August 21, 2010

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-20100820,0,1300452.story

Well’s blowout preventer to be replaced before ‘bottom kill’
BP and U.S. officials decide to move ahead with caution to prepare for complications.
By Richard Fausset and Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times
August 20, 2010
Reporting from Atlanta and New Orleans

BP and government officials said Thursday that they planned to remove the damaged existing blowout preventer on top of the company’s troubled oil well and replace it with a new, stronger one a move they said would allow them to safely carry out the final “kill” of the well, but would delay the ultimate fix until after Labor Day.

Earlier in the crisis, BP had estimated that it would be able to complete the final step to plug the well, called the “bottom kill,” in mid-August. But because the well has not been spewing oil since July 15 when crews affixed a giant cap on the blowout preventer federal and company experts have decided to move slowly and carefully, preparing thoroughly for possible complications.

“We’re taking a little more time than we would have otherwise to make sure we’ve got everyone on board with what we’re doing in a very systematic approach,” said BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells.

In a hearing Thursday on Capitol Hill, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration took fire on a controversial oil spill “budget” released Aug. 2 that estimated that a large part of the oil released into the Gulf of Mexico by the Deepwater Horizon spill was gone.

In fact, perhaps three-fourths of the pollutants from the 4.1 million barrels spewed into the gulf are still lingering in the environment, Bill Lehr, senior scientist with NOAA’s Office of Restoration and Response, conceded under questioning.

“This is a continuing operation,” Lehr emphasized. “The spill is far from over. We’re beginning a new phase, and NOAA and all the other agencies will be involved in this.”

Lehr said booming and burning probably only managed to clean up about 10% of the spilled oil. Much of the oil has evaporated or dispersed, but remains a source of hydrocarbons in the ecosystem, he said. An unknown amount washed up on beaches and is no longer polluting the gulf, he added.

The Aug. 2 report rendered more optimistic figures because it included the 800,000 barrels of oil captured directly by ships, Lehr said under questioning by Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass).

Agency scientists also have not tallied the significant quantities of methane gas and heavy metals released into the gulf as a result of the spill, Lehr said.

“We have seen some premature celebration,” said Markey, who convened the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee hearing. “What we have learned today is that the oil is not gone. The oil remaining in the gulf waters or washed up on the shore is equivalent to 10 Exxon Valdez spills, and could be much more.”

Also Thursday, a group of ocean researchers announced they had found conclusive evidence of a 22-mile-long oil plume, directly attributable to the BP blowout, deep below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

The 1.2-mile wide, 650-foot high plume appears to be breaking down slowly and could linger in the Gulf “for some time,” the researchers reported.

The findings by scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, to be published Friday in the journal Science, represent the most rigorous study to date of the deepwater remnants of the BP spill.

The scientific studies and oil spill assessments come as engineers and the federal response team focus on the bottom kill, which involves drilling a relief well into the original well deep under the seafloor and injecting it with mud and concrete. A similar injection through the top of the well earlier this month appears to have successfully sealed off the inside of the well pipes.

But the plans for the bottom kill have been complicated by some good news arising from the first injection of concrete: Officials believe that the injection may have not just plugged up the well’s pipes, but also created a seal outside of them, at the base of the annulus, which is the space between the pipes and well bore.

Officials fear that with the bottom sealed off, the injection of mud from the bottom kill could cause a pressure spike inside the annulus that could burst seals at the top of the well, or even rupture the new base seal.

Experts decided to remove the old blowout preventer and replace it with a better one that can handle any pressure jolts. BP and government officials said they were confident that the well would be secure during the swap.

Thad Allen, the national spill response chief, was reluctant to give a precise timeline for the events leading up to the bottom kill, but he said that if all went well, the well could be intercepted the week after Labor Day, which is Sept. 6.

“We’re very close to putting this well away,” he said. “I think none of us wants to make a mistake at this point. And I have no problem, as national incident commander, with an overabundance of caution.”

A blowout preventer is supposed to shut down a well in the event of the kind of high-pressure geyser of oil and gas that shot through BP’s well on April 20, setting off explosions and fires that killed 11 workers.

BP’s damaged device will be placed in government custody and will likely be central to the U.S Coast Guard’s investigation into the cause of the disaster. The Department of Justice has also launched a criminal investigation.

The federal probes and a tangled web of litigation are apparently causing friction among the major companies involved. On Thursday, drilling company Transocean, which owned the stricken rig, released a seven-page letter accusing BP of withholding evidence necessary to fully investigate the blowout.

The letter, which was also sent to the U.S. Coast Guard and members of Congress, said BP had been asked seven times to turn over technical documents that might shed light on what caused the explosion. According to Transocean, BP has not provided any information since June 21.

BP said the letter was full of “misguided and misleading assertions, including the assertion that BP is ‘withholding evidence’ … Our commitment to cooperate with these investigations has been and remains unequivocal and steadfast.”

richard.fausset@latimes.com

kim.murphy@latimes.com

Fausset reported from Atlanta and Murphy reported from New Orleans.

Times staff writer Julie Cart in Los Angeles and Jim Tankersley in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) conducted a review of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) policies, practices, and procedures for the Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) decisions for Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas exploration and development.

This review of MMS NEPA policies, practices and procedures was conducted as a result of the oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon well and drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The review ascertained how MMS applied NEPA in its management of OCS oil and gas exploration and development and makes recommendations for future Department of the Interior and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (the successor agency to MMS) NEPA for decisions involving OCS oil and gas exploration and development. The scope of the review encompasses NEPA for all decisions from leasing decisions to drilling and production.

The review was issued in a report by the Chair of CEQ on August 16, 2010 and can be viewed here. The CEQ report has been released and is available on-line at http://ceq.hss.doe.gov/current_developments/mmsnepa.html and a copy is attached to this e-mail.

Special thanks to: Horst Greczmiel, Associate Director for NEPA Oversight, Council on Environmental Quality, 202-395-0827, HGreczmiel@ceq.eop.gov

August 16, 2010

http://www.truth-out.org/uncovering-lies-that-are-sinking-oil62345

Monday 16 August 2010
by: Dahr Jamail and Erika Blumenfeld, t r u t h o u t | Report

The rampant use of toxic dispersants, out-of-state private contractors being brought in to spray them and US Coast Guard complicity are common stories now in the four states most affected by BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.

Commercial and charter fishermen, residents and members of BP’s Vessels Of Opportunity (VOO) program in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana have spoken with Truthout about their witnessing all of these incidents.

Toxic Dispersants Found on Recently Opened Mississippi Shrimping and Oyster Grounds

On Monday, August 9, the Director of the State of Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (DMR), Bill Walker, despite ongoing reports of tar balls, oil and dispersants being found in Mississippi waters, declared, “there should be no new threats” and issued an order for all local coast governments to halt ongoing oil disaster work being funded by BP money that was granted to the state.

BP had allocated $25 million to Mississippi for local government disaster work. As of August 9, Walker estimated that only about $500,000 worth of invoices for oil response work had been submitted to the state. Nobody knows what the rest of the money will be used for.

Recent days in Mississippi waters found fishermen and scientists
finding oil in Garden Pond
http://blog.al.com/live/2010/08/oil_penetrates_pristine_missis.html
on Horn Island, massive fish kills near Cat Island, “black water” in Mississippi Sound and submerged oil in Pass Christian.

Mississippi residents and fishermen Truthout spoke with believe Walker’s move was from an order given by Gov. Haley Barbour, who has been heavily criticized over the years for his lobbying on behalf of the Tobacco and Oil industries.

Two days after Walker’s announcement and in response to claims from state and federal officials that Gulf Coast waters are safe and clean, fishermen took their own samples from the waters off of Pass Christian in Mississippi.

The samples were taken in water that is now open for shrimping, as well as from waters directly over Mississippi’s oyster bed, that will likely open in September for fishing.

Commercial fisherman James “Catfish” Miller, took fishermen Danny Ross Jr. and Mark Stewart, along with scientist Dr. Ed Cake of Gulf Environmental Associates and others out and they found the fishing grounds to be contaminated with oil and dispersants.
http://www.bridgethegulfproject.org/blog/6

Their method was simple – they tied an absorbent rag to a weighted hook, dropped it overboard for a short duration of time, then pulled it up to find the results. The rags were covered in a brown, oily substance that the fishermen identified as a mix of BP’s crude oil and toxic dispersants.

Shortly thereafter, Catfish Miller took the samples to a community meeting in nearby D’Iberville to show fishermen and families. At the meeting, fishermen unanimously supported a petition calling for the firing of Dr. Walker, the head of Mississippi’s DMR, who is responsible for opening the fishing grounds.

Dr. Cake wrote of the experience: “When the vessel was stopped for sampling, small, 0.5- to 1.0-inch-diameter bubbles would periodically rise to the surface and shortly thereafter they would pop leaving a small oil sheen. According to the fishermen, several of BP’s Vessels-of-Opportunity (Carolina Skiffs with tanks of dispersants [Corexit]) were hand spraying in Mississippi Sound off the Pass Christian Harbor in prior days/nights. It appears to this observer that the dispersants are still in the area and are continuing to react with oil in the waters off Pass Christian Harbor.”

Ongoing Contamination and the Carolina Skiffs

On August 13, Truthout visited Pass Christian Harbor in Mississippi. Oil sheen was present, the vapors of which could be smelled, causing our eyes to burn. Many ropes that tied boats to the dock were oiled and much of the water covered with oil sheen.

A resident, who has a yacht in the harbor, spoke with Truthout on condition of anonymity due to fears of reprisal from BP. “Last week we were sitting on our boat and you could smell the chemicals,” he explained. “It smelt like death. It was like mosquito spray, but ten times stronger. The next day I was hoarse and my lungs felt like I’d been in a smoky bar the night before.”

Oil boom was present throughout much of the harbor. Despite this, fishermen, obviously trusting Mr. Miller’s announcement about the fishing waters being clear of oil and dispersant, were trying to catch fish from their boat inside the harbor

“Last week oil filled this harbor,” the man, an ex-commercial fisherman added. “BP has bought off all our government officials, and shut them up. You can’t say the oil is gone, it’s right here! Them saying it’s not here is a bunch of bullshit.”

Truthout spoke with another man, who was recently laid off from the VOO program. He also spoke on condition of anonymity. “Just the other day one of the Carolina Skiffs passed us spraying something,” he said. “We went west instead of east as we turned and a group of Carolina Skiffs was spraying something over the water.”

A Carolina Skiff is a type of boat, usually between 13′ and 30′ long, very versatile and can function well in shallow or deep waters. They are known for having a large payload capacity and a lot of interior space.

Alarmed by what he saw, the former VOO worker called the Coast Guard to report what he believed was a private contractor company spraying dispersants. “We were later told by the Coast Guard they’d investigated the incident and told us what we saw were vacuum boats sucking oil, and they were rinsing their tanks,” he said. “But we know this is a lie and that BP is using these out of state contractors to come in and spray the dispersant at night and they are using planes to drop it as well.”

He worked in the VOO program looking for oil. When his team would find oil, upon reporting it, they would consistently be sent away without explanation or the opportunity to clean it. “They made us abort these missions,” he said. “Two days ago I put out boom in a bunch of oil for five minutes, they told me to abort the mission, so I pulled up boom soaked in oil. What the hell are we doing out there if they won’t let us work to clean up the oil?”

He told Truthout that as his and other VOO teams would be going out to work on the water in the morning, they would pass the out-of-state contractors in Carolina Skiffs coming in from what he believed to be a covert spraying of the oil with dispersant in order to sink it. He believes this was done to deliberately prevent the VOO teams from finding and collecting oil. By doing so, BP’s liability would be lessened since the oil giant will be fined for the amount of oil collected.

“BP brings in the Carolina Skiffs to spray the dispersant at night,” he added, “And they are not accountable to the Coast Guard.”

James Miller, who had taken the group out into the Mississippi Sound that found the oil/dispersants on August 11, told Truthout that the Carolina Skiff teams spraying dispersants were “common” and that it “happened all the time.”

Miller, who was in the VOO, is an eyewitness to planes spraying dispersants, as well as the Carolina Skiff crews doing the same.

“We’d roll up on a patch of oil ¦ mile wide by one mile long and they’d hold us off from cleaning it up,” Miller, speaking with Truthout at his home in D’Iberville, Mississippi, said. “We’d leave and the Carolina Skiffs would pull up and start spraying dispersants on the oil. The guys doing the spraying would wear respirators and safety glasses. Their boats have 375 gallon white drums full of the stuff and they could spray it out 150 feet. The next day there’d be the white foam that’s always there after they hit the oil with dispersants.”

Some nights VOO crews would sleep out near the work sites. “We’d sleep out there and some nights the planes would come in so close the noise would wake us from a dead sleep,” Miller added. “Again, we’d call in the oiled areas during the day and at night the planes would come in and hit the hell out of it with dispersants. That was the drill. We’d spot it and report it. They’d call us off it and send guys out in the skiffs or planes to sink it.”

Mark Stewart, from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, was in the VOO program for 70 days before being laid off on August 2. The last weeks has seen BP decreasing the number of response workers from around 45,000 down to around 30,000. The number is decreasing by the day.

Stewart, a third generation commercial fisherman, told Truthout he had regularly seen “purple looking jelly stuff, three feet thick, floating all over, as wide as a football field” and “tar balls as big as a car.” He, like Miller, is an eyewitness to planes dispensing dispersant at night, as well as the Carolina Skiff crews spraying dispersant. “I worked out off the barrier islands of Mississippi,” Stewart said. “They would relentlessly carpet bomb the oil we found with dispersants, day and night.”

Stewart, echoing what VOO employees across the Gulf Coast are saying, told Truthout his crew would regularly find oil, report it, be sent away, then either watch as planes or Carolina Skiffs would arrive to apply dispersants, or come back the next day to find the white foamy emulsified oil remnant that is left on the surface after oil has been hit with dispersants.

Stewart added, “Whenever government people, state or federal, would be flying over us, we’d be instructed to put out all our boom and start skimming, acting like we were gathering oil, even when we weren’t in the oil.”

While acting as whistleblowers, Miller and Stewart have both been accused of being “troublemakers” and “liars” by persons in the Mississippi government and some of their local media, in spite of the fact that they are doing so from deep concern for their fellow fisherman and the environment.

Meanwhile, both men told Truthout they live with chronic headaches and other symptoms they’ve been experiencing since they were exposed to toxic dispersants while in the VOO program. Recent trips to investigate their waters for oil and dispersant have worsened their symptoms.

“Why would we lie about oil and dispersant in our waters, when our livelihoods depend on our being able to fish here?” Miller asked. “I want this to be cleaned up so we can get back to how we used to live, but it doesn’t make sense for us or anyone else to fish if our waters are toxified. I don’t know why people are angry at us for speaking the truth. We’re not the ones who put the oil in the water.”

Miller is bleak about his assessment of the situation. He pointed out toward the coast and said, “Everything is dead out there. The plankton is dead. We pulled up loads of dead plankton on our trip on Wednesday. There are very few birds. We saw only a few when there are usually thousands. We only saw two porpoises when there are usually countless. We saw nothing but death.”

Coast Guard Complicity

“Lockheed Martin aircraft, including C-130s and P-3s, have been deployed to the Gulf region by the Air Force, Coast Guard and other government customers to perform a variety of tasks, such as monitoring, mapping and dispersant spraying,” states a newsletter published in July by Lockheed Martin.

An article by the 910th Airlift Wing Public Affairs Office, based in Youngstown, Ohio, states that C-130H Hercules aircraft started aerial spray operations Saturday, May 1, under the direction of the president of the United States and secretary of defense. “The objective of the aerial spray operation is to neutralize the oil spill with oil dispersing agents,” it says.

Joseph Yerkes, along with other Florida commercial fishermen and Florida residents, have seen C-130s spraying dispersants on oil floating off the coast of Florida numerous times.

But the Coast Guard denies it.

At a VOO meeting in Destin on August 3, Lt. Cmdr. Dale Vogelsang, a liaison officer with the United States Coast Guard said, “I can state, there is no dispersant being used in Florida waters.”

The room, filled mostly with commercial fishermen, who were current or former members in BP’s VOO program, erupted in protest and disbelief. When Vogelsang was immediately challenged on his statement, he replied, “I’ll investigate the C-130s.”

Two BP representatives, along with Vogelsang, found themselves confronted by a large group of angry fishermen for over an hour. At times, the meeting resembled a riot more than the question-and-answer session it was intended to be.

Yerkes, who lives on Okaloosa Island, has been a commercial fisherman and boat captain most of his life. For the last 12 years, he has owned and operated a commercial live bait business.

Employed by BP as a VOO operator for more than two months, Yerkes, along with many other local commercial fishermen in the VOO program in his area were laid off on July 20 because BP and the Coast Guard believed there was no more “recoverable oil” in their area of Florida. Yet residents, fishermen, swimmers, divers and surfers in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana have been reporting oil floating atop water, sitting on the bottom and floating in the water column, in oftentimes great amounts, for the last two weeks. There have been many reports of various kinds of aircraft, including C-130s, dispensing dispersants over oil.

Yerkes provided Truthout with a letter he wrote to document his witnessing a C-130 spraying what he believes to be dispersant.

“I witnessed [from my home] a C130 military plane flying and obviously spraying” over the Gulf of Mexico on July 30, “flying from the north to the south, dropping to low levels of elevation then obviously spraying or releasing an unknown substance from the rear of the plane. This substance started leaving the plane when it was about ¦ to 1 mile offshore, with a continuous stream following out of the plane until it was out of sight flying to the south.”

The substance, Yerkes wrote, “was not smoke, for the residue fell to the water, where smoke would have lingered.” He added, “this plane was very low near the water and the flight was very similar to viewings I made over the past few weeks when dispersants were sprayed over the Gulf near our area.”

A member of the VOO program provided relevant information of a “strange incident” on condition of anonymity. He was observing wildlife offshore the same day Yerkes witnessed the C-130 when he received a call from his supervisor. He told his supervisor he and his crewmember were not feeling well, so he was instructed to return in order “to get checked out because a plane had been reported in our area spraying a substance on the water about 10-20 minutes before.” The employee complained of having a terrible headache and nasal congestion while his crewmember said he had a metallic taste in his mouth.

After filling out an incident report, both men were directed to go to the hospital. The following day the two men were “asked to go to the hospital for blood tests.”

One week after the aforementioned meeting, The Destin Log quoted Vogelsang as saying he had contacted Unified Command who “confirmed” that dispersants were not being used in Florida waters. Vogelsang added, “Dispersants are only being used over the wellhead in Louisiana,” a statement that Truthout has heard refuted by dozens of commercial fishermen from Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

Yerkes told Truthout that he, too, was aware of the Carolina Skiffs coming in from out of state to dispense dispersants over the oil. In the recent VOO meeting in Destin, Vogelsang was asked about the out-of-state contractors being brought in to work in Florida waters. He replied, “The only vessels we are using in the program are local, vetted vessels.”

His response caused an uproar of protest from the crowd, with various fishermen and VOO workers yelling that Carolina Skiffs were being brought in from out of state. To this, Vogelsang responded, “Vessels that are from out of the area are contractors with special skills.”

Vogelsang went on to claim that the amount of “product” [oil] being found in Florida is decreasing daily. This, too, caused an uproar from the room full of fishermen.
“I can take anybody in here out and show them oil, every single day,” David White, a local fishing charter captain responded. “I was in the VOO program, driving around calling in oil, telling them where it is and nobody ever came. I never saw any skimmers there and I’m talking about some serious oil. I can show you tar balls going across the bottom like tumbleweeds.”

Yerkes provided Truthout with a written statement from Lawrence Byrd, a local boat captain who was a task force leader in the VOO program from June 4 to July 21. On July 27 and 28, Byrd took BP officials, Coast Guard officials and an EPA official on a fact finding mission in search of oil.

“The Coast Guard told us if we could show them the oil, they’d put us back to work,” Yerkes told Truthout, “So Byrd took him, and other officials out on his boat and showed them the oil.”

Byrd’s statement contains many instances of the group encountering oil on the trips:

“Within 30 minutes in the Rocky Bayou and Boggy Bayou we found 4 different football field sized areas of oily sheen on the water … We moved east from there in search of weathered oil, just past Mid Bay bridge we found a 2 acre oil slick with a water bottle full of crude oil. At this time the Coast Guard Lt. had seen enough to warrant a 2nd trip with BP officials and EPA.”
The next day, July 28, Byrd wrote:

“On board were BP officials, a Parson official, 2 Coast Guard Lts and EPA. First stop Crab Island Destin where we found tar balls, dead fish and plenty of dead sargasm grass. All officials seemed very concerned about all of our findings.”
The report goes on to list further oil findings and added, “In the eyes of BP officials, Coast Guard Lts. and EPA, this was more than enough oil product to warrant the need for more VOO boats to serve as a first line of defense against this toxic pollution. To this day Destin VOO is still operating with ¦ task force in the bay and ¦ task force in Gulf with Walton County being completely unprotected! I feel all parties have good intentions but nothing is being done!”

“Somebody is stopping that process,” Yerkes told Truthout. “[Retired Coast Guard Adm.] Thad Allen stood up at Tyndall Air Force Base the same night that they sprayed dispersant on the oil in front of Destin and he said we are going to use local fishermen in each local area to do the jobs, even beyond the cleaning of the oil. The day after he said that at Tyndall … every one of the Carolina skiffs is loaded to the hilt with boom. Nobody else got reactivated.”

Yerkes expressed his frustration further. “They are lying about this whole thing and it’s got me in an uproar,” he said. “I’m by myself. I’m the only one willing to stand up. I have a lot of friends who want to stand up and speak out. They know the Coast Guard and BP are lying, but they won’t talk because they are getting paychecks and don’t want to jeopardize that. They are saying they are finding new oil all the time, but the Coast Guard claims they are testing it and saying it’s safe. I know for a fact they are not testing it and we watched and heard C130s fly every night in July.”

There is a clear pattern that VOO workers in all four states are consistently reporting:

*VOO workers identify the oil.

*They are then sent elsewhere by someone higher up the chain of command.

*Dispersants are later applied by out-of-state contractors in Carolina Skiffs (usually at night), or aircraft are used, in order to sink the oil.

*The oil “appears” gone and, therefore, no additional action is taken.
“There are surfers coming in with oil on them,” Yerkes continued, “There are divers telling us it’s on the bottom. We have VOO workers coming in after finding oil three inches thick atop the water as of last week and they go back out there and it’s gone.”
“There are stories of people getting notes on their cars, verbal and phone threats. I don’t want to become one of those people. I’m trying to heighten my profile so they don’t want to mess with me,” Yerkes added. “I want the truth to come out so the public knows. I’m trying to make BP and the government come out and tell the facts instead of lying to the public about what is going on. I want to know how much dispersants they are using, where all the oil is and the effects these are having on all of us. Somebody is lying and we want the truth.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

See paper entitled: “Tracking Hydrocarbon Plume Transport and Biodegradation at Deepwater Horizon”
Woods Hole Tracking Hydrocarbon plumes paper(19-Aug-2010 18:00 GMT)

Contact: WHOI Media Relations
media@whoi.edu
508-289-3340
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

WHOI scientists map and confirm origin of large, underwater hydrocarbon plume in Gulf

Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have detected a plume of hydrocarbons that is at least 22 miles long and more than 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a residue of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
In the study, which appears in the Aug. 19 issue of the journal Science, the researchers measured distinguishing petroleum hydrocarbons in the plume and, using them as an investigative tool, determined that the source of the plume could not have been natural oil seeps but had to have come from the blown out well.
Moreover, they reported that deep-sea microbes were degrading the plume relatively slowly, and that it was possible that the 1.2-mile-wide, 650-foot-high plume had and will persist for some time.
The WHOI team based its findings on some 57,000 discrete chemical analyses measured in real time during a June 19-28 scientific cruise aboard the R/V Endeavor, which is owned by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by the University of Rhode Island. They accomplished their feat using two highly advanced technologies: the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) Sentry and a type of underwater mass spectrometer known as TETHYS (Tethered Yearlong Spectrometer).
“We’ve shown conclusively not only that a plume exists, but also defined its origin and near-field structure,” said Richard Camilli of WHOI’s Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering Department, chief scientist of the cruise and lead author of the paper. “Until now, these have been treated as a theoretical matter in the literature.
“In June, we observed the plume migrating slowly [at about 0.17 miles per hour] southwest of the source of the blowout,” said Camilli. The researchers began tracking it about three miles from the well head and out to about 22 miles (35 kilometers) until the approach of Hurricane Alex forced them away from the study area.
The study-which was enabled by three NSF RAPID grants to WHOI scientists with additional funding from the U.S. Coast Guard-confirms that a continuous plume exists “at petroleum hydrocarbon levels that are noteworthy and detectable,” Reddy said. The levels and distributions of the petroleum hydrocarbons show that “the plume is not caused by natural [oil] seeps” in the Gulf of Mexico, Camilli added.
WHOI President and Director Susan K. Avery praised the WHOI scientists for their “prudence and thoroughness, as they conducted an important, elegant study under difficult conditions in a timely manner.”
Persistent plume
The plume has shown that the oil already “is persisting for longer periods than we would have expected,” Camilli said. “Many people speculated that subsurface oil droplets were being easily biodegraded.
“Well, we didn’t find that. We found it was still there.”
Whether the plume’s existence poses a significant threat to the Gulf is not yet clear, the researchers say. “We don’t know how toxic it is,” said Christopher Reddy, a WHOI marine geochemist and oil spill expert and one of the authors of the study, “and we don’t know how it formed, or why. But knowing the size, shape, depth, and heading of this plume will be vital for answering many of these questions.”
The key to the discovery and mapping of the plume was the use of the mass spectrometer TETHYS integrated into the Sentry AUV. Camilli developed the mass spectrometer in close industrial partnership with Monitor Instruments Co. in Cheswick, Pa., through a grant from the National Ocean Partnership Program. The TETHYS–which is small enough to fit within a shoebox–is capable of identifying minute quantities of petroleum and other chemical compounds in seawater instantly.
Sentry, funded by NSF and developed and operated by WHOI, is capable of exploring the ocean down to 14,764 feet (4,500 meters) depth. Equipped with its advanced analytical systems, it was able to crisscross plume boundaries continuously 19 times to help determine the trapped plume’s size, shape, and composition. This knowledge of the plume structure guided the team in collecting physical samples for further laboratory analyses using a traditional oceanographic tool, a cable-lowered water sampling system that measures conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD). This CTD, however, was instrumented with a TETHYS. In each case, the mass spectrometers were used to positively identify areas containing petroleum hydrocarbons.
“We achieved our results because we had a unique combination of scientific and technological skills,” said Dana Yoerger, a co-principal investigator and WHOI senior scientist.
Until now, scientists had suspected the existence of a plume, but attempts to detect and measure it had been inconclusive, primarily because of inadequate sampling techniques, according to the WHOI scientists. In previous research, Yoerger said, “investigators relied mostly on a conventional technique: vertical profiling. We used Sentry and TETHYS to scan large areas horizontally, which enabled us to target our vertical profiles more effectively. Our methods provide much better information about the size and shape of the plume.”
The researchers detected a class of petroleum hydrocarbons at concentrations of more than 50 micrograms per liter. The water samples collected at these depths had no odor of oil and were clear. “The plume was not a river of Hershey’s Syrup,” said Reddy. “But that’s not to say it isn’t harmful to the environment.”
No Unusual Oxygen Signals
The scientists benefited not only from new technology but older methods as well. Contrary to previous predictions by other scientists, they found no “dead zones,” regions of significant oxygen depletion within the plume where almost no fish or other marine animals could survive. They attributed the discrepancy to a problem with the more modern measuring devices that can give artificially low oxygen readings when coated by oil. The team on Endeavor used an established chemical test developed in the 1880s to check the concentration of dissolved oxygen in water samples, called a Winkler titration. Of the dozens of samples analyzed for oxygen only a few from the plume layer were below expected levels, and even these samples were only slightly depleted.
WHOI geochemist Benjamin Van Mooy, also a principal investigator of the research team, said this finding could have significant implications. “If the oxygen data from the plume layer are telling us it isn’t being rapidly consumed by microbes near the well,” he said, “the hydrocarbons could persist for some time. So it is possible that oil could be transported considerable distances from the well before being degraded.”
A Rapid Response
The NSF RAPID program, which provides grants for projects having a severe urgency and require quick-response research on natural disasters or other unanticipated events, significantly speeded up the acceptance of the WHOI proposals. “In contrast to the usual six-to-eighteen-month lead time for standard scientific proposals, our plume study was funded two days after the concept was proposed to NSF and went from notification of the proposal’s acceptance to boarding the Endeavor in two-and-a-half weeks,” Reddy said.
Within days of being notified of the award, Reddy said the WHOI team reached out to NOAA, offering assistance in the laborious, but important, process of collecting and analyzing water samples for natural resource damage assessment (NRDA). In addition to conducting the work NSF funded, the WHOI team worked cooperatively with NOAA to collect data that will be used to determine damages and calculate a fair settlement for those affected by the massive spill.
“Doing a NRDA cruise is not a trivial effort. It requires a tremendous amount of coordination — from accommodating additional on-board observers to ensure a chain of custody to arranging for samples to be ferried from the research vessels every few days,” said Avery. “I’m very proud of what this team has accomplished.
“Very good science was done that will make a big difference,” Avery added. “This cruise represents an excellent example of how non-federal research organizations can work with federal agencies and how federal agencies can work together to respond to national disasters.”
While at sea, these scientists, who are experienced in the study of oil spills and natural oil seeps, faced unusual challenges from the extreme heat, water rationing, exposure to crude oil and its vapors, and 24-hour-a-day operations enabled by the URI crew.
Along with their own scientific objectives, the team also bore in mind the advice of top science officials speaking at a June 3 Gulf Oil Spill Scientific Symposium at Louisiana State University, who cautioned researchers about the importance of verification and proceeding in a scientific manner:
“We are all served best by proceeding in a careful, thoughtful, and quantifiable manner, where we can actually document everything and share it publicly,” NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco told those assembled.
At that meeting, US Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt underscored the need for peer review of interpretive results before they are released, saying “There’s nothing that throws the community into dead ends faster” than to have [poor] data out there.
Assistant Director of NSF Tim Killeen also echoed the sentiment that “quality assurance and quality control are essential for thorough work.”
“WHOI scientists attending this meeting took this advice to heart and used it as a guiding light for proper dissemination of scientific information,” Reddy said.
Reddy said the results from this study and more samples yet to be analyzed eventually could refine recent estimates about the amount of the spilled oil that remains in the Gulf.
Camilli said he and his WHOI colleagues are considering a new research proposal to look for more plumes.
Reddy said the WHOI team members know the chemical makeup of some of the plume, but not all of it. Gas chromatographic analysis of plume samples confirm the existence of benzene, toluene, ethybenzene, and total xylenes-together, called BTEX at concentrations in excess of 50 micrograms per liter. “The plume is not pure oil,” Camilli said. “But there are oil compounds in there.”
It may be “a few months of laboratory analysis and validation,” Reddy said, before they know the entire inventory of chemicals in the plume.
Camilli attributed the project’s success to WHOI’s wide range of expertise and scientific capabilities. He contrasted that with “what the oil industry does best: They know where to drill holes and how to get the oil to come out. WHOI’s expertise in oil spill forensics, marine ecological assessment, and deep submergence technology development will be essential for our nation as it updates its energy policy and offshore oil production confronts the challenges of deepwater operations.”
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Other WHOI members of study team included Assistant Scientist James C. Kinsey and Research Associates Cameron P. McIntyre and Sean P. Sylva. The research team also included Michael V. Jakuba of the University of Sydney, Australia, and a graduate of the MIT/WHOI joint program in Oceanographic Engineering, and James V. Maloney of Monitor Instruments Co.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, independent organization in Falmouth, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the ocean and its interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the ocean’s role in the changing global environment.

Special thanks to Frank Jackalone, Sierra CLub

GeorgiaSeaGrant_OilSpillReport8-16[1]GeorgiaSeaGrant_OilChart[1]
By Chuck Hopkinson, Director, Georgia Sea Grant
August 17, 2010
On August 2, 2010, the National Incident Command (NIC) released a report on the status of oil from the BP oil spill. The findings of the report are being widely reported in the news media as suggesting that 75% of the oil is “gone” and only 25% remains. However, many independent scientists are interpreting the findings differently, with some suggesting that less than 10% is “gone” and up to 90% remains a threat to the ecosystem. Considering the vulnerability of the southeast Atlantic coast to oil being carried our way by the Gulf Stream, it is critical that we determine which of these interpretations of the report is more accurate.

To address this issue, Georgia Sea Grant organized an ad hoc group of university-based
oceanographic experts from within the state to independently evaluate and interpret the
conclusions of the NIC report. This group determined that the media interpretation of the report’s findings has been largely inaccurate and misleading. Oil that the NIC report categorizes as Evaporated or Dissolved, Naturally Dispersed and Chemically Dispersed has been widely interpreted by the media to mean “gone” and no longer a threat to the ecosystem. However, this group believes that most of the dissolved and dispersed forms of oil are still present and not necessarily harmless.

In order to better illustrate to the media, the public, community leaders and political decisionmakers the current status of oil in the ecosystem, this group focused exclusively on oil that actually entered Gulf of Mexico waters, omitting from its consideration oil that was directly captured from the wellhead. Our analysis classified oil into categories relevant to discussions of recovery and environmental impact: Burned, Skimmed, Evaporated, Degraded and Remaining.

Thus, starting with the NIC’s figure for how much oil entered the water, we estimated how much oil could have conceivably degraded and evaporated as of the date of the NOAA science report. The balance remains in the Gulf in varying forms and toxicity.

The group also considered how the vulnerability of our Atlantic coast waters has changed since BP capped the well. A listing of participating experts can be found below.

HOW MUCH OIL WAS RELEASED INTO THE GULF OF MEXICO?

There was consensus within the group that, as stated in the NIC report, approximately 4.9 million barrels emerged from the wellhead between the rig explosion on April 20, 2010 and the final capping of the well on July 15 2010.

In accounting for total oil output from the well, the NIC report includes oil piped directly from the wellhead to surface ships and prevented from ever entering the Gulf of Mexico,
approximately .8 million barrels (17%) of the total oil output. While we commend BP for
capturing this oil at great depth under difficult conditions, our analysis focused exclusively on oil that actually entered the water and from which the Gulf must now recover.

Therefore, we omitted from our discussion and our charts the .8 million barrels captured directly from the wellhead and examined the status of the 4.1 million barrels that actually entered the water. Because of this difference, percentages do not track directly from our charts to those of the NIC, but they are easily reconciled. For example, the 392,000 barrels that the NIC reports as skimmed or burned at the surface constitutes 8% of the 4.9 million barrels accounted for by the NIC, but that same volume is 10% of the 4.1 barrels that actually entered the water.

HOW MUCH OIL CAN BE COUNTED CONFIDENTLY AS RECOVERED FROM GULF
WATERS?

The NIC report estimates that 392,000 barrels of oil have been either burned or skimmed from surface waters, which seemed to our group to be a reasonable approximation. However, to the best of our knowledge, these estimates are based on data that are not available to the general public or the scientific community and, therefore, are not independently verifiable. However, using this figure from the federal report, we calculated that 10% of the oil that actually spilled into Gulf of Mexico waters was removed at the surface through skimming and burning. Thus, 90% of the oil that entered the Gulf of Mexico has not been recovered.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE UNRECOVERED 90%?
click on full report for more info…..

Special thanks to Richard Charter