http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/06/18/heenahan.oil.spill.whales/index.html
By Heather Heenehan, Special to CNN
June 18, 2010 11:53 a.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
       *       Heather Heenehan: Sperm whales once hunted for their oil; now oil threatens their lives
*       Their deep water habitat in Gulf severely threatened by the BP oil spill, she writes
    *       Whales will breathe noxious fumes, she writes, and their food will be contaminated
      *       We all share blame for this disaster because of our huge oil consumption, she says

Editor’s note: Heather Heenehan is a master’s degree student in environmental management at Duke University and is working on a summer fellowship at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Woods Hole, Massachusetts (CNN) — Our need for oil almost wiped out the sperm whale once, and now our insatiable hunger for it threatens them again.

Sperm whales were hunted in the Gulf of Mexico in the 18th and 19th centuries for their oil, but were somewhat spared when petroleum replaced whale oil as an energy source. Now, instead of hunters, the same oil that helped to save the sperm whales from extinction threatens their survival in the Gulf.

Sperm whales, listed as endangered in 1970, are social animals. The young live with their mothers for years in stable groups, and the whales dive deep in search of food. Because they spend so much of their lives undersea, our knowledge of their behavior and community structure is limited. We have a lot to learn before we can say we truly know these animals.
We do know that sperm whales depend on the deep ocean habitat. And we know that habitat in the Gulf is severely threatened by the disastrous BP oil spill — particularly as the oil spreads through plumes that go deep into the water.
[On Tuesday, the decomposed body of a juvenile sperm whale was found 77 miles from the well, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Investigators are trying to determine whether oil played a role in its death; it was not found in oiled water.]

Routinely holding their breath for about 45 minutes, sperm whales can dive half a mile to hunt fish and squid. When they arrive at the surface, they spend about nine minutes breathing and preparing for their next dive.

About 1,665 sperm whales live in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service, and reports say about 300 to 400 of them depend on deep waters near the mouth of the Mississippi River. Whalers, centuries ago, found that the Mississippi Canyon, off the Mississippi River Delta, was a hot spot for sperm whales.

A recent review of whalers’ logbooks shows that from 1788 to 1877, about 204 voyages spent at least one season whaling in the Gulf. Recent research indicates about 40 whales at any one time live around the Mississippi Canyon, and females and immature whales prefer this area.

BP’s undersea well gushing out oil is in this canyon.

The aftermath of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill offers a glimpse into what might be in store for the sperm whales of the Gulf. Many North Pacific killer whales died throughout the year after that 11 million gallon spill. Forty percent of the whales in the most exposed groups died, including all of the breeding females in one group. As more long-term studies emerge, we see that after 20 years, the killer whales still have not fully recovered.

Risk factors for the sperm whales of the Gulf are similar to those for the killer whales of coastal Alaska: They are swimming in oil; females and juveniles depend on critical habitat near the spill, and the population is already small and isolated.

Oil can damage and kill marine mammals in myriad ways.

The major threat to sperm whales is probably breathing in volatile organic compounds at the surface. The residents of New Orleans, Louisiana, may smell a bad odor from the spill, but imagine, after a 45-minute dive, surfacing into a noxious cloud of contaminated air.
Breathing these fumes can lead to pneumonia, damage to the brain, liver and other organs; unconsciousness and death. And the dispersants added to the oil are actually more volatile than crude.

Oil could also contaminate or kill the fish and squid that sperm whales eat. These creatures are highly sensitive to toxic compounds in oil. As the oil spreads, it will create a greater risk.

In the early 1990s, the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission warned about oil and gas exploration in the Gulf. Considering the risk of a large oil spill to marine mammals, the commission said “such effects might result in the complete loss of a regional population and require three or more generations to recover.”

BP and its federal regulators ignored these warnings. But they were far from alone.
Every single person in the United States who uses oil has a personal connection to this spill. As I watch footage of the oil flowing into this deepwater habitat, I realize that I am partially responsible. If Americans didn’t use as much oil as we do, we wouldn’t have to drill as much — or at all.

It’s too soon to say what will become of the sperm whale in the Gulf of Mexico. But it is fair to say a new energy source won’t suddenly emerge to replace petroleum.
So, what can we do? We can support clean energy in every way possible, but we also must decrease our oil consumption. Maybe we will all be able to learn something from this disaster and adapt.

The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Heather Heenehan.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

June 19, 2010

   http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/19/us/politics/19donate.html
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: June 18, 2010

WASHINGTON  The outburst by Representative Joe L. Barton of Texas in support of BP underscored the potential peril for lawmakers forced to respond to crises involving industries vital to their regions, and whose bountiful donations finance their political campaigns.

Democrats continued to make use of Mr. Barton’s apology to BP, using it to portray Republicans as beholden to big oil. Mr. Barton, the senior Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, worked as a consultant to Atlantic Richfield Oil and Gas Company before being elected to Congress. He has long been one of the top beneficiaries of campaign donations from big energy companies, cornerstones of the Texas economy.

But in going after Republicans, the Democrats’ attacks gloss over a more complicated picture.

The largest beneficiary of campaign donations from BP in the 2008 election cycle, for instance, was President Obama, who took in $77,000 from company executives and its political action committee. This year, Senator Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas and chairwoman of the Agriculture Committee, leads all candidates with $286,000 in donations from oil and gas companies.

And while Democrats have pounced on Mr. Barton for accusing Mr. Obama of conducting a “shakedown” by demanding that BP set up a $20 billion fund for oil spill claims, a number of Democratic lawmakers  especially those from oil-producing Gulf states  have struggled to balance their criticism of BP with support for the industry.

Officials like Senator Mary L. Landrieu and Representative Charlie Melancon, both Democrats of Louisiana, have demanded accountability for BP and reparations for individuals and businesses who may face financial catastrophe. But they have also fought to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling imposed by the Obama administration after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, saying it is crippling the local economy.

“Fifty-seven days ago this country was using 20 million barrels of oil a day,” Ms. Landrieu said on the Senate floor this week, responding to a speech by Mr. Obama from the Oval Office. “Today, 57 days later, 11 lives lost, the rig at the bottom of the ocean, we are still using 20 million barrels a day. The president did not say to people last night to park their cars and walk to work.”

Ms. Landrieu continued, “We have to understand we have to continue to drill for oil and gas.”

Both Ms. Landrieu and Mr. Melancon, who is running for a Senate seat, receive substantial donations from the oil and gas industry, which is hardly surprising given the industry’s big presence in Louisiana. For her campaigns, Ms. Landrieu has taken in $751,000 since 1996, while Mr. Melancon has received $312,000 since 2004.

A day after infuriating even his own party’s leaders with his remarks, Mr. Barton would not agree to an interview. But a Barton spokeswoman said it was similarly no surprise that a representative from Texas with a senior job on the Energy and Commerce Committee would be the beneficiary of oil and gas companies.

“Joe Barton gets oil money and energy money, well, damn straight,” said the spokeswoman, Lisa Miller. “It probably doesn’t come as a shock to anybody that Texas congressmen, Democrats and Republicans, receive energy money. But how he feels about BP is not related obviously to his campaign contributions because he is extremely critical of BP.”

Ms. Miller pointed out that Mr. Barton had a big role in Congressional inquiries into a 2006 BP oil spill in Alaska and a 2005 explosion at a BP refinery in Texas that killed 15 workers. Ms. Miller said that hearings led by Mr. Barton contributed to the forced retirement of BP’s chief executive, John Browne. He was replaced by Tony Hayward, the C.E.O. Mr. Barton apologized to on Thursday.

Mr. Barton was also critical in obtaining major tax breaks for the oil industry in 2004. He has received $1.4 million since the 1990 cycle from individuals and political action committees in the oil and gas industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The nuances of big oil’s relationship to Washington was immaterial to Democrats who intensified the onslaught that began on Thursday after Mr. Barton’s apology, and his subsequent apology for the apology.

Besides painting Republicans as defenders of big oil, Democrats used Mr. Barton’s comments to deflect attention, if briefly, from the Obama administration’s difficulties in managing the response to the huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“If the G.O.P. wins back the House, Barton is the guy who could be in charge of regulating the oil industry,” the Democratic National Committee wrote in a fund-raising pitch. “We’re whipping together an ad as fast as possible to make sure voters know exactly whose side Barton and the G.O.P. are on and to demand they stop apologizing to big oil, but we need your help to get it on the air.”

In a sign of the political sensitivity around the oil spill, Republicans joined in criticizing Mr. Barton. Representative Jo Bonner, Republican of Alabama, called on Mr. Barton to resign his committee post on Friday, joining Representative Jeff Miller, Republican of Florida.

The tightrope walk faced by elected officials from oil and gas states is similar to the New York delegation’s struggles when it comes to legislation to regulate Wall Street banks, or the New Jersey delegation’s sensitivity on legislation related to the pharmaceutical industry.

“You’ve got this conflict for these folks where they acknowledge the spill is a problem but, with the significant support they get from the industry, are a heck of a lot more reluctant to take aggressive legislative action against the company,” said Tyson Slocum, who runs the energy program at Public Citizen, a political research and advocacy group.

Besides Ms. Landrieu and Mr. Barton, lawmakers from big energy states include Senator David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana; Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma; and Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska.

Ms. Murkowski, who has received $434,000 from the industry since 2002 and whose state economy is particularly linked to the industry, last month blocked the Senate from considering a measure that would raise the liability limit for an oil company’s legal exposure to $10 billion from $75 million, saying it could hurt smaller companies and produce “unintended consequences.”

For the last decade, the oil industry has been one of the most powerful lobbying constituencies in Washington. It has spent nearly a billion dollars on federal lobbying since 1998, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, making it the sixth-biggest industry in terms of expenditures.

In the current election cycle, the oil and gas industry has contributed $12.8 million to Congressional candidates, with 71 percent of it going to Republicans.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1918382420100619 

BP restarts drillship system after 10-hour lapse
June 19, 2010
2:38pm EDT

By Kristen Hays

HOUSTON (Reuters) – BP Plc restarted one of its oil-capture systems at the gushing leak in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday after a 10-hour shutdown to fix a problem on a piece of fire-prevention equipment.

Spokesman Robert Wine said a “flame arrestor” on the vent atop an oil storage tank on the oil-collecting drillship was blocked, so it was shut down at 8:23 p.m. CDT (8:23 p.m. EDT) to allow crews to clean it out.

A flame arrestor is a device on the vent designed to dissipate heat to reduce the risk of fire, Wine said.

When a lightning storm blew in, BP decided to wait until it passed to restart the drillship system.

BP disclosed the shutdown in its daily 9 a.m. CDT (10 a.m. EDT) update of oil collected posted on its website. About three hours later, the company issued an announcement that said the system restarted at 6:30 a.m. CDT (7:30 a.m. EDT), before the shutdown was disclosed.

Wine said the company announced the restart when that operation, which takes several hours, was complete. “It’s a process, it’s not instantaneous,” he said.

The second system, where more oil is being burned off at a service rig, operated normally throughout the time the drillship system was shut down, Wine said.

Before the shutdown, the two systems captured 24,500 barrels a day of oil, or 87.5 percent of the systems’ total capacity of 28,000 barrels a day.

The drillship system, in which a containment cap at the top of failed blowout preventer equipment at the seabed channels oil to Transocean Ltd’s Discoverer Enterprise a mile above at the water’s surface, collected 14,400 barrels, down from the 16,020 barrels collected in the previous uninterrupted 24-hour period, BP said.

CONTAINMENT PLANS

The company said the second system, where oil is siphoned through a hose connected to the blowout preventer to Helix Energy Solution’s Helix Q4000 service rig at the surface, burned off 10,100 barrels of oil. That is the rig’s daily oil-handling capacity, according to BP.

The Q4000 must burn off oil because it has no storage or processing capacity, unlike the drillship, BP said.

The total amount of oil collected by the containment cap system since it was installed on June 3 reached 205,570 on Friday. The total burned off by the service rig since it began siphoning oil early Wednesday reached 23,220 barrels on Friday, according to BP figures.

BP aims to increase the surface oil-handling capacity to up to 53,000 barrels a day by bringing in another vessel to siphon oil from the blowout preventer through another hose and bring it to the surface. That vessel will be able to process up to 25,000 barrels a day, according to BP.

The latest estimate of the leak’s flow rate from a team of U.S. scientists is 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day. U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the top U.S. official overseeing the spill response, said Friday that range represents varied opinions and the actual flow is more likely at the low end.

But BP plans to increase capacity to up to 80,000 barrels a day by mid-July in response to Coast Guard demands for more oil-handling capability and backup systems.

That upgrade also will include switching the current containment cap for a larger one with what the company says is a better seal. That cap also will allow vessels at the surface to disconnect quickly and move if a hurricane approaches, unlike the current cap system.

Allen said the Coast Guard and BP might consider not switching caps at the end of June if the 53,000-barrel capacity appears to be capturing all the oil. The leak would gush unchecked when the current cap is removed and before the new one is secured, Allen has said.

But the current system does not allow the drillship to disconnect and move quickly if a storm comes, which is a critical part of the July containment phase, he said.
(Reporting by Kristen Hays; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

White House chief: Yacht trip another gaffe by BP

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hmRv_YUlI1GFQp-ArxAtk0n8S3EwD9GEGNCG2

(AP) – June 19, 2010

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s chief of staff says BP chief executive Tony Hayward has committed yet another in a “long line of PR gaffes” but attending a yacht race in England while the Gulf oil spill disaster continues.

Hayward faced a fresh avalanche of criticism as news circulated Saturday that he was at a yacht competition around the Isle of Wight.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is mocking Hayward’s infamous statement that he wishes the crisis were over so could have his life back.

Referring to the yachting, Emanuel tells ABC’s “This Week,” “He’s got his life back, as he would say.”

Emanuel says the focus should stay on capping the leaking well and helping the people of the Gulf region.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

June 18, 2010

 http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/pascal061810.htm

24 Corporate Crime Reporter 25(10), June 18, 2010

Jeanne Pascal knows BP.

Up until three months ago, when she retired, Jeanne Pascal was an attorney at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Her beat: debarment of BP.

For years, she worked on the BP case.

After all BP’s rap sheet was long and nasty  three convictions, an $84 million OSHA fine, and a deferred prosecution agreement.

Last year, Pascal was inclined to debar BP  strip it of its government contracts  because of its repeat violations.

But the Pentagon intervened.

“The Defense Energy Support Center told me that BP was supplying 80 percent of the fuel going to the U.S. military in Iraq,” Pascal told Corporate Crime Reporter.

“That’s a very substantial need.”

“We’re talking 2009,” Pascal said. “Had we debarred BP at that time, the Defense Department would have gotten an exception to the debarment and continued to do business with BP. We would have gotten a sister federal agency doing a substantial amount of business with a debarred contractor. And we would have had no oversight or no audit rights over that company.”

So, Pascal shifted to Plan B.

She was willing to enter into a compliance agreement  so that the government could audit BP’s operation to ensure that what happened on the North Slope  spills, slipshod safety  would be corrected.

She had cut a similar five year compliance agreement with BP after it was convicted of polluting on Endicott Island on the North Slope.

But that ended in 2005.

And now BP was in trouble again.

And Pascal offered BP another compliance agreement.

One problem  BP wanted no part of Pascal’s conditions.

First and foremost  that BP’s ombudsman  former federal judge Stanley Sporkin  be kept independent outside of BP.

No, BP said  we need our own ombudsman in house.

“Judge Stanley Sporkin’s office is providing ombudsman services to BP as a result of the House Energy and Commerce oversight hearings in 2007,” Pascal said.

“Then BP president Bob Malone promised that Judge Sporkin would restore the integrity to BP’s operation and restore the confidence of the American people. I wanted Judge Sporkin’s office to continue to do the job that BP promised Congress Judge Sporkin would do.”

“But BP wanted to terminate Judge Sporkin’s office and control that function by appointing a BP person to that position.”

Who did BP want to appoint as its in house ombudsman?

“I think his name was Tom McCormick  but I am not certain,” Pascal says.

Pascal says that the issue of keeping Sporkin as ombudsman for the workers was important to her because she recognized that BP was a “retaliatory company.”

In 2003, BP sought to end the first five year compliance agreement  which Pascal negotiated with BP outside counsel Carol Dinkins, a partner at Vinson & Elkins  end it early  at three to five years instead of five.

When BP workers on the North Slope caught wind that BP was in negotiations to end it early, they complained to Pascal and to BP’s probation officer  Mary Frances Barnes.

“Employees who came to me or to Stanley Sporkin with health safety and environmental complaints found themselves retaliated against,” Pascal said.
As a result, Pascal rejected BP’s plea to end the first five year compliance agreement early.

“If a company employee brings me information and wanted me to look into it, BP would conduct an investigation and try to find out who talked.”

“When they thought they had the answer, they would either demote that person, discipline that person or terminate them.”

Do you know for a fact that workers who went to you were retaliated against?

“Yes I do,” Pascal says.

How many?

“Enough to be of huge concern to me personally. I had about 35 people come to me under the first compliance agreement. And they were terrified that the company would get their names and retaliate against them. ”

“People who work for BP are afraid of their employer. BP is a very retaliatory company.”

“BP has the money, talent and resources to correct all of these problems and do all of this right. But they have chosen not to do it.”

“What happened in the Gulf  it looks as if they took shortcuts to save a couple of millions of dollars  that tells me that they have not learned from their four encounters with the law, their millions in fines, the multiple civil lawsuits filed against them  they still have not gotten the message.”

“The amount of the fines and the bad press clearly has not been sufficient to stop their behavior.”

“If I were the debarment official now, I would look at this company and say  this company cannot be rehabilitated. They are not going to do it right. They have actively chosen not to do what they need to do to correct the problem.”

“What stunned me was that BP told us that their lines were in pristine top notch shape. The employees were telling us that the pipes were corroded and in bad shape. In fact, a year after the compliance agreement ended, there was a substantial spill on Prudhoe Bay. That was the 2006 leak. But that was a year after the first compliance agreement ended.”

A second issue was BP’s Health Safety and Environment (HSE) unit.

“BP Exploration Alaska under Doug Suttles had an HSE, which was an independent division with a vice president who reported to the President,” Pascal said.

“Following the 2006 oil spill, Doug Suttles folded HSE under the technical directorate under Tony Brock. So, you have an HSE manager reporting to Tony Brock. Tony Brock reported to the President.”

“I wanted HSE restored to a vice presidential position.”

“BP was saying that HSE didn’t deserve a top billing as a operational concern. So, that was another sticking point.”

Pascal was negotiation the second compliance agreement with BP’s general counsel Jack Lynch.

“He’s a man of great integrity,” Pascal said.

“However, Mr. Lynch is an attorney providing attorney services. And people making decisions on his advice were and are Lamar MacKay, Doug Suttles, Andy Inglis and Tony Hayward.”

“Lamar MacKay is the president of BP America.”

“Doug Suttles was the CEO of BP Exploration Alaska. He’s the guy who devalued HSE. They promoted him and sent him to Houston and gave him control over all exploration worldwide, including exploration in the Gulf.”

“Those four individuals were in control of what was happening and were in control when the Deepwater Horizon sank.”
[For a complete transcript of the Interview with Jeanne Pascal, see 24 Corporate Crime Reporter 25(10), June 21, 2010, print edition only.]

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-burnbox-20100617,0,4814068.story?page=1

By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times
June 17, 2010
Reporting from the Gulf of Mexico – Here on the open ocean, 12 miles from ground zero of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the gulf is hovering between life and death.

The large strands of sargassum seaweed atop the ocean are normally noisy with birds and thick with crustaceans, small fish and sea turtles. But now this is a silent panorama, heavy with the smell of oil.

There are no birds. The seaweed is soaked in rust-colored crude and chemical dispersant. It is devoid of life except for the occasional juvenile sea turtle, speckled with oil and clinging to the only habitat it knows. Thick ribbons of oil spread out through the sea like the strips in egg flower soup, gorgeous and deadly.

A few dead fish float in the water, though dolphin-fish, tuna, flying fish and the occasional shark can still be seen swimming near the surface, threading their way through the wavy, sometimes iridescent gobs of crude.

“This is devastating. I mean literally, it’s terrible. All this should be pretty much blue water, and – look at it. It just looks bad,” said Kevin Aderhold, a longtime charter fishing captain who has been taking a team of researchers deep into the gulf every day to rescue oil-soaked sea turtles.

“When this first happened, a lot of us were like, they’ll cap that thing and we’ll be out fishing again. Now reality’s set in. Look around you. This is long-term. This’ll be here for-ev-er.”

And then it gets worse. When the weather is calm and the sea is placid, ships trailing fireproof booms corral the black oil, the coated seaweed and whatever may be caught in it, and torch it into hundred-foot flames, sending plumes of smoke skyward in ebony mushrooms. This patch of unmarked ocean gets designated over the radio as “the burn box.”

Wildlife researchers operating here, in the regions closest to the spill, are witnesses to a disquieting choice: Protecting shorebirds, delicate marshes and prime tourist beaches along the coast by stopping the oil before it moves ashore has meant the largely unseen sacrifice of some wildlife out at sea, poisoned with chemical dispersants and sometimes boiled by the burning of spilled oil on the water’s surface.

“It reflects the conventional wisdom of oil spills: If they just keep the oil out at sea, the harm will be minimal. And I disagree with that completely,” said Blair Witherington, a research scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission who has been part of the sea turtle rescue mission.

By unhappy coincidence, the same convergences of ocean currents that create long mats of sargassum – nurturing countless crabs, slugs and surface fish that are crucial food for turtles, birds and larger fish – also coalesce the oil, creating islands of death sometimes 30 miles long.

“Most of the Gulf of Mexico is a desert. Nothing out there to live on. It’s all concentrated in these oases,” Witherington said.

“Ordinarily, the sargassum is a nice, golden color. You shake it, and all kinds of life comes out: shrimp, crabs, worms, sea slugs. The place is really just bursting with life. It’s the base of the food chain. And these areas we’re seeing here by comparison are quite dead,” he said.

“It’s amazing. We’ll see flying fish, and they’ll land in this stuff and just get stuck.”

Hardest hit of all, it appears, are the sea jellies and snails that drift along the gulf’s surface, some of the most important food sources for sea turtles.

“These animals drift into the oil lines and it’s like flies on fly paper,” Witherington said. “As far as I can tell, that whole fauna is just completely wiped out.”

The turtle rescue team sets out at 6 a.m. in the muggy warm stillness of the harbor at Venice, La. The researchers move into the open gulf about an hour later, past a line of shrimp boats deputized to lay boom along the coastal marshes.

Closer to the Deepwater Horizon site, the water takes on a foreboding gray pallor tinged with a rainbow-like sheen. Soon, the oil begins swirling around the boat and the seascape smells like an auto mechanic’s garage.

Strewn among the oil and seaweed are human flotsam: an orange hardhat, a pie pan, a wire coat hanger, yellow margarine-tub lids, a black-and-green ashtray. The crew has found papers – long at sea on global currents – bearing inscriptions in Spanish, Arabic, Greek and Chinese.

Special thanks to Richard Charter