Gerald Herbert, The Associated PressNew marsh grass was photographed Tuesday in an area that had been impacted by the oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill near East Grand Terre Island.

Louisiana authorities report oil sightings from Gulf of Mexico spill
Published: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 5:38 PM Updated: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 5:53 PM
Times-Picayune Staff
Here is a list, released by Louisiana emergency officials, of areas where oil was sighted Thursday. The list is not a comprehensive tally of areas affected by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
St Bernard Parish
Dark brown substance, 50 feet by 25 feet, in an unnamed marsh island in Lake Fortuna 0.4 mile north-northeast of Point Gardner.
Plaquemines Parish
Oil sheen in Pass Abel 1 mile N of the E end of Isle Grande Terre.
Oil sheen in Lake Grand Ecaille 1.46 miles W of Rattlesnake Bayou.
Oil patch, 20 feet by 10 feet, in an unnamed marsh island in Black Bay a half mile north-northwest of Grassy Point.
Jefferson Parish
Oil sheen in Bayou Saint Denis 0.54 mile southwest of the south entrance to Bayou Cutler.
Lafourche Parish
Three very small pools of oil on the east bank of Bell Pass 0.7 mile north of the mouth.

http://www.ogj.com/index/article-display/1349024976/articles/oil-gas-journal/general-interest-2/hse/2010/08/epa_-noaa_seek_to.html
EPA, NOAA seek to expand oil-tracking for spill in gulf
Paula Dittrick
OGJ Senior Staff Writer

HOUSTON, Aug. 12 — The US Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are considering how to expand and coordinate oil tracking efforts to include Gulf of Mexico coastal state officials and others, a spill response official said.

National Incident Commander and retired US Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said questions have been raised since NOAA reported 74% of the oil spilled from BP PCL’s Macondo well has evaporated or been burned, skimmed, dispersed, and recovered. NOAA’s report also called for more research (OGJ, Aug. 9, 2010, p. 28).

“I think what we’d like to do is go out there and make sure we absolutely have a coordinated effort: federal, state, and local,” Allen told reporters during an Aug. 11 conference call. “What we’d like to do is create an integrated monitoring system…now that the well is capped.”

NOAA’s report prompted questions about the rate of the oil’s biodegradation. Pedro Alvarez, Rice University chairman of civil and environmental engineering, said the report did not include specific date on which its conclusions were based.

“The bottom line is that 26% of the estimated release remains as an oily phase,” Alvarez said. “This does not mean the remaining 74% of the spill has been solved. Most of that has not been removed as implied by the report. Most of that 74% is still in the water, migrating and spreading, and also possibly degrading.”

More than 25 government and independent scientists contributed to calculating the remaining oil. NOAA’s report was based upon an estimated 4.9 million bbl of oil total released by the well as calculated by the government’s Flow Rate Technical Group. BP captured 800,000 bbl.

Jane Lubchenco, NOAA administrator, said, “Less oil on the surface does not mean that there isn’t oil still in the water column or that our beaches and marshes aren’t still at risk. Knowing generally what happened to the oil helps us better understand areas of risk and likely impacts.”

The oil spill stemmed from a blowout of the Macondo well in 5,000 ft of water on Mississippi Canyon Block 252. Transocean Ltd.’s Deepwater Horizon semisubmersible drilled the well for BP and its partners. A fire and explosion on the Deepwater Horizon killed 11 people.

Contact Paula Dittrick at paulad@ogjonline.com.
To access this Article, go to: http://www.ogj.com/ogj/en-us/index/article-tools-template.articles.oil-gas-journal.general-interest-2.hse.2010.08.epa_-noaa_seek_to.html

Oil spill shows difficulty the Coast Guard faces as it balances traditional tasks with post-9/11 missions

By Joe Stephens and Mary Pat Flaherty
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 13, 2010; A01

The U.S. Coast Guard in recent years has fought international terrorism, defended Iraqi pipelines and patrolled for pirates in the Arabian Sea.

Its work in such high-visibility missions accelerated after Sept. 11, 2001, when Congress swept the Coast Guard into the Homeland Security Department. More funding followed.

But the changes had the unintended consequence of lowering the profile of the Coast Guard’s vital programs related to oil. “Priorities changed,” a 2002 Coast Guard budget report said.

Internal and congressional studies highlighted the difficulty the agency faces in balancing its many added responsibilities. “Oil-spill issues were not at the top of the list,” said retired Capt. Lawson Brigham, a former strategic planner for the Coast Guard.

When Coast Guard inspectors board offshore drilling rigs such as the Deepwater Horizon, which exploded and killed 11 workers in April, they rely on regulations put in place three decades ago, when offshore drilling operations were far less sophisticated, records show. The Coast Guard acknowledged 11 years ago in a little-noticed disclosure that its regulations had “not kept pace with the changing offshore technology or the safety problems it creates.”

Since the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, investigations into oversight gaps have focused on systemic problems within the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, which in recent weeks has been renamed and revamped.

But the Coast Guard, which shared oversight with MMS, has largely escaped scrutiny. While the MMS inspected drilling equipment, the Coast Guard inspected rigs for worker safety. It also set standards for companies that clean up spills, and has coordinated the joint response to the spill in the gulf.

Some analysts said the spill highlights the need to rethink Coast Guard priorities. In the past 35 years, Congress has handed the agency at least 27 new responsibilities, according to a tally by Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

“They just don’t have enough personnel to carry out all those missions,” said Oberstar, who favors severing the Coast Guard from the Homeland Security Department. “That’s just not possible.”

Coast Guard officials said they did not have budget figures to compare how much is spent on oil-related programs now and before Sept. 11, 2001. Even current budget numbers for these programs are unclear because spending falls into two categories that encompass many other activities, including fighting invasive species and oversight of recreational boating. Marine environmental protection was allotted 2 percent of this year’s operating expenses, marine safety 8 percent.

The Coast Guard said that before 2001, the agency was organized differently. A private study in 2003 by one Coast Guard officer calculated that, before the attacks, marine environmental programs accounted for 11 percent of operating funds and marine safety accounted for 14 percent.

Congressional staffers said the lack of reliable figures has complicated their efforts to ensure that vital programs are not neglected.

Juggling diverse missions is far from the only challenge the Coast Guard faces. Its maritime fleet is aging, and a long-delayed fleet- modernization plan has suffered design flaws and cost overruns; it is now under Justice Department scrutiny. The White House has recommended budget cuts. And the Coast Guard’s marine-safety programs have suffered a drain as personnel sought higher-profile assignments.

Senior Coast Guard officials said the agency’s many missions make it stronger because ships patrolling for terrorists might happen across drug smugglers or an oil slick. They said that crews develop complementary skills and that combining missions saves money.

Coast Guard officials point out that until April, oil spills had decreased dramatically. They said mission statistics do not reflect the division of labor at sea, where crews are ready for whatever comes their way.

“The Coast Guard takes its role as an environmental-response agency seriously,” said Capt. Anthony Lloyd, chief of the Office of Incident Management and Preparedness.

But even some defenders of the Coast Guard fear that it is edging toward crisis.

“It’s basically at the breaking point,” former commander Stephen Flynn said.

Community policing

Federal regulation of offshore drilling grew over the years into a patchwork. The MMS leased offshore drilling rights to private companies, approved emergency response plans and inspected drilling equipment. The Coast Guard ensured the seaworthiness of mobile drilling units.

Today, Coast Guard inspectors examine navigational equipment, lifesaving apparatus and fire protection systems, and look after day-to-day worker safety. The agency also oversees containment of oil and major spill cleanup.

The most rigorous Coast Guard inspections occur on U.S.-flagged oil rigs; they last for days. Rigs registered in other countries, such as the Marshall Islands-flagged Deepwater Horizon, get a six-hour review. A three-person Coast Guard team last visited Deepwater Horizon in July 2009, found no major deficiencies and issued a two-year compliance certificate.

When inspectors show up, they often spot-check paperwork produced by private companies, which the Coast Guard refers to as “stakeholders.”

“It’s more of a community policing kind of approach: get to know the neighbors, help an old lady cross the street,” said Flynn, the former Coast Guard commander, who heads the Center for National Policy, a Washington think tank. “You build a level of collaboration, rather than an ‘us-vs.-them’ kind of approach.”

Two months before the gulf blowout, the Obama administration proposed a 3 percent cut in Coast Guard funding and active-duty personnel. The plan would slash 1,100 military personnel and decommission the National Strike Force Coordination Center, which manages oil-spill response. “Not a good idea,” Oberstar said.

Coast Guard officials have long acknowledged strained resources, especially with ships and aircraft.

In February, Adm. Thad Allen, then Coast Guard commandant, said in a speech that the Coast Guard operates one of the world’s oldest fleets, with high-endurance cutters averaging 41 years of age, compared to 14 for the U.S. Navy.

“No amount of maintenance can outpace the ravages of age,” Allen said, describing the sputtering performance of cutters assigned to Haiti relief work. “The condition of our fleet continues to deteriorate, putting our crews at risk, jeopardizing our ability to do the job.”

During the initial gulf response, Coast Guard logs show that three aircraft and one cutter suffered mechanical problems that delayed or scuttled their missions, according to a study by the Center for Public Integrity.

Alarming stories

In 2007, at Allen’s request, Vice Admiral James C. Card interviewed 170 civilian mariners and Coast Guard personnel about marine safety operations. He found consensus that programs were deteriorating.

The biggest concern, Card wrote in his report, “was that the Coast Guard no longer considered Marine Safety an important mission.”

The Coast Guard had become a “fundamentally different” organization, Card was told. New editions of the official “U.S. Coast Guard Strategy,” a 54-page manual, contained a single page discussing marine safety, agency personnel said.

Many experienced inspectors have left the service or have transferred to more “career-enhancing” assignments, leaving behind a significant number who are seen as unqualified, the report said. In one service division, marine inspectors spent only about 40 percent of their time on inspections.

“Every Marine Safety professional I talked to in the Coast Guard, both at Headquarters and in the field, said they didn’t have enough people to do the job,” Card wrote. “Some stories were alarming.”

Officers feared that choosing to work in marine safety for the long term could damage their careers because senior officials were unsupportive. The report did not address environmental-response programs, but said many people interviewed expressed similar concerns about those programs losing “experience, resources, knowledge and focus.”

The report’s findings were underscored this year at a hearing on the Deepwater Horizon blowout. Lt. Commander Michael Odom, head of the team that inspected the rig in July 2009, testified that Coast Guard regulations are outdated.

“The pace of the technology has definitely outrun the current regulations,” Odom testified.

In fact, qualifications for inspectors assigned to mobile offshore drilling units, such as Deepwater, have not been updated since 2007. Although offshore inspectors are supposed to receive annual specialized training, that has occurred sporadically, officers testified in May. Even with training, they said, it takes a year for an inspector to comprehend the technologically complex rigs.

Others in the field fear that an overemphasis on homeland security could actually make the United States less safe, by drawing funding and attention away from other programs

“Spending so little on this just makes no sense,” Flynn said. “I can’t come up with any terrorism scenario, short of perhaps a nuclear weapon launched near a city, that could produce nearly as much destruction as we’re seeing with this man-made disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/08/bp-may-have-already-sealed-well-for-good-decision-on-plug-expected.html

OIL SPILL — August 13, 2010 at 4:06 PM EST

BY: TOM LEGRO AND LEA WINERMAN

Updated 3:34 p.m.
National Incident Commander Adm. Thad Allen said Friday that the blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is not yet dead, and that BP will proceed with a relief well to permanently kill it.

“Everyone agrees we need to move forward with the relief well, but the question is how to do that,” Allen told reporters.

He said that pressure tests have shown that pressure in the well has remained fairly steady since the “static kill” operation last month that pumped in mud and cement from the top of the well through the well pipe. The steady pressure readings indicate that some of that mud and cement entered the reservoir and came back up through the annulus — the area between the pipe and the outside of the well that the relief well was meant to plug.

But Allen said Friday that engineers don’t know the thickness or strength of the layer of cement currently plugging the annulus. So they can’t consider the well permanently plugged, and must move forward with the relief well.

At the same time, they have to proceed carefully with the relief well “bottom kill” — pumping in mud and cement from the bottom of the well could force up oil and mud now trapped in the annulus, and they don’t want to increase the pressure too much at the top of the well.

“That’s the essence of the discussion that’s going on right now,” Allen said.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who attended a meeting with Allen and other officials Friday, told reporters at a press conference that he was glad the work on the relief well would continue.

“If it’s a nearly redundant safety measure, that makes sense to us,” he said, according to the Associated Press.

Updated 10:06 a.m.

Officials hope to know early Friday if BP’s oil well in the Gulf of Mexico has been sealed for good. Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the federal government’s person in charge of the effort, scheduled a news conference for 1:45 p.m. EDT to give an update on the operation.

On Thursday, Allen said it was possible that a final fix, known as a “bottom kill,” will not be necessary. After a temporary cap was placed on top of the well last month, heavy drilling mud and cement were pumped in from the top in what is called a “static kill.”
“We may be the victims of our own success here,” Allen said on Thursday. “If the cement is already there it would obviate the need to do the bottom kill.”

An analysis of tests on the well done Thursday was scheduled to be completed Friday. Workers tested pressure levels in the space between the inner piping and outer casing. Rising pressure means the bottom kill still needs to be done, Allen said. Steady pressure may mean cement already has plugged the space.

Allen said there is concern that pumping more mud and cement would increase pressure inside the well, sending oil up the well column, damaging the blowout preventer and escaping into the water.

In other news ..
.
Alabama’s attorney general filed lawsuits Thursday evening against BP and several other companies over the Gulf of Mexico oil leak disaster.

In two separate suits, Attorney General Troy King seeks unspecified damages. A BP spokesman said the company had not seen the lawsuits and could not comment.

The Mobile Press-Register also reports that a spokesman for Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said that Alabama should have first presented its claim before suing and that King “was too quick in filing the lawsuit.”
*
Michael Bromwich, the Interior Department’s new offshore-drilling chief said that the agency had relied too much on the oil and gas industry it was supposed to police, reports the Wall Street Journal, setting the stage for a regulatory revamp.
*
Special thanks to Richard Charter

This is tantamount to giving BP credit to deliver the funds later; why isn’t it due and payable immediately? Surely they can pledge the oil receivables to someone else–say, in the financial market if they are short of cash, which I doubt given the bonus structures discussed earlier this summer. DV

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iqSZ8tTTR0qV5UDr–XvWf5o3PIwD9HHJ9Q02

(AP) – 3 hours ago 8/11/10
WASHINGTON – The $20 billion victims’ compensation fund established for the Gulf oil spill may use revenue from BP’s oil and gas drilling as collateral, according to details released Wednesday by the White House.

The government watchdog group Public Citizen criticized the arrangement as a conflict of interest, arguing that it gives the government a financial incentive to encourage BP to keep drilling offshore.

BP has already made a $3 billion initial deposit, announced Monday. The company must pay $2 billion more this year and continue in installments of $1.25 billion, according to the trust documents released Wednesday.

The trust calls for a collateral fund to ensure that all the necessary money will be available if something happens to the BP subsidiary that established the trust. Details must still be negotiated, but the trust documents say that unless a different agreement is reached, BP will agree to give the trust first priority to production payments from the company’s U.S. oil and gas production as collateral.

Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s energy program, said that securing the compensation fund with drilling revenue “is wildly inappropriate, as it will make the government and BP virtual partners in Gulf oil production. … It will give the government a financial incentive to become an even bigger booster of offshore oil drilling in the Gulf.”

The trust fund was negotiated by the Justice Department. A department spokeswoman did not immediately return a call for comment.

The trust is to be administered by two independent trustees, with claims being processed by Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration’s pay czar.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

There’s a nice little video clip highlighting the increase in oiled turtles recovered in the Gulf on the CNN website:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/08/11/sylvester.oil.and.turtles.cnn?hpt=T2

Houston Chronicle
August 11, 2010

http://blogs.chron.com/newswatchenergy/archives/2010/08/did_the_feds_tr_1.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+houstonchronicle%2Fnewswatchenergy+%28NewsWatch%3A+Energy%29

Did the feds try to squelch “oil plume” data?

Early on during the Gulf oil spill, the New York Times interviewed a group of scientists aboard a research ship who were pulled off of one assignment to start studying the environmental impacts of the spill. They told the Times they thought they were finding large plumes of oil underwater

many miles from the spill.

A few days later, however, NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco issued a statement saying the Times story wasn’t completely accurate and that the findings hadn’t been fully analyzed.

Now, the scientists at the center of the story say NOAA was trying to squelch the findings, according to The St. Petersburg
Times
http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/article1114225.ece
(even though NOAA later confirmed the plumes):
http://blogs.chron.com/newswatchenergy/archives/2010/06/post_22.html

“I got lambasted by the Coast Guard and NOAA when we said there was undersea oil,” USF marine sciences dean William Hogarth said. Some officials even told him to retract USF’s public announcement, he said, comparing it to being “beat up” by federal officials.

The USF scientists weren’t alone. Vernon Asper, an oceanographer at the University of Southern Mississippi, was part of a similar effort that met with a similar reaction. “We expected that NOAA would be pleased because we found something very, very interesting,” Asper said. “NOAA instead responded by trying to discredit us. It was just a shock to us.”

NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, in comments she made to reporters in May, expressed strong skepticism about the existence of undersea oil plumes — as did BP’s then-CEO, Tony Hayward.

“She basically called us inept idiots,” Asper said. “We took that very personally.”

Lubchenco told the paper the her agency told the USF researchers and others involved in the study of undersea plumes that they should hold off talking so openly about it.

“What we asked for, was for people to stop speculating before they had a chance to analyze what they were finding,” Lubchenco said. “We think that’s in everybody’s interest. … We just wanted to try to make sure that we knew something before we speculated about it.”

So was it scientific caution or an attempted cover-up?

Science and environmental journalists I’ve talked to think the notion of Lubchenco trying to keep the truth under wraps for the benefit of BP seems like a stretch. And lawyers might argue it’s in the government’s best interest for the damages from the spill to look particularly bad so as to make prosecution/massive settlement-related fines with BP easier.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/article1114225.ece

St. Pete Times

USF says government tried to squelch their oil plume findings

By Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Tuesday, August 10, 2010

A month after the Deepwater Horizon disaster began, scientists from the University of South Florida made a startling announcement. They had found signs that the oil spewing from the well had formed a 6-mile-wide plume snaking along in the deepest recesses of the gulf.

The reaction that USF announcement received from the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agencies that sponsored their research:

Shut up.

“I got lambasted by the Coast Guard and NOAA when we said there was undersea oil,” USF marine sciences dean William Hogarth said. Some officials even told him to retract USF’s public announcement, he said, comparing it to being “beat up” by federal officials.

The USF scientists weren’t alone. Vernon Asper, an oceanographer at the University of Southern Mississippi, was part of a similar effort that met with a similar reaction. “We expected that NOAA would be pleased because we found something very, very interesting,” Asper said. “NOAA instead responded by trying to discredit us. It was just a shock to us.”

NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, in comments she made to reporters in May, expressed strong skepticism about the existence of undersea oil plumes – as did BP’s then-CEO, Tony Hayward.

“She basically called us inept idiots,” Asper said. “We took that very personally.”

Lubchenco confirmed Monday that her agency told USF and other academic institutions involved in the study of undersea plumes that they should hold off talking so openly about it. “What we asked for, was for people to stop speculating before they had a chance to analyze what they were finding,” Lubchenco said. “We think that’s in everybody’s interest. Š We just wanted to try to make sure that we knew something before we speculated about it.”
“We had solid evidence, rock solid,” Asper said. “We weren’t speculating.” If he had to do it over again, he said, he’d do it all exactly the same way, despite Lubchenco’s ire.

Coast Guard officials did not respond to a request for comment on Hogarth’s accusation.

The discovery of multiple undersea plumes of oil droplets was eventually verified by one of NOAA’s own research vessels. And last month USF scientists announced they at last could match the oil droplets in the undersea plumes to the millions of barrels of oil that gushed from the collapsed well until it was capped July 15.

“What we have learned completely changes the idea of what an oil spill is,” USF scientist David Hollander said then. “It has gone from a two-dimensional disaster to a three-dimensional catastrophe.”

Now Lubchenco is not only convinced the undersea plumes exist, but she is predicting that some of the spill’s most significant impacts will be caused by their effect on juvenile sea creatures such as bluefin tuna. Lubchenco and her staff say they are now working smoothly with USF and other academic institutions in investigating the consequences of the largest marine oil spill in history.

However, Hogarth said, not all is hunky-dory.

USF’s first NOAA-sponsored voyage to take samples after Deepwater Horizon, the one that turned up evidence of the undersea plumes, was designed to gather evidence for use in an eventual court case against BP and other oil companies involved in the disaster. At the end of the voyage, USF turned its samples over to NOAA, expecting to get either a shared analysis or the samples themselves back. So far, Hogarth said, they’ve received neither.

NOAA’s top oil spill scientist, Steve Murawski, said Monday that he was “sure we will release the data” at some point. However, he said, because NOAA has collected so many samples over the past three months, when it comes to the samples from USF’s trip in May, “I’m not sure where they are.”

Lubchenco’s agency came under fire last week for a new report that said “the vast majority” of the oil from Deepwater Horizon had been taken care of.

Scientists who read the report closely said it actually said half the oil was still unaccounted for.

Lubchenco said anyone who read the report as saying the oil was gone read it wrong.

“Out of sight and diluted does not mean benign,” she said.

Special thanks to Richard Charter