July 7, 2010

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704545004575353364174224780.html?mod=djemalertNEWS

Backup Plans as Obama, Cameron Meet
By MONICA LANGLEY

BP PLC is pushing to fix its runaway Gulf oil well by July 27, possibly weeks before the deadline the company is discussing publicly, in a bid to show investors it has capped its ballooning financial liabilities, according to company officials.

At the same time, BP is readying a series of backup plans in case its current operations go awry. These include connecting the rogue well to existing pipelines in two nearby underwater gas and oil fields, according to company and administration officials.
Much of the additional planning has been pushed by the U.S. government, which has urged BP to develop what one official called the “backup to the backup plan.” Both BP and the federal government are concentrating on their next steps, particularly because of uncertainty caused by the imminent hurricane season and the protracted political and financial damage caused by the endless spill.

Both BP and the Coast Guard continue to state publicly they’re aiming to have a fix in place in early to mid-August. BP has discussed its backup plans only with administration officials, who in turn have briefed President Barack Obama.

The July 27 target date is the day the company is expected to report second-quarter earnings and will speak to investors. BP also wants to show progress by July 20, the day U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron is scheduled to visit the White House.

“In a perfect world with no interruptions, it’s possible to be ready to stop the well between July 20 and July 27,” said the head of BP’s Gulf Coast restoration unit, managing director Bob Dudley, in an interview. He added that this “perfect case” is threatened by the hurricane season and is “unlikely.”

On Wednesday, on a visit to the Discoverer Enterprise, the ship that’s collecting oil from the well, Mr. Dudley got word of a nine-day period of clear weather starting Friday, a period that could prove critical to the effort.

BP is drilling two relief wells through which it will pump material designed to seal the leaking well. One is now 12 feet horizontally and 300 feet vertically from the target spot.

Billy Brown, president of Blackhawk Specialty Tools, a BP contractor helping with the relief-well process, said Wednesday the effort is progressing ahead of schedule.

Mindful of prior snafus, BP has quietly crafted backup plans. The first would force spewing oil to a depleted gas field on the ocean floor two miles away. The second would move the oil to an existing underwater oil field nine miles away. Both require laying flow lines, either flexible or hard steel piping, to connect the leaking well to existing wellheads on these older sites.

The engineers described their plans at a seven-hour meeting last week featuring BP engineers and Energy Secretary Steve Chu, held at BP’s Houston crisis center. Mr. Chu said he told them: “Force yourself to think each one will fail.” In an interview, he added: “We’re in new territory full of perils, and nothing is a slam dunk.”

BP’s Mr. Dudley reviewed Wednesday the company’s engineering work with retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, who heads the Obama administration’s effort.

Flying by helicopter to the ship collecting oil, the two men discussed the backup options. All around the ship, 43 miles offshore, the ocean was tinged orange.

The stakes are huge for BP, which has lost nearly half of its market capitalization since the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig April 20.

The company’s board is setting up a “Gulf of Mexico” committee for a few directors to delve deeply into the disaster’s safety and financial implications.

When they announce earnings July 27, BP officials hope to provide investors with more information on the estimated liabilities from the Gulf spill.

One official said the company wants to be able to describe the oil spill as finite, not infinite, a moment that would allow it to start calculating the total potential liabilities under U.S. law.

To prepare Prime Minister Cameron to speak with Mr. Obama about one of the U.K.’s largest companies, British Ambassador to the U.S. Nigel Sheinwald last Friday attended BP briefings in Houston and New Orleans and then toured the damaged Florida coast. He also met Coast Guard officials.

At Wednesday’s trip to the spill site, Mr. Dudley and Adm. Allen evaluated a prospect for controlling the spilla newly designed cap to replace the leaky one currently directing oil to ships on the surface.

The risk: removing the old cap could exacerbate the spill in the short run.

At the administration’s prodding, BP created a new device called an “autonomous subsea dispersant system.” Environmental Protection Agency head Lisa Jackson told BP to create such a capability to monitor and measure chemicals used underwater to break up the oil. The large volume of dispersants used has concerned scientists and some government officials.

In recent days, the company has installed new battery-powered equipment on the ocean floor that will inject dispersant into the flowing well. Typically, the dispersants are controlled by ships on the surface, but they may have to move if storms hit.

Separately, the BP-dominated consortium that operates the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, Alyeska Pipeline Service Co, said Chief Executive Kevin Hostler will retire in September.

Mr. Hostler, a former senior BP executive, had faced accusations from U.S. lawmakers that efforts to cut costs put the integrity of the pipeline at risk.

A spokesperson for Alyeska couldn’t be reached for comment.

Angel Gonzalez and Guy Chazan contributed to this article.
Write to Monica Langley at monica.langley@wsj.com

Finding Relief
Shortly after the Deepwater Horizon accident, BP began drilling relief wells in hopes of stopping the flow of oil. Click to enlarge graphic and see how the process works.
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-enlargePic07.html?project=imageShell07&bigImage=P1-AW129A_SPILLPLAN.gif&h=1083&w=579&title=WSJ.COM&thePubDate=20100707

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/08/oil.drilling.moratorium/index.html?hpt=T2

New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) — A federal appeals panel on Thursday upheld a district judge’s order to block the Obama administration’s six-month ban on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. In a brief ruling just a few hours after the hearing, the three-judge appellate panel denied the government’s request to reinstate the moratorium while the full appeal of the case continues.

Keith Olberman reports that two of the three judges have litigated cases for big oil and one has $300,000 in stock in oil companies.

____________

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/08/oil.drilling.moratorium/index.html?hpt=T2

Federal appeals panel denies government bid to reinstate drilling ban
A federal appeals panel upheld a district judge’s order to block the ban on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

From David Mattingly, CNN
July 8, 2010 8:32 p.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* NEW: Louisiana governor welcomes ruling, but says case far from over
* Appeals panel upholds order blocking Obama administration’s ban on deepwater drilling
* Panel says government “failed to demonstrate a likelihood of irreparable injury”
* Panel orders appeal of the case to be expedited

New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) — A federal appeals panel on Thursday upheld a district judge’s order to block the Obama administration’s six-month ban on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

In a brief ruling just a few hours after the hearing, the three-judge appellate panel denied the government’s request to reinstate the moratorium while the full appeal of the case continues.

The government declared the moratorium in response to the April 20 explosion and fire on a deepwater rig that led to the Gulf oil disaster, with millions of gallons gushing into the ocean and oil giant BP unable to stop it.

Oil companies, Gulf state politicians and local residents opposed the moratorium, saying it was unnecessary and further harmed a regional economy still reeling from Hurricane Katrina.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman issued a preliminary injunction against the ban, which halted all drilling in more than 500 feet of water and prevented new permits from being issued. The government appealed the ruling and asked for an emergency stay of Feldman’s decision while the case continued.

On Thursday, the appellate panel of the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected the government’s request, saying it had “failed to demonstrate a likelihood of irreparable injury if the stay is not granted.”

The ruling also said there was no evidence that deepwater drilling would resume immediately as the case goes on.

In the ruling, the appellate judges said the government can apply for an emergency halt to any drilling that it can show “has commenced or is about to commence.”

The panel ordered the appeal of the case to be expedited, with arguments on the full appeal of the lower court ruling blocking the moratorium to take place during the week of August 30.

One of the three appellate judges filed a partial dissent that called for reinstating the moratorium, but agreed with giving the government the right to apply for an emergency halt to any drilling, as well as expediting the hearing for the full appeal.

There was no immediate government comment on whether it would appeal Thursday’s ruling to the full 5th Circuit appellate court or try to take other steps to reinstate the moratorium. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has said the government could impose a second moratorium.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, in a statement Thursday, said he was pleased at the court ruling but added “this matter is not resolved and there remains uncertainty about the future of deepwater drilling and thousands of jobs in our state.”

“We have very serious concerns that the Department of Interior is going to announce a second moratorium,” Jindal said. “As members of the court pointed out today during the hearing, despite the injunction against the original moratorium, we currently have a de facto moratorium because of uncertainty from the Department of Interior.”

Jindal said “serious job losses” would result from a six-month moratorium, costing at least $65 million in lost wages in Louisiana.

Last month, Salazar called a six-month halt on deepwater drilling “needed, appropriate and within our authorities” as the government assessed the safety of such operations in the aftermath of the Gulf oil catastrophe.

“We see clear evidence every day, as oil spills from BP’s well, of the need for a pause on deepwater drilling,” Salazar said in a statement on June 22.

But a group of companies that provides boats and equipment to the offshore drilling industry filed a lawsuit claiming the government has no evidence that existing operations pose a threat to the Gulf of Mexico and asked the court to declare the moratorium invalid and unenforceable.

Feldman agreed, writing in his ruling, “an invalid agency decision to suspend drilling of wells in depths of over 500 feet simply cannot justify the immeasurable effect on the plaintiffs, the local economy, the Gulf region, and the critical present-day aspect of the availability of domestic energy in this country.”

In issuing the ruling, Feldman said that “the court is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings (of the government) and the immense scope of the moratorium. The plaintiffs assert that they have suffered and will continue to suffer irreparable harm as a result of the moratorium. The court agrees.”

In response to Feldman’s ruling, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama “strongly believes, as the Department of Interior and Department of Justice argued … that continuing to drill at these depths without knowing what happened does not make any sense.”

Such drilling “puts the safety of those involved, potentially puts safety of those on the rigs and the safety of the environment and the Gulf at a danger that the president does not believe we can afford right now,” Gibbs said.

Specail thanks to Richard Charter

by Andrew Travers, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Amid new reports of oil washing up on the shores of Texas and inland in Louisiana’s Lake Ponchartrain from the ongoing 78-day-old BP oil spill, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) head Jane Lubchenco warned of unprecedented and unpredictable damage to the Gulf of Mexico’s ecosystem on Tuesday.

In an afternoon public interview with NBC newswoman Andrea Mitchell at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Lubchenco said the tar balls and black oil now washing up in all five coastal gulf states may not be the worst of what’s coming out of BP’s broken Deepwater Horizon well.

Lubchenco, a marine ecologist and Denver native picked by President Obama to run NOAA, described the unknowable threat of an invisible oil cloud sitting between 3,300 and 5,600 feet below the Gulf surface, hovering around the still-leaking well.

“What we are seeing from many of our research vessels that are out there is the appearance of a cloud of very fine droplets,” she said.

While the oil on the surface is contaminating beaches and killing marshlands, they can’t say what this underwater layer is doing, because they’ve never seen one before.

“That layer is introducing a lot of carbon into this ecosystem and we don’t know what the fate of that will be,” she explained, describing the cloud as “highly toxic and undoubtedly poisonous.”

“This is really unprecedented … . It is not like a black ooze that’s down there, it’s this cloud of fine mist and its impact is likely to be considerable,” she said.

Lubchenco said that, for now, the gulf current is not going to take oil into the Florida Keys or up the East Coast. But she said the feds are bracing themselves for this year’s hurricane season, which runs through the winter and has the potential to derail cleanup efforts and change the loop current.

“All signs are pointing to an above average hurricane season this year,” she said, noting that the National Hurricane Center has predicted three to seven major hurricanes for the Atlantic Ocean, and potentially the Gulf of Mexico. Last month’s Hurricane Alex, the first June hurricane on record since 1996, was hundreds of miles away from the spill and the federal cleanup effort. Yet, she said, “the waves that were generated by that storm really impaired much of the cleanup operation.”

Lubchenco made her fifth visit to the spill zone last week, along with Vice President Joe Biden. She said she has come to regard it as “a human tragedy and an environmental disaster.” The coastal residents she’s encountered are characterized by what she called “deep anger, deep anxiety, real frustration and genuine concern about the future.”

She championed an American movement toward renewable energy, and off of oil, while warning of the hazards of oil exploration in the Arctic which outweigh the risks in the Gulf of Mexico.

“This event is causing everyone to rethink the drilling practices everyplace,” she said. “The Arctic is particularly vulnerable environmentally. We don’t understand how oil behaves in really cold water. Once it gets under the ice it is next to impossible to recover it. And there are some very vulnerable species and habitats up there. There are many reasons to be concerned.”

Along with the long-term environmental havoc the BP spill will have on the Gulf Coast, Lubchenco said she remains hopeful that it will have a positive long-term legacy. Noting that the spill began days before the 40th annual celebration of Earth Day, she said she hopes 40 years from now the spill will have sparked a new global commitment to keeping oceans healthy.

In the meantime, she said her team is doing its best “bringing science to the table” while advising the U.S. Coast Guard and federal cleanup teams. “It’s been all hands on deck from the outset,” she said.

Of President Obama and the BP team attempting to stop the ongoing leak of 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil per day, she said, “They have been working really, really hard.”

andrew@aspendailynews.com
Special thanks to Richard Charter

07/07/2010

Noelle Straub, E&E reporter

The Obama administration has asked a federal appeals court to reinstate the six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling, saying it needs time to appeal a lower court’s lifting of the ban and to issue a revamped moratorium.

Because oil continues to spill into the Gulf of Mexico, “with catastrophic consequences to the environment and local economy — despite repeated efforts, using every available technology, to stop it,” the Interior Department had to take immediate action to minimize the risk of another spill, the department said in a court filing to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The stakes are even higher now that it is hurricane season,” the department wrote. “The suspension orders give Interior time to further implement 22 already-identified new safety measures and to develop others as it gathers more information. Therefore, that decision was a rational exercise, under emergency circumstances, of Interior’s substantial discretionary authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and its own regulations for suspending lease operations.”

The administration has been crafting a revised proposal since a federal judge struck down its original drilling ban.

President Obama in late May halted approval of new deepwater drilling permits and suspended drilling at 33 exploratory wells while an independent panel conducts a six-month study of offshore drilling safety. Hornbeck Offshore Services, an oil-field service company, sued over the moratorium, saying it would have severe economic consequences.

U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman agreed with the company and ordered the administration on June 22 to lift the moratorium, saying the government had not provided adequate reasoning for it and that it would have a permanent and harmful effect on the economy of the Gulf region.

The administration requested a stay, but Feldman two days later reaffirmed his order and gave the administration 30 days to comply.

In its request to reinstate the moratorium, Interior says it is “simply not true” that the department did not provide reason for the ban. The department says most of the country’s cleanup resources are already devoted to the current spill, and a second spill would further stress those efforts.

“Interior must protect the long-term public interest of the Nation in the prudent and safe exploitation and management of the OCS’s resources to ensure their viability for the future,” the filing says. “A short-term suspension of deepwater drilling while safety regulations are updated is necessary to achieve that goal.”

Interior also disputed claims the oil industry would collapse due to the moratorium, saying wells in production are unaffected and that the department must consider the effects of a second spill on the long-term health of the environment and economy.

The administration also said it would issue a new moratorium with some modifications, possibly including differentiating between areas where pressure and depth are known versus exploratory areas.

Last Wednesday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said a revised moratorium would come “in the next few days,” but the court filing said Interior would issue it “soon.” An Interior spokeswoman today declined to specify a timeline.

Industry and Gulf state politicians have strongly criticized the moratorium, saying it will serve as an economic blow to an already struggling region.

U.S. demands BP notice of sales

BP PLC confirmed today that it received a demand from U.S. authorities for advance notice of any asset sales or significant cash transfers, the Associated Press reported.

Assistant Attorney General Tony West, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Division, wrote to Rupert Bondy, BP’s general counsel, on June 23. Normally, the U.S. Justice Department does not require advance notice of such deals.

BP has not yet responded to the letter, a company spokesman told AP.

The letter asks BP to inform Justice in advance of “any planned or contemplated events that may involve substantial transfers of cash or other corporate assets outside of the ordinary course of business,” Agence France-Presse reported.

U.S. authorities should also be told of any “corporate restructuring, reorganisation, acquisitions, mergers, joint ventures, sales, divestments or disbursements,” it demands.

BP chief visits Middle East

BP CEO Tony Hayward flew to the wealthy emirate of Abu Dhabi to meet officials amid speculation that the oil giant is looking to raise cash to cover cleanup costs from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Associated Press reported.

Hayward arrived in the capital of the United Arab Emirates yesterday and would be staying “a couple of days,” a BP spokesman told AP. But he would not say whether Hayward planned to sit down with the region’s powerful investment funds, which have provided needed cash to Western multinationals in past times of crisis. BP has a long-standing partnership with the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., which is responsible for crude oil production in the Arab emirate.

BP has approached sovereign wealth funds with a view to securing a strategic investor to fend off takeover bids while it deals with its massive U.S. oil spill, Reuters reported yesterday. BP executives have held talks with a number of sovereign wealth funds, including funds in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Qatar and Singapore, according to Reuters.

Hayward visited Azerbaijan yesterday and Russia last week to reassure the countries that the company is committed to investments there.

BP said it has no plans to issue shares to help pay for the spill.

_______________

Mike Soraghan, E&E reporter

There are probably a lot of things Interior Department officials would like to change about the how they looked at BP Exploration and Production’s drilling operations.

They’ve found one thing that they can change — their website.

BP’s status as a finalist for the “Safety Award for Excellence” from the disgraced and now-renamed Minerals Management Service has been deleted from Interior’s site.

Before the April 20 blowout at BP’s Macondo well fouled the Gulf of Mexico with millions of gallons of oil, MMS had announced that BP was a finalist for the prize, known as the SAFE award. The other finalists in the “high-activity” drilling category — meaning those that produce more than 10 million barrels of oil a year — were Eni U.S. Operating Co. and Exxon Mobil Corp.

A Google cache snapshot of the MMS website shows the page as it appeared on June 6, 2010. Click here for a larger version of the image.

The winner was to be announced at an MMS-sponsored awards lunch during the 2010 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston on May 3. But the awards lunch was canceled, and the winner has never been announced.

The drilling conference, whose sponsors included BP and Halliburton Co., was not canceled. And MMS has since been renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

Interior officials failed to respond to messages asking why BP’s name was deleted, except to e-mail a copy of the notice canceling the May 3 lunch. Interior spokesman Todd Hughes said the award has not been given out because the lunch has not been rescheduled.

BP has won the award once before, in 1992, when it tied with Conoco. BP was also a finalist in 2009, when Exxon Mobil won.

Transocean Ltd., which drilled the blown-out well from its Deepwater Horizon rig, won in 1999 and 2008. The company was nominated in 2007.

The department has been giving the award for 25 years. The current awards lunch and program at the Houston offshore conference began in 1999.

The award is intended to recognize offshore companies for outstanding work on safety and preventing pollution “by adhering to all regulations, employing trained and motivated personnel, and going the extra mile to enhance safety and environmental protection,” according to MMS materials. It is also designed to “encourage voluntary compliance.”

Much of the agency’s safety program for offshore drilling has been based on such voluntary compliance.

MMS adopted a voluntary approach to safety and environmental compliance in 1994 during the Clinton administration. Last year, BP joined with other oil companies such as Exxon Mobil to oppose a plan to switch to a more regulatory approach involving audits and unannounced inspections. The rules have not been not implemented (Greenwire, April 27).

The safety records of BP and other companies have taken on increased importance as the Obama administration and the industry try to determine the appropriate long-term response to the BP spill.

Other companies’ safety records were similar to BP’s

When U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman lifted the Obama administration’s moratorium on offshore drilling last month, he suggested that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar should have examined the safety records of the other companies that were hit by the moratorium (Greenwire, June 24).

“The secretary’s determination that a six-month moratorium on issuance of new permits and on drilling by the thirty-three rigs is necessary does not seem to be fact-specific and refuses to take into measure the safety records of those others in the Gulf,” Feldman wrote in his preliminary injunction. In a footnote, he noted that Interior’s “blitz” inspection after the explosion found all 33 other rigs in deep water to be safe.

But a Greenwire analysis of Interior safety records showed there was little difference between BP and its peers drilling in the Gulf. BP ranked a close third in penalties for safety violations. And statistics compiled on injuries and fires show that BP’s records were comparable to those of other deepwater drilling companies (Greenwire, June 24).

The plaque and citation that accompany the honor recognize the company’s performance in the prior year. Companies that have a fatality, a major spill or other serious problems during the award year are not eligible for that year’s award, indicating that BP and Transocean would likely not be eligible next year.

The SAFE Award finalists are selected through a process that includes analyzing safety inspection records, looking at the quality of the companies’ safety technology and the recommendations of MMS district, regional and headquarters officials.

“Only the top candidates who show outstanding performance in each of their respective OCS Districts will be considered a finalist for the National SAFE Award,” according to the department website.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

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

Sand berms a dubious solution:
A guest column by Len Bahr
Published: Monday, July 05, 2010, 6:00 PM
Contributing Op-Ed columnist Contributing Op-Ed columnist

The coast of Louisiana occupies North America’s largest delta, which has
been rapidly shrinking and sinking for a century. River channelization,
flood levees, upriver dams and coastal oil and gas production continue to
take their toll. But a decade from now, the unprecedented discharge of
perhaps 100,000 barrels a day of oil directly off our coast for months on
end may prove to have been as damaging to the delta as these historic
stressors.

Obviously no handbook exists on effective responses to such a massive oil
release. This policy vacuum, combined with panic and desperation among
coastal residents, created an irresistible opportunity for grandstanding on
the part of our ambitious young governor.

In this highly charged political climate it is not surprising that Bobby
Jindal would opt for responses to the oil crisis based more on drama than
effectiveness. For example, he would likely prefer to be videotaped in front
of a massive, noisy dredge boat stirring up mud than observing small craft
silently skimming the water surface.

Thus, the governor’s most widely discussed response to the coastal oil
assault is to pile up defensive sand barriers. The rationale for this action
is to intercept the oil before it can contaminate the wetlands that hold
delta sediments in place, nourish fish and wildlife and protect people from
storms.

About 80 miles of 6-foot-high sand berms are now under construction on the
lower east and west sides of the Mississippi River. The total quantity of
sand required to complete this project is said to be 56 million cubic
yards — the equivalent of 11.2 times the volume of the Superdome!

Some of this (sacrificial) sand is being dredged from the lower river
channel, but most is being mined from old barrier islands that have sunk
beneath the sea. Although the dredging doesn’t leave a visible change at the
surface, it alters the subsurface profile of an area and reduces the bottom
friction that formerly absorbed hydraulic energy during approaching storm
surges.

On the basis of 22 years of academic training and experience in coastal
science and 18 years of policy experience in the Governor’s Office of
Coastal Activities, I’m strongly opposed to the governor’s sand berm project
for the following nine reasons:

1) Absence of science: Vague plans for the sand barriers were hastily drawn
up by “outside experts” from Holland, with no input from Louisiana coastal
scientists. Project details subsequently released have been universally
panned by these scientists.

2) Questionable justification: The sand dredging project was proposed by and
heavily lobbied by vested dredging interests, and it reeks of potential
conflicts.

3) Opportunity cost: This emergency and temporary project will deplete and
waste finite sand resources needed for a credible barrier shoreline
nourishment project.

4) Environmental cost: Dredging holes in the very delta that we’re trying to
restore is irrational.

5) Changes to natural flow regime: Attempting to barricade tidal passes
speeds up water velocity, causing barrier island erosion and potentially
sucking even more oil into the estuary.

6) Lengthy construction time: The contractors project a completion date nine
months away, by which time deflecting BP oil could be a moot issue.

7) Sand berm fragility: Sand-filled Hesco baskets (a type of sand berm)
completed three weeks ago by the Louisiana National Guard along Holly Beach
to protect against BP oil washed away like sand castles during a glancing
blow by Hurricane Alex.

8) Dubious benefits: A huge volume of crude oil has already drifted into the
very marsh areas that would supposedly be protected by sand barriers.
Completed berms could trap rather than repel some of this oil.

9) An alternative active response: Whether or not BP pays for the sand
barrier project, there are more effective and risk-free ways to spend $350
million. For example, I estimate that for that amount 2 million tons of
oil-absorbing hay could be spread on the oil by boats and planes, soaking up
perhaps 4 million tons of oil, then raked up by shrimp boats for onshore
disposal.

I’m not alone in challenging this project, although I can afford to be more
vocal than most of my science colleagues. Many of them, along with their
employers, fear the financial consequences of alienating Gov. Jindal, who
tolerates no criticism of his sand berm fantasy.

Len Bahr, Ph.D., is a former LSU marine sciences faculty member who served
18 years as a coastal policy adviser to Louisiana governors from Buddy
Roemer to Bobby Jindal. He edits LaCoastPost.com. His e-mail is
leonardbahr@gmail.com.
Special thanks to Richard Charter