Oil spill likely to be the worst environmental disaster in US history EHU HASEY

[omängum fra'uti]

And to bring things around to the reason for these forums to begin with...  James Cameron is part of an EPA meeting of scientists and other experts on how to stop the oil spill.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jl64BJXcQfEi139LaAlsnU0XWS-QD9G2LOB82

[bommel]

There you have it. Capitalism/greed definitively won't save this planet. Sometimes I don't think it's worth the effort to save the human race. Nature needed x million/billion years to created and develop this planet and we destroy it in perhaps 200 or 300 years? That's so wrong! Although I must admit that I'll buy products created by companies which pollute the environment (think of those black rivers in some cities in Asia for example). So that's the way the cookie crumbles! Saying and doing are to different things (dunno if I can say so, I've translated this from German!).

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/04/gulf.oil.spill/index.html

BP says oil flowing from ruptured well to ship on Gulf surface
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 4, 2010 11:59 a.m. EDT

Venice, Louisiana (CNN) -- On day 46 of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, BP, at last, began to siphon oil Friday from the ruptured undersea well to the surface, where it was flowing onto the awaiting drill ship Discover Enterprise.

As the recovery process started, BP said it would shut four vents on top of a containment cap from which oil was still escaping into the ocean. The company hoped that closing the vents would greatly reduce the amount of gushing crude.

But no one could say with any certainty whether BP's latest effort to contain and recover the oil would succeed. U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the federal government's response manager, said estimates of how much oil is being captured or whether any leaks develop will be determined later Friday.

President Obama, who said he was "furious at this entire situation," was heading back to Louisiana on Friday to get another firsthand look at the environmental damage and speak with political and business leaders.

Oil that has already affected Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama is drifting steadily toward Florida. A new trajectory from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued Friday forecast oil onshore as far east as Destin by Saturday afternoon.

Tar balls, tar patties and sheen were confirmed 10 miles from the Escambia County shoreline, and the primary oil plume, according to NOAA, was 30 miles from Pensacola.

"You can't help but be passionate about Florida," Gov. Charlie Crist said Friday about the state's natural beauty and the importance of tourism. What was needed now, he said, was strong leadership to get through the crisis.

"You've got to keep a cool head in order to win a hot game," he said.

BP remained optimistic but again warned that the containment cap had never been positioned on a ruptured well head a mile below the ocean's surface. In a statement, the British oil giant said the system's ability to contain oil or its continued operation "cannot be assured."

"I think it should work," Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said.

Suttles was referring to a complex underwater maneuver that BP completed Thursday night. After mixed success with cutting off the damaged pipe, BP positioned a cap over the ruptured well head, though the company was uncertain whether the cap's seal would be snug enough to prevent oil from leaking out.

BP's progress was received with tempered applause.

"The placement of the containment cap is another positive development in BP's most recent attempt to contain the leak. However, it will be some time before we can confirm that this method will work," said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Tony Russell. "Even if successful, this is only a temporary and partial fix, and we must continue our aggressive response."

The well may not be completely sealed off until at least until August, when BP hopes to finish drilling two relief wells.

"Our task is to contain the oil, ultimately to eliminate the leaking well and, most importantly, to clean up the oil, defend the shoreline and restore the shoreline where the oil comes ashore, so we return it to the original state," said Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive officer.

Hayward appears this week in television ads launched as part of a national campaign to restore the British oil company's tarnished reputation. In them, Hayward apologizes and promises to "make this right."

But protests against the oil company that sprouted this week are set to continue in several cities through the weekend. And anger continued to fester in coastal communities.

Hayward said Friday that the company will establish a separate division to manage its response to the crisis. BP has said that it has spent $1 billion so far but that it was too early to predict the ultimate financial blow.

"We've got considerable firepower to deal with the costs," said Chief Financial Officer Byron Grote, referring to $5 billion in available cash, $5 billion in bank credit lines and an additional $5 billion in standby credit facilities.

The BP well erupted after an explosion and fire on the leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20 that killed 11 people. The rig sank two days later, leaving up to 19,000 barrels (798,000 gallons) of oil pouring into the Gulf daily, according to federal estimates. BP, rig owner Transocean and oilfield services contractor Halliburton have all pointed fingers at one another for the disaster.

In Louisiana, where oily sludge has been fouling coastal marshes for two weeks, state officials said that the White House has given its blessing to a plan to dredge up walls of sand offshore and that BP agreed to fund the $360 million construction cost. But Gov. Bobby Jindal said Thursday that state officials "haven't gotten a dime from them."

"I'm calling on BP to step up [and] be the responsible party in fact, not just by label," Jindal said. He added, "We're done talking to attorneys."

"Since the environmental implications of the projects are not fully understood, BP assumes no liability for unexpected or unintended consequences of these projects," the company said on its website.

The Obama administration has also sent a $69 million bill to BP for the government's efforts to help deal with the spill. The bill accounts for 75 percent of what BP owes to date, and the company has until July 1 to pay the full amount, an administration official said.

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/06/03/obama.lkl/index.html

Obama says he's furious about oil spill but loves 'best job on Earth'
By the CNN Wire Staff
June 3, 2010 4:23 p.m. EDT

EDITOR NOTE: It's funny that Obama didn't get quoted as being "furious" until Spike Lee told him to "rage" publicly about BP. Even though Obama zings a good comeback about yelling at people, the timing still makes you wonder who's in charge of what over there.

Washington (CNN) -- President Obama told CNN's Larry King on Thursday that he is furious about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but his job is to fix things instead of just yelling at people.

In a White House interview for the 25th anniversary of "Larry King Live" on CNN, Obama called the oil spill an unprecedented crisis for the country but added it could have been worse.

Despite the challenges posed by the oil spill, global threats involving North Korea and Iran and political battles with Congress, Obama called being president "the best job on Earth."

"It's an extraordinary privilege to wake up every day and know you have the opportunity to serve the American people and make life better," he said.

King noted that the latest CNN Poll of Polls showed Obama at 48 percent support among the American people, which the president called pretty good, considering the circumstances.

"Given everything that's going on, my poll numbers are all right," Obama said.

Asked about his anger toward the oil spill situation, Obama said he was furious because "somebody didn't think through the consequences of their actions." Obama also said he had not seen enough of a rapid response from BP to the environmental catastrophe.

"I would love to just spend a lot of my time venting and yelling at people, but that's not the job I was hired to do," Obama said. "My job is to solve this problem and ultimately this isn't about me and how angry I am. Ultimately this is about the people down in the Gulf who are being impacted and what am I doing to make sure that they're able to salvage their way of life."

Oil giant BP caused the spill and is responsible for paying the costs, Obama said, adding: "My job is to make sure they're being held accountable."

(EDITOR: The story continues mostly off-topic for this forum and is thus abridged)

[El Jacko]

   Hate to take up the post of devil's advocate here, but I'm slightly annoyed at the US govt. for laying the entire responsibility on BP here. First off, Transocean were responsible for operating the rig itself when the accident occurred. Haliburton were responsible for the well itself, while the whole lot was overseen by BP and governed by, lets face it, slack legislation. So rather than any of the four point their collective, oily fingers at BP, it'd me much better from a publicity standpoint for the involved parties to just put up their hands and declare, "Ok, we fudged up. Now let's try fix it."

   I feel the benefit of knowing who to take to court here is far, FAR outweighed by the cost (both current and potential) to the environment.

/rant

[Kyle Kepone]

@El Jacko I agree. But everyone is running around too proud to admit to their mistakes.

And for the purpose of keeping on topic:

Democracy Now!, an independent radio and television program, has been covering the spill for a while.

http://www.democracynow.org/tags/bp_oil_spill

They update daily, except on weekends. I think it's worth checking out?

[Toruk Makto]

My guess is it's money, not pride. The company that ends up being at fault will be the largest target of fines and litigation.

[bommel]

It's always about money, isn't it? If I remember right, they decided to use the cheapest blowout preventer. Yeah, look what we have now... but even from an ecomically point of view it's been a bad deal. A more expensive blowout preventer actually might have worked correctly and they wouldn't lose that much money... but sometimes they need to learn it the hard way.

[Toruk Makto]

Or a blowout preventer that hadn't been modified and then had the maintenance schedule ignored.

[bommel]

Or a blowout preventer that hadn't been modified and then had the maintenance schedule ignored.

Yeah. "Throw the rules out the window, odds are you'll go that way too."
The rules are: Don't save money on critical security stuff! Don't say that something is impossible! (can be cont'd)

[Kyle Kepone]

BP Relied on Cheaper Wells - Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704289504575313010283981200.html?KEYWORDS=BP+relied+on+cheaper+wells

By Russell Gold and Tom McGinty

In recent years, oil giant BP PLC used a well design that has been called "risky" by Congressional investigators in more than one out of three of its deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico, significantly more often than most peers, a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal data shows.

The design was used on the well that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, killing 11 workers and causing America's worst offshore oil spill. The only other major well design, which is more expensive, includes more safeguards against a natural-gas blowout of the kind that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon.

A Journal analysis of records provided by the U.S. Minerals Management Service shows that BP used the less costly design—called "long string"—on 35% of its deepwater wells since July 2003, the earliest date the well-design data were available. Anadarko Petroleum Corp., a minority partner of BP's in the destroyed well, used it on 42% of its deepwater Gulf wells, though it says it doesn't do so in wells of the type drilled by BP.

Both companies used the design much more often, on average, than other major Gulf drillers. Out of 218 deepwater wells in the Gulf drilled since July 2003, 26% used the long-string design. It derives its name from its use of a single, long "string" of pipe from the sea floor to the bottom of the well.

Other big drillers use long-string design less frequently than BP, according to the Journal's data analysis. Royal Dutch Shell PLC used long string designs on 8% of its wells and Chevron Corp. on 15%. Australian firm BHP Billiton PLC used long string on 4% of its wells.

The insight into BP's record comes amid fierce pressure on the oil giant and its partners, who share billions in liability in the accident. Anadarko blasted BP Friday in a statement by Chief Executive Jim Hackett, who said: "The mounting evidence clearly demonstrates that this tragedy was preventable and the direct result of BP's reckless decisions and actions."

A long-string design is cheaper because a single pipe runs the length of the well and can be installed in one step. But it also can create a dangerous pathway for natural gas to rise unchecked outside the pipe.

The alternative, known as liners, is seen as safer because it has more built-in places to prevent oil or gas from flowing up the well uncontrolled. "There are more barriers, and the barriers are easier to test," says Gene Beck, an engineer and professor at Texas A&M University.

A BP spokesman said long string is widely used and is a perfectly acceptable design, particularly in areas where other wells have been drilled and the geology is well understood. "There is nothing inherently unsafe about long strings," says BP spokesman Andrew Gowers. BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward, told a congressional panel Thursday that "the long string is not an unusual design in the Gulf of Mexico, as I understand it."

Long-string wells are made of a continuous length of steel, which makes the well sturdier over time—a point Mr. Hayward alluded to in his testimony, noting that the design decision had "to do with the long-term integrity of the well." The Minerals Management Service signed off on BP's long-string plan for the Horizon well, he added. "It was approved by the MMS," Mr. Hayward said.

Anadarko says it doesn't use long-string design for drilling exploration wells in unfamiliar areas. The company also says it only uses long strings in lower-pressure wells. The well BP was drilling with the Deepwater Horizon was an exploration well, and was well above normal pressure. As minority partner, Anadarko says it didn't have a role in deciding the BP well's design.

"It's not that long strings are unsafe, but they have to be under the right conditions," says Darrell Hollek, Anadarko's vice president of Gulf operations.

The other method, known as "liner tieback," is more complex and costlier. First, a section of pipe called a liner is placed at the bottom of the well and cemented into place, creating an extra barrier to prevent natural gas from rising to the surface. Typically, another pipe is connected to the liner to create a pipe to the surface.

Chevron's head of North American exploration and production, Gary Luquette, said Chevron typically avoids long-string design because it offers fewer layers of protection. "You can make choices early on to cut costs, slim down your project to make it economic today and have dire consequences down the road, or you can build in that reliability and philosophy of dependability up front and save yourself a lot of headaches in the future," Mr. Luquette said.

In an internal BP email released by a Congressional committee, a BP drilling engineer in Houston told colleagues that the long-string design "saves a good deal of time and money."

A letter to BP's CEO, Mr. Hayward, by two Democratic Congressmen ahead of his testimony to their committee on Thursday, said the choice of the long-string design for the Horizon well was one of five decisions BP made that posed a trade-off between cost and well safety.

Drilling experts say the long-string design can be riskier than liner-tieback, particularly for high-pressure wells. "It was a safe and accepted method, but it is not the most conservative method. The most conservative would be to make sure there is not a straight shot [for gas] up to the surface, that you cement everything in place," says Greg McCormack, director of the University of Texas at Austin Petroleum Extension Service.

According to an internal BP well-planning document seen by the Journal, the company expected the well being drilled by the Deepwater Horizon to be high-pressure at least as far back as January.

Well-control experts and congressional investigators agree that the well design, by itself, didn't doom the Deepwater Horizon. The design created a pathway for gas to flow up the well, potentially pressuring equipment near the floor of the Gulf. But the well would have been secure if the cement plug at the bottom of the hole had held.

Congressional investigators Monday criticized BP for using a long string on that well. "The decision," says a letter from Congressmen Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) and Bart Stupak (D., Mich.), "appears to have been made to save time and reduce costs." Using a liner design would have cost an additional $7 million to $10 million, according to an internal BP estimate released by the congressmen.

The congressmen's letter noted that a long string creates only two barriers to prevent gas from flowing up the well: cement at the bottom of the well, and a large seal where the well reaches the sea floor. The liner-tieback design adds two more barriers: the cement around the liner and a mechanical seal that attaches the liner to the pipes.

Marvin Odum, president of Shell's U.S. operations, said Shell doesn't use a long string for high-risk wells. Shell said many of the times it used long strings in deepwater wells, either it hadn't encountered high pressures in the well, or the well was in an area where Shell had drilled and was comfortable with the conditions. "When it is a high-pressure, deepwater well, we only have one way of doing that way, and that is with a liner tieback. Period," he says.
—Ben Casselman contributed to this report.

[Ku'rända]

http://www.seashepherd.org/gulf-rescue/

scientists estimate that we are seeing only 2-5% of the oil. The rest remains below the surface and the damage will remain long beyond any eventual surface cleanup.  As of June 3rd, between 21,420,000 and 184,355,000,000 gallons of oil have already contaminated the Gulf waters – and that oil is rapidly spreading.

I watched as two very good criminal investigations were shut down by Bush's (2) Department of Justice (DOJ) and had to also watch incredulously as my agency, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), fell into lockstep with DOJ.

the Federal government pulled the plug on his investigation into negligence by British Petroleum (BP) in Alaska in 2006. West was well on the road to sending some BP executives to jail when his investigation was quashed before it was complete, and BP paid a $20 million dollar fine and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor offense.

Humans have punctured a hole in Mother Earths mantle.  Now she is bleeding oil into the oceans at a rate of something like 60,000 barrels a
day.

Suddenly What Jake said is starting to become all too true, too fast:

They killed their mother

Seems like Bush still is causing trouble.

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/13/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html

'Integrity' testing on well cap will start soon
By the CNN Wire Staff
July 13, 2010 3:50 p.m. EDT

Houston, Texas (CNN) -- BP was to start a test Tuesday to determine whether the new cap over its ruptured well head can stop oil from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

Retired Adm. Thad Allen, who is leading the federal response to the oil disaster, told reporters at a Tuesday news conference the "integrity" test of the cap will begin later in the afternoon.

The well cap placement is part of what Allen calls a "very complex, nuanced and broad-based response" to the rupture of the underwater well in April, an accident that caused worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

The test will measure pressure inside the well and will last anywhere from six to 48 hours. It will involve incrementally closing valves on the new cap, a process that would allow BP to do its pressure measurements. Workers completed seismic surveys around the well site earlier Tuesday to see if any hazards exist on the sea floor, Allen said.

Higher pressure readings would mean the leak is being stopped, while lower pressure indications would mean oil is escaping from other parts of the well.

Allen was asked what he thought the odds were to the success of being able to shut the well with the new cap.

"I think we are very confident we can take control of this hydrocarbon stream and then slowly close all these valves and stop the emission of hydrocarbons. What we can't tell is the current condition of the well bore below the sea floor and the implication of the pressure readings," he said. "That is in fact why we're doing a well integrity test."

Allen said that if low pressure readings persist for around a six-hour time frame, that could signal problems with the new cap

The cap could contain all of the oil; it could contain some of the crude while ships on the water's surface collect the rest; or, under a worst-case scenario, there could be more damage to the well's casing, meaning that capping the well would not stop the oil from flowing.

If oil collection is still necessary, the oil-gathering ship, the Helix Producer, was put in place Monday to recover the crude, joining the Q4000, which is already active.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration sent BP and other responsible parties a fourth bill relating to the oil spill. The new bill is for $99.7 million. It comes on top of a total of $122.3 million in the first three bills.

The government says the parties are responsible for all costs associated with the spill, including stopping the leak, protecting the shoreline and long-term recovery efforts. The money will help replenish a $1.5 billion federal trust fund established to pay for damages associated with oil spills.

Among those costs is skimming oil on the surface of the Gulf. Allen said authorities are on pace to have around 1,000 skimmers available by the end of the month. At this point, there are fewer than 600.

Over the next two to three weeks, 60,000 to 80,000 barrels (2.52 million to 3.36 million gallons) a day could be collected as part of the containment process, BP says.

Allen said a four-vessel system that could recover 80,000 barrels a day could be ready by the end of the month.

BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells told reporters in a conference call Tuesday that the placement of the sealing cap went well on Monday.

But he noted that the cap represents just one step in a multi-step process and that "the job is not over."

BP has said that the "sealing cap system never before has been deployed at these depths or under these conditions, and its efficiency and ability to contain the oil and gas cannot be assured."

Work has been continuing on two relief wells, the ultimate solution to fixing the problem. BP doesn't expect the first relief well work to be completed until August.

Scientists estimate that 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil have spewed daily from BP's breached well and Allen cautions that even if the engineering containment efforts work, there is still a lot to be done in a disaster that has affected the environment and the livelihoods of people from Louisiana to Florida.

"There's still a significant amount of oil out there, and the oil recovery and the impacts of this oil will probably extend well into the fall in terms of oil coming ashore, tar balls, beach cleanup, and then we will be moving of course at that point of the natural resources damage assessment trying to understand the long-term environmental ecological impact of the event," Allen said.

The presidential commission tasked with investigating the Gulf oil gusher and making recommendations about the future of offshore drilling will continue its public meetings Tuesday. The National Oil Spill Commission has six months to determine what happened when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded April 20 -- and how to prevent something similar from ever happening again.

A new moratorium on deepwater drilling issued by the U.S. Interior Department Monday has already played a prominent role in the hearings.

[Ku'rända]

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/07/15/bp-oil-cap-test.html

Oil has stopped flowing from BP's broken wellhead into the Gulf of Mexico thanks to a new containment cap, the company said Thursday.

But officials with the company remained cautious as engineers began monitoring pressure gauges and watching for signs of leaks elsewhere in the well.

The tests will continue in six-hour increments for up to 48 hours before the procedure will be considered successful.

Any new leaks would mean the cap would have to be reopened, which would cause oil to spill into the water.

"For the people living on the Gulf, I'm certainly not going to guess their emotions," BP vice-president Kent Wells said. "I hope they're encouraged there's no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico. But we have to be careful. Depending on what the test shows us, we may need to open this well back up."

Even if the well holds out for the whole two days of testing, the vents will be opened again and oil released while engineers conduct a seismic survey of the ocean floor to make sure oil and gas aren't breaking out of the well into the bedrock, said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the Obama administration's point man on the disaster.

"I think it is a positive sign," U.S. President Barack Obama said Thursday, referring to the stopped leak. "We're still in the testing phase. I'll have more to say about it tomorrow."
If pressure too great, oil to be diverted to surface

BP began testing the cap on Thursday afternoon, closing off openings in it one by one while monitoring pressure underneath.

The cap is intended to stop the oil from gushing into the sea by either holding all the oil inside the well machinery like a stopper or, if the pressure is too great, directing some through pipes to as many as four collection ships on the surface.

The new cap was lowered onto the well on Monday, but efforts to test the system have been repeatedly delayed.

Tests on it were halted on Wednesday after crews discovered oil leaking out of a pipe called a "choke line" that is attached to the sealing cap.

Allen told reporters Thursday morning that teams had replaced the choke line and would be checking it.

Allen said the periodic testing of the cap would also offer insight into the other, more permanent, solution to the fix: two relief wells intended to stop the gusher from deep underground by relieving pressure and diverting the oil flow.
'Break in the action'

The mapping of the sea floor that was done to prepare for the well cap test and the pressure readings will also help determine how much mud and cement will be needed to seal off the well.

Drill work was stopped on the relief well because it was not clear what effect the testing of the cap might have on it. Work on the other relief well had already been stopped according to plan.

The ultimate solution to stopping the blowout is to plug the wells, which can only be done when a relief well intersects with the old well bore.

Meanwhile, Allen said the prevailing winds are slowing the drift of oil to shore.

"We're getting a little break in the action as far as the oil closing [on] shore," he said. "It's given us a chance to kind of consolidate our forces and make sure we can redouble our efforts on onshore cleanup."

Since the oil well off the Louisiana coast blew out on April 20, setting off an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, an estimated 689 million litres of oil have flowed into the Gulf.

Acy Cooper, vice-president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, told CBC News that while his organization welcomed the news of the capped oil, its members are still preparing for tar balls to flow into their area from the millions of barrels already spilled into the Gulf.

"It's gonna be an ongoing thing," he said. "Just because they stopped it, it doesn't mean it's not coming. It's good that they stopped it, but that doesn't mean it's over. We know that."

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/07/15/bp-oil-cap-test.html#ixzz0to1Jb3oJ

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/18/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html

Recapped Gulf oil well continues to hold
By the CNN Wire Staff
July 18, 2010 10:19 a.m. EDT

(CNN) -- The recently recapped oil well in the Gulf of Mexico could remain closed until the relief well is drilled if tests remain favorable, a BP official said Sunday morning.

BP's Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said a variety of tests show oil and gas are not escaping.

"No one associated with this whole activity wants to see any more oil flow into the Gulf of Mexico," Suttles told reporters Sunday morning. "We will continue integrity tests all the way until we get the well killed. There is no target to return the well to flow."

However if tests show problems, BP officials said they are prepared to remove the cap and reassess.

"We're just taking this day by day," Suttles said.

No oil has gushed out since Thursday when BP closed all the valves in a new custom-made cap that was lowered into place earlier in the week. The undersea video images of a quiet ocean gave new hope in the hearts of Gulf Coast residents devastated by three months of disaster.

Meanwhile, BP restarted work on drilling two relief wells. BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells said that the first relief well is now about five feet away from the ruptured Macondo well and an intersection could occur by the end of July.

BP then plans to pump mud and cement down to kill the ruptured well.

In the coming weeks, BP also plans to bring in two more oil collection ships in addition to the two already in the Gulf, bringing containment capacity to 80,000 barrels (about 3.4 million gallons) of oil a day, more than high-end estimates of how much oil had been leaking. But it's possible some oil may be released into the Gulf again, before all the ships are ready.

The skimming vessel "A Whale," which underwent extensive testing, was found unsuited for the task and will not be deployed, Adm. Paul Zukunft said.

President Obama spoke about the developments with a note of caution.

"I think it's important that we don't get ahead of ourselves here," he said. "You know, one of the problems with having this camera down there is that when the oil stops gushing, everybody feels like we're done, and we're not. We won't be done until we actually know that we killed the well and have a permanent solution in place."

The president expects to return to the Gulf Coast in the next few weeks. He took some heat from some corners on Saturday for taking a vacation in Maine instead of heading to revisit oil-affected areas.

First Lady Michelle Obama is slated to return to the region Friday to meet with Coast Guard personnel who've been responding to the oil spill and to christen a Coast Guard cutter named in honor of Dorothy Stratton, the service branch's first female commissioned officer.

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/environment/2010/July/environment_July40.xml&section=environment

Experts fear long oil effect on marine life, food chain
(AFP)
18 July 2010,

WASHINGTON — Scientists studying the massive BP oil spill fear a decades-long, "cascading" effect on marine life that could lead to a shift in the overall biological network in the Gulf of Mexico.

With some 400 species estimated to be at risk — from the tiniest oil-eating bacteria to shrimp and crabs, endangered sea turtles, brown pelicans and sperm whales — experts say the impact of oil and chemical dispersants on the food chain has already begun, and could grow exponentially.

"A major environmental experiment is underway," Ron Kendall, director of the Institute of Environmental and Human Health at Texas Tech University, told AFP.

"We are already impacting the base of the food chain," he said, including plankton, which provide crucial food for fish, and juvenile shrimp in intertidal marshes along the Gulf Coast.

Kendall, whose institute is studying tissue samples from live and dead Gulf fish to analyze the spill's impact, helped study effects of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil disaster on wildlife in Alaska's Prince William Sound.

With the Exxon Valdez, a finite amount of oil poured into the sea — about one 17th of the low estimate of the oil that has gushed from a ruptured well into the Gulf — and rose to the surface to coat the shoreline.

"This is so much more complex, what we're dealing with now," he said, noting that the 1.84 million gallons (7.0 million liters) of chemical dispersants used to fight the spill has kept some of the oil from fouling shores, but created potentially drastic problems by breaking up the oil has into droplets that may never be recovered.

Dispersants, says Kendall, release aromatic hydrocarbons and allow small oil droplets to be consumed by marine life, potentially threatening the food supply for humans.

No contaminated Gulf fish or seafood has reached the market, according to experts, but authorities have closed some 35 percent of all fishing waters, threatening the livelihoods of thousands and putting the region's multibillion-dollar seafood industry in peril.

Researchers have reportedly observed major die-offs of organisms such as pyrosomes, cucumber-shaped creatures that are favorite meals of endangered sea turtles, which have been dying by the hundreds.

Kendall acknowledged that species shifts are possible but added that "we're at the early stages of documenting the scientific effects of what's occurring."

BP and the US government say they have found more than 2,600 dead birds, mammals and turtles, but Doug Inkley, a senior scientist at the National Wildlife Federation, warns that could be the tip of the iceberg.

Many dead fish and sharks sink, so their numbers may never be known.

Inkley pointed to ongoing studies which show oil is expected to have a large effect on plankton — and the animals that eat them.

"This could be an effect that will ripple all the way up the food chain," he said.

He fears a delayed disaster, similar to when Prince William Sound's Pacific herring population collapsed four years after the Exxon Valdez spill, likely because few of the herring that spawned in 1989 reached maturity.

Dozens of marine and bird species were beginning their breeding season in April when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank, setting off the huge spill.

"You could have a (population) crash later because of the failure of many of the young to survive this year," said Inkley. "The impacts on wildlife I expect will last for years, if not decades."

Congressman Ed Markey, chairman of a House subcommittee on energy and the environment, echoed the concerns in a letter to the Food and Drug Administration.

He said evidence showed "the marine food chain in the Gulf of Mexico has already been contaminated," and pointed to researchers who recently uncovered oil droplets found inside crab larvae harvested from the Gulf.

"This finding is particularly disconcerting because these larvae are a source of food for numerous aquatic species and this is therefore the first sign that hydrocarbons have entered into the food web."

Complicating the scenario, the Gulf will soon host millions of fowl on autumn and winter migrations.

"We'll have a whole new wave of ducks and waterbirds that will be coming here and getting affected," Kendall said. "Who knows what impact that will bring?"

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/after-oil-spills-hidden-damage-can-last-for-years-38228

After oil spills, hidden damage can last for years
Justin Gillis and Leslie Kaufman, NYT News Service, Updated: July 18, 2010 20:02 IST

On the rocky beaches of Alaska, scientists plunged shovels and picks into the ground and dug 6,775 holes, repeatedly striking oil - still pungent and dangerous a dozen years after the Exxon Valdez infamously spilled its cargo.

More than an ocean away, on the Breton coast of France, scientists surveying the damage after another huge oil spill found that disturbances in the food chain persisted for more than a decade.

And on the southern gulf coast in Mexico, an American researcher peering into a mangrove swamp spotted lingering damage 30 years after that shore was struck by an enormous spill.

These far-flung shorelines hit by oil in the past offer clues to what people living along the Gulf Coast can expect now that the great oil calamity of 2010 may be nearing an end.

Every oil spill is different, but the thread that unites these disparate scenes is a growing scientific awareness of the persistent damage that spills can do -- and of just how long oil can linger in the environment, hidden in out-of-the-way spots.

At the same time, scientists who have worked to survey and counteract the damage from spills say the picture in the gulf is far from hopeless.

"Thoughts that this is going to kill the Gulf of Mexico are just wild overreactions," said Jeffrey W. Short, a scientist who led some of the most important research after the Exxon Valdez spill and now works for an environmental advocacy group called Oceana. "It's going to go away, the oil is. It's not going to last forever."

But how long will it last?

Only 20 years ago, the conventional wisdom was that oil spills did almost all their damage inthe first weeks, as fresh oil loaded with toxic substances hit wildlife and marsh grasses, washed onto beaches and killed fish and turtles in the deep sea.

But disasters like the Valdez in 1989, the Ixtoc 1 in Mexico in 1979, the Amoco Cadiz in France in 1978 and two Cape Cod spills, including the Bouchard 65 barge in 1974 -- all studied over decades with the improved techniques of modern chemistry and biology -- have allowed scientists to paint a more complex portrait of what happens after a spill.

It is still clear that the bulk of the damage happens quickly, and that nature then begins to recuperate. After a few years, a casual observer visiting a hard-hit location might see nothing amiss. Birds and fish are likely to have rebounded, and the oil will seem to be gone.

But often, as Dr. Short and his team found in Alaska, some of it has merely gone underground, hiding in pockets where it can still do low-level damage to wildlife over many years. And the human response to a spill can mitigate -- or intensify -- its long-term effects. Oddly enough, some of the worst damage to occur from spills in recent decades has come from people trying too hard to clean them up.

It is hard for scientists to offer predictions about the present spill, for two reasons.

The ecology of the Gulf of Mexico is specially adapted to break down oil, more so than any other body of water in the world -- though how rapidly and completely it can break down an amount this size is essentially unknown.

And because this spill is emerging a mile under the surface and many of the toxic components of the oil are dissolving into deep water and spreading far and wide, scientists simply do not know what the effects in the deep ocean are likely to be.

Still, many aspects of the spill resemble spills past, especially at the shoreline, and that gives researchers some confidence in predicting how events will unfold.


Remarkable persistence

In 1969, a barge hit the rocks off the coast of West Falmouth, Mass., spilling 189,000 gallons of fuel oil into Buzzards Bay. Today, the fiddler crabs at nearby Wild Harbor still act drunk, moving erratically and reacting slowly to predators.

The odd behavior is consistent with a growing body of research showing how oil spills of many types have remarkably persistent effects, often at levels low enough to escape routine notice.

Jennifer Culbertson was a graduate student at Boston University in 2005 when she made plaster casts of crab burrows. She discovered that instead of drilling straight down, like normal crabs, the ones at Wild Harbor were going only a few inches deep and then turning sideways, repelled by an oily layer still lingering below the surface.

Other researchers established that the crabs were suffering from a kind of narcosis induced by hydrocarbon poisoning. Their troubles had serious implications for the marsh.

"Fiddler crabs normally play a crucial role in tilling the salt marsh, which helps provide oxygen to the roots of salt marsh grasses," Dr. Culbertson said about her study.

In Alaska, the Exxon Valdez spill dumped nearly 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, and it spread down the Alaska coast, ultimately oiling 1,200 miles of shoreline. By the late 1990s, the oil seemed to be largely gone, but liver tests on ducks and sea otters showed that they were still being exposed to hydrocarbons, chemical compounds contained in crude. (In pic: This berm system built in Louisiana to prevent oil from reaching shore could change water flow patterns and harm coastal marshes)

Dr. Short, then working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, mounted a series of excavations to figure out what had happened, with his team ultimately digging thousands of holes in Alaska's beaches. Oil was found in about 8 percent of them, usually in places with too little oxygen for microbes to break it down.

Exactly how much damage continues from the oil is a matter of dispute, with Exxon commissioning its own studies that challenge the government's findings on the extent of the impact. But it is clear that otters dig for food in areas containing oil, and that they, like nearly a dozen other species of animals, have still not entirely recovered from the 1989 spill.

At the rate the oil is breaking down, Dr. Short estimates that some of it could still be there a century from now.


Increasing the stress

Perhaps the greatest single hazard from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the gulf is the long-term erosion of delicate coastal wetlands it could cause. At another spill site on the Massachusetts coast, not far from the West Falmouth spill, the legacy of oil contamination is evident in the difference between two marshes on either side of a pebbly shoreline road.

On one side, where the marshes were suffused in 1974 when the grounded Bouchard 65 barge dumped 11,000 to 37,000 gallons of fuel oil into the sea, the grasses are stunted and sparse. They cling tentatively to the edge of the sandy beach. But the grasses on the other side, untouched by oil, rise tall and thick.

Louisiana's coastline contains some of the most productive marshes in the world, delivering an abundance of shrimp and oysters and providing critical habitat and breeding ground for birds and fish.

But even before the spill, the land was under enormous environmental stress, largely due to human activity. Dams on the Mississippi River and its tributaries have slowed the flow of sediment to the marshes, and global warming has caused sea level to rise.

The Louisiana marshes are eroding at an extraordinary rate -- a football field's worth sinks into the Gulf of Mexico every 38 minutes, according to the Louisiana Office of Coastal Management -- and the worry now is that the oil spill will accelerate that erosion.

The Bouchard shows how that could happen. When the barge ran aground, thousands of gallons of a particularly toxic fuel oil spilled into the icy water and were swept to shore by the strong tides. (In pic: The 1989 Exxon Valdez spill which caused widespread environmental damage)

The oil made landfall just two miles north of where the West Falmouth oil spill had washed up only five years earlier. Winsor Cove, a classic New England bay surrounded by bluffs and stately homes, bore the brunt. Razor clams suffocated and rose to the surface by the hundreds to die.

But the lasting damage of the spill, severe erosion of the shoreline, took months longer to unfold.

George Hampson, now retired, was on the scientific team at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution that studied a series of spills in the area. He recalled that after the 1974 spill the beach grasses, called spartina, which had grown like luxuriant matting along the shore, died.

"The first year it was just like a moonscape," Mr. Hampson said.

Spartina, a common beach grass that fills the marshes along the North Atlantic and in the Gulf of Mexico, is a crucial factor in keeping marshlands from eroding into the sea. Its roots act as a vast net keeping soil in place.

But the oil in Winsor Cove set off a vicious downward spiral. "It was a race between how much peat was eroding and how quickly the grass was coming back," Mr. Hampson said.

Over the course of the next several winters, six feet of shore eroded, including a sand berm that stood above the rest of the beach. And as the view from the pebbled road indicates, the vegetation still struggles for a foothold today.

"It's been 35 years, and I'd say the grasses are just beginning to grow back," Mr. Hampson said.

It is certain that some of the heavily oiled spartina in Louisiana will die. For now, heavy oiling is limited to just the marsh fringes, but a strong surge in front of a hurricane could change that.


Bad choices

Oil spills produce a powerful impulse to clean up the oil and restore as much of the environment as possible. But that impulse can itself be a source of destruction.

No case illustrates that point more starkly than the 1978 spill of the Amoco Cadiz tanker. Caught in a gale, it was propelled against rocks near the shore of northwestern France, spilling 67 million gallons of crude oil that washed over 200 miles of the coast of Brittany.

The immediate damage was bad enough: at least 20,000 seabirds found dead, thousands of tons of oysters lost and fish ridden with ulcers and tumors. But then the French authorities made it worse.

The area had marshes, and they were hit hard by oil that sank deep into the sediments. The authorities felt they needed to act aggressively.

Using bulldozers and tractors, they scraped close to 20 inches of oiled sediment from the top in the most polluted marshes and also straightened and deepened some natural tidal channels, to improve flushing.

Over time, these proved to have been disastrous judgments.

In areas that were not bulldozed, nature ultimately broke down most of the oil and the vegetation came back. But marsh plants turned out to be highly sensitive to the depth of the sediment, and more than a decade after the spill, the bulldozed marshes are still missing as much as 40 percent of their vegetation.

"In the case of Amoco Cadiz, the cleanup operations were more deadly than the pollution itself," said Jean-Claude Dauvin, a professor of marine biology and ecosystems at the University of Lille in northern France.

Much the same dynamic played out in Alaska after the Exxon Valdez spill. In some areas, Exxon power-washed oiled beaches with high-pressure, hot-water sprayers. It made for dramatic television images, with the company seemingly working hard against the spill. But scientists ultimately determined that it was a disaster for the tidal ecology, with clams and other organisms showing greatly delayed recovery on the laundered beaches, compared with oiled beaches that were not cleaned.

The lesson, scientists say, is not that people should never try to clean up an oil spill. It is possible to do too little as well as too much. But the calculation of how much to do is tricky, demanding deep scientific understanding of an area's ecology. Applying supposed common sense has repeatedly led to mistakes.

Already in Louisiana, battles have erupted between the Army Corps of Engineers and local residents, led by Gov. Bobby Jindal, over proposals to build sand and rock barriers to block the oil from coming into the marshes. The corps has been cautious on approval permits and recently rejected a plan to build a rock barrier outside Barataria Bay, arguing that such structures would change water-flow patterns to the possible detriment of the marsh ecology.

No matter how that battle plays out, a tough and potentially contentious issue in Louisiana in coming months may be the question of whether the marshes should be burned.

If the top layer of grasses and the clinging oil are burned off, the roots should survive and allow healthier grasses to sprout back. But scientists say that can be done only if there is no chance of new oil coming in, since burning might expose the roots buried in the sediment, making them vulnerable to absorbing the oil. Given the immensity of the spill, it is not clear when that hazard will have passed.

"If you consider the volume," said Ronald J. Kendall, chairman of environmental toxicology at Texas Tech University, "we could see re-oiling for years to come."


Natural resilience

The other day, a Mexican fishing boat threaded its way deep into a coastal mangrove swamp on the Bay of Campeche. It carried two scientists, an American, Wes Tunnell, and a Mexican, Julio Sánchez.

They were looking for remnants of an oil spill that happened 30 years earlier, when the Ixtoc 1 well in the bay exploded and gushed oil for 10 months. It has stood for decades as the worst accidental release of oil in any ocean. (It may or may not have been surpassed by the BP spill; estimates vary.)

Mangroves are vital coastal plants, providing rich habitat for many types of creatures and serving as a nursery for many marine species. To the untrained eye, the ones in Mexico appeared healthy, billowing up from the shoreline in shades of green, balanced on a gray carpet of roots that protruded from the water.

But Dr. Tunnell pointed out subtle signs of damage. There were clearings in the foliage, instead of an unbroken tangle of roots and mangrove trees. The branches of the outer layer of red mangroves seemed stunted.

"For a mangrove swamp, this should be much denser," Dr. Tunnell said. "We shouldn't even be able to see in here."

The scientists scrambled out of the boats to a small clearing. Dr. Sanchez bent down, sliced out a layer of sediment and broke it to reveal gooey tar in the middle.

Dr. Tunnell sniffed. "It smells like a newly paved road," he said.

They could not be sure it was oil from the Ixtoc well, since smaller spills have hit the area too, but the scientists agree with local fishermen that much of the damage to the mangroves goes back to Ixtoc.

They sent the sample to a laboratory. The fishermen also said that oysters that used to be found clinging to the mangrove roots seemed to have vanished after the spill and never returned.

The Ixtoc blowout of 1979-80 is the closest analogy to the BP spill, even though it happened in much shallower water. Ixtoc soiled hundreds of miles of beaches, all the way to Texas.

Dr. Tunnell, of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M, Corpus Christi, was early in his career then. He was dismayed to see the oil kill 50 percent to 80 percent of the bottom-dwelling creatures in some areas near the Texas shore.

"As a young scientist, I thought, 'Oh, no, this is wiping out our beaches,' " Dr. Tunnell said.

But then he watched in amazement as the recuperative powers of the gulf kicked in.

Because oil constantly seeps into the gulf from natural fissures, the water is teeming with microbes adapted to break oil down and use it as food. The breakdown happens faster there than in colder bodies of water, and the warm water helps some species recover faster, too.

Along the Texas coast, within a few years after the Ixtoc spill ended in 1980, it was hard to tell that anything had gone wrong. Creatures repopulated the areas that had been wiped out.

No one can be sure that the recovery from the BP spill will be a replay of Ixtoc. But the greatest reason for optimism is nature's demonstrated capacity to handle the assaults on it.

"Thirty years ago, that 140 million gallons of oil went somewhere," Dr. Tunnell said. "The gulf recovered and became very productive again. My concern is: Is it as resilient today as it was 30 years ago?"


Story first published:
July 18, 2010 18:45 IST

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/21/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html

EDITOR: If BP is really so close to intersecting the well bore, why risk a static kill now? Unless BP is with-holding information (as they like to do), the cap is holding and will continue to do so until the relief bore is completed and the well is killed at the reservoir. A static kill could overpressure the casing and rupture it below the seabed with devastating and almost unstoppable consequences. Government spokesmouth Thad Allen says this is because of threatening weather. To me this sounds like an unnecessary risk with the pay-off being that nobody will EVER have an accurate number on how many barrels of oil were released into the Gulf by this event. And that, of course, is exactly what BP wants. They can argue the issue until hell freezes over and possibly never pay a dime in penalties. Think I am wrong? Read the earlier post regarding how they evaded much of the penalties in the Exxon Valdez spill and the Texas City refinery explosion.


'Static kill' of breached Gulf oil well could begin within 48 hours
By the CNN Wire Staff
July 21, 2010 3:14 p.m. EDT


New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) -- BP could try an operation by this weekend to permanently seal its breached Gulf of Mexico oil well -- but only if federal officials approve the plan and BP gets a crucial casing in place, the government's point man on the oil spill said Wednesday.

The tactic, called a "static kill," involves pumping mud into the well to force oil back into the reservoir below.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who's leading the federal response to the spill, told reporters time is of the essence because of the potential for severe weather coming from the Caribbean. BP is not attempting to get the casing in place until they determine what the weather may do, he said.

Officials from BP have said the "static kill" option could succeed where similar attempts have failed because pressure in the well is lower than expected.

Geologist Arthur Berman said on CNN's "American Morning" Tuesday that the relative simplicity of a static kill makes it an attractive option for BP.

"I think the reason that they're considering it is because they've yet to intercept the well bore," Berman said. "They're very close, a few feet away with the relief well, as everyone knows. But to actually intersect the 7-inch pipe does involve a bit of technology and accuracy, whereas if they do the static kill through the existing well bore at the top, there's less uncertainty about their ability to actually get the mud into the pipe."

A team of scientists and engineers led by the Unified Area Command will decide whether to proceed with the "static kill" technique.

BP said Wednesday the cap that was placed on the sunken well July 12 is still keeping the oil inside. No oil is leaking into the water as pressure slowly rises, it said, but critical tests on the capped well continue as scientists work on the ultimate solution to end the oil disaster.

Pressure testing on the well was extended for another 24 hours Tuesday, Allen said.

The tests on the new, tightly fitting containment cap began last Thursday and are designed to determine its effectiveness. Federal officials said Tuesday that one reported leak is coming from another old well a couple of miles away and is inconsequential.

Though the new cap has stopped the incessant flow of oil into the Gulf, government officials and BP have said that the cap on the well is only a temporary fix for the oil disaster, which was sparked when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank April 20.

BP officials are still working on the permanent fix: a relief well that is scheduled to be in place by the end of July.

"We've just got a little ways left to go, probably within 50, 60 feet of the bottom of the hole," BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells said Tuesday. "Once we reach the bottom, we'll do what we call 'circulate bottoms up' to make sure the hole's clean, and then we'll start pulling out of the hole to run casing, and that will take place over Wednesday and Thursday, followed by cementing. And of course, that all assumes that we have no issues, no weather, whatever that could possibly disrupt that. But that's sort of the plan."

Weather could disrupt the plan. Allen said Wednesday the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration planned to send a plane to a severe weather system traversing the Caribbean early Wednesday afternoon to gather data on its potential impact on the Gulf. Allen said a tropical storm making a direct impact on the area could disrupt operations for 10 to 14 days. He said no decision has been made on the status of the well cap if a storm directly impacts the site.

Supplemental boom placed to protect counties in Florida's Panhandle from the oil will be removed because of the potential tropical storm activity, the state Emergency Response Team and Florida Department of Environmental Protection said Wednesday.

"During a tropical storm boom can cause additional damage to the natural resources that we are trying to protect from oil spill impacts," said Michael Sole, secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection, in a written statement. The boom was deployed by the state using funds from the $50 million distributed by BP in areas not covered by the U.S. Coast Guard's contingency plan.

Meanwhile, Allen said, crews are "starting to have trouble finding oil." Officials have said that is a reflection of the work that skimmers and cleanup crews are doing as no new oil flows into the Gulf.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who was visiting Washington on Tuesday, said he "completely understands" the anger that "exists ... across America" regarding the ruptured oil well.

"It is BP's role to cap the leak" and compensate people affected by it, he said during a visit with President Barack Obama. Cameron said he is in regular touch with the leadership of BP, a British-based company.

Several U.S. politicians have criticized BP for trying to put a positive spin on the crisis during the three months since the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank. Wednesday, BP confirmed to CNN that a staff photographer had altered pictures of engineers looking at three blank screens at the company's oil spill control center, making the screens look like they were displaying underwater shots, to "enhance the quality of the photo."

BP says that the photographer had no intention to mislead anybody and the altered picture was taken off the BP website as soon as the issue was discovered.

CNN's Carol Jordan and Vivian Kuo contributed to this report.

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/25/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html

Oil breaks up on Gulf surface as ships return to well site
By the CNN Wire Staff
July 25, 2010 7:23 p.m. EDT



New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) -- Oil left on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico is breaking down naturally now that the flow of crude has been cut off beneath the surface, a Coast Guard admiral said Sunday after touring the scene.

Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft said the remnants of Tropical Storm Bonnie did little to affect the oil slick, which is breaking down "very quickly."

"The storm itself was not that significant," Zukunft told CNN after an aerial survey of the northern Gulf on Sunday. "We've had nine days of no new oil being released, so what we're seeing is the remnants of oil that was released nine days ago."

BP crews managed to temporarily cap the undersea well at the heart of the three-month-old disaster on June 15. But efforts to close off the gusher permanently by drilling a relief well were delayed by the storm, which forced the ships involved in the process to evacuate the area. Those ships have returned to the area since the storm, he told reporters Sunday night.

Zukunft told reporters that he saw only one large patch of emulsified oil, about 12 miles off Grand Isle, Louisiana, during his six-hour aerial tour. No oil could be seen in Louisiana's Lake Borgne, Lake Pontchartrain or Chandeleur Sound, while only a light sheen was visible in other parts of the Gulf.

"The oil is basically approaching the end of its life cycle," he said.

Oil had gushed from the ruptured well for nearly three months after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, leaving 11 workers dead. Officials have said a relief well is the only permanent solution to the disaster, which saw as much as 60,000 barrels (2.5 million gallons) of crude spewing into the Gulf every day.

Ships critical for drilling the well started evacuating Thursday and returning Saturday afternoon, once Bonnie lost her punch after crossing southern Florida. The weather forced officials to temporarily scale back efforts to search beneath the surface for leaking oil and permanently plug the leak, drawing some criticism from local officials that the federal government was overreacting to the storm.

But retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is leading the federal government's response to the spill, emphasized the need to move and protect equipment before a storm. He said told reporters Friday that he was still "haunted" by the sight of submerged school buses "that could not be used for the evacuation" after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005.

"We're going to be playing a cat-and-mouse game for the remainder of the hurricane season," Allen said.

Sunday, Allen said officials were examining new oil deposits on the shoreline created by the storm, and booms that were in sensitive marsh areas caused damage during the storm and may need to be removed before another surge happens.

But with the storm's passing, work on the relief well is scheduled to continue, he said. And by August 1, he said crews could begin pumping drilling "mud" into the ruptured well to force oil back into the reservoir below -- a process known as a "static kill."

CNN's David Mattingly, Rich Phillips and Matt Smith contributed to this report.

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10834422


Photo of capped Macondo oil well captured by BP (31 July 2010)
The Macondo well has been temporarily sealed with a cap for two weeks


BP plans to seal Gulf of Mexico oil well on Tuesday

BP says it plans to inject mud and possibly cement into its Gulf of Mexico oil well on Tuesday, in one of the final steps to permanently seal it.

The "static kill", as the procedure is called, will begin if preliminary tests are positive, a BP executive said.

More mud and cement would then be pumped in from a relief well within five to seven days, said the US Coast Guard officer overseeing the operation.

Only that "bottom kill" would fully seal the well, said Admiral Thad Allen.

"We want to confirm we can inject the oil in the wellbore back into the reservoir," said Kent Wells, BP's senior vice-president of exploration and production.

If the tests are positive "then we move to the static kill", he said.

The well has been temporarily sealed for two weeks after spilling up to 60,000 barrels of oil a day into the sea since 20 April, when an explosion on a drilling rig off Louisiana killed 11 workers and triggered the leak.

Last week, BP reported a record $17bn (£11bn) loss, having set aside $32bn to cover the costs of the spill - the worst in US history.

It has caused environmental damage and huge economic losses in four states.


'Bottom kill' crucial

The static kill, also known as "bullheading" takes place in three stages.

   * First, a test determines if oil can be pushed back down the well into the reservoir
   * If that goes well, the static kill is begun by pumping in mud at low pressure. That may take all of Tuesday and possibly run into Wednesday
   * Then, engineers will have to decide whether to pump in cement at the top of the well or wait and pump in cement from the relief into the bottom of the damaged well.

The relief well will reach the damaged well sometime between 11-15 August.

The permanent "bottom kill" will take anywhere between a number of days and a few weeks. The final casing has been cemented in place, which is the prelude to the last bit of drilling.


Oil containment boom near Comfort Island, Louisiana.
Thad Allen defended the use of chemical dispersants by BP to break up oil slicks


An earlier effort to pump mud into the well using much of the same equipment at the end of May failed because the pressure of the spewing oil and gas was too great.

Adm Allen said he would travel to BP's headquarters in Houston to oversee the static kill, and that engineers would know within hours if was successful.

"The static kill is not the end-all, be-all," Mr Allen said.

If any leaks are detected during the procedure over the coming days, technicians will seek to identify them through seismic work and other diagnostic testing.

During Sunday's news conference, Mr Allen also defended the use of chemical dispersants by BP to break up oil slicks created by the spill, despite concerns expressed about their environmental impact.

"Sometimes there is no other way to attack the oil," he said, denying he had clashed with the head of the Environmental Protection Agency over the matter.

"There is no disagreement between Lisa Jackson and I regarding what we want to do with dispersants," he added.