BP Rep Speaks About Oil Spill At Keys Meeting

http://www.justnews.com/news/23520030/detail.html

http://www.justnews.com/video/23522867/index.html

Chris Graythen/Getty Images

The public was invited to the meeting in Key Largo where county commissioners met with experts from various agencies to discuss plans to protect the Florida Keys from the oil that has been leaking into the Gulf of Mexico for the last few weeks. 

“I don’t know what they’re going to do. That’s why we’re having the meeting today, so everybody can speak up,” said Monroe County Mayor Sylvia Murphy. 

Although millions of gallons of oil have poured into the Gulf, none has made it to Monroe County yet. But that could change if the wind changes direction, so Murphy is tapping into local resources to devise a plan. 

“All of the alphabet soups you can name are here — Fish and Wildlife, South Florida Water Management District, the Coast Guard commander, representatives from British Petroleum, Department of Environmental Protection, our own emergency manager, the emergency manager from Key West,” Murphy said. 

Officials said they believe there is a good chance the oil will not make it to the Keys, but if it does, it could devastate the coral reefs and the economy. BP representatives said the company would do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening and to clean it up if it does. 

BP representative Keith Seilhan said that if the oil does come toward the Keys, it will most likely come in the form of tar balls. 

“It’s oil that has been exposed to the weather, both the sun, the wind, as well as the physical movement of the ocean,” Seilhan said. 

Seilhan is the first BP representative to make it to the Florida Keys since the oil spill. He said booms may do more harm than they are worth in the Keys because tar balls do not float. 

“What we’re trying to do now is work with different groups to identify other technologies that may impede the movement of tar balls,” Seilhan said. 

Representatives of the U.S. Coast Guard said their plan remains fluid. 

“We will not let our guard down on this, no matter how long it lasts,” said U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Pat DeQuatro. 

With no visible solution in place, Keys residents remain uneasy. 

Tourism has already taken a hit. The coral reefs are vulnerable, and community members said they feel helpless. Residents want answers and solutions, specifically from BP. 

“Anything that’s impacted will be restored,” Seilhan said. 

The mayor said she wants to make a solid plan for the oil slick response before it gets anywhere near the Keys. She stressed preparation, but warned against overreaction. 

“Tourism is our main industry, thank you very much. But there’s nothing wrong with the Florida Keys at this moment,” Murphy said. 

The public was not allowed to speak at the meeting, and the commission did not cast a vote. The meeting served as an event where the experts could discuss their opinions and make decisions for a response plan.

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=BBA6351E-F324-475D-95FE-B3D9D57B2D45

May 18, 2010

The benefits of offshore oil drilling are far outweighed by the risks, Senator Bernie Sanders argued at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on Tuesday.
The senator questioned U.S. Energy Secretary Ken Salazar about a moratorium on offshore drilling in the aftermath of the April 20 blowout at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. At the hearing, Sanders noted that the U.S. Energy Information Administration has calculated that opening Atlantic and Pacific coastal waters to offshore drilling would increase the supply of oil by 2030 only enough to shave three-cents per gallon off the price of a gallon of gas. An easier, smarter way to bring down the price of gasoline – without the risks of catastrophic environmental and economic damage – is to raise fuel economy standards for new cars and light trucks sold in the United States.
Making cars that get 35.5 miles per gallon of gas, as federal regulations will require, will save a dollar per gallon by 2030.
To watch the senator at the energy committee hearing, click here. (available shortly)

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/05/18/18greenwire-noaa-oil-tendril-likely-headed-into-loop-curre-32417.html

E & E Daily

Paul Voosen, E&E reporter

A thin stem of oil stretching east from BP PLC’s spill is increasingly likely to enter the Loop Current, a powerful Gulf of Mexico flow that runs past the Florida Keys and up the Atlantic Seaboard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief said today.
Stark satellite imagery released yesterday revealed that, while the large majority of oil remains bobbing off the Louisiana coast, “a tendril of light oil has been transported down toward the Loop Current,” NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said.
In fact, oil may already be entrained in the current, Lubchenco said, and NOAA is sending imagery aircraft out today to determine the extent of the oil’s drift.
Once oil is in the current, it would likely reach the Florida Keys within 10 days. By month’s end, the oil could reach Miami, oceanographers have also warned.
“The oil, if it gets into the Loop Current, will become very, very dilute and will be highly weathered,” she said, arriving at the Keys most likely in the form of tar balls and emulsified streamers.
Any oil or dispersants pulled south to the Florida Straits could pose an environmental hazard, especially for coral reefs, said Nan Walker, the director of the Earth Scan Laboratory at Louisiana State University.
“The dispersants could kill corals,” Walker said earlier this month. “Obviously, oil is not going to be good for corals. That is probably one of the biggest concerns if [the oil] was entrained.”
Reflecting this spread, NOAA has expanded its fishing restrictions over a larger portion of the Gulf. The closed area is 24,241 square miles, covering some 10 percent of the Gulf’s exclusive economic zone. The restrictions apply to commercial and recreational fishing, the agency said, but not transit.
It is impossible to predict how much oil will travel southward. Currently, the tendril sits in a sinuous line between the northern boundaries of the Loop Current and the southern limits of a small, counterclockwise current, known as an eddy, that could draw the oil back north.
The oil can be thought of as a stream of cars traveling on an eastward-running highway that is about to turn north, with an exit peeling off south toward the Loop Current. Scientists have little certainty about the size of the exit or how much oil will take that turn. All that is certain is that exit leads, eventually, to Florida.
Federal agencies have been monitoring the current from the spill’s outset and are now preparing for potential impacts around the southern Florida coast, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Peter Neffenger said yesterday during congressional testimony. Tar balls, he said, would be a “more manageable piece” to clean up in Florida than the vast oil deposits now spreading in the Gulf.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano added that the government is treating the Loop Current “as if it’s its own coastline,” meaning the government will undertake prevention and response efforts as if the Loop Current were a piece of shoreline, she said.

Florida Keys in bull’s-eye

The Keys would likely be the first coastline to feel the oil’s effects in Florida. The current sits far off Florida’s western coastline and will likely spare areas like Tampa, according to Steve Murawski, NOAA’s chief science adviser for fisheries.
The Coast Guard said yesterday that 20 tar balls have already washed ashore at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park in Key West. The tar balls, which were found by park rangers, range from 3 to 8 inches in diameter. They will be sent to a laboratory for analysis to determine whether they are associated with the Deepwater Horizon spill.
The Coast Guard and NOAA will conduct shoreline surveys beginning today in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
Whether or not the tar is connected to the BP spill, Lubchenco said, it is “safe to say that the tar balls washing ashore in the Florida Keys are an example of what might happen should oil become entrained in the Loop Current.”
Independent oceanographers are now practically certain some of the oil will enter the current and have long warned that the unpredictable flow posed a threat (Greenwire, May 5). All four forecast models at the University of South Florida now predict that at least a portion of the oil slick’s branch will migrate from the eddy into the current.
How much oil takes that path will depend on how the eddy, which has been growing stronger over recent days, evolves, said Villy Kourafalou, a Gulf of Mexico modeler at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.
“Any pathways along the Loop Current strongly depend on the evolution of the eddy field,” Kourafalou said. “It is clear that the north cyclone has started to entrain oil. It is not in the Loop Current main front yet. It is a high possibility that it will.”
There is a possible positive sign, in that imagery yesterday from NASA seemed to indicate that a portion of the slick’s eastward-facing “tail” seems to be turning northward, said Tony Sturges, an oceanographer at Florida State University.
“The only good part is that right at the end, the ‘tail’ appears to curve out and back away from the main flow,” he said. Still, he added, the current imagery is “not a good sign.”
It is less clear how oil deeper underwater and closer to the spill’s main body will behave, NOAA’s Murawski said. Past 1,500 meters underwater, he said, the currents drop dramatically and do not pull toward the Loop Current, at least currently.
Reporters Noelle Straub and Katie Howell contributed. Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hSsGsiZ18JYxHwuLGeC7Tu4T2nLwD9FOT3000

Associated Press

By EILEEN SULLIVAN and MATTHEW DALY (AP) – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON – The federal official overseeing offshore drilling announced his departure Monday in a fallout from the Gulf oil spill and criticism that federal regulators have been too cozy with industry.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, has decided to have a presidential commission investigate the cause of the rig explosion that unleashed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, where engineers are struggling after three weeks to stop the flow.

The presidential panel will be similar to ones that examined the Challenger space shuttle disaster and Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident, said a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the decision had not been formally announced. The commission also will examine the safety of offshore oil drilling and the effectiveness of its regulations.

In Congress, more attention was focused on the Gulf spill.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and seven other senators asked the Justice Department to determine whether BP PLC made false and misleading claims to the government about its ability to prevent a serious oil spill when it applied for permission last year to drill the Deepwater Horizon well that has unleashed environmental havoc along the Gulf coast.

But lawmakers are taking aim not only at BP at hearings this week, but also the Interior Department’s regulation of offshore drilling that allowed BP to operate without assurance a massive spill could be prevented.

On Monday, the fallout from the Gulf spill began having its impact on the agency charged with regulating offshore drilling.

Chris Oynes, the associate Minerals Management Service administrator for offshore drilling programs, informed colleagues he will retire at the end of the month, according to an e-mail sent to agency officials and obtained by The Associated Press.

Oynes, who was regional director in charge of Gulf offshore oil programs for 13 years before he was promoted in 2007 to head all offshore drilling programs, has come under criticism for being too close to the industry.

He told colleagues unexpectedly that he will retire on May 31. A person in Oynes’ office said he was in meetings and unavailable for comment. Oynes had earlier indicated his plans to retire, but decided to accelerate his departure, said an administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue involved a personnel matter. It was unclear what pressure, if any, was made.

The departure was welcomed on Capitol Hill.

Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said he hoped Oynes’ retirement signaled an understanding that wholesale changes “will be necessary to fundamentally reform MMS.”

“It represents an opportunity to begin anew with a clean slate,” said Rahall, whose committee is investigating MMS’ regulation of offshore drilling activities.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., a longtime MMS critic, said the agency has been corrupt for more than a decade, a period spanning three administrations, and that its shortcomings were not the fault of one person. The agency “is in need of an exhaustive overhaul and comprehensive reform,” he said.

At a Senate hearing Monday, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Peter Neffenger says the Gulf oil spill is beyond what anyone anticipated and demonstrates that response plans for future spills will have to be changed. Neffenger, the deputy national incident commander at the Coast Guard, testified before the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.

Boxer, whose Environment Committee will hold hearings Tuesday, said BP claimed to have the capability to prevent a serious oil spill in case of a well blowout.

“In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill … it does not in any way appear there was ‘proven equipment and technology’ to respond to the spill” as BP claimed, she and the other senators wrote Attorney General Eric Holder. They asked the Justice Department to determine whether any criminal or civil laws may have been violated as to misleading the government.

Anticipating tough questioning on Capitol Hill at hearings this week, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Monday announced a tightening of requirements for onshore oil and gas drilling. The new measures would not apply to oil rigs at sea.
“The BP oil spill is a stark reminder of how we must continue to push ahead with the reforms we have been working on and which we know are needed,” Salazar said.

Associated Press writer Erica Werner contributed to this report.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Times Online
May 17, 2010

 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7129225.ece

Tim Reid, Washington

The critical piece of safety equipment that failed to shut down the oil well after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded last month was damaged before the accident, it emerged yesterday.

According to a survivor’s account that could prove devastating to BP as it struggles to stop millions of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, the safety device  known as a blowout preventer  was punctured in the weeks before the blast but nothing was done to fix it.

Mike Williams, the rig’s chief electronics technician, also said that in the lead-up to the disaster BP officials, concerned that the project was behind schedule and costing the company $1 million (£680,000) a day, ordered a faster pace of drilling.

Since the rig exploded on April 20, BP has been asked repeatedly why the blowout preventer, designed to seal off a well in the event of an explosion, failed to activate. That failure has led to crude oil pouring into the Gulf for a month, a spillage set to eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident.

Mr Williams said that shortly before the explosion workers were conducting a test on the blowout preventer. While it was shut a crewman accidentally nudged a joystick, which sent 15ft of the oil pipe through the closed device, whose key component is a rubber gasket that can close tightly around the well head, sealing it off in the event of an explosion.

Mr Williams added that a crewman “discovered chunks of rubber in the drilling fluid”. He thought that it was important enough to bring them into the driller shack. “I recall asking the supervisor if this was out of the ordinary. And he says, ‘Oh, it’s no big deal’. I thought, how can it not be a big deal? Chunks of our seal is now missing,” Mr Williams told 60 Minutes on CBS.

He added that one of the two control pods that operate the blowout preventer had lost some of its function weeks before the explosion, and the batteries on the device were weak. With the schedule slipping, Mr Williams said that a BP manager ordered a quicker pace. The faster drilling had caused the bottom of the well to split open, swallowing tools. “There’s always pressure [on the crew], but yes, the pressure was increased,” he said.

BP said that it was now capturing about a fifth of the oil gushing from the ruptured well after a suction tube had been inserted into the well riser pipe on the ocean floor. The Obama Administration said that it was unimpressed. In a letter to BP, Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security Secretary, and Ken Salazar, the Interior Secretary, said that the insert pipe “is not a solution to the problem and it is not yet clear how successful it will be”.

Edward Markey, Democrat chairman of the House Sub-Committee on Energy and the Environment, said BP had failed to respond to repeated requests for information about the scale of the spill. Officials said that the White House would set up a presidential commission to investigate the disaster.

Special thanks to Richard Charter