Date: September 7, 2012 11:23:44 AM EDT

By Wendy Williams

As the fall begins, BP’s unconscionable Deep Water oil spill is making news again. The federal government is moving its case forward by claiming the British oil giant is guilty of negligence and perhaps even willful misconduct.

These are strong words.

But perhaps even more important to those of us who care about healthy oceans is the fact that the wind and waves from the recent Gulf hurricane Isaac have churned up shorelines and uncovered BP oil that’s laid buried for many months.

This newly uncovered oil may be every bit as toxic as when it was first released in 2010. Normally, energy from the sun and other sources helps to break the bonds in the oil and decrease toxicity. But if the oil has been encased in layers of mud and detritus, it may be as fresh as when it was first released.

Until scientists study this oil, no one will know for sure how dangerous it is.

I started following the story of toxicity and oil degradation in 2002, when I wrote about a dynamic young marine chemist, Chris Reddy of Woods Hole Oceanographic, who had found still-highly-toxic oil buried in a once-productive salt marsh on Cape Cod.

The oil had come from a barge that more than 30 years earlier leaked about 600 metric tons of oil into Cape Cod’s Buzzards Bay. High winds and waves washed the oil into the salt marsh, where it was eventually covered over with protective layers of marsh mud and debris. Because the sun was not hitting the oil, there was no energy to break up the bonds that held the various compounds in the oil together.

So when Chris found the oil 30 years later, he also found that the substances had not degraded. Toxicity levels remained high.

Chris’s research made worldwide headlines. Chris’s study had widespread legal implications because lawyers for Exxon were claiming that the oil spilled from the 1989 Valdez in Alaska would degrade over time. Chris’s findings contradicted the lawyers’ claims and had implications that could have affected the final dollars amounts the oil company had to pay in compensation.

Chris and I stay in touch from time to time, and so I knew that in 2010, when the BP disaster occurred, Chris was one of many talented, committed and dynamic scientists who headed to the Gulf as quickly as possible.

He hoped to capture some of the exuded oil as close to its source as possible, in order to ascertain its “signature” – its profile of chemical compounds – as thoroughly as possible before the process of degradation began.

By doing this, Chris and others would be able to track the movements of this particular batch of oil and to differentiate this oil from other oil that may already have been present in the ocean or along the shorelines.

Ultimately, the scientists produced a report that estimated the amount of oil that had been spilled. Their third-party estimates turned out to be much higher than the estimates supplied by BP scientists.

That figure has important legal implications.

This past summer, BP subpoenaed roughly 3,000 private emails of Reddy and his research partner Richard Camilli, also of WHOI.

BP lawyers may try to use the information in these emails, which discuss various aspects of their research, to discredit their findings and thus reduce the amount of money the corporation may ultimately have to pay out.

Here’s the rub: These scientists are not part of any legal suit. Financially, they have no dog in this fight. They are neutral parties who are doing what scientists are supposed to do – supply data.

Nevertheless, they are now required to have their own attorneys to deal with BP’s demands (the company originally asked for many, many more of the scientists’ emails) and they are required to cover their own expenses involved with complying with demands from BP attorneys.

Here’s what they wrote in a recent column: “We are accused of no crimes, nor are we party to the lawsuit. We are two scientists at an academic research institution who responded to requests for help from BP and government officials at a time of crisis.”

We need a Good Samaritan Scientist law. Scientists who pitch in to help out – without compensation from the various parties — need to be protected from subsequent harassment.

I’m certainly not the first to suggest this. Many federal officials have talked about the need to protect scientists.

But Washington doesn’t seem to be able to move forward on this legislation.

I’m left to wonder: Is this because the scientists don’t have the kind of money necessary to hire the kind of lobbyists hired by the oil companies?

But I know one thing for sure: This kind of persistent harassment from oil corporations will make future scientists think twice about pitching in and helping out the next time an oil disaster occurs.

Creating this kind of psychological deterrent may not necessarily be BP’s intention – but it could certainly be the ultimate outcome.

Special thanks to Mark J. Spalding, The Ocean Foundation

http://www.adn.com/2012/08/24/2598667/greenpeace-activists-storm-offshore.html

By NATALIYA VASILYEVA
Associated Press
Published: August 24th, 2012 08:32 AM
Last Modified: August 24th, 2012 08:32 AM

MOSCOW – Greenpeace activists were first offered hot soup, then showered with blasts of cold water and pieces of metal after they stormed a floating Russia oil platform and erected climbing tents on the side of the rig Friday to protest drilling in the Arctic.

The six activists, who include Greenpeace executive director Kumi Naidoo, spent several hours hanging off the side of the Prirazlomnaya platform in the Pechora Sea attached to the rig’s mooring lines. They prepared for a long occupation by bringing up supplies, including the tents, but planned to evacuate after rig workers threw pieces of metal at them.

“Not just hosed water, but now metal being thrown by Gazprom crew at our activists,” he said in a tweet, referring to the workers of a subsidiary of Russian energy company Gazprom that owns and operates the rig. “We’re coming down.”

Gazprom officials were not immediately available for comment. Initially, two helicopters arrived at the platform, but left without disturbing the protesters. The activists managed to put a banner on the rig saying “Don’t kill the Arctic.”

“We’re here peacefully and we will continue to draw the attention of Russian people and people around the world to what’s happening there,” Naidoo told The Associated Press by telephone from the platform before planning to evacuate. “It’s bad for Russia, it’s bad for the planet.”

Gazprom is pioneering Russia’s oil drilling in the Arctic. The state-owned company installed the platform there last year and is preparing to drill the first well.

At first, crew members were friendly and offered them soup, said Naidoo, who was also able to tweet while still suspended from the rig. “Gazprom crew told to make life difficult; regular blasts of icy water,” one tweet said. An accompanying photo showed a stream of water hitting two of the activists. Another tweet said he didn’t expect police or coast guard units until Saturday.

Naidoo said the air temperature was 48, while the water was 46. Gazprom told the AP in an emailed statement that the activists “have been invited to scale up to the platform for a constructive dialogue,” but said that they refused. The company said that “all work on the platform proceeds as normal.”

Naidoo, a South African, said the five activists with him include two from Germany, and one each from the United States, Canada and Finland. The platform is about 620 miles from the nearest port, Murmansk, a city on the extreme northwestern edge of the Russian mainland.

Greenpeace said that its activists have supplies to last “for an extended stay.” Russian and international environmentalists have warned that drilling in the Russian Arctic could have disastrous consequences because of a lack of technology and infrastructure to deal with a possible spill in a remote region known for huge icebergs and severe storms.

An AP investigation last year found that at least 1 percent of Russia’s annual oil production, or 5 million tons, is spilled every year.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/24/energy-us-romney-idUSL2E8JO2H220120824

Oh pleez…..this is so obviously designed by Big Oil. DV

Fri Aug 24, 2012 12:24pm EDT

By Joshua Schneyer and Timothy Gardner

Aug 24 (Reuters) – In unveiling his energy policy on Thursday, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney tapped
into the oil industry’s giddy optimism about shale drilling to paint a rosy picture of U.S. economic renaissance fueled by
hydrocarbons.

A 21-page energy policy white paper distributed by the Romney campaign is also notable for what it doesn’t address: The
document contains no mention of climate change, few proposals to curb U.S. fossil fuel demand, and sparse paragraphs on the
merits of renewable energy.

The promise of a drilling frenzy takes center stage. After decades of failed plans to wean the world’s top economy off
foreign oil, huge new domestic oil and gas resources can now be easily tapped by high-tech drilling, the plan says.

By opening more territory for drilling and expediting permits, private companies will be enabled to bring an oil and
gas bonanza to market at record pace, the plan says. One key to the plan is handing states the power to permit for drilling on
acreage owned by the Federal government, which controls nearly 30 percent of U.S. lands.

That move could expedite permits since several states — including North Dakota, Ohio and Colorado — have shown they are
many times faster to issue drilling permits than the Federal government, Romney’s plan says.

Such a major regulatory overhaul would require legislative approval, however, and could face resistance in a divided
Congress. Meanwhile, the prolific drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, faces staunch resistance in
some quarters, over fears it could contaminate water supplies. New York State has maintained a fracking moratorium since 2008.

Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman, in a statement, called Romney’s plan an “oil-above-all” policy, contrasting it to the
Obama administration’s stated “all-of-the-above” policy that promotes a broad mix of renewable energy sources and less hydrocarbons usage, in addition to more oil and gas drilling.

“The Romney plan takes us in the wrong direction by increasing our dependence on oil, ignoring the reality of
climate change, and attacking commonsense environmental protections and successful clean energy programs,” Waxman said
in a statement.

But Romney’s plan is sure to appeal to many voters wary of U.S. dependence on foreign oil and gasoline prices near an
all-time high this year. Increasing drilling could turn the United States into an energy super power by 2020, creating 3
million jobs and adding $500 billion to U.S. gross domestic product, while slashing reliance on “unstable” foreign
oil-producing nations, the plan says.

The plan promises to open territory from Alaska to the Virginia coastline up for more drilling.

“It’s clever because it’s an effort to catch the shale drilling wave, and embrace the excitement and optimism sweeping
through the U.S. oil industry,” said Sarah Emerson of energy consultancy ESAI. “It’s not a ‘we’ll try anything’ approach. It says ‘we’ve got this new resource, let’s develop it and it will have a huge impact on GDP and jobs.”

In betting heavily on a fossil-fueled U.S. energy future, the plan also carries economic and environmental risks. “There is now really a path toward U.S. energy independence and it’s welcome that politicians are thinking about this,” said
Ed Morse, head of commodity research at Citi in New York, whose recent research on the potential of U.S. shale drilling is cited
in Romney’s plan. “This is enviable for a country that has been the world’s only super power and could sustain its power through a (shale-fuelled) reindustrialization.”

The plan is still vulnerable to global energy prices, Morse said. Expanding U.S. oil development hinges on relatively high
global oil prices, and if OPEC producers like Saudi Arabia or Iraq were to boost oil production and cause prices to fall to
$70 a barrel — around 27 percent below current rates — many North American projects could lose their economic appeal.

The United States would also have to nearly double its oil production to becoming a net exporter, raising the risk of new
accidents following the 4.9 million barrel Gulf of Mexico spill in 2010.

“There’s some good stuff in this plan,” said Michael Levi, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. “But
it’s a plan for oil production, not a comprehensive energy strategy.”

NOD TO INDUSTRY

Romney, whose chief energy advisor is Oklahoma oil billionaire Harold Hamm, the CEO of shale driller Continental
Resources, borrows heavily in his white paper from research notes by oil and gas industry experts.

He slams the Obama administration for allegedly dragging its feet on new drilling. Permitting has languished – allegedly
by 37 percent – a key pipeline hasn’t been approved, and rich offshore prospects remain off limits to drillers, the plan says.

In many ways, however, a proliferation of new drilling — mostly for fracking projects — has already transformed the U.S.
energy industry, putting domestic natural gas output on track for a second annual record, and helping to lift U.S. oil
production to a nine-year high in 2011 from shale-rich states like North Dakota and Texas.

The United States remains the top net oil importer, although U.S. reliance on foreign fuel has waned after gasoline demand
fell by more than 6 percent since peaking in 2007, in part due to more renewable fuels and higher fuel efficiency standards.

According to Romney’s plan, oil companies currently wait an average 307 days for drilling permits from the Federal
government. In North Dakota, permits to drill on state-owned lands take just 10 days. “The economic consequences of not getting permits for years is brutal,” said Mark Mills, an energy expert and fellow at the Manhattan Institute, who authored a paper cited in the Romney plan. “The limitation to drilling is access to land, and that can be solved with the stroke of a pen.”

Romney also pledged to forge a U.S. energy alliance with neighboring oil exporting nations Canada and Mexico, and to
approve the Keystone XL pipeline, a project to carry Canadian oil sands crude to the U.S. Gulf Coast that has drawn concern
from environmentalists.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Paul Quinlan, E&E reporter
Published: Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Environmental, public health and fishing groups in Alaska and the Gulf
Coast filed a lawsuit against U.S. EPA yesterday to prod the agency to
write new rules governing the use of oil-dispersing chemicals.

Citing accelerating oil and gas drilling activity in their regions,
the groups want EPA to perform more robust tests on the toxicity and
effectiveness of dispersants in specific water bodies.

EPA publishes a national contingency plan for oil spills that lists
dispersants that are either authorized or eligible to be pre-
authorized for use. The lawsuit accuses the agency of an “ongoing
failure” to include details in the plan about the water bodies or
quantities in which the chemicals can be safely deployed, as required
under the Clean Water Act.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
calls for the court to vacate dispersant listings of the last six
years and order EPA to publish a product schedule that includes all
the required information. Earthjustice filed the lawsuit on behalf of
the Louisiana Shrimp Association, the Florida Wildlife Federation, the
Gulf Restoration Network, the Louisiana Environmental Action Network,
Alaska-based Cook Inletkeeper, Alaska Community Action on Toxics, the
Waterkeeper Alliance and the Sierra Club.

“We’re disappointed that the agency doesn’t seem to understand the
widespread public urgency to initiate this rulemaking process,” said
Jill Mastrototaro, director of the Sierra Club’s Gulf Coast Protection
Campaign. “If a spill or blowout happened tomorrow in the Gulf of
Mexico, or any U.S. water for that matter, any dispersant that is used
would not necessarily be safe for the waters, ecosystems, response
workers or nearby communities.”

The groups first notified EPA of their intent to sue in October 2010
(E&ENews PM, Oct. 13, 2010), not long after the Deepwater Horizon
exploded, setting off an 87-day spill. They fear a repeat of what
happened then: 1.8 million gallons of oil dispersants used in the Gulf
of Mexico, even as scientists raised sharp questions about the
strategy.

Dispersants break up oil into tiny droplets that sink below the ocean
surface, effectively keeping it out of sensitive coastal marshes and
enabling it to be consumed by bacteria and other marine organisms.
Many experts fear what effect the accumulation of the oil and
chemicals in the underwater ecosystem might have on the food chain and
whether the overall approach does more harm than good.

Forced to rely on its own incomplete data during the spill, EPA
waffled over whether to allow the dispersant use to continue and
engaged in what amounted to a shoving match with oil giant BP PLC
(Greenwire, April 22, 2011). EPA did not respond to a request for
comment in time for publication.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has said the agency needs to learn more
about the use and long-term impacts of dispersants, telling the
presidential commission that investigated the spill that she was
“committed to revisiting” the dispersant listing process Greenwire,
Sept. 28, 2010).

Current federal requirements allow dispersant manufacturers to submit
toxicity data in advance of their chemical’s listing on the national
contingency plan product schedule. That is a prerequisite to pre-
authorization of their use in fighting spills. Without a pre-
authorization plan in place, the on-scene coordinator may authorize a
dispersant’s use, provided it is listed.

In those scenarios, the groups argue that failure to include more
detail on the product schedule leads to uninformed and potentially
dangerous decisionmaking.

“EPA’s failure to obtain, and in turn include on the NCP Product
Schedule, this statutorily-mandated information has seriously hobbled
emergency response to oil spills, most recently in the Deepwater
Horizon oil disaster,” the lawsuit said.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

by Jill Mastotaro, Sierra Club Gulf Coast Director, on 8/6/12

Clean Water Act suit filed against lagging EPA

August 6, 2012

Washington, D.C. — A coalition of conservation, wildlife and public health groups in the Gulf region and in Alaska filed a citizen suit under the provisions of the Federal Clean Water Act today to compel the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to issue a rule on chemical oil dispersants. EPA’s current rules –which during the 2010 Gulf oil disaster failed to ensure that dispersants would be used safely –do not fulfill the requirements mandated by the Clean Water Act.

“We’re disappointed that the agency doesn’t seem to understand the widespread public urgency to initiate this rulemaking process,” said Jill Mastrototaro, Sierra Club Gulf Coast Protection Campaign Director. “If a spill or blowout happened tomorrow in the Gulf of Mexico, or any U.S. water for that matter, any dispersant that is used would not necessarily be safe for the waters, ecosystems, response workers, or nearby communities.”

During the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010, nearly 2 million gallons of chemical dispersants were dumped into Gulf waters with little knowledge or research into the chemicals’ toxic impacts. Currently, regulations dictating dispersants eligible for use in oil spills require minimal toxicity testing and no threshold for safety.

Over 5,000 petitions have been sent by residents across the Gulf Coast region urging EPA to use its authority to initiate comprehensive testing of oil dispersants and to create regulations that include safety criteria and identify acceptable waters and quantities for use. But EPA still has not created a new rule that will ensure that dispersants will be used safely in the next disaster.

“We sent EPA a notice of intent to sue in October 2010 following the debacle of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and the unprecedented use of dispersants during that response,” said Earthjustice attorney Hannah Chang, who is representing the groups in court. “Our filing today will push EPA to take further action to follow through on its promise to get a much-needed rule in place.”

“The Clean Water Act requirements have been in place for decades, but administration after administration has failed to comply with the law,” said Cyn Sarthou, Executive Director of Gulf Restoration Network. “Consequently there was little data available to EPA officials when they were confronted with the devastating BP oil disaster.”

The Clean Water Act requires EPA to identify the waters in which dispersants and other spill mitigating devices and substances may be used, and what quantities can be used safely in the identified waters, as part of EPA’sresponsibilities for preparing and publishing the National Contingency Plan. The Plan governs responses to discharges of oil and hazardous substances. But the use of toxic dispersants in response to the Gulf oil disaster was implemented without prior understanding of the effect on the Gulf of Mexico marine ecosystems and human health. Groups in oil producing regions, represented by Earthjustice, claim that EPA’s current rules do not follow Clean Water Act guidelines, and as a result they are taking action to force EPA to carry out its legal responsibility.

EPA’s failure to have sufficient dispersant rules in place was one of the many causes of the confusion, concern, and uncertainty surrounding the response to the 2010 well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.Approximately 1.84 million gallons of dispersants were applied in the Gulf despite widespread recognition that little was known about the health and environmental effects of applying such massive quantities of dispersants, and applying them beneath the ocean’s surface.

As the federal government and BP waffled on dispersant use in the middle of the crisis, it became apparent how little testing and study had been done beforehand.Even EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson readily acknowledged the agency’s lack of knowledge about the dispersants that were being applied. The result was a poorly planned, haphazard response, the effects of which will be felt for years to come. Just this week, a peer-reviewed study found that the use of dispersants may have wreaked significant and ongoing damage on the Gulf of Mexico food chain [link http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2012/07/bp_oil_spill_dispersants_may_h.html].

“The oil industry learned from the Exxon Valdez that ‘out of sight, out of mind’ is its preferred spill response strategy, so the first tool out of the box these days is dispersants,” said Bob Shavelson with Alaska-based Cook Inletkeeper. “But dispersants add toxic insult to injury for Alaskan fisheries and Alaskans have a right to know about toxic pollution around our coastal communities.”
“The damage in the Gulf has already been done. Nearly two million gallons of dispersants with essentially unknown environmental effects were released into the waters,” said Marc Yaggi, Executive Director of Waterkeeper Alliance.“We need more effective and responsible EPA dispersant rules so that we are never caught unprepared and uninformed in a crisis situation again.”

Public interest environmental law firm Earthjustice filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, Florida Wildlife Federation, Gulf Restoration Network, Louisiana Environmental Action Network, Alaska-based Cook Inletkeeper, Alaska Community Action on Toxics, WaterkeeperAlliance, and Sierra Club.

CONTACTS:
Hannah Chang, Earthjustice, 212-791-1881 x 8233
Jill Mastrototaro, Sierra Club, 504-861-4835
Pamela Miller, Alaska Community Action on Toxics, 907-242-9991
Marylee Orr, Louisiana Environmental Action Network, 225-928-1315
Cyn Sarthou, Gulf Restoration Network, 504-525-1528
Bob Shavelson, Cook Inletkeeper, 907-299-3277
Marc Yaggi, Waterkeeper Alliance, 212-747-0622 x14