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Author Topic: BP OIL SPILL  (Read 47358 times)
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trimmonthelake
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« Reply #120 on: July 05, 2010, 04:20:36 PM »

http://www2.nbc13.com/vtm/news/local/article/orange_beach_prepared_to_launch_oil_skimmers/164753/
Orange Beach prepared to launch oil skimmers
The Associated Press
Published: July 5, 2010
ORANGE BEACH - Orange Beach officials are putting the finishing touches on a plan to deploy a fleet of small skimming vessels to collect sheen and light streams of oil from the area’s backbays.

Work also was continuing on Monday to complete a 3,200-foot-long barrier of floating pipe across Perdido Pass.

Orange Beach Coastal Resources Manager Phillip West said that at least one of the boats, which utilize absorbent pads, should be in the water by Tuesday morning and as many as five could be working by the end of the week to pick up oil from the massive Gulf spill.

West says as many as 30 of the boats eventually could ply the area’s inshore waters.

He says the vessels were developed and are being built by a Baldwin County company.
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« Reply #121 on: July 07, 2010, 09:23:48 AM »

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20100706/news/100709797&tc=yahoo
Buffett hopes to boost Gulf spirits with concert
Jay Reeves, The Associated Press
Published: Tuesday, July 6, 2010 at 1:57 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, July 6, 2010 at 1:57 p.m.
ORANGE BEACH (AP) — Singer Jimmy Buffett is just another mad Gulf Coast native when it comes to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, but with an exception: He's got millions of fans and a way to help lift spirits over the seemingly endless crisis.
Buffett and his Coral Reefer Band will play Sunday on the beach in Gulf Shores, which has been sporadically hit by oil for weeks. The show already has been postponed once because of Hurricane Alex, and Buffet is hoping bad weather lurking in the Gulf doesn't create problems this weekend.

Known for laid-back tunes like "Margaritaville" and "Cheeseburger in Paradise," Buffett told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday that it's perfectly normal for people to be mad when they see oil washing up on beaches and marshes.

"If you're born and raised on the Gulf Coast and it's kind of in you, and you don't feel anger and rage initially over what's going on down there, I think you're a hypocrite," he said in a telephone interview from New York. "That's the way I felt. Now, what you do with that is a big question."
Buffett said a beachfront concert seemed like the right thing to do after talking to people on the coast.

"People were going, 'What are you going to do about things?' I mean, hell, I can't stick my finger in that hole. Everybody wishes they could," said Buffett.

"But there's a huge amount of frustration and probably it will boil over in summertime anger, and I know what I've done for years is entertain. What I'm best at is two hours of escapism for people that have to go back and either live jobs that they don't like or whatever," he said. "It's that Mardi Gras mentality."
Born in Mississippi and raised in Alabama, Buffett has lived all over the Gulf Coast. He said memories of the region are laced through his music.

"I have pretty much surrounded myself with Gulf Coast influences for a long time, and ... if you listen to those songs, I think it's pretty much in there," said Buffett, 63.

Buffett, a supporter of President Barack Obama, said the roots of the spill lie with the administration of former President George Bush, which was often criticized for being too cozy with the petroleum industry.

"To me it was more about eight years of bad policy before (Obama) got there that let this happen. It was Dracula running the blood bank in terms of oil and leases," he said. "I think that has more to do with it than how the president reacted to it."

The beach concert on Sunday will also feature Jesse Winchester and Allen Toussaint, who also were in the original lineup. Country singers Kenny Chesney and Zac Brown had to drop out because of prior commitments. Buffett said he is still making phone calls trying to add additional acts for Sunday, but he's not sure of the final roster.
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« Reply #122 on: July 12, 2010, 10:12:29 AM »

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/07/jimmy_buffett_brings_joy_son_o.html
Jimmy Buffett brings joy: Son of a son of a sailor returns to Gulf Coast to promote tourism
Published: Monday, July 12, 2010, 5:30 AM
GULF SHORES, Ala. -- Jimmy Buffett starred in a triumphant homecoming Sunday evening in Gulf Shores, leading a mammoth concert that appeared to run smoothly despite advance concerns about weather and traffic.

The "Jimmy Buffett and Friends" show, much of which was broadcast live by the cable music channel CMT, had been postponed from July 1 by Hurricane Alex, and fears of scattered thunderstorms lingered into the weekend.
But they never developed, and neither did substantial traffic jams, despite the fact that 35,000 tickets were handed out.

Many concertgoers booked rooms in local condominium buildings, others arrived early and thousands made use of an extensive shuttle system that allowed them to park miles from the gates.

Buffett, no stranger to large, adoring audiences, seemed astonished at the reception.

"This is cool, man, this is cool," he told his audience early in the set. "Turn around and look."

They didn't have to: At times the video screens flanking the stage carried images from a helicopter that showed the sea of humanity stretching back from the stage.

That audience, for its part, was thoroughly mellow, cheering signature Buffett tunes from the opener, "Pascagoula Run," to "When the Coast is Clear," which ended the 90-minute first set after the inevitable "Margaritaville."

In between, Buffett and the Coral Reefer Band tipped their hats to Zac Brown and Kenny Chesney, two star guests who had to drop out because of the show's postponement. Despite widespread rumors that superstars, such as Alan Jackson or Brad Paisley might pop up, none did.

"We're OK, we've got it covered," Buffett assured listeners. Buffett let several others take turns in the spotlight: Mobile native Will Kimbrough, Mississippi songwriter Jesse Winchester and New Orleans composer/songwriter Allen Toussaint.

He also made a point of dedicating "Come Monday" to Mobilian Milton Brown, "who kind of discovered me, all those years ago."

Buffett focused squarely on delivering his good-time music rather than using the occasion to stand on the soapbox about the spill. He did, however, slip in the line that "it's all BP's fault" during "Margaritaville," to a tremendous ovation.

After the televised first set, the band took a short break and returned for a 40-minute second set that focused less on Buffett's own music. Selections included Kimbrough's "Piece of Work;" "Southern Cross," a song made famous by Crosby, Stills and Nash; and Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl," his last tune of the night.

For Buffett fans, it had been a good day. And for many of them, one that started early.

Hours before the gates opened at 3 p.m., Buffett's "Quietly Making Noise," echoed along Third Avenue, where Glenn Halstead of Pensacola had parked his camper about 9 a.m.

His daughter, Jacqueline Halstead, said just after noon that while some fans were lining for admission when they arrived, their group had decided to wait.

"We wanted to tailgate," she said. "We usually do this for Auburn games, but in the off-season, we like to do things like this. We're having a great time even if we did get stuck in the sand for about an hour."

She said one friend and one family member each managed to get four tickets online, so eight people made the trip.

Two blocks from the concert site, within sight of the beach stage, another group of a dozen friends enjoyed a tailgate party around the stretch limousine they rented for the drive from Dothan.

"We didn't want to drink and drive, so we took the limo," Trip Wheelless said. Wheelless said the Gulf Shores beach event was the 10th Buffett concert he has seen.
Tracy Knolls of Dothan said this was his seventh concert.

"We wanted to come down and see Buffett, but we also wanted to show support and be part of this," Knolls said. "In a way, the main thing is being here."

While all 35,000 free tickets had been snapped up within minutes of being offered on the Internet, police and admission workers reported few problems with people trying to get in without tickets.

Rosemary Harris of Foley gave away a ticket outside the gate.

"The people who were coming with me couldn't make it. They had car trouble, so I just wanted to see if it would help someone else," Harris said.

Tim Eads of Tuscaloosa said he was thrilled to get the ticket from Harris.

"I was going to give my ticket to her (his daughter) and go back and listen to it from the balcony at our condo, so this is great," Eads said. "That was so nice of her to do that."

Gulf Shores Mayor Robert Craft said no problems had been reported with crowds and traffic before the event.

"It's going great," he said. "The weather's looking good, and all the people in the venues are saying they're in good shape."

Craft said he hoped the concert will continue to provide an economic boost for the area after the music is over.

"It's going to make for a good weekend that we would not have had if this hadn't happened, but we're also hoping that all the national media coverage will show people that if we can take care of 35,000 people, then we can take care of you and your family."

Ten miles to the north in Foley, Parrotheads descended on the city's Heritage Park on Sunday afternoon, hoping for a Buffet concert experience without the crowds of Gulf Shores.
The city was going to show CMT's live coverage, complete with truckloads of sand and, instead of water, grass painted blue.

Event organizer Kathy Danielson of the Foley Visitors and Convention Bureau said the first fans arrived at the park before 3 p.m. Sunday for the 6 p.m. broadcast.

Danielson said the event went well, despite some technical challenges.

About half of the 300 or so in attendance left after bright sunlight rendered the images on the city's jumbo video screen invisible.

Organizers recorded the 90-minute CMT telecast and showed it after dark to a much smaller audience.

"We were disappointed when the people left," Danielson said, "But we did the best we could."

The event was "more about community camaraderie than the concert," attendee Terry Burke said

Video at link
Photos from concert http://photos.al.com/4464/gallery/jimmy_buffett_performs_in_gulf_shores/index.html?fromentry=4757276&fromblog=914
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« Reply #123 on: July 12, 2010, 10:15:11 AM »

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/07/bp_said_to_be_ahead_of_schedul.html
BP said to be ahead of schedule with new oil spill cap but status uncertain
Published: Monday, July 12, 2010, 6:21 AM     Updated: Monday, July 12, 2010, 6:30 AM
NEW ORLEANS -- BP underwater robots steadily assembled heavy metal pieces in what could be the most significant progress yet toward containing the gushing Gulf of Mexico oil well, watched warily by residents onshore.

The oil giant was ahead of schedule as it went into the 83rd day of the environmental and economic disaster today. Across the Gulf region, repeated failures to fix the disaster have taken their toll, breeding skepticism among fishermen and politicians alike.

"At this point, there have been so many ups and downs, disappointments, that everybody down here is like, 'We'll believe it when we see it,'" said Keith Kennedy, a charter boat captain in Venice, La.

In a regulatory filing today, BP said the installation of the sealing cap was proceeding as planned. A transition spool had been installed on the existing flange. The next step was to install a capping stack that has three closing rams.

It was unclear from undersea video feeds and the comments in the filing if the process of lowering the new cap had begun early today. Several spokesman did not respond to e-mails and phone calls seeking comment early this morning, and people who answered phone calls to vessels involved in the containment effort declined to comment.
Also today, BP said in the Securities and Exchange Commission filing that the cost of the response to date has risen to roughly $3.5 billion. That includes the cost of the spill response, containment, relief well drilling, grants to the Gulf states, claims paid, and federal costs.

Once the new cap was placed atop the gusher it was expected to provide a tight seal that should eventually allow the oil giant to capture all the crude leaking from the well for the first time since an April 20 oil rig explosion set off the environmental crisis. But prior failed attempts to stop the leak have made BP PLC careful to keep expectations grounded.

BP has tried and failed to counter the gusher with a giant concrete box over the well, mud and shredded rubber pumped into it and a pipe to siphon the crude. A converted supertanker specially equipped to skim huge amounts of oil from the surface has been hampered by bad weather.

Gulf residents and politicians reserved judgment about BP's latest effort and said damage already done to the environment, fishing and tourism will haunt the region.

"I'm not a scientist, but I know a lot of people are praying that they get that flow stopped," said Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who was attending a Jimmy Buffet beach benefit concert Sunday in Alabama.

In Louisiana's coastal Jefferson Parish, Councilman Chris Roberts said officials expected oil to keeping hitting the shoreline for up to three months after the flow stops, possibly stretching the cleanup into the fall.

Matthew Peterson, a crabber in Yscloskey, La., hasn't put out his traps since oil began washing ashore. Even if BP is able to prevent any more crude from leaking into the Gulf, Peterson said, it won't make much difference.

"Until it's cleaned up, nothing's going to get back to normal," he said.

Vicki McVey, 44, a bartender at Artie's Sports Bar in Grand Isle, La., said nothing will improve until the waters are reopened for fishing.

McVey says this summer is already shot. Every local fishing tournament has been canceled, including the biggest at the end of July.

"The damage has been done," she said.

Roughly 81,000 square miles of federal waters in the Gulf have been closed to fishing since the beginning of the disaster, about 44 percent of the total.

"You look around, and it's like my life, my little island, my tranquility. It's gone," McVey said.

The well has been gushing largely unchecked since an old, leaky cap was removed from the wellhead Saturday afternoon to make way for the new one.

BP senior vice president Kent Wells said Sunday he's pleased with the progress, but hastened to add the operation was still expected to last up to six more days.

Officials won't be satisfied the cap is working until they've run tests on whether it can withstand the tremendous pressure of oil pushing up from below the seafloor.

Asked during a conference call if the new cap and collection efforts would end the spilling of oil into the Gulf, Wells said only that BP will capture all the oil "at some point."

The new cap will be aided in containing the leak by the arrival of the Helix Producer, a vessel that should be able to take in about 1 million gallons of crude per day after coming online. The Helix connected to flexible pipes from the well Friday, and crews have been running tests since then.

Ultimately, the plan is to have four vessels collecting oil from the leak with a combined capacity of about 2.5 million to 3.4 million gallons a day -- enough to capture all the oil leaking, if federal estimates are right. Getting all the vessels on the task will take about two to three weeks.

The new, tighter cap is not intended to be the permanent solution to the problem.

Relief wells are being dug for the final fix, a "bottom kill" in which heavy drilling mud and cement are pumped in from below the broken wellhead.BP and government officials have said the relief wells are expected to be completed sometime around mid-August.
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« Reply #124 on: July 13, 2010, 02:25:18 PM »

BP set for key tests in effort to stop oil gushing into the gulf
By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post staff writer
Tuesday, July 13, 2010; 12:49 PM

The newly recapped gulf oil well will undergo an "integrity test" that could temporarily halt the flow of the oil, for the first time in 85 days, and possibly allow BP engineers to "shut in" the well permanently.

The gulf crisis wouldn't be over, because huge quantities of oil already remain in the water and on beaches and marshes, but the Macondo well, drilled earlier this year by the now-sunken Deepwater Horizon rig, would pollute the gulf no further. Nor would any more oil and gas be siphoned to surface ships.

That's the best-case scenario.

The well could also fail the integrity test. If the pressure in the well doesn't build steadily and predictably as the valves in the sealing cap are slowly closed, BP engineers and government scientists will have compelling evidence that the well is damaged somewhere below the gulf floor, and oil and gas are leaking into the rock formation.

Then the well's valves would be opened up again, the gusher would be back, and BP would resume its previous strategy of trying to contain as much oil as possible, using three different surface ships attached via lines and another "top hat" waiting it the wings. The well would remain alive as BP continued to drill a relief well that would intercept Macondo near its base and kill it with mud and cement. The relief well is close, but the final stages are painstaking and the bottom-kill is likely still weeks away.

"Everybody hope and pray that we see high pressures here," BP senior vice president Kent Wells said in a Tuesday morning conference call with reporters. "Bear with us. Let's do this test."

The new cap, a 150,000-pound structure named the "3-ram capping stack," was lowered without a hitch onto the reconfigured blowout preventer Monday night. A new surface ship, the Helix Producer, was also connected to the well via the "kill line" on the blowout preventer, and by Tuesday morning was siphoning oil at a rate equivalent to about 12,000 barrels a day, Wells said. Another roughly 8,000 barrels a day has been siphoned and burned through the surface rig Q4000.

Those containment efforts will be halted to conduct the integrity test, Wells said. At 11 a.m. Tuesday, the video feed from a remotely operated submersible showed oil and gas still billowing from a chimney atop the new cap.

The test will last from between six and 48 hours, or possibly longer, BP executives have said.

more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/13/AR2010071302967.html

video
http://abcnews.go.com/wnt/video/cap-hold-11147619&tab=9482931&section=4765066
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« Reply #125 on: July 14, 2010, 08:29:06 AM »

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100714/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill
Gulf oil to keep flowing while cap is analyzed
  By COLLEEN LONG and HARRY R. WEBER, Associated Press Writers Colleen Long And Harry R. Weber, Associated Press Writers   – 1 hr 51 mins ago

NEW ORLEANS – The plan to start choking off oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico was suddenly halted as government officials and BP said further analysis must be done Wednesday before critical tests could proceed.

No explanation was given for the decision, and no date was set for when testing would begin on the new, tighter-fitting cap BP installed on the blown-out well Monday.

In the meantime, oil continued spewing into the Gulf.

The oil giant had been scheduled to start slowly shutting off valves Tuesday on the cap, aiming to stop the flow of oil for the first time in three months. BP was initially ahead of schedule on its latest effort to plug the leak. The cap was designed to be a temporary fix until the well is plugged underground.

A series of methodical, preliminary steps were completed before progress stalled. Engineers spent hours on a seismic survey, creating a map of the rock under the sea floor to spot potential dangers, like gas pockets. It also provides a baseline to compare with later surveys during and after the test to see if the pressure on the well is causing underground problems.

An unstable area around the wellbore could create bigger problems if the leak continued elsewhere in the well after the cap valves were shut, experts said.
It's an incredibly big concern," said Don Van Nieuwenhuise, director of Professional Geoscience Programs at the University of Houston. "They need to get a scan of where things are, that way when they do pressure testing, they know to look out for ruptures or changes."

It was unclear whether there was something in the results of the mapping that prompted officials to delay. Earlier, BP Vice President Kent Wells said he hadn't heard what the results were, but he felt "comfortable that they were good."

National Incident Commander Thad Allen met with the federal energy secretary and the head of the U.S. Geological Survey as well as BP officials and other scientists after the mapping was done.

"As a result of these discussions, we decided that the process may benefit from additional analysis," Allen said in a statement. He didn't specify what type of analysis would be done, but said work would continue until Wednesday.

Assuming BP gets the green light to do the cap testing after the extra analysis is finished, engineers need to shut off lines already funneling some oil to ships to see how the cap handles the pressure of the crude coming up from the ground.

Finally, they would shut the openings in the 75-ton metal stack of pipes and valves gradually, one at a time, while watching pressure gauges to see if the cap would hold or if any new leaks erupted. The operation could last anywhere from six to 48 hours, once it gets started.

Scientists will be looking for high pressure readings of 8,000 to 9,000 pounds per square inch. Anything lower than 6,000 might indicate previously unidentified leaks in the well.

The oil giant was optimistic about the latest effort after other attempts failed, and White House officials earlier expressed optimism Tuesday.
But BP has said all along they were working carefully so as to not jeopardize the effort to stop the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history and one of the nation's worst environmental disasters.

If the cap works, it will enable BP to stop the oil from gushing into the sea, either by holding all the oil inside the well machinery like a stopper or, if the pressure is too great, channeling some though pipes to as many as four collection ships.

Earlier, Allen stressed there were no guarantees on the latest measure and urged patience from Gulf residents.

Along the Gulf Coast, where the spill has heavily damaged the region's vital tourism and fishing industries, people anxiously awaited the outcome of the painstakingly slow work.

"I don't know what's taking them so long. I just hope they take care of it," said Lanette Eder, a vacationing school nutritionist from Hoschton, Ga., who was walking on the white sand at Pensacola Beach, Fla.

"I can't say that I'm optimistic — It's been, what, 84 days now? — but I'm hopeful," said Nancy LaNasa, 56, who runs a yoga center in Pensacola.

The cap is just a stopgap measure. To end the leak for good, the well needs to be plugged at the source. BP is drilling two relief wells through the seafloor to reach the broken well, possibly by late July, and jam it permanently with heavy drilling mud and cement. After that, the Gulf Coast faces a long cleanup.

The leak began after the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling platform exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers. As of Tuesday, the 84th day of the disaster, between 90.4 and 178.6 million gallons of oil had spewed into the Gulf.
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« Reply #126 on: July 17, 2010, 12:29:05 PM »

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_oil_spill_feinberg
Gulf coast fishermen angry over oil claims ruling
By Leigh Coleman Leigh Coleman – Sat Jul 17, 12:46 am ET
BILOXI, Mississippi (Reuters) – Fishermen in Mississippi say they are angry that under the terms of BP's $20 billion oil spill fund, money they earn doing clean-up will be subtracted from their claim against the company.

The fishermen reacted after Kenneth Feinberg, the federal official in charge of administering the compensation fund, announced the decision at a town hall meeting in Biloxi on Friday.

Some walked out of the meeting in protest, arguing it was pointless to work under the Vessels of Opportunity program, set up by BP to help clean up the damage from the deepwater leak that started in April.

Oil stopped flowing from the leak on Thursday.

"I am furious about this," said Tuget Nguyen, who works with family members as a fisherman in Pass Christian, Mississippi.

"If he takes away the money we are making from BP when we get our claims, then nobody is going to work for BP to clean up this oil and we will not rent our boats to BP either. It is not fair," Nguyen said.

Thousands of fishermen in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, out of work because federal authorities have closed much of the Gulf to fishing, are working for the Vessels of Opportunity program, skimming oil from the water and protecting coastlines.
Vessels of Opportunity "workers can file a claim, but we will subtract the amount they are paid from BP from their claim. That is how it has to work .... Of course you can file a claim. You must file a claim, but you cannot get paid twice," Feinberg told the meeting.

Fishermen can earn between $1,000 and $3,000 a day renting their boats under the program and individuals can earn upward

of $1,400 a day. Charter boat captains can make even more.
The figures represent less than what could be earned at the peak of a shrimping season, curtailed because of the spill, but more than fishermen who have claimed against BP for economic losses have been paid.

As a result, the program has created division in some communities between those working on it and others still unemployed. Local fishermen also complain that outsiders have profited from the program at the expense of those who have lost their livelihood.

"This (Feinberg's ruling) means I am actually losing money because I have to pay my crew out of the money BP is paying me to clean up this oil," Larry Dossett from Biloxi said.

"If he only pays me the difference, I am in the hole. We are financially dead already."

(Writing by Matthew Bigg, editing by Stacey Joyce)
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« Reply #127 on: July 17, 2010, 12:30:44 PM »

http://news.yahoo.com/video/business-15749628/20924531
Could This Be the End of the Oil?
2 hours ago - ABC News 2:32 | 278 views
BP enters the final testing stages of the cap.
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« Reply #128 on: July 18, 2010, 05:54:14 PM »

http://www.wesh.com/money/24299755/detail.html
Official: Seep Found Near BP's Blown Out Oil Well
Officials Overseeing Gulf Disaster Now Pondering Next Step
COLLEEN LONG, Associated Press Writers

POSTED: 7:33 am EDT July 18, 2010
UPDATED: 5:46 pm EDT July 18, 2010
NEW ORLEANS --
A federal official said Sunday that scientists are concerned about a seep and possible methane seen near BP's busted oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Both could be signs there are leaks in the well that's been capped off for three days.

The official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Sunday because an announcement about the next steps had not yet been made.

The official is familiar with the spill oversight but would not clarify what is seeping near the well. The official said BP is not complying with the government's demand for more monitoring. BP spokesman Mark Salt declined to comment on the allegation, but said "we continue to work very closely with all government scientists on this."
Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen will make the final decisions on the next step. The official said Allen would issue a letter to BP shortly allowing testing to proceed in 24-hour increments, but also requiring more analysis of the seep and the possible observation of methane over the well.

If Allen doesn't get the response he wants, the testing could stop, the official said.

The custom-built cap that finally cut off the oil flowing from BP's broken well three days ago was holding steady Sunday.

A BP official said the company hoped to leave the cap in place until crews can permanently kill the leak.

That differs from the plan the federal government laid out a day earlier, in which millions more gallons of oil could be released before the cap is connected to tankers at the surface and oil is sent to be collected through a mile of pipes.
Federal officials wary of making the well unstable have said that plan would relieve pressure on the cap and may be the safer option, but it would mean three days of oil flowing into the Gulf before the collection begins.
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« Reply #129 on: July 18, 2010, 07:20:22 PM »

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill
BP, feds clash over reopening capped Gulf oil well
  By COLLEEN LONG and HARRY R. WEBER, Associated Press Writers Colleen Long And Harry R. Weber, Associated Press Writers   – 8 mins ago

NEW ORLEANS – BP and the Obama administration offered significantly differing views Sunday on whether the capped Gulf of Mexico oil well will have to be reopened, a contradiction that may be an effort by the oil giant to avoid blame if crude starts spewing again.

Pilloried for nearly three months as it tried repeatedly to stop the leak, BP PLC capped the nearly mile-deep well Thursday and wants to keep it that way. The government's plan, however, is to eventually pipe oil to the surface, which would ease pressure on the fragile well but would require up to three more days of oil spilling into the Gulf.

"No one associated with this whole activity ... wants to see any more oil flow into the Gulf of Mexico," Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer, said Sunday. "Right now we don't have a target to return the well to flow."

An administration official familiar with the spill oversight, however, told The Associated Press that a seep and possible methane were found near the busted oil well. The official spoke on condition of anonymity Sunday because an announcement about the next steps had not been made yet.

The concern all along — since pressure readings on the cap weren't as high as expected — was a leak elsewhere in the wellbore, meaning the cap may have to be reopened to prevent the environmental disaster from becoming even worse and harder to fix.

The official, who would not clarify what is seeping near the well, also said BP is not complying with the government's demand for more monitoring.
When asked about the official's comments, BP spokesman Mark Salt would only say that "we continue to work very closely with all government scientists on this."

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the Obama administration's spill response chief, insisted Sunday that "nothing has changed" since Saturday, when he said oil would eventually be piped to surface ships. The government is overseeing BP's work to stop the leak, which ultimately is to be plugged using a relief well.

Allen decided to extend testing of the cap that had been scheduled to end Sunday, the official who spoke on condition of anonymity said. That means the oil will stay in the well for now as scientists continue run tests and monitor pressure readings. The official didn't say how long that would take.

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security referred questions to a statement issued by Allen; neither he nor BP officials could explain the apparent contradiction in plans.

Suttles' comments carved out an important piece of turf for BP: If Allen sticks with the containment plan and oil again pours forth into the Gulf, even briefly, it will be the government's doing, not BP's.

The company very much wants to avoid a repeat of the live underwater video that showed millions of gallons of oil spewing from the blown well for weeks.

"I can see why they're pushing for keeping the cap on and shut in until the relief well is in place," said Daniel Keeney, president of a Dallas-based public relations firm.

The government wants to eliminate any chance of making matters worse, while BP is loath to lose the momentum it gained the moment it finally halted the leak, Keeney said.
They want to project being on the same team, but they have different end results that benefit each," he said.

Oil would have to be released under Allen's plan, which would ease concerns that the capped reservoir might force its way out through another route. Those concerns stem from pressure readings in the cap that have been lower than expected.

Scientists still aren't sure whether the pressure readings mean a leak elsewhere in the well bore, possibly deep down in bedrock, which could make the seabed unstable. Oil would be have to be released into the water to relieve pressure and allow crews to hook up the ships, BP and Allen have said.

So far, there have been no signs of a leak.

"We're not seeing any problems at this point with the shut-in," Suttles said at a Sunday morning briefing.

Allen said later Sunday that scientists and engineers would continue to evaluate and monitor the cap through acoustic, sonar and seismic readings.

They're looking to determine whether low pressure readings mean that more oil than expected poured into the Gulf of Mexico since the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11 people and touching off one of America's worst environment crises.

"While we are pleased that no oil is currently being released into the Gulf of Mexico and want to take all appropriate action to keep it that way, it is important that all decisions are driven by the science," Allen said in a news release.

"Ultimately, we must ensure no irreversible damage is done which could cause uncontrolled leakage from numerous points on the sea floor."
Both Allen and BP have said they don't know how long the trial run will continue. It was set to end Sunday afternoon, but the deadline — an extension from the original Saturday cutoff — came and went with no word on what's next.

After little activity Sunday, robots near the well cap came to life around the time of the cutoff. It wasn't clear what they were doing, but bubbles started swirling around as their robotic arms poked at the mechanical cap.

To plug the busted well, BP is drilling two relief wells, one of them as a backup. The company said work on the first one was far enough along that officials expect to reach the broken well's casing, or pipes, deep underground by late this month. The subsequent job of jamming the well with mud and cement could take days or a few weeks.

It will take months, or possibly years for the Gulf to recover, though cleanup efforts continued and improvements in the water could be seen in the days since the oil stopped flowing. Somewhere between 94 million and 184 million gallons have spilled into the Gulf, according to government estimates.

The spill has prevented many commercial fishermen from their jobs, though some are at work with the cleanup. Some boat captains were surprised and angry to learn that the money they make from cleanup work will be deducted from the funds they would otherwise receive from a $20 billion compensation fund set up by BP.

The fund's administrator, Kenneth Feinberg, told The Associated Press on Sunday that if BP pays fishermen wages to help skim oil and perform other cleanup work, those wages will be subtracted from the amount they get from the fund.

Longtime charter boat captain Mike Salley said he didn't realize BP planned to deduct those earnings, and he doubted many other captains knew, either.
"I'll keep running my boat," he said Sunday on a dock in Orange Beach, Ala., before heading back into the Gulf to resupply other boats with boom to corral the oil. "What else can I do?"

___

Weber reported from Houston. Associated Press writer Jay Reeves in Orange Beach, Ala., Tom Strong in Washington and AP video journalist Haven Daley in Biloxi, Miss., contributed to this report.
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« Reply #130 on: July 19, 2010, 09:17:08 AM »

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100719/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill
Feds let BP keep Gulf oil cap closed despite seep
  By COLLEEN LONG and HARRY R. WEBER, Associated Press Writers Colleen Long And Harry R. Weber, Associated Press Writers   – 35 mins ago

NEW ORLEANS – The federal government Monday allowed BP to keep the cap shut tight on its busted Gulf of Mexico oil well for another day despite a seep in the sea floor after the company promised to watch closely for signs of new leaks underground, settling for the moment a rift between BP and the government.

The Obama administration's point man for the spill, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said early Monday that government scientists had gotten the answers they wanted about how BP is monitoring the seabed around the mile-deep well, which has stopped gushing oil into the water since the experimental cap was closed Thursday.

Late Sunday, Allen said a seep had been detected a distance from the busted oil well and demanded in a sharply worded letter that BP step up monitoring of the ocean floor. Allen didn't say what was coming from the seep. White House energy adviser Carol Browner told the CBS "Early Show" the seep was found less than two miles from the well site.

The concern all along — since pressure readings on the cap weren't as high as expected — was a leak elsewhere in the well bore, meaning the cap may have to be reopened to prevent the environmental disaster from becoming even worse and harder to fix. An underground leak could let oil and gas escape uncontrolled through bedrock and mud
"When seeps are detected, you are directed to marshal resources, quickly investigate, and report findings to the government in no more than four hours. I direct you to provide me a written procedure for opening the choke valve as quickly as possible without damaging the well should hydrocarbon seepage near the well head  be confirmed," Allen said in a letter to BP Managing Director Bob Dudley.

When asked about the seep and the monitoring, BP spokesman Mark Salt would only say that "we continue to work very closely with all government scientists on this."

Early Monday, Allen issued a statement saying there had been an overnight conference call between the federal science team and BP.

"During the conversation, the federal science team got the answers they were seeking and the commitment from BP to meet their monitoring and notification obligations," Allen said.

He said BP could continue testing the cap, meaning keeping it shut, only if the company continues to meet their obligations to rigorously monitor for any signs that this test could worsen the overall situation.

Both Allen and BP have said they don't know how long the trial run will continue. It was set to end Sunday afternoon, but the deadline came and went with no official word on what's next.

Browner said Allen's extension went until Monday afternoon. She said on ABC's "Good Morning America" that monitoring was crucial to make sure the trapped oil doesn't break out of its pipe.

"Clearly we want this to end. But we don't want to enter into a situation where we have uncontrolled leaks all over the Gulf floor," Browner told ABC.
BP PLC said Monday that the cost of dealing with the oil spill has now reached nearly $4 billion. The company said it has made payments totaling $207 million to settle individual claims for damages from the spill along the southern coast of the United States. To date, almost 116,000 claims have been submitted and more than 67,500 payments have been made, totaling $207 million.

With the newly installed cap keeping oil from BP's busted well out of the Gulf during a trial run, this weekend offered a chance for the oil company and government to gloat over their shared success — the first real victory in fighting the spill. Instead, the two sides have spent the past two days disagreeing over what to with the undersea machinery holding back the gusher.

The apparent disagreement began to sprout Saturday when Allen said the cap would eventually be hooked up to a mile-long pipe to pump the crude to ships on the surface. But early the next day, BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said the cap should stay clamped shut to keep in the oil until relief wells are finished.

After nearly three months of harsh criticism as it tried repeatedly to stop the leak, BP wants to keep oil from gushing into the Gulf again before the eyes of the world. The government's plan, however, is to eventually pipe oil to the surface, which would ease pressure on the fragile well but require up to three more days of oil spilling into the Gulf.

Both sides played down the apparent contradiction Sunday. Allen, ultimately the decision-maker, later said the containment plan he described Saturday hadn't changed, and that he and BP executives were on the same page.

The company very much wants to avoid a repeat of the live underwater video that showed millions of gallons of oil spewing from the blown well for weeks.

"I can see why they're pushing for keeping the cap on and shut in until the relief well is in place," said Daniel Keeney, president of a Dallas-based public relations firm.

The government wants to eliminate any chance of making matters worse, while BP is loath to lose the momentum it gained the moment it finally halted the leak, Keeney said.
"They want to project being on the same team, but they have different end results that benefit each," he said.

Oil would have to be released under Allen's plan, which would ease concerns that the capped reservoir might force its way out through another route. Those concerns stem from pressure readings in the cap that have been lower than expected.

Scientists still aren't sure whether the pressure readings mean a leak elsewhere in the well bore, possibly deep down in bedrock, which could make the seabed unstable. Oil would have to be released into the water to relieve pressure and allow crews to hook up the ships, BP and Allen have said.

Engineers are looking to determine whether low pressure readings mean that more oil than expected poured into the Gulf of Mexico since the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11 people and touching off one of America's worst environment crises.

To plug the busted well, BP is drilling two relief wells, one of them as a backup. The company said work on the first one was far enough along that officials expect to reach the broken well's casing, or pipes, deep underground by late this month. The subsequent job of jamming the well with mud and cement could take days or a few weeks.

It will take months, or possibly years for the Gulf to recover, though cleanup efforts continued and improvements in the water could be seen in the days since the oil stopped flowing. Somewhere between 94 million and 184 million gallons have spilled into the Gulf, according to government estimates.

___

Weber reported from Houston. Associated Press writer Jay Reeves in Orange Beach, Ala., Tom Strong in Washington, AP video journalist Haven Daley in Biloxi, Miss., and Robert Barr in London contributed to this report.
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« Reply #131 on: July 19, 2010, 03:43:20 PM »

http://www.wesh.com/news/24305356/detail.html
Cap On Oil Well Kept Shut Despite Leaks, Seepage
BP Promises To Watch Closely For Signs Of New Leaks Underground
COLLEEN LONG, Associated Press Writers

POSTED: 4:48 am EDT July 19, 2010
UPDATED: 3:21 pm EDT July 19, 2010
NEW ORLEANS --
The federal government Monday allowed BP to keep the cap shut tight on its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well for another day despite news the well is leaking at the top and something is seeping from the sea floor nearby.

The Obama administration's point man for the spill, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said early Monday that the company promised to watch closely for signs of new leaks around the mile-deep well, which has stopped gushing oil into the water since the experimental cap was closed Thursday.

Late Sunday, Allen said something was detected seeping near the broken oil well and demanded in a sharply worded letter that BP step up monitoring of the ocean floor. Allen didn't say what was seeping. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday afternoon the seepage was about two miles from the well head. He also said the well head is leaking.
The concern all along - since pressure readings on the cap weren't as high as expected - was a leak elsewhere in the well bore, meaning the cap may have to be reopened to prevent the environmental disaster from becoming even worse and harder to fix. An underground leak could let oil and gas escape uncontrolled through bedrock and mud.

"When seeps are detected, you are directed to marshal resources, quickly investigate, and report findings to the government in no more than four hours. I direct you to provide me a written procedure for opening the choke valve as quickly as possible without damaging the well should hydrocarbon seepage near the well head be confirmed," Allen said in a letter to BP Managing Director Bob Dudley.

When asked about the seepage and the monitoring, BP spokesman Mark Salt would only say that "we continue to work very closely with all government scientists on this."

Shares of BP PLC were down slightly Monday as investors worried about the seepage and an apparent rift between the oil giant and the U.S. officials in charge of the spill.

Allen said BP could continue testing the cap, meaning keeping it shut, only if the company continues to meet their obligations to rigorously monitor for any signs that this test could worsen the overall situation.

Browner said Allen's extension went until Monday afternoon.
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« Reply #132 on: July 21, 2010, 03:22:07 PM »

http://www.wesh.com/news/24335284/detail.html
Oil Cleanup Itself Damaging Gulf
Many Say Untested Cleanup Methods Wreaking Havoc Along With Traffic
CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press Writer
The 5,600 vessels taking part in the oil spill operation on the Gulf of Mexico make up the largest fleet assembled since the Allied invasion of Normandy, according to the Coast Guard.

Hordes of helicopters, bulldozers, Army trucks, ATVs, barges, dredges, airboats, workboats, cleanup crews, media, scientists and volunteers have descended on the beaches, blue waters and golden marshes of the Gulf Coast.
That's a lot of propellers, anchors, tires, and feet for a fragile ecosystem to take, and a tough truth is emerging: In many places, the oil cleanup itself is causing environmental damage.

Part of that is inevitable - the oil has to get cleaned up somehow, and BP and the government will be subject to second-guessing no matter what.

"Absolutely nothing you do to respond to an oil spill is without impacts of its own," said Lisa Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11, and oil began gushing into the Gulf, federal, state and BP officials say they have been guided in their response by picking the less damaging cleanup method.

Still, environmentalists and veterans of other spills say the torrent of untested cleanup methods rushed into practice by panicked officials and unqualified experts is wreaking havoc and, at least in spots, may be unnecessary.

"The more you disperse (with chemicals), the more you bring in these big machines, the more you bring in inexperienced people and the more sand berms you build, the less chance you have of letting Mother Nature and skimmers and booms do the job," said Mike Brewer of Buras, La., who ran an oil spill response company and is working on the BP cleanup.
For starters, the EPA allowed BP PLC to spray a chemical dispersant, a product called Corexit, to break up oil right as it came out of BP's broken well nearly a mile below the surface. The idea is to save shorelines from being clobbered with vast waves of crude.

In practice, the use of dispersants that had never been tested that far beneath the surface has made the oil much more difficult to track than it would have been in a single, massive slick. And environmentalists and marine biologists still aren't convinced the chemicals are safe for sea life.

The EPA halted underwater spraying while it tested samples collected by BP, then allowed it to resume once the results came back to the agency's satisfaction. Further tests are ongoing, and crews quit spraying dispersant once the well was contained this week, Jackson said.

"Basically, we conducted uncontrolled experiments in the open ocean - that does not seem like a good idea to me," said John Hocevar, the oceans campaign director for Greenpeace USA.

Jackson said there was little evidence that the chemical dispersants had caused damage and called their effects "relatively mild."

Eager to be seen as taking charge, Gov. Bobby Jindal began building a series of untested sand islands and other barriers along the Louisiana coast, making construction of these berms a personal crusade. In theory, sand berms and jetties will stop the oil from entering sensitive estuaries.
But berms and jetties interrupt shrimp and fish migrations as well as tidal flows; the work can even undermine what little is left of Louisiana's gooey and sediment-layered shoreline.

"None of the coastal scientists have signed onto this thing," said Leonard Bahr, a former adviser to both Republican and Democratic governors in Louisiana on coastal restoration issues.

Fishermen and locals, however, almost unanimously agree with Jindal's unorthodox barrier plans.

"We know these (berms) stop the oil. It worked on Fourchon Beach," said Windell Curole, a levee manager in south Lafourche Parish, an area long struggling with erosion. "The people that are pushing for these things are more invested in it than the scientists."

In a move that put its compensation costs toward curtailing the spill's environmental effects, BP hired truckloads of inexperienced oil spill responders - shrimpers, unemployed workers, college students, and migrant workers. The manpower is essential, but their footprint can be huge, especially if they're not used to watching their step.

"It was like the Wild West there for a while, and it still is to some degree," said Drew Wheelan, a wildlife biologist with the American Bird Association Inc., a conservation group.
Wheelan said cleanup crews trampled on numerous nesting bird colonies, including at least one batch of least tern eggs he saw. Wilson's plovers and endangered black skimmers on Louisiana's Grand Isle and East Grand Terre islands were threatened by intensive beach cleanups.

"The whole entire area in the past two weeks has been completely crisscrossed by tire tracks. The entire cleanup there has been entirely sickening," Wheelan said recently of East Grand Terre. "There are tire tracks from the low tide line all the way up into the dune vegetation. Not an inch of that frontal beach has been spared from traffic."

Out on the Gulf, BP brought in a super-sized skimmer from Taiwan - the "A Whale" - capable of sucking up 20 million gallons of water a day, aiming to corral huge quantities of oiled water at once. Like some of the other methods, it had never been tested and scientists worried that it could cause serious damage.

"It will suck in a lot of biology," said James Cowan, a Louisiana State University fisheries scientist.

Coast Guard officials questioned its effectiveness, noting that it would be better for attacking a single huge slick than for the countless smaller pools that the dispersant helped create. Authorities announced last week that the massive ship was dropping out of the spill operation.
Forrest Travirca has seen the cleanup's side effects up close as a land manager for the Wisner estate, a public land trust that includes Fourchon Beach and a large marsh area that has seen some of the heaviest oil so far.

On an airboat cruise through marsh, signs of the messy cleanup jumped out. Reddish-brown and sticky tar coated the blades of marsh grass behind a beach lined with sand baskets brought in by Army dump trucks. Absorbent boom lay washed up against shorelines. Crews had staked down shade tents every few hundred yards.

Almost as soon as he stepped onto the sand, Travirca saw something he didn't like: Two ATV tracks meandering carefree across the sands. Someone with the cleanup had strayed from designated traffic corridors.

"This really upsets me," Travirca said, standing over the fresh set of tracks. "They're not supposed to be driving back here. They've got to drive along the front of the beach. Birds nest back here."

He walked a few paces away and pointed out another set of ATV tracks he discovered a few days before. "This track here was inches from a tern nest with eggs."

At least now, more than three months after the spill, the cleanup is becoming more organized.

In the beginning, he said, the beach "looked like the autobahn."
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« Reply #133 on: August 03, 2010, 09:36:48 PM »

http://www.wesh.com/money/24502383/detail.html
'Static Kill' Appears To Be Going Well
Government, Oil Executives Not Ready To Declare Victory
HARRY R. WEBER, Associated Press Writer

POSTED: 6:03 pm EDT August 3, 2010
UPDATED: 8:43 pm EDT August 3, 2010
ON THE GULF OF MEXICO --
 
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A leader of the operation to plug up the blown-out oil well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico says the process is going well.

Wellsite leader Bobby Bolton said it's possible crews could finish the so-called "static kill" Tuesday after the process began around 3 p.m. Officials, though, have said it could take days.

The effort involves pumping mud and eventually cement down the broken wellhead to plug it up. Officials say they won't know whether it worked until they can finish a relief well nearby in the coming weeks.

Capt. Keith Schultz says he's "very confident we'll be able to kill this well."

But the government and oil executives won't declare victory until crews also shove mud and cement down an 18,000-foot relief well later this month to help choke the vast undersea reservoir that feeds the well. They say that's the only way to make certain oil never escapes again.

Tests for the static kill started a couple hours earlier as crews probed the broken well bore with an oil-like liquid to determine whether there were any obstructions in the well and to assess the pressure of the bore and the pump rates it could withstand.
The test "went exactly as we could have expected," but it's too early to tell whether the static kill is successful, said BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells.

"We're so early in the process, there's no way for me to give you any early indication," Wells said, adding: "We're extremely focused on this point on making sure we execute the static kill as best we can."
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« Reply #134 on: August 18, 2010, 10:02:39 AM »

http://www.bp.com/sectionbodycopy.do?categoryId=9034366&contentId=7063636
Live feeds from the Gulf of Mexico ROVs 
----------------------
photos Faint streaks of weathered oil are seen
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Aug-162010-file-photo-faint-streaks-weathered-oil-seen-Gulf/photo//100817/480/urn_publicid_ap_org_e233af85dee242439e9a4b68bf8cb194//s:/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill
------------------------

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill
Gulf surface cleaner, but questions lurk far below

Gulf surface cleaner, but questions lurk far below
 Writer Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer – Tue Aug 17, 9:30 pm ET
WASHINGTON – Researchers are warning that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is a bigger mess than the government claims and that a lot of crude is lurking deep below the surface, some of it settling perhaps in a critical undersea canyon off the Florida Panhandle.

The evidence of microscopic amounts of oil mixing into the soil of the canyon was gathered by scientists at the University of South Florida, who also found poisoned plant plankton — the vital base of the ocean food web — which they blamed on a toxic brew of oil and dispersants.

Their work is preliminary, hasn't been reviewed by other scientists, requires more tests to confirm it is BP's oil they found, and is based on a 10-day research cruise that ended late Monday night. Scientists who were not involved said they were uncomfortable drawing conclusions based on such a brief look.

But those early findings follow a report on Monday from Georgia researchers that said as much as 80 percent of the oil from the spill remains in the Gulf. Both groups' findings have already been incorporated into lawsuits filed against BP.

Both groups paint a darker scenario than that of federal officials, who two weeks ago announced that most of the oil had dissolved, dispersed or been removed, leaving just a bit more than a quarter of the amount that spewed from the well that exploded in April.

At the White House on Aug. 4, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco said: "At least 50 percent of the oil that was released is now completely gone from the system, and most of the remainder is degrading rapidly or is being removed from the beaches."

That's not what the scientists from South Florida and Georgia found.

"The oil is not gone, that's for sure," University of South Florida's David Hollander said Tuesday. "There is oil and we need to deal with it."

University of Georgia's Samantha Joye said: "It's a tremendous amount of oil that's in the system. ... It's very difficult for me to imagine that 50 percent of it has been degraded."

Marine scientist Chuck Hopkinson, also with the University of Georgia, raised the obvious question: "Where has all the oil gone? It hasn't gone anywhere. It still lurks in the deep."

NOAA spokesman Justin Kenney defended his agency's calculations, saying they are "based on direct measurements whenever possible and the best available scientific estimates where direct measurements were not possible." But the vast majority of it is based on "educated scientific guesses," because unless the oil was being burned or skimmed, measurements weren't possible, NOAA response scientist Bill Lehr said earlier this month.

What is happening in the Gulf is the outcome of a decision made early on in the fighting of the spill: to use dispersants to keep the surface and beaches as clean as possible, at the expense of keeping oil stuck below the surface, said Monty Graham, a researcher at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama who was not part of the latest work. Oil degrades far more slowly in cooler, deeper waters than it would at the surface.

At the surface and the top 100 feet or so, it is obvious why oil is harmful, fouling marshes and hampering sea turtles, fish, birds and other life. Deep down, the effects are subtler, less direct. Oil at that depth can chip away at the base of the food web — plant plankton — and that could cause animals to go hungry. Reduced oxygen levels from natural gas and oil could also starve creatures of oxygen.

At depths of 900 to 3,300 feet, the University of South Florida researchers found problems with plant plankton. About two-fifths of the samples showed "some degree of toxicity."

"We found general phytoplankton health to be poor," Hollander said. By comparison, in non-oiled southern parts of the Gulf, the plant plankton were healthy, researchers said.

That makes sense because past research has shown that when oil when gets into the cell membranes of plankton, it causes all sorts of problems, said Paul Falkowski, a marine scientist at Rutgers University who was not part of the research. However, he said plant plankton don't live long anyway. They have about a week's lifespan, he said, and in a few months this insult to the base of the food web could be history.

Still, the brew that is poisoning the plankton may linger and no one knows for how long, Hollander said.

The Florida researchers used ultraviolet light to illuminate micro-droplets of oil deep underwater. When they did that, "it looked like a constellation of stars," Hollander said.

He also found the oil deposited in the sea bottom near the edges of the significant DeSoto Canyon, about 40 miles southwest of Panama City, Fla., suggesting oil may have settled into that canyon. The canyon is an important mixing area for cold, nutrient-laden water and warmer surface water. It is also key for currents and an important fisheries area.

"Clearly the oil down in the abyss, there's nothing we can do about it," said Ed Overton of Louisiana State University. He said the environment at the surface or down to 100 feet or so is "rapidly going back to normal," with shrimpers starting their harvest. But oil below 1,000 feet degrades much more slowly, he said.

Joye has measured how fast natural gas, which also spewed from the BP well, can degrade in water, and it may take as much as 500 days for large pools to disappear at 3,000 feet below the sea. That natural gas starves oxygen from the water, she said.

"You're talking about a best-case situation of a year's turnover time," Joye said


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« Reply #135 on: August 18, 2010, 10:03:54 AM »

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/08/201081885214868383.html
UPDATED ON:
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
14:33 Mecca time, 11:33 GMT

'Most oil from BP spill remains'

Two scientific reports have raised fresh fears about the environmental fallout from the BP oil spill, challenging government assurances that most of the oil from the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico is already gone.

Researchers at the University of Georgia said about three-quarters of the oil leaked from the Macondo well is still lurking below the surface of the Gulf and may pose a threat to the ecosystem.

Charles Hopkinson, who helped lead the investigation, said up to 79 per cent of the 4.1 million barrels of oil that gushed from the broken well and were not captured directly at the wellhead remained in the Gulf.

"The idea that 75 per cent of the oil is gone and is of no further concern to the environment is just absolutely incorrect," Hopkinson said on Tuesday.

The report challenges a more optimistic assessment by the US government released on August 4, which said half the 4.1 million barrels of oil spilled by the April 20 blowout had been evaporated, burned, skimmed or dispersed.

At the time, Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the agency that conducted the government report, told a White House briefing that: "At least 50 per cent of the oil that was released is now completely gone from the system. And most of the remainder is degrading rapidly or is being removed from the beaches."

'Misconception'

But Hopkinson told the AFP news agency that one major misconception was that oil that had dissolved into the water was gone, and therefore harmless.

"We just reanalysed this report ... and then we calculated how much oil is still likely to be out there," he said.
 
"The oil is still out there and it will likely take years to completely degrade. We are still far from a complete understanding of what its impacts are."

On Tuesday, a spokesman from NOAA defended the government report, saying the calculation was based "on direct measurements whenever possible and the best available scientific estimates where direct measurements were not possible".

"Additionally, the government and independent scientists involved in the oil budget have been clear that oil and its remnants left in the water represent a potential threat, which is why we continue to rigorously monitor, test and assess short and long term ramifications," Justin Kenney said in a statement.

Toxic oil levels

Separately, a study released by scientists from the University of South Florida said experiments in the northeastern Gulf revealed that oil in sediments of an underwater canyon was at levels toxic to critical marine organisms.

However, David Hollander, university oceanographer, stressed that the University of South Florida mission's initial findings would need to be verified by more scientific testing.

For 87 days following the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that triggered the oil spill, crude spewed into the Gulf, contaminating wetlands, fishing grounds and beaches from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.

BP engineers provisionally capped the leak on July 15 and are working to permanently "kill" the well later this month.
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« Reply #136 on: September 06, 2012, 05:14:04 PM »

several links in article,to past events concerning the trial of BP

Feds vow to prove BP's negligence in oil spill
September 5, 2012 2:00 PM

(CBS/AP) NEW ORLEANS - The Justice Department is urging a federal judge to ignore BP's assertion
that the Gulf Coast's natural resources are making a "robust recovery" from its massive 2010 oil spill.

In a court filing Friday, government lawyers also renewed their vow to prove at trial that BP engaged in
gross negligence or willful misconduct leading up to the deadly rig explosion that killed 11 workers and
spawned the nation's worst offshore oil spill. BP PLC faces billions of dollars in fines if U.S. District Judge
Carl Barbier ultimately sides with the government
more
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57506574/feds-vow-to-prove-bps-negligence-in-oil-spill/?tag=strip


i should have kept  this thread up on the spill,i go  and read on  the spill at least 2-3x a year
JMO,i think it will be a 20yr window, B4 we know the exstent of the damage the spill has caused
links for info
http://www.restorethegulf.gov/release/2012/08/30/coast-guard-resumes-bp-oil-spill-cleanup-operations
http://www.restorethegulf.gov/
http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle800.do?categoryId=9036585&contentId=7067606
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goodmorn,goodnite, got to go, as always its been wonderful, talking with you, and most of all have a great day, and dont forget to smile
MuffyBee
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« Reply #137 on: September 06, 2012, 05:23:40 PM »

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57507123/isaac-churned-up-old-oil-from-bp-spill-in-la-tests-confirm/
Isaac churned up old oil from BP spill in La., tests confirm
September 6, 2012

CBS/AP) NEW ORLEANS - Laboratory tests show that globs of oil found on two Louisiana beaches after Hurricane Isaac came from the 2010 BP spill.

Tests run by Louisiana State University for state wildlife officials confirmed that oil found on Elmer's Island and Grand Isle matched the biological fingerprint of the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil that spewed from BP's Macondo well.
On Wednesday, BP PLC said oil from its spill had been exposed by Isaac's waves and that the company would work to clean it up.

Ed Overton, the LSU chemist who did the state tests, said the oil found on Elmer's Island had not degraded much while oil at Grand Isle had.

"Both were good solid matches on Macondo oil," Overton said.
More...
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« Reply #138 on: September 06, 2012, 05:25:53 PM »

http://www.wthitv.com/dpp/news/national/BP-says-old-oil-from-spill-exposed-by-Isaac_23944785
Oil from BP spill uncovered by Isaac's waves
September 5, 2012

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Waves from Hurricane Isaac uncovered oil previously buried along Gulf Coast beaches, exposing crude that wasn't cleaned up after the BP spill in 2010.

Since Isaac made landfall more than a week ago, the water the storm has receded and tar balls and oil have been reported on shores in Alabama and Louisiana, where officials closed a 13-mile stretch of beach Tuesday.

BP said Wednesday some of that oil was from the spill, but said some of the crude may be from other sources, too.

"If there's something good about this storm it made it visible where we can clean it up," BP spokesman Ray Melick said.

BP still has hundreds of cleanup workers on the Gulf Coast after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, killing 11 workers and leading to the nation's largest offshore spill.

Melick said the company was working with the Coast Guard, state officials and land managers to clean up the oil on the Fourchon beach in Louisiana. He said crews would be there Thursday.
 ::snipping2::
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« Reply #139 on: March 25, 2013, 03:31:44 AM »

i knew there was a reason i stopped buying BP

David v gOILiath - Exposing BP's Lies
David Clow
Published on Aug 13, 2012

Uncovering the truth about the death and destruction caused by the BP oil disaster.
Extended scenes from the upcoming new film by David Clow
'turmOIL - the other price at the pumps'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdsYBgwZb5I&list=UUiYzH1VRwctJjrz3-uY09BQ
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goodmorn,goodnite, got to go, as always its been wonderful, talking with you, and most of all have a great day, and dont forget to smile
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