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