New Orleans Times-Picayune: Storm’s passage reveals problems with oil spill response

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.

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