No, the Gulf Oil “Sheen” Is Not Oil Coming from the BP Wreckage

Washington's Blog


BP’s Explanation Is Incorrect

Now that the new oil “sheen” has been confirmed by the government as coming from BP’s crippled Macondo well, BP’s fallback position is that the new sheen is just oil leaking from the wreckage of the drilling rig lying on the bottom of the ocean.

As Bloomberg reports:

“The exact source of the sheen is uncertain at this time, but could be residual oil associated with wreckage and/or debris left on the seabed from the Deepwater Horizon incident,” according to the statement.

***

“The most likely source is the bent riser pipe that once connected the rig to the well head, where a mix of oil, drilling mud and seawater were trapped after the top kill operation,” Brett Clanton, a spokesman for London-based BP, said in an e- mailed statement today.

Similarly, the Press-Register reported last year, in connection with a separate 10-mile oil slick linked to BP’s stricken well:

Scientific analysis has confirmed that oil bubbling up above BP’s sealed Deepwater Horizon well in recent days is a chemical match for the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil that spewed into the Gulf last summer.

The Press-Register collected samples of the oil about a mile from the well site on Tuesday and provided them to Ed Overton and Scott Miles, chemists with Louisiana State University.

The pair did much of the chemical work used by federal officials to fingerprint the BP oil, known as MC252.

“After examining the data, I think it’s a dead ringer for the MC252 oil, as good a match as I’ve seen,” Overton wrote in an email to the newspaper. “My guess is that it is probably coming from the broken riser pipe or sunken platform. … However, it should be confirmed, just to make sure there is no leak from the plugged well.”

But there is not that much oil in the riser. As the Washington Post ​reported Wednesday:

Marcia McNutt, director of the U.S. Geological Survey, said a rough calculation showed that the riser, if full of oil, could hold about 1,000 barrels of oil. Because it’s open on two ends it is unlikely to have that much oil, she said.

Indeed, Dr. Ian MacDonald – an expert in deep-ocean extreme communities including natural hydrocarbon seeps, gas hydrates, and mud volcano systems, a former long-time NOAA scientist, and a professor of Biological Oceanography at Florida State University- told us today:

The key statement in the BP discussion was the fact that oil recovered on the ocean surface was not biodegraded. This is not consistent with a pool of oil supposedly trapped in the wreckage of the riser, which would have been exposed to ambient bacterial activity for over two years.

We asked Dr. MacDonald whether the “drilling mud” which BP pumped into the riser might have inhibited bacterial degradation of the oil.

He responded:

It’s not uncommon to observe mounds of drilling mud near well bores. They are often colonized by the chemosynthetic bacteria Beggiatoa, which implies intense degradation of the mud by heterotrophicbacteria.

In other words, the drilling mud likely would not have slowed down degradation of the oil, and the fact that fresh oil is appearing at the surface in the Gulf implies ongoing leaks.
Where’s the Oil Coming From?

So where is the oil coming from?

We’re not sure yet.  But top oil spill experts – such as UC Berkeley professor and government consultant Robert Bea and LSU professor Ed Overton – have told us that oil blowouts such as the one in the Gulf can create new pathways to the seafloor and enlarge natural oil seeps … so that leaks can continue for years.

And as we noted in March:

In June of 2010, BP officials admitted to damage beneath the seafloor under BP’s Gulf Macondo well.

Numerous scientists have speculated that the blowout and subsequent clumsy attempts by BP to plug the well could have created new seeps, and made pre-existing natural seeps bigger.

NEW 4-Mile Long Oil Slick Near BP’s Gulf Oil Well

Washington's Blog

BP’s Macondo Well May Leak for Years

CNN reports:

An oil sheen about four miles long has appeared in the Gulf of Mexico near the site of the worst oil spill in U.S. history, a Coast Guard spokesman said Thursday.

It was not immediately clear where the oil is coming from, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Ryan Tippets. [Although previous oil has been matched as a "dead ringer" to the BP well.]

Coast Guardsmen went to the location after seeing the oil on a satellite image, Tippets said. The response team collected samples and sent them to the Coast Guard Marine Safety Lab in Connecticut for testing.

***

The sheen is near the spot where, on April 20, 2010, BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded over the Macondo well, killing 11 workers and spewing oil that spread across a huge portion of the Gulf.

(And see this.)

As we’ve noted for years, BP’s Macondo oil well is still leaking … and will leak for years.

For example, we noted in March:

In June of 2010, BP officials admitted to damage beneath the seafloor under BP’s Gulf Macondo well.

Numerous scientists have speculated that the blowout and subsequent clumsy attempts by BP to plug the well could have created new seeps, and made pre-existing natural seeps bigger.

***

Washington’s Blog interviewed one of the world’s leading experts on oil leaks in 2010, Robert Bea. Dr. Bea noted that we may never be able to fully stop BP’s oil leak:

Few people in the world know more about oil drilling disasters than Dr. Robert Bea.

Bea teaches engineering at the University of California Berkeley, and has 55 years of experience in engineering and management of design, construction, maintenance, operation, and decommissioning of engineered systems including offshore platforms, pipelines and floating facilities. Bea has worked for many years in governmental and quasi-governmental roles, and has been a high-level governmental adviserconcerning disasters. He worked for 16 years as a top mechanical engineer and manager for Shell Oil, and has worked with Bechtel and the Army Corps of Engineers. One of the world’s top experts in offshore drilling problems, Bea is a member of the Deepwater Horizon Study Group, and has been interviewed by news media around the world concerning the BP oil disaster.

***

WB: Is it possible that this fractured, subsea salt geology will make it difficult to permanently kill the oil leak using relief wells?

Bea: Yes, it could. The Santa Barbara channel seeps are still leaking, decades after the oil well was supposedly capped. This well could keep leaking for years.

Scripps mapped out seafloor seeps in the area of the well prior to the blowout. Some of the natural seeps penetrate 10,000 to 15,000 feet beneath the seafloor. The oil will follow lines of weakness in the geology. The leak can travel several horizontal miles from the location of the leak.

[In other words, the geology beneath the seafloor is so fractured, with soft and unstable salt formations, that we may never be able to fully kill the well even with relief wells. Instead, the loss of containment of the oil reservoir caused by the drilling accident could cause oil to leak out through seeps for years to come. See this and this for further background].

***

WB: I have heard that BP is underestimating the size of the oil reservoir (and see this). Is it possible that the reservoir is bigger than BP is estimating, and so – if not completely killed – the leak could therefore go on for longer than most assume?

Bea: That’s plausible.

WB: The chief electronics technician on the Deepwater Horizon said that the Macondo well was originally drilled in another location, but that “going faster caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools”, and that BP abandoned that well. You’ve spoken to that technician and looked into the incident, and concluded that “they damn near blew up the rig.” [See this and this].

Do you know where that abandoned well location is, and do you know if that well is still leaking?

Bea: The abandoned well is very close to the current well location. BP had to file reports showing the location of the abandoned well and the new well [with the Minerals Management Service], so the location of the abandoned well is known.

We don’t know if the abandoned well is leaking.

WB: Matthew Simmons talked about a second leaking well. There are rumors on the Internet that the original well is still leaking. Do you have any information that can either disprove or confirm that allegation?

Bea: There are two uncorroborated reports. One is that there is a leak 400 feet West of the present well’s surface location. There is another report that there is a leak several miles to the West.

[Bea does not know whether either report is true at this time, because BP is not sharing information with the government, let alone the public.]

BP Criminality Awarded Government Contracts

Abby cites the hypocrisy of the DOJ taking two years to call out BP even though they have been awarding them contracts ever since they caused the largest environmental crisis in the history of the world.

Gulf seafood deformities alarm scientists

Al Jazeera
Dahr Jamail


Eyeless shrimp and fish with lesions are becoming common, with BP oil pollution believed to be the likely cause.



New Orleans, LA - "The fishermen have never seen anything like this," Dr Jim Cowan told Al Jazeera. "And in my 20 years working on red snapper, looking at somewhere between 20 and 30,000 fish, I've never seen anything like this either."

Dr Cowan, with Louisiana State University's Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences started hearing about fish with sores and lesions from fishermen in November 2010.
Cowan's findings replicate those of others living along vast areas of the Gulf Coast that have been impacted by BP's oil and dispersants.

Gulf of Mexico fishermen, scientists and seafood processors have told Al Jazeera they are finding disturbing numbers of mutated shrimp, crab and fish that they believe are deformed by chemicals released during BP's 2010 oil disaster.

Along with collapsing fisheries, signs of malignant impact on the regional ecosystem are ominous: horribly mutated shrimp, fish with oozing sores, underdeveloped blue crabs lacking claws, eyeless crabs and shrimp - and interviewees' fingers point towards BP's oil pollution disaster as being the cause.

Eyeless shrimp

Tracy Kuhns and her husband Mike Roberts, commercial fishers from Barataria, Louisiana, are finding eyeless shrimp.

"At the height of the last white shrimp season, in September, one of our friends caught 400 pounds of these," Kuhns told Al Jazeera while showing a sample of the eyeless shrimp.

According to Kuhns, at least 50 per cent of the shrimp caught in that period in Barataria Bay, a popular shrimping area that was heavily impacted by BP's oil and dispersants, were eyeless. Kuhns added: "Disturbingly, not only do the shrimp lack eyes, they even lack eye sockets."

Eyeless shrimp, from a catch of 400 pounds
of eyeless shrimp, said to be caught
September 22, 2011, in Barataria Bay, Louisiana

"Some shrimpers are catching these out in the open Gulf [of Mexico]," she added, "They are also catching them in Alabama and Mississippi. We are also finding eyeless crabs, crabs with their shells soft instead of hard, full grown crabs that are one-fifth their normal size, clawless crabs, and crabs with shells that don't have their usual spikes … they look like they've been burned off by chemicals."

On April 20, 2010, BP's Deepwater Horizon oilrig exploded, and began the release of at least 4.9 million barrels of oil. BP then used at least 1.9 million gallons of toxic Corexit dispersants to sink the oil.

Keath Ladner, a third generation seafood processor in Hancock County, Mississippi, is also disturbed by what he is seeing.

"I've seen the brown shrimp catch drop by two-thirds, and so far the white shrimp have been wiped out," Ladner told Al Jazeera. "The shrimp are immune compromised. We are finding shrimp with tumors on their heads, and are seeing this everyday."

While on a shrimp boat in Mobile Bay with Sidney Schwartz, the fourth-generation fisherman said that he had seen shrimp with defects on their gills, and "their shells missing around their gills and head".
"We've fished here all our lives and have never seen anything like this," he added.

Ladner has also seen crates of blue crabs, all of which were lacking at least one of their claws.

Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Contaminated Ocean's Food Chain, Study Finds

International Business Times
Ryan Villarreal

Zooplankton form the base of the ocean's food web and are typically fed upon by fish larva and smaller crustaceans, said Dr. David Kimmel of East Carolina University. Whether or not these larger organisms have accumulated significant amounts of toxic compounds, or has entered the human food chain, has yet to be determined.

"That is certainly one of the questions we would like to see answered with more research," said Dr. Mitra in a phone interview.

Another question the researchers would like to see answered is how long the oil compounds will remain in the zooplankton, but it requires sustained observation over a long period of time.

The zooplankton themselves, do not seem to have been negatively impacted in terms of population, said Dr. Mike Roman at the University of Maryland, though they serve as a conduit for energy and matter, including the toxic compounds, to move up the food chain.

The research team was funded to test its hypothesis about the presence of oil compounds in zooplankton, and the results of its study are viewed as something to build upon in determining the full ecological impact of the oil spill.

Dr. Roman said there needs to be long-term monitoring systems in place in the Gulf to examine various levels of the ecosystem and how they have been impacted by the spill.

BP Settlement Sells Out Victims - UPDATE

Greg Pallast

Deal buries evidence of oil company willful negligence

Following the Deepwater Horizon explosion, Greg Palast led a four-continent investigation of BP PLC for Britain's television series Dispatches. From 1989-91, Palast directed the investigation of fraud charges in the Exxon Valdez grounding for Alaska Native villages.

Some deal. BP gets the gold mine and the public gets the shaft.

On Friday night, the lawyers for 120,000 victims of the Deepwater Horizon blow-out cut a deal with oil company BP PLC which will save the oil giant billions of dollars. It will also save the company the threat of a trial that could expose the true and very ugly story of the Gulf of Mexico oil platform blow-out.

I have been to the Gulf and seen the damage — and the oil that BP says is gone.  Miles of it.  As an economist who calculated damages for plaintiffs in the Exxon Valdez oil spill case, I can tell you right now that there is no way, no how, that the $7.8 billion BP says it will spend on this settlement will cover that damage, the lost incomes, homes, businesses and boats, let alone the lost lives — from cancers, fetal deformities, miscarriages, and lung and skin diseases.

Two years ago, President Barack Obama forced BP to set aside at least $20 billion for the oil spill's victims.  This week's settlement will add exactly ZERO to that fund.  Indeed, BP is crowing that, adding in the sums already paid out, the company will still have spent less than the amount committed to the Obama fund.

There's so much corrosion, mendacity and evil covered up by this settlement deal that I hardly know where to begin.

So, let's start with punitive damages.

I was stunned that there is no provision, as was expected, for a punishment fee to by paid by BP for it's willful negligence. In the Exxon Valdez trial, a jury awarded us $5 billion in punitives - and BP's action, and the damage caused in the Gulf, is far, far worse.

BP now has to pay no more than proven damages. It's like telling a bank robber, "Hey, just put back the money in the vault and all's forgiven."

This case screamed for punitive damages.  

Here's just a couple of facts that should have been presented to a jury:

For example, the only reason six hundred miles of Gulf coastline has been slimed by oil was that BP failed to have emergency oil spill containment equipment ready to roll when the Deepwater Horizon blew out. BP had promised the equipment's readiness in writing and under oath.

And here's the sick, sick part. This is exactly the same thing BP did in the Exxon Valdez case. It was BP, not Exxon, that was responsible for stopping the spread of oil in Alaska in 1989. In Alaska, decades ago, BP told federal regulators it would have oil spill "boom" (the rubber that corrals the spreading stuff) ready to roll out if a tanker hit. When the Exxon Valdez struck Bligh Reef, BP's promised equipment wasn't there: BP had lied.

Environmental Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico: The Escalation of BP's Liability

Global Research
Dahr Jamail

As oil, sickness and contamination persist, Gulf residents and lawyers file thousands of lawsuits against the oil giant.

"If you got caught humping another woman - [if] you're both naked and caught in the act - you'd want BP to explain to your wife how it didn't happen."

This colorful analogy was proposed by Dean Blanchard, a seafood distributor on Grand Isle, Louisiana, to explain oil giant BP's continuing machinations to evade liability in the aftermath of the April 2010 disaster.

During a recent discussion in his office, Blanchard told Al Jazeera that the fishing waters off Louisiana are only producing one per cent of the shrimp they formerly produced. "Half of the local fishermen have shut down," he stated. "They are dying. And [as] for the fishing, every day they are hauling dead porpoises in front of my place. I have a claim filed with BP, but none of us in the seafood business are being paid."

Speculating that he may soon have to close down his company, Blanchard spoke for hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents who remain angry and frustrated when he added: "I worked 30 years to establish my business, and now BP has destroyed my life."

Fallout and responsibility

In a key investigative report released on September 14, the US government heaped most of the blame for the oil disaster on BP, which now faces a raft of criminal and civil litigation and billions of dollars in potential damages.

The report concluded that BP violated federal regulations, ignored safety concerns and crucial warnings, and made careless decisions during the cementing of the well nearly two kilometres underwater.

"That report summarised what we already knew, and it will help establish the punitive damage case against the defendant [BP]," New Orleans-based attorney Stuart Smith, representing more than 1,000 cases against BP, told Al Jazeera.

Smith has been litigating against oil companies for 25 years, and in 2001 was lead counsel in a case that resulted in a $1bn verdict against ExxonMobil.

"The fastest way to lose a toxic tort case is to rely on the government or the defendant to collect the evidence," explained Smith, whose firm has spent more than $2m for its client's cases by collecting samples and data and having them analysed by experts.

As litigation against BP continues to mount, several studies have confirmed Smith and Blanchard's concerns about the deep impact of BP's oil disaster.

One recent study carried out by experts at Auburn University concluded that mats of oil that remain submerged on the seabed could pose a long-term risk to coastal ecosystems. Large quantities of tar balls and oil mats have washed ashore, or have been uncovered by recent storms, at Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, Alabama, as well as at several beaches in Louisiana and in Pensacola, Florida. A recent Al Jazeera over-flight of the area near BP's capped Macondo well, the origin of the April 2010 disaster, revealed a long swathe of oil and sheen.

Dr Wilma Subra, a chemist and MacArthur Fellow, has - since autumn of 2010 - been conducting tests on seafood and sediment samples along the Gulf for chemicals present in BP's crude oil and toxic dispersants.

"Tests have shown significant levels of oil pollution in oysters and crabs along the Louisiana coastline," Subra told Al Jazeera. "We have also found high levels of hydrocarbons in the soil and vegetation."

Court Rules US Taxpayers, Not BP Or Transocean, Are Liable For Gulf Oil Spill Clean Up Costs

Alexander Higgins

US District court has dismissed over 100,000 lawsuits brought against BP And Transocean to pay for oil spill clean up costs and environmental damages caused to the Gulf of Mexico from the BP Gulf Oil Spill. 

The court ruled that injury stopped the moment the well was sealed and the Federal Government, aka The US Taxpayer, is now liable for clean up costs along with any damages caused by deficiencies of the cleanup of the Gulf Of Mexico. The US District Courts have ruled that since oil is no longer flowing from the Macando Well BP and Transocean are not liable for cleanup costs and damages from the BP Gulf Oil Spill since the “well has already been sealed and the injury has already been committed”.

In the ruling the court goes on note that Federal Government is in charge of the oil spill clean up efforts and any damages related to the cleanup and how the clean up is now the burden of the Federal Government, being the US Taxpayer.

To put it another way, the courts basically ruled that Taxpayers are now liable for the clean up of the BP Gulf Oil Spill and any damages caused by deficiencies of the clean up in the Gulf is now also the responsibility of the US Taxpayer.

The lawsuits against BP have been bundled into separate packages with all of the lawsuits pertaining to BP’s liability for cleanup costs and environmental damages being dismissed with this ruling.
Activists Post reports :

BP wins a big one in oil spill litigation

Sabrina Canfield
Courthouse News Service
Friday, June 17, 2011Last Update: 9:13 AM PT

NEW ORLEANS – Ruling in favor of Transocean and BP, a federal judge on Thursday dismissed third-party environmental claims in a giant pleading bundle in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill litigation, saying the fact that the oil flow has stopped makes those lawsuits irrelevant.
“The injunction at this stage would be useless, as not only is there no ongoing release from the well, but there is also no viable offshore facility from which any release could possibly occur,” U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier wrote. “The Macondo well is dead, and what remains of the Deepwater Horizon vessel is on the ocean floor, where it capsized and sank in 5,000 feet of water.

“Moreover, BP and the agencies comprising the Unified Area Command have been and are cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico. An injury is not redressable by a citizen suit when the injury is already being addressed.”

Judge Barbier is overseeing the massive, consolidated oil spill litigation, which has been divided into “bundles,” based upon the nature of the claims.

In instances where claims in the D1 bundle pertain to how the oil is being cleaned up, Barbier ruled that even if he allowed those claims to go forward, the claimants are not directly involved in the cleanup, so a ruling in their favor would not affect how the cleanup is progressing.

“The D1 defendants do not unilaterally direct the cleanup activities in the Gulf; such activities have been under the control of the National Incident Commander, Federal on-Scene Coordinator, Unified Area Command, and the Coast Guard in cooperation with other federal agencies. Thus, plaintiffs cannot show that an order from this court would actually resolve [to the defendants for] any potential deficiency in the ongoing cleanup,” Barbier wrote.

“In order to prevail on their claims for injunctive relief, plaintiffs must demonstrate an ongoing violation of various statutes on which plaintiffs’ claims for relief is based. Because the Macondo well is dead and is no longer discharging oil, plaintiffs’ only claims are confined to seeking environmental citizen suit injunctive relief of a prospective nature to stop noncompliance in the form of a continued release of oil. Thus, the citizen suit claims brought by the plaintiffs are moot, because no future-orientated injunction can provide any meaningful relief for plaintiffs in terms of stopping discharges that already concluded in mid-July 2010.”

Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, operated by BP, exploded and burned 50 miles off the Louisiana coast on April 20, 2010, killing 11 and setting off the worst oil spill in history. [Hundreds of] Millions of gallons of oil were spilled in the next 87 days.
More than 100,000 people have filed lawsuits seeking damages from the spill.
The lawsuits dismissed on Thursday belonged to the D1 pleading bundle.

D1 bundle claims were filed by third-party organizations that alleged environmental damages under the Clean Water Act; the Endangered Species Act; the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act; and the Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act.

This was the first ruling arising from issues addressed during a May 26 hearing on the defendants’ motions to dismiss particular bundles.
Claims with varying types of damages were included in more than one bundle, depending on type of claim.

In dismissing the D1 claims, Barbier said the claims could still be heard if they seek damages for violations other than environmental claims.

“To the extent that plaintiffs assert claims under general maritime law and/or state law, the court will consider those claims separately when it addresses the pending motions to dismiss the B1 bundle master complaint,” Barbier wrote.

During the May 26 hearing, Barbier indicated that he might find the claims asserted in the D1 bundle were moot.

“The fundamental argument is that this is all moot because the well is sealed,” Barbier said.

During the hearing, Ervin Gonzales, of the plaintiff steering committee, said the cleanup has not been adequate and “the environment is suffering.”

Greg Buppert, an attorney for Defenders of Wildlife, told Barbier at the hearing that “the Endangered Species Act is not linked to the well spill; it is linked to the take of species.”
In response, Barbier cited the federal government’s investigation of the spill. Federal attorneys have said that criminal charges will be filed if the investigation turns up evidence of willful negligence by the defendants.

Because of the continuing investigation, the government has tried to keep certain issues undercover. For instance, autopsy results of the hundreds of dead baby dolphins that have washed up along the Gulf Coast have been kept private, and independent scientists have not been allowed to conduct their own autopsies.

“Isn’t that what the federal government is doing?”  Barbier asked on May 26. “It sounds like you think they may not do it right.”

Later that day, Barbier told Buppert: “It’s speculative right now. You’re surmising that somebody is going to do something that you don’t like.”
Attorneys did not immediately return calls for comment.

Unbelievable. Shocking. The may need the entire congress to send twitter pics exposing themselves to distract the masses from this one. I guess the Judge believed that all of the oil magically disappeared from the Gulf the moment the well was sealed, just like the Federal Government told us it did. Never mind that fact that scientists reported the Feds confiscated the data of the underwater plumes and told the scientists to shut up about their research. Never mind the feds tried covering up the first plume that was discovered. You do remember that  massive 22 mile long plume larger than the size of Manhattan don’t you?

And even after the Feds said they couldn’t find the  oil the massive slick in the Gulf could still be seen from space. Then there were the fisherman that the Feds told to shut about the discovery of oil in Gulf seafood. Yep the damage, that all ended when the well was sealed, if what even sealed. Regardless of that debate that fact still remains that massive underwater lakes of oil are still in the Gulf and will remain there for years.

But none of that matters to our fascist government. Widespread sightings of oil washing up all over the Gulf continue to this very day. In fact NOAA has just recently confirmed a widespread “unexplained sickness” and lesions in sea life all across the Gulf that the Feds are desperately trying to keep a lid on.

That wouldn’t have anything to do with the almost 2 million gallons of the neurotoxin pesticide Corexit that was sprayed into the Gulf to limit BP’s cleanup costs for the Gulf.

Oh, the irony. Would BP have sprayed all of those toxins into the Gulf if they knew that the Federal courts would just let them off the hook for the clean up costs? The Feds would have never of needed to lie about the lethality of Corexit because the public couldn’t handle the truth.
The Irony. The Fascism. The Greed. The Corruption.

A Year After BP Blowout, Lawmakers Say Drill

A year after the BP oil spill put the brakes on full-bore domestic production, it's

back to "drill, baby, drill" as federal lawmakers, anxious about rising gasoline prices, push legislation to open offshore leases and make it easier to drill domestically.

Nowhere is this emphasis on increasing domestic production louder than in the Gulf Coast states hit hard by the oil spill - Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas - where the calls for drilling from members of both parties are louder than last year's calls for caution as oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico.

"Louisiana is home to the nation's oil and gas industry that is trying to get back to work after the Deepwater Horizon accident," said Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana. The Pelican State lawmaker, one of the Gulf Coast's few Democrats, is critical of the drilling moratorium imposed by the Obama administration after the spill, as well as its slow restarting of the oil well permitting process on the Outer Continental Shelf.

"We need to rapidly accelerate the permitting process in the Gulf to increase production," she said, as well as expanding it to offshore Alaska and other areas.

Last April 20, the Deepwater Horizon oil platform exploded, killing 11 men and injuring 17. The rig's blowout preventer failed, sending oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico for three months, causing widespread economic and environmental damage. The leak was stopped on July 15, after more than 4.9 million barrels of crude oil contaminated the Gulf. The wellhead was permanently sealed on Sept. 19.

BP initially underestimated the size of the spill. Tony Hayward, then BP's chief executive, downplayed its impact without much challenge from the Obama administration, which coordinated the response to the spill with the oil company.

Still, Gulf Coast lawmakers say, it's time to get back into the oil business. Republican lawmakers are pushing legislation that would give leaseholders an additional year to make up for production lost during the moratorium.

"At the one-year anniversary mark, I believe progress has been made to clean up after the spill and to begin rebuilding the economy along the coast," said Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Mississippi. "I will continue to support legislation to ensure that Gulf energy exploration, and the jobs associated with that industry, are not unjustifiably obstructed by the federal bureaucracy."

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday indicates that 69 percent of Americans favor increased offshore drilling. That's up 20 percentage points from last June, while the oil spill was still in progress, and is back to the level of support seen in the summer of 2008.

In the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, the Natural Resources Committee last week approved three bills that would force the Interior Department to speed up permits, open leases in the Gulf of Mexico and off the Virginia coast, set a domestic production goal and, as Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Washington, said, "end the administration's de facto moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico."

The House is expected to vote on the bills, which includes the one-year extension for leaseholders, when Congress returns from its spring break.

The reason for the push: instability in the Middle East and $4-a-gallon gasoline in several states, with the national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded at $3.83 a gallon. Crude oil reached a high of $112 a barrel on April 8, with the Energy Information Administration warning that "crude oil prices are currently at their highest level since 2008."

Environmental activists are alarmed at what they say are short memories by lawmakers on the dangers of offshore drilling.

"We are seeing the chronic effects of the oil spill with 65 (baby) dolphins washing up on the coasts of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida," said Louie Miller, head of the Sierra Club in Mississippi, who added that there have also been 87 dead sea turtles since March 15. "Our concerns are that we haven't recovered from the first disaster."

Tyson Slocum, the director of energy programs for Public Citizen, the grassroots organization founded by Ralph Nader, said, "People tend to forget that the industry screwed this up. BP cut corners." All the legislation moving to open up drilling, he said, is going in the wrong direction. "It's crazy that Congress has not passed reform in response to the largest environmental accident in our history."

But lawmakers from oil-producing states - who are getting an earful from constituents - say drilling has to be part of a comprehensive national energy strategy.

"The lack of a coherent energy policy is one of the drivers that clearly leaves us vulnerable to fluctuating energy prices," said Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas. "We feel it, especially in Texas." And drilling, he said, has to be a part of that policy. "We're fooling ourselves if we think we're beyond that point."

Democratic lawmakers from other regions are urging the tapping of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve - the federal government's oil storage tank - to help increase supply and lower prices, and encouraging the administration to promote alternative fuels.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, is pushing for releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But President Barack Obama cautioned in a television interview Friday that the U.S. should be "very careful" about going that route. "The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was designed for when oil actually shuts off," Obama told ABC.

Oil industry supporters in Congress say that the U.S. has to drill.

"The longer this administration chooses to delay on issuing permits," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, "the longer they endanger jobs for thousands of America's Gulf Coast workers."

Protesters Target BP Annual Meeting

12160

LONDON - BP executives faced angry protesters as shareholders prepared to vote at its annual meeting in London, which is taking place a few days before the first anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

Among protesters at BP's AGM was Diane Wilson, a shrimp farmer, who was ejected from the conference center lobby. (Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA) Fishermen and women from the Gulf coast affected by the spill, some of whom had bought BP shares to allow them to attend the annual meeting, joined climate change activists and artists protesting against the oil company.

Institutional investors, angry at what they claim are excessive executive pay deals, urged shareholders to vote against the remuneration package.

As BP's chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, described a year of "unprecedented crisis" and remembered the families of the 11 who died in the explosion, protesters spoke of their lost livelihoods.

"I am coming to articulate the anger of thousands of Gulf coast residents whose lives and livelihoods have been destroyed while the BP board continues to prosper," said Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation fisherwoman from Texas, one of several who bought shares in BP in order to attend the meeting at the ExCeL centre.

She was ejected from the conference centre lobby, having covered her face with a dark syrup intended to resemble oil. "This is the only thing they understand," she said.

The explosion last April caused a spill that polluted fishing areas and fouled hundreds of miles of beaches. Byron Encalade, president of the Louisiana Oystermen Association, said he planned to tackle the company over its compensation process, claiming many oystermen have been denied payments or given insufficient payouts.

"We've not been made whole: our fishing grounds have been depleted, our oysters are dead and we're not receiving the funds we need to support and sustain ourselves," Encalade said. "We're seeing money going everywhere but at ground zero. We're the communities at ground zero – the first to be put out of work and we're going to be the last to be able to go back to work and sustain ourselves."

Tracy Kuhns and Mike Roberts from Grande Isle in Louisiana own a shrimping boat. They have not fished since the spill. They are reluctant to go out when the season starts next month because they are not sure it is safe, even though most of the waters have been declared open.

Kuhns, executive director of Louisiana Bayoukeeper, which works to protect the Gulf habitat, said: "The oil is still there – it's just sunk to the bottom."

Roberts added: "Opening the fishing grounds was just a way for BP to limit their liability."

The couple put in a compensation claim for $100,000 (£60,000), based on typical earnings for a poor season, but received only $6,000 from BP. They worked for BP on its clean-up programme, but that lasted only three months, so money is tight.

Roberts said that even if fishing resumed, "the market is ruined because no one thinks it's safe. People have common sense."

BP shareholders have been urged to vote against the company's remuneration report by Pirc, the corporate governance watchdog, over "excessive" payouts to outgoing executives.

Tony Hayward, BP's former chief executive, who got £1m compensation for loss of office, has share awards yet to vest worth as much as £8m.

Glass Lewis, a large US shareholder advisory firm, is also urging a vote against BP's report and accounts.

The Association of British Insurers (ABI), which does not issue voting advice, warned investors of possible concerns about BP's discretionary use of share-based bonus awards. The ABI has issued an "amber top" alert to fellow institutional investors, warning them to examine the issues surrounding bonuses of more than £100,000 awarded to two of BP's top executives – its finance director Byron Grote and downstream chief Iain Conn.

Critics view the payments as inappropriate in the wake of the environmentally catastrophic oil spill. BP argues that the executives met targets in their particular roles and that neither played any part in its offshore exploration division.

Members of first nation tribes in Alberta, northern Canada, where BP is developing its oil sands projects, also staged a demonstration.

Melina Laboucan-Massimo, from the Lubicon first nation, said that her father, a hunter, has started to find tumours inside animals he had killed. She blames the use of natural gas by BP in its "in-situ" projects, where steam is used to extract oil from the sands, for polluting the air and water.

Laboucan-Massimo accused BP of not explaining to shareholders the full environmental impact of these projects.

50% of BP Oil Still in Gulf

A brown pelican coated in heavy oil
wallows in the Louisiana surf,
June 2010. Photograph: Win Mcnamee

Guardian

Officially, marine life is returning to normal in the Gulf of Mexico, but dead animals are still washing up on beaches – and one scientist believes the damage runs much deeper.

There are few people who can claim direct knowledge of the ocean floor, at least before the invention of the spill-cam, last year's strangely compulsive live feed of the oil billowing out of BP's blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico. But for Samantha Joye it was familiar terrain. The intersection of oil, gas and marine life in the Mississippi Canyon has preoccupied the University of Georgia scientist for years. So one year after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig, about 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana, killed 11 men and disgorged more than 4m barrels of crude, Joye could be forgiven for denying the official version of the BP oil disaster that life is returning to normal in the Gulf.

The view from her submarine is different, and her attachment is almost personal. On her descent to a location 10 miles from BP's well in December, Joye landed on an ocean floor coated with dark brown muck about 4cm deep. Thick ropes of slime draped across coral like cobwebs in a haunted house. The few creatures that remained alive, such as the crabs, were too listless to flee. "Most of the time when you go at them with a submarine, they just run," she says. "They weren't running, they were just sitting there, dazed and stupefied. They certainly weren't behaving as normal." Her conclusion? "I think it is not beyond the imagination that 50% of the oil is still floating around out there."

At a time when the White House, Congress, government officials and oil companies are trying to put the oil disaster behind them, that is not the message from the deep that people are waiting to hear. Joye's data – and an outspoken manner for a scientist – have pitted her against the Obama adminstration's scientists as well as other independent scientists who have come to different conclusions about the state of the Gulf. She is consumed by the idea that she – and other colleagues – are not really being heard."It's insanely frustrating," Joye says.

She never expected to be a science dissident, she says, or gain such a large public profile. She sees herself as a science nerd and a brainiac who never knew how to play, even as a child. To round off the picture of a ferocious intellect, Joye says she had a photographic memory when she was younger. Her perfect recall has faded, now that she is in her 40s, but that intensity of focus is still there.

In the past year, Joye – as well as other independent scientists – has repeatedly challenged the official version of the oil disaster put forward by the White House and other administration officials. Last May, her research team was the first to detect the presence of a vast plume of oil droplets swirling at high speed through the deep waters of the Gulf. The discovery – initially disputed by government scientists – suggested that far more oil and gas had entered the sea than they had originally estimated.

In December, Joye's team knocked down another White House claim – that the vast majority of the oil was gone – when she discovered a thick coating of oil, dead starfish and other organisms on the bottom of the ocean, over an area of 2,900 square miles.

It remains to be seen whether Joye can prove the deniers wrong. She has a new scientific paper coming out, and a return research voyage to the Gulf this week, with several more follow-up voyages scheduled this summer to areas within range of the BP well. Can she convince her fellow scientists that the majority of BP's oil is still stuck on the bottom of the ocean? How long will it remain there, and what effect will it have in the future?

It's undeniable that time has moved on since the initial disaster. After 87 days, BP engineers managed to cap the well last July. Last year's images of pelicans entombed in thick layers of crude now belong to history.

So too, very nearly, do the various investigations into the disaster. Most are complete, with blame spread between BP and other companies. Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Halliburton was responsible for the cementing job on the well, which has been much criticised by investigators. However, BP executives could still face criminal charges.

The oil business in general is looking up. The Obama administration last month started issuing new permits for deepwater wells in the Gulf – the first since the BP blowout. Meanwhile, Congress has yet to act on any of the issues arising from the oil spill – from raising the liability on oil companies to strengthening environmental regulations. Senators even blocked a bill that would have given the 11 workers killed in the blowout the right to sue for damages comparable to those on land.

BP, which seemed in danger of collapse a year ago, is on the financial rebound. Ken Feinberg, the independent administrator of BP's $20bn compensation fund, says he is close to finishing compensating individuals and businesses who were hurt by the disaster – without even coming close to exhausting the $20bn. He paid out only $3.6bn last year.

The cleanup operations are also winding down, at a cost to BP of about $13bn (it has also pledged $500m to scientific research in the Gulf). The company took out an ad campaign this week to express regrets for the spill, showing a picture of shimmering Gulf waters. It could still be liable for up to $18bn in penalties and fines, however, under a US law that imposes a levy of $4,300 for each barrel of oil. But Feinberg was so upbeat he told reporters the Gulf could see a complete recovery by 2012.

Government scientists have not gone so far. A spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) said there was "no basis to conclude that the Gulf recovery will be complete by 2012", and warned that some of the consequences of the spill may not be known for decades. The spokesman went on to note that about 60 miles of the coastline remain oiled. Tar mats continue to wash up on beaches in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. And although Gulf waters have reopened to fishing, many oyster beds were wiped out when state authorities flushed fresh water into the Gulf in the hopes of rolling back the oil. At a public meeting last month in Biloxi, Mississippi, fishermen said they were hauling up nets full of oil with their shrimp.

So how could the disaster possibly be over, asks Joye. "You talk to people who live around the Gulf of Mexico, who live on the coast, who have family members who work on oil rigs. It's not OK down there. The system is not fine. Things are not normal. There are a lot of very strange things going on – the turtles washing up on beaches, dolphins washing up on beaches, the crabs. It is just bizarre. How can that just be random consequence?"

More than 150 dolphins, half of them infants, have washed up since the start of 2011. At least eight were smeared with crude oil that has been traced to BP's well, NOAA said, and 87 sea turtles – all endangered – have been found dead since mid-March.

"To me it makes no sense to think that it is random consequence, but it is kind of maddening because there has been a lot of energy and effort put towards beating the drum of everything is wonderful, everything is going to be fine by 2012," says Joye.

Other studies have disputed Joye's findings. Terry Hazen, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, failed to detect any traces of underwater oil in the six weeks after the well was capped. But he did find evidence of naturally occurring bacteria that ate the oil. John Kessler, a scientist at Texas A&M, found that the huge quantities of methane gas, which were released along with the oil, had also rapidly degraded.

But Joye was unfazed. In her lab, technicians have been running experiments for months to learn more about how the oil could be broken down once it sank into the ocean floor. "The micro-organisms are not happy. They are not metabolising this stuff," she says. "They should be having a picnic and feasting, and they are not. Why is that? I have no idea, but we are trying a lot of different combinations to try to find out what is regulating their activity."

When the first reports came in of a blowout on the Deepwater Horizon last year, Joye was laid up at home with a bad back. But part of her team was only a few miles away from the well – the only research vessel in the area – and posted pictures on the web of the flames shooting into the sky. In those early days, Joye says she had just one thought – to more research vessels getting out there to see what was happening to the oil.

Those first weeks of the oil disaster were a time of immense frustration for scientists. BP and government officials were extremely reluctant to produce any estimate of the magnitude of the spill. An investigation commission appointed by Obama would later deliver harsh criticism to officials for gross underestimates of the spill.

Independent scientists were clamouring for access to data. Joye, by a stroke of good luck, already had a research trip scheduled; the scientists simply re-purposed the cruise to check for traces of oil from BP's well. They found the cloud of droplets suspended in the water and immediately posted an update to the research mission's website, complete with measurements. The response came as a shock.

Tony Hayward, then chief executive of BP, simply denied there could be any oil at depth. "The oil is on the surface," he told reporters during a quick trip to the cleanup command centre in Louisiana. "There aren't any plumes."

The government reaction was arguably even more discouraging. Jane Lubchenco, the head of NOAA and herself an ocean scientist, said publicly it wasn't at all clear there was any oil in the depths. "We need to make sure that we are not jumping to conclusions," she told PBS television.

Off-camera, Joye and other scientists were bombarded with phone calls from furious officials, from NOAA and other government agencies. "I felt like I was in third grade and my teacher came up to me with a ruler and smacked my hand and said: 'You've just spoken out of turn.' They were very upset," Joye says.

Other scientists have suggested that the clash between Joye and government scientists was due to the enormity of the Gulf disaster. Scientists have no prior experience of a release of oil of this size, and over such a long period of time. There are huge areas of uncertainty, they say. It is conceivable that both parties could be proved right. But Joye will take some convincing. "I am somebody who if I believe in something, I give it 180%," she says. "I believe in the Gulf of Mexico and I love the ecosystem, that is why I have not stopped doing what I have been doing, and saying what I have been saying. When I see evidence that convinces me otherwise I will change my opinion."
But, she adds: "I have not seen anything that changes my opinion to this point."

Report: BP to restart deepwater drilling in Gulf

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In a deal with U.S. regulators, BP this summer plans to restart deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico on 10 wells in exchange for tougher safety rules, British media reported Sunday.

The London-based oil giant promised to abide by rules that are stricter than guidelines set after the April 20, 2010, blast on the Deepwater Horizon rig that killed 11 workers, The Financial Times and The Sunday Times of London reported. The accident, which released almost 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, was the largest marine spill in U.S. history.

BP confirmed it had provided very detailed plans, the U.K. Press Association said Sunday.
The terms reportedly also include:

• Allowing U.S. regulators 24-hour access to any of its deepwater wells.
• No new exploratory drilling for now.

A source close to BP told the Press Association that the company "is hoping to resume drilling in the summer once it shows it can satisfy applicable regulatory conditions, as set out by the U.S. offshore regulator."

The oil slick produced by the spill, estimated to be more than 130 miles long and 70 miles wide, wreaked havoc along the coastlines of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.

BP is spending at least $41 billion to clean up the spill and cover damages, but investigations and lawsuits could add to its costs.

 Story: Transocean gives safety bonuses despite Gulf spill deaths
BP hopes to resume in July drilling that was suspended after the disaster. It could seek approval for renewed exploratory drilling later in 2011, the Sunday Times reported.
The company had 10 deepwater Gulf wells in the process of being drilled when the U.S. imposed a moratorium following the disaster.

Environmental campaigner Greenpeace said that, if true, the report is "a poke in the eye not only to the environment but to investors," and a sign that despite management changes at BP little had fundamentally changed at the oil giant since the disaster.

"It has been a year now and 80 percent of that oil is still somewhere in the sea," Greenpeace spokesman Charlie Kronick told msnbc.com. "There is nothing different about the situation now other than regulators may keep a slightly beadier eye on operations."

The report comes amid continuing pressure on the White House to reduce dependence on foreign oil and ameliorate the impact of higher oil prices, which are climbing due to demand in China and instability in some oil-producing countries in the Middle East.

The national average for a gallon of gas hit $3.619 on Friday, the highest price ever for this time of year, according to AAA and other sources. Prices have climbed 23.2 cents in the past month and more than 81 cents in the past year.

On Wednesday,  President Barack Obama proposed to cut U.S. oil imports by a third over 10 years, a goal that eluded his predecessors and is seen as extremely ambitious by analysts skeptical it can succeed.

In a speech that was short on details on how to curb U.S. energy demand, the president rolled out a blueprint on energy security and said the country must curb dependence on foreign oil that makes up roughly half of its daily fuel needs.
Previous presidents have made similar promises on energy imports that they failed to meet. And any new policy initiative can expect tough opposition from Republicans, who see high energy prices hurting Obama and his Democrats in the 2012 presidential and congressional elections.

1. Possible charges On April 29, The Associated Press reported that  manslaughter and perjury are among possible charges that Justice De... in the early stages of their probe into the Gulf oil spill.

The Justice Department is not ruling out the possibility of bringing manslaughter charges against companies or managers responsible for the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers, the AP reported citing people familiar with the inquiry.

In December, the Justice Department sued BP, oil rig owner Transocean and several other companies in the government's effort to recover billions of dollars for economic and environmental damage. BP was leasing the rig that exploded from Transocean. BP was majority owner of the well that blew out.
In January, a presidential commission found that the spill was caused by time-saving and money-saving decisions by BP, Halliburton and Transocean that created unacceptable risk.

CDC survey of Gulf residents finds 50% of households experiencing respiratory issues within the PAST 30 DAYS — Feds suggest to “focus on mental health

Florida Oil Spill Law

After oil spill, depression and stress levels rise in coastal Alabama, Press-Register, September 27, 2010:

Excerpts

An emergency survey* conducted door-to-door in coastal Alabama confirmed elevated levels of depression and stress following the oil spill and also detected possible effects, such as respiratory ailments…

• At least half of the households queried in both counties had at least one member experiencing respiratory issues within the past 30 days. …
• Respondents were encountering more physically or mentally unhealthy days than people in earlier statewide surveys.
• “The increased prevalence of negative quality-of-life indicators, depressive symptoms and symptoms of anxiety,” according to the CDC report, “suggest that resources should focus on mental health intervention and follow-up surveillance.”

* The survey, by the Centers for Disease Control’s national Center for Environmental Health, is based on responses from 128 households in south Mobile County and 168 in south Baldwin, both in Alabama.