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

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10862893

4 August 2010 Last updated at 07:36 ET

BP says 'static kill' to stop oil leak was successful


The Helix Q4000 vessel which pumped drilling mud for
the static kill at the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill, on 4 August, 2010. BP pumped mud into the well
for eight hours during the procedure

BP says the "static kill" of its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well has worked, a big step towards sealing it.

In the procedure, special drilling fluid known as mud is pumped into the well, forcing the oil back down.

BP said well pressure was being controlled by the pressure of the mud, which was "the desired outcome".

Meanwhile, a government report due to be published today is expected to say that only 26% of the leaked oil poses any further danger to the environment.



About three-quarters of the escaped oil has already evaporated, dispersed, been captured or otherwise eliminated, according to a new analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), reported in the New York Times.


'Significant milestone'

BP began pumping mud into the well from vessels on the surface at 2000 GMT on Tuesday, in order to counter the pressure from the oil pushing out of the reservoir below the seabed.

BP spokeswoman Sheila Williams said the drilling mud was currently holding the oil down.

"The well appears to have reached a static condition - a significant milestone," she said.

"The well is now being monitored, per the procedure, to ensure the well remains static. Further pumping of mud may or may not be required depending on the results observed during monitoring."

The well ruptured after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in April which killed 11 workers.

The flow ended on 15 July, when BP closed a new cap it had put on the well. It could eventually seal the mouth of the well with cement.

The US government says the well leaked 4.9 million barrels of oil before being capped last month, with only 800,000 barrels being captured.

But it is expected to announce on Wednesday that only 26% of the oil released was still in the water or onshore in a form that possibly could cause new problems.

Most of that oil is either a light sheen at the surface or in a dispersed form below the surface, and federal scientists believe both forms are breaking down rapidly, the New York Times reports.

Fears that a huge underwater accumulation of oil might eventually surface and pollute beaches are therefore unfounded, the report suggests.

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10867731

EDITOR: So, are we seeing the beginning of the government and corporate spin to try downgrade the impact of this event to allow BP to evade it's awesome responsibilities in returning the Gulf region to it's pre-spill state? My guess is of course. My next guess is that carefully worded news stories will start emerging that will essentially say that they can't find any oil on the coast or in the marshes, or that they can't seem to find any victimized people that need compensating by BP.

4 August 2010 Last updated at 15:39 ET
Majority of BP spill 'dealt with'

President Obama: "The long battle to stop the leak and contain the oil is finally close to coming to an end"

Almost three-quarters of the oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico has been cleaned up or broken down by natural forces, the US government has said.

A government report says only a quarter of the oil from the BP well remains and that it is "degrading quickly".

The majority had been captured, burned off or evaporated, it states. But more clean-up is necessary officials warn.

The report was released after BP announced its "static kill" procedure to seal the leak was working.

US President Barack Obama said on Wednesday that he was pleased that the operation in the Gulf is "finally close to coming to an end".

"Our recovery efforts, though, will continue. We have to reverse the damage that's been done," he said.

The report was compiled by 25 of "the best government and independent scientists", the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) said.

Around a quarter of the oil released by the well evaporated or dissolved in the Gulf in the same way sugar dissolves in water, federal officials said.

EDITOR: ...Which is total bullshìt. Oil does not dissolve in water "like sugar" no matter what you do to it.

Another one-sixth naturally dispersed when leaking out of the well, and an additional one-sixth was burned, skimmed, or dispersed using chemicals.

At a press conference NOAA Administrator Dr Jane Lubchenco said degraded oil is not a threat any longer because "when it is biodegraded it ends up being water and carbon dioxide so if it has been biodegraded, if it is gone, then it is not a threat".

EDITOR: Spin it, baby! Show me the chemical formula that details THAT reduction, and I'll show you a joke from the funny papers.

Work ahead

However, nearly 53m gallons (200m litres) of oil remain in Gulf waters, which is close to five times the amount of the 11m-gallon Exxon Valdez spill in 1989.

Speaking on the ABC television network, White House energy adviser Ms Browner said: "The scientists are telling us about 25% was not captured or evaporated or taken care of by mother nature."

She said the inter-agency report was "encouraging", but added that further clean-up effort was necessary.

The report said it was unlikely beaches along the Gulf of Mexico would be covered by surfacing oil in the future.

However, Ms Browner warned that we may continue to see effects from the disaster.

"Mother Nature will continue to break it down. But some of it may come on shore, as weathered tar balls. And those will be cleaned up. They can be cleaned up. And we will make sure they are cleaned up," Ms Brown said.

Ms Lubchenco agreed, saying:

"Less oil on the surface does not mean that there isn't oil still in the water column or that our beaches and marshes aren't still at risk," Ms Lubchenco said during Wednesday's press conference.

Earlier, BP said the "static kill" of its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well has worked, a big step towards sealing it.

On Tuesday, the oil giant began pumping a drilling fluid known as "mud" into the well from vessels on the surface.

Experts believe the drilling mud will force the oil back down.

Workers stopped the procedure after eight hours to monitor the well and make sure it remained stable.

BP said well pressure was being controlled by the pressure of the mud, which was "the desired outcome".

An 18,000ft (5486m) relief well is also currently being drilled, which BP will use later this month to perform a "bottom kill" procedure.


Hurricane threat

Retired Coast Guard Adm Thad Allen said mud and cement would be injected into the bottom of the damaged well as the last step in the process to permanently stop the leaking oil.

"There should be no ambiguity about that. I'm the national incident commander, and this is how this will be handled," Adm Allen said

Efforts to kill the well are becoming increasingly important as hurricane season approaches in the Gulf.

Oil began flowing into the Gulf after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in April. Eleven workers were killed in the blast.

The leaking oil was stopped on 15 July when BP closed a new cap it placed on the leaking well.

An estimated 4.9m barrels of oil leaked into the waters of the Gulf during 87 days, with only 800,000 barrels being captured.

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/05/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html

BP begins cementing Gulf oil well
By the CNN Wire Staff
August 5, 2010 10:43 a.m. EDT

New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) -- BP began pouring cement into its undersea well in the Gulf of Mexico at 9:15 a.m. as part of the "static kill" procedure to permanently seal it, the company said Thursday.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man on the response to the spill, gave his approval to the process Wednesday.

BP said "the aim of the procedure is to assist with the strategy to kill and isolate the well," and the complementary relief well operation -- which is designed to seal off the well from the bottom -- is ongoing.

Meanwhile, some residents along the Gulf coast expressed guarded optimism Thursday about BP's efforts and the government reports that about 74 percent of the oil spilled into the Gulf since April has been cleaned up.

"We're cautiously optimistic that this is the beginning of the end," Deano Bonano, the director of Homeland Security for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told CNN's "American Morning." But he added a note of skepticism, saying it's "certainly not the end."

There are still several steps to go to permanently kill the well. The cementing is the next phase of the "static kill," a process designed to drive oil back into the well reservoir. In the first phase of that procedure Tuesday, BP sent 2,300 barrels of heavy drilling mud down the well.

After government and BP experts reviewed the effort, Allen gave the oil giant a green light to pour cement on top of the mud.

But Allen said the oil company should still follow that with a second well-killing procedure that has been in the works as sort of an insurance policy -- pouring additional mud and cement through a relief well that's expected to be ready in mid-August.

"Based on the successful completion of the static kill procedure and a positive evaluation of the test results, I have authorized BP to cement its damaged well," Allen said in a statement. "I made it clear that implementation of this procedure shall in no way delay the completion of the relief well."

Thursday marks the 108th day since the environmental disaster started with the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon that sank the rig and killed 11 workers. The government estimates that nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil spilled into the Gulf in that time.

The static kill operation marks the most significant milestone since the well was fitted with a tightly-fitting cap in mid-July. That finally cut off the oil flow and made possible the efforts to permanently seal it that are now under way.

The company began pumping the mud in the first phase of the static kill Tuesday afternoon, and the operation continued for eight hours. BP pumped mud into the well from a ship on the surface mostly at the rate of five barrels a minute. That eventually increased to 10 and then 15 barrels a minute near the end of the operation, according to Kent Wells, BP's senior vice president .

Wells reported that the initial step in the static kill had gone "extremely well."

"Everything proceeded exactly as we expected it to," he said in a telephone conference with reporters Wednesday.

Wells also talked about what lies ahead.

"It's getting very difficult to find any oil on the surface, but I want to emphasize that BP remains committed to getting this well permanently shut and cleaning up any pollution and restoring the Gulf Coast," he said. "That was our commitment from the beginning, and we're just as committed to that today."

While it may be difficult to find much oil on the surface for skimming ships to collect, local officials are quick to point out that coastal areas are still being affected.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries issued a report Wednesday indicating that oil sheen and patches of oil are still being spotted in marshes and various coastal areas in St. Bernard, Plaquemines and Jefferson parishes.

"Most of the heavy oil has been removed from the beaches. And efforts are still ongoing right now to continue to clean the perimeter of the marshes. But on a daily basis, we still see tar balls and tar patties wash ashore," Bonano said on "American Morning."

BP has promised to compensate people affected by the spill, and In a meeting with President Barack Obama in June, its executives agreed to set up a $20 billion fund for the effort.

Meanwhile, Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, talked about the well-killing efforts on CNN's "Situation Room."

"It's not mission accomplished, but obviously, it's an important day," she told Wolf Blitzer Wednesday.

"We know the static kill worked, and we know we're not going to have more oil leaking into the Gulf," she said.

But she noted that the relief well operation still lies ahead.

"We also have the long-term restoration," she said. "So we're just beginning one phase as we end one phase."

As the phases progress, Gulf coast residents are just trying to get their lives back to what was normal before the April 20 well explosion. Bonano is one of those residents and he's not just a top local government official -- he's also a dad.

"We opened fishing again, a week or so ago, the state of Louisiana, opened recreational fishing, and now, they're getting close to the point where they'll open commercial fishing. So, that's good news. In fact, I hope for this weekend to be able to take my sons back out to do some fishing that they've been begging to do all summer," he said.

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/06/gulf.oil.static.kill/index.html

'Relief well' to follow 'static kill' in Gulf oil spill cleanup
By the CNN Wire Staff
August 6, 2010 1:36 p.m. EDT

(CNN) -- The beginning of the end could be little more than a week away for the capped, sunken oil well in the Gulf of Mexico -- that is, if the latest timeline for permanently killing the ruptured well holds up.

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the head of the government's oil spill response, said Friday that BP tentatively expects to intercept the ruptured well through the closer of two relief wells around August 14 or 15.

While the "static kill" that involved pumping mud and cement into the upper part the pipe earlier in the week could potentially plug the well for good, Allen has instructed BP to proceed with a final "bottom kill." That's when more mud and cement will be poured into the well through one of two relief wells. The bottom kill amounts to an insurance policy.

Doug Suttles, BP's point man on the oil-disaster response, said on Friday crews are moving forward with plans to complete the first relief well and perform the bottom kill. They will determine whether the cement pumped into the top of the well has hardened enough.

As the cement hardened Friday in the crippled well, Allen said preparations for more drilling on the first Gulf of Mexico relief well continued. Between Monday and next Friday, crews expect to alternate drilling with ranging runs, which use an electronic current to gauge locations thousands of feet deep, he said. Drilling on the second relief well, which was created as a redundant measure, is on hold.

BP finished pouring cement down the well on Thursday as part of the "static kill," completing the job earlier than expected. The process took six hours.

The cement was poured on top of 2,300 barrels of heavy drilling mud sent down from a ship on the surface Tuesday, pushing oil back into the well reservoir.

Before word came that the cementing had been completed, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said the development would amount to a "significant milestone" in the long-running fight against the BP oil spill. Allen is the federal point man in the oil spill effort.

He said the cementing phase of the "static kill" operation is not the end of the process, "but it will virtually assure us there's no chance of oil leaking into the environment."

"I think we can all breathe a little easier regarding the potential [that] we'll have oil in the Gulf ever again," Allen said Thursday. "But, we need to assure the people of the Gulf and the people of the United States that this thing is properly finished and that will be through the bottom."

Friday marks the 109th day since the environmental disaster started with the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon that sank the rig and killed 11 workers.

Oil flowed relentlessly for nearly three months, as BP tried various methods to cap the runaway well, until it finally placed a tightly fitting cap on it in mid-July. That opened the door for the efforts now under way to permanently seal it.

Despite the optimistic notes being sounded about killing the well, the long-term cleanup is another matter.

The federal government's on-scene coordinator, Rear. Adm. Paul Zukunft, said Thursday it's possible that tar balls may be washing ashore for years.

A government report released this week concluded that of the nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil that spilled into the Gulf when the well was out of control, roughly a quarter of it remains in the water either on or just below the surface as a light sheen and weathered tar balls.

The rest has been collected by skimming ships, burned on the surface, broken up by dispersants or evaporated.

The tar balls are either washing ashore, being collected from the coastlines, or buried in sand and sediment, and are in the process of being degraded, the report said.

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http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9HE6P881.htm

EDITOR: This could be more evidence that BP is gearing up to skip out on their obligations and hope that it all slips through the cracks as the media attention turns away from the spill.

BP removing oil-blocking booms from Alabama coast

MOBILE, Ala.

With the Gulf gusher capped and little oil washing ashore in Alabama, BP said Friday it has removed more than 80,000 feet of oil-blocking boom from state waters, but not everyone is happy with the turn of events.

The petroleum giant said it began taking boom out of the water because of tropical storm Bonnie, which moved into the Gulf late last month, and many of the barriers weren't returned to the coast at the request of states.

Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon said local leaders aren't being given input on the work and know only what they hear on the news.

"I've been given no written plan, but they are removing boom as fast as they can," he said. "They're getting their little red wagon packed and leaving town."

Kennon said the company also refused to pay for maintaining a steel boom system that was constructed at a cost of $4.6 million to prevent oil from entering Perdido Bay, so the massive rig is being mothballed.

"What happens if a plume shows up at the mouth of the pass? I don't know," said Kennon.

Gov. Bob Riley's office did not return messages seeking comment on whether it approves of the boom removal.

BP PLC said it has removed 83,100 feet of boom since Tuesday, but another 782,535 feet of the material remained in coastal waters. The company has pledged to clean up the Gulf, and officials deny BP is leaving the region prematurely.

BP has paid some $70 million in claims to Alabamians because of the oil spill, with all but $7 million paid out in Mobile and Baldwin counties, according to figures released by the company. But Kennon said payments are dragging and the summer tourist season is all but over, so many businesses could shutter for good after Labor Day.

"The threat of bankruptcy for these people is a lot worse than the threat of oil right now," he said.

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/09/gulf.environment.damage/index.html

In the Gulf, scientific questions still lurk beneath the surface
By John D. Sutter, CNN
August 9, 2010 9:28 a.m. EDT


(CNN) -- When Ed Overton looks at the remains of what's happened to the Gulf of Mexico over the past few months, he sees a stale, unsolved crime scene.

The oil has stopped leaking. The damage is largely done, he says. But what exactly happened?

Until more clues surface, that's anyone's guess.

"We can see the beaches; we can see the dead animals; we can get a count on turtles and whales and all this stuff -- and all of that is eye-level observation," said Overton, a professor emeritus at Louisiana State University and a veteran of oil-spill science.

"What we don't know is what damage is done ... to little creatures down below the surface -- or just at the surface -- that we never see."

It's a frustrating explanation, but more than 100 days after oil started spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, scientists say it's still too soon to judge the severity of the damage that's been done to the environment -- this despite recent evidence about the scope of the spill, which, according to BP, has been all but stopped at this point.

Last week, the U.S. government estimated the size of the oil leak at about 5 million barrels, making it the largest spill of its kind in history. The government also released an "oil budget," which says at least half of the oil that was released has been burned, skimmed, siphoned or evaporated out of the ecosystem. The rest, the report says, has been diluted into the ocean, dispersed by chemicals or is just plain missing.

Pundits, politicians and scientists have tried to use this information to varied ends.

But, despite the speculation, scientists say data published to date don't give nearly the full picture about the long-term impact.

"What really matters is not the oil budget, but the ecological budget," said Lisa Suatoni, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.


What is known

Some blanks in this "ecological budget" have been penciled in.

The government has published some data about the extent of the visible damage -- like the deaths of large, oil-soaked birds and the fact that oil has run up into marshes.

As of August 5, the government reported collecting a total of 3,606 dead birds, 508 dead sea turtles and 67 dead mammals from the Gulf. Further tests will be done to determine whether those animals were killed by the spill. Some were reported with visible oil on their bodies, but others were simply found in an area of the Gulf where they may have been affected by the oil.

The oil's impacts on coastal marshes, which are above the surface and accessible from land, are somewhat well-documented, too.

Between 100 and 200 square miles of Louisiana's marshy coastline -- a small percentage of the total area -- has been oiled, according to news reports.

The Obama adminstration says 649 miles of the Gulf shore is currently oiled. That number includes beaches as well as wetlands.


Searching for answers

What's going on beneath the surface, and out of sight, is another story.

Researchers are looking into sub-sea issues caused by the oil, but much less information has been released on the matter.

Steve Murawski, chief scientist for the fisheries program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the effects on future generations of fish and marine mammals may prove to be more important in the long term than the carcasses found so far.

His agency is collecting samples of fish larvae and plankton to see what the next generation of creatures in the Gulf will look like.

If the larvae of a vulnerable fish species like the bluefin tuna are completely wiped it, it may not matter that many of the adults appear to have survived.

"We're going to see if we have a missing generation," he said.

None of that data have been released yet, but likely will be in the coming month, he said.


Systemwide problems

Scientists are also looking into systemwide problems that could result from the disaster.

It's still a possibility that oil could worsen the pre-existing, oxygen-free "dead zone" in the Gulf, which is known to cause massive fish kills.

And others worry deep-water dead zones could develop as bacteria chew on the oil and, in the process, deplete the oxygen that's available to other organisms.

Some preliminary tests indicate such a zone is dissipating near the source of the once-leaking BP well, a mile beneath the surface, Murawski said.

He said the test results are "spotty," but that oxygen levels are generally high enough to support life and that the zone is isolated and getting smaller.

Samantha Joye, an oceanographer at the University of Georgia, has said that her preliminary tests show there was evidence of a low-oxygen zone beneath the surface.

"It certainly isn't safe to conclude there is no oxygen problem, based on oxygen measurements that are made close to the spill site," Joye told reporters on a conference call in mid-July, according to news reports.

It's also unclear exactly what's happening to coral populations on the ocean floor, Murawski said, but forthcoming surveys may reveal more information.

Millions of dollars have been dibursed to independent researchers studying the effects of the spill, but so far no formal scientific papers have been published, according to Murawski, from NOAA, and Suatoni, of the NRDC.

The National Science Foundation so far has funded $6.9 million in independent research projects to study the ecological impacts.

And BP in May pledged $500 million for independent research, of which only $30 million has been allocated so far, said Rita R. Colwell, a University of Maryland professor who chairs the independent panel managing those funds.


Hidden information?

Environmentalists say the independent research is especially important because so much public research data may be tied up in litigation.

The federal government is evaluating the full environmental impact of the spill as part of a required Natural Resource Damage Assessment -- or "nerda," as scientists say.

But some of the data it's collecting are kept private so as not to spoil any possible litigation with BP, said Ian MacDonald, an oceanographer at Florida State University.

MacDonald, along with other oceanographers and a few environmental groups, sent a letter on August 3 to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the head of BP, Robert Dudley, urging them to release all of the data.

It's not just a matter of principle; the data are needed so efforts to mitigate the effects of the spill can proceed thoughtfully, the scientists say.

MacDonald said billions of dollars must be allocated to studying the ecological impacts of the spill, particularly because of its unprecedented scale.

Murawski, from NOAA, said most environmental research collected by the government is being made public as it is processed, and that only some data about the economic impact of the spill are being kept private.

"We're tying to put as much of the basic information out there as we can," he said.

The federal "oil budget," which has resulted in much speculation on the severity of the oil disaster, has also been criticized by some independent scientists who say the administration wants to put a positive spin on the situation.

"It's not science. I'm sorry. This is an estimate," MacDonald said. "They may be derived scientifically, but this hasn't been reviewed by peer review and the actual numbers are not there."

Of the dispersed and dissolved oil that's still in the Gulf, he said: "It hasn't disappeared. It's in the water. It's changed forms. We don't see it anymore, but it's still there."


'Very early days'

The full picture of the damage may take decades to crystallize, said MacDonald, the FSU oceanographer.

"We're in very early days now," he said.

Murawski said the government will be in the process of evaluating the environmental impact of the disaster for at least 10 years.

Jackie Savitz, a senior scientist at the environmental group Oceana, said too many fundamental questions about the spill remain to draw broad conclusions about how severe the environmental impacts will be.

"It's not like a litmus test, where you can dip a piece of paper in the Gulf and say, 'Oh the fish are back,'" she said.

Even above-the-surface problems, such as in the marshes, are more complicated up close. While it's clear the marshes in Louisiana have been heavily hit with oil, it's not known how resilient they will be, said Murawski.

Researchers are conducting surveys now, he said, to see how much marsh has died and suffocated because of the oil, and what might turn into green shoots soon.


Historical examples

In the absence of hard science, experts say it's best to turn to history for a template of how environmental damage comes into focus.

The environmental legacy of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska took more than 20 years to unfold. Two decades after the spill, scientists made new discoveries that led them to estimate 21,000 gallons of the oil remained in the environment, some of it as toxic as it was when the spill occurred, according to a 2009 report from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council.

That surprised scientists.

The public should expect similar surprises with the Gulf oil disaster, saidPedro Alvarez, chairman of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University.

"You only realize what the damage was years, years later," he said.

Another historical example may be more reassuring. In 1979, a reported 3.3 million barrels of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico in theIxtoc 1 oil disaster.

Today, visible impacts of that disaster have disappeared, Overton said.

Overton predicts something similar will happen with the BP Gulf oil disaster. In coming years, the scope and severity of the environmental damage will come into focus. Within decades, the ecosystem may return to a new normal.

But anyone who makes predictions these days is just speculating, Overton said.

"Do we know how much damage has been done?" he said. "The answer is, no."

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/10/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html

Tropical weather delays Gulf well-killing operations 2 to 3 days
By the CNN Wire Staff
August 10, 2010 2:09 p.m. EDT

(CNN) -- Drilling on the final 30 feet of a relief well expected to intercept the crippled oil well in the Gulf of Mexico has been suspended because of a tropical disturbance in the region, the government's national incident commander said Tuesday.

The weather may delay the process by two to three days, said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen.

He said that would push the interception date -- which had been expected Thursday or Friday -- to sometime between Sunday and next Tuesday, weather permitting, at which point crews could begin the "bottom kill" procedure to permanently cement the well.

The drilling apparatus is expected to remain on site because the weather was not projected to be very strong, Allen said. "Development Driller 3 can take the expected wave heights. There's no problem there," he said.

Allen said that in preparation for the storm, crews had pulled the drill string out, put a plug known as a "packer" in the casing pipe and filled the riser with seawater so the pipe would be stable. He said that's an easily reversible process once the weather passes: Purge the seawater out, pull the packer out and reinsert the drill string to begin drilling again.

BP spokeswoman Elizabeth Adams added that BP's eight other assets in the Gulf of Mexico are in phase 2 of their emergency operations, requiring that nonessential personnel leave, facilities are secured and crews prepare for shut-in.

Strong thunderstorms and gusty winds are possible over the well site starting Wednesday, CNN meteorologist Sean Morris said.

The National Hurricane Center said Tuesday afternoon that a low-pressure system just off the southwestern coast of Florida was moving west-northwestward in the Gulf, accompanied by a large area of showers and squalls, and had a high (70 percent) chance of developing into a tropical depression or worse storm by 2 p.m. Thursday. The Air Force was sending a plane to the system Tuesday afternoon to help determine if a tropical depression was forming, the hurricane center said.

Landfall could be anywhere between Houston, Texas, and New Orleans, Louisiana, on Thursday or Friday, Morris said.

Allen said scientists planned to conduct some pressure tests that they had been unable to perform before last week's "static kill" operation cemented the center of the well from above. He stressed that these new pressure tests were not instigated by any concerns about the well's current status, as recent pressure tests had shown the expected levels of well "integrity."

Also this week, Michael R. Bromwich of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (the former Minerals Management Service) is hosting forums with federal, state and local leaders to gather input on deepwater drilling safety reforms, well containment and oil spill response. He will be briefed by panels of experts from academia, the environmental community and the oil and gas industry. On Tuesday morning, he was in Mobile, Alabama.

Bromwich will evaluate whether to recommend any modifications to the scope or duration of deepwater drilling suspensions announced by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on July 12.

President Barack Obama, who has been under pressure to show a strong response to the spill, said he was committed to standing by communities along the Gulf Coast well beyond the final sealing of the well.

"What is clear is that the battle to stop the oil flowing into the Gulf is just about over. Our work goes on, though," he said in Washington.

The oil spill hasn't just hurt BP's bottom line -- it's inflicted heavy blows on Gulf Coast industries like tourism and fishing.

A group of concerned St. Louis, Missouri, residents said they left on a caravan of support Monday, spending money at small businesses along the Gulf Coast, using funds raised from around the country. The caravan is expected to travel through Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, completing its trek Friday.

"We've learned of so many businesses in the Gulf region that are losing their customers, employees and dreams because of the impact on tourism," organizer Dennis Gorg said in a statement. "As a small-business owner, I can't imagine how I'd support the people who depend on me. We can do something. We can become tourists with a purpose."

The well erupted after an April 20 explosion aboard the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon that left 11 men dead. A temporary cap contained the spill July 15, and nearly 3,000 barrels of heavy drilling mud and cement drove the oil back into the ocean floor last week.

The well gushed an estimated 53,000 barrels (2.3 million gallons) of oil per day before it was capped, with some of the oil ending up on beaches or in marshes. Fresh, green grass has begun growing again in some of the hardest-hit marshes of southern Louisiana, but oil continues to wash ashore in places.

CNN's Vivian Kuo, Eric Fiegel, Ed Lavandera and David Mattingly contributed to this report.

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/17/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html

EDITOR: Notice how the whole BP Oil Spill has gone from daily front page news to zero in less than a week? The scary imagery and babble from the government is over, so the piss ant sensational press goes where something else will make headlines.
 It's incredible. Nobody was listening to these scientists before. Asking "where did all the oil go?" has elicited recent glib answers from the morons in government that most of it was burned off, evaporated or biodegraded. Last time I checked, hydrocarbons don't just go away like that, and certainly not that fast. I predict that we will see the other shoe drop on this whole disaster when somebody that the government doesn't control or can't muzzle will find and reveal the true extent of the continuing destruction of the Gulf by this oil.

Calls for better seafood testing as Gulf fishing begins anew
By the CNN Wire Staff
August 17, 2010 3:33 p.m. EDT

(CNN) -- A day after fall shrimping season began in the Gulf of Mexico and the state of Alabama reopened coastal waters to fishing, a major environmental watchdog group called for more stringent testing of seafood.

The National Resources Defense Council released a statement Tuesday saying it sent letters to the Food and Drug Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, co-signed by almost two dozen Gulf coast groups, asking the government agencies to:

• ensure that there is comprehensive monitoring of seafood contamination.
• ensure public disclosure of all seafood monitoring data and methods.
• ensure that fishery re-opening criteria protect the most vulnerable populations, including children, pregnant women and subsistence fishing communities.

"With the opening of shrimping season and near-daily reopening of fishing areas, seafood safety is a major issue right now," Dr. Gina Solomon, a senior scientist with the National Resources Defense Council, said in the statement. "The government needs to show it is putting strong safety criteria and testing standards in place to ensure that the seafood from the Gulf will be safe to eat in the months and years to come."

Government officials including Vice President Joe Biden and Steve Murawski, NOAA's chief scientist for fisheries, have said in recent weeks that waters closed to fishermen after the worst oil spill in U.S. history would be reopened when officials could guarantee that seafood would pass tests for safety and edibility.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster has hampered the seafood business across the Gulf as federal and state authorities put much of its waters off-limits amid safety concerns. With the once-gushing well capped on a temporary basis for more than a month now, NOAA and the Gulf states have begun lifting those restrictions -- but Louisiana shrimpers such as Anthony Bourgeoif say more needs to be done, and soon.

"It's open down over here with small shrimp, where it should be open over there where the big shrimp are," Bourgeoif said. "Can't make no money with no little shrimp, man."

Bourgeoif said he planned to go out, because "I ain't made nothing since the BP spill." But he was concerned that inspectors might find signs of oil in his catch and make him dump it.

"So why go out there and catch it if they're just going to be dumped, and I ain't going to make no money off it?" he asked. "I've got to make money. I've got four grandkids I'm raising."

Deborah Long, a spokeswoman for the Southern Shrimp Alliance, said it will probably take days to assess what impact the spill has had on the Gulf catch. And while some shrimpers are eager to get back out, many are still working for the well's owner, BP, which has hired many boats to skim oil off the surface and lay protective booms along the shorelines.

Two reports published Tuesday express concern about the lingering effects of oil spilled from the ruptured BP well into the Gulf of Mexico.

A team from Georgia Sea Grant and the University of Georgia released a report that estimates that 70 to 79 percent of the oil that gushed from the well "has not been recovered and remains a threat to the ecosystem," the university said in a release.

Meanwhile, researchers at the University of South Florida have concluded that oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill may have settled to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico farther east than previously suspected -- and at levels toxic to marine life. Their study is to be released Tuesday, as well, but CNN obtained a summary of the initial conclusions Monday night.

Initial findings from a new survey of the Gulf conclude that dispersants may have sent droplets of crude to the ocean floor, where it has turned up at the bottom of an undersea canyon within 40 miles of the Florida Panhandle, the University of South Florida team said.

Plankton and other organisms at the base of the food chain showed a "strong toxic response" to the crude, and the oil could resurface later, according to researchers.

"The dispersant is moving the oil down out of the surface and into the deeper waters, where it can affect phytoplankton and other marine life," said John Paul, a marine microbiologist at the University of South Florida.

The University of Georgia study "strongly contradicts" a 2-week-old government report saying that only 26 percent of the oil spilled from the well remains in the Gulf.

"That is just absolutely incorrect in the opinion of the scientists," Charles Hopkinson, the director of Georgia Sea Grant and a professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia, said Tuesday.

The government said 4.9 million barrels -- 205.8 million gallons -- of oil leaked into the Gulf, and 74 percent of that oil had been collected or dispersed or had evaporated. Of the remaining 26 percent, "much of that is in the process of being degraded and cleaned up on the shore," NOAA head Jane Lubchenco said August 4.

But the Georgia study said the government's numbers were skewed for several reasons.

First, because 800,000 barrels of oil were collected from the well before it could spill into the Gulf, the Georgia researchers said a total of 4.1 million barrels spilled into the water. But other factors mean more of that oil remains in the water, they said.

In addition, the Georgia researchers used a fundamentally different definition of when oil is "gone" from the water.

"One major misconception is that oil that has dissolved into water is gone and, therefore, harmless," Hopkinson said. "The oil is still out there, and it will likely take years to completely degrade."

And that oil is a lot harder to see than the huge clumps that dotted the Gulf's face like black and brown acne weeks ago. Samantha Joye, another professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia, said that naturally dispersed oil was forming plumes in the water -- but "not black, not brown, turbid sea water. You don't need a river of oil. It's oil that's dissolved in water."

Joye stressed that the government also had completely omitted a crucial component of the environmental pollution from its statistics.

She said NOAA did not measure a third of the hydrocarbons because it did not measure gas emission, which she says are "mostly still in water floating somewhere out there. ... Methane and other gases aren't being documented."

The spill began after an April 20 explosion on the offshore drilling platform Deepwater Horizon that killed 11 men. Two days later, the platform sank and started gushing oil into the Gulf before it was temporarily capped July 15.

Thad Allen, the federal government's point man for the disaster, said Monday that attempts to permanently seal the well won't start until the latest potential problem is evaluated. Allen said engineers are now concerned about how to manage the risk of pressure in the annulus, a ring that surrounds the casing pipe at the center of the well shaft.

The "timelines won't be known until we get a recommendation on the course of action," Allen said.

Scientists began new pressure tests last week to gauge the effects of the mud and cement poured into the well from above during the "static kill" procedure that started August 3. From those pressure readings, they believe that either some of the cement breached the casing pipe and leaked into the annulus, or cement came up into the annulus from the bottom.

The scientists believe that process may have trapped some oil between the cement and the top of the well, inside the annulus. Now, given that new variable, they're trying to figure out how to safely maintain the pressure within the well before launching the "bottom kill," a procedure aimed at sealing the well from below.

Allen said that when it comes to giving a green light to the bottom kill of the well through the nearby relief well, "nobody wants to make that declaration any more than I do." But the process "will not start until we figure out how to manage the risk of pressure in the annulus."

"We're using an overabundance of caution," he said.

Allen said crews could remove the capping stack that sealed the oil in the well July 15and then replace the well's blowout preventer with one stored on the nearby Development Driller II in the Gulf. He said a new blowout preventer would be "rated at much higher pressure levels than the annulus."

The other option would require BP to devise a pressure-relief device for the current capping stack.

Once crews get their marching orders, it will take them about 96 hours to prepare, drill the final 50 feet of a relief well and intercept the main well. Then, the bottom kill process of plugging the well from below would begin.

CNN's Vivian Kuo, Reynolds Wolf, Ed Lavandera, Rich Phillips, Matt Smith, Mark Morgenstein and Chris Turner contributed to this report.

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/19/gulf.oil.plume/index.html

EDITOR: Can anyone say they are surprised or amazed by this news? I didn't think so.

Researchers say they saw 22-mile hydrocarbon plume in Gulf
By the CNN Wire Staff
August 20, 2010 5:31 a.m. EDT

(CNN) -- Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said they detected a plume of hydrocarbons in June that was at least 22 miles long and more than 3,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, a residue of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

According to the institution, the 1.2-mile-wide, 650-foot-high plume of trapped hydrocarbons provides at least a partial answer to recent questions asking where all the oil has gone as surface slicks shrink and disappear.

"These results indicate that efforts to book-keep where the oil went must now include this plume" in the Gulf, said Christopher Reddy, a Woods Hole marine geochemist and oil spill expert. He is one of the authors of the study, which appears in the Aug. 19 issue of the journal Science.

Researchers saw the plume over two weeks in June but were chased away by Hurricane Alex, Reddy told CNN Radio.

"I have no idea where those compounds are now," he said.

Another of the report's authors said the plume has probably moved elsewhere, noting that the BP-operated well has been capped for more than a month and that the plume was moving in a southwesterly direction at a rate of about 6.5 kilometers (4 miles) a day.

"(It's) extremely likely that the hydrocarbons in that plume have long moved elsewhere," report author Rich Camilli told CNN.

Reddy said that experts need more data before they can determine how much remains in Gulf.

Whether the plume's existence poses a significant threat to the Gulf is not yet clear, the researchers say. "We don't know how toxic it is," Reddy said in a statement, "and we don't know how it formed, or why. But knowing the size, shape, depth, and heading of this plume will be vital for answering many of these questions."

Camilli, also a Woods Hole scientist, said colder temperatures at the plume's extreme depths inhibited the degradation properties of oil.

Microbes act more slowly on the subsea oil than on surface oil because of lower temperatures, he said. If all other conditions were equal, microbes would eat up the plume's subsea oil about 10 times more slowly, Camilli said.

Meanwhile, Thad Allen, the government's point man for the oil disaster, responded Thursday on CNN to two recent studies that appeared to contradict the government's estimate that about 75 percent of the oil has been cleaned up.

Researchers at the University of South Florida have concluded that oil may have settled at the bottom of the Gulf farther east than previously suspected -- and at levels toxic to marine life. In addition, a team from Georgia Sea Grant and the University of Georgia released a report that estimates that 70 to 79 percent of the oil that gushed from the well "has not been recovered and remains a threat to the ecosystem," the university said in a release.

Allen said the government has determined the flow rate to have been about 53,000 barrels a day, or a total of 4.9 million barrels.

"The next question is, what happened to it?" he said. "There are certain things we know for certain. We produced almost 827,000 barrels that we collected and brought ashore." The government also knows how much oil was skimmed, how much was burned and how much was affected by dispersant use. When that is added up, it leaves 26 percent still in the water, Allen said.

"That's not a definitive statement, but that's a way to start a conversation about the oil," Allen said. "You can take a lot of different estimates and run that formula, but that's the one we're starting with ... other than the 26 percent, the rest can be accounted for some way. That 26 percent is going to end up on a beach or dealt with somehow."

EDITOR: Yeah, that's it! Backpedal, you babbling, spinning snumina skxawngtsyìp!


CNN's Vivian Kuo contributed to this report

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11324297


Adm Thad Allen says the well should be sealed within 96 hours

BP's Gulf of Mexico oil well to be sealed 'by Sunday'

BP's ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is expected to be permanently sealed by Sunday.

Adm Thad Allen, in charge of cleaning up the oil spill, has said a relief well, which has taken more than four months to drill, should intersect the damaged well later on Thursday.

A mixture of mud and cement will then be pumped in, permanently sealing it.

On Wednesday, the US said it would require oil firms to plug 3,500 non-producing Gulf of Mexico oil wells.

"We are within a 96-hour window of killing the well," former Coast Guard chief Adm Allen told reporters.

No oil has spilled into the Gulf since a temporary cap was placed on the well in mid-July. Mud and cement were later pushed down through the top of the well, and the cap removed.

The relief well is being drilled 2.5 miles (4km) through dirt and rock beneath the sea floor so that the ruptured well can also be sealed from the bottom, ensuring it never causes a problem again.

On Wednesday, the US government said it also wanted energy firms to dismantle hundreds of unused platforms to prevent potential leaks; some installations have been sitting idle for decades without inspection for leaks.

The new requirements are due to take effect in October.

BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in April, killing 11 people and causing one of the worst ecological disasters in US history, with nearly five million barrels of oil spilling into the Gulf.

'Devastating'

In London on Wednesday, BP's departing boss Tony Hayward told MPs that the oil spill was "devastating" to him.

"I understand why people feel the way they do, and there is little doubt that the inability of BP, and the industry, to intervene to seal the leak... was unacceptable."

But he said it would be wrong to blame only BP.

"No single factor caused the accident, and multiple parties including BP, Halliburton and Transocean, were involved," he told MPs on the Commons Energy Committee.

[Toruk Makto]

http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2010/0920/Oil-spill-cleanup-After-digging-deep-to-kill-well-BP-faces-long-climb



A big squirt of concrete and it was done. Five months after the start of the Gulf oil spill, BP on Sunday finally killed the renegade Macondo well, which shared its name with the doomed town in Gabriel Garcia Marquez's book "One Hundred Years of Solitude."

Oil spill cleanup: After digging deep to kill well, BP faces long climb
Killing the well at this point was the easy part of the oil spill cleanup for the beleaguered corporate giant, whose image will be stained, and bottom line impacted, for years to come.

By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer / September 20, 2010 Atlanta



The final relief well "kill" – performed 18,000 feet below the sea floor – provided little more than a symbolic end to a summer-long disaster that put the Gulf oil industry, resort towns, and fishing communities in the grip of a crude-infused calamity that reopened wounds from hurricane Katrina five years earlier.

To be sure, troubling questions remain about the amount of oil left in Gulf waters, its impact on the complex coastal biology of the region, and the long-term economic effects of a six-month drilling ban and the 20 percent premium that explorers now expect to have to pay to drill new wells in the Gulf because of drilling delays and insurance rate hikes.

Despite a loss of nearly one-third of its stock value (or $70 billion) since the spill began, BP will endure in the Gulf, where untapped deep-water deposits shape its future as an oil company. But given the overall hit to its corporate reputation and stock price, and after a series of PR blunders under former chief Tony Hayward, BP knows it must build a new image, much as Exxon did after the Valdez disaster in 1989. And with deeds, not words.

"This is ultimately a story about corporate reputation and corporate liability," says James O'Rourke, a management professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. "Clearly, the litigators want everybody to shut up and say nothing and then fight the battle in court. But ultimately the court of public opinion may determine more of the company's forward success than a court of law."

Impact on bottom line

BP has paid out $9.5 billion to combat the spill, kill the well, and remunerate victims – a figure that BP says could ultimately climb to $32 billion. Though that's not likely to doom a company with an average annual revenue stream of nearly $250 billion, uncertain liabilities could increase the impact on BP's bottom line beyond that figure. Unresolved issues include restrictions on BP's ability to drill and the settlement of thousands of civil lawsuits piling up in courthouses along the Gulf Coast.

More broadly, the accident is likely to alter how business gets done in the Gulf, and not just for BP. The result may be that drilling will be safer, but it will also be more expensive, which could shake out some industry players and affect everything from gasoline prices to US energy independence. Four major drilling rigs, including the Deepwater Ocean Confidence, have left or are leaving the Gulf due to the drilling moratorium.

Tougher regulations and higher insurance rates present a "significant change [that] could affect the rate of oil production from the Gulf many years from now and ultimately the amount of oil that can be recovered from the region -- another long-term blow for the import-dependent U.S. economy," writes James Herron for The Wall Street Journal's "The Source" blog.

BP is starting its rebuilding effort in a series of down-to-earth ads showing locally born executives talking about the company's efforts to stay until the clean-up is complete and lives are restored. Communications experts say that's evidence of a company that's settled on a "paid-media" strategy to go around the geyser of negative press that surrounded the spill and BP's role. The strategy also earned BP the ire of President Obama, who in June said about BP's $50 million image campaign: "What I don't want to hear is, when they're ... spending that kind of money on TV advertising, that they're nickel-and-diming fishermen and small businesses here in the Gulf who are having a hard time."

Words and deeds

Nifty branding is what had set BP apart before the Deepwater Horizon accident, as the company transformed itself, according to past CEO John Brown, into a moral market leader that understood that BP "needs a sustainable planet for its own survival."

That concept was enshrined in the introduction of the green helio and the phrase "beyond petroleum" to replace British Petroleum.

BP, however, may have failed to undergird its corporate messaging with responsible behavior on the ground, either out of complacency or a focus on the bottom line as the Deepwater Horizon rig faced cost overruns battling the troublesome Macondo well.

"There was an accumulation of small decisions at the margins about this risk versus that risk, and they all went wrong," says Mark Isaac, an economics professor at Florida State University in Tallahassee. "Ultimately BP would have been better for the environment if they'd decided to be a better oil company."

Indeed, economists say BP has begun to move, often in fits and starts, from trying to control the messages around the oil spill to heeding its lessons. In other words, even in the world of corporate communications, talk is ultimately cheap.

"I think the best thing they can do, and it will take years, is cleaning up the area and getting people back to work," said Tim Sellnow, a crisis communication expert at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, in a university news story. "Then, they need to be proactive and move to the forefront of their industry in oil drilling and oil transportation safety. That would require an entirely new culture in the organization."

Replacing BP's Euro-centric leadership, epitomized by former CEO Tony Hayward, with Gulf Coast-born Robert Dudley and fellow American Doug Suttles hints at the company board's willingness to redirect the BP "culture" toward paying more attention to the frontlines, where drill meets dirt.

Moreover, the future BP, experts say, may be built more as "financial participant," where it would let other companies do some of the exploration work, Phillip Weiss, an analyst with Argus Research, told Bloomberg News.

"My sense is that BP has deep pockets, good leadership, and a solid business model," says O'Rourke at Notre Dame. "It's going to be a rough go for a while for them, and what they've got to say is that the mistakes which led to the explosion ... were an aberration rather than the core of the culture. People affected by this are not going to forget, but people are willing in many instances to forgive."