http://www.mysanantonio.com/
Study: Gulf oil spill might have lasting impact
Updated 08:59 p.m., Tuesday, July 10, 2012

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) – New research by an Auburn University professor and other scientists suggests that the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill may have affected microscopic life in ways that might not become apparent for years. Auburn professor Ken Halanych and scientists from the University of New Hampshire, the University of California Davis Genome Center, and the University of Texas at San Antonio published their work last month in the scientific journal PLoS ONE.

“When the samples were taken, there wasn’t any obvious oil on the beaches, wasn’t anything obvious to indicate that the oil spill had happened,” Halanych said. “When you went outside and looked at it, it looked rather normal. There was clearly (microscopic) community change and hidden effects.”

The Press-Register of Mobile reports (http://bit.ly/PLxU9t) that researchers collected soil samples from five spots around Alabama’s Dauphin Island and Mobile Bay, as well as a persistently oiled beach in Grand Isle, La. What they found, according to their report, was that diverse communities of microscopic animals had given way to fungi, some of which are associated with oil spills.

“Based on this community analysis, our data suggest considerable (hidden) initial impacts across Gulf beaches may be ongoing, despite the disappearance of visible surface oil in the region,” they wrote.

Halanych said the long-term effects could be dramatic because the organisms that lost ground after the spill form the base of the food chain. He noted the collapse of the herring population in Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. It didn’t happen until several years after the 1989 spill, and it has been traced to changes at the microscopic level. “When you change the ecosystem, all these things have a ripple effect,” he told the newspaper. “Some of these effects can take years to develop.”

Patricia Sobecky, who chairs the Biological Sciences Department at the University of Alabama, said the study adds details about a Gulf environment that many scientists say has received too little attention. “What they reported is completely in line with what you would expect,” said Sobecky. “How to interpret that is going to the tricky part.”

Sobecky was not part of the research, but she was part of a team that expects to publish its own paper in PLoS ONE in the coming weeks. She said her work focused on the impact of the oil spill on microscopic life in salt marshes near Bayou La Batre.
Sobecky said the work of Halanych and others is important in helping to establish a baseline to track changes over time.
“I think it will ready us for future events,” she said.

Meanwhile, John Valentine, director of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, said other research he has reviewed indicates that microbes harmed by the oil spill had rebounded by the end of the year.

“It was pretty clear in the microbial community that there was a pretty dramatic effect immediately after the oil spill,” he said. “It would be interesting to know if (Halanych and his partners) persisted beyond September 2010.” ‘Halanych said he did, in fact, collect samples a full year after the oil spill. But he said he has not yet analyzed the results.

Information from: Press-Register, http://www.al.com/press-register/

Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Study-Gulf-oil-spill-might-have-lasting-impact-3695961.php#ixzz21HpzEnrr

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BP Oil Spill May Have Contributed to Dolphin Deaths, Study Finds
By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer | LiveScience.com – Fri, Jul 20, 2012

The 2010 BP oil spill contributed to an unusually high death rate for dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico, a new study suggests.
Between January and April 2011, 186 dead bottlenose dolphins washed ashore between Louisiana and western Florida. Most alarmingly, nearly half of these casualties were calves, which is more than double the usual proportion of young to old dolphins found dead. Scientists now blame both natural factors and human catastrophe for the unusual die-off.

“Unfortunately, it was a ‘perfect storm’ that led to the dolphin deaths,” study researcher Graham Worthy, a biologist at the University of Central Florida, said in a statement. “The oil spill and cold water of 2010 had already put significant stress on their food resources. Š It appears the high volumes of cold freshwater coming from snowmelt water that pushed through Mobile Bay and Mississippi Sound in 2011 was the final blow.” [Gulf Oil Spill: Animals at Risk]

Cold water and spilled oil
The winter of 2010 was a cold one, the researchers reported July 18 in the open-access journal PLoS ONE. Oil began spilling into the Gulf in April 2011, after the Deepwater Horizon platform exploded following a blowout.

The unusually harsh winter of 2010 already dealt wildlife a disadvantage, Worthy and his colleagues wrote. Finfish, marine birds, sea turtles and manatees had been hit hard, with about 6 percent of the U.S. population of manatees lost to cold weather.
Just before the baby dolphins began washing ashore in January 2011, meltwater from an unusually heavy Mobile Bay watershed snowfall hit the Gulf. A comparison of dolphin stranding sites and water conditions revealed that the discovery of the carcasses followed temperature dips from meltwater by two to three weeks, indicating that the dolphins were stressed, died, washed ashore and were eventually found and recorded.

Normally, the researchers wrote, dolphins are able to withstand fluctuating temperatures. But a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) survey of Louisiana dolphins in 2011 found that the animals were overwhelmingly underweight and anemic, suggesting that they were already struggling before the cold water rushed into their habitat.

Stress on wildlife
The findings suggest, but don’t prove, that the BP oil spill may have helped weaken the dolphins before the cold influx of early 2011 began, the researchers report. There is evidence that the oil spill affected the dolphin food chain, making prey scarce in the midst of the breeding season, they wrote. Study leader Ruth Carmichael, a marine scientist at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, said the combined factors led to distinct patterns in how the dolphins washed ashore.

“When we put the pieces together, it appears that the dolphins were likely weakened by depleted food resources, bacteria or other factors as a result of the 2010 cold winter or oil spill, which made them susceptible to assault by the high volumes of cold freshwater coming from land in 2011,” Carmichael said in a statement.

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We’re also on Facebook & Google+.

10 Species You Can Kiss Goodbye
Deepwater Horizon: Images of an Impact
Deep Divers: A Gallery of Dolphins

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/united-states/link-between-low-birth-weight-and-fracking-says-new-research-267746.html

By Kristen Meriwether
Epoch Times Staff
Created: July 19, 2012
Last Updated: July 20, 2012

NEW YORK-New research suggests the health of newborn babies is adversely affected in areas close to sites undertaking natural gas extraction by way of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking; the method of obtaining natural gas by blasting shale with a solution of water and chemicals.

“A mother’s exposure to fracking before birth increases the overall prevalence of low birth weight by 25 percent,” said Elaine L. Hill, Cornell University doctoral candidate and author of the working paper, “Unconventional Natural Gas Development and Infant Health: Evidence from Pennsylvania.” Hill also found a 17 percent increase in “small for gestational age” births, and reduced health scores.

She spoke at a fracking forum hosted by Sen. Tony Avella in New York City Wednesday.
Hill’s paper looked at birth measures, including birth weight and premature birth, for those born in Pennsylvania starting in 2003, before fracking began. The study used data through 2010 and focused on those living up to 1.5 miles from gas development sites.

Pennsylvania increased its unconventional natural gas wells from 20 in 2007 to 4,272 by the end of 2010.
Fracking in New York

New York currently has a moratorium on fracking, but the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is reviewing the nearly 80,000 comments received from public hearing sessions held in 2009 and 2011 regarding the draft Supplement Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) that will determine if New York will move forward and review permits for horizontal fracking.

The SGEIS will have to pass the state Legislature before heading to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s desk for approval. The DEC decision is expected by the end of this year.
Hill’s working paper will not be published until it passes a peer review-a huge risk for a doctoral student who does not share the same protection as a tenured professor.
“I think the courage she is showing today in coming forward and speaking truth to power should be matched by other acts of courage by members of our own state government,” Sandra Steingraber, distinguished scholar in residence for the department of environmental studies at Ithaca College, said before Hill’s testimony.

Steingraber said she believes Hill’s paper should be peer reviewed, but also feels science is having a tough time keeping up with the rush to get new fracking measures in place.
Hill said it may take up to two years to finish the review process, at which time new fracking regulations will likely already be in place. “My study is robust across multiple specifications and it indicates that our future generation may be seriously harmed. I couldn”t possibly value my career over their well-being,” Hill said by email on Thursday.
A lifelong resident of New York state, Hill concluded her testimony by speaking from a personal perspective. She mentioned she is engaged to be married and hopes to start her own family soon, however her findings are giving her second thoughts about doing that in New York.

“I fully understand the economic potential for this technology and its importance for the state, but I hope for the sake of my generation and our future children, that New York will do its part to ensure our health and safety by refraining from allowing fracking to begin until the questions raised by the research presented today are answered,” Hill said.
“According to current estimates, a single low birth weight infant costs society, on average, $51,000 during the first year of life,” Hill said, adding that that did not include long-term costs for the child or decrease in parental earnings.

Calling on Cuomo

On Thursday, Sen. Avella followed through by issuing a letter to Cuomo formally requesting a meeting with him, as well as scientists, medical professionals, and environmentalists to discuss fracking and how the DEC and the governor will be making decisions.

“There has been virtually no outreach from either your staff or DEC staff to engage in detailed conversations with these respected members of the medical and scientific communities,” Avella said in his letter, a sentiment echoed by the majority of those that testified Wednesday.

The DEC confirmed that, while they are no longer accepting public comments, they will accept additional reports from academia. It is unclear if Hill’s paper will be reviewed by the DEC prior to regulation changes in New York, as it remains unpublished.
Fracking advocates state Sen. Tom Libous, the Joint Landowners Coalition of New York, Independent Petroleum Association of America, and Vote 4 Energy did not respond by press time to requests for comment.

The Epoch Times publishes in 35 countries and in 19 languages. Subscribe to our e-newsletter.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

I think funding should be directed to cleaning up the water column and restoring microbial benthic communities that were smothered due to the enormous volume of dispersants used–something that hitherto had never been tested. DV

Published: Wednesday, July 18, 2012, 12:02 AM The Associated Press

More than two years after the catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, environmental groups say billions of dollars the British oil giant is expected to spend on restoration should go toward buying tens of thousands of acres of coastal land for conservation, rebuilding Louisiana’s eroding wetlands and creating nearly 200 miles of oyster reefs. Under the Oil Pollution Act, companies must pay to restore areas fouled by a spill. The amount BP will have to pay is subject to ongoing litigation with the government, which also will choose how to spend the money. Regardless, the company is expected to pay billions of dollars for the more than 200 million gallons of oil spilled from its out-of-control well after the rig Deepwater Horizon exploded in April 2010.
In a report released Wednesday, the environmental groups laid out 39 priority proposals for spending the money in one the first overarching visions of restoration of the Gulf.

The report recommends a massive $500 million restoration of the Louisiana coast, the purchase of large tracts of coastal land in Florida, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi for conservation, plugging unused oil and gas wells in the Gulf, spending about $165 million on restoring Mobile Bay, cleaning up marine debris across the Gulf, building nearly 200 miles of oyster reefs and setting up long-term monitoring to track the Gulf’s health.

“Without knowing what the actual payment will be, our assumption is that this will be the biggest environmental restoration ever,” said Stan Senner, director of conservation at the Ocean Conservancy. He was the chief restoration planner after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska and helped develop the restoration model for the Gulf. Federal and state lawyers are in negotiations with BP over how much the company should pay for the damage its spill caused. BP faces a January trial unless a settlement can be reached before then. The report was sponsored by the Environmental Defense Fund, the Ocean Conservancy, the National Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy, Oxfam and the National Wildlife Federation.

A look at proposals on how to restore the Gulf of Mexico
Environmental groups released a report on Wednesday making 39 recommendations of how to repair damage to the Gulf of Mexico’s ecosystem caused by the catastrophic BP oil spill in 2010. The amount BP will have to pay is subject to ongoing litigation with the government, which also will choose how to spend the money.
Below are some of the environmental groups’ costlier proposals.
Florida

Buying land around the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge and Apalachee Bay. Cost: $30 million.
Sea-grass and oyster restoration along the Florida Panhandle. Cost: $15 million.
Buying 69,453 acres to help conserve St. Vincent Sound and Lake Wimico near Apalachicola. Cost: $100 million

Alabama

Mobile Bay restoration and building 100 miles of intertidal oyster reefs. Cost: $95 million
Reconnecting tidal exchanges within the Mobile-Tensaw Delta by building new bridges under the Mobile Causeway. Cost: $70 million
Buying coastal properties in Alabama coastal counties to aid conservation. Cost: $125 million

Mississippi

Restoration of 3,622 acres of coastal habitat. Cost: $7.8 million
Wetlands and oyster restoration in Hancock County, restoring up to 60,000 feet of oyster reef. Cost: $18.8 million
Restoring 1,000 acres of coastal marsh along Mississippi coast. Cost: $13.6 million

Louisiana

Barataria basin restoration with new dunes, marsh, oyster reefs and filling in oil canals. Cost: $378 million
Breton basin restoration with armoring marsh, oyster reefs and building up Chandeleur islands. Cost: $100 million
Building 70 miles of oyster reefs in Cameron, Terrebonne and St. Bernard parishes. Cost: $70 million

Texas

Expand the Texas Chenier Plain Refuge by 64,260 acres. Cost: $90 million
Build sub-tidal reef in Matagorda Bay within footprint of historical Half Moon Reef. Cost: $3.8 million
Restoring Shamrock Island in Nueces County by creating sea-grasses, marsh and mangroves. Cost: $3 million

Open waters of the Gulf

Plugging and removing nonproducing oil and gas wells in waters off the coast of Louisiana. Cost: $31 million
Place observers aboard fishing vessels to monitor catches for marine mammals, sea turtles and bluefin tuna. Cost: $32.5 million
Cleaning up marine debris across the Gulf. Cost: $10 million

The Associated Press
The environmental groups emphasized the the projects in their portfolio were suggestions only and based on limited information about the oil spill’s effects on the environment. The government has not disclosed its findings on what damage has been caused by the spill. The groups delivered the report to a council of federal and state officials overseeing restoration efforts. The group, known as the trustee council, is in discussions with BP over how much the company should pay. This legal process, known as the natural resources damage assessment, is secretive as BP and government scientists investigate how badly the environment was damaged.
The environmental groups said their recommendations would be adjusted based on those findings becoming public.

Garret Graves, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s representative on the trustee council, said the recommendations were not helpful.
“The environmentalists’ report is so out of touch that I put my copy in the recycling bin,” he said. He said it appeared the groups saw “an opportunity to pick pet projects and fulfill their political agendas.”

The environmentalists said the report’s intent was the opposite of that. “This is about getting people to think about what restoration could look like,” said Paul Harrison, the senior director of the Environmental Defense Fund’s water program. “We need a comprehensive approach.” He warned that states might try to get projects funded that would not do the greatest good to the ecosystem. Edward P. Richards, a professor of law at Louisiana State University who’s studying Louisiana’s ongoing restoration plans, was critical of the report. He questioned spending money on areas that saw little direct damage from the oil spill. Florida and Texas had little oil wash up on their shores.

Richards said he was struck by the irony of environmental groups campaigning to spend so much money on places that might be submerged by sea-level rise. For example he said it was unwise to spend large sums on diverting rivers to rebuild land in coastal Louisiana, something the report recommends.

“River deltas do not build in the face of ocean rise,” he said. “The only science we have on the effect of river diversions is that the water that causes the dead zone at the end of the Mississippi is also bad for the marsh lands.” Louisiana recently adopted a master plan to rebuild its coast over 50 years with $50 billion and the plan calls for river diversions to funnel sediment and freshwater back into eroding basins. Louisiana has lost about 1,900 square miles of coastal land since the 1930s and the state is working to hold the sea back.

The scientific community is not in agreement about the effectiveness of river diversions. Many scientists believe river diversions can work to re-establish the natural order of the Mississippi delta while others believe they will not do the job and also cause unintended harmful consequences.

Just how much money BP will end up paying in ecosystem restoration is uncertain. Exxon paid $900 million for the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill that caused 11 million gallons to leak into Prince William Sound. Based on the criteria from what Exxon paid per barrel of oil spilled and adjusted for inflation BP could pay about $31 billion.

But experts say BP is unlikely to pay that much. BP can argue that the spill’s effects were minimized by the Gulf’s warm waters, oil-eating bacteria and other factors. Also, the Gulf has been soiled by past spills and natural oil seeps, so the oil giant could say it’s too hard to pinpoint what is BP damage and what isn’t. However state and federal lawyers argue that the damage was extensive and that the Gulf’s marine environment is more varied and rich than that of Prince William Sound.

Cain Burdeau of The Associated Press wrote this report.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/18/shell-arctic-ready-hoax-greenpeace_n_1684222.html?utm_hp_ref=canada&ir=Canada

Timothy Stenovec
Become a fan
timothy.stenovec@huffingtonpost.com

Posted: 07/18/2012 8:13 pm Updated: 07/19/2012 2:47 am

At first glance, Arctic Ready looks like a legitimate website from Shell. The clean lines, judicious use of white space and the prominent placement of the familiar red and yellow “Shell” logo have all the markings of the oil corporation’s homepage.

But would Royal Dutch Shell really splash “LET’S HIT THE BEACH” across a grey picture of its Noble Discoverer drilling rig that last weekend lost its mooring and drifted close to the shore?
Probably not.

Indeed, Arctic Ready and the accompanying “Let’s Go!” campaign is an elaborate hoax from Greenpeace and The Yes Lab aimed to increase awareness of Shell’s contentious plan to drill in the Arctic.

The groups have harnessed social media, online video and gaming in a full-blown assault on Shell, which plans to begin exploratory drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.
The Huffington Post’s Tom Zeller Jr. reports that federal estimates suggest that more than 26 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 130 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could be extracted from the undersea shelf.

From Zeller:
An economic analysis, prepared by a consultancy on behalf of Shell last year, estimated that employees in Alaska would draw some $63 billion in payroll, and another $82 billion would accrue to workers in a variety of ancillary and downline jobs across the U.S. Local, state and federal governments would draw billions in revenues, the report reckoned.

The site launched last month, and it’s seen a recent spike in traffic. A Greenpeace spokesperson said on Wednesday that Arctic Ready has received 1.8 million page views in the last two days.
The site is so similar to Shell’s that it’s confused some into thinking that it’s actually a failed social media experiment by the company.

Arctic Ready allows visitors to create their own ads, overlaying custom text over photos of polar bears, whales, narwhals and birds, among others.

(SCROLL DOWN FOR IMAGES)

The group has developed “Angry Bergs,” a kids’ game in which players have to melt icebergs that “threaten our energy future” before they get too close to the oil rigs.

“The goal was really to shine a light on the absurdity of Shell’s actual plans to drill in the Arctic,” James Turner, a Greenpeace spokesman, told The Huffington Post. “What we’re tying to do is use humor and … social media to call Shell out for what is a reckless and unscientific drilling program, and to engage the public.”

The site is part of the same campaign that last month was responsible for the video that purported to show a Shell celebration gone horribly wrong.

Despite the popularity of the spoof, and the potential public relations mess, Shell has decided not to sue Greenpeace over the campaign, HuffPost Canada reports.

“Journalists, blog readers and YouTube viewers have recently been targeted with scams launched by organizations opposed to energy exploration in Alaska. A contest on a mock Shell website promotes the creation of fake advertisements,” Shell said in a statement, according to Forbes. “The advertising contest is not associated with Shell, and neither is the site it’s on. And Shell did not file legal action in this matter. Our focus is on safely executing our operations.”

This is by no means the first time a spoof account has been created on behalf of an oil company. The “BP Public Relations” (@BPGlobalPR) fake Twitter account that launched during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill has more than 150,000 followers, more than three times more than the actual BP account.

LOOK: Spoof advertisements from Arctic Ready:

Arctic Ready

1 of 12
This post has been updated with additional information from Greenpeace about the number of page views Arctic Ready has received.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://allafrica.com/stories/201207170233.html

BY CLARA NWACHUKWU, OKEY NDIRIBE, EMMAN OVUAKPORIE AND KUNLE KALEJAYE, 17 JULY 2012

Living with oil spill in Ogoniland, Nigeria

Lagos – The Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company, SNEPCO, has been fined U.S.$5 billion over the massive oil spill that occurred at its Bonga oil field on December 20, 2011.

This was disclosed yesterday by the Director General, National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, Dr. Peter Idabor, when he appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Environment.

The committee’s public hearing was meant to provide key actors in the Bonga oil spill an opportunity to brief the committee on the claims of affected communities.

Oil spill in the river

Idabor said the sum was an “administrative penalty” considering the large quantity of crude oil discharged into the environment by Shell and the impact of the incident on the water and aquatic life.

According to Idabor, the penalty was also consistent with what was obtainable in other oil producing countries such as Venezuela, Brazil and the United States of America.

He explained that this penalty was not the same as compensation since compensation could only be demanded from a polluting company after a proper post impact assessment has been conducted and scientific evidence of impact established.

Idabor disclosed that NOSDRA, Shell and other relevant stakeholders have concluded plans to conduct the post impact assessment on the spill as soon as approval for funding is secured from National Petroleum Investment Management Services.

Shell disagrees with fine

However, Shell has contested the fine, saying it has done nothing wrong to deserve the fine. In a quick response to Vanguard enquiries, a spokesman for Shell, Mr Tony Okonedo, said: “We do not believe there is any basis in law for such a fine. Neither do we believe that SNEPCo has committed any infraction of Nigerian law to warrant such a fine.

“SNEPCo responded to this incident with professionalism and acted with the consent of the necessary authorities at all times to prevent environmental impact as a result of the incident.”

In the heat of the controversies over the spill, especially with regard to third party spill which was cited in several other parts of the Niger Delta, Shell claimed it had sent samples of the spill to laboratories abroad for tests to confirm its liabilities. But till date, nothing was heard of the result of the tests.

Reason for fine

The NOSDRA boss explaining the reason for the $5 billion fine noted that “although adequate containment measures were put in place to combat the Bonga oil spill, it, however, posed a serious environmental threat to the offshore environment.”

He said: “The spilled 40,000 barrels impacted approximately on 950 square kilometres of water surface; affected great number of sensitive environmental resources across the impacted area and has direct social impact on the livelihood of people in the riverine areas whose primary occupation is fishing.

“It also potentially caused a number of physiological effects on aquatic lives while surviving aquatic species around the spill site would migrate to a farther distance to situate new habitat thereby forcing coastal communities to move deeper into the sea to carry out fishing activities.”

Chairman, House Committee on Environment, Hon. Uche Ekwunife had at the opening of the interactive session expressed displeasure that seven months after the spill, there were doubts if Shell carried out a thorough clean-up programme as the oil firm was said to have hurriedly resumed operations on the facility.

She further stated that there were also indications that Shell had refused to accept full responsibility for the incident and had rebuffed claims from communities affected by the spill.

Special thanks to Richard Charter