’t want to lose that income. Anyway, the important thing about this information is that your coastline may get more or less money, resources and protection, depending on who you know and how well politically connected you are.

Early last week, I sent some questions to the folks in Tallahassee who are intricately involved in the management of the state’s resources and decisions. Below is an excerpt from the email and the questions that I sent. My primary questions centered around threats to public health and information that has been circulating about the potential for the methane under the blown-out pipe to explode and possibly cause a tsunami along the Gulf Coast. I had requested the state’s position on this previously and was given a canned response from the DEP expert on the subject. What you will read here is my response to the state’s statement:

. . . . .There is an article on Huffington Post that explains the threat very succinctly and plainly and leads to more questions. One thing that the DEP expert said that didn’t sound right to me, was that the live video feed from the ocean floor around the busted well head does not show any leaking from the ocean floor.

“ I’ve watched the leaking wellhead and BP’s robots trying to plug it the last few weeks and it looks to me like all the leaking fluids go straight upward. If hydrates or an ultra high pressure bubble were forming, I would think it would be visible from one of the many robot cameras views we’ve seen on the live webcasts. We’ve seen the substrate near the leaking well. It’s muddy and turbulent, but all we’ve seen drifting by is what looks like white shell fragments and an occasional eel.”

He said that on June 17th and maybe it was after that, that we started seeing the video of oil and gas clearly bubbling up from the ocean floor around the wellhead. In any case, it clearly is happening. Senator Nelson made a big issue of it in his press conference two weeks ago. This may need to be revisited by DEP.

Also, in the transcript of the press conference given by Thad Allen on June 25th which was sent to me in the Deepwater Horizon memo, he completely dismisses any notion of a methane bubble. That in my opinion is irresponsible and worrisome. There is clearly a lot of methane down in that reserve and the government needs to be paying attention to it. We the taxpayers deserve an honest and full explanation of their findings.

I would ask that the Governor’s office immediately set up a panel of experts that have credibility with the public (so for instance if you had five experts, then no more than one would work for DEP) to review the pros and cons on this issue and to come out with a finding that will be public. If the scientists who are concerned are right and there were to be a catastrophic event(s) it seems that Florida would take the brunt of it. I don’t see how the state can not want to know all that it can possibly know about this and share it with the public. If you truly believe that we are not in danger, then you need to get that out to people.

DISPERSANTS – Would you please request from your contacts at BP or the Coast Guard, a complete list of dates, locations and amounts of dispersants that have been released? GPS coordinates would be fine for locations. I know this information must be available and the state has a right to know how close it is getting to Florida waters. If you would pass it on to me I would greatly appreciate it. Also, I would like to request that DEP contract with a reputable lab to do daily sampling of Florida waters for dispersants. If this is already being done then please advise me as to where I can review it. We need to have our state waters line sampled in several locations, as well as beaches and inland waters. Since DEP is apparently doing extensive data collection to document damages in the future, then it may be relatively easy for them to add dispersants to the list of samples that they take from inland and near shore waters. I repeat that it would be ideal to have our state water line that is 9.5 miles offshore, also sampled daily in several locations.

AIR QUALITY – As I understand what you have told me, so far the DEP has only sampled air quality for oil related pollutants in Apalachicola and Wakulla? Is this correct? I would like to request that air monitors be set up on Perdido Key, Pensacola Beach, Navarre Beach, and Okaloosa Island this week. As the storm blows the oil closer and we are likely to have winds from the south and southwest, it is critical that people have information about air quality to make informed decisions. You can’t advertise for people to come here and visit and then not make this important information available. Plus, permanent residents have a right to know if they are breathing toxic air on a regular basis. I would like the air tested either twice a day (early morning and just after dark) or constantly for such pollutants as: benzene, methane, hydrogen sulfide,and methylene chloride and any other suspected pollutants that could be expected. As I have said before, the air is often bad enough that you can’t be outside for any length of time. Surely the state wants to know if it’s residents are in danger and give us the option of making informed decisions about the risk we assume by staying in our homes for an extended period of time.

STORMS – The news stations tell us to expect more oil to get blown to shore by the TS Alex which is entering the lower Gulf of Mexico. That makes sense. Would you please make sure that larger booms are deployed to the greatest extent possible? The little sausage booms that are so popular in this disaster response are barely effective in calm seas and will be totally worthless in larger waves.

In closing, I want to thank you for all you efforts to effectively communicate what the Governor’s office and your agencies are doing to address this disaster. I’m hoping that all of your efforts will be successful. I continue to request that you secure more and better technology out in the Gulf to stop the oil from coming to shore. This would include boats and skimmers, booms and other devices that you find to be effective. I would also ask that when local governments request money for local protective measures, if you choose to deny their requests that you simultaneously provide some alternative protection that is demonstrated (or believed for good reason) to be equally or more protective. It is unhelpful for the state to deny our local governments the money to do the best that they can to protect their local resources and then not provide any sort of solution to the growing contamination that is occurring in our local waters. Our estuaries, marshes, streams, grassbeds, oysterbeds, etc MUST BE PROTECTED. I know that the state is concerned about scam-artists, bogus devices, etc. that will surely surface during this crisis situation, but it will be better to err on the side of making a few mistakes than to do nothing.

I look forward to hearing from you on the above questions and requests. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I will pass on your information to the members of my organization and all the people that they share my updates with, which is growing every day. Thank you again for all your efforts and assistance.”

That is the end of my letter. Here is what I have learned since then from the state and from EPA in Atlanta:

DISPERSANTS – The US EPA is only testing for dispersants in waters around Louisiana. There is apparently no testing for dispersants being done off the coast of Florida, on the theory that dispersants are not being sprayed in Florida waters, so therefore there is no need. Even though DEP is taking hundreds of water quality samples that will be used to build a case for damages from BP down the road, they are not testing for dispersants at all.

METHANE BUBBLE – See above. I also received a fact sheet from the state regarding methane related to offshore drilling. It was unhelpful. I was told that the state is looking into the question that I posed in the email above, but I have received no further helpful information regarding my concern about the methane gas issue.

Air Quality – Below is what I got from the state. After talking to many people in government, I don’t see any evidence that they want to know if the air is safe or not. Or the water for that matter.

Four VOC monitors have been established in Florida at: Naval Air Station Pensacola, Panama City Beach, Ft. Walton, and Eastpoint. Two of the monitors are run by EPA (with state assistance) and two are run entirely by the state. Both EPA and DEP monitors are sited according to EPA criteria established for this purpose.
The monitors are located where populations are more concentrated and better represent the air quality most local citizens are breathing; the locations are also adequate to assess ambient air quality at the coast. Direct placement of the monitors on or adjacent to the beach would not be considered the most ideal location. In this case, though, the Naval Air Station monitor is actually located just off the beach, so we have at least one location this is located adjacent to the beach. Also very important to note, the sites have to be in secured locations to protect the equipment. We believe that all four sites adequately balance all the considerations that need to be made in placing the monitors. [MY NOTE: the Naval Air Station is not located just off the beach].

We characterize the air monitoring effort for the oil spill as EPA’s effort. Florida is assisting EPA in this effort. To improve and augment coverage for Florida citizens, the state has added the two sites for VOC monitoring. In addition to the DEP monitoring results, we will soon be posting the EPA VOC monitoring results on the DEP air monitoring web page (http://www.dep.state.fl.us/deepwaterhorizon/air.htm).

EPA’s website:
www.epa.gov/bpspill/air.html

CLEAN UP TECHNOLOGY: Numerous people have sent me questions about who to contact to share clean-up technology. Here’s what I got from the state:

Below are links to be used by citizens who wish to submit for evaluation, or bring to the attention of decision-makers, technologies for use in connection with the oil contamination.

Innovative.Technology@dep.state.fl.us

Innovative Technology Evaluation Sheet

http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doc/2931/546759/

http://www.epa.gov/bpspill/techsolution.html

I hope this information will be helpful to you. As always, there is so much to tell, and I know it can be overwhelming. Many of you have written me with specific questions and that’s great. I’ll try to answer each one as they come in. Have a great weekend and I will do the same. You’ll hear from me again next week.

For all of Florida’s waters,

Linda Young
Director

Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 3:33 PM

Rachel Slajda | July 7, 2010, 3:17PM

A federal agency charged with protecting endangered species signed off in 2007 on a new round of oil drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico, saying that even if the new drilling led to a major oil spill, only some 60 endangered turtles would be killed, according to the official agency opinion reviewed by TPMmuckraker. But in the two months since the Deepwater Horizon blew, government scientists say more than 400 sea turtles have been found dead so far.

In 2007, the National Marine Fisheries Service, which enforces the Endangered Species Act, was asked to give its “biological opinion” on the impact of new oil drilling leases — including the lease of the now-leaking Macondo prospect — on endangered species, including turtles, sperm whales and sturgeon. Under the law, the Minerals Management Service, which leases the underwater wells, had to get NMFS’s sign-off that the drilling wouldn’t jeopardize the populations of endangered species.

In the report (PDF), NMFS estimated the impact of a major spill on endangered species and concluded that the new drilling “is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of these species.” But the NMFS estimates were based on assurances from the MMS that a major spill would be significantly smaller than the current ongoing BP spill.

Neither the NMFS nor the MMS immediately returned requests for comment.

The agency based its description of a “major” spill on assurances from the MMS that technical advances made a really bad spill — such as, notably, the Ixtoc I disaster in 1979 — all but impossible.

“With new technologically advances [sic] and oil spill prevention and response plans, a major oil spill in the GOM [Gulf of Mexico] would not likely be as large as Ixtoc I (Minerals Management Service 2006),” the report reads.
So sure was the NMFS of the MMS’s expertise that it estimated a major spill as one half the size of the Ixtoc leak.

The Ixtoc was estimated to have leaked some 3.5 million barrels of oil after spewing into the Gulf for 10 months. Half of that, of course, is 1.75 million barrels.

BP’s leaking well is currently spewing 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day, according to the most recent estimates, and has been for some 77 days. That means, conservatively, the current leak has already put 2.7 million barrels into the Gulf. And it may have already leaked 4.6 million barrels.

In fact, the AP, based on its own estimates, declared last week that the BP leak had already surpassed the Ixtoc leak in gallons spilled.

“It’ll be well beyond Ixtoc by the time it’s finished,” one expert told the AP.

In its 2007 report, NMFS defined its “major spill” as having a sheen of 1,200 square miles, and tarballs would appear on a nine mile long stretch of coastal habitat. That’s the size of the spill that could kill of one tenth of the adult turtle population.

The sheen created by the current spill is much bigger, according to government maps, although difficult to measure. And as of yesterday, 484 miles of Gulf coastline was oiled.

The report estimated that, over the life of the 40 year leases, a total of 60 sea turtles — of the endangered or threatened species Kemp’s ridley, leatherback, hawksbill, loggerhead and green — would be killed by oil spills.

But the number of dead turtles found on the Gulf coast has already surpassed that number seven times over. Since April 30, according to NOAA, 438 stranded turtles have been found dead, and 115 have been found with visible evidence of oil. Almost 150 are in rehabilitation centers.

We should note that some of the turtles may have met their death in other ways. There are also untold numbers of dead turtles that never wash ashore.

Despite the low estimate of 60 fatalities, the 2007 report did note that there was a small chance of a “major” spill that could decimate the adult turtle population, and halve the juvenile population.

“We estimate that approximately 1 in 10 adult [turtles] will suffer chronic affects resulting in death from a major oil spill,” the report reads. It’s unclear whether the report refers to a tenth of the the entire Gulf turtle population, or a tenth of those who come in contact with the spill.

The opinion was written in June 2007. MMS sold the lease to the Macondo prospect to BP in March 2008.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/florida_shoreline_is_untouched.html

It’s true; I just returned from Key West where the water was as clear as I have seen it in years. I had a wonderful day at the beach at Fort Zachary Taylor. Nonetheless, the impression that Florida is vulnerable to the oil spill is already impacting tourism. DV

New Jersey
NJ.com
Associated Press

Published: Sunday, July 11, 2010, 5:21 PM Updated: Sunday, July 11, 2010, 5:22 PM
The Associated Press

ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida’s shoreline was apparently untouched by any raw petroleum before the Deepwater Horizon disaster smothered the western Panhandle with crude oil in June. That’s according to what authorities consider to be the most exhaustive detective work yet on tar balls found along the state’s 1,260 miles of coast.

U.S. Coast Guard lab findings defy the longstanding belief that a regular ingredient of at least some of the tar balls that for years have turned up occasionally on state beaches is either crude spilled during offshore drilling or oil that seeped from natural vents under the Gulf.

Of the 192 batches of Florida tar-ball samples sent since mid-May to a Coast Guard laboratory in Connecticut, the vast majority have turned out to be lumps of heavy fuel oil, dark and syrupy as molasses and commonly used to power oceangoing ships.

None of the samples was identified as containing unprocessed, crude oil; a few samples proved to be nothing more than hardened mud; and nearly 20 samples had been severely altered by sunlight, oxygen and bacteria and were thought to be many months or years old, said Wayne Gronlund, manager of the Coast Guard Marine Safety Laboratory in Connecticut.

Those aging tar balls “were so heavily weathered, we couldn’t make a declaration about whether they were crude or heavy fuel,” said Gronlund, who described them as similar to chunks of asphalt.

Gronlund said his chemists, when examining fresher samples, can easily distinguish between the chemical fingerprint of crude oil and those of refined petroleum products such as heavy fuel oil, diesel and various lubricants.
The search for tar balls along Florida shores took on heightened urgency two months ago when dozens of blobs of oily tar began to wash up in Big Pine Key, Key West and the Dry Tortugas.

Authorities then thought it unlikely that crude oil could have drifted so quickly across 500 miles of open Gulf from the BP PLC oil-well blowout, which began April 20 with an explosion and fire on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon nearly 50 miles south of Louisiana.

A day after those tar balls first appeared in the Keys, a Coast Guard jet carried what was deemed to be “samples of national significance” to the service’s laboratory, which determined within hours that they were composed of heavy fuel oil. The source was never identified.

Still, the Keys event triggered a statewide surge of concern about the potential for crude oil to ride currents to any spot along Florida’s coast.
“People’s awareness for tar balls has been heightened because of the spill so they went out looking for tar balls and lo and behold they found tar balls,” said David Palandro, a scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Advocates of drilling for oil in waters near the Florida coast have argued that the state has already learned to tolerate the occasional landfall of crude in the form of tar balls created not by drilling or tanker-ship accidents but by seepage from natural vents that connect petroleum reservoirs deep underground to the seafloor.

“Natural seepage accounts for virtually all perceived ‘oil spills’ in the Gulf,” stated a glossy brochure with the subtitle, “It’s time for facts, not fear,” that was widely distributed in Florida last year by drilling supporters lobbying the public and the Legislature.

“They try to draw the conclusion that any oil found on the beaches is actually from these natural causes,” said Eric Draper, executive director of Audubon of Florida. “Their argument is if most of the oil comes from seeps, then most of the oil on beaches must come from seeps.”

David Mica, executive director of the pro-drilling Florida Petroleum Council, said he doesn’t “recall ever asserting that they (tar balls) were all naturally occurring.”

The vast majority of tar balls collected and tested during the past two months were found in the Keys and Southeast Florida, where the shipping lanes, including some of the nation’s busiest, pass within miles of the coast.

Experts say the tightening of environmental laws and enforcement efforts have reduced the amount of such oil discharged from ships in recent years.

“It certainly appears to all of us who work on east Florida beaches, and have been for years, that we’ve gotten some control over that problem,” said Lew Ehrhart, a longtime sea-turtle scientist. “For the last five, six, seven years, we haven’t seen nearly as many, and the people who walk on the beach and people who live on the beach haven’t seen much in the way of tar balls on the beach.”

Along the coast in the far-western Panhandle, where oil from the BP well began to arrive in late May, regular testing of tar balls was soon suspended because local authorities quickly had little doubt about the source of the oil that is blackening their famous white-sand beaches.

The ruptured BP well, under nearly a mile of seawater, continues to spew as much as 35,000 barrels – or nearly 150 million gallons – of crude into the Gulf each day.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

Anne C. Mulkern, E&E reporter, June 16, 2010

Environmental groups and others who support climate legislation want to steal the dirty word “tax” from opponents and paint the oil industry as the beneficiary of a $4 billion consumer-funded “Big Oil Welfare Tax.”

A memo circulating from Clean Energy Works, an alliance of about 60 groups, outlines a strategy of framing tax benefits the industry receives as corporate welfare. The memo calls the messaging plan a “line of attack” to counteract the description of climate legislation as a national energy tax.

“The coming weeks will be very important for supporters of comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation,” the memo states. “The opposition, in the form of [the American Petroleum Institute] and Big Oil lobbyists in Washington, are spending millions on smear campaigns and calling on their cronies in the Senate to do everything they can to continue America’s dependence on oil and prevent a new policy that moves us away from oil and toward a clean energy economy.”

“What they don’t want anyone to know is that the American people already have a national energy tax — The Big Oil Welfare Tax — in the form of billions of dollars in subsidies to the wildly profitable big oil companies,” the memo adds.

The coalition of environmental groups and others said it wants a counterpoint to the oil industry’s charge that comprehensive climate legislation would amount to a $1,200 annual energy tax on every household.

“Until now, Big Oil has been successful keeping the existing Big Oil welfare tax a secret,” said David DiMartino, spokesman for Clean Energy Works. “When people hear we are subsidizing Big Oil’s profits, it’ll make them think about our existing failed energy policy.”

The strategy follows a New York Times report last week that the oil industry receives $4 billion annually in tax benefits, some of them stemming from decades-old laws to promote oil exploration. Capital investments such as oil-field leases and drilling equipment see a levy of 9 percent, the article said, while other industries see an overall tax of 25 percent.

API, the trade group for the oil and natural gas industry, rejected that it receives corporate welfare.

“Baseless charges that America’s oil and natural gas companies don’t pay their fair share and enjoy too many incentives are not supported by the facts,” said API spokeswoman Cathy Landry. “According to the Energy Information Administration, the industry’s effective federal income tax rate is more than two-thirds higher than the average for all manufacturing industries. Another EIA study shows renewable energy industries enjoy double the incentives of those for oil and natural gas.”

Landry said API has not been among those calling climate legislation a national energy tax. API has not come out in opposition to any of the Senate climate bills, saying that it is “neutral.”

The Clean Energy Works memo details a number of tax benefits that the oil and natural gas industry receives, and the value of each. Transocean Ltd., the company that owned the drilling rig that exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico, saved $1.8 billion in taxes by moving overseas in 1999, the memo said, citing the same New York Times article.

API said many of the tax benefits called into question are enjoyed by other industries, as well.

“For example, Section 199 of the tax code allows all manufacturers to deduct their manufacturing expenses in an effort to keep jobs in the United States and create new ones,” Landry said. “Another example is the ‘dual capacity’ tax provision, which enables all U.S. companies — including the U.S. oil and natural gas industry — to operate and produce goods and services in other countries without having their profits taxed twice.

“This particular provision, which is actually more restrictive than the general foreign tax credit rules, ensures that U.S. companies can compete on a level playing field with foreign competitors as well as pay their fair share of U.S. taxes.”

The Obama administration wants to eliminate many of the industry’s tax concessions, including a tax deduction given to manufacturers, deductions for some drilling costs, and credits given for low-volume oil and gas wells. In addition, there would be new taxes on Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production and the reinstatement of taxes to generate revenue for cleaning up hazardous waste sites.

The same Obama revenue-raising proposal stalled last year, and the proposal so far has received a cold reception from the Senate. That chamber last month rejected, 35-61, an amendment that would have ended $35 billion worth of tax breaks for oil and gas producers over the next decade. The amendment would have cut oil and gas tax breaks related to amortization, depletion of oil wells and domestic production income (E&E Daily, June 16).

Special thanks to Richard Charter

What the tragedy of the BP oil spill has taught us about regulations, technology, and how our energy diet must change.

By Laurent Belsie, Staff writer
posted July 10, 2010 at 9:10 am EDT

Boston – For years to come, the United States and the oil industry will be absorbing the lessons of the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Regulators will toughen inspections. Oil companies will adopt more rigorous safeguards. New cleanup technologies will emerge from university and corporate laboratories. And spill drills could become a regular part of coastal communities’ emergency planning.

What the BP oil spill does not signal, however, is a change in direction. Even as brown goo gushes from the Gulf floor 5,000 feet below the surface, and cleanup crews struggle to halt the slick from befouling beaches and shorebirds, companies are already developing the technologies to drill twice as deep off South America, Africa, and in the Gulf itself.

Oil plays too big a role in the world economy to turn off the spigot – or to stop exploring for new sources of crude to replace declining oil fields already in production.

IN PICTURES: Sticky mess: The Gulf oil spill’s impact on nature

The larger lesson of the BP oil spill – the environmental and economic risks of over-reliance on fossil fuel – is lost on no one. The Obama administration and Congress may push through some measure that begins to tax the burning of oil and other fossil fuels.

But economic and technological hurdles – as well as political ones – stand in the way of a significant change in the US’s energy diet. Electric cars, biofuels, or some other technology will one day consign the internal-combustion engine to history’s dustbin. For the moment, though, it looks far easier to create a more foolproof blowout preventer or safer drilling technique than to find a cheap, simple, and ubiquitous alternative to oil.

So what are the lessons of the Great Spill of 2010?

1 Improve the offshore police

Wanted: People who understand the physics of recovering oil from the bottom of the ocean floor. Need to be intimately familiar with the mechanics of deep drilling – in other words, know that a RAM BOP has nothing to do with text messaging. Must be tough-minded and dispassionate. Must be willing to refuse any “gifts” from the oil industry, like free hunting and fishing trips. No golf outings with industry executives, either.

This may soon be a job description coming to a classified ad near you. One outcome of the spill is the need for a retooled system to regulate energy exploration and production. Among the most pressing needs: more offshore sheriffs – people trained to inspect drilling rigs. Mary Kendall, the acting inspector general in the Department of Interior, told Congress recently that the Minerals Management Service (MMS) had about 60 inspec-tors to oversee the 4,000 or so offshore oil production and exploration facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. More and better-trained staff is likely to be a top priority.

No one knows, of course, if tougher federal regulations and enforcement would have pre-vented the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Until the massive 450-ton blowout preventer that failed is hauled off the ocean bottom, it will be impossible to know what mechanical and human errors occurred. Yet there are already a few clues about what to do better.

Take, for instance, testimony by Michael Saucier, the head of field operations for the New Orleans branch of the MMS, who told investigators about his team’s oversight of federal safety standards for blowout preventers, or BOPs, often called the “last line of defense” against a spill.

After listening to Mr. Saucier detail MMS oversight of BOP testing, Coast Guard Capt. Hung Nguyen, co-chair of the federal investigative panel, sought clarification. “So my understanding is that [the BOP] is designed to industry standard, manufactured by industry, installed by industry with no government witnessing oversight of the construction or the installation; is that correct?”

“That would be correct,” Saucier said.

At another point, Saucier told the panel that the MMS had “highly encouraged” companies to have backup systems to trigger blowout preventers in an emergency.

“Highly encourage?” Nguyen asked. “How does that translate to enforcement?”

“There is no enforcement,” Saucier answered.

Given such testimony, experts say the key issue is simply getting rid of the cozy relationship between the oil industry and regulators. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is taking steps to cut the MMS into three parts, separating safety enforcement from royalty collections and offshore leasing.

But the Government Accountability Office, the Inspector General’s Office, and engineering experts who oversaw a 30-day safety report on offshore drilling all want more. Norway, the United Kingdom, and Australia have some of the world’s best safety practices and regulations, they say.

After the 1988 Piper Alpha rig disaster in the North Sea, where 167 people died, Britain separated safety oversight from other regulatory functions. Instead of a rules-based approach, not unlike that of the US today, it adopted a “case based” system that describes objectives – then challenges companies to show they can meet them.

Needed, too, is better testing of critical BOP equipment, like blind-shear rams. “What we really need are specific guidelines for how these things must be tested – and then have the results go into a computer accessible by everyone,” says Benton Baugh, a BOP expert.

Yet all the testing and offshore police in the world can’t overcome human error. Robert Bea, a safety engineering expert at the University of California, Berkeley, says the need is to focus on how people react and interact with complex safety systems when the siren goes off.

“We’ve neglected the human things,” he says, “the designers, the people that operate [BOPs], the people that maintain them, the people who have to handle rapidly developing crises.”

2 design a better drill rig

As oil discoveries in deeper waters beckon, giant new rigs will plunge drill bits two miles below the sea surface and five more miles into the earth – the equivalent of 29 Empire State Buildings. But such ultradeep drilling means ultrahigh pressures. At any time a bit could hit a pocket of pressurized gas that bursts to the surface and explodes. Capping a blowout 10,000 feet down would make the Deepwater Horizon problem look like a do-it-yourself caulk job.

The industry is currently working on new “sixth-generation” deep-sea rigs that experts say will be the safest ever developed – but still not foolproof in handling one of the most challenging engineering feats faced by man. The cost of the new rigs: about $500 million.

For that price, says Mike Smith, president of Bassoe Offshore (USA), a brokerage firm, you get a state-of-the-art rig that displaces perhaps 100,000 tons of seawater and sprawls over an area larger than a football field. Yet with all their sophistication and size, even such behemoths may be only just barely big enough to support the miles of pipe, thousands of tons of drilling “mud,” and massive pumps needed to control a deep well’s explosive power, experts say. Today’s rigs already cost up to a million dollars a day to operate – an enormous financial risk if there’s a dry hole or a blowout.

Huge costs. High risks. Potentially catastrophic environmental damage if things go wrong. Today’s conundrum: How do you go deep without breaking the bank or the environment?

Technologies are being developed that experts say could make deep-water drilling safer and perhaps less expensive. One, Reelwell, a Norwegian technology, uses a drill pipe only a few inches across and sends the rock it chews topside for disposal through the inside of the pipe, rather than through a traditional outside “riser” pipe. Eliminating that miles-long riser avoids thousands of tons of weight, so Reelwell could be operated by a far smaller rig even when drilling in deep water.

Another approach comes from Badger Explorer, also a Norwegian company, which uses a high-tech burrowing machine. The device requires only a small exploration ship to guide it. No need for a drill rig at all.

The Explorer, a long, sleek metal cylinder with an electric auger on the front, drills through solid rock, depositing the debris behind the device rather than funneling it to the surface. The auger is tethered to a cable that powers the machine and sends back data. If the Explorer hits a pocket of gas, it moves right on. There’s nowhere for the gas to go – no dangerous conduit to the surface.

ExxonMobil, Shell, and Norway’s Statoil have all invested in the technology, which could be available within three years. “That situation in the Gulf was very rare,” says Kjell Erik Drevdal, the president of Badger Explorer. “Still, there is always the risk that these things could happen with present technology. By doing it our way, we won’t have to worry about such danger.”

Sensors represent another focus of research to make deep-drilling rigs safer and more effective. They could be placed far down in the drill hole to detect gas flow, pressure, and other conditions long before they reach the surface to threaten humans or the environment. Electromagnetic technology could also be used to spot tiny danger zones and sound warnings before drill bits even reach them.

“In 10 years or less, you will see all these sorts of technologies addressing the most difficult and dangerous drilling situations – and cutting the huge costs of these giant rigs,” says Stein Bjørnstad, an oil exploration expert at BI Norwegian School of Management in Oslo.

To enhance offshore oversight, some experts say data from the sensors could be transmitted to a command center onshore or to government agencies. This would let regulators monitor rig operations and provide information about what happened during a spill or blowout. “What I’m talking about is an extra set of eyes” off the platform, says Elgie Holstein, a strategic planner at the Environmental Defense Fund.

3 manage the cleanup like Churchill

In the 1990s, experts from Columbia University and Boeing Corporation tried to prod the oil industry into planning for disasters as a critical part of the so-called lean management movement. No luck.

“The industry thought it was added cost, and because incentives were heavily biased towards cost cutting, they turned it down,” says Roger Anderson, a senior scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y.

One result: BP has in essence been trying to invent ways to stop the blowout in the Gulf on the fly. This may be the most basic lesson from the disaster about how to manage oil spills in the future. As simple as it sounds, oil companies need to acknowledge that catastrophic events are going to happen, even if infrequently, and build responses into their corporate DNA, no matter what the cost.

In BP’s case, “it’s not so much that they weren’t prepared, it’s that they had not even considered the possibility” of such an event, says Dr. Anderson.

Concerns about the lack of response planning carry eerie echoes of hurricane Katrina. Yet there are differences with oil spills. One is the overlapping web of responsibilities. Oil companies control the rigs where the accidents happen. Once the crude gushes up from the seafloor, other entities get involved. But government and other responders still have to rely on the companies to stop the blowout.

“The majors who go out and drill in deep water have all the expertise – the government does not,” says David Pettit, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “When it comes to what happens when the oil hits the water, the oil companies don’t have a monopoly on what to do. Even using the word expertise is laughable when you see what’s going on out there. They’re clearly making it up as they go along.”

For all the complaints from state and local officials about red tape and poor coordination in the federal response, it’s come a long way since the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989. “The command structure in the early days of the Exxon Valdez spill underwent a complete meltdown,” says Rick Kurtz, a political scientist at Central Michigan University, who, as an analyst in the National Park Service’s Anchorage office at the time, wrote a lessons-learned report on the response.

Out of that came the unified command structure in place today – delineating the duties of the Coast Guard, state and local officials, and the oil company responsible for the spill. While not everything has gone roller-bearing smooth, at least the federal government quickly designated an “incident commander and everybody knows who’s in charge,” notes Mr. Pettit.

Still, the US clearly has more to learn about managing cleanups. One area needing attention is what to do with locals. In Norway, the World Wildlife Fund conducts training courses for volunteers in cooperation with a spill-response company.

Ultimately, no amount of coordination may be enough to handle a spill of this magnitude. The overarching lesson may be to beware of technological hubris. “We are learning that there are limits to our technology and limits to our capacity to respond to disasters,” says Steven Cohen, who heads Columbia University’s Earth Institute.

4 Find something better than a boom

The ideas for new tools to clean up oil spills range from the mundane (better chemical dispersants to break up the crude so it will degrade naturally) to the exotic (ravenous microbes to eat the oil off beaches).

Then there are the two Florida contractors who have been pitching a home-grown technique, using locally cut hay and straw to soak up the oil like a chamois. They can be seen demonstrating their simple solution on YouTube, pouring oil into large bowls of water, floating hay on top, stirring it around to simulate wave action, and – voilà! – a solution almost as clean as tap water.

As the Gulf crisis sears its place in history as one of America’s worst environmental disasters, the one bit of good news is that it has become a petri dish for testing new ways to clean up spills. Clever inventors, eager entrepreneurs, and ordinary citizens are flooding oil-giant BP and US government offices with ideas for sanitizing the ocean.

The bad news: No one technology exists that can do the job – and likely won’t in the future. Instead, experts say, the task is so complex that it will take improvements in many different kinds of tools to contain and clean up spills.

One reason is the sheer magnitude of the task. As much as 140 million gallons of oil has seeped from the Gulf, sending deposits ashore from Texas to Florida. The oil both floats on the surface and sinks. Some of it disperses. It also takes on different properties as it spreads – from a glossy slick to thick tar balls. Cleaning beaches or harbors requires different techniques from separating oil from water at sea. This is to say nothing of what hurricanes or rough seas can do to a cleanup effort.

The main technologies used in offshore cleanup haven’t advanced much since the Exxon Valdez accident 20 years ago, largely because of the lack of research and the difficulty of testing in “live” conditions. The main weapons, then and now, include oil-skimming boats, miles of oil-absorbing booms, and controlled burns. Along the shore, worried Gulf Coast residents are designing and deploying booms of their own to protect harbors, or putting vacuum trucks meant for cleaning up land-based oil spills onto seagoing barges.

In another experiment, a Taiwanese company has retrofitted a supertanker with skimming equipment that it says is capable of vacuuming up to 21 million gallons of oily water a day. By comparison, the entire emergency response from the time of the accident, April 20, to July 1 had collected only around 28 million gallons. Though the ship, now in the Gulf, is untested, BP officials are giving it a try. Experts say similar supertankers were used to suck up much of the contaminated water after a massive spill off Saudi Arabia in the early 1990s.

Government and BP officials are also testing 32 centrifuges that can separate oil from seawater, devices being championed by actor Kevin Costner. Some experts, such as Norman Guinasso, director of the geochemical and environmental research group at Texas A&M University in College Station, believe such machines hold promise. He can envision a fleet of 100 or so boats equipped with the devices that could be quickly dispatched to the site of a major spill. “That’s what I would like to see,” says Mr. Guinasso.

Onshore, authorities are experimenting with a microbial sand scrubber that emulsifies tar balls and injects oil-eating bugs into the sand to consume the hydrocarbons. The device, which uses microbes from the Gulf of Mexico, was designed to pull oil from the tar sands of Canada.

Still, more than technologies will be needed to prevent future disasters. More important may be a change in corporate attitudes. If the leadership of a company isn’t dedicated to safety, says Martha Bidez, an engineering professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, all the gee-whiz devices in the world won’t matter.

She cites the mining company Rio Tinto Alcan and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (after the Columbia and Challenger disasters) as two large organizations that have “very impressive” programs to prevent accidents.

5 Tap the power of the people

The moment Gulfport, Miss., resident Megan Jordan feared has arrived. The viscous onslaught of crude is no longer an abstract horror belonging to Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida. The first globules of oil have slipped through the Mississippi Sound and washed ashore in nearby Ocean Springs. For Ms. Jordan and her neighbors, this isn’t just any beach – it’s the keeper of memories, the provenance of dreams. The destruction is hard to bear.

Their passion, properly channeled, could become a crucial element in future oil spill defense. Experts say that by tapping into local knowledge – and love – communities could formulate emergency plans to bolster what residents have criticized as a slow, inadequate government and corporate response.

It’s a lesson California learned in 2007, when a container ship crashed into the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, releasing 58,000 gallons of fuel into the bay. Volunteers, desperate to help, rushed to the water’s edge, creating chaos. “They had people running down to the beach, picking up oil with their hands and in T-shirts and towels,” says Kurt Hansen, project manager for oil spill research at the US Coast Guard Research and Development Center in New London, Conn.

But in a potentially toxic environment, federal laws prohibit – and often thwart – even the best of intentions. In order to participate in cleanup efforts, federal rules require at least a 40-hour hazardous waste course. Mr. Hansen says response times could be significantly lowered if communities could draw upon a ready pool of trained volunteers.

In Alaska, a network of local fishermen and others was formed after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. They participate in frequent preparedness drills, and officials say they feel far better equipped to handle an incident if one should occur again.

Along the Gulf Coast, volunteers have rushed to beaches, buckets and booms in hand, with mixed results. Some have simply added to the chaos of the cleanup effort. Others are doing some good. One local environmental group, Mobile Baykeeper, has received nearly 10,000 phone calls from people across the country wanting to volunteer.

In tiny Magnolia Springs, Ala., fire chief Jamie Hinton says he began brainstorming ideas to protect his area’s marshlands within days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Colleagues from neighboring cities told him to let the government handle it. “I said, ‘Are they going to handle it like they handled Katrina, Ivan, the Valdez?’ ” Mr. Hinton recalls. “Thanks, but no thanks. The only people I trust are my people.”

He has more than 400 hours of hazardous materials training, including booming instruction, but he has something else, too – a deep understanding of what he calls “my river.” The waves sometimes reach more than a two-foot chop, so he scoffed when he saw BP workers affix a boom to barnacle-laden pylons with ropes. The wave action severed the stays and the boom floated away.

He found a kindred spirit in Mayor Charles Houser. Together, they decided to block their bay with barges, flanking them with layers of boom. There was only one problem: They’d gotten permission, but when they got ready for deployment, they were told they had to reapply or risk being fined or jailed. They complied, but agreed that if the oil came near, they would act. “Sooner or later, someone’s got to do something,” says Mayor Houser.

John Wathen, a member of Waterkeeper Alliance, says there’s no shortage of people along the coast who feel the same way, but they’re being turned away by BP. He says if BP would tap into the Waterkeeper network, which spans six continents, they would find a free fount of knowledge. Instead, even these seasoned environmentalists are having trouble sorting through the bureaucratic quagmire of the Deepwater command.

“It’s been an absolute fistfight,” says Mr. Wathen. “We know our waters better than anyone. We’re not here to sue or condemn anybody. We’re out here to protect our watershed and our communities.”

He echoes Hansen’s advocacy for a trained network of volunteers. Residents could decide which area they’d like to focus on and take additional training in operating skimmers, laying boom, or rescuing and caring for injured wildlife.

“A lot of people are just yelling,” says Jen McClurg Roth, founder of Clean the Gulf Now, a grass-roots group. “But it’s about coming together and identifying the issues we can change.”

6 Recalibrate our energy policy

It has become one of the iconic images of 2010: oil gushing from the floor of the Gulf, almost one mile below the surface, where it mushrooms up from BP’s failed drilling rig like clouds of café au lait. The undersea feed from robotic cameras has popped up on national news telecasts and cable shows, during televised congressional hearings and presidential speeches – a potent reminder that for all the talk and technology, man’s search for oil is risky and beginning to push the limits of human engineering.

It would be tempting to conclude that the answer is to switch energy sources, to the green alternatives favored by some or the natural-gas and nuclear options favored by others. Tempting and probably not doable. Like it or not, America and the world are stuck with oil for years to come when it comes to transportation. Oil powers 1 billion cars worldwide, 10,000 commercial aircraft, and thousands more ships and trains that deliver our goods, facilitate trade, and keep economies humming.

Nothing can compete with it in terms of price, ubiquity, and ease of use on such massive a scale. “If oil didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it,” says Robert Bryce, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of “Power Hungry: The Myths of ‘Green’ Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future.”

So the BP oil spill may not dramatically change US energy policy, but instead delivers a warning – as did the two OPEC oil embargoes, the Exxon-Valdez spill, and the record gas prices two years ago. The message: Our continued reliance on oil carries economic and environmental risks that the US will continue to bump up against until it undertakes a coherent and consistent policy to gradually wean us off fossil fuel.

“The lesson that we should learn here is that if we took sensible steps, baby steps, instead of these grandiose [pronouncements], I think we would be better off,” says Frank Felder, director of the Center for Energy, Economic and Environmental Policy at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.

One step would be a bigger push on energy efficiency. The US could cut growth in electric consumption by 30 percent, says James Sweeney, director of the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center at Stanford University in California. To get the equivalent power would require quadrupling America’s nuclear capacity or scaling up wind and solar energy to 40 to 50 times its present size. “If we think all the solutions are just technological, we’re not going to focus on a group of nontech solutions that will allow us to have more effect,” he says.

What’s striking, though, is how eager policymakers are to enact some of those steps and fearful to undertake others. On the production side, the Obama administration has moved aggressively to revamp the MMS (now renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement), appointing a former prosecutor to head up the agency and promising to hire more oil rig inspectors.

Another item in Democrats’ cross hairs: a $75 million cap on oil companies’ liability, beyond cleanup costs, passed in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez disaster. Democratic lawmakers and the White House want to raise the cap substantially or eliminate it altogether so that oil companies no longer have an incentive to take risky actions in the belief that their liabilities would be limited.

It’s too early to tell if the BP spill will spark a reevaluation of the risks of deep-water drilling versus drilling in shallow water or on land. Much depends on whether the investigations under way determine that deep-water safeguards are adequate and that BP was negligent or that drilling that far down pushes technology too far.

While policymakers are taking action that affects production, they’ve been more timid about consumption. One reason is that the risks of offshore drilling and other forms of energy production are so much more visible than the risks of continued high consumption – reliance on foreign sources, greenhouse-gas emissions, and so on.

“A picture is worth a thousand words and the images [from the Gulf] bring home in a very accessible way how the oil spill has affected people’s lives,” says Michael Greenstone, professor of environmental economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. “The difference with climate change is that the changes occur very slowly and in a subtle way that will not appear on your TV set next month.”

Another reason for the timidity on reducing consumption is that the easiest fix, a tax on oil, is the riskiest politically. “A price signal on oil – that could be your climate change policy, that could be your energy policy,” says Matthew Kotchen, professor of environmental economics and policy at Yale University in New Haven, Conn. “But it’s difficult because it’s not politically expedient.”

A tax would encourage conservation and efficiency, reduce emissions, and spur the search for alternatives. The extra revenue from the tax could be used to fund that research, reduce the deficit, or be rebated back to consumers in the form of, say, a lower income tax. But passing a new tax, never easy, is especially difficult when the economy is so fragile. “Democrats clearly view that as suicide,” says Matthew Kahn, economics professor at the University of California at Los Angeles.

That is why the Obama administration is pushing a cap-and-trade system to deal with global warming, under which industry would pay for car-bon emissions and, presumably, pass on the costs to consumers. Ironically, the oil spill complicates passage of a cap-and-trade bill because, as a way to gain Republican support for it, President Obama backed an expansion of offshore drilling. Now, the spill has forced Mr. Obama to issue a moratorium on new deep-sea drilling (a moratorium challenged by a federal judge). “The Obama administration is in a difficult position,” says Professor Kotchen.

Thus, America’s energy future may be driven more by technology and economics than political compromise. A breakthrough in car batteries or ethanol production from sources other than food crops could push the energy mix toward renewables. A sustained rise in oil prices, as exploration becomes more expensive, could accelerate a shift to natural gas and nuclear power.

With ample supplies of natural gas and coal, a growing nuclear industry, and research on everything from biomass to fuel cells, the US has a mix of ways to fuel its energy future. “For all that people say we’re in an energy crisis, I look at it and say: The US is pretty well hedged,” says Mr. Bryce. “For all the hand-wringing, we’ve got a very strong hand.”

Contributing to this report were staff writers Mark Clayton, Pete Spotts, and Gregory M. Lamb, and contributor Carmen K. Sisson.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/business/global/08ocean.html?_r=1&src=busln

By BARRY MEIER
Published: July 7, 2010

Transocean is the world’s largest offshore drilling company, but until its Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April, few Americans outside the energy business had heard of it. It is well known, however, in a number of other countries – for testing local laws and regulations.

Human rights advocates have called for an investigation into Transocean’s recent dealings in Myanmar. They cite its involvement in a drilling project that apparently included a company that is suspected of having ties to two men accused of laundering money for Myanmar’s repressive government, which is under United States trade sanctions.

Transocean has disclosed in Securities and Exchange Commission filings that its drilling equipment was shipped by a forwarder through Iran and that until last year it held a stake in a company that did business in Syria. The State Department says Syria and Iran sponsor terrorism.

In Norway, Transocean is the subject of a criminal investigation into possible tax fraud. The company has said in S.E.C. filings that Norwegian officials could assess it about $840 million in taxes and penalties. The filings also said that a final ruling against Transocean could have a “material impact” on the company, which has suffered a drop in its stock price of more than 40 percent since the Gulf of Mexico incident.

And in the United States, a federal bankruptcy judge recently found that one of Transocean’s merger partners had repeatedly abused the legal system to try to avoid potential liability in a pollution case in Louisiana. Transocean is also the target of tax inquiries in the United States and Brazil.

Transocean declined though an outside spokesman to make company officials available for comment. The company said in a statement that it had always acted appropriately and believed that it would prevail in any investigations.

It is not unusual for large multinational companies like Transocean to find themselves in legal or tax controversies around the world and Transocean has noted the issues that face it in public filings. The company’s most significant safety problem overseas involved a 2007 episode in which eight people died off the coast of Scotland when a support vessel capsized while towing a huge chain used to position a Transocean rig. A Norwegian board of inquiry found that missteps by several parties, including Transocean and the support vessel’s owner, had contributed to the incident.

But the company’s practices in the United States and abroad have come under new scrutiny since the oil spill in the gulf. Last week, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, said that the panel would investigate whether Transocean had used its corporate base in Switzerland to exploit United States tax laws.

In its dealings with lawmakers, Transocean has stood its ground. Last month, in response to a demand that Transocean delay a planned distribution to shareholders of $1 billion in dividends, the company declared that paying the dividend “in no way affects Transocean’s ability to meet it legal obligations.”

Transocean has largely blamed BP, the well’s operator, for the spill, describing it as a company that took shortcuts on safety. Transocean has had a long relationship with BP, and for the last two years, BP has been Transocean’s largest single customer, accounting for 12 percent of its $11.5 billion in operating revenue in 2009, public filings show.

Industry analysts said that strong ties between the companies reflected the fact that both had staked their financial futures on pushing oil exploration as far off shore as possible. Transocean, which drills in some 30 countries and employs more than 18,000 people, owns nearly half of the 50 or so deepwater platforms in the world.

“These people are capable and considered the gold standard of deepwater drilling,” said Peter Vig, managing director at RoundRock Capital Management, an energy hedge fund in Dallas.
Transocean’s evolution into the world’s biggest deep-sea driller follows a decade-long acquisition and merger spree.

It began in 1996 when a Texas-based company called Sonat OffshoreDrilling acquired Transocean ASA, then Norway’s largest offshore driller. Three years later, the company, now known as Transocean, shifted its headquarters for tax purposes to the Cayman Islands from Houston, though a vast majority of its executives still work in Houston. In subsequent years, it acquired or merged with other drillers including R&B Falcon, the drilling unit of Schlumberger and GlobalSantaFe. Then, in 2008, for tax purposes, it moved its headquarters again, this time to Switzerland from the Cayman Islands.

The tax investigation in Norway involves how Transocean represented the sale of 12 drilling rigs owned by its Norwegian subsidiary to another company unit, said a spokeswoman for an agency known as Okokrim, which investigates economic and environmental crimes.

The case “raises several important questions regarding the taxation of multinational corporations,” said the spokeswoman, Mie Skarpaas, who declined to discuss the investigation further.

A Norwegian newspaper, Dagens Naeringsliv, reported several years ago that a Transocean rig, while returning from a repair yard in Norway to a drilling site in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea, diverted for several hours into British waters. During that time, Transocean transferred ownership of the rig between subsidiaries and later argued that it did not have to pay Norwegian taxes because profits on the transaction had been earned outside the country. The company subsequently settled the case involving that rig.

In 2008, Norway’s highest court ruled that Okokrim and tax authorities could share documents and computer files seized during raids of Transocean and Ernst & Young which was the company’s tax adviser. That ruling also said that at least three people, including two Ernst & Young employees, were under investigation in connection with the episode.

In its statement, Transocean said that its “tax returns are materially correct as filed” and that it “will vigorously defend any claims to the contrary.” A spokesman for Ernst & Young, declined to comment.

In Myanmar, formerly Burma, a Transocean rig was under contract to a Chinese government-controlled oil company, Cnooc, as recently as this spring. Another apparent stakeholder in the drilling site, according to Cnooc, was a Singapore business. That business has been linked to two men identified by the United States Treasury Department in 2008 as major operatives and money launderers for the Myanmar government. At the time, American authorities described both men as longtime heroin traffickers.

Transocean said in a statement that its contract was with Cnooc and did not mention either man. Transocean also said it had not violated the trade sanctions against Myanmar. “No Transocean affiliate that is subject to the U.S. ban has ever done business in Myanmar,” the company said.

In the United States, the recent ruling by a federal bankruptcy court judge involved one of Transocean’s merger partners.

Judge Kevin Gross of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware found in May that the partner, GlobalSantaFe, had entered into a misleading bankruptcy scheme that included the use of shell companies to avoid potential liabilities in an oil pollution case. Judge Gross found the actions so egregious that he ordered GlobalSantaFe and related units to pay $2 million in sanctions to another company involved in the case.

In a statement, Transocean said the issues involving GlobalSantaFe had occurred before their 2007 merger.

Judge Gross did not mention Transocean by name. But in his ruling, he said that GlobalSantaFe and its units were still involved in a “gamesmanship with the judicial system” to thwart potential claims.

Asked about Judge Gross’s ruling, Transocean said, “We are confident we’ll prevail in the remaining legal issues that have yet to be decided.”

Walter Gibbs contributed reporting.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

July 9, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/07/09/09greenwire-new-bp-data-show-20-of-gulf-spill-responders-e-82494.html

By ELANA SCHOR of Greenwire
Published: July 9, 2010

In an under-the-radar release of new test results for its Gulf of Mexico oil spill workers, BP PLC is reporting potentially hazardous exposures to a now-discontinued dispersant chemical — a substance blamed for contributing to chronic health problems after the Exxon Valdez cleanup — among more than 20 percent of offshore responders.

BP’s new summary of chemical testing, posted to its website this week after a nearly monthlong absence of new data, also makes notable revisions to the company’s public characterization of the health risks facing Gulf workers. The oil giant now describes the government as a partner in developing the program for monitoring cleanup crews.

In a June 9 report on worker test results, BP confidently asserted that the health hazards of exposure to both dispersant chemicals and the components of leaking crude “are very low.” In its latest summary, BP replaced those three words with an assurance that health risks “have been carefully considered in the selection of the various methods employed in addressing its spill.”

The new BP summary, including results up to June 29, show a broad majority of workers testing below exposure limits set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

But the Valdez-linked chemical 2-butoxyethanol was detected at levels up to 10 parts per million (ppm) in more than 20 percent of offshore responders and 15 percent of those near shore. The NIOSH standard for 2-butoxyethanol, which lacks the force of law but is considered more health-protective than the higher OSHA limit, is 5 ppm.

Some public-health advocates pointed out that BP references the NIOSH ceiling of each chemical it tested for except 2-butoxyethanol, an ingredient in the Corexit 9527 dispersant that BP phased out after spraying it in the Gulf during the early days of the spill. “They’re playing with these numbers,” said Mark Catlin, a veteran industrial hygienist who has studied the worker-health fallout from the 1989 Valdez spill.

Natural Resources Defense Council Senior Scientist Gina Solomon described BP’s continued offshore 2-butoxyethanol detection during the month of June as “worrisome.”

“It suggests to me that there is still, clearly, a serious air-quality concern. … [Gulf] air quality, if anything, seems to be deteriorating,” Solomon said.

Hunter College toxicology professor Frank Mirer said it would be “implausible” that the ongoing detection of 2-butoxyethanol among workers could be attributable to only BP’s early use of Corexit 9527.

On June 9, BP’s testing summary stated: “BP has, for the very start, worked hard to ensure that the people involved in all the activities associated with the incident are protected.” That sentence also appeared in this week’s report, with “BP” replaced by “the Unified Area Command,” the government’s joint oil spill response effort.

More questions than answers

BP’s latest report on worker exposures adds test results for three components of crude oil not mentioned in previous monitoring summaries: toluene, xylene and ethylbenzene. Solomon praised the company for releasing more of its data amid pressure for increased transparency from members of Congress (E&E Daily, June 15).

“I was very happy to see they have presented results for many more chemicals than they were previously,” she said.

However, the company’s continued use of bar graphs that encompass ranges of exposures — without including where and under what conditions the Gulf tests are performed — left several occupational safety experts with more questions than answers.

New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health industrial hygienist David Newman, who served on a U.S. EPA expert panel that evaluated lingering public health risks after the Sept. 11 attacks, cautioned against focusing on worker testing data without considering broader details of particular on-the-job chemical exposures.

“We had a humongous amount of data after 9/11,” Newman said. “Most if not all of the data were reassuring. And yet harm was done.”

Catlin echoed Newman’s warning. “There are certainly some folks saying, ‘Look at all this data, everything looks good,’” he said, “but we saw that same thing on the Exxon Valdez. … The summary data BP provides is too sketchy to be able to give a clean bill of health.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Video at:

http://www.wtsp.com/video/default.aspx?aid=106653#/News/Fort%20De%20Soto%20new%20home%20for%20once%2Doiled%20pelicans/53132882001/53147622001/110183809001

print: http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/article1107418.ece

St. Pete Times

By Kameel Stanley, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Thursday, July 8, 2010

FORT DE SOTO – The birds waddled out of their cages. In groups of two, they moved quickly.

Most flew off right away. Some stuck around, letting a gentle current carry them away from the beach.

Cameras tracked every move. The pelicans were oblivious.

Two weeks ago, the birds – 32 brown pelicans in all – were picked up off the coast of southeast Louisiana. All had been awash in oil from the BP disaster.
On Wednesday afternoon, under the watchful eyes of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials, park volunteers, media and a clump of beachgoers, the rescued birds were released on a secluded spot on North Beach.

“It was beautiful to see that they all wanted to immediately get out and enjoy Fort De Soto,” said local environmentalist Lorraine Margeson. “We might be the final refuge in the Gulf Coast region for wildlife to survive.”

This is the first time pelicans affected by the disaster have been relocated to Pinellas County, and the third time wildlife have been brought to the Tampa Bay area.

On May 23, seven birds – three brown pelicans, two northern gannets and two laughing gulls – found off the shore of Mississippi and Louisiana were flown here. The birds had been either covered in oil or dehydrated. They were rehabilitated at Fort Jackson, La., before arriving at Fort De Soto Park and then being taken on to Egmont Key State Park. Several more arrived and were taken to the preserve.

The birds released Wednesday also were rehabilitated at Fort Jackson. Officials initially were expecting more than 60 birds to be released, but only about half were ready for the trip Wednesday morning.

The birds that did make the trip didn’t experience any distress, said Jenny Powers, a wildlife veterinarian with the National Park Service who was on the plane ride from New Orleans to Clearwater.

“They sat in crates for the ride and really didn’t make a peep,” Powers said.
Scientists expect the birds will stay in the Tampa Bay area because it has a good environment for them. Officials also have predicted that, compared to other parts of the state, the region has a lower chance of having oil reach its shores.

They also said this might not be the last time birds are relocated to Fort De Soto. More than 100 birds remain at the rehab center, Powers said.
“We want to try to keep these guys as close to what they call home as possible,” she said.

Still, there are no guarantees.

No one knows how many of the birds will ultimately survive. Cassidy Legeune, a biologist for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said Wednesday that a recent report gave rehabbed birds an estimated 50 to 80 percent chance of survival.

But the Fort De Soto birds could have a better shot – maybe even 100 percent – because of the favorable environment, he said.
Whatever the birds do, many will be watching.

A network of scientists, bird watchers and volunteers are planning to track the pelicans, which were outfitted with two colorful bands on their feet before being released.

“A lot of people feel a little hopeless (about the disaster),” said park supervisor Jim Wilson. “We’ve been waiting for an opportunity to assist.”
Margeson, a longtime volunteer at Fort De Soto, said its unusual habitat and ample nesting grounds translate into a better chance of thriving.

It also helps that a group of birds was released, rather than just one or two, she said.

“It’s kind of like a new colony,” she said.

Indeed, after their initial release, several of the birds congregated in the water for a few minutes before flying off like the others.

A few remained, squatting on a sandbar as volunteer bird watchers looked on from the shore.

“They were in pretty poor shape,” said Legeune, the Louisiana biologist. “They looked pretty good today. These are pretty hardy birds. Š I think they’ll be okay.”

Kameel Stanley can be reached at kstanley@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8643.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

July 7, 2010

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704545004575353364174224780.html?mod=djemalertNEWS

Backup Plans as Obama, Cameron Meet
By MONICA LANGLEY

BP PLC is pushing to fix its runaway Gulf oil well by July 27, possibly weeks before the deadline the company is discussing publicly, in a bid to show investors it has capped its ballooning financial liabilities, according to company officials.

At the same time, BP is readying a series of backup plans in case its current operations go awry. These include connecting the rogue well to existing pipelines in two nearby underwater gas and oil fields, according to company and administration officials.
Much of the additional planning has been pushed by the U.S. government, which has urged BP to develop what one official called the “backup to the backup plan.” Both BP and the federal government are concentrating on their next steps, particularly because of uncertainty caused by the imminent hurricane season and the protracted political and financial damage caused by the endless spill.

Both BP and the Coast Guard continue to state publicly they’re aiming to have a fix in place in early to mid-August. BP has discussed its backup plans only with administration officials, who in turn have briefed President Barack Obama.

The July 27 target date is the day the company is expected to report second-quarter earnings and will speak to investors. BP also wants to show progress by July 20, the day U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron is scheduled to visit the White House.

“In a perfect world with no interruptions, it’s possible to be ready to stop the well between July 20 and July 27,” said the head of BP’s Gulf Coast restoration unit, managing director Bob Dudley, in an interview. He added that this “perfect case” is threatened by the hurricane season and is “unlikely.”

On Wednesday, on a visit to the Discoverer Enterprise, the ship that’s collecting oil from the well, Mr. Dudley got word of a nine-day period of clear weather starting Friday, a period that could prove critical to the effort.

BP is drilling two relief wells through which it will pump material designed to seal the leaking well. One is now 12 feet horizontally and 300 feet vertically from the target spot.

Billy Brown, president of Blackhawk Specialty Tools, a BP contractor helping with the relief-well process, said Wednesday the effort is progressing ahead of schedule.

Mindful of prior snafus, BP has quietly crafted backup plans. The first would force spewing oil to a depleted gas field on the ocean floor two miles away. The second would move the oil to an existing underwater oil field nine miles away. Both require laying flow lines, either flexible or hard steel piping, to connect the leaking well to existing wellheads on these older sites.

The engineers described their plans at a seven-hour meeting last week featuring BP engineers and Energy Secretary Steve Chu, held at BP’s Houston crisis center. Mr. Chu said he told them: “Force yourself to think each one will fail.” In an interview, he added: “We’re in new territory full of perils, and nothing is a slam dunk.”

BP’s Mr. Dudley reviewed Wednesday the company’s engineering work with retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, who heads the Obama administration’s effort.

Flying by helicopter to the ship collecting oil, the two men discussed the backup options. All around the ship, 43 miles offshore, the ocean was tinged orange.

The stakes are huge for BP, which has lost nearly half of its market capitalization since the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig April 20.

The company’s board is setting up a “Gulf of Mexico” committee for a few directors to delve deeply into the disaster’s safety and financial implications.

When they announce earnings July 27, BP officials hope to provide investors with more information on the estimated liabilities from the Gulf spill.

One official said the company wants to be able to describe the oil spill as finite, not infinite, a moment that would allow it to start calculating the total potential liabilities under U.S. law.

To prepare Prime Minister Cameron to speak with Mr. Obama about one of the U.K.’s largest companies, British Ambassador to the U.S. Nigel Sheinwald last Friday attended BP briefings in Houston and New Orleans and then toured the damaged Florida coast. He also met Coast Guard officials.

At Wednesday’s trip to the spill site, Mr. Dudley and Adm. Allen evaluated a prospect for controlling the spilla newly designed cap to replace the leaky one currently directing oil to ships on the surface.

The risk: removing the old cap could exacerbate the spill in the short run.

At the administration’s prodding, BP created a new device called an “autonomous subsea dispersant system.” Environmental Protection Agency head Lisa Jackson told BP to create such a capability to monitor and measure chemicals used underwater to break up the oil. The large volume of dispersants used has concerned scientists and some government officials.

In recent days, the company has installed new battery-powered equipment on the ocean floor that will inject dispersant into the flowing well. Typically, the dispersants are controlled by ships on the surface, but they may have to move if storms hit.

Separately, the BP-dominated consortium that operates the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, Alyeska Pipeline Service Co, said Chief Executive Kevin Hostler will retire in September.

Mr. Hostler, a former senior BP executive, had faced accusations from U.S. lawmakers that efforts to cut costs put the integrity of the pipeline at risk.

A spokesperson for Alyeska couldn’t be reached for comment.

Angel Gonzalez and Guy Chazan contributed to this article.
Write to Monica Langley at monica.langley@wsj.com

Finding Relief
Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon accident, BP began drilling relief wells in hopes of stopping the flow of oil. Click to enlarge graphic and see how the process works.

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-enlargePic07.html?project=imageShell07&bigImage=P1-AW129A_SPILLPLAN.gif&h=1083&w=579&title=WSJ.COM&thePubDate=20100707

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/08/oil.drilling.moratorium/index.html?hpt=T2

New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) — A federal appeals panel on Thursday upheld a district judge’s order to block the Obama administration’s six-month ban on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. In a brief ruling just a few hours after the hearing, the three-judge appellate panel denied the government’s request to reinstate the moratorium while the full appeal of the case continues.

Keith Olberman reports that two of the three judges have litigated cases for big oil and one has $300,000 in stock in oil companies.

____________

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/08/oil.drilling.moratorium/index.html?hpt=T2

Federal appeals panel denies government bid to reinstate drilling ban
A federal appeals panel upheld a district judge’s order to block the ban on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

From David Mattingly, CNN
July 8, 2010 8:32 p.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* NEW: Louisiana governor welcomes ruling, but says case far from over
* Appeals panel upholds order blocking Obama administration’s ban on deepwater drilling
* Panel says government “failed to demonstrate a likelihood of irreparable injury”
* Panel orders appeal of the case to be expedited

New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) — A federal appeals panel on Thursday upheld a district judge’s order to block the Obama administration’s six-month ban on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

In a brief ruling just a few hours after the hearing, the three-judge appellate panel denied the government’s request to reinstate the moratorium while the full appeal of the case continues.

The government declared the moratorium in response to the April 20 explosion and fire on a deepwater rig that led to the Gulf oil disaster, with millions of gallons gushing into the ocean and oil giant BP unable to stop it.

Oil companies, Gulf state politicians and local residents opposed the moratorium, saying it was unnecessary and further harmed a regional economy still reeling from Hurricane Katrina.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman issued a preliminary injunction against the ban, which halted all drilling in more than 500 feet of water and prevented new permits from being issued. The government appealed the ruling and asked for an emergency stay of Feldman’s decision while the case continued.

On Thursday, the appellate panel of the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected the government’s request, saying it had “failed to demonstrate a likelihood of irreparable injury if the stay is not granted.”

The ruling also said there was no evidence that deepwater drilling would resume immediately as the case goes on.

In the ruling, the appellate judges said the government can apply for an emergency halt to any drilling that it can show “has commenced or is about to commence.”

The panel ordered the appeal of the case to be expedited, with arguments on the full appeal of the lower court ruling blocking the moratorium to take place during the week of August 30.

One of the three appellate judges filed a partial dissent that called for reinstating the moratorium, but agreed with giving the government the right to apply for an emergency halt to any drilling, as well as expediting the hearing for the full appeal.

There was no immediate government comment on whether it would appeal Thursday’s ruling to the full 5th Circuit appellate court or try to take other steps to reinstate the moratorium. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has said the government could impose a second moratorium.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, in a statement Thursday, said he was pleased at the court ruling but added “this matter is not resolved and there remains uncertainty about the future of deepwater drilling and thousands of jobs in our state.”

“We have very serious concerns that the Department of Interior is going to announce a second moratorium,” Jindal said. “As members of the court pointed out today during the hearing, despite the injunction against the original moratorium, we currently have a de facto moratorium because of uncertainty from the Department of Interior.”

Jindal said “serious job losses” would result from a six-month moratorium, costing at least $65 million in lost wages in Louisiana.

Last month, Salazar called a six-month halt on deepwater drilling “needed, appropriate and within our authorities” as the government assessed the safety of such operations in the aftermath of the Gulf oil catastrophe.

“We see clear evidence every day, as oil spills from BP’s well, of the need for a pause on deepwater drilling,” Salazar said in a statement on June 22.

But a group of companies that provides boats and equipment to the offshore drilling industry filed a lawsuit claiming the government has no evidence that existing operations pose a threat to the Gulf of Mexico and asked the court to declare the moratorium invalid and unenforceable.

Feldman agreed, writing in his ruling, “an invalid agency decision to suspend drilling of wells in depths of over 500 feet simply cannot justify the immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region, and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country.”

In issuing the ruling, Feldman said that “the court is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings (of the government) and the immense scope of the moratorium. The plaintiffs assert that they have suffered and will continue to suffer irreparable harm as a result of the moratorium. The court agrees.”

In response to Feldman’s ruling, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama “strongly believes, as the Department of Interior and Department of Justice argued … that continuing to drill at these depths without knowing what happened does not make any sense.”

Such drilling “puts the safety of those involved, potentially puts safety of those on the rigs and the safety of the environment and the Gulf at a danger that the president does not believe we can afford right now,” Gibbs said.

Specail thanks to Richard Charter

by Andrew Travers, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Amid new reports of oil washing up on the shores of Texas and inland in Louisiana’s Lake Ponchartrain from the ongoing 78-day-old BP oil spill, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) head Jane Lubchenco warned of unprecedented and unpredictable damage to the Gulf of Mexico’s ecosystem on Tuesday.

In an afternoon public interview with NBC newswoman Andrea Mitchell at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Lubchenco said the tar balls and black oil now washing up in all five coastal gulf states may not be the worst of what’s coming out of BP’s broken Deepwater Horizon well.

Lubchenco, a marine ecologist and Denver native picked by President Obama to run NOAA, described the unknowable threat of an invisible oil cloud sitting between 3,300 and 5,600 feet below the Gulf surface, hovering around the still-leaking well.

“What we are seeing from many of our research vessels that are out there is the appearance of a cloud of very fine droplets,” she said.

While the oil on the surface is contaminating beaches and killing marshlands, they can’t say what this underwater layer is doing, because they’ve never seen one before.

“That layer is introducing a lot of carbon into this ecosystem and we don’t know what the fate of that will be,” she explained, describing the cloud as “highly toxic and undoubtedly poisonous.”

“This is really unprecedented … . It is not like a black ooze that’s down there, it’s this cloud of fine mist and its impact is likely to be considerable,” she said.

Lubchenco said that, for now, the gulf current is not going to take oil into the Florida Keys or up the East Coast. But she said the feds are bracing themselves for this year’s hurricane season, which runs through the winter and has the potential to derail cleanup efforts and change the loop current.

“All signs are pointing to an above average hurricane season this year,” she said, noting that the National Hurricane Center has predicted three to seven major hurricanes for the Atlantic Ocean, and potentially the Gulf of Mexico. Last month’s Hurricane Alex, the first June hurricane on record since 1996, was hundreds of miles away from the spill and the federal cleanup effort. Yet, she said, “the waves that were generated by that storm really impaired much of the cleanup operation.”

Lubchenco made her fifth visit to the spill zone last week, along with Vice President Joe Biden. She said she has come to regard it as “a human tragedy and an environmental disaster.” The coastal residents she’s encountered are characterized by what she called “deep anger, deep anxiety, real frustration and genuine concern about the future.”

She championed an American movement toward renewable energy, and off of oil, while warning of the hazards of oil exploration in the Arctic which outweigh the risks in the Gulf of Mexico.

“This event is causing everyone to rethink the drilling practices everyplace,” she said. “The Arctic is particularly vulnerable environmentally. We don’t understand how oil behaves in really cold water. Once it gets under the ice it is next to impossible to recover it. And there are some very vulnerable species and habitats up there. There are many reasons to be concerned.”

Along with the long-term environmental havoc the BP spill will have on the Gulf Coast, Lubchenco said she remains hopeful that it will have a positive long-term legacy. Noting that the spill began days before the 40th annual celebration of Earth Day, she said she hopes 40 years from now the spill will have sparked a new global commitment to keeping oceans healthy.

In the meantime, she said her team is doing its best “bringing science to the table” while advising the U.S. Coast Guard and federal cleanup teams. “It’s been all hands on deck from the outset,” she said.

Of President Obama and the BP team attempting to stop the ongoing leak of 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil per day, she said, “They have been working really, really hard.”

andrew@aspendailynews.com
Special thanks to Richard Charter

07/07/2010

Noelle Straub, E&E reporter

The Obama administration has asked a federal appeals court to reinstate the six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling, saying it needs time to appeal a lower court’s lifting of the ban and to issue a revamped moratorium.

Because oil continues to spill into the Gulf of Mexico, “with catastrophic consequences to the environment and local economy — despite repeated efforts, using every available technology, to stop it,” the Interior Department had to take immediate action to minimize the risk of another spill, the department said in a court filing to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The stakes are even higher now that it is hurricane season,” the department wrote. “The suspension orders give Interior time to further implement 22 already-identified new safety measures and to develop others as it gathers more information. Therefore, that decision was a rational exercise, under emergency circumstances, of Interior’s substantial discretionary authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and its own regulations for suspending lease operations.”

The administration has been crafting a revised proposal since a federal judge struck down its original drilling ban.

President Obama in late May halted approval of new deepwater drilling permits and suspended drilling at 33 exploratory wells while an independent panel conducts a six-month study of offshore drilling safety. Hornbeck Offshore Services, an oil-field service company, sued over the moratorium, saying it would have severe economic consequences.

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman agreed with the company and ordered the administration on June 22 to lift the moratorium, saying the government had not provided adequate reasoning for it and that it would have a permanent and harmful effect on the economy of the Gulf region.

The administration requested a stay, but Feldman two days later reaffirmed his order and gave the administration 30 days to comply.

In its request to reinstate the moratorium, Interior says it is “simply not true” that the department did not provide reason for the ban. The department says most of the country’s cleanup resources are already devoted to the current spill, and a second spill would further stress those efforts.

“Interior must protect the long-term public interest of the Nation in the prudent and safe exploitation and management of the OCS’s resources to ensure their viability for the future,” the filing says. “A short-term suspension of deepwater drilling while safety regulations are updated is necessary to achieve that goal.”

Interior also disputed claims the oil industry would collapse due to the moratorium, saying wells in production are unaffected and that the department must consider the effects of a second spill on the long-term health of the environment and economy.

The administration also said it would issue a new moratorium with some modifications, possibly including differentiating between areas where pressure and depth are known versus exploratory areas.

Last Wednesday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said a revised moratorium would come “in the next few days,” but the court filing said Interior would issue it “soon.” An Interior spokeswoman today declined to specify a timeline.

Industry and Gulf state politicians have strongly criticized the moratorium, saying it will serve as an economic blow to an already struggling region.

U.S. demands BP notice of sales

BP PLC confirmed today that it received a demand from U.S. authorities for advance notice of any asset sales or significant cash transfers, the Associated Press reported.

Assistant Attorney General Tony West, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Division, wrote to Rupert Bondy, BP’s general counsel, on June 23. Normally, the U.S. Justice Department does not require advance notice of such deals.

BP has not yet responded to the letter, a company spokesman told AP.

The letter asks BP to inform Justice in advance of “any planned or contemplated events that may involve substantial transfers of cash or other corporate assets outside of the ordinary course of business,” Agence France-Presse reported.

U.S. authorities should also be told of any “corporate restructuring, reorganisation, acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures, sales, divestments or disbursements,” it demands.

BP chief visits Middle East

BP CEO Tony Hayward flew to the wealthy emirate of Abu Dhabi to meet officials amid speculation that the oil giant is looking to raise cash to cover cleanup costs from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Associated Press reported.

Hayward arrived in the capital of the United Arab Emirates yesterday and would be staying “a couple of days,” a BP spokesman told AP. But he would not say whether Hayward planned to sit down with the region’s powerful investment funds, which have provided needed cash to Western multinationals in past times of crisis. BP has a long-standing partnership with the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., which is responsible for crude oil production in the Arab emirate.

BP has approached sovereign wealth funds with a view to securing a strategic investor to fend off takeover bids while it deals with its massive U.S. oil spill, Reuters reported yesterday. BP executives have held talks with a number of sovereign wealth funds, including funds in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Qatar and Singapore, according to Reuters.

Hayward visited Azerbaijan yesterday and Russia last week to reassure the countries that the company is committed to investments there.

BP said it has no plans to issue shares to help pay for the spill.

_______________

Mike Soraghan, E&E reporter

There are probably a lot of things Interior Department officials would like to change about the how they looked at BP Exploration and Production’s drilling operations.

They’ve found one thing that they can change — their website.

BP’s status as a finalist for the “Safety Award for Excellence” from the disgraced and now-renamed Minerals Management Service has been deleted from Interior’s site.

Before the April 20 blowout at BP’s Macondo well fouled the Gulf of Mexico with millions of gallons of oil, MMS had announced that BP was a finalist for the prize, known as the SAFE award. The other finalists in the “high-activity” drilling category — meaning those that produce more than 10 million barrels of oil a year — were Eni U.S. Operating Co. and Exxon Mobil Corp.

A Google cache snapshot of the MMS website shows the page as it appeared on June 6, 2010. Click here for a larger version of the image.

The winner was to be announced at an MMS-sponsored awards lunch during the 2010 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston on May 3. But the awards lunch was canceled, and the winner has never been announced.

The drilling conference, whose sponsors included BP and Halliburton Co., was not canceled. And MMS has since been renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

Interior officials failed to respond to messages asking why BP’s name was deleted, except to e-mail a copy of the notice canceling the May 3 lunch. Interior spokesman Todd Hughes said the award has not been given out because the lunch has not been rescheduled.

BP has won the award once before, in 1992, when it tied with Conoco. BP was also a finalist in 2009, when Exxon Mobil won.

Transocean Ltd., which drilled the blown-out well from its Deepwater Horizon rig, won in 1999 and 2008. The company was nominated in 2007.

The department has been giving the award for 25 years. The current awards lunch and program at the Houston offshore conference began in 1999.

The award is intended to recognize offshore companies for outstanding work on safety and preventing pollution “by adhering to all regulations, employing trained and motivated personnel, and going the extra mile to enhance safety and environmental protection,” according to MMS materials. It is also designed to “encourage voluntary compliance.”

Much of the agency’s safety program for offshore drilling has been based on such voluntary compliance.

MMS adopted a voluntary approach to safety and environmental compliance in 1994 during the Clinton administration. Last year, BP joined with other oil companies such as Exxon Mobil to oppose a plan to switch to a more regulatory approach involving audits and unannounced inspections. The rules have not been not implemented (Greenwire, April 27).

The safety records of BP and other companies have taken on increased importance as the Obama administration and the industry try to determine the appropriate long-term response to the BP spill.

Other companies’ safety records were similar to BP’s

When U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman lifted the Obama administration’s moratorium on offshore drilling last month, he suggested that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar should have examined the safety records of the other companies that were hit by the moratorium (Greenwire, June 24).

“The secretary’s determination that a six-month moratorium on issuance of new permits and on drilling by the thirty-three rigs is necessary does not seem to be fact-specific and refuses to take into measure the safety records of those others in the Gulf,” Feldman wrote in his preliminary injunction. In a footnote, he noted that Interior’s “blitz” inspection after the explosion found all 33 other rigs in deep water to be safe.

But a Greenwire analysis of Interior safety records showed there was little difference between BP and its peers drilling in the Gulf. BP ranked a close third in penalties for safety violations. And statistics compiled on injuries and fires show that BP’s records were comparable to those of other deepwater drilling companies (Greenwire, June 24).

The plaque and citation that accompany the honor recognize the company’s performance in the prior year. Companies that have a fatality, a major spill or other serious problems during the award year are not eligible for that year’s award, indicating that BP and Transocean would likely not be eligible next year.

The SAFE Award finalists are selected through a process that includes analyzing safety inspection records, looking at the quality of the companies’ safety technology and the recommendations of MMS district, regional and headquarters officials.

“Only the top candidates who show outstanding performance in each of their respective OCS Districts will be considered a finalist for the National SAFE Award,” according to the department website.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/07/sand_berms_a_dubious_solution.html

Sand berms a dubious solution:
A guest column by Len Bahr
Published: Monday, July 05, 2010, 6:00 PM
Contributing Op-Ed columnist Contributing Op-Ed columnist

The coast of Louisiana occupies North America’s largest delta, which has
been rapidly shrinking and sinking for a century. River channelization,
flood levees, upriver dams and coastal oil and gas production continue to
take their toll. But a decade from now, the unprecedented discharge of
perhaps 100,000 barrels a day of oil directly off our coast for months on
end may prove to have been as damaging to the delta as these historic
stressors.

Obviously no handbook exists on effective responses to such a massive oil
release. This policy vacuum, combined with panic and desperation among
coastal residents, created an irresistible opportunity for grandstanding on
the part of our ambitious young governor.

In this highly charged political climate it is not surprising that Bobby
Jindal would opt for responses to the oil crisis based more on drama than
effectiveness. For example, he would likely prefer to be videotaped in front
of a massive, noisy dredge boat stirring up mud than observing small craft
silently skimming the water surface.

Thus, the governor’s most widely discussed response to the coastal oil
assault is to pile up defensive sand barriers. The rationale for this action
is to intercept the oil before it can contaminate the wetlands that hold
delta sediments in place, nourish fish and wildlife and protect people from
storms.

About 80 miles of 6-foot-high sand berms are now under construction on the
lower east and west sides of the Mississippi River. The total quantity of
sand required to complete this project is said to be 56 million cubic
yards — the equivalent of 11.2 times the volume of the Superdome!

Some of this (sacrificial) sand is being dredged from the lower river
channel, but most is being mined from old barrier islands that have sunk
beneath the sea. Although the dredging doesn’t leave a visible change at the
surface, it alters the subsurface profile of an area and reduces the bottom
friction that formerly absorbed hydraulic energy during approaching storm
surges.

On the basis of 22 years of academic training and experience in coastal
science and 18 years of policy experience in the Governor’s Office of
Coastal Activities, I’m strongly opposed to the governor’s sand berm project
for the following nine reasons:

1) Absence of science: Vague plans for the sand barriers were hastily drawn
up by “outside experts” from Holland, with no input from Louisiana coastal
scientists. Project details subsequently released have been universally
panned by these scientists.

2) Questionable justification: The sand dredging project was proposed by and
heavily lobbied by vested dredging interests, and it reeks of potential
conflicts.

3) Opportunity cost: This emergency and temporary project will deplete and
waste finite sand resources needed for a credible barrier shoreline
nourishment project.

4) Environmental cost: Dredging holes in the very delta that we’re trying to
restore is irrational.

5) Changes to natural flow regime: Attempting to barricade tidal passes
speeds up water velocity, causing barrier island erosion and potentially
sucking even more oil into the estuary.

6) Lengthy construction time: The contractors project a completion date nine
months away, by which time deflecting BP oil could be a moot issue.

7) Sand berm fragility: Sand-filled Hesco baskets (a type of sand berm)
completed three weeks ago by the Louisiana National Guard along Holly Beach
to protect against BP oil washed away like sand castles during a glancing
blow by Hurricane Alex.

Dubious benefits: A huge volume of crude oil has already drifted into the
very marsh areas that would supposedly be protected by sand barriers.
Completed berms could trap rather than repel some of this oil.

9) An alternative active response: Whether or not BP pays for the sand
barrier project, there are more effective and risk-free ways to spend $350
million. For example, I estimate that for that amount 2 million tons of
oil-absorbing hay could be spread on the oil by boats and planes, soaking up
perhaps 4 million tons of oil, then raked up by shrimp boats for onshore
disposal.

I’m not alone in challenging this project, although I can afford to be more
vocal than most of my science colleagues. Many of them, along with their
employers, fear the financial consequences of alienating Gov. Jindal, who
tolerates no criticism of his sand berm fantasy.

Len Bahr, Ph.D., is a former LSU marine sciences faculty member who served
18 years as a coastal policy adviser to Louisiana governors from Buddy
Roemer to Bobby Jindal. He edits LaCoastPost.com. His e-mail is
leonardbahr@gmail.com.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j5k1tn_9yTMQTCny1MIeKSGBoP9gD9GPS7HG3

By JUAN A. LOZANO (AP) – 4 hours ago

HOUSTON – A new group will pool Texas’ brightest minds to come up with better and safer ways of drilling and producing oil and natural gas in the wake of the Gulf oil spill, Gov. Rick Perry announced Tuesday.

The Gulf Project will focus on developing and testing current equipment as well as new technologies for the next generation of oil and gas drilling, Perry said. The group also will look to develop better ways of monitoring the equipment once it’s in place and improve training for responding to oil spills.

“Texas must take the lead in this effort because Texas leads in energy,” Perry said at a news conference at Johnson Space Center, which he suggested could help in testing new equipment. “We are perfectly suited to lead the effort into improving safety and reliability in our continued quest for new and better sources of energy.”

Texas’ energy industry supplies 20 percent of the nation’s oil production, one-fourth of its natural gas production, a quarter of its refining capacity and nearly 60 percent of its chemical manufacturing.

The Gulf Project will be comprised of researchers, policy experts and state officials. But Perry also called on the oil and gas industry to join in its efforts.

“We must do better in preventing disasters of this kind,” he said of the spill, caused when BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up April 20.

Tom “Smitty” Smith, director of the Texas office of the activist group Public Citizen, said while his organization appreciates Perry’s efforts to improve drilling technologies to prevent another oil spill, endeavors such as the Gulf Project will only work if regulatory agencies can do their jobs.

“In Rick Perry’s Texas, they are underfunded, underpaid and told to hurry up and permit whatever kind of plant comes their way. That is a recipe for the kind of disaster we are seeing in the Gulf.”

Smith also said that he doesn’t believe any recommendations from the Gulf Project will ever be implemented.

But Perry said the group wasn’t created to only come up with a study.

“There will come clear directives and technologies and an action plan that will make our industry safer and protect our environment,” he said.

Meanwhile, Perry cautioned against stopping offshore oil drilling because of the spill, criticizing the Obama administration’s effort to implement a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling.

“That response … is neither appropriate nor is it likely to solve the actual problem in the Gulf,” Perry said. “Considering our growing energy needs, it is not realistic either.”
Federal lawmakers and officials from drilling companies who attended a round-table discussion Tuesday at the University of Houston echoed Perry’s criticism of the moratorium.

“We can’t just shut down natural gas and crude oil production,” said Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston. “The country as a whole needs domestic production.”

A federal judge in New Orleans last month struck down the moratorium. The federal government has appealed the ruling.

Associated Press Writer Elida S. Perez contributed to this report.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/03/96989/bp-wasted-no-time-preparing-for.html

|
By Marc Caputo | McClatchy Newspapers
TALLAHASSEE — In the immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP publicly touted its expert oil clean-up response, but it quietly girded for a legal fight that could soon embroil hundreds of attorneys, span five states and last more than a decade.

BP swiftly signed up experts who otherwise would work for plaintiffs. It shopped for top-notch legal teams. It presented volunteers, fishermen and potential workers with waivers, hoping they would sign away some of their right to sue.

Recently, BP announced it would create a $20 billion victim-assistance fund, which could reduce court challenges.

Robert J. McKee, an attorney with the Fort Lauderdale firm of Krupnick Campbell Malone, was surprised by how quickly BP hired scientists and laboratories specializing in the collection and analysis of air, sea, marsh and beach samples — evidence that’s crucial to proving damages in pollution cases.

Five days after the April 20 blowout, McKee said, he tried to hire a scientist who’s assisted him in an ongoing 16-year environmental lawsuit in Ecuador involving Dupont.

“It was too late. He’d already been hired by the other side,” McKee said. “If you aren’t fast enough, you get beat to the punch.”

At the same time it was bolstering its legal team, BP was downplaying how much oil was spewing from the Deepwater Horizon well — something that lawyers say is likely to be a critical factor in both court decisions and government fines.

“The rate we’re seeing today is considerably lower, considerably lower, than what was occurring when you saw the rig on fire,” BP America’s chief operating officer, Doug Suttles, told NBC Nightly News on April 25, three days after the Deepwater Horizon sank.

BP would stick to low estimates of how much oil was leaking — first, 1,000 barrels a day, then 5,000 barrels a day — until the Obama administration stepped in under congressional pressure nearly a month later and set up an independent commission of scientists to determine the flow.

In mid June, the so-called Flow Rate Technical Group said the well is gushing 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day — but the delay and imprecision of that estimate will make how much oil escaped into the gulf a matter of debate for years.

In the early days after the spill, BP also included a liability waiver in the paperwork it gave fishermen and prospective workers. That prompted Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, among other Gulf coast officials, to warn citizens: “Do not sign waivers.”

A BP spokesman said the company doesn’t comment on lawsuits and “won’t be giving running commentaries” on the number of court actions it’s facing.

In Florida, however, the company has hired Akerman Senterfitt, the state’s largest law firm and a major player in the state’s capital. It’s a strategy the company is likely to follow throughout the Gulf. When President Barack Obama met with BP executives last month to set up the $20 billion fund, BP was represented by Jamie Gorelick, who was deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton.

The grounds for the suits and potential suits run the gamut: federal pollution and environmental laws, general maritime law, international treaties, public-nuisance codes and even state and federal racketeering laws.

Under the federal Oil Pollution Act, state and local governments can sue to collect lost tax revenues and the cost of increased governmental services as a result of a spill. That can include lost sales and hotel room taxes in tourist-dependent towns all across the Gulf coast.

So far, an estimated 250 court suits have been filed against BP, and more come each day. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has tapped Steve Yerrid, one of the so-called “dream team” of lawyers that won Florida $11.3 billion in a landmark tobacco suit, to assemble a new legal crew to provide advice. Counties and cities are hiring lawyers as well.

Brian O’Neill, a lead attorney in the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill case, said the Gulf Coast states and residents should realize it will take years to clean the waters, the marshes and the beaches. Three years after the Alaska spill, salmon stocks started to return, he said, but the herring population was “exterminated” in Prince William Sound.

Exxon spent $2 billion and cleaned up just 8 percent of the oil, he said. And the oil never left.

“You’re going to have to wait years to figure out what happened and what is happening,” O’Neill said. “The oil goes where you don’t expect it. You will clean a beach and the oil will just come back in a few months or a year. The beaches could be oiled and oiled again.”

The fight against the oil company is likely to take decades.

“Exxon has shown you can stiff those you hurt and tie them up in court for 21 years and nothing bad happens to you,” he said. “You hope BP won’t do that.”

St. Petersburg crabber Howard Curd is expecting a long battle. His blue- and stone-crab fishing grounds in Tampa Bay were killed off when Hurricane Frances blew out a retaining wall at a phosphate pit that spewed acidic water into the bay.

The fertilizer company, Mosaic, persuaded a trial court and an appeals court that Curd and other fishermen couldn’t sue because they didn’t own the seafood that was potentially killed, so they weren’t technically damaged.

Finally, six years later, the state Supreme Court on June 17 reversed lower-court opinions and said Curd and other fishermen could sue. Curd now has to prove damages in court. The ruling in his favor arrived just in time for Florida’s 23,422 commercial and charter fishermen who could use the new ruling to press pollution claims against BP.

Curd said crabbing in the bay is bouncing back, but the BP spill is depressing seafood sales even though the oil is nowhere near the western coast of Florida.

He’s prepared to sue BP, but harbors no illusions about facing a big corporation in court.

“They’ve got all the money, and all the attorneys and all the experts on retainer. It really doesn’t cost them anything,” Curd said. “It’s like it’s cheaper to pay their attorneys and fight in court than paying the money to people they hurt and doing the right thing.”

(Caputo reports for the Miami Herald.)

Special thanks to Ashley Hotz

Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 3:24 PM

Subject: MEMORANDUM: Governor’s Call for Special Session – July 20, 2010 through July 23, 2010

Memorandum
DATE: July 8, 2010
TO: Interested Media
FROM: Sterling Ivey, Governor’s Press Secretary
RE: Governor’s Call for Special Session – July 20, 2010 through July 23, 2010

Continuing his commitment to recovery efforts in the Gulf of Mexico, Governor Charlie Crist today called a Special Session of the Florida Legislature from July 20, 2010 through July 23, 2010, to address a constitutional amendment banning offshore drilling in Florida waters.

If you have any questions or need additional information, please call Governor Crist’s press office at (850) 488-5394.
# # #

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://yubanet.com/usa/Gulf-oil-spill-could-widen-worsen-dead-zone.php

Published on Jul 6, 2010 – 7:20:58 AM
By: Michigan State University

A NASA satellite image recorded May 24 showing areas of oil approaching the Mississippi River delta, shown in false color to improve contrast.

EAST LANSING, Mich. June 4, 2010 – While an out-of-control gusher deep in the Gulf of Mexico fouls beaches and chokes marshland habitat, another threat could be growing below the oil-slicked surface.

The nation’s worst oil spill could worsen and expand the oxygen-starved region of the Gulf labeled “the dead zone” for its inhospitability to marine life, suggests Michigan State University professor Nathaniel Ostrom. It could already be feeding microbes that thrive around natural undersea oil seeps, he says, tiny critters that break down the oil but also consume precious oxygen.

“At the moment, we are seeing some indication that the oil spill is enhancing hypoxia,” or oxygen depletion, Ostrom said. “It’s a good hint that we’re on the right track, and it’s just another insult to the ecosystem – people have been worried about the size of the hypoxic zone for many years.”

The dead zone is believed to stem from urban runoff and nitrogen-based fertilizers from farmland swept into the Gulf by the Mississippi River. Higher springtime flows carry a heavier surge each year, nourishing algae blooms that soon die and sink. Those decay and are eaten by bacteria that consume more oxygen, driving out marine life and killing that which can’t move, such as coral. The dead zone can grow to the size of a small state.

With the spill overlapping a section of the dead zone, the impact on that region is unknown. As it happened, Ostrom earlier had tapped zoology major Ben Kamphuis to be on the Gulf in late May for a research cruise focused on nitrogen cycling. When the British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig blew out and sank April 20, Ostrom and collaborator Zhanfei Liu from the University of Texas at Austin quickly landed federal support to expand their inquiry.

Kamphuis, a junior from Holland, Michigan, learned far more than water sampling techniques during his week aboard the research vessel Pelican.

“Down there, (the oil spill) really affects a ton of people. I really didn’t realize it before going, but after going on the trip I realized how much we can help the people in that area.”

With dozens of water samples now returned to the lab, Ostrom, Kamphuis and food science sophomore Sam DeCamp, another undergraduate research associate, are setting up equipment to analyze them in the coming months. They want to know whether the oil in the water will promote oxygen starvation, and if so, how.

Oil-hungry microbes can be expected to consume more oxygen from the water as they feast on hydrocarbons, Ostrom says. But the oil slick and chemical dispersants also could reduce the flow of oxygen from the atmosphere to the ocean, and possibly reduce the sunlight available to nourish oxygen-producing marine plant life.

Financial support for the project came from the National Science Foundation and the MSU College of Natural Science.

A jack of many science trades, Ostrom is on faculty in the MSU Department of Zoology and the MSU Environmental Science and Policy Program. He is a biogeochemist who focuses his studies on the interaction of organisms with their chemical and physical environments.

Michigan State researchers were in the right place at the right time to contribute to our understanding of the effects of such a massive oil spill, he says, pointing to the oil-eating microbes as likely the biggest, if unrecognized, players in the drama.

“We’re fortunate to have them,” he said. “They’re doing the cleanup – not BP.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

07/06/2010

Robin Bravender, E&E reporter

A coalition of major environmental groups is urging the White House to take a bigger stake in Senate climate and energy negotiations.

As the Senate prepares to begin a floor debate on climate and energy legislation later this month, nine major advocacy groups sent a letter to President Obama, urging him to get personally involved to “produce a bill, in conjunction with key Senators, that responds to the catastrophe in the Gulf, cuts oil use, and limits carbon pollution while maintaining current health and other key legal protections.”

The Alliance for Climate Protection, the BlueGreen Alliance, the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Environment America, the Environmental Defense Fund, the League of Conservation Voters, the National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Union of Concerned Scientists signed on to the letter.

The groups said a growing number of their millions of active members are “deeply frustrated at the inability of the Senate and your Administration to act in the face of an overwhelming disaster in the Gulf, and the danger to our nation and the world.”

They urged the president to work with the Senate to bring the bill to the floor before the August recess.

“White House leadership is the only path we see to success, just as your direct leadership was critical in the passage of the recovery plan, health care reform, and other administration successes,” they said.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Here’s the letter:

The President
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500

July 2, 2010

Dear Mr. President:
Thank you for your forceful and eloquent expression of the absolute necessity for bold action to accelerate America’s transition to clean energy. Time and again you have described to Americans the benefits of clean energy reform. Your administration has taken important actions by making unprecedented investments in clean energy technology, setting more efficient fuel economy standards, and adopting many other measures. Now is the time to take the next essential steps.

Even as Americans see heartbreaking and infuriating images of damage to the Gulf coast, well-funded and powerful special interests have been working furiously to defeat progress and maintain the status quo. They have recruited their allies to help paralyze the Senate’s deliberations over whether and how to reduce oil use and cut global warming pollution, using tactics that have derailed efforts by Presidents for the last 40 years to curtail our ever-growing dependence on oil. A rapidly growing number of our millions of active members are deeply frustrated at the inability of the Senate and your Administration to act in the face of an overwhelming disaster in the Gulf, and the danger to our nation and world.

The Senate needs your help to end this paralysis. With the window of opportunity quickly closing, nothing less than your direct personal involvement, and that of senior administration officials, can secure America’s clean energy future. We strongly urge you to produce a bill, in conjunction with key Senators, that responds to the catastrophe in the Gulf, cuts oil use, and limits carbon pollution while maintaining current health and other key legal protections. We further urge you to work with the Senate to bring that bill to the floor for passage before the August recess. White House leadership is the only path we see to success, just as your direct leadership was critical in the passage of the recovery plan, health care reform, and other administration successes.

Two weeks ago, in an address to the nation from the Oval Office, you laid out the issue in stark terms: “The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight. We cannot consign our children to this future… Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash American innovation and seize control of our own destiny.” We emphatically agree. America’s future prosperity, the health of our environment, our ability to create good quality clean-energy jobs and to meet our international commitments, and our national security rest on the action you take in the days ahead.

Sincerely,

Maggie Fox, President and CEO
Alliance for Climate Protection

David Foster, Executive Director
BlueGreen Alliance

John Podesta, President and CEO
Center for American Progress Action Fund

Margie Alt, Executive Director
Environment America

Fred Krupp, President
Environmental Defense Fund

Gene Karpinski, President
League of Conservation Voters

Larry Schweiger, President
National Wildlife Federation

Peter Lehner, Executive Director
Natural Resources Defense Council

Kevin Knobloch, President
Union of Concerned Scientists

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/?q=node/7914

California Progress Report

Posted on 02 July 2010
By Zak Smith
Natural Resources Defense Council

As we continue to hear more about animals trapped in the toxic sludge that is the BP oil disaster fall out in the Gulf, NRDC joined a coalition in suing the renamed Minerals Management Service (MMS) – it now styles itself the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (as if rebranding will solve the agency’s problems) – for its failure to comply with our nation’s bedrock environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), when permitting seismic exploration for oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico.

Thousands of endangered animals live in the Gulf and are subjected to harassment and injury by seismic exploration in the form of air gun explosions as oil and gas exploration companies search for black gold at the bottom of the Gulf.

BP’s Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill has led to a thorough examination of how safety and environmental laws and regulations have been enforced (or ignored) with respect to oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Mexico and on the outer Continental Shelf generally. Unfortunately, it’s not a pretty picture and uncovering MMS’ record of ignoring basic environmental laws, especially in the Gulf of Mexico, has been disheartening.

The lawsuit we filed yesterday challenges MMS’ practice of approving seismic exploration in the Gulf of Mexico without completing a rigorous environmental review of the activity’s impacts on the environment (including marine mammals) in the form of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). An EIS is so important here because of the real harm to dolphins, whales, and fish that results from seismic exploration.

As NRDC noted even before the current disaster in the Gulf, seismic surveys use some of the loudest underwater sounds generated by humans to explore oil and gas reserves below the ocean floor. Day and night, for days and months at a time, thousands of square nautical miles of the Gulf are inundated with high-intensity sound pulses – billions of times more intense than noise levels known to compromise basic life functions of marine mammals and fish – such as feeding, breeding, navigating, and communicating.

With impacts so profound, there is no good excuse as to why MMS has not completed an EIS for seismic exploration – it’s doing one for the same activities planned to take place off the Atlantic Coast and the National Marine Fisheries Service says that one is necessary for the Gulf of Mexico. Knowing that laziness and bowing to the wishes of the oil industry are not legal defenses – at least not yet – how will MMS justify its failure to comply with America’s most fundamental environmental law?

But regardless of why MMS has failed to prepare an EIS, it must do so now so that the public and decision makers will have a better understanding of how seismic exploration continues to harm marine animals that are already struggling to survive in the wake of the BP disaster. With oil blanketing Gulf shores – destroying wildlife, habitat, fisheries, local economies, and ways of life that have been passed down for generations – shouldn’t we have a full reckoning of the impacts that oil and gas activities have on the environment, measured from the start, before oil is even found (when our government allows explosive noise to inundate Gulf waters, harming whales and endangered fish), to the end, when oil flows from the ocean floor to refineries and eventually into our cars? I think so, and hope this lawsuit plays a part in ensuring that understanding.

While our lawsuit focuses on MMS’ refusal to comply with NEPA for seismic exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, the outcome of the lawsuit is important to other areas of the outer Continental Shelf. Currently, there are no federal waters on the outer Continental Shelf that are safe from this destructive seismic exploration. If an oil company wants to conduct seismic exploration off the coast of California, it can.

And if MMS followed the same practice it has in the Gulf of Mexico when approving the activity, it could do so without completing a full environmental review, neglecting to analyze the impacts to California’s spectacular populations of whales and dolphins. But by compelling MMS to comply with the law in the Gulf of Mexico, we can help ensure that the agency will comply with the law wherever it approves this harmful activity.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-bad-news-for-bp-as-arsenic-levels-rise-around-gulf-of-mexico/story-e6frf7jo-1225888311592

Herald Sun
Last Updated: July 07, 2010

AFP
July 06, 2010 7:35AM

BELEAGUERED energy giant BP was hit with further bad news this morning as it emerged dangerous arsenic levels have been found in seawater around the Gulf of Mexico.

British scientists warned that the oil spill is increasing the level of arsenic in the ocean, and could further add to the devastating impact on the already sensitive environment.

BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig has been spilling between 3,681,500 litres and 911,454,000 litres of oil into the sea per day since it exploded on April 22.

The spill is already being labeled as America’s worst environmental disaster and has turned into a economic and PR nightmare for the British company.

Seventy-five days into the spill, the oil has fouled some 715km of shoreline in four southeastern US states, killed wildlife and put a massive dent in the region’s multi-billion-dollar fishing industry.

The clean-up operation, which has already cost, $US3.12 billion ($3.7 billion), is expected to rise even further after efforts were hampered by technical setbacks to cap the leak and adverse weather conditions.

In a further blow, an operation to permanently cap the ruptured well on the seafloor far below the surface cannot begin until engineers finish drilling relief wells, in mid-August at the earliest.
Imperial College London researchers warned the effect on the environment could worsen unless clean up efforts were hastened.

Researchers published a study which found oil stops the ocean’s natural filtering process of arsenic.
They said the arsenic then gets “magnified” up the food chain, as fish eat small amounts of the deadly poison and may eventually impact humans, researchers said.

Professor Mark Sephton said arsenic, which is found in seawater, was normally filtered out of the ocean when it combined with sediment on the sea floor.

“But oil spills stop the normal process because the oil combines with sediment and it leads to an accumulation of arsenic in the water over time,” he said.

“Arsenic only needs to be a 10th of a part per billion to cause problems.”

He added: “Our study is a timely reminder that oil spills could create a toxic ticking time bomb, which could threaten the fabric of the marine ecosystem in the future.”

Prof Sephton called for a comprehensive mapping of arsenic levels around the world which would allow authorities to consider banning oil drilling in areas with dangerous levels of arsenic.

The findings were published this month in the journal Water Research.

The warnings come after Hurricane Alex sparked a five-day shutdown, raising new questions over how BP would pay for the mounting costs.

Meanwhile, cleanup workers arrived back on Grand Isle, Louisiana by the hundreds, spilling off school buses that shuttled them in from around the state with one worker claiming it’s the most oil he had seen so far.

However, while skimming operations resumed in Louisiana, rough seas kept vessels tied up in harbour in three other southeastern US states and no controlled burns were being carried out.
Skimming was suspended last week as Tropical Storm Alex, which later became the first Atlantic hurricane of the 2010 season, entered the Gulf.

BP is now pinning its hopes on the giant Taiwanese supertanker A Whale exponentially boosting the amount of oil and water mix being scooped up from the surface of the gulf.

The tanker should be able to vacuum up 78.75m litres of oily water a day, separate it and spit the seawater back out.

Tests on the 275-metre tanker-turned-skimmer were expected to be completed by Monday before officials decide whether to deploy it.

It also emerged last night that BP is now turning to rival oil groups and sovereign wealth funds to fend off a possible hostile takeover bid.

The National, an Emirati newspaper based in Abu Dhabi, reported that sovereign wealth funds in the oil-rich Middle East have proposed making a strategic investment in BP, which has pledged to place $US20 billion ($A23.74 billion) in an escrow account to pay for the cleanup in the Gulf.

The firms were also allegedly mulling buying key assets from BP and financially backing any capital the oil company might plan to raise after the British energy giant lost over half of its stock market value and saw its shares plunge in the wake of the disaster.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meanwhile expanded the area closed to fishing in the Gulf beyond the current northwestern boundary off Louisiana, bringing to the closure to 210,258 square kilometres or 33.5 per cent of the Gulf’s federal waters.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/02/national/main6640388.shtml

July 2, 2010 New Orleans
(CBS/AP) BP and the Obama administration face mounting complaints that they are ignoring foreign offers of equipment and making little use of the fishing boats and volunteers available to help clean up what may now be the biggest spill ever in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Coast Guard said there have been 107 offers of help from 44 nations, ranging from technical advice to skimmer boats and booms. But many of those offers are weeks old, and only a small number have been accepted, with the vast majority still under review, according to a list kept by the State Department.

And in recent days and weeks, for reasons BP has never explained, many fishing boats hired for the cleanup have done a lot of waiting around.

A report prepared by investigators with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., detailed one case in which the Dutch government offered April 30 to provide four oil skimmers that collectively could process more than 6 million gallons of oily water a day. It took seven weeks for the U.S. to approve the offer.

Special Section: Disaster in the Gulf

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Thursday scorned the idea that “somehow it took the command 70 days to accept international help.”

“That is a myth,” he declared, “that has been debunked literally hundreds of times.”

He said 24 foreign vessels were operating in the Gulf before this week. He did not specifically address the Dutch vessels.

The help is needed. Based on some government estimates, more than 140 million gallons of crude have now spewed from the bottom of the sea since the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, eclipsing the 1979-80 disaster off Mexico that had long stood as the worst in the Gulf.

One possible option for the government is a huge new piece of equipment: the world’s largest oil-skimming vessel, which arrived Wednesday.

Officials hope the ship can scoop up to 21 million gallons of oil-fouled water a day. Dubbed the “A Whale,” the Taiwanese-flagged former tanker spans the length of 3½ football fields and is 10 stories high.

It just emerged from an extensive retrofitting to prepare it specifically for the Gulf, but it’s still waiting for the Environmental Protection Agency and Coast Guard to sign off on it’s use.

“It is absolutely gigantic. It’s unbelievable,” said Ed Overton, a Louisiana State University environmental studies professor who consults for the federal government on oil spills. He saw the ship last week in Norfolk, Va.

The vessel looks like a typical tanker, but it takes in contaminated water through 12 vents on either side of the bow. The oil is then supposed to be separated from the water and transferred to another vessel. The water is channeled back into the sea.

But the ship’s never been tested, and many questions remain about how it will operate. For instance, the seawater retains trace amounts of oil, even after getting filtered, requiring the EPA to sign off on allowing the treated water back into the Gulf.

“This is a no-brainer,” Overton said. “You’re bringing in really dirty, oily water and you’re putting back much cleaner water.”

The Coast Guard will have the final say in whether the vessel can operate in the Gulf. The owner, shipping firm TMT Group, will have to come to separate terms with BP, which is paying for the cleanup.

“I don’t know whether it’s going to work or not, but it certainly needs to be given the opportunity,” Overton said.

Meanwhile, more than 2,000 smaller boats have signed up for oil-spill duty under BP’s Vessel of Opportunity program. The company pays boat captains and their crews a flat fee based on the size of the vessel, ranging from $1,200 to $3,000 a day, plus a $200 fee for each crew member who works an eight-hour day.

Rocky Ditcharo, a shrimp dock owner in Buras, La., said many fishermen hired by BP have told him that they often park their boats on the shore while they wait for word on where to go.

“They just wait because there’s no direction,” Ditcharo said. He said he believes BP has hired many boat captains “to show numbers.”

“But they’re really not doing anything,” he added. He also said he suspects the company is hiring out-of-work fishermen to placate them with paychecks.

Chris Mehlig, a fisherman from Louisiana’s St. Bernard Parish, said he is getting eight days of work a month, laying down containment boom, running supplies to other boats or simply being on call dockside in case he is needed.

“I wish I had more days than that, but that’s the way things are,” he said.

Billy Nungesser, president of Louisiana’s hard-hit Plaquemines Parish, said BP and the Coast Guard provided a map of the exact locations of 140 skimmers that were supposedly cleaning up the oil. But he said that after he repeatedly asked to be flown over the area so he could see them at work, officials told him only 31 skimmers were on the job.

“I’m trying to work with these guys,” he said. “But everything they’re giving me is a wish list, not what’s actually out there.”

A BP spokesman declined to comment.

Newly retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government’s point man for the response effort, bristled at some of the accusations in Issa’s report.

“I think we’ve been pretty transparent throughout this,” Allen said at the White House. He disputed any suggestion that there aren’t enough skimmers being put on the water, saying the spill area is so big that there are bound to be areas with no vessels.

The Coast Guard said there are roughly 550 skimmers working in the Gulf, with 250 or so in Louisiana waters, 136 in Florida, 87 in Alabama and 76 in Mississippi, although stormy weather in recent days has kept the many of the vessels from working.

The frustration extends to the volunteers who have offered to clean beaches and wetlands. More than 20,000 volunteers have signed up to help in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, yet fewer than one in six has received an assignment or the training required to take part in some chores, according to BP.

The executive director of the Alabama Coastal Foundation, Bethany Kraft, said many people who volunteered are frustrated and angry that no one has called on them for help.

“You see this unfolding before your eyes and you have this sense that you can’t do anything,” she said. “To watch this happen in our backyard and not be able to help is hard.”

Some government estimates put the amount of oil spilled at 160 million gallons. That calculation was arrived at by using the rate of 2.5 million gallons a day all the way back to the oil rig explosion. The AP, relying on scientists who advised the government on flow rate, bases its estimates on a lower rate of 2.1 million gallons a day up until June 3, when a cut to the well pipe increased flow.

By either estimate, the disaster would eclipse the Ixtoc disaster in the Gulf two decades ago and rank as the biggest offshore oil spill during peacetime. The biggest spill in history happened in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War, when Iraqi forces opened valves at a terminal and dumped about 336 million gallons of oil.

The total in the Gulf disaster is significant because BP is likely to be fined per gallon spilled. Also, scientists say an accurate figure is needed to calculate how much oil may be hidden below the surface, doing damage to the deep-sea environment.

“It’s a mind-boggling number any way you cut it,” said Ed Overton, a Louisiana State University environmental studies professor. “It’ll be well beyond Ixtoc by the time it’s finished.”

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iV4SwHJNesVoVCV9ko4WK3wBjsmgD9GP10CG0

By HARRY R. WEBER and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN (AP) – 10 hours ago July 5, 2010

HOUSTON — As engineers bore deeper into the seafloor toward the source of the oil still spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, BP PLC is growing more confident that the relief well it expects to complete in August will succeed where all previous efforts to contain or kill the gusher have failed.

But what if it doesn’t work?

At the very least, oil would continue to spill while workers try something else.

That proposition would surely bring more misery for the people who live, work and play along the shores from Louisiana to Florida.

And consider this: Chief Executive Tony Hayward said in June that the reservoir of oil is believed to hold about 2.1 billion gallons of oil. If the problem was never fixed, it could mean another two years of oil spilling based on the current flow rate until the reservoir is drained.

BP says the first relief well is on target to be completed by early August. A second relief well, which could be completed a few weeks later, is viewed as a backup if the first one doesn’t work.

But efforts to contain other major oil spills haven’t always gone according to plan.

The 1979 Ixtoc oil spill, the Gulf’s worst oil spill before it was eclipsed by BP’s disaster, wasn’t contained until three months after the first of two relief wells was completed. By then, 140 million gallons of oil had spilled in the 10 months it took Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil company, to stop the leak.

That’s why BP is developing “backups for the backups.” But the British company is sparse on details, and even the ideas it is floating can’t guarantee the blown-out well that has already pumped up to 160 million gallons of oil into the sea over 2 1/2 months won’t keep flowing into the fall — or perhaps even beyond.

So, the Gulf region is left to hold its collective breath as BP puts much of its effort into the relief well just as Mother Nature could unleash a blistering hurricane at any moment.

“The relief well itself is not a slam dunk,” said Gene Beck, a petroleum engineering professor at Texas A&M University.

Kent Wells, a BP senior vice president, said other options include trying to reconfigure the existing containment cap to collect more of the spewing oil or tying it into another production platform on the surface. However, Wells has been mum on a game plan and he said no decisions have been made on the alternate platform idea.

BP declined repeated requests from The Associated Press over several days to make Wells available to elaborate or for a spokesman to comment further.

As to the hurricane concern, Wells said only that the rigs drilling the first relief well and the backup relief well are designed to operate in everything except a tropical storm or hurricane. If engineers had to disconnect and evacuate the area, drilling could be offline for 14 days, during which time an estimated 2.5 million gallons of oil would flow into the Gulf unabated each day.

History is on BP’s side, but the depth of the seafloor isn’t.

Engineers and oil industry experts familiar with or involved in previous relief well missions at sea say that if the heavy mud BP plans to pump into the existing well from underneath at its source doesn’t stop the flow altogether, it should at least reduce the pressure that is forcing oil so fast into the sea.

Carlos Osornio, a Mexican engineer in charge of Pemex’s deepwater drilling operations during the Ixtoc crisis, said BP may ultimately find that both relief wells are needed to contain the gusher.

“One relief well may not be enough to contain the high volume (of oil flow), but two will work for sure,” he said.

A reduction in pressure could give BP the option of putting a new blowout preventer on top of the one that was damaged in the April 20 explosion. That was a containment option BP considered early on, but hasn’t tried because of the risk posed by the amount of pressure from the seafloor.

A new blowout preventer isn’t foolproof either.

“It’s very unpredictable because the current condition of the well down there is unknown,” said Satish Nagarajaiah, a Rice University engineering professor who focuses on offshore structures.

BP engineers are using tools and running tests that tell them where they need to go. Drilling down parallel to the gushing well before cutting in sideways makes that data more accurate than it would have been if they were approaching the well horizontally, said Donald Van Nieuwenhuise, a University of Houston geology professor who has been a lead geologist on several offshore drilling projects.

“They’re not looking for a needle in the haystack anymore,” he said. “Now they’re just trying to figure out where they want to pick that needle up.”

Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University, said he is “somewhat suspect” that the relief well will hit its target on the first try.

“You’re going 18,000 feet to hit a dinner plate. My guess is two or three times is more of a likelihood,” he said.

Osornio, the former Pemex engineer who is now a deep drilling consultant, said there is no reason BP wouldn’t be successful the first try.

“Today’s tools provide specific locations in real time as they drill, something we didn’t have during Ixtoc,” he said.

Still, there’s potential peril if BP misses its target and decides to drill deeper directly into the oil producing formation.

Engineers tried that approach and were successful in killing several out of control wells in 1970 during the Bay Marchand fire off Louisiana.

But George Hirasaki, a Rice University professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering who was involved in the Bay Marchand oil containment effort for Shell, said engineers have to be very careful when drilling into any formation that has hydrocarbons, which poses the risk of the same type of explosion that destroyed the rig.

Bullock said there have been past successes with relief wells on land and in shallower waters, but no relief well is risk-free.

Beck said he expects the drillers to hit their mark on the first try but wouldn’t be surprised if it took two or three attempts. Beck puts the odds at 80 percent that the relief well will in short order kill the gushing well.

“There haven’t been a significant number of deepwater blowouts before,” he said. “To a certain extent, we’re in an unproven area here, as well.”

Kunzelman reported from New Orleans. AP writer Peter Prengaman contributed to this report.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/02/96959/why-so-few-skimmers-at-the-oil.html

By Anita Lee | Biloxi Sun-Herald
BILOXI, Miss. — From Washington to the Gulf, politicians and residents wonder why so few skimming vessels have been put to work soaking up oil from the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

Investment banker Fred D. McCallister of Dallas believes he has the answer. McCallister, vice president of Allegiance Capital Corp. in Dallas, has been trying since June 5 to offer a dozen Greek skimming vessels from a client for the cleanup.

“By sinking and dispersing the oil, BP can amortize the cost of the cleanup over the next 15 years or so, as tar balls continue to roll up on the beaches, rather than dealing with the issue now by removing the oil from the water with the proper equipment,” McCallister testified earlier this week before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. “As a financial adviser, I understand financial engineering and BP’s desire to stretch out its costs of remediating the oil spill in the Gulf. By managing the cleanup over a period of many years, BP is able to minimize the financial damage as opposed to a huge expenditure in a period of a few years.”

A BP spokesman from Houston, Daren Beaudo, denied the allegation emphatically. He said, “Our goal throughout has been to minimize the amount of oil entering the environment and impacting the shoreline.”

A report released Thursday by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform included a photo depicting “a massive swath of oil” in the Gulf with no skimming equipment in sight. The report concluded: “The lack of equipment at the scene of the spill is shocking, and appears to reflect what some describe as a strategy of cleaning up oil once it comes ashore versus containing the spill and cleaning it up in the ocean.”

McCallister’s experience in trying to win approval for the Greek vessels, along with the frustrations others have expressed in offering specialized equipment, contradicts the official pronouncements from BP and the federal government about the approval process. For foreign vessels, that process is complicated by a 1920 maritime law known as the Jones Act.

Coast Guard Rear Adm. James Watson, who oversees the Unified Command catastrophe response in New Orleans, determined in mid-June an insufficient number of U.S. skimming vessels is available to clean up oil, essentially exempting from the federal Jones Act foreign vessels that could be used in the response, said Capt. Ron LaBrec, a spokesman at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington.

The Jones Act allows only vessels that are U.S. flagged and owned to carry goods between U.S. ports.

To further clarify, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander, promised expedited Jones Act waivers for any essential spill-response activities. “Should any waivers be needed,” Allen said at the time, “we are prepared to process them as quickly as possible to allow vital spill response activities being undertaken by foreign-flagged vessels to continue without delay.”

LaBrec said 24 foreign vessels, two of them skimming vessels, have operated around the catastrophe site, in federal waters with no need for Jones Act waivers. He also said Watson has the authority to approve operation of foreign-flagged vessels near shore, where the Jones Act comes into play because of the port restrictions.

Fred D. McCallister, Vice President, Allegiance Capital Corporation

“If the unified area commander (Watson) decides that it’s a piece of equipment he needs, either BP would contract for it or he can do that himself,” LaBrec said. “If it’s something he decides is absolutely needed, he can get it in here without BP approval.

“The equipment that has been offered — the foreign equipment that has been offered that is useful for the response — has either been accepted or is in the group of offers that is currently in the process of being accepted. That has been occurring since early in the response and will continue to occur.”

Dealing with BP

McCallister said none of his dealings have been with the Coast Guard. He submitted requests for Jones Act waivers to Unified Command, but said questions about the skimming vessels have come from BP.

BP spokesman Beaudo said McCallister was notified his offer of skimming vessels has been declined because the vessels will not pick up heavy oil near shore. Beaudo said he did not know when McCallister was informed. McCallister said he received communications from BP on Thursday that indicated his proposal was still under review. In fact, he sent supplemental material Thursday, which was accepted, to show the skimming vessels will pick up heavy oil like that bombarding Mississippi’s coastline. The 60-foot vessels, he said, can skim high-density crude up to 20 miles offshore. Equipment on board separates the oil from water.

Desperate for skimmers

All the Gulf states dealing with oil have pleaded for more skimming vessels. The Deepwater Horizon Web site indicates 550 “skimmers” were at work before bad weather suspended operations.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s office has ordered private shipyards to build skimming vessels because so few have been working in state waters. George Malvaney, who heads the Mississippi Coast cleanup effort for BP subcontractor U.S. Environmental Services, said offers of skimming vessels and other equipment take time to review. He believes Mississippi will have a “substantial skimming effort” by late next week.

“Just because it’s a skimmer doesn’t mean it’s effective,” Malvaney said. “There’s a lot of people out there saying, ‘We’ve got skimmers.’ Some are effective, some are not. That’s what we’re trying to wade through right now.”

More than meets the eye?

As the catastrophe reaches Day 73, McCallister, who grew up in Mississippi and has family on the Coast, believes there is just more to it.

“Looking at it from a businessman’s perspective,” he said, “if I am BP, assuming I don’t have a conscience that would steer me otherwise, the best thing I can do for my shareholders, my pensioners, and everybody else, is to try to spread the cost of this remediation out as long as I can.

“I am concerned it is seen by BP as being the most pragmatic financial approach. But they’re playing Russian roulette with the Gulf, the marine life in the Gulf and the people in the Gulf region.”

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/02/96959/why-so-few-skimmers-at-the-oil.html#ixzz0srsFcZdZ

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=11090860

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Tests on a supertanker adapted to skim large quantities of oily water from the surface of the Gulf of Mexico are inconclusive because of high seas, ship owner TMT Shipping Offshore said on Monday.

Tests on the so-called “super skimmer” conducted just north of the blown out BP Plc well were supposed to be completed on Monday but have been extended because of the weather, said spokesman Bob Grantham.

“After an initial 48-hour testing period results remain inconclusive in light of the rough sea state we are encountering,” Grantham said.

“Therefore, working in close coordination with the U.S. Coast Guard, we will be undertaking an additional testing period to make operational and technological adjustments aimed at improving skimming effectiveness given the actual conditions we are encountering in the Gulf,” he said.

He said smaller skimming vessels were also struggling to operate in the conditions caused by the aftermath of Hurricane Alex, which passed through the Gulf last week.

The 1,100-foot (335 meter)-long ore and oil carrier named “A Whale” is seen as a potential savior of efforts to clean the oil pollution because it can collect 500,000 barrels (21 million gallons) per day of contaminated water.

It operates by allowing oily surface water into the ship through a series of 12 horizontal slits on the port and starboard sides of the ship near the bow. The liquid is then decanted through a series of tanks to separate oil and water.

Though the total amount of oil and water mix in the Gulf remains unknown, the ship’s capacity would vastly increase what is currently being skimmed by smaller vessels.

The “A Whale” underwent an initial test off the coast of Portugal where it was fitted out for its new role and passed with flying colors, crew members said.

As a result, the company expected little difficulty in proving that it could work in the Gulf.

If it passes the test, the Taiwanese parent company TMT hopes to secure a contract with BP to skim oil and it is also preparing two additional ships for the task.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/05/AR2010070502937.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010070502831

By Kimberly Kindy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 6, 2010

In the 77 days since oil from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon began to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, BP has skimmed or burned about 60 percent of the amount it promised regulators it could remove in a single day.

The disparity between what BP promised in its March 24 filing with federal regulators and the amount of oil recovered since the April 20 explosion underscores what some officials and environmental groups call a misleading numbers game that has led to widespread confusion about the extent of the spill and the progress of the recovery.

“It’s clear they overreached,” said John F. Young Jr., council chairman in Louisiana’s Jefferson Parish. “I think the federal government should have at the very least picked up a phone and started asking some questions and challenged them about the accuracy of that number and tested the veracity of that claim.”

In a March report that was not questioned by federal officials, BP said it had the capacity to skim and remove 491,721 barrels of oil each day in the event of a major spill.

As of Monday, with about 2 million barrels released into the gulf, the skimming operations that were touted as key to preventing environmental disaster have averaged less than 900 barrels a day.

Skimming has captured only 67,143 barrels, and BP has relied on burning to remove 238,095 barrels. Most of the oil recovered — about 632,410 barrels — was captured directly at the site of the leaking well.

BP officials declined to comment on the validity of early skimming projections, stressing instead the company’s commitment to building relief wells intended to shut down the still-gushing well.

“The numbers are what they are,” said BP spokesman Toby Odone. “At some point, we will look back and say why the numbers ended up this way. That’s for the future. Right now, we are doing all we can to capture and collect the oil through various methods. We will make sure all the oil is ultimately dealt with.”

BP began downgrading expectations only two days after the rig explosion. Although its projections reported to the federal government were only weeks old, the company cited a greatly reduced number in a news release filed with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission. It projected that it had “skimming capacity of more than 171,000 barrels per day, with more available if needed.”

The release presented an optimistic picture of a company scrambling to clean up the mess, mobilizing a “flotilla of vessels and resources that includes: significant mechanical recovery capacity.”

In truth, the skimming effort was hampered from the start by numerous factors, including the slow response of emergency workers, inadequate supplies and equipment, untrained cleanup crews, and inclement weather. Greatly compounding the problem was the nature of the spill, with much of the oil never surfacing.

The poor results of the skimming operations have led to a desperate search for solutions. The world’s largest skimmer, owned by the Taiwanese, is on site and undergoing Coast Guard safety tests. The 10-story-high ship, which is the length of three football fields, was touted as having the ability to remove oil at the rate of tens of thousands of barrels every day. Thus far, it has been unable to produce those results in the gulf.

About 90 percent of the mixture is water, so the true amount of oil skimmed is relatively small — roughly 67,143 barrels of oil. Had the estimated amounts in the March response plan been accurate, 38 million barrels of oil could have been removed by now.

“This has been a cat-and-mouse game since March when they put out these estimates,” said Earthjustice attorney Colin H. Adams. “We want real figures instead of inflated estimates on what they are cleaning up and deflated estimates on how much is gushing out.”

In response to criticism that the government did not challenge crucial aspects of BP’s recovery plans, the Coast Guard this week is scheduled to announce creation of an expert panel to conduct a “preparedness review” for Deepwater Horizon.

“I think this will fundamentally change the lay of the land when it comes to oil spill preparations,” said Greg Pollock, deputy commissioner of the Oil Spill Prevention and Response Program at the Texas General Land Office. “Unfortunately, it’s taken a catastrophic spill to get us to look at it.”

BP’s March response plan was filed with the federal Minerals Management Service, which has oversight over oil drilling. BP said it would reach the stated goal largely by deploying two companies that have the necessary expertise, trained staff and equipment: the nonprofit Marine Spill Response Corp. and for-profit National Response Corp.

But Marine Spill Response said it was never asked whether it could hit the optimistic marks set by BP. National Response declined to comment.

“Not at any time were we consulted with what was in the plan either by MMS or by our customer,” said Marine Spill Response spokeswoman Judith Roos.

Daily reports from the federal government and BP’s Joint Operations Center in Louisiana quickly showed that retrieval efforts were falling far short of promises. After the first week, just 100 barrels of oil had been skimmed from the gulf, while the broken well continued to pour as much as 200,000 barrels of oil into the water.

It wasn’t until mid-June that BP’s daily report noted the collection of 485,714 barrels — roughly the amount it said it could retrieve in a day. But the June figure was for an oil-water mixture, which is about 90 percent ocean water.

Meanwhile, BP also kept revising its estimate of the amount of oil leaking into the gulf. In the early days after the spill, BP and federal officials placed the daily flow rate from the ruptured rig at 1,000 barrels a day, and then raised it to 5,000 barrels a day. In late May, a group of scientists charged by the government with estimating the flow said the rate was 12,000 to 25,000 barrels a day. And in June, the official estimated rate jumped to 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day.

Because of these changing numbers and wide ranges, the amount of uncollected oil might be as low as 1.1 million barrels and as high as 4 million barrels.

Earthjustice, which has joined with the Sierra Club and other environmental groups to sue the federal government over BP’s response plan, warns that because these estimates continue to climb, the spillage numbers could go higher.

Earthjustice also says spill damage is being obscured by misleading numbers.

On Monday, the joint operations center for the federal government and BP reported that more than 671,428 barrels of an oil-water mixture have been captured and stored.

The figures clearly have confused journalists, with many media outlets reporting the figures as solid oil recovery numbers.

In a statement, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Minerals Management Service (recently renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement) said they are reviewing how cleanup estimates are crafted and the government’s role in reviewing them.

“Without question, we must raise the bar for offshore oil and gas operations, hold them to the highest safety standards,” the statement said.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/7095131.html

Originally published Monday, July 5, 2010 at 4:03 AM

Tar balls from the Gulf oil spill found on a Texas beach were confirmed Monday as the first evidence that gushing crude from the Deepwater Horizon well has reached all the Gulf states.

By JUAN A. LOZANO
Associated Press Writer

TEXAS CITY, Texas -
Tar balls from the Gulf oil spill found on a Texas beach were confirmed Monday as the first evidence that gushing crude from the Deepwater Horizon well has reached all the Gulf states.

A Coast Guard official said it was possible that the oil hitched a ride on a ship and was not carried naturally by currents to the barrier islands of the eastern Texas coast, but there was no way to know for sure.

The amount discovered is tiny in comparison to what has coated beaches so far in the hardest-hit parts of the Gulf coast in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. It still provoked the quick dispatch of cleaning crews and a vow that BP will pay for the trouble.

“Any Texas shores impacted by the Deepwater spill will be cleaned up quickly and BP will be picking up the tab,” Texas Land Commissoner Jerry Patterson said in a news release.

The oil’s arrival in Texas was predicted Friday by an analysis from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which gave a 40 percent chance of crude reaching the area.

“It was just a matter of time that some of the oil would find its way to Texas,” said Hans Graber, a marine physicist at the University of Miami and co-director of the Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing.

About five gallons of tar balls were found Saturday on the Bolivar Peninsula, northeast of Galveston, said Capt. Marcus Woodring, the Coast Guard commander for the Houston/Galveston sector. Two gallons were found Sunday on the peninsula and Galveston Island, though tests have not yet confirmed its origin.

Woodring said the consistency of the tar balls indicates it’s possible they could have been spread to Texas water by ships that have worked out in the spill. But there’s no way to confirm the way they got there.

The largest tar balls found Saturday were the size of ping-pong balls, while the ones found Sunday were the size of nickels and dimes.

Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski said he believed the tar balls were a fluke, rather than a sign of what’s to come.

“This is good news,” he said. “The water looks good. We’re cautiously optimistic this is an anomaly.”

The distance between the western reach of the tar balls in Texas and the most eastern reports of oil in Florida is about 550 miles. Oil was first spotted on land near the mouth of the Mississippi River on April 29.

The spill is reaching deeper into Louisiana. Strings of oil were seen Monday in the Rigolets, one of two waterways that connect the Gulf with Lake Pontchartrain, the large lake north of New Orleans.

“So far it’s scattered stuff showing up, mostly tar balls,” said Louisiana Office of Fisheries Assistant Secretary Randy Pausina. “It will pull out with the tide, and then show back up.”

Pausina said he expected the oil to clear the passes and move directly into the lake, taking a backdoor route to New Orleans.

The news of the spill’s reach comes at a time that most of the offshore skimming operations in the Gulf have been halted by choppy seas and high winds. A tropical system that had been lingering off Louisiana flared up Monday afternoon, bringing heavy rain and winds.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said there was a 60 percent of the storm becoming a tropical cyclone.

Last week, the faraway Hurricane Alex idled the skimming fleet off Alabama, Florida and Mississippi with choppy seas and stiff winds. Now they’re stymied by a succession of smaller storms that could last well into this week.

Officials have plans for the worst-case scenario: a hurricane barreling up the Gulf toward the spill site. But the less-dramatic weather conditions have been met with a more makeshift response.

Skimming operations across the Gulf have scooped up about 23.5 million gallons of oil-fouled water so far, but officials say it’s impossible to know how much crude could have been skimmed in good weather because of the fluctuating number of vessels and other variables.

The British company has now seen its costs from the spill reach $3.12 billion, a figure that doesn’t include a $20 billion fund for damages the company created last month.

The storms have not affected drilling work on a relief well that BP says is the best chance for finally plugging the leak. The company expects drilling to be finished by mid-August.
—

Associated Press writers Tom Breen and Mary Foster in New Orleans contributed to this report. Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.truth-out.org/bp-used-oil-industry-tax-break-write-off-its-rent-deepwater-rig61062

Monday 05 July 2010

by: Pat Garofolo | ThinkProgress | Report

Transocean, the company that owns the failed Deepwater Horizon rig that caused the Gulf oil spill, used well-known tax havens in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland to lower its U.S. corporate tax rate by almost 15 points. And due to a break in the U.S. tax code, BP was also allowed to write off the rent it paid to Transocean on its own tax bill, saving it hundreds of thousands of dollars per day:

The owner, Transocean, moved its corporate headquarters from Houston to the Cayman Islands in 1999 and then to Switzerland in 2008, maneuvers that also helped it avoid taxes. At the same time, BP was reaping sizable tax benefits from leasing the rig. According to a letter sent in June to the Senate Finance Committee, the company used a tax break for the oil industry to write off 70 percent of the rent for Deepwater Horizon – a deduction of more than $225,000 a day since the lease began.

So, essentially, the U.S. taxpayer paid BP to lease a rig that was incorporated in a foreign country for the purpose of avoiding the U.S. corporate tax. And the U.S. tax code is actually riddled with breaks for the oil industry, despite that industry’s record profits in recent years. Center for American Progress Senior Policy Analyst Sima Gandhi has counted nine different subsidies that the U.S. government gives to the oil industry, including refunds for drilling costs and refunds to cover the cost of searching for oil. If this corporate welfare were cut, it would save $45 billion per year, and according to the Office of Economic Policy at the Department of Treasury, “affect domestic production by less than one-half of 1 percent.” “The flow of revenues to oil companies is like the gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico: heavy and constant,” said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ). “There is no reason for these corporations to shortchange the American taxpayer.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Business Insider
June 30, 2010

http://www.businessinsider.com/warning-to-gulf-cleanup-workers-almost-every-crew-member-from-the-1989-exxon-valdez-disaster-is-now-dead-2010-6

Michael Snyder

Are you sure that you want to help clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? In a previous article we documented a number of the health dangers from this oil spill that many scientists are warning us of, and now it has been reported on CNN that the vast majority of those who worked to clean up the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska are now dead. Yes, you read that correctly. Almost all of them are dead.

In fact, the expert that CNN had on said that the life expectancy for those who worked to clean up the Exxon Valdez oil spill is only about 51 years. Considering the fact that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is now many times worse than the Exxon Valdez disaster, are you sure you want to volunteer to be on a cleanup crew down there? After all, the American Dream is not to make big bucks for a few months helping BP clean up their mess and then drop dead 20 or 30 years early.

This news clip from CNN is absolutely stunning. If this is even close to true, then why would anyone want to be involved in helping to clean up this oil?….

The truth is that what we have out in the Gulf of Mexico is a “toxic soup” of oil, methane, benzene, hydrogen sulfide, other toxic gases and very poisonous chemical dispersants such as Corexit 9500.

Breathing all of this stuff is not good for your health, but the reality is that the true health toll of this oil spill is not going to be known for decades.

However, the early reports are not encouraging….

*Already, a large number of workers cleaning up the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico report that they are suffering from flu-like symptoms.

*According to another new report, exposure to the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has resulted in 162 cases of illnesses reported to the Louisiana state health department.

*In addition, according to one local Pensacola news source, “400 people have sought medical care for upper or lower respiratory problems, headaches, nausea, and eye irritation after trips to Escambia County beaches.”

This is going to be something that we all want to keep a very close eye on.

But it is not just oil spill cleanup workers and people who have gone to the beach who are reporting health issues. The following is a report from a reader named Dee….

My 2 friends and I have been sick with headaches and vomiting, also it feels like heartburn, just feeling lousy. We have not been to the Gulf but there is an inlet at the end of our street. We live on the West side of Pensacola FL. near the Bayou. At first I thought it was just me. My 2 friends are having the same symptoms, all at the same time. Right now I have a dull headache, and my stomach is queasy. I have been thinking maybe the chemicals from the oil cleanup or the oil itself is causing us to be ill. It has been raining all day off and on. I started feeling ill late last night. I was wondering if anyone else in Pensacola have the same symptoms.

So what can we conclude from all this?

Well, it is still very early, but when this crisis is all said and done the biggest tragedy of all might be the health devastation that this oil spill has caused.

If the Exxon Valdez oil spill is any indication, a lot of pe0ple are going to end up dying early deaths.

So once again, do you really want to go down there and clean up this oil?

Of course all of this oil is not just going to clean itself up.

But if we all refuse to participate, who will clean it up?

Perhaps BP CEO Tony Heyward and other high ranking BP executives could roll up their sleeves and go down there and start cleaning up all of that toxic sludge.

It’s their mess, so let them clean it.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

by Lauren Schenkman on June 29, 2010 3:25 PM

For the tens of thousands of sea turtle eggs incubating in the sands of the
northern Gulf of Mexico-and dangerously near the oil-it’s come to this:
Officials are planning to dig up the approximately 700 nests on Alabama and
the Florida panhandle beaches, pack the eggs in Styrofoam boxes, and fly
them to a facility in eastern Florida where they can mature. Once the eggs
have hatched, the young turtles will be released in darkness on Florida’s
Atlantic beaches into oil-free water. Translocation of nests on this scale
has never been attempted before.

“This is really a worst-case scenario,” says Michael Ziccardi, a University
of California, Davis, veterinarian and oil-spill veteran who is leading the
government’s response efforts for marine mammals and sea turtles. “We hoped
we wouldn’t get to this point.”

Sea turtles that hatch in the Northern Gulf of Mexico typically spend a few
months near the coast, and many eventually enter the Loop Current to make
their way into the Atlantic. This year, that path would put them right in
the oil spill. Federal officials in charge of response “believe that most,
if not all, of the 2010 Northern Gulf hatchling cohort would be at high risk
of encountering oil during this period,” according to the written
translocation plan, developed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries
Service, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. They
estimate that 50,000 hatchlings could be lost to the oil.

Nests are already being marked so that cleanup crews can skirt them, and
officials hope to begin moving them within weeks, says Ziccardi. The
operations will continue well past laying season, which ends in August,
because eggs incubate for about 60 days. The logistics of finding
contractors to train and lead collection teams, a facility where the eggs
can come to term, and an air-freight company that can transport them three
times a week for the next 3 months are daunting.

Officials plan to dig up the eggs at about day 50 of their incubation-well
after the hatchling’s sex, which is determined by the nest’s temperature, is
set. Workers moving the eggs have to be careful not to turn them over or
roll them so as not to disturb membranes that connect the embryo to the
shell and cushion it, says Philip Allman, a marine biologist at Florida Gulf
Coast University in Fort Myers. “If the orientation of the egg is turned
significantly from the position in the nest, the rotation can break the
membranes and cause the embryos to die,” he says. “Even in flight,
turbulence and a bumpy landing could be enough” to break the membranes.

Moving the eggs could also affect where the turtles go to nest once they’re
adults, Allman says, because “a lot of evidence indicates that sea turtles
return to the same region where they hatch from to nest.” Some researchers
believe embryos somehow learn the location of their home beach while still
in the egg; others think that “imprinting” process happens as hatchlings
make their way to the water. The plan could mean the hatchlings imprint on
the east coast of Florida, which “may impact which breeding population they
join once maturing,” Allman says. Although this could change the genetic
makeup of east coast populations, which aren’t identical to those in the
northern Gulf of Mexico populations, he thinks the risks of negative effects
are minimal. “I think it is a chance worth taking,” he says.

Individual nests are sometimes moved above high tide or brought into
captivity to protect eggs from predators or poaching. Although an operation
of this scale is unprecedented, it’s the best option right now, says Thane
Wibbels, a herpetologist at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. “You’re
either reactive or proactive, and if you’re reactive, it’s too late.”

Smaller-scale translocations have been successful, Wibbels points out; Each
year from 1978 until 1988, about 2000 Kemp’s ridley sea turtle eggs were
moved from the species’ sole nesting beach in Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, to Padre
Island National Seashore near Corpus Christi, Texas, in a bid to start a
second nesting beach. Today, he says, about 200 turtles nest there.

After the Ixtoc I well blew out in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979, 9000 Kemp’s
ridley hatchlings were kept on their nesting beach and then transported to
cleaner waters, says Allman. “Multiple authors reported a few years later
that the oil spill did not have a significant impact to the Kemp’s ridley
sea turtles,” he says.

“In a normal year you’d think, ‘That’s crazy,’ ” Wibbels says. “We want
these turtles to do what’s natural, … but if you have to prevent a large
amount of mortality, you have to make tough decisions.”

Allen Salzberg

Publisher/Editor of HerpDigest. The Only Free Weekly E-Zine That Reports on
The Latest News on Herpetological Conservation, Husbandry, and Science
www.herpdigest.org.
HerpDigest is a registered (in NYS) not-for profit organization/publication.

Member of the of IUCN/SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/health-effects-of-oil-spills-on-humans-more-questions-than-an/19530364/

An AOL Money & Finance Site
Tuesday, June 29, 2010

By MELLY ALAZRAKI
Posted 9:00 PM 06/26/10 Health Care, BP

When BP’s (BP) Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 of its crew and causing a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, few imagined that more than two months later it would still be spewing an estimated 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil a day, causing the U.S.’s worst-ever environmental disaster.

With the undersea well still gushing oil and cleanup efforts barely making a dent, questions abound about the spill’s short- and long-term effects on the environment and human health. In fact, very little is known about the health effects of oil spills as only seven spills have been studied of the hundreds around the world.

Cleanup Crews Experiencing Acute Symptoms

From the few studies of past spills, one of them by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) after the Exxon Valdez spill, certain acute symptoms were expected, and already Gulf residents and cleanup workers are experiencing them: headaches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, throat irritation, eye pain, coughing or choking and dizziness.

Of greater concern is a more recent study of those exposed in Spain after the 2002 Prestige oil tanker spill, which found an increase in DNA damage. Other potential long-term risks include lung, kidney and liver damage.

With the temperature in the Gulf of Mexico hovering around 110 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer, one of the main short-term health concerns is heat exhaustion, especially among workers on the open sea.

Because so little is known about the long-term health effects of direct exposure to petroleum, the Department of Health and Human Service has set aside $10 million to track oil spill-related illnesses in states along the Gulf Coast and study cleanup workers. It asked the Institute of Medicine to host a workshop last week in New Orleans on the issue.

Crews Exposed to Fumes and Direct Contact

As of Friday, 453 oil exposure complaints had been reported to the American Association of Poison Control Centers. Of the total, 174 calls came from Louisiana, 111 from Florida, 95 from Alabama, and 38 from Mississippi. The reports so far were mostly related to odors or fumes, and mainly among those involved in the cleanup, because they have the most direct exposure to the oil.

Most exposure of Gulf residents and cleanup workers has been via inhalation, though skin contact is also common.

Volunteers among the cleanup workers are at the highest risk, because many lack extensive training in these types of hazards. The U.S. National Guard deployed 17,000 members to help with the cleanup effort. In total, nearly 35,000 cleanup workers are involved, some of whom agreed to be tracked by NIOSH.

Dispersants Inhaled Deep into the Lungs

Some of the spilled oil evaporates into the air and creates a heavy vapor that stays near the ground — in the human breathing zone, writes Gina Solomon, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “When winds whip up oily sea water, the spray contains tiny droplets of oil, which are small enough to be inhaled deep into the lungs.” Aah — oil-scented rain.

The EPA is monitoring the air on the Gulf coastline. It “has observed odor-causing pollutants associated with oil on the shore in the Gulf region at low levels. Some of these chemicals may cause short-lived effects like headache; eye, nose and throat irritation; or nausea.” The EPA lists the odors in the air of the Gulf.

It appears that so far benzene and naphthalene aren’t a major cause for concern, Solomon adds, but “the levels of hydrogen sulfide EPA is reporting in some areas could cause short-term symptoms in sensitive people and could potentially pose a long-term risk if the elevated levels continue.”

“As for dispersants,” Linda Greer, director of the Health and Environment program at the NRDC writes, “the questions that linger include how dangerous the dispersants are and whether exposure to the chemicals could cause cancer.”

Toll on Emotional Health as Well

Another concern has come to the nation’s attention with the suicide of William Allen Kruse, the 55-year-old fishing boat captain who helped in the Gulf cleanup effort after losing his livelihood. Doctors say that the short-term effects of the devastation of the Gulf environment and economy will include depression and psychological stress, raising suicide risk among those affected. Social workers in the Gulf region say that they are seeing a rising number of mental health problems.

And because the spill will continue for weeks or months to come and many of its effects haven’t yet manifest, experts say it’s impossible to tell what the overall health impact will be.

There are far more questions than answers at this stage, and the unknowns are great — especially health-cost estimates. The full scale of the impact of the largest U.S. oil spill on our environment and health is yet to be grasped, much less measured.

Special thanks to Richard Charter.

New York Times
June 29, 2010

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/06/29/2010-06-29_bp_oil_spill_cleanup_blocked_by_red_tape_bureaucracy_as_companies_offering_aid_a.html

BY Meena Hartenstein
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, June 29th 2010, 4:02 PM

As the BP oil spill continues to wreak havoc on the Gulf of Mexico, companies offering clean-up aid say their efforts are being blocked — by bureaucratic red tape.

A French company volunteering oil-collection boats was rebuffed by BP and the Coast Guard, reports The New Orleans Times-Picayune, even as local officials complain that not enough vessels have been deployed to collect the oil in the water before it hits land.

Eric Vial, Chief Executive of French oil spill response company Ecoceane, met with BP and Coast Guard officials soon after the spill to volunteer a fleet of oil skimming boats but says weeks flew by without any response.

Vial ultimately sold nine of his boats to a private contractor in Florida to get around a longstanding law called the Jones Act that prevents foreign crews and foreign ships from transporting goods between U.S. ports. After the sale, the boats were no longer considered foreign and could be deployed into the Gulf, reports the Times-Picayune.

Other offers of aid also have been ignored. Fellow oil giant Shell was in talks with BP to loan out the Nanuq, a 300-foot oil recovery boat sitting unused in Alaska, but BP decided it didn’t want the help.

“Nothing would prevent it from working right now in the Gulf of Mexico,” Curtis Smith, a spokesman for Shell Alaska, told the Times-Picayune. “It remains available in the event that BP reconsiders.”

Meanwhile, local officials in the affected Gulf states have been begging for more skimmers to remove the oil. “We want all the skimming vessels in the world deployed,” Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser told the Times-Picayune. “We’re at war. If you were at war and in charge, would you deploy everything you had to win the war?

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the administration’s point person on the oil spill, admitted recently that “skimmers are our critical mass right now. We need to put those wherever we can get them. And we want to get them from wherever they are available.”

Yet even though 1600 skimmers are available across the country, as Sen. George LeMieux (R.-Fla) pointed out on the Senate floor last week, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 demands that regions must maintain minimum levels of that kind of equipment at all times, meaning not all resources can be directed to the Gulf.

Allen has said the administration is working to remove that hurdle, as well as grant waivers if needed for the Jones law.

But red tape also has stalled efforts by biologists in Barataria Bay, MSNBC reports, who are waiting for approval from Washington before they can implement clean-up tactics to save the marshlands.

“The bureaucracy is killing us,” Ralph Portier, an environmental biologist at Louisiana State University, told MSNBC.

As oil continues to spew into the Gulf, The Associated Press reports that these helping hands are not as generous as they seem. “These offers are not typically offers of aid,” said Lt. Erik Halvorson, a Coast Guard spokesman. “Normally, they are offers to sell resources to BP or the U.S. government.”

In fact, according to the AP, only Mexico offered the U.S. free help, saying it would give the U.S. government some containment boom. BP separately bought 13,780 feet of boom and two skimmers from Mexico in early May, according to the State Department.

And local officials who have loudly criticized Washington also are not even using all the help they’ve been offered.

Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, whose office told ProPublica that staffers “spend more time fighting red tape and bureaucracy than we ever should have to,” is using only a fraction of his federal assistance. A CBS News investigation revealed that Jindal has deployed only 1,053 of the 6,000 available National Guard troops to fight the spill, and that other Gulf states also are using only small fractions of their troop allotments.

For now, oil spill recovery efforts will be stalled by more than red tape — BP and the Coast Guard announced Tuesday that rough weather caused by Tropical Storm Alex is forcing them to send skimming ships back to shore.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_edvxM1dkFlo/TC4QGB_LFoI/AAAAAAAAAjI/iU0SdHaxQVs/s1600/SkyTruth_dhrig_spill-csk-28jun10-interp.jpg

Two CSK radar satellite images (black-and-white) are superimposed on a cloudy MODIS satellite image (color) taken June 28, 2010. The radar on the left was acquired at 6:56 pm, and the image to the right at 7:44 pm local time on June 28. Only the western half of the oil slick is visible on these images:

COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) radar satellite images acquired June 28, 2010. Images courtesy of CSTARS.

Tropical Storm Alex was roiling the Gulf when these images were taken. Weather data buoys in the vicinity recorded wind speeds of 6-11 meters/second (13-25 miles/hr), strong enough to break up areas of thin oil sheen and possibly render them undetectable. We infer that the dark areas enclosed within the orange line are thicker patches of oil slick. Oil is reaching farther to the west than we’ve seen recently, impacting Timbalier Bay and Terrebonne Bay.

–
Posted By John to SkyTruth at 7/02/2010 12:08:00 PM
–
John Amos
John@skytruth.org
P.O. Box 3283
Shepherdstown, WV 25443-3283
phone: 304-260-8886
skype: skytruth.amos
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Special thanks to Richard Charter

Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2010 16:02:10 -0400 (EDT)

NOAA has used modeling of historical wind and ocean currents to project the likelihood that surface oil from the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill will impact additional U.S. coastline. This modeling, part of NOAA’s comprehensive response to the unprecedented Gulf oil disaster, can help guide the ongoing preparedness, response and cleanup efforts.

“This NOAA model shows where oil may be likely to travel, thereby giving coastal states and communities information about potential threats of shoreline impacts. This kind of information should assist in the preparation of adequate preparedness measures,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “NOAA is strongly committed to providing reliable information to the public and to responders at all levels.”

In the technical report being released today, the model’s results aggregate information from 500 distinct scenarios (model outcomes). Each assumes a 90-day oil flow rate of 33,000 barrels per day – the net amount from the flow rate ceiling of 60,000 barrels per day (the lower bound is 35,000 barrels/day) minus the daily estimated amount being skimmed, burned, and/or collected by the Top Hat mechanism. The model also accounts for the natural process of oil “weathering” or breaking down, and considers oil a threat to the shoreline if there is enough to cause a dull sheen within 20 miles of the coast. If, for example, 250 of the 500 scenarios indicated a shoreline threat for a particular area, the overall threat for that area would be a 50 percent probability.
Considering these factors, the NOAA model indicates:

The coastlines with the highest probability for impact (81 to 100 percent) extend from the Mississippi River Delta to the western panhandle of Florida where there has been and will likely continue to be oil impacts.
Along U.S. Gulf of Mexico shorelines, the oil is more likely to move east than west, with much of the coast of Texas showing a relatively low probability of oiling (ranging from less than one percent in southern Texas to up to 40 percent near the Louisiana border).
Much of the west coast of Florida has a low probability (20 percent down to less than one percent) of oiling, but the Florida Keys, Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas have a greater probability (61 to 80 percent) due to the potential influence of the Loop Current. Any oil reaching this area would have spent considerable time degrading and dispersing and would be in the form of scattered tar balls and not a large surface slick of oil.

There is a low probability of shoreline impacts from eastern central Florida up the Eastern Seaboard (20 percent diminishing to less than one percent). Potential impacts become increasingly unlikely north of North Carolina as the Gulf Stream moves away from the continental U.S. at Cape Hatteras. If oil does reach these areas, it will be in the form of tar balls or highly weathered oil.

The threat outlined in the model does not necessarily indicate that oil will come ashore. Whether or not oil comes ashore will depend upon wind and ocean currents at the time. In addition to these and other natural factors, booms and other countermeasures could be used to mitigate the actual coastal contact.

The modeling results released today are based on several simplifying assumptions. In particular, they do not start with the current footprint of the spill, but rather model the spill beginning at day one, based on historical weather and current patterns. Also, the analysis does not adjust for effects of dispersants on the volume, weathering and movement of oil on the water’s surface. To date, no significant amount of oil has entered the Loop Current.

NOAA will continue to closely monitor the movement of the oil slick and develop daily 72-hour forecast projections. NOAA will also produce updated models of the long-term outlook as new data are gathered.

Updated scenarios and more information about the model can be found at:

http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/deepwaterhorizon/longterm_outlook.

NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Visit us on www.noaa.gov and Facebook.

For more information about the information in this release, please contact Rachel Wilhelm at 202-482-3978, Rachel.Wilhelm@NOAA.gov orShannon Gilson at 202-482-4883, sgilson@doc.gov.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/07/burning_and_flaring_of_oil_lea.html

Published: Friday, July 02, 2010, 7:20 PM
Times-Picayune Staff

With controlled burns temporarily suspended on account of tempestuous weather, Gulf waters have had a reprieve lately from the roaring fires and billowing smoke plumes that, since late April, have come to overwhelm the oily seascape.

But as fire teams prepare to resume their work, the burning and flaring of oil is attracting growing criticism from environmentalists who worry about the hazards it poses to wildlife and Gulf Coast communities. Some say that BP isn’t investing enough energy in other methods of cleaning up the roughly 2.2 million to 4.2 million barrels of oil that have spewed into the Gulf of Mexico as of June 29, according to the latest estimates.

As oil continues to pour into the Gulf, the question of how to optimize cleanup efficiency while minimizing environmental risks is still up for debate. Even comparing the efficiency of different methods of cleanup is difficult.
About 670,000 barrels of oily water have been skimmed as of July 1st, BP says, but there’s no telling what proportion of that is oil.

By comparison, controlled burns, also known as in-situ burns, have collectively removed 238,000 barrels of oil from the water’s surface since they were initiated by the Coast Guard in late April. The burning has cleared up roughly 6 percent to 11 percent of the total spill volume — an amount that exceeds the generally accepted estimate for the total amount of oil spilled during the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident.

But burning is fraught with complications. The crude that litters the Gulf is highly emulsified and depleted in hydrogen, which means it doesn’t burn readily. In many cases, it’s easier to skim it off the surface. For the oil to sustain a fire, it needs to be condensed to several millimeters’ thickness — a task accomplished by retrofitted fishing vessels that work in pairs, dragging a 500-foot line of fireproof boom between them in a narrow U-shaped arc.

On any given day, as many as 10 fire teams are on the water, corralling oil and setting it alight. As the fishing vessels move in tandem at a speed of less than 1 mph, oil at the water’s surface pools at the apex of the U. When roughly one-third of the area encased by the boom — anywhere from 500 to 1,000 barrels of oil in volume — is filled, an igniter boat releases uses a flare to set fire to a plastic container filled with gelled fuel, which floats toward the pooled oil and eventually burns it.

The ships stay in motion as the fire blazes; slowing down would allow the oil to thin out and eventually extinguish the fire. They try to tow into the wind so the smoke blows away from the vessels, but they’re not always able to.
Oil occasionally escapes beyond the boom and creates smaller fires outside the contained area, but the slicks die off themselves within a matter of minutes. The fire inside the boom burns two to three millimeters of oil every 60 seconds, rising as high as 100 feet and generating massive plumes of smoke in its wake.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which has been monitoring air quality aboard responder vessels, has recommended that respirators be made available to all burn crew members. As it stands, not all fire team vessels are fully equipped, and crew members head inside the ship’s cabin if the smoke gets too heavy.

“Based on the air monitoring we’ve done to date, we haven’t had any situations where respirators have been required,” said BP consultant Alan Allen. “We’re in the process of determining the best way to [distribute respirators] that so that they have the option to wear masks.”

Gulf Coast residents have requested that controlled burns only be conducted when the wind blows out, according to environmental consultant Wilma Subra, who works with the Louisiana Environmental Action Network. Allen says that hasn’t been necessary because the in-situ burns occur 40 to 50 miles from the shore.

“If we were to do burns within 10 miles or so we would activate the SMART protocols,” he said, referring to a monitoring program for burns and dispersants designed cooperatively by four federal agencies.

Data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show that concentrations of airborne particles from controlled burns are higher than normal at two or more monitoring stations along the Louisiana coast. The agency is also monitoring concentrations of volatile organic compounds evaporating from the oil on the water’s surface. It has classified the air quality along the coastline as “unhealthy for sensitive groups,” at worst.

But some residents have complained about nausea, sore throats, burning eyes, and respiratory problems, and some try to avoid outdoor activity when the wind blows in. Some of the health complaints may not stem from oil burning, but from the oil’s propensity to be churned by wind and waves into an aerosol that can blow onshore.

Subra says BP should cut back on in-situ burns and focus on skimming.
“If they can surround it by a boom they should be able to skim it rather than burn it,” she said.

Critics also note burning can imperil wildlife. Last week, the Center for Biological Diversity filed suit against BP under the Clean Water Act, charging the company with burning endangered sea turtles alive in the course of its cleanup efforts. In response, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service announced it would place a NOAA observer with each fire team to inspect oil corrals before they are ignited.

“You can’t help but recognize, if we’re collecting oil along the convergence line, the oil will be ideal for collecting but that may also be an area where there’s a potential for turtles to gather,” Allen said. “We go to great lengths…to try to avoid including that in our burn.”

Some oil is being burned using another method: flaring.
Only one of the two rigs collecting oil from the leaking well has the capacity to process and store the crude oil it captures. That ship, the Discoverer Enterprise, is connected to a cap that contains some of the gushing crude and feeds it to the rig through a riser. The Enterprise is able to isolate and burn the gas, store the oil, and pump the leftover water back into the ocean.
Its cohort, the Q4000, can’t process or store the crude oil it collects. So the vessel burns both oil and gas through an “EverGreen” burner, said to provide a relatively clean burn by eliminating visible smoke emissions. Since it went into operation on June 16, the Q4000 has burned an average of 8,556 barrels of oil per day, totaling 119,780 barrels as of June 29 — about half the oil burned thus far.

Burning oil aboard the Q4000 isn’t harmless, says Subra, but it’s far preferable to burning it off the water’s surface. Gas flaring, meanwhile, is a waste of potentially usable energy, and further burdens the atmosphere with unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions, according to NOAA.

Together the Q4000 and the Discoverer Enterprise have flared more than 1 billion cubic feet of gas — eight times the volume of the Louisiana Superdome. That’s a significant amount — it’s more than 1 percent of the total amount of gas flared in the entire United States in 2008, according to satellite data collected by NOAA’s Earth Observation Group.

BP plans to deploy a third containment vessel, the Helix Producer, but has thus far been foiled by the weather. Like the Enterprise, the Helix Producer would separate oil, water, and gas and flare off the gas. The Producer, scheduled to deploy Tuesday, is expected to increase oil collection by 25,000 barrels per day..

That can’t come soon enough for critics of burning oil in-situ and aboard the Q4000.

“At least they’re getting that material off of the slick and out of the water column,” said Subra. “But there’s still a long way to go before they recover all oil that’s coming out of that well head.”

Aimee Miles wrote this report. She can be reached at amiles@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3318.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201007030108/NEWS01/7030317

BY JIM WAYMER * FLORIDA TODAY * JULY 3, 2010

Theoretically, there’s up to a 4 in 10 chance of tar balls floating within 20 miles of Brevard County’s coast, based on some early federal models.

But Friday, federal oceanographers said the more likely scenario is a 2 in 10 chance, and the chance tapers off as the Gulf Stream bends farther offshore.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its latest model to help local emergency responders gauge what resources they might need.

“The idea is that you have some kind of an idea where you ought to be focusing your effort,” said Chris Barker, a physical oceanographer in NOAA’s emergency response division in Seattle.

The model also showed:

The Florida Keys, Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas have a 61 to 80 percent chance of oil within 20 miles of shore due to the Loop Current, with the chances diminishing as the Gulf Steam veers east.

West Florida has a 20 percent chance or less of oil effects.

More than half of the scenarios indicate some part of the oil gets caught in the Loop Current and exits via the Florida Straits.

“There’s not a lot of oil getting stuck in the Keys,” Barker said of the model’s results.
The probabilities are based on 500 spill scenarios using historical wind and current data. A tendril of oil that had been heading to the north end of the Loop Current looks to be spinning in the Gulf.

“There’s probably some tar balls circulating in what we call eddy Franklin,” Barker said. The large eddy — named after Benjamin Franklin — has pinched off and now spins in the central Gulf, sparing a link to currents that lead to the Keys and ultimately Brevard.
Oceanographers aren’t sure if or when the eddy might migrate to reconnect to those currents.

“There hasn’t been much, but there has been some oil in the Loop Current that made it to the Florida Straits and the East Coast before this eddy broke off,” said Robert Weisberg, an oceanographer at University of South Florida who’s also modeling the oil’s path. “There’s already been some oil up the East Coast.”

Theoretically, there’s up to a 4 in 10 chance of tar balls floating within 20 miles of Brevard County’s coast, based on some early federal models.

But Friday, federal oceanographers said the more likely scenario is a 2 in 10 chance, and the chance tapers off as the Gulf Stream bends farther offshore.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its latest model to help local emergency responders gauge what resources they might need.

“The idea is that you have some kind of an idea where you ought to be focusing your effort,” said Chris Barker, a physical oceanographer in NOAA’s emergency response division in Seattle.

The model also showed:

The Florida Keys, Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas have a 61 to 80 percent chance of oil within 20 miles of shore due to the Loop Current, with the chances diminishing as the Gulf Steam veers east.

West Florida has a 20 percent chance or less of oil effects.

More than half of the scenarios indicate some part of the oil gets caught in the Loop Current and exits via the Florida Straits.

“There’s not a lot of oil getting stuck in the Keys,” Barker said of the model’s results.
The probabilities are based on 500 spill scenarios using historical wind and current data. A tendril of oil that had been heading to the north end of the Loop Current looks to be spinning in the Gulf.

“There’s probably some tar balls circulating in what we call eddy Franklin,” Barker said. The large eddy — named after Benjamin Franklin — has pinched off and now spins in the central Gulf, sparing a link to currents that lead to the Keys and ultimately Brevard.

Oceanographers aren’t sure if or when the eddy might migrate to reconnect to those currents.

“There hasn’t been much, but there has been some oil in the Loop Current that made it to the Florida Straits and the East Coast before this eddy broke off,” said Robert Weisberg, an oceanographer at University of South Florida who’s also modeling the oil’s path. “There’s already been some oil up the East Coast.”

He doesn’t put much stock in NOAA’s projections for coastal impacts.

“These statements of probability I don’t think are very useful,” Weisberg said.

Nor does Mitch Roffer of Roffer’s Ocean Fishing Forecasting Service, a scientific-consulting company. His analysis of satellite images shows a “water-oil mix” passing offshore of Brevard. “It’s been going by us for 10 days now, maybe two weeks,” said Roffer, who lives in Melbourne Beach. He and the USF oceanographers were ahead of NOAA in predicting the oil would enter the Loop Current.

Despite uncertainties about if or when oil will beach here, local volunteers began training this week on what to do if they see tar. The mantra: Don’t touch, dial “2-1-1″ to report it.
“Your safety is our main concern,” Deborah Coles, an emergency coordinator told about 20 volunteers Wednesday night at the Brevard County’s Emergency Operation Center in Rockledge.

While officials assure the oil would be highly weathered and non-toxic by the time it beached here, they stress a hands-off approach.

“What scares me is these hurricanes,” said Larry Weber, president of Keep Brevard Beautiful, a nonprofit coordinating local volunteers to watch for oil. “Then, it’s the unknown.”

Weathered crude is unlikely to pose risk from fumes, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But a potential risk does exist for it to aerosolize into airborne droplets or volatilize from pressure washing, CDC says, and odor is not a reliable indication of the health hazard.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires volunteers be trained before responding to oil spills.

The section captains for Keep Brevard Beautiful are training so they can teach others how to become coastal watchers. Another training session is planned Wednesday in Cocoa Beach.

They watch for and report oil. Only properly trained contractors hired by BP are allowed to clean it up. That way, the chain of custody for any tar balls is clear and BP can be held accountable for the cleanup, Coles said.

Seven volunteers are assigned to roughly half-mile segments. Each person monitors for oil one day a week.

Jason Smith of Satellite Beach brought a pancake-sized tar ball to Wednesday’s training session. He said he found it about a month-and-a-half ago along Patrick Air Force Base and hasn’t been able to get anyone at the U.S. Coast Guard to come and get it.

Officials await tests to determine whether a pancake-sized tar mat, picked up on Melbourne Beach on Friday, is from the BP oil spill. Tests found two tar balls discovered June 22 on Satellite Beach were processed mechanical oil from a boat’s bilge, not the BP spill.

Clumps of oil on Brevard beaches are not new. They form naturally from oil seeping from the ocean floor or from oily bilges and ballast tanks of passing ships. Tar lapped up on Brevard beaches in the 1940s when German U-boats sank merchant ships and oil tankers heading to Europe during World War II.

Larger tar chunks can result from the manner in which oil clumps together after a spill or upwelling.

But local tar balls are typically small and buried. They cling to feet, smell up the beach as they evaporate and generally settle out among the washed-up seaweed at the dune line. Eventually, they dry up, turn brown and crumble.

Contact Waymer at 242-3663 or jwaymer@floridatoday.com.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

Dear Friends,

Thanks for coming to Hands Across the Sand on June 26 to take a stand against offshore oil drilling while supporting clean, renewable energy alternatives.

As a reminder, I am sending a link to The Energy Independence Pledge that you signed and ask that you now forward this message to others and ask them to take the pledge too. Together we can begin to make the change that is needed to protect our environment and natural resources for future generations.

To learn more about Green Living & Energy Education (GLEE), go to www.keysglee.com and sign up for the free e-newsletter, sign up as a volunteer or become a member to support the work being done for a sustainable future.

Thanks for sustaining the momentum, Bridget

Bridget McDonald
Green Living & Energy Education (GLEE)
info@keysGLEE.com
305-923-1994-cell
www.keysGLEE.com
PO Box 754
Key West FL 33041

http://sify.com/news/world-must-expect-more-oil-spills-says-scientist-news-scitech-khdpEciedjf.html

SIFY.com

2010-07-03 15:40:00

The world should expect more disasters like the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as the days of easy oil are over, a scientist says.

“BP and other oil companies have tried to portray this spill as an accident or an aberration, but in fact there are spills on off-shore and on-shore sites around the world, increasingly,” says Bret Gustafson from Washington University in St. Louis.

A rig sank off the coast of Venezuela in May. Last October, a rig spilled oil for two months into the Timor Sea off of Australia. There are recurring spills in virtually every oil region, such as the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Amazon and Nigeria.

“These environmental and public health catastrophes are almost always accompanied by corruption and violence tied to oil activities,” Gustafson says.
In the United States, which is more of a consumer than producer of oil, we are generally ignorant about this reality of oil until something like this comes home to roost.”

“Oil has always been destructive, but it is worsening because the days of easy oil are over,” says Gustafson.

“In combination with weak regulation and intensifying competition, which explains why companies are willing to cut so many corners, oil is in more difficult places, both environmentally, politically and socially.

“The point is that it is only going to get worse, and that the message by some commentators and the oil companies that we should just get on with business as usual is, quite frankly, almost criminal,” Gustafson says.(ANI)

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2012281543_oilmilitary05.html

Originally published July 4, 2010 at 7:04 PM | Page modified July 4, 2010 at 7:58 PM

Embattled BP still big fuel supplier to U.S. military
The Defense Department has kept up its immense purchases of aviation fuel and other petroleum products from BP even as the oil giant comes under federal and state scrutiny for potential violations of clean-water and oil-spill laws related to the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, according to U.S. and company officials.
By R. Jeffrey Smith

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON – The Defense Department has kept up its immense purchases of aviation fuel and other petroleum products from BP even as the oil giant comes under federal and state scrutiny for potential violations of clean-water and oil-spill laws related to the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, according to U.S. and company officials.

President Obama said last month the company had shown “recklessness” in the Gulf of Mexico that contributed to the disaster and promised that BP will “pay for the damage” it caused. Attorney General Eric Holder said June 2 that Justice Department lawyers were looking at potential violations of civil and criminal statutes, adding that “if we find evidence of illegal behavior, we will be forceful in our response.”

But BP remains a heavy supplier of military fuel under contracts worth at least $980 million in the current fiscal year, according to the Defense Logistics Agency.
In fiscal 2009, BP was the department’s largest single supplier of fuel, providing 11.7 percent of the total purchased, and in 2010, its contracts amount to roughly the same percentage, according to agency spokeswoman Mimi Schirmacher.

“BP is an active participant in multiple ongoing Defense Logistics Agency acquisition programs,” Schirmacher said, without providing details.
BP spokesman Robert Wine said he was aware of at least one “big contract” signed by the U.S. military after the oil rig sank, involving the supply of different fuels for its operations in Europe.

So far, members of Congress have discussed barring BP from future oil- and gas-drilling leases, not from fuel sales to the government. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who co-chairs the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, said last week he would introduce legislation to shut BP out of such leases for the next seven years as punishment for what he described as its “serial” legal violations.

But Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who chairs the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said in a statement that “the U.S. government needs to look at all possible options when it comes to showing BP, or any corporate bad actor, that a continued culture of cost cutting and increased risk taking will absolutely not be tolerated.”
Even before the Gulf debacle, the Environmental Protection Agency had begun probing the potential debarment of BP from all federal contracts – including those reached with the Defense Energy Support Center (DESC), which buys all fuel for the military services.

The EPA plays the lead role in debarment proceedings related to the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, and its probe was sparked by BP’s 2006 spillage of oil in Alaska and a 2005 explosion at its refinery in Texas.

But the EPA’s deliberations are suspended until the investigations of the Gulf spill are concluded, according to an EPA spokeswoman. The agency could eventually decide to shut off federal contracts with specific divisions within BP or to the whole company “if it is in the public interest to do so,” it said in May. Any such action would be meant to punish “environmental noncompliance or other misconduct,” it said.

Jeanne Pascal, a former EPA lawyer who until recently was overseeing the review of BP’s possible debarment, has said she initially supported taking such action but held off after an official at the Defense Department warned her that the agency depended heavily on BP fuel for its operations in the Middle East.
“My contact at DESC, another attorney, told me that BP was supplying approximately 80 percent of the fuel being used to move U.S. forces” in the region, Pascal said. She added that “BP was very ‘fortunate’ in that there is an exception when the U.S. is involved in a military action or a war.”

As a result, Pascal attempted to negotiate a settlement allowing continued contracting with BP while forcing the company to elevate an internal office dealing with health, safety and environmental issues within its corporate structure.

She also demanded that the company keep an ombudsman, retired federal Judge Stanley Sporkin, that it had first hired after the Alaska spill but had since sought to let go. BP resisted both, and the talks were stalemated when the Deepwater Horizon rig sank, she said.
A spokeswoman for the Defense Department, Wendy Snyder, gave a different account of the internal debarment discussions. She said the Defense Logistics Agency “informed the EPA that there are adequate procedures and processes to protect the U.S. military missions should EPA determine that BP should be debarred.”

That claim was reinforced by Schirmacher, who said that “none of BP’s current energy contracts are in direct support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan” and that the agency could meet its requirements without BP fuel. But she indicated the Pentagon had no intention of taking such action in the absence of an EPA decision.
Several other federal agencies besides the Defense Department have continuing contracts with BP, although none worth as much as the Pentagon’s.

Since 2008, the Federal Aviation Administration has contracted to spend at least $2.26 million to station weather, communications and aerial-surveillance devices on several BP’s platforms in the Gulf, including the Atlantis oil-production platform roughly 100 miles from the Deepwater Horizon’s former location.

Critics, including a former BP contractor, have alleged the Atlantis was constructed without proper safety controls, but BP denies it.

FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said BP’s environmental and legal record was not a consideration in her agency’s contracts. The Atlantis platform was selected “based purely on how it would support air traffic,” she said.

_________________________________________

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jG8jK4gBYUEQ4wDEI3XXokLkv4-w

AFP

BP remains key Pentagon supplier
(AFP) – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON – Despite its role in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, energy giant BP remains a key supplier of fuel to the Pentagon, The Washington Post reported.
Citing data from the Defense Logistics Agency, the newspaper said BP had contracts with the US Defense Department worth at least 980 million dollars in the current fiscal year.
In fiscal 2009, BP was the Pentagon’s largest single supplier of fuel, providing 11.7 percent of the total purchased, and in 2010, its contracts amount to roughly the same percentage, the report said.

The paper quoted BP spokesman Robert Wine as saying he was aware of at least one “big contract” signed by the US military after the oil rig explosion on April 20 that led to the largest environmental disaster in US history.

An estimated 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil per day has gushed from the ruptured well since the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig sank on April 22, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the coast of Louisiana.

A containment system has captured about 557,000 barrels of oil, but rough seas delayed the deployment of a third vessel that could boost capacity from 25,000 barrels to 53,000 barrels a day.

That means an estimated 1.9 to 3.6 million barrels — or 79.5 to 153 million gallons — of oil has now gushed into the Gulf.
Using the high end of that estimate, the spill has now surpassed the 1979 Ixtoc blowout, which took nine months to cap and dumped an estimated 3.3 million barrels (140 million gallons) into the Gulf of Mexico.

So far, members of Congress have discussed barring BP from any new oil and gas drilling leases, not from fuel sales to the government, The Post said.
However, the Environmental Protection Agency had begun to explore cutting off BP from all federal contracts — including those with the Defense Energy Support Center, which buys all fuel for the military services, the paper noted.

The EPA’s move was sparked by BP’s 2006 oil spill in Alaska and a 2005 explosion at a refinery in Texas, according to the report.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/bp-strategy-presentation-march-2010#document/p38

http://www.propublica.org/ion/blog/item/bps-big-plans-for-deep-wells-deep-profits

A BP presentation from March 2010-a month before the Deepwater Horizon disaster-spelled out the company’s “key sources of growth” beyond 2015. First on the list?
“Expanding deepwater.”

The document also includes a bar graph that proclaims BP as the “leading deepwater company” based on 2009 production numbers. According to the graph, BP produced the equivalent of 150 million more barrels of oil per day than did its closest rival, Shell.

BP’s document also shows that the company spent less on production costs than its competitors. In a June 15 hearing before lawmakers, some of those same oil companies told Congress that BPdid not follow design standards that they considered to be the industry norm.

BP’s Doug Suttles recently joined his industry peers in questioning the administration’s six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling.
“I understand why people might want to put a moratorium in place, but my personal view on this is we need to look very rapidly at what needs to be done that gives you confidence to restart (drilling in deepwater) because the consequences of stopping are also significant,” said Suttles, in comments reported by The Times-Picayune of New Orleans.

The moratorium was lifted last week, when U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman ruled that the rationale behind it was “heavy-handed, and rather overbearing.” Feldman, in 2008 and 2009 financial disclosures, reported owning stock in several oil companies. (Disclosure: Feldman is the same judge who earlier this year dismissed a libel lawsuit against ProPublica.) Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has said the administration may issue a new, narrower moratorium.

In tackling the Gulf disaster, BP has often cited the depth of this well as a primary challenge to containing the gusher. By now, multiple reports-including one in today’s New York Times-document how the technology to drill to greater depths has surged ahead, while the technology to clean up a spill hasn’t been updated for decades.

While other oil company executives assured lawmakers that their companies would have done things differently than BP did in designing the well, they weren’t able to put as much distance between themselves and BP when grilled on their own preparedness for a major oil spill.
At the June 15 hearing, lawmakers pointed out that the major oil giants are using very similar oil spill response plans that contain many of the same mistakes, including references to marine mammals that don’t live in the Gulf as well as contact information for deceased experts. All the plans were prepared by the same consulting group.

“When these things happen, we are not well-equipped to deal with them,” Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson told the House Energy panel.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/01/katrina-and-the-oil-spill-useful-comparison.html

Those awful FEMA trailers are back, this time as temporary housing for workers responding to BP’s disaster in the gulf. And in bad news for Obama, the public rates his handling of the mess similar to how Bush bungled the hurricane response.

Chris Bickford / The New York Times-Redux
A FEMA trailer in Venice, La., last month.

For its impact on Louisiana residents and the widespread criticism of the federal response, the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill inevitably draws comparisons to Hurricane Katrina. The parallels only intensified as Tropical Storm Alex slammed the gulf and halted BP’s containment effort and The New York Times reported that cleanup workers were being housed in formaldehyde-tainted trailers once provided to hapless Katrina refugees.

The government banned the trailers from being used as long-term homes, then sold them in 2006, the Times reported. Now some cleanup contractors needing to house workers are buying them, even though the Federal Emergency Management Agency says they are not to be used for housing. “The price was right,” one of the contractors told the newspaper.

The government’s bungling of Katrina is never far from President Obama’s mind; he has visited the gulf several times in an effort to avoid criticism that his predecessor faced.

By many measures, Katrina looks like the worse disaster. The oil spill will certainly not take the same human toll as the hurricane, which caused around 1,500 deaths. Eleven workers were killed in BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling-rig accident, with several deaths also reported among response workers. In addition to the damage Katrina wrought, the hurricane itself triggered one of the largest oil spills in U.S. history, releasing a reported 6.5 million gallons in various locations along its path, not including what may have spilled from fuel tanks in submerged cars or sunken boats. There’s also Katrina’s price tag, which the National Hurricane Center estimated at $84 billion, the largest ever for a hurricane. The economic cost of the gulf spill remains to be seen, not to mention the price to the environment and all the life forms that live in the gulf-which contribute in various ways to the livelihoods and ways of life of many humans.

While we await the final toll of the spill, which is in day 73, Americans have shown levels of frustration similar to what happened after Katrina. On June 7 a poll showed that more Americans had a negative view of the federal response to the oil spill than had a negative view of the much-criticized Katrina response. Worse for the Obama administration, another poll released Wednesday asked responders to compare Obama’s handling of the oil spill with George W. Bush’s handling of Katrina, and nearly six in 10 people said Obama’s response was the same or worse than Bush’s. A poll of Louisiana residents released June 15 drew a similar conclusion. “Obama’s Katrina” isn’t a phrase the White House wants to hear, but it’s one that could gain traction if the polling continues in this vein.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

06/29/2010

Mike Soraghan, E&E reporter

Environmental and liberal groups announced today that they have collected more than 400,000 signatures urging President Obama to reverse his plan to allow drilling in new offshore areas.

“The American public does not want more drills and spills,” said Anna Aurilio, director of the Washington office of Environment America, at a Capitol Hill news conference. “If anything, they want more windmills.”

Aurilio stood in a hearing room with cardboard boxes that bore the names of the eight environmental groups that circulated petitions against the expansion of drilling. Among them were Environment America, Greenpeace, Oceana, MoveOn.org and the Sierra Club. She was joined by Athan Manuel of the Sierra Club and three Democratic House members, Kathy Castor of Florida, John Garamendi of California and Frank Pallone of New Jersey.

“The American people are way ahead of the U.S. Congress on this issue,” Castor said at the event. “We’ve got to fight through Big Oil’s PR campaign. They downplay the risks. They contribute to campaigns.”

The oil industry says the environmental campaign does not prove any groundswell of opposition to offshore drilling.

“Hundreds of thousands of Americans have said they are in favor of offshore drilling,” said Cathy Landry, spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute. “And even after the spill, polls indicate the majority of Americans support expanded development.”

The comments solicited by environmental groups were submitted to the Interior Department as part of the process of evaluating the Obama administration’s offshore drilling policy, embodied in a five-year plan released in March. The deadline for comments for this stage of the process is tomorrow.

In releasing the five-year plan, Obama announced what he called an “expansion” of offshore drilling, proposing new drilling off the coasts of Alaska, Florida and Virginia. Most of those proposals have been scaled back, but the environmental groups want Obama to turn more fully away from drilling (E&E Daily, March 31).

As he tried to assert his control over spill response and policy in late May, Obama delayed the proposed oil lease sale off the coast of Virginia and suspended two planned exploration projects by Royal Dutch Shell PLC off the coast of Alaska. He also declared a moratorium that was later lifted by a federal judge (E&E Daily, May 28).

That still allows preliminary exploration activities along the southern Atlantic Coast and could allow the Virginia and Alaska drilling projects to restart in the next five-year plan. The petitions sought to block those possibilities. Each group’s wording was somewhat different, but each stated that new drilling should be stopped.

Special thanks to Richard Charter.

COASTA~2

Hello All,

I put together some photos that illustrate what we have been seeing during our surveys over the last eight weeks on the Gulf coast in terms of pre and post oil landfall impacts to beach-nesting birds, shorebirds and shorebird habitat. This can be considered part of the visual data that the CBC is collecting.

You may circulate this PDF to any appropriate parties.

Best,

Margo

Margo Zdravkovic
Director
Coastal Bird Conservation/Conservian
Conserving Coastal Birds and their Habitats throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Phone 561-504-4251

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/30/biologists-find-oil-spill-

deadzones

Methane at 100,000 times normal levels have been creating oxygen-depleted
areas devoid of life near BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill, according to two
independent scientists

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
Thursday July 1 2010
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/30/biologists-find-oil-spill-

deadzones

Scientists are confronting growing evidence that BP’s ruptured well in the
Gulf of Mexico is creating oxygen-depleted “dead zones” where fish and other
marine life cannot survive.

In two separate research voyages, independent scientists have detected what
were described as “astonishingly high” levels of methane, or natural gas,
bubbling from the well site
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/08/deepwater-horizon-blast-m
ethane-bubble" title="">"astonishingly high], setting off a chain of
reactions that suck the oxygen out of the water. In some cases, methane
concentrations are 100,000 times normal levels.

Other scientists as well as sport fishermen are reporting unusual movements
of fish, shrimp, crab and other marine life, including increased shark
sightings closer to the Alabama coast.

Larry Crowder, a marine biologist at Duke University, said there were
already signs that fish were being driven from their habitat.

“The animals are already voting with their fins to get away from where the
oil spill is and where potentially there is oxygen depletion,” he said.
“When you begin to see animals changing their distribution that is telling
you about the quality of water further offshore. Basically, the fish are
moving closer to shore to try to get to better water.”

Such sightings ? and an accumulation of data from the site of the ruptured
well and from the ocean depths miles away ? have deepened concerns that the
enormity of the environmental disaster in the Gulf has yet to be fully
understood. It could also jeopardise the Gulf’s billion-dollar fishing and
shrimping industry.

In a conference call with reporters, Samantha Joye, a scientist at the
University of Georgia who has been studying the effects of the spill at
depth, said the ruptured well was producing up to 50% as much methane and
other gases as oil.

The finding presents a new challenge to scientists who so far have been
focused on studying the effects on the Gulf of crude oil, and the 5.7m
litres of chemical dispersants used to break up the slick.

Joye said her preliminary findings suggested the high volume of methane
coming out of the well could upset the ocean food chain. Such high
concentrations, it is feared, would trigger the growth of microbes, which
break up the methane, but also gobble up oxygen needed by marine life to
survive, driving out other living things.

Joye said the methane was settling in a 200-metre layer of the water column,
between depths of 1,000 to 1,300 metres in concentrations that were already
threatening oxygen levels.

“That water can go completely anoxic [extremely low oxygen] and that is a
pretty serious situation for any oxygen-requiring organism. We haven’t seen
zero-oxygen water but there is certainly enough gas in the water to draw
oxygen down to zero,” she said.

“It could wreak havoc with those communities that require oxygen,” Joye
said, wiping out plankton and other organisms at the bottom of the food
chain.

A Texas A&M University oceanographer issued a similar warning last week
on his return from a 10-day research voyage in the Gulf. John Kessler
recorded “astonishingly high” methane levels in surface and deep water
within a five-mile radius of the ruptured well. His team also recorded 30%
depletion of oxygen in some locations.

Even without the gusher, the Gulf was afflicted by 6,000 to 7,000 square
miles of dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi river, caused by run-off
from animal waste and farm fertiliser.

The run-off sets off a chain reaction. Algae bloom and quickly die, and are
eaten up by microbes that also consume oxygen needed by marine life.

But the huge quantities of methane, or natural gas, being released from the
well in addition to crude presents an entirely new danger to marine life and
to the Gulf’s lucrative fishing and shrimping industry.

“Things are changing, and what impacts there are on the food web are not
going to be clear until we go out and measure that,” said Joye.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6603TK20100701

Thu Jul 1, 2010 2:47pm EDT

Louisiana (Reuters) – A massive ship converted into a “super skimmer” has arrived in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico to assist with cleanup of the BP oil spill, a government spokeswoman said Thursday.

The 1,100-foot (335 meter)-long ore and oil carrier, dubbed the “A Whale,” is being provided by the owner, TMT Shipping of Taiwan, and can collect 500,000 barrels (21 million gallons) per day of contaminated water, said Chris Coulon, a spokeswoman for the joint incident command.

Financial arrangements of the deal to provide the ship were not immediately available. Coulon said it had not been contracted but added that BP Plc might begin formal contract negotiations if the ship proved to be useful.

The gray and rust-colored tanker, which has a large blue whale painted on its funnel, was converted in mid-June in Portugal to skim spilled oil from the sea but needs to be evaluated by the Coast Guard and others for use in the Gulf.

It rested at anchor in the Mississippi River north of Venice, Louisiana on Thursday. Three horizontal slits used to skim oil were visible at water level on the tanker’s port side.

The ship has been described as a “super skimmer” because it can scoop up millions of gallons of oily water mix every day, much more than skimming vessels already in use.

Rough seas and winds caused by Hurricane Alex, which went ashore in northeastern Mexico late Wednesday, were delaying plans to test the new skimmer.

“They can’t do their testing until the weather has died down,” Coulon said. “They are in close contact with ship owners to proceed with testing as soon as the weather permits.”

At a White House briefing on Thursday, Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the government’s point man for the spill response, said he had “high hopes” for the new skimmer.

About 500 skimmers were in operation prior to the halt of skimming operations as Alex threatened. At the peak, 650 such vessels were in operation.

More than 28 million gallons of oily water mix have been picked up since the beginning of the spill about two and a half months ago, and the cleanup rate has picked up recently. The total a month ago was about 14 million gallons.

Oil from BP’s blown-out well began spewing into the waters off Louisiana after an oil rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers.

(Additional reporting by Bruce Nichols and Eileen O’Grady in Houston, editing by Anna Driver and Paul Simao)
Special thanks to Richard Charter

Houston Chronicle
July 2, 2010

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/deepwaterhorizon/7090804.html

Scientists using research tools in new ways to look for signs of oil spreading down below, but have turned up nothing
By HARVEY RICE
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
July 2, 2010, 12:37AM

ABOARD THE THOMAS JEFFERSON The 208-foot research vessel Thomas Jefferson slicing through swells off Florida’s Gulf Coast this week has been chasing an elusive ghost hatched from the BP well blowout: oil plumes.

The prospects of these monstrous plumes emerged as a frightening character in the Macando well narrative after limited data suggested that underwater plumes might be the size of some of the Great Lakes. But until BP’s well blew out April 20, no one had tried developing the technology for finding oil underwater.

For the last five weeks, scientists and the rest of Thomas Jefferson Cmdr. Shepard Smith’s crew have been working to develop such a method, using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration vessel designed for mapping the ocean bottom in shallow water.

Scientists haven’t found a sure-fire method so far, but they are closer to doing so because of this group’s research.

They have found no monster plumes of oil extending dozens or hundreds of miles, as had been feared.

Smith said new data suggest the plumes may be a few miles across. He is reluctant to use the word “plume,” preferring “anomaly,” because scientists are still awaiting lab results to verify their conclusions.

“I’m not aware of a single sample that shows we found oil underwater,” acoustics specialist Lt. Sam Greenaway said.

Clues in the deep

In the commander’s office, Greenaway huddles alongside Smith at computer screens showing dark blue columns turning to purple as they descend toward the ocean depths near where BP’s Macando well is spewing oil.

The officers are looking for clues in sonar data gathered a week ago that will help them figure out how to find underwater oil. The Thomas Jefferson and other research ships are inventing techniques as they look for something they don’t even know how to describe.

“Is it in tiny droplets?” Greenaway wondered aloud. “Is it in large droplets? Is it emulsified? Is it there at all?”

The Thomas Jefferson was two weeks into a five-month mission to chart hazards to navigation along the Gulf Coast when the Macando well erupted. Worries about underwater plumes arose as the blowout continued to spew millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf.

To confront the disaster, the NOAA converted the Thomas Jefferson into a plume hunter.

NOAA upgraded the ship’s sonar and equipped it with a “fish,” a device towed behind the ship that can dive and look for a fluorescent light signature given off by oil.

Lt. Denise Gruccio, the executive officer, kept watch on the bridge Wednesday. She recalled that because the ship lacked computer steering assistance, it was difficult to keep it stationary for as long as two hours when the fish was cast deep. “It was nerve-wracking,” Gruccio said.

Never done before

The ship had borrowed a “rosette,” tubes clustered in a circle resembling a rose. Each tube in the rosette is set to sample water at a certain depth.

Although the crew knew how to operate each one of the devices, no one had ever used them in combination to find oil plumes, Smith said.

“We don’t normally do this type of work,” Smith said. “Nobody ever does this type of work because this deepwater blowout is an unprecedented challenge.”

During its first plume-hunting voyage, the Thomas Jefferson headed for the site of the blowout. But the ship was forced to stand off at a distance of five miles so that its sonar wouldn’t interfere with equipment being used in the effort to cap the well.

Weeks later, allowed within a half mile of the blowout, they found data suggesting a wake was forming behind the oil column as it spirals to the surface. Greenaway sat at a computer Wednesday and calculated the top of the column, a blue swath on the screen, as about 3,600 feet wide. A U-shaped bump on the screen indicated the possibility of a wake formed by currents pushing against the plume.

“This tells us where to find the oil,” Smith said, because any that broke off into plumes would be pushed in the direction of the wake.

Microbial mystery

He said the wake appeared to extend more than 3,000 feet from the bottom of the 5,000-foot column of oil.

The Thomas Jefferson also found data suggesting that microbes were eating the oil as it moved away from the blowout site. Smith said it appears that microbes are breaking down the oil, but it’s not clear what remains after they finish dining.

The ship also discovered that, rather than a river of oil, the plumes are more like clouds of oil droplets being pushed through the depths by currents.

harvey.rice@chron.com
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/02/dispersants-flow-into-gulf-in-science-experiment/

By Ed Lavandera, CNN – July 2, 2010 – http://tinyurl.com/2avhnyo

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
· Chemical dispersants keep flowing at virtually unchanged levels
· EPA directive says level should be cut by 75%
· CNN analysis shows flow down by 9% per day
· Dispersant use called “science experiment”

Chemical dispersants keep flowing into the Gulf of Mexico at virtually unchanged levels despite the Environmental Protection Agency’s order to BP to “significantly” scale back, according to a CNN analysis of daily dispersant reports provided by the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command.

When the May 26 directive was issued, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said dispersant use should be cut by 75%.

Public statements at the time made by the EPA administrator gave the impression that federal officials were trying to cut down overall dispersant use.

“We expect to see a substantial reduction in the overall amount of dispersant used,” Jackson said in May.

Before May 26, BP used 25,689 gallons a day of the chemical dispersant Corexit. Since then, CNN’s analysis shows, the daily average of dispersant use has dropped to 23,250 gallons a day, a 9% decline.

Gulf Coast environmentalists say it’s another sign that the federal agencies monitoring dispersant use are not being tough enough with BP.

“I think the EPA has been struggling to respond to this crisis,” said Aaron Viles with the Gulf Restoration Network. “It’s all really a giant science experiment and we’re terribly concerned that in the long run the impacts are going to be significant and we really don’t know what we’re doing to the ecosystem.”

But the EPA argues it deserves credit for getting alarming dispersant use under control. The directive states that BP must ramp down dispersant use by “75% from the maximum daily amount used.”

And that’s the catch. The highest recorded amount of dispersant used occurred on May 23, when 70,000 gallons were injected into the Gulf of Mexico. EPA officials say they feared that number would have become the norm and that’s why, they say, the directive was issued.

“This escalation was quickly reversed, ensuring BP only uses the lowest volume of dispersant needed,” said Adora Andy, a spokeswoman for the EPA.

But even by the EPA’s own standards, BP still routinely exceeds the daily threshold. The EPA and Coast Guard say they’re trying to keep dispersant use to around 18,000 barrels a day.

But according to CNN’s analysis, BP has gone over that amount 50 percent of the time since the May 26 directive was issued. To do so, BP must request permission from the U.S. Coast Guard.

Coast Guard officials say dispersant use is “evaluated daily” and that it’s using the “safest and most effective methods available” to protect the sea environment.

“The EPA-Coast Guard directive has been successful in ensuring that BP uses the lowest volume of dispersant necessary,” U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Erik Halvorson, a spokesman with the Unified Area Command.

The EPA continues testing the chemical dispersant Corexit 9500, which has been used by BP since the beginning of the oil disaster. So far more than 1.6 million gallons of the chemical have been injected into the Gulf of Mexico.

But the struggle over daily dispersant use has caught the eye of Rep. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts, one of the loudest critics of BP’s response in cleaning up the oil spill.

“I think it is obvious we can never again allow for a repetition of what is happening right now, where the science experiment is being conducted without having any idea what the impact on marine life long term will be,” said Markey.

Special thanks to Ashley Hotz.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-13/lifting-drilling-moratorium-too-risky-bromwich-says.html

July 13, 2010, 4:30 PM EDT
-

(Updates with comments from commission in the fourth paragraph. For more on the Gulf oil spill, see SPILL .)

July 13 (Bloomberg) — Lifting the moratorium on deep-water oil drilling is too risky as companies have yet to show they are capable of preventing and containing spills following the BP Plc disaster, the main regulator for U.S. offshore drilling said.

Drillers must do a better job, and investigators must gather more data on the causes of BP’s Macondo well leak in the Gulf of Mexico before drilling can resume, Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, said today at a hearing in New Orleans.

“So long as the spill is out there and has not been contained and the oil-spill response capabilities are all being consumed by the current spill,” Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar finds it too risky, Bromwich told a presidential commission. “He hopes that prior to Nov. 30 he will have the comfort level to allow some deep-water exploratory drilling to continue, but he is not there yet.”

The commission, formed to investigate the spill that began in April, will also review the moratorium following two days of testimony about the ban’s economic effect on the Gulf Coast. Commission co-Chairman William Reilly questioned why regulators couldn’t increase inspections and take other steps that would allow the six-month moratorium to be lifted sooner.

“I’m less comprehending of the problems in determining that the rigs are safe than I have been,” the former head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told reporters. “We’ve had almost three months already to make some determinations.”

‘Bully Pulpit’

Reilly said he was moved during the two-day hearing by testimony about the effect of the spill and moratorium on the local economy, including from Senator Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat, who told the commission yesterday that the ban would drive Gulf residents to the unemployment line.

“Whether you call it a moratorium, a suspension, a pause, the result will still be substantial loss of jobs,” Landrieu said. She told the panel that idling drilling rigs in the Gulf could affect as many as 46,000 workers.

Charlotte Randolph, president of Lafourche Parish in Louisiana, told the commission that the area is suffering a “slow death” as the drilling moratorium squeezes local businesses that support the oil industry.

Bob Graham, co-chairman of the commission, said the panel wouldn’t likely have the resources to evaluate the safety of the rigs or the ability of the oil industry to respond to another spill as BP’s well continues to leak oil. The panel could use its “bully pulpit” to ensure that the Obama administration knew the region’s concerns about the drilling ban, he said.

Moratorium Adjustments

Salazar has said the Interior Department will consider any recommendations made by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Spill and Offshore Drilling.

The moratorium on deep-water drilling may be adjusted to allow some new wells to go forward before Nov. 30, Bromwich told the commission. Bromwich said he plans public hearings over the next 60 days to determine what additional safety measures are needed.
Salazar announced the new moratorium yesterday after a federal judge rejected an initial ban imposed in May. The ban was in response to the April 20 explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers and triggered the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

The damaged Macondo well has been gushing as much as 60,000 barrels of oil a day, according to government scientists. BP had spent about $3.1 billion on containment efforts, cleanup and legal claims as of July 6, company data show.

Job Losses

The new moratorium identifies at-risk wells based on drilling configurations and technologies instead of water depth. The previous version barred drilling deeper than 500 feet (152 meters), a distinction U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman questioned in rejecting the ban.

“This second suspension of deepwater drilling is a clear sign that the administration is unwilling to follow the advice of their own scientists,” Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said today in a statement. “The ultimate effect of this second moratorium is the same as the first — to shut down drilling operations in the Gulf and risk killing an estimated 20,000 jobs in Louisiana.”

The new ban has idled 21 rigs in the Gulf, 12 fewer than the number affected by the original moratorium, Bromwich said. Companies including Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc., the largest U.S. deep-water oil driller, have said they will move rigs to other countries as a result of the U.S. ban.

Reorganizing MMS

Reilly asked Bromwich if inspectors could be placed on affected rigs as a way to ensure the safety needed to lift the moratorium.

“Inspections leave a margin for error,” Bromwich said.

Bromwich is charged with reorganizing the renamed Minerals Management Service, the agency within the Interior Department that oversaw oil and gas development on federal properties prior to the BP disaster.

“The industry has been too casual in the oil spill response plans they’ve submitted,” Bromwich said. “Frankly, I think my agency has been too casual in approving them.”

“We’re not going to politely ask industry anymore to fix things,” Bromwich said. “We’re going to demand that they fix things.”

–Editors: Romaine Bostick, Margot Slade.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York at jefstathiou@bloomberg.net; Jim Snyder in New Orleans at jsnyder24@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Larry Liebert at lliebert@bloomberg.net

Special thanks to Richard Charter

July 3, 2010

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-20100703,0,1038308.story

Those shorelines will probably see tar balls in the months ahead, NOAA finds. Also, skimming boats prepare to go back to work, and efforts to help turtles and migrating birds are announced.
By Richard Simon and Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Los Angeles Times
July 3, 2010
Reporting from Washington and New Orleans

Hundreds of skimming boats prepared Friday to return to calmer gulf waters in the wake of Hurricane Alex and resume cleanup of the massive BP oil spill, which scientists now predict is likely to reach the Florida Keys and Miami in the months ahead.

Using computer simulations based on 15 years of wind and ocean current data, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report

http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/dwh.php%3Fentry_id=815

Friday showing a 61% to 80% chance of the oil spill reaching within 20 miles of the coasts of the Florida Keys, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, mostly likely in the form of weathered tar balls.

Shorelines with the greatest chance of being soiled by oil 81% to 100% stretch from the Mississippi River Delta to the western Florida Panhandle, NOAA scientists said in a
statement on its projections

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100702_longterm.html

for the next four months.

Other areas of Florida have a low probability of oil hits. The Florida Panhandle has already seen tar balls wash up on beaches.

But the chances of oil reaching east-central Florida and the Eastern Seaboard are less than 1% to 20%, NOAA said. And it is “increasingly unlikely” that areas above North Carolina will be hit.

Meanwhile, officials were moving skimming vessels back to sea and were trying to protect the ecologically sensitive Chandeleur Sound area, said Coast Guard Adm. Paul Zukunft.

“It’s going to be a long weekend from an oil spill response perspective,” Zukunft said Friday. All skimming boats from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle had been idle for three days because of dangerously high waves.

Officials hoped to move another containment ship above the gushing well by Wednesday to nearly double the 25,000 barrels of oil being recovered daily. As many as 60,000 barrels a day are spewing from the well, according to government estimates.

An operation to drill a relief well, the ultimate solution to stopping the leak, is seven to eight days ahead of its mid-August target date for completion.

But Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander, said Friday: “I am reluctant to tell you it will be done before the middle of August because I think everything associated with this spill and response recovery suggests that we should under-promise and over-deliver.”

BP and the Coast Guard worked out an agreement Friday with wildlife groups in response to concerns that sea turtles were being incinerated when oil slicks are burned. The parties agreed to convene a group of scientists to develop plans for monitoring future controlled burns, said Cathy Liss, president of the Washington-based Animal Welfare Institute, lead plaintiff in a lawsuit on the issue.

Liss said the officials also agreed to notify her group of any burns conducted after Tuesday and whether they have a biologist or other trained observer nearby to protect the turtles. Officials had halted such burns through Tuesday because of the weather.
The environmental groups had initially requested a temporary restraining order to prevent the burns.

Meanwhile, U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials were making plans to start shipping thousands of sea turtle eggs marked for collection along the shores of Alabama and western Florida to the Kennedy Space Center this month.

Starting July 12, turtle eggs will be removed from nests, placed in boxes and shipped in special climate-controlled, vibration-resistant FedEx trucks to a climate-controlled, predator-proof warehouse at the space center, Jacksonville, Fla.-based Fish and Wildlife spokesman Chuck Underwood said. Hatchlings will be released at various locations and times along the nearby Space Coast to avoid drawing predators, he said.

Federal officials also announced that stopover grounds would be created along the Gulf Coast in an effort to assist some of the millions of birds that will soon begin their fall migration.

Paul Schmidt, assistant director for migratory birds at the Fish and Wildlife Service, said it would be impossible to redirect vast numbers of migrating birds around the still-expanding oil slicks. But he said safe grounds for feeding and breeding could be created in coastal marshes and up to 100 miles inland.

He said conservation groups would work with private landowners to flood crop fields, cut out invasive plants that have overgrown some habitats and burn off some plants to open more ground for the birds.

On the economic side, new efforts were underway in the courts and Congress to deal with the financial effects of the spill.

A coalition of business groups and Sen. Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.) filed a brief urging the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a judge’s ruling striking down the Obama administration’s six-month deep-water drilling moratorium in the gulf.

Also, a bipartisan group of Gulf Coast lawmakers launched a drive to pass a package of tax breaks to aid struggling businesses hurt by the spill.

richard.simon@latimes.com

molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com

Times staff writers Bob Drogin in New Orleans and Nicole Santa Cruz in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Special thanks to Richard Charter.

From: Depnews [mailto:Depnews@dep.state.fl.us]
Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2010 12:29 PM
Subject: FLORIDA ANNOUNCES IMPROVED OILED BIRD RECOVERY PLAN

For immediate release: JULY 1, 2010
Contact: PUBLIC INFORMATION ESF14 – 850-921-0217

FLORIDA ANNOUNCES IMPROVED OILED BIRD RECOVERY PLAN
~New response plan ensures quick recovery of oiled birds~

TALLAHASSEE – The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) together with federal partners today announced the creation of an oiled bird recovery plan for rapid response to distressed birds. The recovery plan was created and approved by the Incident Command Sector Mobile, with assistance from impacted states, to ensure oiled birds are recovered within 60 minutes of their initial report. Under the plan, a Florida Panhandle Group will be established in Panama City to coordinate the rapid recovery and rescue of injured wildlife on Florida’s shores.

“It is critical that trained personnel respond rapidly to reports of wildlife in distress due to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill,” said FWC Executive Director Nick Wiley. “We are hopeful that this new plan created in coordination with our federal partners will better protect Florida’s precious wildlife.”

The Florida Panhandle Group will consist of three task forces, covering two to three counties each throughout Northwest Florida. The Group is made up of 150 field personnel including biologists, wildlife rehabilitators and Vessels of Opportunity captains. When an oiled bird is reported to the Oiled Wildlife Hotline, the corresponding task force in that region will be notified and the nearest trained wildlife experts will quickly respond.

FWC, in coordination with the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC), would also like to remind Floridians and visitors to report any sightings of wildlife oiled or injured as a result of Deepwater Horizon oil spill by calling the Oiled Wildlife Hotline number at 1-866-557-1401. The hotline operator will contact the nearest response team and dispatch it to attempt to rescue the animal.

People naturally want to help injured animals. However, untrained rescuers may cause more harm than good. The public should not touch, approach or try to rescue the animal. Handling oiled wildlife may pose a serious health and safety risk to both would-be rescuers and the animal they are trying to rescue. The chemicals in oil are toxic and only trained personnel with appropriate protective gear and equipment should handle and treat oiled animals.

Such rescues require hazardous-material training, permits and animal-handling skills to ensure human safety and the best interests of the animal. The Oiled Wildlife Hotline number is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. For more information, please visit http://myfwc.com/OilSpill/OilSpill_FAQs.htm or http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/sf/deepwater_horizon/Public_Flyer_Marine_Wildlife_Response_Action_Plan.pdf

For the latest information regarding Florida’s response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, visit www.deepwaterhorizonflorida.com or follow www.Twitter.com/FLDEPalert.

-30-

The Department of Environmental Protection values your feedback as a customer. DEP Secretary Michael W. Sole is committed to continuously assessing and improving the level and quality of services provided to you. Please take a few minutes to comment on the quality of service you received. Simply click on this link to the DEP Customer Survey. Thank you in advance for completing the survey.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

By Dan Molinski Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
CARACAS (Dow Jones)–Venezuela’s government is expanding its efforts to clean up large oil slicks in Lake Maracaibo following sharp criticism that it has ignored the month-old problem.
In a press conference earlier this week, Rafael Ramirez, the country’s energy minister and president of state oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, became the first top official to speak about the oil slicks–some up to 40 kilometers long–that began appearing on the lake’s surface more than a month ago.

Ramirez said more than 2,100 people are now working to clean up the spill, which he said was likely caused by leaks from the maze of old, decaying underwater pipelines that carpet the bottom of the lake. A couple weeks ago, PDVSA sent out a brief statement saying 50 workers and local fishermen were being assigned to scoop up oil at the lake.

The Lake Maracaibo basin in western Venezuela is one of the world’s largest centers for oil production, and major foreign-oil companies have been pumping crude from under and around the lake for nearly a century. Oil spills, shipping traffic and other industry-related wear-and-tear have left the lake heavily polluted.

Ramirez’s comments Wednesday came as local lawmakers in the state of Zulia have for weeks been urging the national government, led by President Hugo Chavez, to clean the spill.

Eliseo Fermin, the head of Zulia state’s Legislative Council and an opponent of the Chavez government, told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday that an environmental emergency needs to declared for the lake.

Fermin agrees with Ramirez that decaying underwater pipelines are to blame, although he said the oil slicks probably aren’t from one or a couple leaks, but instead hundreds or even thousands of leaks in the “spaghetti-plate” of pipelines.

Fermin said the ecological damage of the lake could end up being “the biggest environmental crime in the history of South America.”

Despite such dire warnings, Ramirez downplayed the significance of the oil slicks by comparing them with the two-month-old oil spill in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico that began after an explosion at a British Petroleum PLC (BP, BP.LN) rig.

“You can’t draw parallels between the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico–where 35,000 barrels to 100,000 barrels of oil per day flow into the sea–and the leak detected in Lake Maracaibo,” Ramirez said.
Ramirez also said most of the old, underwater pipelines were already there when the government of President Hugo Chavez took control of PDVSA from anti-Chavez forces in 2003.

While most oil production in Venezuela still comes from the Lake Maracaibo region, most of the oil fields in the region have reached maturity and are now in decline. Environmentalists worry that the oil industry will eventually abandon the area altogether, leaving a huge mess behind.

-By Dan Molinski, Dow Jones Newswires; 58-414-120-5738

_________________

http://devilsexcrement.com/2010/07/01/the-lake-maracaibo-oil-spill-is-sixteen-tomes-denser-than-the-one-in-the-gulf-of-mexico/

The Devil’s Excrement: The Lake Maracaibo oil spill is sixteen times denser than the one in the Gulf of Mexico
July 1, 2010
Orders of magnitude continue to get this Government into trouble. I could not believe it when I heard Minister of Energy and Oil Rafael Ramirez say today that the oil spill in Lake Maracaibo is far from the environmental disaster of the one caused by BP in the Gulf of Mexico. I could not find the link, so I went into Bloomberg and copied it, just so you make sure I am not BSing you:

So, Ramirez says that the 8,000 barrels being leaked or spilled are not a disaster like the Gulf and , as usual, they are the fault of the private oil companies that came before his time. Something the Prosecutor fully agrees with. Amazing!

Go figure!

But let’s put this into perspective. The US Government estimates that from 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil are spilling from the Macondo well disaster into the Gulf of Mexico which looks like this in Google Earth:

but on the same scale, Lake Maracaibo looks like this:

Now, spilling 8,000 barrels a day of oil into the bottom picture of Lake Maracaibo would seem to be as much of a disaster as spilling 60,000 barrels a day into the top picture, no?

In fact, according to Wikianswers, the Gulf of Mexico has an area of 615,000 square miles, so that in the worst case scenario the BP spill corresponds to 0.097 barrels spilled per square mile every single day.

In contrast, Lake Maracaibo, according to the same Wikianswers is 5,130 square miles in size, which corresponds to the spill that ramirez thins is irrelevant to 1.56 barrels of oil per square mile being dumped, spilled or leaked per day. Even worse, Lake Maracaibo is an enclosure, while the Gulf is open to the seas, which should dilute the effects of the spill.

Thus, the statement about this spill not being a disaster is another irresponsible statement by Ramirez, who has oil spills, rotten food and suitcases bounce off his cynical and Teflonic face almost daily.

But orders of magnitude don’t lie, per unit of area, the spill into Lake Maracaibo is 16 (sixteen times) denser than the one in the Gulf of Mexico.

But hey, maybe they can take advantage of it and dump some rotten food into Lake Maracaibo and mix it with the oil. Who would notice?

Or who would report anyway?
Special thanks to Richard Charter