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

National Geographic: Gulf Oil Spill “Not Over”: Dolphins, Turtles Dying in Record Numbers

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http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/04/140408-gulf-oil-spill-animals-anniversary-science-deepwater-horizon-science/?rptregcta=reg_free_np&rptregcampaign=20131016_rw_membership_r1p_us_dr_w#finished

Report warns that 14 species are still struggling from the 2010 disaster.

A dead sea turtle lies in oil in Louisiana’s Barataria Bay in 2010.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JOEL SARTORE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Christine Dell’Amore
National Geographic
PUBLISHED APRIL 8, 2014

Four years after the biggest oil spill in U.S. history, several species of wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico are still struggling to recover, according to a new report released today.

In particular, bottlenose dolphins and sea turtles are dying in record numbers, and the evidence is stronger than ever that their demise is connected to the spill, according to Doug Inkley, senior scientist for the National Wildlife Federation, which issued the report.

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20, 2010, killing 11 people and spewing more than 200 million gallons (750 million liters) of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, various government agencies and nonprofits, including the National Wildlife Federation, have been studying the region’s wildlife to track the impacts of the oil.
The report, a compilation of published science since the spill, reveals that “the Gulf oil spill is far from over,” Inkley said.

“The oil is not gone: There is oil on the bottom of the Gulf, oil is washing up on the beaches, and oil is still on the marshes,” he said.

“I am not surprised by this. In Prince William Sound, 25 years after the wreck of Exxon Valdez, there are still some species that have not fully recovered.” (Related: “Oil From the Exxon Valdez Spill Lingers on Alaska Beaches.”)

However, BP, which operated the now-defunct oil well, claims that the report “is a piece of political advocacy-not science.

“For example, the report misrepresents the U.S. government’s investigation into dolphin deaths; as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s own Web site states, that inquiry is ongoing,” BP said in a statement provided to National Geographic.

“The report also conveniently overlooks information available from other independent scientific reports showing that the Gulf is undergoing a strong recovery. Just this week, a study published by Auburn University researchers found no evidence that the spill impacted young red snapper populations on reefs off the Alabama coast.”

Hit Hard
The report examined 14 species that live in the Gulf. Those include:
-More than 900 bottlenose dolphins have been found dead or stranded in the oil spill area since April 2010. If you stretched the corpses lengthwise, that’s 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) of dead dolphins, Inkley said. Scientists know that is more than in previous years because they’ve been recording deaths and strandings in the Gulf for a decade.

Ongoing research also shows that dolphins swimming in oiled areas are underweight, anemic, and showing signs of liver and lung diseases. (Related: “U.S. Dolphin Deaths Rise to 300; Cause Still a Mystery.”)

A top predator like the dolphin falling ill is a sign that species further down the food chain are also having trouble, Inkley said.

“When you have sick dolphins, it tells you there’s a problem here and it needs to be investigated.”

-There are five species of sea turtle that live in the Gulf, and all of them are listed as threatened or endangered by the Endangered Species Act. About 500 dead sea turtles have been found in the spill region every year since 2011-“a dramatic increase over normal rates,” according to the NWF. What’s unknown is how many turtles died at sea and were never recovered by scientists.

-An oil chemical from the spill has been shown to cause irregular heartbeats in the embryos of bluefin and yellowfin tuna. That’s a critical stage of development for the fish, so there’s a lot of concern that the damage could cause heart attacks or deaths, Inkley said. (Related: “Odd Animal Deaths, Deformities Linked to Gulf Oil Spill?”)

-Loons, birds that winter on the Louisiana coast, are carrying increasing concentrations of toxic oil compounds in their blood.

-Sperm whales that swam near the BP well have higher levels of DNA-damaging metals in their bodies than in the past. The metals in their bodies, such as chromium and nickel, are the same ones that were present in the well.

Long Way to Go
Overall, “we have a long way to go in understanding the full impact,” Inkley said.
To that end, NWF and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will continue monitoring wildlife in the oiled region-the latter is required to do so by the Oil Pollution Act.

Restoring the oiled ecosystems is a goal, Inkley said, but he added oil is tough to remove, especially in marshes and in the deep ocean. That’s why NWF is emphasizing prevention-in particular, adopting alternative energy resources that are not carbon-based and won’t cause oil spills.

“I’m still haunted by the ‘walking dead’ brown pelicans covered head to toe in the oil,” added Inkley.

“We must not let this happen again.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

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

New Orleans Advocate: Guest commentary: Why is lawsuit such a bad idea?

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cemeteryhttp://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/opinion/8843262-171/guest-commentary-why-is-lawsuit
Associated Press photo by Dave Martin — Water washes around the tombs of those buried in a Leeville cemetery, where much of the ground has subsided to barely sea level.

by Oliver Houck
April 08, 2014

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Louisiana legislators, still searching for a reason to quash the New Orleans levee board’s you-broke-it-you-fix it lawsuit against major oil companies, have turned up instead a canard. They have apparently learned that South Louisiana is sliding into the Gulf of Mexico (who knew?), and, therefore, the 10,000 oil and gas canals that have torn up the coastal zone could not have caused the zone’s sudden demise. After all, they reason, you can’t kill a dying man.

They have it wrong five different ways. First of all, you can kill a dying man, and I prosecuted folks who did just that for several years. We are all mortal, yet we go to great lengths to perpetuate our lives and those around us. I do not think we are ready to write off the 5 million acres of wetlands that used to buffer us from the Gulf of Mexico and have provided so much bounty.

More to the point, this subsidence has been known since at least the 1970s, when I first started studying the coast. The first thing one learns is that it has been going on for millennia, over the very time that the coast was created. The rate of growth outpaced the rate of subsidence, which is not hard to understand, but upon understanding it one is left to look for other reasons that America’s largest land-gainer turned into its largest land-loser, virtually overnight.

Which brings us to the third error. Two new phenomena came along at the start of the last century and changed everything: the big levee systems, and a stunning network of oil and gas pipelines and access canals. A map tracing them is simply a mass of lines. Both the levees and the canals have had the same effects, cutting off sediments, nutrients and fresh water on which this landscape survives. At this point in time, no one could not know this.

And now for the fourth error. Blame-it-all-on-subsidence conflates the time scales involved, millennia as compared to the past 80 years, and also leads to a conclusion, were it correct, that our legislators would hardly endorse. If we are sliding into the Gulf so inexorably and rapidly, then there is no room for coastal restoration. It’s time to throw in the towel, turn out the lights, sayonara. Fortunately, the pace is not so rapid; there remains time.

Not much time, though, because of the beast whose name our legislators have trouble mentioning as well: sea level rise. Every time it is measured, the rates go up. Right now relative rise at Grand Isle is projected at four feet, and this does not include sudden melting at both poles. At some point, nature may throw in the towel for us, but the best science today says we can save parts of the zone, at least, if we act strategically and concentrate our resources. Which means having the resources we need.
Which brings us to the fifth and final error, and it is colossal. Louisiana will require major funding to hold whatever line it can. It projects $50 billion for a first stab, and upwards of $100 billion to actually restore. State taxpayers will pay part of this, and the nation’s taxpayers part more, but one big player is missing: the one that created much of our predicament (most conservative estimates start at one-third of coastal loss), made large sums of money so doing and has so far avoided paying any part of the bill: The oil and gas industry.

That is all the levee board suit is asking: not that this industry be heaped in blame, not that it pay for all harm, just that it pay its share. If our legislators wanted to get real about this, instead of killing the messenger they would arrange a settlement in which all contribute commensurate with the damage they’ve caused. Please remind me: Why is that such a bad idea?

Oliver Houck is a professor of law at Tulane University.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

gulf of mexico clean-up, oil pollution

Nola.com The Lens: Oil and gas industry looking to kill lawsuits from Jefferson, Plaquemines over wetlands

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Oil and gas industry looking to kill lawsuits from Jefferson, Plaquemines over wetlands

By Tyler Bridges, Staff writer April 8th, 2014

A high-profile lawsuit filed by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority – East is not the only lawsuit under assault by the oil and gas industry and its allies in the state Legislature.

They are also trying to kill lawsuits filed by two parishes – Jefferson and Plaquemines – that say oil and gas companies dredged coastal wetlands to drill their wells and then violated state permits by failing to restore them to their previous condition.

“I think it’s being driven by Big Oil,” said John Carmouche, part of the Baton Rouge-based law firm that filed the parishes’ lawsuits. “Big Oil is the party that destroyed the coast and is responsible. They are trying to get immunity from the courts.”

“That’s nice rhetoric,” countered Chris John, president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, whose members include the major oil companies. “But the parishes don’t have jurisdiction to enforce state permits. If they have a beef against the state, they should go to the state.”
The effort to kill those two lawsuits gets its first hearing next week before the House Civil Law and Procedure Committee. The matter was initially set for Tuesday, but was moved back so it could be the only item on the agenda, giving the public more time for comments.

The bill, by state Rep. Joel Robideaux, R-Lafayette, would derail the parishes’ lawsuits by requiring them first to file their allegations with the state Department of Natural Resources to determine whether the oil and gas companies violated the terms of their permits. The agency would have to find violations and then authorize any lawsuit.

The bill also would require that any money won through a lawsuit be deposited in the state Coastal Resources Trust Fund – meaning that Carmouche and the other trial attorneys would get nothing – and give state officials the authority to decide how to spend that money on coastal restoration.

“The bill is about setting up what I would consider is good policy for compliance and procedure,” said Don Briggs, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association. “This will set up a procedure for a parish to follow if they think something is out of compliance, rather than filing a lawsuit.”

Until now, the focus at the Capitol has been on state Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton, and his efforts to kill the lawsuit filed by the flood protection authority. One Adley bill that would do so has already won Senate approval, while another has won approval by a Senate committee.

Gladstone Jones, the lead attorney for the flood protection authority’s lawsuit, said his side opposes the Robideaux bill.

“It’s another bill to bring the whole thing down and get it out of the court system,” Jones said.
But two important differences between them give the parish lawsuits a greater chance of surviving the legislative session intact.

To begin with, opponents of the Robideaux bill – such as Jefferson Parish President John Young – said that it would trample on the rights of local government.

“They’re trying to micromanage and tell parish governments what they can and can’t do,” Young said. “That’s just like the federal government trying to tell the state Legislature what to do.”
Young expects that this argument will find some favor since many state legislators previously served as local officials.

Secondly, Carmouche notes that the attorneys representing the parishes are not working on a contingency-fee basis – meaning they would not get set percentages of any monetary award and would receive payment beyond the damages given to the parish.

“The fees would be decided by the court, or the oil companies if the case is settled,” he said.
This is an important distinction. Gov. Bobby Jindal and Adley have sharply criticized the contingency fee that Jones and the trial attorneys representing the flood protection authority would receive – attacks that have resonated with state lawmakers.

Jones and his colleagues would earn from 22.5 percent to 32.5 percent of the money won by the flood authority, depending on the amount of the judgment or settlement, according to the contract with the board.

In fact, Jindal has muted his criticisms of the parishes’ lawsuits while removing two members of the flood authority who backed its lawsuit, including John Barry, its prime champion.

Robideaux, a third-term lawmaker who is an accountant, said he filed the bill after a Lafayette company complained to him that it was among the dozens of companies targeted by the parishes’ lawsuit because it had brought equipment on barges.

“I think that violates the spirit of the legal system,” Robideaux said. “You shouldn’t be able to throw something against the wall and see what sticks. That is patently unfair.”

Carmouche, of course, believes that the courts offer the correct remedy.

“The oil and gas companies have to re-vegetate, detoxify and restore the wetlands to their natural state,” he said. “If they dug canals and then did not close the canals, we must hold them accountable.”
About 20 parishes claim coastland in Louisiana. Besides Plaquemines and Jefferson, two other parishes are considering joining the lawsuit, Cameron and St. Bernard.

Besides Carmouche, three other law firms are representing the parishes. They are: Metairie-based Connick & Connick; Metairie-based Burglass Tankersley; Lake Charles-based Mudd & Bruchhaus; and Belle Chasse-based Cossich Sumich Parsiola & Taylor.

The Robideaux bill would retroactively seek to kill the lawsuits, something that the trial attorneys say would not pass a legal challenge. The Adley bills do the same.

While getting less attention, the Robideaux bill has already led to at least one heated exchange. Environmental groups on Friday demonstrated outside the Poydras Street law firm of Liskow & Lewis, which represents BP and other oil companies. One of Liskow’s attorneys is state Rep. Neil Abramson, D-New Orleans, who will lead Tuesday’s House Committee meeting.

The environmental groups – Louisiana Bucket Brigade, the Sierra Club, the Green Army and the Gulf Restoration Network – called on Abramson to recuse himself from the bill. Abramson said he saw no conflict and hadn’t decided how he would vote.

The Lens’ donors and partners may be mentioned or have a stake in the stories we cover.
ABOUT TYLER BRIDGES
More from this author
Tyler Bridges covers Louisiana politics and public policy for The Lens. He returned to New Orleans in 2012 after spending the previous year as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, where he studied digital journalism. Prior to that, he spent 13 years as a reporter for the Miami Herald, where he was twice a member of Pulitzer Prize-winning teams while covering state government, the city of Miami and national politics. He also was a foreign correspondent based in South America. Before the Herald, he covered politics for seven years at The Times-Picayune. He is the author of The Rise of David Duke (1994) and Bad Bet on the Bayou: The Rise of Gambling in Louisiana and the Fall of Governor Edwin Edwards (2001). He can be reached at (504) 810-6222.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

fossil fuels, oil pollution

MySanAntonio from the Houston Chronicle: Latest oil incident belies painful truth

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http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/environment/article/Latest-oil-incident-belies-painful-truth-5381316.php

GalvestonSpill4
Photo By Jennifer Reynolds / Galveston County Daily News
Oil spill response crews remove absorbent material on the beach in Galveston. About 170,000 gallons of oil spilled into Galveston Bay on March 22.

BY MATTHEW TRESAUGUE, HOUSTON CHRONICLE : APRIL 6, 2014

HOUSTON – Shortly before noon March 30, a storage tank on a platform in the northernmost lobe of Galveston Bay began overflowing because of an equipment malfunction. At least 160 gallons of light crude oil poured into the water and spread to nearby marshes.

The incident mainly occurred in the background, as attention was focused on a larger problem across the bay, where crews were in their ninth day of cleaning up nearly 170,000 gallons of heavy oil spilled by a punctured barge.

The one-two punch underscores a depressing truth about these blue-collar waters: Oil spills happen almost every day.

Galveston Bay has averaged 285 spills a year since 1998, according to the Houston Advanced Research Center, which publishes periodic reports on the state of the bay’s ecosystem.

The spills typically are small, averaging 103 gallons per incident. Most were less than a gallon. Yet the spills occur frequently enough to raise concerns about the health of the bay.

“It’s like death by a thousand cuts, especially when you combine the oil spills with all of the other stressors to the bay,” said Lisa Gonzalez, a marine scientist who serves as the Houston Advanced Research Center’s vice president.

The area’s growing human footprint has taken a toll. More than 35,000 acres of coastal marshes have disappeared, primarily because of subsidence, the sinking of soft soils because of groundwater pumping.

The bay remains resilient, however, as the most productive and commercially valuable bay and estuary system in Texas and the heart of the state’s $2 billion fishing industry. Experts say the size of the fishing industry suggests that the bay is healthy. But it’s hard to tell because the ecosystem is always changing, and scientific knowledge is lacking.

Antonietta Quigg, a marine biologist at Texas A&M University at Galveston, said spilled oil is a chronic issue with long-term consequences for the bay’s animals and plants. For years, Quigg has measured the bay’s health through plankton, some of the smallest, most sensitive organisms in the water.

In the first days after the March 22 spill, Quigg’s research team took water samples near where the Summer Wind, a bulk carrier as long as a football field, collided with a barge, causing heavy bunker fuel oil to empty into the lower end of the bay.

The winds and waves pushed the black goo into the Gulf of Mexico instead of the fragile estuaries ringing the bay. While some consider the oil’s movement to be a lucky break, the spill still caused harm.

It’s still too early to tell how the spill affected plankton. But Quigg’s preliminary findings show oil-consuming bacteria, which occur naturally in the bay’s subtropical waters, are helping to clean up the mess.

The oil spill was the largest in the bay since a 1990 collision between a tanker and three barges released about 700,000 gallons of heavy crude into the Houston Ship Channel, just south of Redfish Island. The incident was larger than all spills combined for Galveston Bay in any given year since 1998, according to the Texas General Land Office.

It received 284 reports of oil spills in the bay in 1998, the first year of the state agency’s data. That number peaked at 397 incidents in 2001 and since has trended downward, with a low of 184 spills in 2011.

“We have gone from a culture 30 years ago where (if) you spilled something you didn’t tell anybody, where today if you spill something, regardless of the amount, you self-report,” said Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson.

Even with greater attention to preventing spills, oil inevitably gets into the water.

The recent spill from the storage tank was blamed on a high-water alarm that failed. Oil-laced water poured over the brim and fouled at least 300 yards of marshland, said Scott Gaudet of the land office.
“We’ve made good progress, and there are fewer spills in the bay,” he said. “But tanks overflow, hoses leak and people make mistakes.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

"Be the change you want to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi