Category Archives: Gulf restoration

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New Orleans Advocate: Stephanie Grace: Ex-govs agree on worth of lawsuit

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http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/opinion/8729494-171/stephanie-grace-ex-govs-agree-on

governors

Photo by Harold Baquet, Loyola University Office of Public Affairs — From left, moderator Lee Zurik with former Govs. Buddy Roemer, Kathleen Blanco and Edwin Edwards at the Institute of Politics Ed Renwick Lecture at Loyola University in New Orleans.

BY STEPHANIE GRACE
sgrace@theadvocate.com
April 01, 2014

Proponents of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East’s lawsuit against 97 oil and gas companies say that, in private, they’re not only getting a fair hearing from many politicians but sense some support for their effort to force the powerful industry to help remediate coastal damage. Ask them to name names, though, and they turn mum.

Opponents, of course, are showing no such reluctance. Gov. Bobby Jindal adamantly opposes the suit, and sympathetic legislators, led by oil and gas man and state Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton, are seeking to kill before it ever gets to court. Jindal removed the effort’s prime architect, author John Barry, from the levee board and is maneuvering to stack it with allies, even as the Legislature is poised to consider codifying more gubernatorial control. The Louisiana Oil & Gas Association sued, arguing Attorney General Buddy Caldwell had no right to OK the suit in the first place, but a judge ruled in Caldwell’s favor. Meanwhile, LOGA President Don Briggs has been vociferously arguing that the suit would have a chilling effect on companies that do business in the state, although in a deposition, he couldn’t come up with a single example.

Such is the atmosphere surrounding the suit and the widely perceived risk in bucking one of the state’s biggest employers and most potent political forces.

That’s what made last week’s unmitigated endorsement of the lawsuit by three former Louisiana governors remarkable.

It’s not that Buddy Roemer, Kathleen Blanco and Edwin Edwards said anything particularly outlandish when they appeared at a Loyola University Institute of Politics forum. Instead, they simply acknowledged that the industry bears responsibility for environmental damage its operations caused and argued that going to court is not a form of intimidation but, rather, a perfectly acceptable way to determine liability.

“All you gotta do is fly over the coastline of Louisiana,” Roemer said. “You don’t need a big speech, you don’t need a lecture series, you don’t need to read a book. Just hitch a ride on a plane, fly over our coastline and see that we are literally disappearing,” particularly along the channels dug by oil and gas interests.

“They do what is best for capitalism, that is to maximize their profits. And the job of the regulators and the citizens is to make sure that damage done is repaired. And that should figure into the cost of profit, and it’s not done now, and Louisiana is particularly egregious in this matter,” he said. “In my opinion, this ought to be a for-profit state, but those who abuse the privilege and don’t pay for damaging the land and water and air which we breathe ought to pay the cost to fix it.”

Next up was Edwards, who noted that “the damage is there, they have made billions of dollars, they have paid millions of dollars in taxes.”

“At the very least, we ought to go to court and find out who is responsible and to what extent, and if it’s determined that they are, then they should be required to pay,” he said.

Then came Blanco, who reminded the crowd that she’d overseen the creation of the independent levee boards in the first place and is “rather concerned that it’s going to be repoliticized.”

“Well, I think that certainly both governors are correct. We’ve all known that the channels that were dug and not restored have contributed mightily to our land loss,” she said. “I would predict that these major companies will come to the table if the lawsuit isn’t destroyed in the political process by the Legislature, but I think that they’ll come to the table and we’ll have a negotiated settlement. I think that they all know that it’s long overdue and that they owe something back to the state of LouisianaŠIt may not go all the way through the court system, but it will bring everybody to the table and force a more honest discussion than we’ve ever seen before.”

Those don’t sound like fringe sentiments, and they don’t come from fringe players.

Roemer, a former Democrat, became a Republican while in office and embarked on a banking career afterward. He can hardly be labeled anti-business, even if he has embraced a crusade in recent years against the poisonous influence of special interest money in politics.

As governor, Blanco was pretty mainstream on oil and gas issues, although she did on a few occasions push back against the industry, with little blowback.

And Edwards may be a lifelong populist, but he coexisted just fine with the industry, as have most Louisiana politicians.

The other thing the three have in common, of course, is that they’re untouchable. Roemer and Blanco are safely retired from politics, and while Edwards is going for an unlikely comeback, he doesn’t seem worried about ticking off any powerful interests.

No, this was just a common-sense take from three politicians who know the lay of the land but have nothing to fear.

Makes you wonder what some of today’s politicians might say out loud, if they felt they could.
Stephanie Grace can be contacted at sgrace@theadvocate.com. Read her blog at http://blogs.theadvocate.com/gracenotes.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

fossil fuels, gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration, oil pollution

KBTX: Texas A&M-Galveston Scientists Assisting In Oil-Spill Aftermath, Texas A&M Vet Also Involved

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http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/Texas-AM-Galveston-Scientists-Assisting-In-Oil-Spill-Aftermath-Texas-AM-Vet-Also-Involved-253429461.html

Bryan, College Station, Texas

Posted: Tue 2:54 PM, Apr 01, 2014
By: Texas A&M University

GALVESTON, April 1, 2014 – Texas A&M University at Galveston scientists, along with colleagues from the main Texas A&M campus in College Station, have assisted in coping with the oil spill that temporarily shut down the Houston Ship Channel and affected a large additional area-and their work in some instances will go on indefinitely.

TAMUG researchers are studying the winds and currents to determine the path for the oil slick as it moves into the Gulf of Mexico. Other researchers are studying the damage that occurred to sea life and the ecosystem of Galveston Bay, its tributaries and wetlands.
Dr. Antonietta Quigg, a marine biologist and expert on the Galveston Bay ecosystem, is examining the water and sediment samples her team collected.

“It is too early to determine the results, it will take weeks to months,” she noted. “Once the findings are available, we will compare them to baseline data as we have been studying this bay for many years and we have the background data to determine the effects of this spill.”

Dr. Bernd Würsig, a marine biologist and one of the world’s foremost authorities on marine mammals, was not surprised to see that the area’s dolphins-seen almost daily in the waters off the university’s waterfront-left the oil zone for about four days.

“They are very smart and know to stay out of an oil slick; however this kind of oil forms globs that dolphins do not often see and that can pose a danger to them,” said Würsig.
Nevertheless, during one of his trips he noticed a pod socializing and feeding in the area.

“While it may be good that they are returning to the bay and commencing with regular activities, it could be dangerous for some if they ingest oil-tainted food or otherwise become compromised due to the disruption to the bay ecosystem,” Würsig said.

Dr. Tom Litton, a specialist on currents and waves, is working with data based on NASA’s satellite imagery.

“Indications are that the main slick should be moving down the coast and may affect fragile wildlife sanctuaries,” he said.

A team from the state has moved into those same areas to rescue wildlife and clean any oil globs from the beaches.

All agreed that it will take months to determine the true effects of this spill. Meanwhile, Texas A&M University at Galveston’s scientists are doing their part to help authorities get the bay and the wildlife back to normal.

Rear Admiral Robert Smith, CEO of Texas A&M at Galveston and a vice president of the university, said the Texas A&M branch campus was not directly affected by the oil spill.

He noted that, in addition to those faculty members who are actively engaged in projects related to the oil spill, several other Texas A&M faculty members were contacted by various media for expert comment and by the Coast Guard for the long-range effects and related matters.

A member of the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Dr. Jill Heatley, was dispatched to the Galveston area to treat oil-soaked animals as part of the emergency response team of the Wildlife Center of Texas.

The spill near the Houston Ship Channel, which has dumped as much as 168,000 gallons of oil, has affected numerous birds, and Wildlife Center officials are expecting more to be brought in needing immediate care.

The situation is especially tricky because thousands of birds are currently passing through the area of the Texas coast as part of their annual northern migration pattern. Many of the birds eventually land in the area’s thousands of acres of marshes, and cleanup crews are focused on preventing the marshlands from becoming soaked with oil.

Heatley says removing oil from birds can be a tedious process.

“First of all, we often have to go out and capture the bird and bring it back to shore because if the bird is soaked, it is really struggling,” she explained.

“We examine the bird to see if it is injured in any way, and if not, then we begin the cleaning process. It involves wiping the oil off the bird, then soaking it in a mixture of mild detergents and water.

“Many times, these steps have to be repeated over and over if there is a lot of oil present,” she added. “That’s why it can take a while for each bird to get fully cleaned. It can be a time-consuming process but it is absolutely necessary.”
Heatley said she and other veterinarians from across Texas could be at their posts for several days, perhaps longer. “We stay as long as we’re needed,” she noted.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration, marine pollution, oil pollution

The Press Enterprise: Audio sheds light on Texas oil spill

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http://hosted2.ap.org/CARIE/6b85546689744819aa7a64cd3ca6cee6/Article_2014-04-01-Texas%20Bay-Oil%20Spill-Audio/id-92cc55e1b7f5406abb7b01a8cde3ddbf

Apr. 1, 2014 8:52 PM ET

Houston Chronicle

TEXAS CITY, Texas (AP) – The captains of the two vessels that collided in the Houston Ship Channel were aware they were perilously close to one another but still failed to avert a spill that dumped 168,000 gallons of oil into the water, according to a U.S. Coast Guard audio recording.

The recording, obtained by the Houston Chronicle (http://bit.ly/1ommtpw ) in a Freedom of Information Act request, indicates the captains spoke in a frantic radio exchange beginning about five minutes before the March 22 collision. But the exchange apparently came too late for the captains to avoid making contact in the crowded waterway, trafficked daily by massive, oceangoing container ships.

“If you keep on going, I’m going to get you,” the captain of the bulk carrier, the larger of the two vessels, says in the recording, released Monday.

“Captain, I can cut her back. I can go dead slow, but that still ain’t going to stop it because I’m coming up on half a mile of you,” he added.

The captain of the smaller vessel, which was towing two barges carrying nearly a million gallons of marine oil, responded to the warning by attempting to back out of the channel at full speed.

With less than a mile of visibility because of heavy fog, and as the vessel towing the oil-laden barges backed up, the smaller ship’s captain radioed the approaching carrier, saying, “I’m looking at you now and it don’t look good.”

Moments later, one of the barges was sideswiped by the larger vessel, resulting in a puncture that sent a stream of dense, sticky oil into Galveston Bay. It then spread into the Gulf of Mexico and southward along the Texas coast.

The collision near Texas City closed one of the nation’s busiest seaports for several days, stranding some 100 vessels.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Andy Kendrick said that cleanup continued Tuesday and that animals affected by the oil are being treated in rehabilitation centers.
As many as 21 dolphins, four sea turtles and 168 birds have died as a result of the oil spill, Kendrick said.

About 220 miles southeast of the site of the collision, Padre Island National Seashore education coordinator Buzz Botts said that 3 percent of the sand on the northern part of Padre Island was contaminated and hundreds of seabirds are covered with at least small amounts of oil.

“A lot of the effects to wildlife at this point are hard to gauge,” Botts said.

Investigators are still trying to identify the cause of the accident, but Texas law considers the company carrying the oil, Houston-based Kirby Inland Marine Corp., a responsible party, Greg Pollock, deputy director for the Texas General Land Office’s oil spill response division, told The Associated Press.

The other ship was a Liberian-flagged vessel owned by a Greek shipping company, the Chronicle reported.

A report from the U.S. Office of Inspector General said in May 2013 that the Coast Guard didn’t have adequate processes to investigate marine accidents or take corrective actions. A lack of dedicated resources, the report said, had resulted in a backlog of 6,000 investigations.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

BP Spill, gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration, oil pollution

Phys.Org: Researcher finds methane from oil spill has entered food web

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http://phys.org/news/2014-03-methane-oil-food-web.html

Mar 13, 2014

When millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico four years ago, so did large volumes of methane, or natural gas.

Now, researchers from Florida State University and Florida A&M University have confirmed that methane-derived carbon has entered the Gulf’s food web through tiny organic particles floating in the Gulf.

“All this methane was released into the Gulf and then in a few months, it disappeared,” said Jeffrey Chanton, professor of chemical oceanography at Florida State. “What happened to it? It got absorbed by bacteria and that bacteria got incorporated into the food web.”

Chanton’s study, published in the premier issue of a new journal, Environment Science & Technology Letters, reports that 28 percent to 43 percent of the carbon found in the tiny floating particles which are ubiquitous in the Gulf is related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and derived from the uptake of spill-methane by bacteria.

Chanton and colleagues Jennifer Cherrier, an associate professor of environmental science at FAMU, and Thomas Guilderson, a researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, used carbon isotopes to match carbon from methane with carbon in plankton and floating particles.

The presence of methane is not cause for alarm though, Chanton said. Overall, it has a benign impact on the food that makes it from the sea to people’s dinner tables.

But, it is of importance for oceanographers and other ecologists studying the area.

The population of methane-eating bacteria bloomed when the oil and gas spill occurred, and the bacteria were very efficient in converting the gas into biomass. That energy efficient process is significant because it also provides for a symbiotic relationship between the bacteria and certain deep-sea creatures, particularly mussels, which are often found around cold seeps.

A cold seep is an area of the ocean floor where methane, hydrogen sulfide and hydrocarbon fluid often form a pool.

Chanton’s research is supported by Ecogig, a 20-member research advisory board created to allocate the money made available by the BP/The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative.
It is also supported by the Deep-C Consortium, a group of 10 universities and research institutions, including Florida State, working on Gulf of Mexico research to discover the impact of the oil spill.

The consortium has undertaken a number of projects as part of a $20 million, three-year grant to investigate the impact of the oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico.

Unfortunately, said Chanton, this is the first time that large-scale research has been done in the region. There is insufficient scientific baseline data on the ecology of the Gulf up to this point.

Because of this lack of baseline data, it may be difficult to get a total picture of the changes that have occurred as a result of the oil spill.

“We don’t know what the damage was because we don’t have a baseline knowledge,” he said.

____________________

Explore further: Gulf of Mexico has greater-than-believed ability to self-cleanse oil spills
More information: “Fossil Carbon in Particulate Organic Matter in the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon Event.” J. Cherrier, J. Sarkodee-Adoo, T. P. Guilderson, and J. P. Chanton. Environmental Science & Technology Letters 2014 1 (1), 108-112, DOI: 10.1021/ez400149c
Journal reference: Environmental Science & Technology Letters
Provided by Florida State University

Special thanks to Richard Charter

BP Spill, energy policy, gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration, national ocean politics, offshore oil

New York Times ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT U.S. Agrees to Allow BP Back Into Gulf Waters to Seek Oil

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By CLIFFORD KRAUSSMARCH 13, 2014

HOUSTON – Four years after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, BP is being welcomed back to seek new oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico.

An agreement on Thursday with the Environmental Protection Agency lifts a 2012 ban that was imposed after the agency concluded that BP had not fully corrected problems that led to the well blowout in 2010 that killed 11 rig workers, spilled millions of gallons of oil and contaminated hundreds of miles of beaches.

BP had sued to have the suspension lifted, and now the agreement will mean hundreds of millions of dollars of new business for the company. But even more important, oil analysts said, it signifies an important step in the company’s recovery from the accident, which has been costly to its finances and reputation.

“After a lengthy negotiation, BP is pleased to have reached this resolution, which we believe to be fair and reasonable,” said John Mingé, chairman and president of BP America. “Today’s agreement will allow America’s largest energy investor to compete again for federal contracts and leases.”

That prospect elicited sharp criticism from environmental groups. “It’s kind of outrageous to allow BP to expand their drilling presence here in the gulf,” said Raleigh Hoke, a spokesman for the Gulf Restoration Network, based in New Orleans.

Under the agreement, BP will be allowed to bid for new leases as early as next Wednesday, but only as long as the company passes muster on ethics, corporate governance and safety procedures outlined by the agency. There will be risk assessments, a code of conduct for officers, guidance for employees and “zero tolerance” for retaliation against employees or contractors who raise safety concerns.

An independent auditor approved by the E.P.A. will conduct an annual review and report on BP’s compliance with the new standards. The agency said in a statement that it would also have the authority to take corrective action “in the event the agreement is breached.”
“This is a fair agreement that requires BP to improve its practices in order to meet the terms we’ve outlined together,” said Craig E. Hooks, the E.P.A.’s assistant administrator of administration and resources.

Fadel Gheit, an oil company analyst at Oppenheimer & Company, said it was “a moral victory for BP.” He added: “It will be the best news BP has gotten since the accident. BP has to get back into the hunt in order for them to score.”

Critics of the agreement noted that nearly four years after the spill, the cleanup has not been completed. Oil still washes up in places, particularly during storms, as happened in October with Tropical Storm Karen.

“They still haven’t really made it right when it comes to the gulf,” Mr. Hoke said.
Public Citizen, a consumer activist group, also expressed outrage, saying in a statement that the settlement “lets a corporate felon and repeat offender off the hook for its crimes against people and the environment.”

The accident continues to mire the company in lawsuits and court hearings. BP settled criminal charges with the Justice Department two years ago for $4.5 billion in penalties, but the oil company faces billions of dollars more in costs from a federal civil trial in New Orleans to determine how much it will be required to pay in Clean Water Act fines.

The company is also arguing that a separate settlement it made with businesses and individuals who suffered losses because of the accident has been misinterpreted. But a federal appeals court ruled this month that the company would have to abide by its agreement and pay some businesses for economic damages without their having to prove the damages were caused directly by the spill.

BP initially estimated that the costs of the settlement would run to $7.8 billion, but it now says the cost could rise well above that.

BP, which employs 2,300 people in the Gulf of Mexico, continues to explore on leases in the gulf from before the 2010 accident. At the end of 2013, the company had 10 drilling rigs in the deep waters of the gulf, and it reported a significant new discovery 300 miles southwest of New Orleans. BP said last year that it intended to invest at least $4 billion on average in the gulf each year for the next decade.

Oil production in the gulf remains below records set in 2009, and the industry continues to recover from a yearlong drilling moratorium that the federal government set after the spill. But several large oil companies, including Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell, are flocking back to the gulf. There were only about a dozen rigs working in the gulf three months after the disaster, and that increased to more than 60 by the end of last year.

When the E.P.A. issued the original ban, it cited BP for “lack of business integrity” because of its role in the accident and said the suspension would remain until the company could provide sufficient evidence that it met federal business standards.

The ban prohibited BP from selling fuel to the Pentagon and prevented the company from expanding its oil and gas production to new leases in the gulf, a major center of its worldwide operations. The company’s older leases make BP one of the most important oil and gas producers in the United States.

BP’s suit, filed last year in federal court in Texas, said that the ban was unjustified and that the agency had neglected to consider safety improvements the company had made.

David M. Uhlmann, a University of Michigan law professor and former chief of the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section, said it was not unusual for corporate monitors to be appointed any time a corporation was convicted of criminal activity, especially in environmental cases. “What is unusual is BP was suspended from government contracting for such a long time,” he added.

Senator Mary L. Landrieu, the Louisiana Democrat in a tough race for re-election, hailed the settlement, although she added that E.P.A. should never have enacted the ban in the first place.

“The good news is that BP will now be able to participate in next week’s lease sale that will bring much-needed revenue to Louisiana and other oil-producing states along the Gulf Coast, as well as boost business for the region’s small and independent service and supply companies,” she said in a statement.

Campbell Robertson contributed reporting from New Orleans.

A version of this article appears in print on March 14, 2014, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Agrees to Allow BP Back Into Gulf Waters to Seek Oil . Order Reprints|Today’s Paper|Subscribe

Special thanks to Richard Charter