New York Times
September 8, 2010

September 8, 2010, 4:37 pm

By JOHN M. BRODER

Regulators who are supposed to police offshore oil and gas drilling are spread too thinly, poorly trained and hampered by outdated technology, according to a study
http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/Salazar-OCS-Safety-Board-Report-a-Blueprint-for-Next-Steps-on-Internal-Reforms-of-Offshore-Energy-Oversight.cfm
by an Interior Department review board appointed after the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Outer Continental Shelf Safety Oversight Board noted in a
report http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&PageID=43677
on Wednesday that oil and gas leasing off the nation’s coastlines had nearly tripled since 1982, while the size of the regulatory staff had declined by a third. Off the West Coast, there are five inspectors for 23 offshore production platforms. In the Gulf of Mexico, there are 55 inspectors for 3,000 facilities, the report states.

The study also found that overworked inspectors came under constant pressure from operators not to cite them for violations of rules, complaining that they could lead to fines or costly work stoppages. Inspectors said that they were unable to perform unannounced inspections because of the difficulty of reaching offshore platforms and because of Coast Guard security rules.
The report recommended hiring dozens of new inspectors and giving additional training to those already on the job. It also urged a more robust system of enforcement, including greater authority to cite violations and impose fines.

“I tasked the O.C.S. Safety Board with taking a hard, thorough look top to bottom at how this department regulates and oversees offshore oil and gas operation and provide me their honest and unvarnished recommendations for reform,” said Ken Salazar, the interior secretary. “The report is what I was looking for: it is honest; it doesn’t sugarcoat challenges we know are there; it provides a blueprint for solving them; and it shows that we are on precisely the right track with our reform agenda.”

Many of the panel’s recommendations, including an overhaul of the enforcement of the Minerals Management Service (the agency now reconstituted as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement),
http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&PageID=43676
are already being put in place. Under its new leader, Michael R. Bromwich, a former Justice Department inspector general, the agency has already issued a new conflict-of-interest policy and set up an internal investigations unit.

“To a substantial degree, we fully concur with the recommendations,” Mr. Bromwich said in a telephone briefing for reporters. “Without knowing them in advance, we’re moving to implement the bulk of them.”

Mr. Salazar and Mr. Bromwich said that the revamping of offshore regulation was proceeding independently of the moratorium on deepwater drilling that was imposed in July. That suspension is scheduled to end on Nov. 30, whether or not all of the policies and practices recommended by the safety board are in place, they said.

“They don’t all need to be met for the moratorium to be lifted,” Mr. Bromwich said. “There are a cascading series of reforms under way to raise the bar to be met by industry to make deepwater drilling ever more safe. This is simply a recognition it will take time for all of this to be in place.”

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News Release
September 8, 2010

http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/Salazar-OCS-Safety-Board-Report-a-Blueprint-for-Next-Steps-on-Internal-Reforms-of-Offshore-Energy-Oversight.cfm?renderforprint=1 &

US Dept of Interior

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Bromwich Develops Implementation Plan for Recommendations
09/08/2010
Contact: Kate Kelly, DOI (202) 208-6416

WASHINGTON Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today announced that a team led by senior officials in the Department of the Interior, including Interior’s Inspector General, have completed a review of offshore oil and gas oversight and regulation and have delivered a set of recommendations that reinforce and expand on ongoing reforms being carried out by Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE) Director Michael R. Bromwich.

The report of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Safety Oversight Board, which Secretary Salazar established immediately following the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, provides recommendations to strengthen permitting, inspections, enforcement and environmental stewardship. Director Bromwich announced today that BOEMRE has developed an implementation plan for the recommendations, many of which are already underway or planned.

“I tasked the OCS Safety Board with taking a hard, thorough look top to bottom – at how this department regulates and oversees offshore oil and gas operations and provide me their honest and unvarnished recommendations for reform,” said Secretary Salazar. “The report is what I was looking for: it is honest; it doesn’t sugarcoat challenges we know are there; it provides a blueprint for solving them; and it shows that we are on precisely the right track with our reform agenda. We are absolutely committed to building a regulatory agency that has the authorities, resources, and support to provide strong and effective regulation and oversight and we are on our way to accomplishing that goal.”

“The goal of our efforts is a culture of safety, in which protecting human life and preventing environmental disasters are the highest priorities, while making leasing and production safer and more sustainable,” said Assistant Secretary Wilma Lewis, who chaired the Safety Oversight Board. Mary L. Kendall, Acting Inspector General of Interior and Rhea S. Suh, Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget, also served as members of the Board.

“My mandate from the President and Secretary was explicit reform the way the agency does business in managing and regulating offshore energy development on the nation’s Outer Continental Shelf,” said BOEMRE Director Bromwich, who noted that the initiatives are consistent with the reform agenda he has been developing and implementing. “Many of the Board’s recommendations will be addressed through initiatives and programs that are already in process and are central to our reform agenda.”

The Safety Oversight Board’s findings and recommendations provide a framework to build upon reforms to create more accountability, efficiency and effectiveness in the Interior agencies that carry out the Department’s offshore energy management responsibilities. The recommendations address both short- and long-term efforts that complement other ongoing reports and reviews, such as the Secretary’s May 27 report to the President, the Presidential inquiry into the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the U.S. Coast Guard-Interior investigation into the causes of the incident.

The recommendations range from improved consistency and communication of BOEMRE’s operational policies to technology improvements and day-to-day management in the field. Strengthening inspections and enforcement from personnel training to the deterrent effect of fines and civil penalties is a major focus of the recommendations.

BOEMRE’s implementation plan outlines the initiatives and programs that the Bureau is undertaking which address the report’s recommendations, including: reorganizing MMS to address real and perceived conflicts between resource management, safety and environmental oversight and enforcement, and revenue collection responsibilities; seeking additional resources in the form of funding, personnel, equipment and information systems; ethics reforms that include the establishment of an Investigations and Review Unit and a new recusal policy to address potential conflicts of interests within BOEMRE and industry; and Inter-Agency coordination with federal agencies related to oil spill response and the mitigation of environmental effects of offshore energy development.

The OCS Safety Oversight Board Report is online at http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&PageID=43677

The BOEM Implementation Plan is online at http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&PageID=43676 (signed) and http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&PageID=43879 (text-PDF)

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.nola.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2010/09/new_wave_of_oil_comes_ashore_w.html

By Bob Marshall, The Times-Picayune
September 12, 2010

A new wave of black oil suddenly came ashore west of the Mississippi River on Friday and Saturday, coating beaches and fouling interior marshes, according to anglers’ reports. Ryan Lambert, owner of Buras-based Cajun Fishing Adventures, said about 16 miles of coastal beaches in Plaquemines Parish from Sandy Point to Chalon Pass were lined with black oil and tar balls. Meanwhile anglers returning to Lafitte told Sidney Bourgeois, of Joe’s Landing, that new oil was surfacing on the eastern side of Barataria Bay in the Bay Jimmie, Bay Wilkerson, and in Bay Baptiste areas.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries confirmed the following oil sightings in Plaquemines Parish on Friday:

— Half mile of oil located in the marsh of an unnamed marsh island on the southwest side of Bay Jimmy.

— One-mile-long by 20-yard-wide area of tar patties located in West Bay 2.15 miles northwest of Outlet W-2.

— Large area of 6-foot to 12-foot-diameter tar balls locate in Scott Bay 0.8 mile north-northwest of Double Bayou.

— A 2,500-foot-long by 300-foot-wide area of heavy oil sheen with surface oil droplets and submerged oil located offshore 0.85 mile west of the Southwest Pass East Jetty.

“It’s just suddenly came up Friday and it’s along the beach for mile and miles, and drifting inside in some spots,” Lambert said. “There were quite a few dead red fish on the beach, and just thousands of dead pogies (menhaden) inside the bays. And there a really big areas of sheen right off the beach.
“Everyone thinks this is over, but it’s not — not if we can still get soakings like this.”

Special thanks to 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

Joel is the former Educational Director for Reef Relief and a dear friend. His perspective is right on. DV

While government agencies and BP congratulate themselves on their “success,” we should not overlook
what happened. Even if most of us didn’t want to recognize it, during the Gulf Oil catastrophe we saw exposed the extent of corporate power over our government and our government agencies— agencies that were originally intended to protect us and our environment.

Throughout the unfolding of the drama, this was all too painfully apparent: How unprotected we the people are against corporate money. All of you, NOAA, the EPA, the DEP, The National Marine Park Program* the United States Coast Guard and all you other agencies directly or indirectly involved in this catastrophe, you have let us down. You did it when you looked the other way during the permitting process that allowed drilling in the first place, when what was then the Minerals and Management Service waived the required geological, ecological and economic surveys required by law. You did it by not monitoring BP, a company with an outrageous history of cost-cutting, infractions and disasters.

Incredibly, none of you were prepared for a worst-case scenario. You also let us down when you refused foreign vessels and help. One example of many was the three Swedish Coast Guard Skimmers that were refused, which could have removed 350 barrels of oil per hour. Instead of your constant underestimation, just think what those Swedish vessels could have meant to the Panhandle. Instead of removing oil at the source of the spill, using tankers and barges and reusing recovered oil to recover costs, you allowed unprecedented amounts of poisonous chemical dispersants to be poured into the Mexican Gulf to hide the oil, making it impossible to retrieve and causing oil plumes and unknowable damage for years to come.

Additionally, in hiding the extent of oil wasted, you aided and abetted BP by imposing media and public blackouts. According to many reports, you helped them dispose of uncounted numbers of murdered wildlife and wasted oil. In so doing, you robbed us of the true knowledge of the extent of what was done. You also robbed us of literally billions of dollars in fines that could have restituted families, businesses and the environment into the future.

The Environmental Protection Agency, in a preliminary hearing, said it allowed dispersants because there weren’t enough vessels to retrieve the oil. Yet many available vessels were refused by BP, the Coast Guard and the EPA.

One reason given by the EPA was its regulation that every vessel removing oily water from the ocean must meet EPA standards when the water is put back in. But EPA regulations are often overlooked in emergency situations such as when a hurricane hits and massive amounts of untreated farm runoff enters Shark River Slew and other outlets into Florida Bay and onto our reefs. Why weren’t these regulations eased in this case?

The EPA was protecting BP and not us. Now the Unified Command has declared the Gulf oil disaster virtually over, claiming that about 75 percent of the oil has been cleaned up or has disappeared. Independent scientists not on BP or the government’s payroll have a different opinion on the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Researchers at the University of South Florida conclude that oil has settled at the bottom of the Gulf farther east than previously suspected and at levels toxic to marine life. A team from Georgia Sea Grant and the University of Georgia has released a report estimating 70 to 79 percent of the oil that gushed from the well “has not been recovered and remains a threat to the ecosystem.” Researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute report a plume of hydrocarbons at least 22 miles long and more than 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. The 1.2-mile-wide, 650-foot-high plume of trapped hydrocarbons provides a clue to where the oil has gone as oil slicks on the surface disappear.

All of us living here want to find solutions, we all want to help if tar balls and other threats come to our shores. But the sad fact is that we’ll have no real solutions if, in the end, it’s business as usual. Business as usual is not good enough. It’s up to each and every government agency to rid itself of the corporate influence that keeps it from doing its sworn duty. Only then will it be able to perform its true mission, to protect the environment and to protect us, the people of the United States of America. Otherwise, why trust anything any agency says?

Sources for this article include The Atlantic Monthly, Huffington Post,, CNN, Science and The New York Times.

* Joel may be referring to the National Park Service at Interior

Special thanks to Joel Biddle.

September 9, 2010

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/energy/7192813.html

By BRETT CLANTON and JENNIFER DLOUHY
Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle
Sept. 9, 2010, 7:03AM

BP on Wednesday laid out its most detailed analysis yet on possible causes of the Deepwater Horizon accident in April, taking particular aim at mistakes by contractors on the doomed rig while claiming only a limited role in the disaster.

In a much-anticipated report on its internal investigation, BP reiterated that a “complex and interlinked series” of equipment failures and human error led to the deadly incident and subsequent oil spill but also offered new explanations about what went wrong.

Key contractors quickly dismissed BP’s report as inaccurate and one-sided.

One key finding seemed to debunk the prevailing theory on where the original leak occurred deep within the Macondo well that set the disaster in motion. Rather than traveling up a narrow channel outside the well’s interior pipe casing, volatile gas likely entered the casing itself through a series of barriers at the bottom of the well called a shoe track, the company said.

That is one of eight problems BP cited as possible causes of the April 20 accident, which killed 11 workers and spilled 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

The BP team also said crew members missed clear warning signs that gas had seeped into the well, that worker errors and defects in the rig’s design let gas ignite at the rig’s surface, and that problems with a massive blowout preventer on the seafloor may have kept it from sealing the well after the blast.

Though BP personnel are directly implicated in just one of the eight factors, company investigators stressed the report was not intended to be the final word on the subject, nor an accounting of legal responsibility.

First of several reports

“Our purpose was not to apportion blame or liability but rather to learn, recommend areas for improvement and share lessons with others,” said Mark Bly, the BP safety chief who led the investigation.

Compiled over a four-month period, the 234-page report drew upon interviews with BP and non-BP employees on the Deepwater Horizon and BP well engineers in Houston, company documents, real-time well data transmitted from the rig to shore and testimony in public hearings about the accident.

While about 10 other independent and government investigations continue, BP’s is the first report on a start-to-finish examination of the tragedy.

In it, investigators repeatedly homed in on the failure of cement barriers in the well, a focus that shifts attention to the work done by the cement contractor Halliburton Co. In particular, the team alleged that the oil field services giant failed to conduct adequate testing of the specific cement slurry used at the well.

The nitrogen-injected foam cement that was used at the site is susceptible to breaking down over time, especially if it is contaminated, BP’s Kent Corser said at a briefing with reporters in Washington. This is what the team believes happened to cement in the thin area called the annulus between the pipelike casing at the well’s center and the surrounding rock.

Once in the annulus, hydrocarbons likely entered the casing through the shoe track, a final section of casing at the bottom of the well where two mechanical valves and cement are installed to seal off the reservoir. BP speculates that both the valves and cement failed, allowing hydrocarbons to pass through the valves and up the casing.

Could deflect blame

The theory, if true, could deflect blame from BP’s Macondo well design criticized by some experts as risky and shift it to contractors including Halliburton and Transocean, which owned and operated the rig under contract with BP.

It also could take heat off BP engineers for a much-scrutinized decision to install fewer devices called centralizers than Halliburton had recommended for a section of well casing, despite risks that the smaller number could cause an uneven cement job and gas flow in the well.

“Based on the report, it would appear unlikely that the well design contributed to the incident, as the investigation found that the hydrocarbons flowed up the production casing through the bottom of the well,” BP’s outgoing CEO, Tony Hayward, said in a statement.

Contractors don’t agree

Halliburton said Wednesday it remains confident in the work it did on the Macondo well, noting it was done according to BP specifications, and criticized the report for “substantial omissions and inaccuracies.”

Transocean called the document a “self-serving report that attempts to conceal the critical factor that set the stage for the Macondo incident: BP’s fatally flawed well design.”

While the shoe track explanation is plausible, BP still had responsibility for verifying the cement job was sound, said Darryl Bourgoyne, director of the Petroleum Engineering Research Lab at Louisiana State University.

“From my view, they were the operators of the well,” he said. “If somebody working on their behalf wasn’t doing something right, then it’s the same as them not.”

BP investigators said a bad cement job, in and of itself, shouldn’t have caused the lethal escape of gas from the well. They also faulted workers on the rig for not going through a formal risk assessment after the cementing.

That kind of on-the-spot analysis might have prompted workers to run a cement bond log, considered the gold standard for well-cement testing, which might have detected problems sooner. BP had planned to run the test and even had a crew from Schlumberger on board to perform it, but sent them home the day of the blast after deciding the test was unnecessary.

Pressure test ignored

The Bly Report is also critical of two BP well site leaders and Transocean crew on the rig who “incorrectly accepted” the results of a crucial test of the well’s integrity on the day of the accident. Though the negative pressure test showed pressure on a drill pipe when it should have been zero, the crew went forward with a procedure to replace heavy drilling mud in the well with much lighter seawater.

Investigators said rig data shows a 40-minute gap from the first indication of a gas influx to the first attempt by the crew to bring the well back under control. But by then, it was too late. Minutes later, the first of two explosions occurred.

The BP team insisted that had the flow of hydrocarbons been caught before it got into the riser pipe and gas started flowing onto the Deepwater Horizon, rig workers might may have been able to avert disaster.

But, at the end of the day, BP can only blame others so much for the accident, said Nansen G. Saleri, CEO of Houston-based Quantum Reservoir Impact, an oil and gas industry consultant.

“The elephant in the room,” he said, “is that collectively and ultimately the responsibility lies with BP.”

brett.clanton@chron.com

jennifer.dlouhy@chron.com

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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/7192390.html

DISASTER IN THE GULF
BP report sets inquiry agenda – for now
Company gets out in front on the debate over causes of rig blowout
By MONICA HATCHER
Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle
Sept. 8, 2010, 10:32PM

In releasing the first detailed report on the causes of the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill, BP laid down a battleground for years of legal and political skirmishes, and may have provided itself some cover against the most severe civil and criminal penalties.

In the highly anticipated report released Wednesday, the British oil giant acknowledged limited responsibility for the myriad missteps that led to the April 20 blowout at its Macondo well, shifting most of the blame to contractors who analysts say will now be forced to respond on BP’s terms.

The report outlines in 234 pages the results of a four-month investigation that identified and analyzed eight key factors in the disaster and includes recommendations for preventing future accidents.

“BP has set the battleground, now Transocean, Halliburton and Cameron are going to have to respond initially on the turf that BP has selected,” said Kent Moors, a professor at the Graduate Center for Social and Public Policy at Duquesne University and president of ASIDA, an international oil and gas consulting firm.

Three more companies

Transocean owned and operated the Deepwater Horizon under contract with BP. Halliburton performed well cementing that BP identifies as a trigger to the chain of events that destroyed the rig, killed 11 men and set off a 4.9-million-barrel oil spill in the Gulf. Cameron built the blowout preventer that failed as the last line of defense against disaster.

By getting out in front of the debate, Moors said, BP framed the discussion going forward, at least until others reply with findings from their own investigations.

Role of others

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the influential House Committee on Energy and Commerce, acknowledged as much in saying the report “raises many questions” about the role of others in the accident.

But he also accused BP of glossing over its own role.

Yet BP also may benefit from demonstrating to the federal government that the company is acting in good faith by investigating the accident and helping regulators and industry find ways to prevent recurrences, said Tracy Hester, assistant professor and the director of the Environment, Energy & Natural Resource Center at the University of Houston Law Center.

“That is important in dealing with government agencies, because responding in good faith could play an important role in assessing civil penalties and in the government’s decision to ultimately charge anyone,” Hester said. A similar internal investigation into BP’s 2005 Texas City refinery explosion was important in shaping enforcement decisions after that event as well, he said.

While the findings brought few surprises to analysts, academics and attorneys closely following the case, BP was nonetheless clobbered by critics for failing to take more responsibility.

Nancy Leveson, a specialists in systems safety at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has investigated hundreds of major accidents, including ones on spacecraft and oil refineries, said expecting anything else from BP would have been naive. She likened the findings to an incident report written by someone in a car crash who was told he, not his insurance company, would be on the hook for damages.

‘Astounding liability’

“BP faces astounding liability. Everyone in the world is suing them, including other oil companies. It’s just impossible for a company to investigate itself under these circumstances,” Leveson said.

The report doesn’t address accusations leveled against the company and doesn’t discuss any role BP management may have played in the decision-making. Rather than a defense, the report should be seen an explanation of the mechanical and physical failures that caused the accident, Leveson said.

“The lawsuits are going to be about the things that are left out of this report, who did what,” Leveson said.

Halliburton said BP’s findings had a number of “substantial omissions and inaccuracies.” And a spokesman for Transocean called the report “self-serving” and an attempt “to conceal the critical factor that set the stage for the Macondo incident: BP’s fatally flawed well design.”

During a three-hour technical briefing Wednesday in Washington, BP safety and operations chief Mark Bly, who headed the investigation, denied the report was written to diffuse blame. “We wanted to understand what happened and why,” he said.

Fall on their own sword?

But Steve Gordon, a veteran maritime lawyer in Houston who represents the family of rig worker Karl Kleppinger Jr., who died on the Deepwater Horizon, and eight survivors, said BP missed an opportunity to speed litigation for those it said it would make whole.

“Is it naive to think BP would have accepted some blame when you’ve been told for more than 140 days, ‘Do not worry, America, we will get to the bottom of what happened and admit fault where we were at fault and make recompense?’? ” Gordon said. “I don’t expect them to fall on their own sword, but truly analyze how BP messed up.”

No special weight

A joint Coast Guard- Interior Department board investigating the accident will take into consideration the Bly Report as it looks for root causes but won’t give it special weight, Coast Guard Lt. Sue Kerver said.

“They would use that as they would any other piece of evidence and see if there’s any information they needed to glean or any other folks they need to bring in and talk to as a result of that,” she said.

Eban Burnham-Snyder, a spokesman for Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who chairs a congressional panel investigating the oil spill, said the congressman is reviewing the report and checking it against information the committee has already received from BP and elsewhere.

“If we find cause to ask additional questions relevant to the investigation, we will do so,” he said.

Brett Clanton and Tom Fowler contributed from Houston and Jennifer A. Dlouhy from Washington.

monica.hatcher@chron.com

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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/energy/7192389.html

Oil giant’s critics are not impressed
They wanted it to accept more blame for blast
By PURVA PATEL
Sept. 8, 2010, 10:33PM

Lawmakers and environmental groups blasted BP’s report on its disastrous well blowout as self-serving, saying the British company pointed fingers at others rather than accept responsibility.

Particularly critical was Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on energy and environment.

“This report is not BP’s mea culpa,” Markey said. “Of their own eight key findings, they only explicitly take responsibility for half of one. BP is happy to slice up blame, as long as they get the smallest piece.”

In a briefing with reporters in Washington Wednesday, BP’s Mark Bly, who headed the investigation, dismissed allegations that the report was intended to diffuse blame.

“We were not about proportioning or apportioning fault or blame,” Bly said. “I know there may be people who may want to understand that from us. We understand our work may be used for those reasons, but that’s not what we’ve done. We wanted to understand what happened and why.”

More objective?

Markey and others said they expect that investigations by Congress and federal agencies will be more objective and carry more weight.

P&J Oyster Co. owner Sal Sunseri, whose New Orleans-based business suffered after he was forced to stop shucking oysters in June, said he wasn’t sure how objective BP’s self-reporting could be but added that there’s enough blame to go around.

“Everyone involved in the production and operation of that rig is responsible,” he said. “Is BP’s report accurate? I don’t know. All I know is my business is directly affected, and I’m not able to do what I regularly do.”

Environmental groups also gave little quarter.

“This report is more concerned with calming BP’s shareholders than taking responsibility for its actions,” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity.

One group cared less about the finger-pointing and more about future incidents.

“We need to make sure BP, the federal government and the entire oil and gas industry have far better plans and practices in place to respond to their mistakes,” said Aaron Viles, campaign director for the Gulf Restoration Network, a New Orleans-based environmental group.

No comment by API

Spokesmen for two major trade groups, the American Petroleum Institute in Washington and the International Association of Drilling Contractors in Houston, declined to comment on BP’s report.

Mihael Ivic, owner of Misho’s Oyster Co. in San Leon, saw his oyster inventory drop to the lowest level in 10 years after the spill. But he doesn’t think BP deserves all the blame.

“There is probably guilt on each side,” said Ivic, who says compensation payments from BP have helped keep his business afloat. “I really don’t think we should bad-mouth BP because the same thing could happen to any other company. Now that everything is over, they are willing to cover all consequences.”

Reporters Matthew Tresaugue and Jennifer A. Dlouhy contributed to this report.

purva.patel@chron.com

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Press Release: NIH to launch Gulf oil spill health study

The National Institutes of Health will launch a multi-year study this fall to look at the potential health effects from the oil spill in the Gulf region. The Gulf Worker Study, announced by NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., in June, is in response to the largest oil spill in U.S. history, caused by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Dr. Collins pledged $10 million in NIH funding for the study’s initial phases.

That’s fine to study it, but what about the people that are currently EXPERIENCING the health impacts; how about $10 Mill to help them and by the way, stop spraying the dispersants in coastal areas (which is still happening under cover of darkness using Defense Dept. airplanes). DV

To read the entire press release, please see http://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/releases/2010/gulf-study.cfm.

______________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Robin Mackar, NIH/NIEHS
(919) 541-0073

07 Sep 2010: NIH to Launch Gulf Oil Spill Health Study
BP will provide additional funds for research
The National Institutes of Health will launch a multi-year study this fall to look at the potential health effects from the oil spill in the Gulf region. The Gulf Worker Study, announced by NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., in June, is in response to the largest oil spill in U.S. history, caused by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Dr. Collins pledged $10 million in NIH funding for the study’s initial phases.

To help expedite the launch of the study, BP will contribute an additional $10 million to NIH for this and other important health research. The BP funding will come through the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GRI). The GRI is a ten-year, $500 million independent research program established by BP to better understand and mitigate the environmental and potential health effects of the Gulf spill. The NIH will have full autonomy regarding the distribution of the $10 million, with input from external scientific experts in environmental health and who are familiar with the Gulf region.

“It was clear to us that we need to begin immediately studying the health of the workers most directly involved in responding to this crisis,” said Collins. “The donation from BP will help speed our work with CDC, EPA, and other federal agencies, academia, as well as state and local partners to carry out this important study.” Collins asked the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the NIH, to lead the research project.

The study will focus on workers’ exposure to oil and dispersant products, and potential health consequences such as respiratory, neurobehavioral, carcinogenic, and immunological conditions. The study is also expected to evaluate mental health concerns and other oil spill-related stressors such as job loss, family disruption, and financial uncertainties.

“Clean-up workers are likely to be the most heavily exposed of all population groups in the Gulf Coast region,” said Dale Sandler, Ph.D., chief of the Epidemiology Branch at NIEHS and lead researcher on the study. “We plan to enroll workers with varying levels of exposure. For example, we hope to recruit workers involved in oil burning, skimming and booming, equipment decontamination, wildlife cleanup, and also those with lower exposure such as shoreline clean-up workers. We’ll also recruit some people who completed the worker safety training, but did not have the opportunity to do any clean-up work. They will be our study controls.”

Sandler added, “What we learn from this study may help us prepare for future incidents that put clean-up workers at risk.”

The current focus of NIEHS is to ensure that the Gulf communities most affected by the oil spill have a say in the study’s design and implementation, as well as input into future research directions. The NIEHS is hosting webinars and other community engagement activities to obtain input.

“Community involvement and participation is critical to the success of this study,” said Linda Birnbaum, Ph.D., director of NIEHS and the National Toxicology Program.
NIH and the Department of Health and Human Services have had a continuous presence in the Gulf since the explosion occurred. The NIEHS Worker Education and Training Program (WETP) used its 24 years of experience preparing people for hazardous conditions to contribute to training more than 100,000 workers in the Gulf so they could safely clean up the oil spill. The WETP also distributed thousands of pocket-sized training booklets in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese, so workers have the information they need to protect themselves. The WETP materials are available at http://niehs.nih.gov/wetp/index.cfm?id=2495.

The NIEHS supports research to understand the effects of the environment on human health and is part of NIH. For more information on environmental health topics, visit our Web site at http://www.niehs.nih.gov. Subscribe to one or more of the NIEHS news lists (http://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/releases/newslist/index.cfm) to stay current on NIEHS news, press releases, grant opportunities, training, events, and publications.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) – The Nation’s Medical Research Agency – includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov .

Special thanks to Richard Charter