GULF SPILL: (08/13/2010)
Elana Schor, E&E reporter
BARATARIA, La. — The inlets that envelop this bayou community extend like fingers on a hand, reaching into the backyards of lifelong fishermen. But the boat behind one fishing family’s house sits idle for now, as Tracy Kuhns turns from living off the water to worrying about it.

“The elected officials and the petrochemical companies think the fishermen are just going to let this go away,” Kuhns said this week during an interview at her office. “They’re used to fishermen allowing them to do this to fishing grounds.”

For Kuhns, this time is different. The multicolored pins on her wall tell the story, each inserted into a map of the coast to detail outreach she has made to other towns since the Macondo oil field first began spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico. This time is different, she believes, because some fishermen are not willing to stay quiet and keep hauling up catch they do not trust.

“This stuff is in my canal, behind my home, where my grandchildren swim all summer long,” Kuhns said. She voted for President Obama in 2008, but now she watches in disbelief as his White House serves Gulf seafood to assure the public of its safety. “Come to my house,” Kuhns advised Obama, “and I won’t pretty it up before you show up. I won’t tell you, the seafood I pull out of [the water], that I feel comfortable feeding it to my grandbabies.”

Kuhns, who leads the local coastal protection group Louisiana Bayoukeeper, is part of an alliance of seafood industry veterans organizing an ongoing protest against what they believe is a rushed and unwarranted reopening of fishing grounds previously closed due to contamination from the oil gusher. These fishermen see an alarming disconnect between the oil they continue to encounter on the water and the assurances they receive from state and federal officials that their nets and lines can go back in the Gulf.

The use of sensory testing to check fish samples for traces of the 1.8-million-plus gallons of chemical dispersants sprayed by BP PLC during the leak is particularly frustrating to many in Kuhns’ camp.

“How can they be doing a smell test to check for toxins in such a minute amount?” asked Chris Bryant, a 15-year commercial fishing veteran from Bayou La Batre, Ala. “There is obviously a reason [dispersants] are considered toxic. Maybe in a minute amount they won’t affect us in the short term, but if you continue to ingest them in a period of time, what are going to be the long-term effects? That’s something all the commercial fishermen are concerned about.”

Those doubts resonate with Steve Wilson, chief quality officer in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s seafood testing program. His team is “just as concerned as the fishermen” about the safety of Gulf catches, Wilson said in an interview conducted by phone from the Mississippi lab where groups of trained sensory testers run through seafood samples. “We don’t want product coming into commerce that’s unsafe.”

Sensory testers take the first look at seafood samples to determine if federal areas of the Gulf — more than one-third of which were closed to fishing at the height of the oil disaster — can be reopened or contain too many “hot fish,” as testers call tainted samples. Most of the smell testers have more than a decade of experience sniffing out defective food, Wilson explained, with their natural abilities honed by courses and lengthy training.

Oil contamination at the level of 1 part per million would be equivalent to “a golf ball in an Olympic-sized swimming pool,” he added. “They’re able to smell at that level, but most people can’t.”

Windex and watermelon
Debate over its dispersant tests may be raging in the Gulf, but NOAA’s sensory panel does not use the D-word to describe the samples it examines. Because the odor of the chemical sprays can be very similar to oil — petroleum distillates are a key ingredient in the Nalco product used by BP — Wilson said other terms are being used to distinguish between the two.

“We’ve used descriptors like ‘Windex,’ ‘light chemicals,’ ‘alcohol,'” he said. Those words can be crucial triggers of befouled fish, because testers are trained using vials of potent scents that can help unite various assessments into a broad conclusion. “You might smell watermelon, you might smell ammonia,” Wilson added. “You’re trying to get to the smell that’s more important.”

Should a member of the sensory panel find a sample to contain elements of oil or dispersant, the fishing area in line for reopening must remain closed, according to the protocol developed by NOAA and the Food and Drug Administration to guide seafood testing during the spill. Only one sample his team encountered has failed sensory tests, Wilson said, though the area at issue has reopened for fishing since that May incident
.
Guidance issued by NOAA in 2001 calls for post-spill sensory tests to include control groups, in order to make sure panelists’ noses can still sense the difference between good and bad samples. Given the higher frequency of seafood sniffing this summer, Wilson said, that guidance has been modified so that individual control samples can be dropped on testers without their knowledge.

“From time to time,” he said, NOAA supervisors will put either a known “good” or “spiked” piece of fish into the mix, the latter laced “with an oil-dispersant combination.”
After sensory testing is finished, tissue samples for the fish are subjected to lab analyses for the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a chemical class that includes toxic and carcinogenic elements of oil that tend to resist evaporation.

The chemical tests are done using composite samples of several species of fish, such as tuna and grouper. Because finfish have similar abilities to metabolize oil, Wilson said, “if you compile the sample correctly, it speeds up the process so we can get fisheries open” or keep them closed without paying up to several hundred dollars for each individual test.

A community divided
Not every Gulf fisherman shares Kuhns’ and Bryant’s fears about the viability of government seafood tests. Some locals whisper that skeptics are acting out of concern for their bottom line, preferring to earn a steady paycheck from BP for cleanup work to the uncertain fate of selling fish that consumers may still view as tainted.

Before staging a press conference last week outside a listening session held by Ray Mabus, Obama’s Gulf restoration point main, Kuhns and her allies addressed that issue head-on. “Fishermen would rather work cleaning the severely damaged Gulf than selling tainted seafood,” they wrote in a release outlining their goals.

Oysterman Mike Voisin, CEO of Motivated Seafood in Houma, La., questioned the wisdom of airing such critical sentiments. “Don’t hurt the market by saying, ‘I don’t want to feed it to my kids,'” he advised. “They’re just hurting themselves.”

Voisin, who says his processing has been cut nearly in half since the oil leak began, joins NOAA outreach calls to members of the Gulf seafood industry and displays a resulting knowledge of the ins and outs of testing.

Noting that the government’s assessment of the potential risk of eating contaminated seafood assumes an annual consumption level more than 10 times higher than that of the average American, Voisin said: “We’re still meeting those requirements. If anybody’s finding anything out there, they should report it immediately. … I don’t believe the state would open areas if they weren’t confident.”

Part of the conflict on the ground appears rooted in a lack of communication between the government and members of a community that, while close-knit, is also fiercely independent and spread throughout remote corners of the coast.

“I’ve heard more than one local person say, as far as they know, that there’s not a test for dispersant” in seafood, said Rebecca Templeton, environmental outreach coordinator at Bayou Grace Community Services in Chauvin, La. “Even as someone who’s trying to gather this information, I don’t know what kind of testing is being done … if I knew those details, it would be reassuring to me.”

NOAA is working on a framework for the chemical analyses of dispersant contamination that Kuhns and her fellow fishermen are calling for, but an agency spokeswoman said it is difficult to predict the time frame for development of the tests.
Meanwhile, Louisiana shrimping season is set to start next week, and Voisin said he expects more state-level waters to reopen by that time. But Kuhns’ boat is unlikely to make another fishing journey in the near future.

Her next step is continuing to unite with like-minded fishermen to protect the waters they love from the threat of abandonment, by BP and Washington, before the fallout from the oil leak is truly contained. “They need to be honest about this,” she said. “It’s not going to go away.”
Special thanks to Richard Charter

[Please see also http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com for r.o.v. video and contextual analysis of continued anomalies in the official story versus what may actually be occurring in the Gulf. Official “vessels
of opportunity” operators also told the _Destin Log_ they’ve witnessed aircraft spraying dispersants. Surreal. ]

===============

Summary from Florida Oil Spill Law:
Coast Guard admits dispersants still in use “over the wellhead”

[FULL TEXT OF _DESTIN LOG_ ARTICLE BELOW]
August 12th, 2010 at 08:26 AM

A liaison officer with the United State Coast Guard told the Destin Log http://www.thedestinlog.com/news/residents-14872-multiple-differ.html that dispersants are currently “being used over the wellhead in Louisiana.”

Why continue to use dispersants if the flow of oil stopped July 15 and nearly all the crude is gone?

Also, this contradicts Thad Allen’s recent statements
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/09/98862/this-is-transcript-of-national.html

“We have not used dispersant since the capping stack was put on.” “There are no dispersants being used at this time.”

================

Officials deny dispersant use, residents beg to differ
http://www.thedestinlog.com/news/residents-14872-multiple-differ.html
August 10, 2010 7:00 PM
By Matt Algarin

Mayor Sam Seevers knows that BP should not be using dispersants in state waters, but after multiple reports from area residents about suspicious activity, she plans to get to the bottom of it.

“We had asked the Coast Guard and BP to find out what they can, and to let us know what was going on,” Seevers said recently.

She told The Log she had heard people talking about a “mystery dispersant” over the past few days, but it wasn’t until last week’s Vessel of Opportunity meeting at City Hall that Seevers had heard the
topic echoed over and over.

Okaloosa Island resident Joseph Yerkes, who had been employed by BP as a VOO operator, wrote in a letter that he distributed at Tuesday night’s meeting that he had “witnessed and reported” suspicious
activity over the Gulf of Mexico on July 30.

Yerkes, who was sitting on the back porch of his third floor condo about 1:30 p.m., wrote that he witnessed a military C-130 “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.”

The unknown substance, Yerkes wrote, “was not smoke, for the residue fell to the water, where smoke would have lingered.”

Austin Norwood, whose boat is contracted by Florida Fish and Wildlife, also provided a written account of a “strange incident.”

While Norwood was observing wildlife offshore, he had received a call from his site supervisor at Joe’s Bayou. After telling the supervisor that he and his crewmember were not feeling well, the supervisor had
the two men come in “to get checked out because a plane had been reported in our area spraying a substance on the water about 10- 20 minutes before.”

Norwoord complained of a bad headache, nasal congestion while his crewmember said he had a metallic taste in his mouth.

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

When reached for comment, Lt. Cmdr. Dale Vogelsang, liaison officer with the United State Coast Guard, told The Log he had contacted Unified Command and they had “confirmed” that dispersants were not being used in Florida waters.

“Dispersants are only being used over the wellhead in Louisiana,” Vogelsang said. “We are working with Eglin and Hurlburt to confirm what the flight pattern may be. But right now, it appears to be a normal flight.”

Vogelsang also said Unified Command confirmed to him that C-130s have never been used to distribute dispersants, as they “typically use smaller aircraft.”

But according to an article by the 910 th Airlift Wing Public Affairs Office, based in Youngstown, OH., 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,” the article states.

A July Lockheed Martin Newsletter states that “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.”

Neither of the articles specify the operations have taken place in Florida.

After The Log spoke with Vogelsang Friday morning, he once again reiterated that “no dispersants were being used in Florida waters,” and no dispersants have been used anywhere since mid-July. When The
Log asked Vogelsang about the two articles, which state C-130s have been used for dispersant spraying, he said “if they were being used here locally to spray dispersants, then Unified Command didn’t know
about it.”

Yerkes said he has a friend who is sick from whatever has been sprayed, and he intends to find out what it is. He has recently been in contact with various attorneys who are interested in his case,
including the law firm that represented Erin Brockovich.

“If I have to be the Erin Brockovich of Okaloosa County, I am going to do it,” he said.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Gerald Herbert, The Associated PressNew marsh grass was photographed Tuesday in an area that had been impacted by the oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill near East Grand Terre Island.

Louisiana authorities report oil sightings from Gulf of Mexico spill
Published: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 5:38 PM Updated: Thursday, August 12, 2010, 5:53 PM
Times-Picayune Staff
Here is a list, released by Louisiana emergency officials, of areas where oil was sighted Thursday. The list is not a comprehensive tally of areas affected by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
St Bernard Parish
Dark brown substance, 50 feet by 25 feet, in an unnamed marsh island in Lake Fortuna 0.4 mile north-northeast of Point Gardner.
Plaquemines Parish
Oil sheen in Pass Abel 1 mile N of the E end of Isle Grande Terre.
Oil sheen in Lake Grand Ecaille 1.46 miles W of Rattlesnake Bayou.
Oil patch, 20 feet by 10 feet, in an unnamed marsh island in Black Bay a half mile north-northwest of Grassy Point.
Jefferson Parish
Oil sheen in Bayou Saint Denis 0.54 mile southwest of the south entrance to Bayou Cutler.
Lafourche Parish
Three very small pools of oil on the east bank of Bell Pass 0.7 mile north of the mouth.

http://www.ogj.com/index/article-display/1349024976/articles/oil-gas-journal/general-interest-2/hse/2010/08/epa_-noaa_seek_to.html
EPA, NOAA seek to expand oil-tracking for spill in gulf
Paula Dittrick
OGJ Senior Staff Writer

HOUSTON, Aug. 12 — The US Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are considering how to expand and coordinate oil tracking efforts to include Gulf of Mexico coastal state officials and others, a spill response official said.

National Incident Commander and retired US Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said questions have been raised since NOAA reported 74% of the oil spilled from BP PCL’s Macondo well has evaporated or been burned, skimmed, dispersed, and recovered. NOAA’s report also called for more research (OGJ, Aug. 9, 2010, p. 28).

“I think what we’d like to do is go out there and make sure we absolutely have a coordinated effort: federal, state, and local,” Allen told reporters during an Aug. 11 conference call. “What we’d like to do is create an integrated monitoring system…now that the well is capped.”

NOAA’s report prompted questions about the rate of the oil’s biodegradation. Pedro Alvarez, Rice University chairman of civil and environmental engineering, said the report did not include specific date on which its conclusions were based.

“The bottom line is that 26% of the estimated release remains as an oily phase,” Alvarez said. “This does not mean the remaining 74% of the spill has been solved. Most of that has not been removed as implied by the report. Most of that 74% is still in the water, migrating and spreading, and also possibly degrading.”

More than 25 government and independent scientists contributed to calculating the remaining oil. NOAA’s report was based upon an estimated 4.9 million bbl of oil total released by the well as calculated by the government’s Flow Rate Technical Group. BP captured 800,000 bbl.

Jane Lubchenco, NOAA administrator, said, “Less oil on the surface does not mean that there isn’t oil still in the water column or that our beaches and marshes aren’t still at risk. Knowing generally what happened to the oil helps us better understand areas of risk and likely impacts.”

The oil spill stemmed from a blowout of the Macondo well in 5,000 ft of water on Mississippi Canyon Block 252. Transocean Ltd.’s Deepwater Horizon semisubmersible drilled the well for BP and its partners. A fire and explosion on the Deepwater Horizon killed 11 people.

Contact Paula Dittrick at paulad@ogjonline.com.
To access this Article, go to: http://www.ogj.com/ogj/en-us/index/article-tools-template.articles.oil-gas-journal.general-interest-2.hse.2010.08.epa_-noaa_seek_to.html

Oil spill shows difficulty the Coast Guard faces as it balances traditional tasks with post-9/11 missions

By Joe Stephens and Mary Pat Flaherty
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 13, 2010; A01

The U.S. Coast Guard in recent years has fought international terrorism, defended Iraqi pipelines and patrolled for pirates in the Arabian Sea.

Its work in such high-visibility missions accelerated after Sept. 11, 2001, when Congress swept the Coast Guard into the Homeland Security Department. More funding followed.

But the changes had the unintended consequence of lowering the profile of the Coast Guard’s vital programs related to oil. “Priorities changed,” a 2002 Coast Guard budget report said.

Internal and congressional studies highlighted the difficulty the agency faces in balancing its many added responsibilities. “Oil-spill issues were not at the top of the list,” said retired Capt. Lawson Brigham, a former strategic planner for the Coast Guard.

When Coast Guard inspectors board offshore drilling rigs such as the Deepwater Horizon, which exploded and killed 11 workers in April, they rely on regulations put in place three decades ago, when offshore drilling operations were far less sophisticated, records show. The Coast Guard acknowledged 11 years ago in a little-noticed disclosure that its regulations had “not kept pace with the changing offshore technology or the safety problems it creates.”

Since the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, investigations into oversight gaps have focused on systemic problems within the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, which in recent weeks has been renamed and revamped.

But the Coast Guard, which shared oversight with MMS, has largely escaped scrutiny. While the MMS inspected drilling equipment, the Coast Guard inspected rigs for worker safety. It also set standards for companies that clean up spills, and has coordinated the joint response to the spill in the gulf.

Some analysts said the spill highlights the need to rethink Coast Guard priorities. In the past 35 years, Congress has handed the agency at least 27 new responsibilities, according to a tally by Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

“They just don’t have enough personnel to carry out all those missions,” said Oberstar, who favors severing the Coast Guard from the Homeland Security Department. “That’s just not possible.”

Coast Guard officials said they did not have budget figures to compare how much is spent on oil-related programs now and before Sept. 11, 2001. Even current budget numbers for these programs are unclear because spending falls into two categories that encompass many other activities, including fighting invasive species and oversight of recreational boating. Marine environmental protection was allotted 2 percent of this year’s operating expenses, marine safety 8 percent.

The Coast Guard said that before 2001, the agency was organized differently. A private study in 2003 by one Coast Guard officer calculated that, before the attacks, marine environmental programs accounted for 11 percent of operating funds and marine safety accounted for 14 percent.

Congressional staffers said the lack of reliable figures has complicated their efforts to ensure that vital programs are not neglected.

Juggling diverse missions is far from the only challenge the Coast Guard faces. Its maritime fleet is aging, and a long-delayed fleet- modernization plan has suffered design flaws and cost overruns; it is now under Justice Department scrutiny. The White House has recommended budget cuts. And the Coast Guard’s marine-safety programs have suffered a drain as personnel sought higher-profile assignments.

Senior Coast Guard officials said the agency’s many missions make it stronger because ships patrolling for terrorists might happen across drug smugglers or an oil slick. They said that crews develop complementary skills and that combining missions saves money.

Coast Guard officials point out that until April, oil spills had decreased dramatically. They said mission statistics do not reflect the division of labor at sea, where crews are ready for whatever comes their way.

“The Coast Guard takes its role as an environmental-response agency seriously,” said Capt. Anthony Lloyd, chief of the Office of Incident Management and Preparedness.

But even some defenders of the Coast Guard fear that it is edging toward crisis.

“It’s basically at the breaking point,” former commander Stephen Flynn said.

Community policing

Federal regulation of offshore drilling grew over the years into a patchwork. The MMS leased offshore drilling rights to private companies, approved emergency response plans and inspected drilling equipment. The Coast Guard ensured the seaworthiness of mobile drilling units.

Today, Coast Guard inspectors examine navigational equipment, lifesaving apparatus and fire protection systems, and look after day-to-day worker safety. The agency also oversees containment of oil and major spill cleanup.

The most rigorous Coast Guard inspections occur on U.S.-flagged oil rigs; they last for days. Rigs registered in other countries, such as the Marshall Islands-flagged Deepwater Horizon, get a six-hour review. A three-person Coast Guard team last visited Deepwater Horizon in July 2009, found no major deficiencies and issued a two-year compliance certificate.

When inspectors show up, they often spot-check paperwork produced by private companies, which the Coast Guard refers to as “stakeholders.”

“It’s more of a community policing kind of approach: get to know the neighbors, help an old lady cross the street,” said Flynn, the former Coast Guard commander, who heads the Center for National Policy, a Washington think tank. “You build a level of collaboration, rather than an ‘us-vs.-them’ kind of approach.”

Two months before the gulf blowout, the Obama administration proposed a 3 percent cut in Coast Guard funding and active-duty personnel. The plan would slash 1,100 military personnel and decommission the National Strike Force Coordination Center, which manages oil-spill response. “Not a good idea,” Oberstar said.

Coast Guard officials have long acknowledged strained resources, especially with ships and aircraft.

In February, Adm. Thad Allen, then Coast Guard commandant, said in a speech that the Coast Guard operates one of the world’s oldest fleets, with high-endurance cutters averaging 41 years of age, compared to 14 for the U.S. Navy.

“No amount of maintenance can outpace the ravages of age,” Allen said, describing the sputtering performance of cutters assigned to Haiti relief work. “The condition of our fleet continues to deteriorate, putting our crews at risk, jeopardizing our ability to do the job.”

During the initial gulf response, Coast Guard logs show that three aircraft and one cutter suffered mechanical problems that delayed or scuttled their missions, according to a study by the Center for Public Integrity.

Alarming stories

In 2007, at Allen’s request, Vice Admiral James C. Card interviewed 170 civilian mariners and Coast Guard personnel about marine safety operations. He found consensus that programs were deteriorating.

The biggest concern, Card wrote in his report, “was that the Coast Guard no longer considered Marine Safety an important mission.”

The Coast Guard had become a “fundamentally different” organization, Card was told. New editions of the official “U.S. Coast Guard Strategy,” a 54-page manual, contained a single page discussing marine safety, agency personnel said.

Many experienced inspectors have left the service or have transferred to more “career-enhancing” assignments, leaving behind a significant number who are seen as unqualified, the report said. In one service division, marine inspectors spent only about 40 percent of their time on inspections.

“Every Marine Safety professional I talked to in the Coast Guard, both at Headquarters and in the field, said they didn’t have enough people to do the job,” Card wrote. “Some stories were alarming.”

Officers feared that choosing to work in marine safety for the long term could damage their careers because senior officials were unsupportive. The report did not address environmental-response programs, but said many people interviewed expressed similar concerns about those programs losing “experience, resources, knowledge and focus.”

The report’s findings were underscored this year at a hearing on the Deepwater Horizon blowout. Lt. Commander Michael Odom, head of the team that inspected the rig in July 2009, testified that Coast Guard regulations are outdated.

“The pace of the technology has definitely outrun the current regulations,” Odom testified.

In fact, qualifications for inspectors assigned to mobile offshore drilling units, such as Deepwater, have not been updated since 2007. Although offshore inspectors are supposed to receive annual specialized training, that has occurred sporadically, officers testified in May. Even with training, they said, it takes a year for an inspector to comprehend the technologically complex rigs.

Others in the field fear that an overemphasis on homeland security could actually make the United States less safe, by drawing funding and attention away from other programs

“Spending so little on this just makes no sense,” Flynn said. “I can’t come up with any terrorism scenario, short of perhaps a nuclear weapon launched near a city, that could produce nearly as much destruction as we’re seeing with this man-made disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/08/bp-may-have-already-sealed-well-for-good-decision-on-plug-expected.html

OIL SPILL — August 13, 2010 at 4:06 PM EST

BY: TOM LEGRO AND LEA WINERMAN

Updated 3:34 p.m.
National Incident Commander Adm. Thad Allen said Friday that the blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is not yet dead, and that BP will proceed with a relief well to permanently kill it.

“Everyone agrees we need to move forward with the relief well, but the question is how to do that,” Allen told reporters.

He said that pressure tests have shown that pressure in the well has remained fairly steady since the “static kill” operation last month that pumped in mud and cement from the top of the well through the well pipe. The steady pressure readings indicate that some of that mud and cement entered the reservoir and came back up through the annulus — the area between the pipe and the outside of the well that the relief well was meant to plug.

But Allen said Friday that engineers don’t know the thickness or strength of the layer of cement currently plugging the annulus. So they can’t consider the well permanently plugged, and must move forward with the relief well.

At the same time, they have to proceed carefully with the relief well “bottom kill” — pumping in mud and cement from the bottom of the well could force up oil and mud now trapped in the annulus, and they don’t want to increase the pressure too much at the top of the well.

“That’s the essence of the discussion that’s going on right now,” Allen said.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who attended a meeting with Allen and other officials Friday, told reporters at a press conference that he was glad the work on the relief well would continue.

“If it’s a nearly redundant safety measure, that makes sense to us,” he said, according to the Associated Press.

Updated 10:06 a.m.

Officials hope to know early Friday if BP’s oil well in the Gulf of Mexico has been sealed for good. Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the federal government’s person in charge of the effort, scheduled a news conference for 1:45 p.m. EDT to give an update on the operation.

On Thursday, Allen said it was possible that a final fix, known as a “bottom kill,” will not be necessary. After a temporary cap was placed on top of the well last month, heavy drilling mud and cement were pumped in from the top in what is called a “static kill.”
“We may be the victims of our own success here,” Allen said on Thursday. “If the cement is already there it would obviate the need to do the bottom kill.”

An analysis of tests on the well done Thursday was scheduled to be completed Friday. Workers tested pressure levels in the space between the inner piping and outer casing. Rising pressure means the bottom kill still needs to be done, Allen said. Steady pressure may mean cement already has plugged the space.

Allen said there is concern that pumping more mud and cement would increase pressure inside the well, sending oil up the well column, damaging the blowout preventer and escaping into the water.

In other news ..
.
Alabama’s attorney general filed lawsuits Thursday evening against BP and several other companies over the Gulf of Mexico oil leak disaster.

In two separate suits, Attorney General Troy King seeks unspecified damages. A BP spokesman said the company had not seen the lawsuits and could not comment.

The Mobile Press-Register also reports that a spokesman for Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said that Alabama should have first presented its claim before suing and that King “was too quick in filing the lawsuit.”
*
Michael Bromwich, the Interior Department’s new offshore-drilling chief said that the agency had relied too much on the oil and gas industry it was supposed to police, reports the Wall Street Journal, setting the stage for a regulatory revamp.
*
Special thanks to Richard Charter

This is tantamount to giving BP credit to deliver the funds later; why isn’t it due and payable immediately? Surely they can pledge the oil receivables to someone else–say, in the financial market if they are short of cash, which I doubt given the bonus structures discussed earlier this summer. DV

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iqSZ8tTTR0qV5UDr–XvWf5o3PIwD9HHJ9Q02

(AP) – 3 hours ago 8/11/10
WASHINGTON – The $20 billion victims’ compensation fund established for the Gulf oil spill may use revenue from BP’s oil and gas drilling as collateral, according to details released Wednesday by the White House.

The government watchdog group Public Citizen criticized the arrangement as a conflict of interest, arguing that it gives the government a financial incentive to encourage BP to keep drilling offshore.

BP has already made a $3 billion initial deposit, announced Monday. The company must pay $2 billion more this year and continue in installments of $1.25 billion, according to the trust documents released Wednesday.

The trust calls for a collateral fund to ensure that all the necessary money will be available if something happens to the BP subsidiary that established the trust. Details must still be negotiated, but the trust documents say that unless a different agreement is reached, BP will agree to give the trust first priority to production payments from the company’s U.S. oil and gas production as collateral.

Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s energy program, said that securing the compensation fund with drilling revenue “is wildly inappropriate, as it will make the government and BP virtual partners in Gulf oil production. … It will give the government a financial incentive to become an even bigger booster of offshore oil drilling in the Gulf.”

The trust fund was negotiated by the Justice Department. A department spokeswoman did not immediately return a call for comment.

The trust is to be administered by two independent trustees, with claims being processed by Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration’s pay czar.

Special thanks to Richard Charter