Prosecutors will make their case in a four-day hearing in Anchorage starting November 29. According to the Anchorage Daily News, the prosecutors will present evidence that the BP Exploration has failed to act in accordance with a court edict that it should “give high priority to maintenance and maybe a little less priority on profits.” Supporting that claim: a 2009 spill that occurred when a BP pipeline froze and burst, releasing 13,500 gallons of oil onto the land at the Lisburne oil field.

“The cause of the 2009 oil spill was completely predictable and absolutely preventable,” the prosecutors asserted in their court filing. “BP simply failed to take adequate precautions and implement proper safeguards.”

According to the Anchorage Daily News, federal prosecutors will argue that BP has had a long history of environmental crimes in Alaska beginning in February 2001 “when it pleaded guilty to releasing hazardous materials at its Endicott facility on the North Slope.” For that crime, BP was fined $500,000, placed on a five-year probation, and ordered to implement an environmental management program nationwide that, in BP’s words, “ensures that all projects and operations are designed and conducted in accordance with legal and internal environmental standards.”

BP’s environmental program, however, didn’t do much good in preventing the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico – the largest and most devastating oil spill in U.S. history. The Gulf oil spill made two record oil spills for BP: one for Alaska and one for the entire U.S.

BP argues that circumstances beyond its control caused the 2009 oil spill, and that the oil did not reach U.S. waters, which would translate to a violation of the Clean Water Act. Prosecutors point out that the 2006 and 2009 BP oil spills were astonishingly similar because, according to the Anchorage Daily News, “BP ignored alarms that warned of the pipe’s eventual rupture and leak.”

After BP experienced another pipe freeze and rupture in 2001, the company’s own experts recommended BP institute a series of measures designed to prevent a similar incident from occurring in the future, yet BP failed to act on that as well, prosecutors said.

Sources:

The Alaska Daily News

Business Week

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Federal prosecutors want to keep BP on the hook for Alaska environmental crimes

Considering the agonizing slowness with which the Gulf Coast Claims Facility approves and pays claims to millions of individuals and businesses harmed by its oil spill, one of this week’s rulings seems like a case of insurance karma. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ruled that BP is not entitled to collect insurance money for the oil spill under policies held by Transocean Ltd., the owner of the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon.

“Because Transocean did not assume the oil pollution risks pertaining to the Deepwater Horizon Incident — BP did — Transocean was not required to name BP as an additional insured as to those risks,” Judge Carl Barbier wrote in his ruling. Judge Barbier is handling BP oil-spill litigation from the U.S. District Court in New Orleans. “Because there is no insurance obligation as to those risks, BP is not an insured … for those risks. Therefore, BP is not entitled to the declarations of coverage it seeks,” Judge Barbier concluded.

According to the Associated Press, Transocean holds $750 million in insurance coverage. The company had been leasing the Deepwater Horizon to BP when the offshore platform exploded, killing 11 workers and allowing the Macondo well to gush oil out of control for months.

In another decision, Judge Barbier ruled in favor of Alabama and Louisiana, saying the states could, under Maritime Law and the Oil Pollution Act, pursue punitive damages against BP and other companies it holds liable for the oil spill. However, because the oil spill that harmed the coastline of four Gulf states was not in any of them, Judge Barbier said the states could not pursue claims under their various state laws, adding that their claims under federal law should be sufficient to fund their recovery.

A spokesperson for Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell told the Associated Press that Judge Barbier’s ruling was still under review, but that the state was disappointed by elements of the decision.

Source:

The Associated Press

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Two new court rulings concerning Gulf oil spill go against BP

So while scientists such as Doctor Bonny Schumaker fly over the Gulf documenting and filming fresh oil slicks in the Gulf near BP’s blown-out Macondo well, and tests on oil samples taken from those slicks reveal a “dead-ringer” match for BP oil, BP and federal agencies insist there are no fresh oil emissions from that well. That is just one example of this ongoing oily dichotomy. Another is the safety of Gulf seafood.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, and others have all more or less declared Gulf seafood to be safe to eat. Donald Kraemer, deputy director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, said that the agency is “very confident” in the safety of Gulf seafood:

“We put in an extensive program of sampling, and the results have consistently been 100 to 1,000 times below our levels of concern. So, we’re quite confident that the seafood that’s in commercial channels is safe.”

But a new study, conducted by the National Resources Defense Council has found that the FDA “significantly underestimates risk from seafood contaminants” in six different ways. According to the study’s authors, the FDA does not account for the “increased vulnerability” of developing fetuses and children; fails to factor “appropriate seafood consumption rates” into its calculations; does not include all of the relevant health endpoints in its research; fails to “incorporate health protective estimates of exposure duration and acceptable risk,” and other “major flaws.”

“For example, FDA said that 123,000 micrograms of naphthalene per kilogram of shrimp was safe for everyone to eat,” said Miriam Rotkin-Ellman, one of the scientists and authors of the study. “According to our calculations, only 5.91 micrograms should have been allowed to protect pregnant women and children who eat a lot of seafood. For comparison, our calculations show that 46.99 micrograms of naphthalene per kilogram of shellfish would be safe for an adult consumer.”

And the picture isn’t any brighter for other Gulf shellfish. “According to our calculations, the risk of cancer associated with eating Gulf shellfish contaminated at the levels FDA says is safe could be as high as 20,000 in a million,” Dr. Rotkin-Ellman writes. “Put another way, this means that if 1,000 pregnant women (and their children) ate Gulf seafood contaminated at the levels FDA said are safe, 20 of the children born to them would be at significant risk of cancer from the contamination. This is not public health protection.”

In conclusion, the study’s authors call the FDA’s seafood-safety assessment “unrealistic and outdated” and call on the agency to update its assessment methods. “Major reforms are needed at FDA to better safeguard our food supply,” Dr. Rotkin-Ellman said.

Sources:

FDA, Asleep on the Job? Study Questions Gulf Seafood Safety

FDA’s Bad Science: Agency Allows Unsafe Levels of Contaminants in Seafood

Seafood Contamination After the BP Gulf Oil Spill and Risks to Vulnerable Populations: A Critique of the FDA Risk Assessment

On Wings of Care

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › New study finds FDA’s seafood-safety analysis ‘flawed and unrealistic’

Dr. Galvez and Dr. Whitehead, both Canadian natives who joined LSU’s Biological Sciences Department in 2006 and 2005 respectively, found that the BP oil spill continues to have “sub-lethal” effects on the killifish, including physiological and reproductive impairments; deformity; damaged gills, intestines, hearts, and lungs; a smaller size; and behavior one fellow researcher described as “listless.”

According to Lafayette, Louisiana’s KATC, Dr. Galvez testified that the killifish show signs of “exposure to toxic components of hydrocarbons” 18 months after the oil spill, and “while the fish are safe for human consumption, the magnitude of tissue, cellular and genetic effects seen in the fish from the oiled site in Louisiana suggest impacts on growth, reproduction, development and performance.”

Fewer, smaller killifish with reduced life spans could have a serious, destructive impact on the larger ecology of the Gulf.

According to KATC, “At the hearing, Galvez also took the opportunity to promote the need for reliable sources of federal emergency funding for early-response scientific research following natural and man-made disasters. This funding would make it possible for transparent, cutting-edge and unbiased academic research to be conducted at the most critical times following such tragedies.”

Sources:

LSU Biological Sciences Researcher Testifies about Oil Spill Findings at House of Representatives

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › LSU professor testifies to Congress about BP oil spill’s harm to Gulf fish

The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has cleared BP to drill the well about 250 miles south of Lafayette, Louisiana, in an area known as the Keathley canyon. The wellhead will sit about 6,000 feet below the surface, about 1,000 feet deeper and 200 miles further from shore than the Macondo well. BP says that it already has a drilling rig onsite and will start drilling as soon as it is “operationally possible.”

According to the BSEE, BP has met the stricter safety regulations developed by the federal government in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

“BP has met all of the enhanced safety requirements that we have implemented and applied consistently over the past year. In addition, BP has adhered to voluntary standards that go beyond the agency’s regulatory requirements,” BSEE Director Michael R. Bromwich said. “This permit was approved only after thorough well design, blowout preventer, and containment capability reviews.” The agency also approved BP’s broader drilling plans for the vicinity of the new well, known as the Kaskida prospect.

Environmentalists look upon the BSEE more favorably than the Minerals Management Service – the agency that it replaced after the Deepwater Horizon disaster revealed it to be incompetent and marred by conflicts of interest. Many caution, however, that the big oil companies and federal regulators have a way to go before offshore drilling safety, blowout preventers, and cleanup procedures are adequately improved.

Sources:

CNN

Mobile Press-Register

Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Feds give BP green light to resume deepwater Gulf drilling

Although the agreement is not an admission of liability for Anadarko, it could help BP in a forthcoming trial that will determine liability for the oil company and all of its Deepwater Horizon partners and contractors. That trial is on track to start in New Orleans in February.

BP insists that it alone is not liable for the deadly oil disaster, and has sought to diffuse the blame among itself and its partners and contractors by portraying the spill as something of a perfect storm involving multiple parties and faulty decisions.

That strategy has sparked bitter legal disputes between BP and other companies involved in the Macondo venture, including Anadarko, Transocean, and Halliburton.

Months ago, BP settled a dispute with Moex Offshore, which owned a 10-percent stake in the well, after Moex agreed to pay BP $1.065 billion. BP put that money into the $20-billion trust established to compensate victims of the oil spill and said it would do the same with the Anadarko payment. BP also reached a similar agreement with Weatherford U.S. LP, a Swiss oilfield service company that designed parts of BP’s blown-out Macondo well, which agreed to pay BP $75 million in exchange for wide-reaching indemnity.

According to BP, the Gulf Coast Claims Facility that administers the $20-billion fund has paid out about $7 billion in claims to individuals and businesses harmed by the oil spill.

Praising the Anadarko agreement, BP chief executive Robert W. Dudley said it represented “clear progress with parties stepping forward to meet their obligations and help fund the economic and environmental restoration of the gulf.”

“It’s time for the contractors, including Transocean and Halliburton, to do the same,” Dudley said.

So far, however, neither Transocean, which leased the Deepwater Horizon to BP, nor Halliburton, which cemented the failed well, have shown any signs of settling with BP.

In its agreement with BP, Anadarko will give its stake in the Macondo well back to BP and BP will shield Anadarko from a number of claims, excluding government penalties, civil claims, and punitive damages.

Sources:

CNN

Associated Press

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP settles Gulf oil spill dispute with partner Anadarko

Although a step in the right direction, the agreement does not settle a number of claims for other lost revenues the city wants to recover. According to the Associated Press, Mayor Tony Kennon said that BP still owes the city at least $6 million for other damages and the city was prepared to use “whatever legal avenues we have to go through to go after that revenue.”

Other fiscal losses for Orange Beach stemming from the BP oil spill include franchise taxes, sewer fees, business licenses, and building permits for “multimillion-dollar projects that could have come to fruition but did not because of the oil spill,” the AP reported.

Mr. Kennon said that agreement, which was reached after BP consented to pay an additional $300,000, computes to a 10-percent increase over 2009 revenues. “We used this summer as validation for our claim that we could have been up 15 (percent) to 20 percent in 2010, had it not been for the oil spill,” Mr. Kennon told the Associated Press. “But the bottom line is we knew what was fair and we just stood by that number.”

Coastal Alabama reported a record tourist season in July of this year, with nearly $70 million in lodging revenue collected just in the month of July. Gross retail sales in July were just shy of $95 million.

Source:

The Associated Press

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Orange Beach reaches settlement agreement with BP

The study, published this week in the National Academy of Sciences Journal, has found that BP’s oil spill is taking a toll on an abundant species of fish in Louisiana’s marshes, even in areas where there is no oil in sight.

According to an Associated Press report, the LSU scientists have found that the oil spill continues to have “sub-lethal” effects on killifish, a type of small fish that provide a main food source for larger fish species, including speckled trout and redfish. Louisiana fishermen also use killifish for bait. While previous studies analyzed the links between biological damages and contamination levels, the LSU study looked for damage on the DNA level caused by contamination … and found it.

Some of the damage the scientists discovered in the sampled killifish included physiological and reproductive impairments; deformity; damaged gills, intestines, hearts, and lungs; a smaller size; and behavior one researcher described as “listless.”

“We have done all this chemical testing of wildlife, seafood and water and the message has gone out that seafood from Louisiana is safe to eat,” Andrew Whitehead, an LSU genome researcher involved in the study, told the AP. “The message is that the animals are out of the woods because they are not carrying a chemical burden. But when you ask the fish directly, when you look at their biology, they show that they have been exposed and that may be a problem for populations,” Dr. Whitehead said.

Another scientist who contributed to the study said it mirrored findings in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, where serious problems in the fish population became apparent to scientists several years after the Exxon-Valdez spill.

Source: The Associated Press

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › LSU study finds BP oil spill damaged fish at the genetic level

Auburn University researchers conducted a study of the tar balls that they collected earlier this month on Alabama beaches. Their analysis found that the tar appeared to be fresh and wasn’t much different from oil that was deposited on the same beaches a year ago during the peak of the spill.

The findings foreshadow a Gulf whose ecosystem may continue to be poisoned by the BP oil spill for many years to come. Seeing just how little the oil has changed over a year means that millions of barrels worth of oil and tar are likely still submerged, covering the sea floor as many scientists have confirmed. The Auburn study concluded that the BP oil spill may continue to have a negative long-term impact on Gulf ecosystems.

Fortunately, all the fresh tar on Alabama’s beaches hasn’t kept vacationers away. Gulf Shores and Orange Beach tourism officials released numbers that show that the tourism industry on Alabama’s Gulf coast is booming.

According to WSFA, July set a tourism record in Alabama with just short of $70 million in lodging revenue collected in July alone. Gross retail sales that same month amounted to $94.8 million. The previous tourism highpoint for coastal Alabama was in 2007, when $51.9 million in lodging revenue and $80.4 million in gross retail sales poured into the communities.

Sources:

Voice of America

Associated Press

WSFA

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Auburn University study finds BP tar balls are barely disintegrating

The BOEMRE investigation found that BP’s attempt to complete the Macondo well amounted to a sloppy rush job that violated a number of key regulations governing offshore drilling safety. According to the New York Times, among BP’s indiscretions were “violations of laws that required BP and its contractors to operate in a safe manner, to take measures to contain oil and gas for the protection of health and the environment, to conduct reliable tests of well pressures and to notify federal regulators of changes in drilling plans.”

At the core of the Deepwater Horizon explosion: a failed cement plug 18,000 feet below the sea floor (about 23,000 feet from the surface), which failed to keep oil and gas contained within the well. A series of mechanical and human errors compounded the problem and ultimately allowed extremely pressurized natural gas to burst upward, resulting in a massive explosion that killed 11 crew members and injured many more. The resulting oil spill gushed out of control for 87 days and flooded the Gulf with five million barrels of oil.

“The loss of life at the Macondo site on April 20, 2010, and the subsequent pollution of the Gulf of Mexico through the summer of 2010 were the result of poor risk management, last-minute changes to plans, failure to observe and respond to critical indicators, inadequate well control response and insufficient emergency bridge response training by companies and individuals responsible for drilling at the Macondo well and for the operation of the Deepwater Horizon,” the report says.

BOEMRE also pinned some of the blame for the disaster on BP contractors Transocean, the Deepwater Horizon’s owner, and Halliburton, which BP hired for the well cementing work. In its response to the federal report, BP said that it agreed with the report’s “core conclusion” that the Deepwater Horizon accident was the result of multiple causes, involving multiple parties, including Transocean and Halliburton, and that it had been working since the disaster to improve the way it works.

BP, Transocean, and Halliburton remain under a criminal investigation by the Justice Department that could lead to indictments and massive fines for the parties should they be found guilty of criminal activity. David M. Uhlmann, a University of Michigan Law School professor and former chief of the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section, told the New York Times that the BOEMRE report “increases the likelihood that BP, Transocean and Halliburton will face criminal charges for their roles in causing the gulf oil spill.”

Sources:

BOEMRE report

Christian Science Monitor

New York Times

Times Picayune

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › New report says BP shortcuts caused Deepwater Horizon explosion, oil spill

Alarmed, Ms. Schumaker, a former NASA scientist and founder of the organization On Wings of Care, contacted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Coast Guard with exact coordinates. She even had aerial footage of the new oil slick to back up her claims. Following the lead, Mobile Press-Register reporters took a boat to the location to collect samples, which Louisiana State University scientists found had the same chemical footprint as the oil from BP’s Macondo well.

The Coast Guard dispatched airplanes and boats to the site, about 40 miles south of the Louisiana coast, but later told Ms. Schumaker they found nothing. Baffled, Ms. Schumaker wondered, “How can a girl in a little airplane go out and find oil with her own eyes day after day and the Coast Guard can’t find it?” She took subsequent flights over the site, each time spotting and filming an oil slick that by September 10 (her most recent flyover) had mushroomed to cover an area 10 miles long and four miles wide.

“In fact, we found so much oil out in the Macondo Prospect (near the site of the April 2010 explosion), that we have an 11-minute video of it that never covers the same area twice! Not since last summer have we seen this kind of expansive surface sheen,” Ms. Schumaker says on her blog. “Metallic-gray and rainbow swirls stretched for miles, mixed with dark-brown stuff that resembled weathered crude more than sargassum weed. And there were those round-shaped ‘globs’ of oil again, here, there, and everywhere it seemed. We did not want to see this stuff anymore!”

Rocky Kistner, a Communications Associate with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in Washington D.C. writes on his blog about the situation in Grand Isle, Louisiana, which has been deeply impacted by the BP oil spill. Before the oil spill, Grand Isle was home to abundantly fertile shrimp and fishing grounds. Now, Grand Isle residents and businesses seemed to be locked in a never-ending battle with the oil and its deadly toll.

The NRDC reports that shrimpers are frustrated with dismal, historically low yields because of the “born to die” conditions in the Gulf. Dead dolphins continue to wash ashore on a daily basis. Oyster beds that had been seeded are now awash in oil and the oysters have died. A desperate fisherman described the horrors of the fresh oil spill to Mr. Kistner, while a seafood business owner who lost millions of dollars in the BP spill’s wake says business is so bad he may have to close.

BP dismisses these reports, claiming that the fresh oil is coming from natural seeps. BP bases its conclusion on an inspection of the Macondo well head it conducted following the Mobile Press-Register report. “What we are saying for sure is that it is not from our well head,” BP spokesman Curtis Thomas told the NRDC.

Sources:

NDRC

Florida Independent

Times Picayune

On Wings of Care

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Evidence points to a fresh BP oil spill in the Gulf

“I continue to be disappointed to see politically motivated, erroneous reports and commentaries, sponsored by various industry associations and groups, criticizing the [government] for allegedly ‘slow-walking’ permits and plans,” Michael Bromwich, head of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE), said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “That is a phrase we see repeated over and over again, and it is simply not true.”

On May 30, 2010, about a month after BP’s catastrophic oil spill erupted and flooded the northern Gulf with more than 200 million gallons of crude, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar imposed a six-month drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico. The temporary ban allowed regulators to develop and implement better safety measures to minimize the chance of another runaway spill from happening again. During that time, the feds shut down the scandal-ridden Minerals Management Service (MMS) and replaced it with the BOEMRE.

Now, Congressional legislators are cutting off BOEMRE funds, making it difficult for the agency to serve the oil industry and simultaneously protect the public from another disastrous oil spill.

“The simple fact is, we are reviewing and approving permits as expeditiously as we can, given our current resources,” Bromwich said. “Another fact that should not be overlooked is our employees have put in more than 1,350 hours of overtime reviewing plans and permits alone in the past six months. In light of that, it is unfair and inappropriate to accuse this bureau of ‘slow-walking’ anything.”

According to Bromwich, the BOEMRE has issued 74 new permits for shallow-water drilling and 129 permits for new deep-sea wells in the Gulf of Mexico since June, when it implemented stricter safety measures.

The agency that was designed to protect Americans from more deadly oil blowouts has been operating on $47 million – less than half of the $100 million President Obama requested in last year’s budget amendment and only a fraction of the $350 million BOEMRE operating budget he requested for 2012.

Considering the current political climate, in which thousands of vital FAA workers had to work without pay recently, it’s easy to deduce that public safety is not the congressional majority’s top concern. Big Oil, including BP, enjoys enormous subsidies and windfall profits while the BOEMRE continues to face funding cuts – setting the stage for future drilling disasters that will cost the nation dearly.

Sources:

The National Journal

would an offshore drilling moratoriummake a bad oil spill worse?

second oil rig explosion in the gulf underscores danger of drilling

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Oil lobby tries to paint a negative image of federal regulators

In Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, Alabama, authorities collected tar balls as small as a marble to as big as a baseball and sent them to Auburn University for analysis. One visitor who spent the holiday weekend in Gulf Shores told the Times Daily that she had to scrub the oil and tar off her feet whenever she went for a walk on the beach.

Grant Brown, a spokesman for Gulf Shores, told the Times Daily that the beaches aren’t as polluted with oil as they had been during the peak of the BP oil spill but that it was still significant.

“It confirms our fear that there are tar mats just offshore and that we may have more tar coming in whenever there’s a storm,” he told the Times Daily.

BP crews planned to return to the beaches in and around Pensacola, Florida to resume cleanup work after heavy winds uncovered oil that has been buried in the sand there. The Pensacola News Journal reported that tar balls also continue to wash up ashore there.

Seashore Superintendent Dan Brown told the News Journal that the angular shape of the tar balls washing ashore in Pensacola is solid evidence that tar mats still linger in the surf because they get their shape as they break off from larger mats. Chunks of tar that break off and roll around in the surf a long time are more round, hence the description “tar balls.” Mr. Brown theorized that storms like Lee could expedite cleanup by breaking up the tar mats and washing them ashore, where they can be more easily cleaned up.

It was the same story along Mississippi’s beaches, which once again found themselves covered with oil and tar. According to All Headline News, “The area, recovering from the BP oil spill of 2010, and Katrina in 2005, had been urging people to visit and see how far they had come.

“It may be that they have a way yet to go. In addition to heavy winds and rain, tropical storm Lee washed up, uncovered and exposed tar balls on several Gulf Coast beaches. Looks like BP still has some explaining to do.”

Sources:

Tropical storm Lee blows away Labor Day tourism and washes up tar balls on U.S. Gulf coast
Tar balls on Alabama beaches to be tested
Digging for oil

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Oil and tar reappears on Gulf beaches after Tropical Storm Lee

Dr. Samantha (Mandy) Joye, a biochemist from the University of Georgia, told CNN that the sea floor around the Macondo well is still covered with, in CNN’s words, “a strange, brown pudding-like layer of part oil, part who knows what.” Dr. Joye said that every sediment sample she and her crew collected from the Macondo well area and tested were found to be completely void of life. “There were no worms, no shrimp, no anthropods, no protozoa,” she told CNN, explaining that these smallest creatures form the basis of the food chain and serve as an anchor for the entire ecosystem. “It’s like the entire digestive tract of the system has been knocked out,” she told CNN.

Moreover, Dr. Joye said that the larger creatures that do find themselves in this contaminated region behave strangely. CNN aired subsea footage from Dr. Joye’s expeditions showing an isolated crab wandering around, almost unresponsive to the camera lights with a “bizarre, sort of dazed and confused look.” Dr. Joye said that crabs ordinarily are the first creatures to scurry off when approached, but the ones they encountered just stood there.

While the BP oil spill disaster remains mostly out of sight, lingering at the bottom of the Gulf, the federal government and international oil companies are moving full-speed ahead with offshore oil drilling, not just in the Gulf but in Alaska, the Arctic, Russia, India, Africa, Cuba, and other oil-rich hotspots around the globe. Dr. Joye thinks that neither the government nor oil corporations are sufficiently prepared for risky offshore drilling, arguing that more protections and protocols must be in place to avert a repeat of the Deepwater Horizon disaster or worse.

“The Gulf of Mexico provides so much to so many,” Dr. Joye told CNN. “We owe it to the system to truly understand all the various scales of impact. And to do that is going to take a lot of effort from a lot of people for a very long time.”

Sources:

Gulf seabed one year after BP disaster
Dr. Joye’s BP oil spill blog
Most BP oil lingering on Gulf floor, new research finds

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › UGA scientist finds no recovery in Gulf seabed around BP’s failed well

During the peak of the oil spill and after failed attempts to cap its runaway Macondo well, BP started spraying the growing spill with Corexit 9500 and 9527, oil dispersants produced by Nalco/Exxon. The goal was to break the oil down into small particles that microbes would consume and process.

BP workers also injected these chemicals into the oil column gushing from the well – a deep-sea application never studied or approved by the federal government. In the end, BP dumped nearly 2 million gallons of Corexit into the Gulf waters, even though nobody knew what effects such an unorthodox and unprecedented use of the chemicals would have upon marine ecology or even human health.

Within weeks, people who were exposed to Corexit reported debilitating health conditions. Dolphin deaths in the Gulf increased tenfold, and carcasses washing ashore displayed symptoms in line with Corexit toxicity.

According to the Earthjustice report, of the dispersant ingredients reported by the EPA:

• 5 chemicals are associated with cancer
• 33 chemicals are associated with skin irritation, from rashes to burns
• 33 chemicals are linked to eye irritation
• 11 chemicals are suspected or potential respiratory toxins or irritants
• 10 chemicals are suspected kidney toxins.
• 8 chemicals are suspected or known to be toxic to aquatic organisms
• 5 chemicals are suspected to have a moderate acute toxicity to fish

The report also says that Gulf residents and cleanup workers who reported being exposed to the chemical dispersants were afflicted with a range of ailments, including “breathing problems, coughing, headaches, memory loss, fatigue, rashes, gastrointestinal problems (that) match the symptoms of blood toxicity, neurotoxicity, adverse effects on the nervous and respiratory system, and skin irritation associated with exposure to the chemicals found in Corexit.

Dr. Michael Robichaux, a physician in Raceland, Louisiana, told Environment News Service (ENS) that he continues to see patients who suffer from injuries and illnesses believed to be caused by oil cleanup. “The illnesses we observed were quite unique and different from anything that I had ever witnessed before. Although there were scores of complaints early on, the main problems at this time are a loss of memory, seizure type problems, severe abdominal pain, fatigue, irritability and other neurological and endocrine manifestations,” he said.

Cyn Sarthou, executive director of the Gulf Restoration Network, told ENS that the government is not being forthright with the American people with its knowledge of chemical oil dispersants:

“Despite ongoing concerns from the public about the toxicity of listed dispersants and their impacts upon the environment, the EPA continues to protect the dispersant manufacturers, who want to keep the ingredients of their products secret.”

Sources:

The Earthjustice report

Dispersants Used in BP Gulf Oil Spill Linked to Cancer

the Toxipedia report

studies indicate bp’s dispersants made gulf oil spill and toxicity worse, not better

concern grows over effects of oil dispersants in the gulf

nonprofits sue bp, mms for dangers oil spill poses to endangered wildlife

level of oil dispersant chemicals used in gulf raises concerns

chemicals meant to break up bp oil spill present new environmental concerns

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › New report says oil dispersant ingredients are highly toxic to humans and marine life

Water saline levels, influenced by the amount of fresh water pouring in from the Mississippi River and other sources, are the key to sustaining a healthy oyster population in the Gulf of Mexico. When BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank about 40 miles south of Louisiana’s fragile wetlands, government engineers attempted to keep the oil spill at bay by diverting water from the Mississippi River. Millions of tons of fresh water flooded oyster hatcheries, killing the algae that make up the oysters’ food supply.

For the most part, that strategy successfully kept the massive oil spill from reaching Louisiana’s coasts. Of the state’s 7,500 of coastline, 400 miles were contaminated by the oil spill. But the huge influx of fresh water took its toll on the oyster population.

Then, little more than a year after BP’s oil spill erupted, spring rain and snowmelt caused the Mississippi River to its highest level in 70 years. To spare Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and several other low-lying communities, the Army Corps of Engineers opened two major Louisiana spillways, sending more floodwater into the oyster grounds.

The resulting impact was “pretty severe,” according to Scott Gordon, shellfish director at the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, who spoke with ABC News about the damage rendered by all the fresh water that has been diverted into the Gulf. A scientific study on oyster mortality conducted in August 2010 estimated that 77 percent of the oysters in Louisiana’s Breton Sound Basin died, not as result of being choked by the oil spill, but because of the influx of river water used to push the encroaching slick away from the coast. Mississippi oysters didn’t fare much better. Most of the losses occurred in the western Mississippi sound, where the majority of commercial reefs are set.

Salinity has returned to normal in Mississippi, setting the stage for a healthy oyster population once again. However, it takes 18 to 24 months for oysters to grow, which means oyster farming won’t return to normal levels until 2013 or longer. In Louisiana, saline levels continue to be off, so it may be even longer before the oyster harvests there return to normal.

Source:

ABC News

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Louisiana’s oyster production still struggles after oil spill

The Press-Register reporters said they watched oil blobs “rise to the surface and bloom into iridescent yellow patches,” which “quickly expanded into rainbow sheens 4 to 5 feet across.” The blobs of oil and resulting sheen covered the surface of the Gulf in a swatch about 50 feet wide and a quarter mile long.

Reporters watched the oil bubbling to the surface every few seconds on all sides of their 36-foot boat, noting a “pronounced and pungent petroleum smell.” They collected samples and sent them to Louisiana State University, where scientists confirmed that it was a sweet Louisiana crude, quite possibly from BP’s Macondo well.

The oil could be originating from the Deepwater Horizon wreckage and riser pipe that still lay crumpled on the Gulf seabed. It could also be an accumulation of oil at the bottom finally rising to the surface more than a year after the spill or a natural seep on the seafloor near the well. Consulting with petroleum engineers, the Press-Register reported that “the most troubling possibility … is that oil is leaking up through the sea floor surrounding the sealed well pipe.”

Various environmental groups and lawyers warned last week in Internet postings that new oil was appearing near the Macondo well and BP was dispatching cleanup and containment crews to the site. One post reported that that if the oil was coming from cracks and fissures in the seafloor caused by BP’s handiwork, the leakage could never be stopped. The Gulf Restoration Network and Bonny Schumaker, the founder of On Wings of Care took aerial pictures of the oil slick Friday and reported it to the National Response Center.

BP issued a response to the reports, saying that none of them were true.

The Press-Register also took photographs of the oil slick and sent them to Robert Bea, an internationally prominent petroleum engineer and professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, for analysis. Dr. Bea told the paper that given the location of the slick and factoring in the depth of the well and current drift, he believed the oil was most likely coming from the Macondo well. He said that the very first thing that needed to be done was to send a Remote Operated vehicle (ROV) to back-track the oil from the surface to its source.

Source:

Deepwater trouble on the horizon: oil discovered floating near source of Gulf of Mexico spill

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › More oil emerging near BP’s Macondo well

This constant influx of pollutants – especially the nitrogen and phosphorous-rich farm fertilizers, provide nutrients for phytoplankton, resulting in excessively gigantic algae blooms. In addition to the river runoff, however, the algae also consume massive quantities of oxygen, and their consumption of this vital element creates oxygen-starved (hypoxic) areas every summer. Scientists first caught on to this cycle in the 1970s and have seen the dead zones growing larger ever since.

Once the algae complete their life cycle, they sink to the bottom and decompose, choking the sea life caught underneath. Bottom-dwelling creatures such as shrimp, crabs, and worms are first casualties of the algae blooms. Marine biologists predict that 2011 will see the largest dead zone yet, growing up to 9,400 square miles – about the size of Maryland and Delaware combined.

According to Bloomberg, scientists from a multistate federal task force studying the Gulf dead zones and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, a group of state officials advocating for a cleaner Gulf warn that “evidence is mounting that the Gulf is getting closer to a breaking point” and following in the path of other bodies of water that have suffered an ecological collapse, such as the Black Sea and Caspian Sea.

Add to this already enormous stress the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history and the picture of the Gulf looks even grimmer. Several squares miles of the sea floor remain blanketed by sludgy crude and oil continues to wash ashore in thick mats and tar balls, leaving scientists uncertain what effects all the residual oil will have on Gulf ecology and industry in the future. Scientists studying the dead zone have found that with each passing year, the Gulf is less capable of recovering.

“The Gulf is really resilient, it can bounce back. But the dead zone stretches the rubber band every year and the question is when does the rubber band snap?” Larry McKinney, the director of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University, told Bloomberg.

Sources:

Scientists: dead zone stresses Gulf, action needed

Record size dead zone likely to appear in Gulf this summer

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Industry’s toll on Gulf at the breaking point, scientists warn

Kutter’s Grounds Maintenance Inc., a small company that maintains the grounds of several condominium developments and other businesses in the Gulf Shores area, saw business drop off sharply after the oil spill because his clients cut back on many expenses, including grounds keeping. Owner Ron Kutter filed a claim with the GCCF and was told he would receive a payment for the lost business.

Month after month passed but no check arrived. Mr. Kutter told the Press-Register that he was pretty certain he would never see the money and was trying to figure out how he’d ever recoup from the losses when one day recently a check arrived. The business is finally back on track and Mr. Kutter is a happy man, telling the Press-Register that it’s a “victory” for him that the GCCF acknowledged he is “a part of tourism.”

Not so for Greg Kennedy, part owner of Waves Shopping Center. Like Mr. Kutter, Mr. Kennedy was part of a contingent of Gulf Shores business leaders who met with some top ranking GCCF officials to explain how they and anyone else working on the coast are affected by fluctuations in tourism, not just those directly employed in tourism or in the fishing and seafood industries.

Unlike Mr. Kutter, Mr. Kennedy’s claims for lost revenues have been “summarily rejected” by the GCCF, he says. Mr. Kennedy told the Press-Register, “To me, our claim was so clear. We had a tenant leave our shopping center,” explaining that a drop-off in business during the oil spill led to the closure of Shakes Frozen Custard. The loss of that tenant cost Mr. Kennedy about $25,000 in rent in the months since the oil spill.

“What they’re trying to do is wear you down, so you’ll just give up,” Mr. Kennedy told the Press-Register. “We’re convinced that if we do nothing, and we wait on BP to do the right thing, then this shopping center will be owned by the bank.”

Source:
Pleasure Island business owners endure long wait for oil spill reimbursement

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Hurt by BP oil spill, some Gulf Coast businesses still await compensation

According to the report, fishermen who have plied the Gulf waters for years are pulling more and more sick fish out of the water – fish with diseases they haven’t seen before in all their years fishing the same areas. Sores, rotting fins, and infections plague many of the fish being caught in the Gulf these days.

Jim Cowan, professor of oceanography at Louisiana State University, has studied many of the sick Gulf fish and told CBS News that whatever is happening in the Gulf very unsettling.

“When one of these things comes on deck, it’s sort of horrifying,” Cowan told CBS. “I mean, there are these large dark lesions and eroded fins and areas on the body where scales have been removed. I’d imagine I’ve seen 30,000 or 40,000 red snapper in my career, and I’ve never seen anything like this. At all. Ever.”

Dr. Cowan said that while nobody knows for certain why the fish are so sick, it’s believed that “chronic exposure to some environmental stressor” is to blame, and the top suspect right now is the BP oil spill. The diseased fish are being caught between Galveston, Texas, and Panama City, Florida. Dr. Cowan told CBS that nearly half of all the red snapper on some of the affected reefs had infections. However, in some areas affected by the oil spill, the number of sick fish is between two and five percent. In areas not affected by the spill it’s about one percent.

Dr. Cowan told CBS that it’s safe to eat the healthy fish. “We’re in no way trying to infer that this is a human health issue. I can assure you that none of these fish are reaching the markets,” he said. But even though healthy fish still abound in the Gulf, public perception about Gulf seafood is driving business down.

One commercial fisherman, Lucky Russell, expressed his doubts about the recovery of the Gulf, telling CBS he thinks his time as a Gulf fisherman may soon be up. “I don’t think we’ll be fishing in five years,” he said. “My opinion.”

Source:

CBS News

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Scientists, fishermen alarmed at rate of sick fish in the Gulf

The first phase or “incident phase” of the trial will begin on the February 27 opening date and will examine the roles and responsibilities of all the defendant companies in the explosion that caused the Deepwater Horizon to topple into the Gulf and sink, killing 11 workers. The incident phase will also look at the defendants’ control and operation of the Macondo well and failed blowout preventer. Nobody knows for certain how long the first phase of the trial will last, but the prevailing opinion of parties involved in the litigation have said in various briefs it would likely last several months.

Phase two of the trial will start after a break and will look at actions taken to shut down the well and to calculate the amount of oil released.

The final phase will address other liability issues, including laying boom, skimming and burning oil, dumping chemical oil dispersants into the spill, and other cleanup and containment efforts.

Judge Barbier has not yet issued a formal trial plan, but he said in Friday’s conference that it “is essentially going to be the proposed plan that Anadarko submitted a while back.” Anadarko Petroleum Co. had 25 percent ownership in the Macondo well, which gushed out of control for 86 days.

To make the February trial date, scores of lawyers involved in the litigation have to take hundreds of depositions. One hundred and seventy-six depositions were taken in the last six months, generating reams of transcripts. Attorneys and court officials went to London in June to collect depositions from BP executives. Thirty-one additional depositions are scheduled as part of an effort to establish key facts in the case.

More depositions, scheduled to begin Sept. 30, will be collected from boat owners who participated in BP’s Vessels of Opportunity program, which at the peak of the spill converted some 3,000 fishing, charter, and shrimping boats into oil cleanup and containment vessels. Several of the boat owners allege BP underpaid or never finished paying them, and failed to pay for the damages their boats received while working in the oil.

Sources:

Courthouse News

Times-Picayune

Business Week

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › First phase of BP oil spill trial on target to start in February 2012

Horn Island, the largest of Mississippi’s barrier islands, has taken a beating from the BP oil spill ever since the Deepwater Horizon exploded in April 2010, creating a runaway oil well a mile below the surface that bellowed more than 200 million gallons of crude into the Gulf.

According to Biloxi’s Sun Herald, last October cleanup crews removed 318 tons of oil from the island, which stretches 14 miles from east to west. Horn Island and the other barrier islands have been drenched in 1,732 tons of oil in all different forms since the BP disaster began.

Cleanup apparently is far from over. Globs of oil form a jagged line along Horn Island’s northern shore; boaters encounter giant drops of oil suspended in the water; a reddish brown film covers boats’ hulls and people who swim in the water; thick mats of oil resembling asphalt cover the bottom of the Gulf just offshore. Areas with high concentrations of residual oil emit the noxious odor of a refinery. Meanwhile shorebirds and turtles, already stressed by the massive cleanup efforts of the past, attempt to nest among the tar and sludge.

According to the Sun Herald, no cleanup crews have been on Horn, Petit Bois, and Ship Islands in several months although oil mats continue to appear on those islands. The last significant cleanup effort occurred in March on Cat Island, the westernmost of Mississippi’s barrier islands. There, BP crews removed some 22 tons of oil.

Farther north, globs and mats of oil are being found in places like Deer Island, just off the coast of Biloxi, which state and federal agencies deemed as clean after previous cleanup efforts, and Gulfport’s beaches.

BP told the Sun Herald it will dispatch 20-30 boats and 200-400 crew members to Pascagoula and the barrier islands once it receives state and federal clearance.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP crews returning to Mississippi for barrier island oil cleanup

BP posted $5.3 billion in earnings for the second quarter Tuesday, a remarkable reversal of fortune compared to the same time last year when it reported a loss of $17.2 billion. From absorbing costs associated with cleaning up and containing the spilled oil in 2010, BP has made a $22-billion swing back into the green, propelled by huge fuel profits and rewarding international drilling ventures. Total gains for BP so far this year are $10.8 billion.

In fact, it didn’t take long at all for BP to bounce back from the disastrous oil spill. After the Deepwater Horizon platform exploded on April 20 last year, BP returned to being lucrative in the following quarter, the third quarter of 2010.

BP said it will continue this trend into the foreseeable future. Said CEO Bob Dudley, “we expect the momentum of our recovery to build into 2012 and 2013 as new projects come on stream.” BP has nine new projects planned in Angola, the North Sea, and even the Gulf of Mexico that it says will boost production and help offset any lingering declines in productivity resulting from the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

“BP is a company that is changing rapidly,” Dudley said. “Having stabilized the company while living up to our commitments in the U.S., we will now increase our focus on performance and long-term value creation.”

At the same time, according to CNN, “BP said it completed the majority of its shoreline clean-up efforts in the second quarter.” While that news sounds great to investors, anyone living on the Gulf Coast knows that mats of thick oil and tar balls continue to wash up on shore and that clean-up and recovery efforts have a long way to go before restoring the beaches and wetlands to pre-oil spill condition.

Despite the sharp turnaround, BP’s performance is still disappointing to many investors. Second-quarter profits were lower than projected and market shares were down two percent ahead of the opening bell Tuesday.

Sources:

http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/26/news/companies/bp_earnings/

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/business-news/low-profits-show-bp-is-still-reeling-from-oil-spill-disaster-16028568.html

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › High fuel prices aided BP’s quick return to profitability

Lawyers representing individuals and businesses harmed by the BP oil spill have asked U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, who is presiding over the oil spill litigation, to “suspend the effectiveness” of releases many oil spill victims have signed in order to receive some compensation from the $20-billion oil spill relief fund. The federal government pressured BP to create the fund, which is used to make payments to the oil spill victims in accordance with the U.S. Oil Spill Pollution Act.

However, the fund’s administrative body, the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, and its director Kenneth Feinberg, quickly fell under sharp criticism for withholding and delaying payments, then making claimants waive their legal rights before receiving final payment. Lawyers for the oil spill victims also want a federal judge to appoint someone to oversee the GCCF claims process and its administrator.

According to the filing, “BP has failed to comply with the letter and spirit of OPA, a law designed to provide an interim claims process.” Instead of providing fair and adequate compensation to victims of the oil spill, the GCCF has sought to persuade them that “the only compensation available is a minimal set amount that comes with a full release attached.”

When asked by Bloomberg for a response, Mr. Feinberg said he would respond to the filing “in due course,” but defended the GCCF’s record, noting that $4.8 billion in total claims have been paid so far. However, he also pointed out that 20,000 claimants have received interim payments and more than 40,000 final payments are outstanding, which could mean a third of these claimants may have received insufficient compensation to protect them from ongoing and future harm caused by the oil spill while the other two-thirds likely fear the consequences of accepting a final offer from the GCCF.

After U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder met with Mr. Feinberg and expressed his concerns over all the delayed oil spill claims, Mr. Feinberg agreed to an independent audit of the fund sometime in 2011. BP currently faces more than 350 lawsuits seeking compensation for economic damages.

Beasley Allen attorney Rhon Jones is serving on the Plaintiffs Steering Committee for the consolidated litigation against BP and represents other defendants harmed by the BP oil spill – the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history and one of the world’s worst environmental disasters.

Source:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-25/bp-violates-oil-pollution-law-in-claims-process-lawyers-say.html

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP forces desperate oil spill victims to accept too little too soon, attorneys say

The federal government will collect the funds under the Clean Water Act, which penalizes companies for polluting the nation’s water resources on per-gallon basis. BP faces fines anywhere from $5.4 billion to $21.1 billion, depending on how much “gross negligence” played a part in BP’s massive 206-million-gallon spill, which erupted in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010.

According to the agreement reached Thursday, 80 percent of the fine money collected will go directly to the Gulf states. Thirty-five percent of that will then be distributed equally amongst the five Gulf states; 30 percent will be funneled into a “comprehensive ecosystem restoration plan;” 30 percent will be distributed to the states based on a formula for how much each state was harmed by the oil; and 5 percent will fund a Gulf science and fisheries program.

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss, said in a statement that the agreement “represents a balanced approach by all Gulf state senators to support economic and environmental restoration with flexibility for the states to choose their own priorities.”

Likewise, Sen. Richard Shelby, R-AL, said the legislation “allows for great flexibility in the allocation of recovery funds to ensure that the penalties our state is owed are distributed in the best interest of Alabama’s coastal communities.”

The bill was also supported by California representative Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and a Texas senator and Kay Bailey-Hutchison.

Sources:

http://blog.al.com/live/2011/07/gulf_states_us_senators_introd.html

http://blog.al.com/live/2011/07/gulf_coast_senators_agree_on_o.html

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Legislators agree on recovery and restoration plan for BP oil spill fine money

Tim Zink, an NOAA spokesman, told Bloomberg that several miles of the Louisiana coast and marsh remain heavily oiled. Federal agencies estimate that 4.9 million barrels of oil (206 million gallons) were released into the Gulf of Mexico during the spill. About 23 percent of the oil remains unaccounted for after adjusting for amounts that were recovered, dispersed into the sea, burned and evaporated as of July 14, 2010, the NOAA told Bloomberg.

Bloomberg also reports that according to the NOAA, all the missing oil “may have settled to the bottom of the sea or remains suspended in the water as tar balls that eventually wash ashore.”

During the peak of the oil spill cleanup last summer, 48,200 people were employed in spill cleanup efforts. Today, just 1,260 people remain actively employed in the cleanup.

BP’s chief executive officer Bob Dudley said that his company is using the oil spill disaster as a chance to “apply what we have learned to improve the way we operate.”

According to Bloomberg, one of the improvements BP plans to implement in the Gulf of Mexico is boosting its company standards to exceed U.S. regulatory requirements. For instance, BP says from now on it will require third-party testing of blowout preventers (BOP) – the mechanisms that are supposed to keep catastrophic deep-sea oil spills from occurring.

BP officials often talk about the failed BOP in relation to the spill because, they say, it was Transocean’s property and Transocean’s responsibility to maintain.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Oil pollutes coast a year after BP spill, millions of gallons unaccounted for

According to a report in the Galveston Daily News, the research project will be called the “Gulf Coast Health Alliance: Health Risks Related to the Macondo Spill.” Research efforts will focus on measuring levels of contamination that may remain after the 2010 spill. It will focus in particular on levels of “possibly carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons” in Gulf seafood and exposed human populations,” according to the report.

The main goal of the study is to “determine conclusively whether eating seafood from the Gulf is dangerous for humans.”

There has been a push in the media to promote the recovery of the Gulf of Mexico, as both a tourist destination and as an economic engine. The Gulf feeds industry including commercial fishing, shrimping, and seafood processing, recreational sport fishing, and other industry related to the ocean and its bounty. However, there is lingering suspicion and fear on the part of consumers in particular about the safety of Gulf seafood.

In addition to the massive oil spill, which gushed for 8 months from the Macondo well beginning April 20, 2010, after the Deepwater Horizon oil platform exploded and sank into the Gulf, a variety of toxic chemicals were used to help disperse the oil. It is largely unknown what the long term effects of the oil spill might be, as this is the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the U.S.

Researchers are especially concerned with “weathered oil,” a term they say refers to unaccounted-for oil that may remain in the Gulf, dispersed through the ocean water and sediment.

Scientists will study all types of seafood, including fish, shrimp and oysters. Initial research is already underway.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Grant will fund study to determine safety of Gulf seafood

“Multiple lines of evidence demonstrate that, to the extent that portions of the Gulf economy were impacted by the spill, recovery had occurred by the end of 2010, and that positive economic performance continues into 2011, with 2011 economic metrics exceeding pre-spill performance,” the 29-page document says.

According to the Associated Press, BP’s document “notes that all commercial fisheries have re-opened, hotel industry statistics indicate strong occupancy rates and news reports on tourism venues reporting strong business.”

“BP notes evidence of recovered fisheries and government assurances that seafood is safe to eat as part of its argument,” the AP report says.

The document does not object to the GCCF paying claims for documented losses, and acknowledges the rights of claimants who, fearing future losses, reject offers of final compensation and seek damages through litigation.

However, according to individuals and businesses still struggling in the aftermath of the world’s largest known oil spill, BP is drawing hasty conclusions about the Gulf’s ecological and financial recovery.

For instance, Harlon Pearce, a seafood processor and president of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board in New Orleans, told the AP that BP “doesn’t address the lingering effect of the spill on the seafood business.”

“For someone to say we don’t have damage in the future is clearly wrong,” Pearce told the AP, noting that seafood distributions are still critically low and the majority of consumers remain distrustful about Gulf seafood.

Likewise, others who spoke to the AP took issue with BP’s assessment of the Gulf’s future. Tom Becker, head of the Charter Boat Captains Association and a fisherman in Biloxi, Mississippi, told the AP he has only booked 8 fishing trips this month, whereas before the oil spill he would have booked 24.

Orange Beach, Ala., Mayor Tony Kennon, who is still trying to collects millions in lost 2010 revenues from BP, told the AP that “They go back on their word. They try to weasel out of everything they told you they’d do.”

Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Mayor Connie Moran told the AP she was “astounded. I was really just flabbergasted.”

“While I understand BP is still committed to paying losses from last year and early 2011, there are many businesses that continue to be negatively impacted by the spill, among them the seafood industry and charter fishing,” Moran told the AP.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP to Gulf Coast Claims Facility: Stop paying claims for future losses

The 300-ton BOP sat atop the Macondo well more than a mile below the surface and was supposed to prevent a catastrophic blowout from happening. After the well was contained and the flow of oil stopped, the federal government took possession of the BOP as evidence. Government inspectors concluded that a design flaw and a section of bent pipe caused the device’s failure. Because the BOP was part of the Deepwater Horizon platform, it was Transocean’s responsibility to maintain.

Transocean wants the BOP back now that government investigators are finished with it. BP, worried about protecting the device’s integrity, is petitioning the feds to safeguard the device, at least until the end of a trial set to begin in February 2012. BP said it’s important the device remain in neutral hands because it is “one of the most central pieces of physical evidence in this litigation.”

Transocean stated in a letter to the court that it “has the necessary expertise to transport the BOP to a location of its choosing and is willing to assume the costs associated with the related transportation.”

Although the Justice Department plans to return the 300-ton device, investigators will keep the BOP’s control pods and other parts that may explain the device’s failure once the testing at a NASA facility in New Orleans is complete.

In April 2010, engineers and other workers spent three months trying to stop BP’s blown-out well from spewing oil after it became evident the BOP was not functional. The well released about 206 millions gallons of oil into the Gulf, creating the largest known oil spill in history.

Source:

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2011/06/bp_dont_give_gulf_fail-safe_de.html

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP asks court to keep blowout preventer in neutral hands

BP said that the $75 million will be applied to the $20-billion oil-spill relief fund that was established to pay claims brought by individuals and businesses hurt by the massive oil spill, which erupted April 20th 2010 on the eve of the Gulf Coast’s shrimping and tourism seasons. The indemnity agreement will not cover any civil and criminal penalties or punitive damages.

Weatherford manufactured the Macondo well’s float collar, a component that helps contain the cement slurry offshore oil companies use in drilling operations.

“This settlement allows BP and Weatherford to put our legal issues behind us and move forward together in strengthening processes and procedures, safety and best practices in offshore drilling,” BP America Chairman and President Lamar McKay said in a statement.

The agreement is the second BP has reached with a partner company in the wake of the oil disaster. Earlier this month, MOEX and its affiliate Mitsui Oil Exploration, which owned a 10 percent interest in the Macondo well, were the first of BP’s partners to accept some liability for the oil spill. MOEX agreed to pay BP little more than $1 billion. BP said the money will also be applied to the $20-billion oil spill relief fund, which is currently managed by attorney Kenneth Feinberg at the Gulf Coast Claims Facility.

BP’s legal team continues to negotiate with other partner firms involved in the Deepwater Horizon rig. Andarko Petroleum Corp., one of the world’s largest independent oil exploration and production companies, had a 25-percent ownership in the Macondo well. However, the company said last year that it would not contribute anything to help BP cover costs for the cleanup and containment of the oil spill because BP’s “gross negligence or willful misconduct” caused the disaster.

Energy giant Halliburton, which also was involved in the Macondo well’s cementing operations, and Transcocean, the Deepwater Horizon rig’s owner, are actively seeking to be dismissed from oil spill litigation. According to Gulf Coast Maritime, both companies seek a broad dismissal of claims asserted by the states of Louisiana and Alabama, and claims contained in a local government entity master complaint, including: federal Oil Pollution Act (OPA) claims; maritime law negligence claims; state common law tort claims; punitive damages claims; state-law environmental claims; claims under Florida, Texas, and Louisiana “mini-OPA” statutes; and all deepwater drilling moratorium damage claims, among others.”

Sources:
NASDAQ
Louisiana Record
Huffington Post
Oil and Gas Journal
Gulf Coast Maritime

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP settles oil spill dispute with another partner

Days after BP’s oil spill erupted from its blown-out Macondo well off the Louisiana coastline, the company started spraying the surface of the slick with Corexit, a highly toxic chemical that breaks globs of oil into tiny particles that, theoretically, can be more easily consumed, digested, and expelled by microorganisms in the water. BP also dumped enormous quantities of Corexit under water closer to the source even when subsea applications of the chemical had never been approved or even tested.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency initially approved BP’s use of dispersants, but demanded the oil giant stop its use of Corexit and find a less toxic alternative when it realized unprecedented quantities of the chemicals were being used, and in untested applications. BP, however, sent the EPA a letter saying that it couldn’t find replacement dispersants and continued to dump Corexit in the Gulf.

Testing by two separate university researchers now validates the warnings scientists sounded in May 2010 when BP dumped 2 million gallons of Corexit into its 200-million-gallon oil spill.

Wade Jeffrey, a biologist at the University of West Florida’s Center for Environmental Diagnostics and Bioremediation, ran studies in which he added Corexit to seawater mixed with BP oil. But instead of facilitating the degradation of the oil, the Corexit did not prompt the water’s natural microorganisms to consume the oil any faster. Worse, Jeffrey discovered that the seawater laced with Corexit and oil was much more toxic to phytoplankton than water contaminated with oil alone.

Susan Laramore of Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, studied how water contaminated with oil and Corexit affected larger marine species such as conch, oysters, and shrimp. Laramore also found that the water containing oil and Corexit was worse than water containing oil alone.

“These results are backwards of what the oil companies are reporting,” Laramore told Thinkprogress.

Corexit is manufactured by Nalco, “a company that was once part of Exxon Mobil Corp. and whose current leadership includes executives at both BP and Exxon,” E&E News reports.

According to The New York Times, EPA data reveals that “Corexit ranks far above dispersants made by competitors in toxicity and far below them in effectiveness in handling southern Louisiana crude.”

Sources:

http://www.oil-spill.com/news/2010/07/31/concern-grows-over-effects-of-oil-dispersants-in-the-gulf/

http://www.oil-spill.com/news/2010/05/24/bp-rejects-epas-demand-for-less-toxic-chemical-oil-dispersant/

http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/06/06/237057/clean-start-june-6-2011/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/business/energy-environment/13greenwire-less-toxic-dispersants-lose-out-in-bp-oil-spil-81183.html

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Studies indicate BP’s dispersants made Gulf oil spill and toxicity worse, not better

Thousands of fishermen and charter boat operators had little choice but to lend themselves and their vessels to oil cleanup efforts after BP’s oil spill spread across the Gulf of Mexico last year, forcing them out of work. Skimming oil from the surface, laying boom around the perimeter of the spill, and scraping crude from beaches helped some Gulf coast residents who relied on the sea for a living to stay afloat financially, but now it’s apparent there were other costs the workers will have to shoulder if BP gets its way.

Bloomberg reports, “In March, hundreds of boat owners and contractors who participated in cleaning up the BP spill filed a master complaint seeking compensation for unpaid wages, vessel damage and physical injuries from contact with the spilled oil or chemical dispersants used to break up the oil.”

Three hundred and fifty lawsuits filed on behalf of thousands of individuals and businesses harmed by the massive spill have been consolidated in a federal court. Responding to these claims on Monday, BP invoked the Oil Pollution Act in asking that the cases be dismissed.

The U.S. Oil Pollution Act requires companies to compensate people and businesses harmed by an offshore spill, but makes clear that liability is ‘limited to damages directly caused by a covered oil spill and that indirect or derivative losses are not compensable,’ BP said in papers filed yesterday in federal court in New Orleans.

A number of companies that were stalled by the offshore drilling moratorium in the Gulf also seek compensation from BP for lost revenue. The Obama Administration chose to temporarily suspend deep-water drilling in the Gulf until more rigid safety standards could be instituted and enforced.

In the wake of the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, many critics thought the moratorium was dangerously lenient while others protested the ban for economic reasons. Now that the moratorium has been lifted, other energy companies impacted by the spill and subsequent drilling moratorium have quantified their losses and are seeking compensation from BP.

Source:
Bloomberg News

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP tells court it’s not responsible for oil-damaged boats and drill losses

Thanks to painfully high crude oil prices, BP posted soaring net profits for the first quarter – up 17 percent from $6.08 billion in the first quarter of 2010 to $7.12 billion. The earnings were enough to offset an 11 percent decline in oil and natural gas production caused by last year’s $24 billion in asset sales, which BP carried out to pay for cleanup and damages, and a drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico. The company’s output was also diminished by a temporary freeze on its operations in the North Sea and Africa over safety concerns following last year’s oil disaster.

But even more surprising than BP’s huge post-spill profits is its confidence that it will be drilling in the Gulf of Mexico again before the year is out, despite the criminal and civil charges it faces over the Deepwater Horizon blowout and resulting oil spill.

BP Chief Financial Officer Byron Grote told analysts during a conference call that BP expected to be “back and actively drilling [in the Gulf] during the second half of the year.”

“BP is in the midst of major change as we work to reset focus for the company and begin the task of rebuilding long-term sustainable value for our shareholders,” Grote said.

“We know that these developments have created uncertainty but you can be confident in our determination that any outcome we agree will be in the best interests of BP shareholders,” Grote said, addressing investor concerns that its landmark Arctic exploration deal with Russian state-owned oil company OAO Rosneft fell through.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE), the new U.S. agency charged with regulating offshore drilling, hasn’t made it easy for BP and other oil companies to resume drilling in the Gulf since the oil spill. Before operations can resume, operators must prove that they are capable of immediately stopping a deep-sea blowout.

Since the drilling moratorium was lifted in October, BOEMRE has issued just 10 well-drilling permits. BP seeks permissions from regulators to drill 10 development wells that were underway when the Deepwater Horizon exploded and the subsequent moratorium was imposed. Although BP may be able to demonstrate its competency to U.S. regulators, allowing the company back into the Gulf for more drilling amidst the criminal charges and so much environmental damage will undoubtedly spark controversy and outrage.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP posts soaring profits, expects to resume Gulf drilling

The question remains unanswered. Many fishing grounds shut down during the spill have reopened and Gulf seafood has been deemed safe to eat by government scientists. But fishermen have been pulling a lot of diseased fish out of the Gulf waters since winter, according to the St. Petersburg Times.

“The fish had dark lesions on their skin, some the size of a 50-cent piece. On some of them, the lesions had eaten a hole straight through to the muscle tissue. Many had fins that were rotting away and discolored or even striped skin. Inside, they had enlarged livers, gallbladders, and bile ducts,” the St. Petersburg Times reported.

Jim Cowan, a Louisiana State University oceanographer who has been examining some of the anomalous fish, told the Times that the snapper he’s seen “have a bacterial infection that’s consistent with a compromised immune system,” and that “there’s no doubt it’s associated with a chronic exposure to a toxin.”

Dr. Cowan said he believes the toxin making the fish sick is the oil, especially considering that they were caught in the vicinity of the oil spill and their symptoms. He also said that fish were affected in similar ways by other oil spills.

Four years after the 1989 Exxon-Valdez oil spill in Alaska, the herring fish industry collapsed. The reason: toxins compromised the fishes’ immune systems. No longer able to resist viruses and fungi, the entire herring population of Prince William Sound died off, ending a way of life and destroying economic vitality in that region of Alaska.

In the Gulf, the diseased fish have been caught 10 to 80 miles off the coast between the mouth of the Mississippi River and Pensacola, Florida – the part of the Gulf hardest hit by the BP oil spill.

Fishing is a way of life in the northern Gulf, and so scientists studying the oil spill’s effects on the Gulf ecology have to walk a thin line between scientific transparency and public relations. If widely publicized, their findings could potentially harm the Gulf’s hard-hit seafood industry, which encompasses everything from fishermen and small charter boat operations to restaurants and commercial fisheries. They also worry the fisherman who have been donating the sick fish they’ve found to the scientists will stop if people quit buying the good fish.

“Now we’re hiding information because political and economic interests don’t want you to say anything because it would affect economic interests,” William “Bill” Hogarth, a former federal fisheries official who now oversees the Florida Institute of Oceanography, told the Times. “But fishermen, they’re seeing fish that are deformed.”

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Scientists say BP oil spill made Gulf fish sick

BP seeks $40 billion in damages from Transocean, claiming that “every single safety system and device and well control procedure” failed on the Deepwater Horizon rig. BP was in the process of sealing the Macondo well when explosive gases from the oil reservoir 15,000 feet below shot to the surface and erupted, killing 11 workers and creating the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

BP has estimated its liabilities for the disaster at just shy of $41 billion, but it still faces tens of billions of dollars more in civil fines and criminal penalties from the U.S. government if federal investigators find it operated negligently. Some witnesses have come forward claiming that BP took dangerous shortcuts in sealing the well and that it performed the operation hastily, all the while knowing its last line of defense – the blowout preventer – sat in a state of disrepair atop the wellhead.

BP is also suing Halliburton for its work on cementing the Macondo well, which a federal investigation suggested was flawed. Halliburton has maintained that it warned BP managers repeatedly about its cementing plans but that ultimately it had to follow BP’s orders.

The oil giant has also filed claims against Cameron International, which provided the blowout preventer. BP said the device failed to perform the vital jobs it was designed to do – preventing gas and oil from erupting to the surface and stopping such a spill if it were to occur.

Transocean said the BP suit was an effort by the company to save face and restore its image after contaminating the Gulf with more than 200 million gallons worth of crude oil. The company called BP’s lawsuit “desperate,” “specious,” and “unconscionable.”

“The Deepwater Horizon was a world-class drilling rig manned by a top-flight crew that was put in jeopardy by BP, the operator of the Macondo well, thorough a series of cost-saving decisions that increased risk — in some cases, severely,” Transocean said.

Both Halliburton and Cameron defend their workmanship and services and have filed countersuits against BP. A federal trial scheduled for next year will determine what companies are to blame for the spill and how much their liability should be.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP sues partner companies, claiming each played role in Gulf oil spill

Small hotels, rental property owners, seafood restaurants, marinas, charter boat companies, fishing operations and other businesses, which employ millions of people in the Gulf coast and attract billions of dollars in revenue, are reporting “bruising declines in business” compared to a year ago, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The financial implications of BP’s oil spill are staggering because there are very few big corporate employers in the area. Small, non-farm companies heavily dependent on tourism and fishing account for more than half of the region’s gross domestic product. In fact, all but three percent of the Gulf region’s businesses employed fewer than 20 people, and those are the businesses that are hurting the most.

Before BP’s oil spill, for instance, Gulf fishermen harvested more than one billion pounds of seafood worth $520 million. Fifty-five thousand hotels supported 1.2 million jobs and brought in more than $95 billion in travel spending and millions in tax revenue. But in the first half of this year, 75 percent of these small businesses continued to experience steep declines in revenue. Sadly, many of these same businesses were still trying to recover from Hurricane Katrina’s destruction when the BP oil spill hit. Now many don’t know if they will last through the peak summer season.

Some business owners told the Wall Street Journal that they have been operating in the red since the spill and that business continues to be down as much as 96 percent. In addition to damaging hundreds of miles of environmentally sensitive land, the BP oil spill also ruined many people’s perceptions of the Gulf. Those who aren’t scared away completely often express a fear of the local seafood by avoiding it at restaurants or throwing their catch back in the water on fishing excursions.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the only areas that experienced higher revenues and lower unemployment rates since the oil spill were those that played host to an influx of cleanup crews.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › One year after BP oil spill, many Gulf Coast businesses on brink of collapse

A year later, communities along the Gulf Coast states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida are still struggling to reclaim their pre-oil-spill ways of life, but in an almost schizophrenic fashion. While shrimpers, fisherman, and others who draw their living directly from the Gulf assert that not enough is being done to clean up the contaminated ecosystem, Gulf coast municipalities, tourism bureaus, and businesses catering to vacationers publicize pristine white beaches and clear Gulf waters as if an oil spill never happened.

Of course, every business and individual coping with BP’s massive oil spill has to protect his own interest, whether it’s filing a lawsuit for illness or lost wages, drawing attention to the oil that continues to choke the Gulf, or projecting an image that life’s a beach and everything is ok. But all of these mixed messages can obscure the facts and make the true state of the Gulf more of a mystery than anything.

It’s true that many places along the Gulf Coast appear to have recovered completely, especially along the beaches of Florida’s panhandle where the sugar-white sand has been raked and cleaned of oil deposits and tar balls. Yet in less visited areas, oil deposits still cover the sand. In parts of Louisiana, thick coats of crude oil continue to blanket beaches and wetlands where many animals vital to the Gulf ecosystem nest and breed. Cleaning crews can be found in some of these areas using giant rakes attached to cranes to gut the wetland soil, possibly exacerbating the environmental damage.

Many reports from the region earlier this year said that the oil appeared to have disappeared, leading some researchers to speculate that microbes in the Gulf’s warm waters devoured it. But ongoing studies (there are currently 60 in progress), have confirmed the presence of oil on the Gulf floor and suspended above it in plumes in wide, miles-long patches. The effect this oil will have in the future is still unknown, but the consensus among scientists is that it will not be beneficial in any way. Microbes that devour oil and other hydrocarbons in the water use enormous quantities of oxygen. Researchers are already finding enormous zones in the Gulf that are starved of the life-giving gas.

Dolphin and turtle carcasses continue to wash onto shore in numbers that indicate an abnormal mortality event. According to Canadian scientists, the ratio of dolphin, whale, narwhal, and turtle deaths evidenced by these carcasses to the bodies of animals typically found on shore indicated the mortality rate now could be 50 times higher than normal.

Similarly, fishermen who have fished the Gulf for years are finding fish with conditions and diseases they have never seen before, in different parts of the Gulf from the mouth of Mississippi River to Pensacola. Florida fishermen, for instance, have been catching red snapper with dark lesions on their skin much larger than a quarter, decayed fins, holes in their muscle tissue, discoloration, and inflamed organs. Scientists who examined the fish say that wound healing has become an issue. Fish anomalies were also found in Alaska in 1993, four years after the Exxon-Valdez spill compromised the immune systems of the fish population, completely eradicating the once plentiful herring population in Prince William Sound.

Although the Exxon-Valdez spill (previously the biggest U.S. oil spill) and the BP oil disaster share many environmental, sociological, and legal parallels, the fact remains that the country and the world have never witnessed an environmental calamity on the scale of the BP oil spill. Almost every scientist studying the BP oil spill’s impact on the Gulf agrees that the disaster is without precedent, making it a learn-as-you-g0 process and a mystery that may unfold for years to come.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP oil spill one year later: hardship lingers for humans and sea life

Scientists who authored the study estimate the total volume of escaped gas between 260,000 and 520,000 tons – the energy equivalent of 1.6 to 3.1 million barrels of oil and enough to account for 2.6 percent of the annual net methane emissions worldwide.

Although scientists understand that oil and gas occur together naturally in deep ocean deposits, they don’t fully understand what happened to all of that gas or what impact it is having on marine life and ecology. Scientists studying the release of methane gas in the Gulf of Mexico have measured concentrations of the dissolved hydrocarbons at up to 75,000 times higher than ordinary “background” levels.

Scientists know that microbes in the ocean can break down hydrocarbons, but the process consumes enormous quantities of oxygen. Microbe consumption of oil and gas in such massive quantities as the BP spill has never been studied before, but scientists are finding evidence that the fossil fuels in the Gulf are suffocating some sea life in dead zones while poisoning others through ingestion.

Hundreds of bottlenose dolphins and sea turtles have been washing up on Gulf coast beaches. While many of the recovered animals were covered in BP oil, the cause of death for most of them is still under investigation. Meanwhile, anglers who have been fishing the Gulf for decades are suddenly finding fish with giant lesions on their skin, rotting fins, discoloration, and inflamed livers, gallbladders, and bile ducts. Chemical oil dispersants, which BP cleanup crews used in enormous, unprecedented quantities while trying to contain the oil spill, are another possible cause of widespread disease and death in the Gulf.

University of California, Santa Barbara researcher and study co-author Ira Leifer said the massive levels of methane could change the microbial balance of the sea. “It can be a cause for alarm [because] the bottom of the food chain is in the deep sea.” A sudden spike in methane-eating bacteria could crowd out other microbes that feed other microorganisms higher in the food chain, the study explains. “So in terms of [ecosystem damage] it would’ve been better if the methane had mixed with the atmosphere.”

Methane is emitted into the atmosphere from a number of natural (wetlands, oceans, forests) and human sources (landfills, agriculture, biomass), and is 20 times more potent that CO2. Man-made methane emissions account for 60 percent of all global methane release.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP oil spill emitted up to 520,000 tons of noxious methane gas

Estimates of the number of dolphins killed by the spill have varied wildly since BP’s blown-out well started gushing oil between April 20-22 last year, but scientists have focused primarily on the carcasses of 153 bottlenose dolphins that have washed ashore since January 1, 2011. Sixty-five of those dolphins were newly born or stillborn calves.

Some of the dolphins recovered from the beach had oil on them, according to Blair Mase, a scientist working with stranded marine mammals for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Chemical tests have proven the oil on the deceased dolphins came from BP’s blown-out Macondo well. Other dolphins are covered in a substance that scientists have yet to identify.

Concerning the deaths of baby dolphins months after the spill occurred, the prevailing belief among marine biologists is that oil was ingested or inhaled by dolphins when the spill was still new, leading to miscarriages and premature deaths of the newly born.

“It is significant that even a year after the oil spill we are finding oil on the dolphins, the latest just two weeks ago,” Mr. Mase told Reuters.

Scientists are also studying an abnormally high rate of turtle deaths they believe is linked to BP’s oil disaster. Since the middle of March, about 90 dead sea turtles have been found along the Gulf Coast. According to one scientist, most of these turtles died from acute poisoning or “forced submergence” by fishing and shrimp trawling nets.

Canadian scientists say the number of dolphin carcasses recovered from Gulf Coast beaches indicates a mortality rate among cetaceans (whales, narwhals, and dolphins) that may be as much as 50 times higher than normal. Rob Williams, a University of British Columbia professor and lead author of a scientific study of the oil spill’s impact on Gulf marine life, said that a total of 101 carcasses had been found by November 2010. However, from 2003-2007, the annual death rate for dolphins was estimated to be 4,474 each year, yet only an average of 17 dolphin carcasses washed ashore – a recovery rate of less than half of one percent.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Dolphin deaths on Gulf Coast linked to BP oil spill

BP spilled 4.9 million barrels (206 million gallons) of oil in the Gulf of Mexico when its Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 workers and triggering the biggest environmental catastrophe in U.S. history. As enormous quantities of oil spewed into the Gulf waters, the Obama Administration quickly put a ban on new drilling in the Gulf until new, rigorous safety measures for offshore drilling could be developed and implemented. The administration then lifted the ban in October with the new regulations in place, and all major oil companies except BP have been allowed to resume drilling in the region.

BP has formally sought permission from the U.S. government to resume drilling in the Gulf, but its petition comes less than 12 months after the disastrous oil spill, which continues to hurt all parts of the Gulf Coast from its marine ecology to its residents and businesses. The company still faces a range of civil and criminal penalties pending the results of federal investigations, and BP managers may be charged with manslaughter in the deaths of the 11 workers killed in the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

These ongoing investigations and the serious charges BP and its officials could be convicted of put the U.S. government in an awkward position in considering BP’s request to resume Gulf operations. President Obama has vowed to drastically reduce our reliance on imported oil, but to do that, domestic oil production, including in the Gulf of Mexico, would have to be increased. Yet oil production in the Gulf can’t reach full capacity without BP, leaving the administration at the mercy of an organization it could potentially find guilty of criminal activity.

Mississippi native Robert Dudley, who replaced Tony Hayward as BP’s CEO last July, has pledged to make improving BP’s safety record his top priority. Since he assumed leadership responsibilities, Mr. Dudley established a new company division to monitor safety. Some operations in Alaska and the North Sea were suspended when the company found they failed to meet the tougher standards.

The new safety standards call for improvements in well design, casing, and cementing. Offshore drillers must also obtain verification from a third party that critical safety devices, such as blowout preventers, are sufficient and operable in an emergency.

Companies would also require verification from a third party that safety devices like blowout preventers, which failed during the BP spill, were properly designed and tested.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP seeks U.S. permission to drill in the Gulf again

BP acknowledged the missing computer and verified that a database on it contained the names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, social security numbers, and financial information of the claimants. The oil giant has issued a statement, apparently to forestall a public panic along the Gulf Coast.

“There is no evidence that the laptop or data was targeted or that anyone’s personal data has in fact been compromised or accessed in any way,” BP spokesman Tom Mueller said in a written statement. “We have sent written notice to individuals impacted by this event to inform them about the loss of their personal data and to offer them free credit monitoring services to help protect their personal information.”

The sensitive data is contained in a password-protected spreadsheet, BP officials said. The company also claimed the missing laptop is equipped with a security feature that allows it to be disabled remotely “under certain circumstances.” However, the company would not elaborate on what those circumstances would be or whether it had, in fact, managed to disabled the laptop.

BP says that the laptop was lost by an employee during a business trip on March 1. The incident has been reported to law enforcement and BP security, but the company won’t provide details about who lost it or where it was lost, claiming that information could compromise an ongoing investigation.

A BP spokesman also said that BP waited nearly a month to notify the people whose personal data was contained on the lost computer because it was doing “due diligence and investigating.”

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP lost laptop containing personal info of 13,000 oil-spill claimants

Investigators are currently focusing on the events leading up to the fatal explosion as BP and Transocean workers were trying to seal the well that ultimately exploded a mile below the surface. Workers for the company planned to replace the Deepwater Horizon platform with a production rig that would pump crude oil and natural gas from the ground.

The rock formation surrounding the oil reservoir repeatedly cracked and collapsed on the hole as the companies drilled, prompting BP officials to make repeated changes to the well plan. A commission appointed by President Obama found that during this process, the companies made 11 decisions that directly contributed to the catastrophic blowout. Each of the faulty decisions, the commission determined, saved time and increased risks, including moving ahead with risky drilling operations without the recommended equipment, failing to test the well for stability, and misinterpreting the results of other critical tests.

Managers in charge of the drilling operations, seven of whom worked on shore, ignored Halliburton’s warnings to use 21 centralizers to stabilize the cement plugging the well because of its volatility. To save time, the managers chose to use just six centralizers that were on hand.

They also chose to skip a test that would have determined whether the cement seal was strong enough to contain the oil and gas and prevent it from shooting up to the surface. Instead, the companies removed 2,600 pounds of mud from the drill hole, which weakened the seal and set off the explosion on the rig.

David Uhlmann, a former chief of the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section, told Bloomberg he expected federal prosecutors would charge managers with seaman’s manslaughter, which carries a more serious penalty than manslaughter, with up to 10 years in prison upon conviction.

University of Maryland law professor Jane Barrett told Bloomberg that charging individual managers in this case would be significant to environmental safety cases because it might help change behavior.

“They typically don’t prosecute employees of large corporations,” said Barrett, who spent 20 years prosecuting environmental crimes at the federal and state levels. “You’ve got to prosecute the individuals in order to maximize, and not lose, the deterrent effect.”

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP managers could face manslaughter charges for Deepwater Horizon deaths

According to witnesses, the oily plume stretches from about six miles off the Louisiana coast to roughly 100 miles offshore. It continued to contaminate beaches all day Monday, including the state wildlife refuge of Elmer’s Island, while on Tuesday river water appeared to be pushing the slick away from the coast.

“This is definitely crude from the Gulf of Mexico,” Capt. Jonathan Burton, who heads the U.S. Coast Guard’s response to the spill from Morgan City, Louisiana, told Dow Jones Newswire. The discovery rules out the possibility that the oil spilled from a refinery or tanker ship.

Scientists first speculated whether the oil was somehow related to BP’s Macondo well, which erupted with crude for three months last year. That that theory was quickly put to rest, however, when U.S. Coast Guard officials found the crude too fresh to be related to the oil spilled by BP last spring and summer.

Now reports say that Houston-based energy company Anglo-Suisse Offshore Partners LLC,  actually took responsibility for the spill just hours after it was discovered. However, the company has issued a statement expressing its surprise that their well-plugging operations would release so much oil. Over the weekend, Anglo-Suisse reported that it had released about five gallons of crude into the Gulf while using a remote submarine to plug a well damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

But five gallons of crude isn’t enough oil to cover 30 miles of coastline, so that “estimate” now appears to be an attempt to conceal the true scope of the spill and avoid paying government fines. If the real extent of the oil spill were to be discovered, which it was, the company could then express surprise. Anglo-Suisse may have lost that gamble, but it’s likely they won’t be penalized for rolling the dice.  Meanwhile, the U.S. Coast Guard and other federal authorities, aware of Anglo-Suisse’s reported five-gallon spill, spent its time and money looking for another nonexistent source.

BP played the same game when it grossly underestimated the size of its own oil spill in an effort to dodge and downplay its responsibility. BP claimed in the earliest days of the spill that between 1,000 and 5,000 barrels (42,000 – 210,000 gallons) were leaking per day. Internal documents obtained by Congressional subpoena later revealed the company actually figured 62,000 to 100,000 barrels (2,604,000 – 4,300,000 gallons) were being released. But it was worth a shot to BP to at least try lowballing the estimates as much as could believed at the time.

When the oil giant’s first attempts to seal the blown-out well failed, it cautiously increased its estimates when it knew all the oil would be difficult to conceal. It also injected unprecedented quantities of oil dispersants at the source so that the oil wouldn’t make it to the surface and be easily visible.

Offshore oil drillers know that the government doesn’t have enough regulators to police federal Gulf waters and enforce the law, so the pollution reporting system is run on the honor system more often than not . Current regulations say that polluters must turn themselves in when they are responsible for a spill. But knowing that federal inspectors will probably never show up to investigate, oil giants aren’t usually compelled to do the right thing.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › New oil spill blankets Louisiana coast, source is found

Mr. Strange told Mr. Feinberg that the GCCF “appears inappropriately proud” of having processed half of the claims it received from oil-spill victims while denying thousands of applicants for no apparent reason. Last week, the GCCF announced it had reached an “important milestone” for having paid out on roughly half the 256,000 final oil spill claims it received, including some 100,000 quick payoffs made to claimants who were required to waive their right to take further legal action against BP for any future unforeseen damages.

“Our anxiety has reached a boiling point,” Mr. Blount wrote. “In the summer of 2010, thousands of Alabamians desperately awaited compensation. As the summer of 2011 approaches, most are still waiting, more desperate than ever. And to be blunt, the Gulf Coast Claims Facility is largely — if not primarily — to blame.”

Mr. Strange accused the GCCF of failing to be transparent and overstating the problem of fraudulent claims made to the facility. He also asserted that many claimants hurt by the disastrous spill received unfair “meager payments.”

Characterizing the situation on Alabama’s Gulf Coast, Mr. Strange described “the demoralization, and often humiliation, of strong-willed, independent citizens who have been reduced to begging for handouts from an organization whose primary mission seems to be turning them down.”

“Quit dragging your feet and stalling the large majority of claims to a point where victims are so desperate that they settle for anything,” Strange wrote.

Mr. Strange appeared on the Bayou La Batre docks Monday morning for a press conference with Governor Robert Bentley, who told the crowd, “I believe that Alabama was affected worse than any other state.”

“It is unacceptable for the GCCF and Mr. Feinberg to continue to operate in this manner,” Mr. Strange said. “A multimillion dollar public relations campaign has been used to distort the truth, which is that people in Alabama are hurting and struggling to survive a situation over which they had no control and that was caused by BP and others.”

Mr. Strange added that he will “hold the GCCF accountable and I will do everything I can to help our coastal victims survive this catastrophe.”

Read the Letter from Atty General Luther Strange.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Ken Feinberg and BP get an earful from Alabama leaders

The movie will be a collaboration between Summit Entertainment, Participant Media, and Imagenation Abu Dhabi, who have acquired the rights to the New York Times article “Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hour,” published last Christmas, on which the movie will be based.

If you’re wondering how the BP oil spill, which erupted off the Louisiana coast less than a year ago and quickly blossomed into America’s greatest environmental disaster – could possibly be alluring to moviegoers, think human drama. According to one of the film’s executives, the movie will focus on what happened aboard the Deepwater Horizon and how it affected the lives of those who lived, worked, and in the case of 11 employees, died aboard the offshore rig.

“…this was a disaster with two distinct parts,” the New York Times article says, “…first a blowout, then the destruction of the Horizon. The second part, which killed 11 people and injured dozens, has escaped intense scrutiny, as if it were an inevitable casualty of the blowout. It was not.”

“This film will portray the great heroism that took place last year on the Deepwater Horizon rig and how colleagues so courageously came to each other’s aide,” said Summit president of production Erik Feig. “This piece in The New York Times evoked the raw emotion these brave men experienced and endured throughout the tragedy that took place in April of last year, and we hope to evoke the same emotions for our audience with this movie.”

The Deepwater Horizon film won’t be the first time Participant Media has brought weighty issues to the movies. The company has backed projects such as An Inconvenient Truth, The Cove, Waiting for Superman, Good Night and Good Luck, and Fair Game. Participant has been partnered financially with United Arab Emirates-based Imagenation Abu Dhabi since 2008.

“This powerful account truly represents the ideal aims of storytelling, where the search for the truth uncovers everyday heroism in the face of adversity, and so is destined to be an important film appealing to international audiences all over the world,” Imagenation CEO Michael Garin said.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Lights, camera, oil spill!

The lawsuits follow an order last month by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, who is overseeing hundreds of lawsuits consolidated against BP in the Eastern District of Louisiana, telling Feinberg to cease calling himself “neutral” or “completely independent” of BP. Judge Barbier was responding in part to filings made by the attorneys general from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida asking the judge to assume more control of the fund and to toss out more than 90,000 liability waivers claimants in those states were forced to sign before they could receive payments on their claims.

The Florida lawsuit, filed in Florida state court by a Tarpon Springs-based marine salvage company, accuses Feinberg and the fund of employing a “delay, deny, defend” tactic in responding to claimants, which forces them to accept settlements that are “grossly inadequate.” The lawsuit asserts this strategy is in violation of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.

Claimants cannot receive a final payout for oil spill damages unless they sign a waiver releasing BP from any future liability.

Similarly, the Louisiana lawsuit, filed by a Louisiana charter fishing company in a state court, seeks to undo the agreement it made releasing BP from future liability in exchange for a $25,000 claims payment. The company in this case says it was misled by the GCCF into signing its rights away, citing copy changes to the funds website after Judge Barbier ordered the fund to acknowledge it was acting in BP’s interest.

A court motion filed last month on behalf of Mississippi by that state’s attorney general Jim Hood, alleged that the GCCF is “intentionally underpaying” victims. Hood says that claimants were being pressured to sign “seemingly very low settlements” out of desperation because financial relief in the form of claims payments were being withheld or not paid quickly enough. Then, before claimants can receive their small payout, they must sign away their right to sue BP for future, unseen damages.

“This scheme is another device for BP [through the GCCF] to entice claimants to sign a release and to improperly leverage those releases by intentionally underpaying interim claims,” Hood claimed. “BP is withholding interim claim payments to increase financial hardship on claimants.”

According to the GCCF, it has paid out approximately $3.5 billion to 170,000 claimants. The GCCF has received more than 490,000 claims.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Oil spill victims sue Ken Feinberg and claims facility for negligence, fraud

Under pressure from the White House, BP agreed to establish a $20-billion fund last June to assist in the economic recovery of individuals and businesses harmed by the oil. Kenneth Feinberg, the “pay czar” who was in charge of doling out compensation funds to victims of 9/11, was appointed by the federal government to oversee claims paid by the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF). Although the fund was supposed to be administered by an impartial, independent third party, a number of legislators and other interested parties have said Mr. Feinberg is a BP agent, paying out claims while serving BP’s interests.

“There is no excuse that all these claims have been sitting there have not been paid,” Mr. Nelson said. “And who gets paid? A $10 million claim and it is a partner of BP?” he asked, alluding to a payment the GCCF made to a mysterious benefactor that far exceeds the small stop-gap payments thousands of individuals and companies have had to rely on while waiting for a final payout from the fund.

“I have asked the White House for an investigation as to whether or not (the GCCF) is independent and whether or not they are going to make it independent,” Nelson said.

BP officials have criticized Mr. Feinberg for paying too generously on claims. Yet by Mr. Feinberg’s admission, the oil giant forced him to pay its affiliate the $10 million final settlement without even so much as a review of the claim. That payout remains the first and only final payout of more than 91,000 final claims awaiting payment.

The GCCF’s claims process has infuriated thousands of Gulf Coast residents, many of whom risk financial ruin if they can’t receive just and timely compensation for the damages caused by the oil spill. BP has denied more than 88,000 claims in Florida.

“We haven’t paid out close to half of what was set aside,” Mr. Nelson said. “You shouldn’t have to go to your United States senator to get your claims paid.”

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Florida senator slams GCCF for slow payout of claims, corruption

Representing Florida’s first district, Mr. Broxon answers to constituents who live along the western half of the state’s panhandle – one of the regions hardest hit by the environmental and financial devastation wrought by BP’s massive oil spill, which erupted in the Gulf last April just a couple hundred miles southwest of Pensacola. Many residents of Mr. Broxon’s congressional district have complained that their claims have been denied wrongly or that compensation is coming too slowly.

Kenneth Feinberg, the man appointed by BP to manage the $20-billion fund established by the oil giant to assist individuals and businesses harmed by the oil spill, responded angrily to Mr. Broxon’s visit, accusing the representative of staging a stunt.

“Mr. Feinberg, this is not a stunt. This is an effort to be transparent,” Mr. Broxon said as he spoke to the GCCF administrator by cell phone.

“When you get no answers, when you get no straight answers, when you have hundreds of people denied for no reason, then you have to use desperate means and that’s what I’m doing” Broxson told Feinberg.

Tony Kennon, mayor of Orange Beach, Alabama, who was supposed to make the trip with Broxson but was unable to at the last minute, said he fully supports Broxson’s efforts.

“Mr. Feinberg thinks we are out to embarrass him and you know what? He’s right. If I can embarrass him and show that he’s not doing the job that he’s being paid to do then I’m going to do that in any way I can,” Mr. Kennon told WKRG News.

Broxon and Kennon are the latest public figures to question Mr. Feinberg and his handling of oil spill claims. Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier issued a 15-page order stating that Kenneth Feinberg “cannot be considered ‘neutral’ or totally independent of BP,” and was, in his estimation, “acting for and on behalf of BP.”

WKRG.com News

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Florida congressman angers BP claims czar with unannounced visit

Dr. Joye’s report is at odds with a report commissioned by Kenneth Feinberg, the oil compensation fund czar, which said, rather incredibly, that the Gulf of Mexico would be almost fully recovered from the oil spill disaster some time in 2012. Other BP- and government-funded scientists have said that microbes are eating away at the oil very rapidly and even assert that “most of the oil is gone.”

Not so, say Dr. Joye and her colleagues, who have conducted five different expeditions to areas of the Gulf affected by the BP oil spill, testing some 2,600 square miles – including some locations Joye studied before the oil spill occurred.

“There’s some sort of a bottleneck we have yet to identify for why this stuff doesn’t seem to be degrading,” Dr. Joye told an audience at the conference in Washington. “Magic microbes consumed maybe 10 percent of the total discharge, the rest of it we don’t know,” Dr. Joye said, later adding: “there’s a lot of it out there.”

Pictures taken during submarine excursions to some of the oil-choked areas showed crabs, starfish, coral, tube worms, and other creatures smothered to death under thick blankets of oil. Highly toxic gases released from the well and noxious soot from the burning of oil on the surface have deepened the devastation yet have been ignored by BP-funded and government researchers. The effects of chemical oil dispersants, used by BP in a cavalier manner and in unprecedented quantities, are still largely unknown and widely feared in the scientific community.

“I’ve been to the bottom. I’ve seen what it looks like with my own eyes. It’s not going to be fine by 2012,” Dr. Joye told The Associated Press. “You see what the bottom looks like, you have a different opinion.”

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Most BP oil lingering on Gulf floor, new research finds

Many claimants have had to wait weeks or months for reimbursement through the GCCF while others have yet to receive anything. Before businesses and individuals receive compensation from the BP fund, Mr. Feinberg requires they waive their right to seek additional compensation from BP in the future – a troubling stipulation considering the  oil spill’s effects on Gulf Coast ecology, marine life, human health, and future tourism are still unknown and could remain so for years. Meanwhile, as many of the Gulf Coast residents languish in economic hardship and polluted fishing grounds, Mr. Feinberg’s Washington D.C., law firm receives $850,000 per month for overseeing the GCCF.

It’s a situation that has many legislators lashing out at the GCCF. Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, for instance, said he has “serious concerns” about the facility’s handling of claims in his state because nearly 40,000 Alabamians have yet to receive “one penny in funding.”

In December, lawyers for plaintiffs harmed by the BP oil spill filed a motion alleging Mr. Feinberg “seems indistinguishable from a defense attorney attempting to settle cases on behalf of BP.”

Ruling in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, Judge Barbier said that BP should state that the GCCF and Feinberg “are acting for and on behalf of BP” in fulfilling its statutory obligations as the “responsible party” under the Oil Pollution Act (OPA) of 1990. Barbier said that the “hybrid role” of the GCCF has caused confusion and misunderstanding among claimants who may not understand the facility is primarily acting in BP’s best interests.

Judge Barbier has ordered BP and the GCCF to “submit additional briefing on the question of whether and how BP as the responsible party is fully complying with the mandates of OPA … in the processing of claims.” Barbier also said many other facts support his finding that Mr. Feinberg and the GCCF are not completely neutral or independent from BP.

“For example, Mr. Feinberg was appointed by BP, without input from opposing claimants or the Plaintiff’s Steering Committee (“PSC”), and without an order from the court,” Judge Barbier said.

“GCCF is settling claims against BP under OPA, but also attempting to settle claims that fall outside of OPA, such as personal injury and death claims,” Judge Barbier said, adding that the GCCF’s requirement that claimants release their right to future compensation shows “the GCCF is clearly acting to benefit BP.”

Alabama’s new attorney general Luther Strange agreed with Barbier’s ruling, saying the judge confirmed what many throughout the Gulf Coast had suspected.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Louisiana Judge says claims czar Feinberg is a BP agent

The Gulf Coast Claims Facility has received more than 481,000 claims to date, of which 7,575 (1.5 percent) have been classified as potentially fraudulent, Mr. Feinberg said. The Justice Department has already indicted 8 of those claimants on charges of fraud.

Feinberg, who managed the claims process for 9/11 victims, has been under fire for his management of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, which critics say is devastatingly slow in responding to claims. One of Feinberg’s top critics includes Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, who said several thousands of Alabamians harmed by the BP oil spill are still waiting for compensation.

“As the Gulf continues to recover, I continue to have serious concerns regarding claims determinations made by this organization,” said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who noted that 38,604 claims in his home state have yet to receive “one penny in funding.”

“The Gulf Coast Claims Facility is not acting with the appropriate urgency I thought it would,” Shelby said.

Thousands of Gulf Coast residents, businesses, and fishermen await compensation for damages they have suffered because of BP’s massive oil spill, which erupted last April when the Deepwater Horizon platform exploded off of Louisiana’s coast, killing 11 workers. The BP oil spill is considered to be the worst man-made environmental disaster the U.S. has ever faced.

According to Mr. Feinberg, the Gulf Coast Claims Facility has already doled out more than $3.3 billion to about 168,000 claimants. Approximately half of all claims have been denied because of ineligibility or lack of documentation, he said. Claimants who have been denied may appeal to the U.S. Coast Guard, which has received 507 appeals so far. The Coast Guard has reviewed 264 of those claims so far and has upheld the original denial.

Claimants who receive a check from the BP oil fund are required to give up their right to sue BP for any unforeseen future damages.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Federal government investigating false claims to BP oil spill fund

Strange will replace fellow Republican Troy King, who filed a lawsuit against BP on behalf of the state last August, drawing sharp criticism from Governor Bob Riley. Riley wanted to seek compensation from BP through a claims process, but King insisted the oil giant could not be trusted to fairly reimburse the people and businesses in Alabama harmed by the oil spill. Frequent feuds between King and Riley over the oil spill lawsuit and gambling issues ended up costing King the office to which Riley had appointed him.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Strange said that he will lead Alabama’s efforts to collect damages from BP, both in court and through the claims process.

“I’m going to be the number one lawyer,” Strange told the AP, acknowledging the BP oil spill as one of the largest environmental disasters Alabama has ever faced.

“We’re going to fight as vigorously as you possibly can to ensure that Alabama is compensated for the catastrophe by the responsible parties — that’s for environmental impact, that’s for any damage done to our state by BP’s oil spill,” Strange told the AP, adding that collecting those damages will be his top priority in office.

Strange’s comments offered some assurance to Gulf Coast residents and businesses who have been struggling to stay afloat in the aftermath of the oil spill. A slow claims process that pays too little and requires claimants to forfeit their right to collect future damages from BP has compromised individuals and companies alike in all of the affected states.

King refused to brief Strange on the state’s lawsuit because of his ties to big oil corporations. Strange worked in Washington DC for several years as an oil lobbyist and represented the interests of Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon offshore platform that exploded and sank last April, killing 11 workers and causing the largest oil spill in history.

Beasley Allen Law Firm, led by the firm’s founding shareholder, Jere L. Beasley, is representing the State of Alabama in the lawsuit against BP and other defendants seeking compensation for those injured by the oil spill disaster.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Alabama’s new AG plans aggressive pursuit of BP oil spill damages

Louisiana

Nearly nine months after BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore platform exploded and sank, oil continues to pass Louisiana’s barrier islands and accumulate in its wetlands and marshes. The affected areas help protect the state from hurricanes and serve as breeding grounds for a spectrum or marine and terrestrial life on which the ecology and economy of Louisiana depends.

But now they are being steadily smothered by thick globs of oil up to 100 feet wide in many places. Worse, all indications suggest the area has been abandoned. Reports from the tour said that no functional boom and no cleanup workers were present. Oil boom that was once put in place to protect the area has been overtaken and buried in oil.

“This is the biggest cover-up in the history of America,” a visibly upset Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser told reporters after removing his oil covered hand from the bay.

Federal officials from the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were also present on the tour, offering assurances and platitudes that only drew further wrath from the state authorities.

Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Dan Lauer said, “Clearly there is oil here in the marsh but we are working as a team to find a best way to clean it up. It’s a high priority.”

It’s like you’re in bed with BP,” Nungesser responding, yelling at the Coast Guard and NOAA officials. “Don’t tell me I got a voice in the way you put together that crappy document,” Nungesser said, referencing the a federal cleanup proposal. “It ain’t worth the paper it’s printed on. That is bulls…”

Lauer tried to assure Nungesser that he understands his frustration, and promised that cleanup efforts had not been abandoned. “No one has ever said, ‘It’s over, we’re going home,’” Lauer said.

In a statement issued by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Nungesser said “We continue to find oil in different parts of Plaquemines Parish — Redfish Bay, Bay Jimmy, Pass a Loutre — depending on the tides, wind, and thunder storms. We’re concerned about the long-term plan to keep assets in this region to help remove oil and protect the wildlife. This is by no means over and we’re concerned that this is being wrapped up before it is.”

Robert Barham, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, sounded a warning to BP and others that the fight for Louisiana’s fragile coastline is far from over.

“BP and federal officials are ready to close up shop and claim the job is done, leaving the state to clean up the mess,” he added. “We will continue to push for a real resolution, more than just a wait-and-see approach for the miles of Louisiana coastline still oiled. They may have forgotten the impact on our wildlife and our habitat, but we have not.”

BP’s abandonment of cleanup efforts in Louisiana may help Alabama’s case against the oil giant. Alabama attorney general Troy King filed a lawsuit against BP in August, saying that the oil giant couldn’t be trusted to make good on its claims to help the state clean up and recover from the massive oil spill.

King’s lawsuit drew sharp criticism from Governor Bob Riley, a fellow Republican, who called the lawsuit one man’s “brash” and “reckless decision.” Riley had hoped to settle damages mutually with BP.

“We’ve tried it the governor’s way and it did not work,” King said in a statement last August. “Now it is time for him to get out of the way and let us do our job. It is obvious that BP is not dealing in good faith and is using every excuse possible to keep from paying its obligations both to the individuals and businesses with claims as well as to the state.”

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Louisiana officials accuse BP of abandoning and covering up oil spill

Mr. Feinberg — the man appointed to oversee the BP oil spill claims process through the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) — is on BP’s payroll to the tune of $850,000 per month. This is the man who decides how much individuals and businesses harmed by BP’s massive Gulf oil spill will be reimbursed and when they will be paid, and all the conditions that apply.

But that’s not all. Mr. Feinberg recently appointed the Jackson-based Brunini, Grantham, Grower and Hewes law firm to advise oil spill claimants in Mississippi – the same firm that has been representing some of BP’s interests since June 2010.

According to legal contracts obtained by the Mobile Press-Register, BP hired Brunini attorneys to distribute contracts to university scientists along the Gulf Coast with the promise of lucrative consulting fees if they agreed to become part of BP’s legal defense against the U.S. government in a pending lawsuit over the oil spill. As the Press-Register notes, these contracts describe Brunini lawyers as “BP attorneys.”

So why would Feinberg hire BP attorneys to advise people who are seeking damages from BP?

The Press-Register put that question to Mr. Feinberg’s office. “Ken was aware that Brunini was doing some work for BP, but it is completely separate,” Amy Weiss, a spokeswoman for Feinberg, said. “There is a wall in between. Ken did vet it, and there is no conflict. Any lawyers at that firm that are working for BP are not working on anything related to the GCCF.”

In other words, Mr. Feinberg doesn’t recognize that hiring BP attorneys to handle claims made by people harmed by BP as the huge and blaring opposing interest that it is.

This unusual legal arrangement also draws the curtains on a stipulation Mr. Feinberg created for those making claims against the $20-billion BP oil spill fund. Before accepting a final payment from the stash lorded over by Mr. Feinberg, claimants must waive their right to seek additional compensation against BP or others involved in the oil spill in the future, even though it’s still anyone’s guess what lasting effects the oil spill will have on coastal and marine environments and all those who depend upon them for a living.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP-affiliated law firm hired to advise oil spill claimants in Mississippi

Florida

The results of the “Beach Walk” campaign, heralded by Florida as the largest beach walk of its kind in the world, are now visible on the state’s tourism website VisitFlorida.com. The interactive 4,500-image gallery consists of a state map with clickable miles along the coast. Clicking on a mile reveals a small set of images taken by volunteers who chose to walk and photograph that mile. Nearly 4,000 volunteers participated in the “Great Florida Beach Walk.”

Mile one is set on Perdido Key just across the Alabama border. The miles then wind down the Gulf coast to the peninsula’s southern tip, through the Keys, and up the Atlantic coastline, with mile 825 located near Fort Clinch State Park on the Georgia border. Of course, Florida has many more miles of coastline (enough to stretch from Miami all the way to California and half way back again) but not all of them are beach miles.

According to VisitFlorida.com, the Beach Walk images “show beautiful conditions on beaches all around Florida – and a statewide spirit of revelry among Floridians in the wake of a stressful summer.”

Although only small portions of Florida’s panhandle coastline were affected by BP’s massive oil spill, tourism-related industries throughout the entire state suffered as the gushing oil dominated the news for weeks  in peak beach season, leading many vacationers to cancel their plans to visit. The Beach Walk campaign was part of an ongoing attempt by the state to reassure potential vacationers that its beaches are clean and safe.

BP gave the state of Florida $25 million in May to battle the negative publicity caused by the giant oil spill, which had many scientists worried could spread to the Keys and up the Atlantic coast via the Gulf’s loop current. To date, BP has invested more than $1 billion in Florida for the payout of grants and claims, and to fund recovery costs.

Cleanup efforts are ongoing along the panhandle’s coasts, and many individuals and businesses continue to deal with the aftermath of the oil spill.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Florida Beach Walk images aim to swap beauty for BP in public’s mind

In addition to BP, other defendants named in the lawsuit are Transocean, the primary owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig; Anadarko, which owned a 25-percent interest in the well; MOEX, the U.S. unit of Japan’s Mitsui Oil Exploration Co, Ltd.; and Lloyd’s of London, BP’s insurer. One unit of Anadarko and three units/subsidiaries of Transocean are also named as defendants.

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in New Orleans, seeks damages under the Clean Water Act to help pay for cleanup and damages to natural resources compromised by the oil spill. The lawsuit alleges the defendants violated a series of federal safety and operational regulations governing offshore oil drilling and extraction, and that those violations led to the explosion on the rig and the disastrous oil spill – the largest in U.S. history.

According to the complaint, the companies “failed to take necessary precautions” to safely and properly control the well before the oil rig exploded and “failed to use the best available and safest drill technology” in the Deepwater Horizon operations.

“We intend to prove that these defendants are responsible for government removal costs, economic losses and environmental damages without limitation,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced.

The Deepwater Horizon, a mobile offshore platform, was situated about 45 miles off of the Louisiana coast when it exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers. Responders couldn’t control the fire before the rig sank two days later, breaking the riser pipe. The well’s blow-out preventer (BOP) was also known to be damaged before the explosion and therefore it failed to stop the oil from gushing deep into the Gulf at a rate of 60,000 barrels per day.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › U.S. files lawsuit against BP and partners for cleanup, recovery costs

Alabama Attorney General Troy King filed a lawsuit against BP and its partners for the economic and environmental damages created by the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The lawsuit quickly became a point of contention between King and Governor Bob Riley, who denounced the move as premature because the state hadn’t first filed a claim with BP. King, however, insisted BP couldn’t be trusted to voluntarily compensate the state for all the damage done to the its Gulf coast and its residents and businesses and that the company had already began dodging responsibility before the wellhead was even capped.

King then hired Beasley Allen to handle the litigation against BP and the other companies involved.

“I think that is incredibly significant because it gives Alabama a position in the litigation that other states don’t have, at least not yet,” Jones told the Press-Register. “This is one area where Alabama has a leg up.”

According to Jones, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, who was appointed by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to oversee the pretrial exchange of documents and question witnesses, said he hopes to start trying cases by mid 2011.

Those “bellwether” trials would include cases filed by a representative sampling of plaintiffs such as fishermen, charter boat companies, restaurateurs, and condominium owners. Big issues such as liability for defendants and damages for plaintiffs in future trials could be extrapolated from the early representative cases.

Jones told the Press-Register that it is important to keep pressure on BP and other responsible parties throughout the legal process.

“BP’s interest is to get the litigation behind them as quickly as possible and, second, to do it as cheaply as possible,” Jones told the Press-Register, adding that the lawsuits would pressure the oil giant to settle.

Jones is serving on the MDL’s plaintiffs steering committee.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Beasley Allen lawyer: BP oil-spill lawsuits are moving along

According to a story published by ComputerWorld UK, the HiTech application was used by BP engineers to determine the presence of dangerous hydrocarbons in the well during drilling. However, NOV says releasing the software to oil spill investigators would lead to the production of misleading data and information. While the company insists it supports the Oil Spill Commission investigation, it says it does not want its proprietary software used for “manufacturing guesses” about the April 2010 disaster, in which the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico.

The OSC maintains the software is essential in helping investigators put together a general picture of what happened on the oil rig prior to the explosion. Bartlit concedes that it would be “impossible” to recreate the exact data the drilling engineers saw prior to the disastrous event, but says it would help them develop a “basic understanding” of the information available to the engineers.

Source: ComputerWorld UK

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Oil drilling technology firm refuses to release software for investigation

Scientists who made the discovery said that vast communities of bottom-dwelling coral in the Gulf of Mexico were dead or dying under a strange dark substance. The damaged coral beds were found at depths of up to 4,600 feet.

Scientific team member Timothy Shank of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution told National Geographic that he’s never seen anything like it before. “When we tried to take samples of the coral, this black—I don’t know how to describe it—black, fluffylike substance fell off of them.”

Lead scientist Charles Fisher of Penn State University told National Geographic that “Corals do die, but you don’t see them die all at once. This … indicates a recent catastrophic event.”

Although careful not to jump to conclusions, the scientists interviewed in the National Geographic story said that BP’s oil spill is the likely cause of the massive coral kill-off.

For months, scientists have expressed alarm over BP’s unprecedented (some would say reckless) use of oil dispersants such as Corexit to break the massive oil spill down. BP workers were found to be injecting massive quantities of toxic dispersant directly into the blown-out well nearly a mile below the surface while simultaneously spraying the surface.

As a result, the oil spill looked less serious on the surface because most of the oil was suspended in massive cloudy plumes below the surface and on the bottom.

Scientists involved in the recent findings echoed the warnings of marine toxicologists who have insisted for months that the presence of hydrocarbon-laden oil compounds and chemical dispersants would have a serious, largely unknown effect on Gulf’s ecosystem.

“It could be the tip of the iceberg of all kinds of weird things we’re going to see in the Gulf of Mexico in the next three to five years” due to the Gulf spill, University of South Florida oceanographer John Paul said, adding that the coral die-off is a “smoking cannon” that implicates BP in a much broader, deeper environmental disaster than typically reported.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Scientists say BP oil spill likely culprit in massive coral die-off

Commission investigators found that Halliburton had conducted three separate laboratory tests on the cement and each one found that it failed to meet industry standards. On March 8, the results of one test and possibly one other were submitted to BP, yet BP chose not to act. About a week before the April 20 explosion, Halliburton’s tests again found the cement to be unsuitable for the job, but the results of that test were not submitted to BP.

According to the New York Times, Fred H. Bartlit Jr., the panel’s lead investigator, did not “specifically identify the cement as the sole or even the primary cause of the blowout,” but in a letter submitted to the commission today he “makes it clear that if the cement had done its job and kept the highly pressured oil and gas out of the well bore, there would not have been an accident.”

“We have known for some time that the cement used to secure the production casing and isolate the hydrocarbon zone at the bottom of the Macondo well must have failed in some manner,” Bartlit said in his letter to the seven-member commission. “The cement should have prevented hydrocarbons from entering the well.”

Not only did the cement fail to contain the explosive gasses, which shot three and a half miles from the oil reservoir to the surface, the blowout preventer sitting atop the well also failed, even though its sole purpose was to prevent such a disastrous blowout in the first place.

Federal investigators acquired the recipe for the same cement used on the Macondo well from Halliburton and sent samples of it to a Chevron lab for independent testing. Chevron reported that the samples did not pass any of its nine separate stability tests. One and a half gallons of the actual cement mixture that survived the Transocean disaster are being held as evidence in ongoing criminal and civil investigations, the New York Times reported.

“Mr. Bartlit, who conducted a much-praised investigation of the 1988 Piper Alpha blowout in Britain’s North Sea, which killed 167 workers, said that even if the cement failed on the BP well, it was not the whole story of the accident. Many human and mechanical failures combined to create the disaster, he said, and backup systems were skipped or ignored,” the New York Times report said.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Federal report says BP and Halliburton knowingly used bad cement before oil rig blowout

According to U.S. law, oil companies must pay penalties of up to $1,100 per barrel of oil accidentally spilled. However, if the oil spill was caused by a company’s gross negligence or willful misconduct, then the Clean Water Act mandates fines of up to $4,300 per barrel.

According to an AP report, the federal government officially estimated the amount of oil spilled by BP to be nearly 172 million gallons. Another credible scientific team comprised of two Columbia University analysts concluded in a peer-reviewed study that the Gulf spill likely released somewhere in the neighborhood of 185 million gallons of crude – a difference of 12.6 million gallons or an entire Exxon Valdez spill’s worth of crude. For now, however, the government is sticking with its own estimate.

“We are already in the stratosphere,” David Uhlmann a University of Michigan law school professor and former chief of the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section, told the AP.

All of the estimates have BP working hard to draw its own analyses, a hint that the oil giant will attempt to drive down the per-gallon penalties it will have to pay to the U.S. government in the future. BP is currently formulating its own estimate of the quantity of oil spilled, and it has already released its own report concluding that Transocean and Halliburton are equally to blame for the catastrophe.

If the federal government finds BP acted negligently or with willful misconduct (and all indications so far point to that conclusion), the company faces a penalty of as much as $21 billion. Those fines would come on top of the $9.5 billion is has spent already on cleanup efforts, whatever billions more it will spend on future cleanup, and $20 billion set aside to help individuals and businesses harmed by the spill.

Whatever the fine is, it will certainly be enormous and unprecedented. Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La., is pushing legislation that would allocate at least 80 percent of the civil and criminal penalties be returned to the Gulf Coast for long-term economic and environmental recovery.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP readying itself for unprecedented government fines for oil spill

For weeks, scientists and government agencies have struggled to predict what potential health consequences the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have and will continue to have for those living and working near the region.

HHS enlisted the help of the Institute of Medicine, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing unbiased professional advice to decision makers and the public, to assemble a committee of experts who will review the effects of the oil spill. BP is contributing $10 million to the study.

Because the spill was so large and directly affected the residents along 700 miles of Gulf coast, planners expect the study to attract some 27,000 participants, including workers who participated in oil cleanup and others who came into contact with the oil or the potentially toxic chemicals used to break it down and disperse it.

Unfortunately, although 38 large oil spills have occurred in the U.S. in the last 50 years, very little research has been done on the oil’s lasting effects on human health. In fact, only eight of those spills were studied for their human impact, and all of those spills paled in size, scope, and duration to BP’s Gulf oil spill.

Since the onset of the oil spill on April 20, Beasley Allen has often reported on the devastating physical and emotional effects the massive oil spill had on residents of communities along the Gulf Coast. Shrimpers plying the waters still open while the oil well was still uncapped reported strong fumes that left them feeling dizzy, faint, and nauseated for weeks. In May, many shrimpers in Southeastern Louisiana told public officials that they were contemplating suicide as the oil slick left them jobless and threatened to destroy their way of life forever. In June, a charter boat owner and captain committed suicide before heading out again into the Gulf to battle the encroaching sludge. In July, Surgeon General Regina Benjamin returned home to Bayou La Batre, Alabama to listen to the people of her community talk about how the oil spill was the most devastating thing that’s ever happened to them.

From its earliest stages, the BP oil disaster showed signs of adversely impacting the residents of the Gulf Coast in much the same ways that people and communities were devastated by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. That disaster, in which 11 million gallons of oil were spilled into the Prince William Sound, destroyed the health,  livelihoods, community bonds, and traditional ways of life for thousands of Alaskans.

By comparison, the BP disaster spilled more than 200 million gallons of crude and tons of natural gas into the Gulf.

Researchers will begin recruiting volunteers for the new HHS study in October.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Government to study physical and psychological harm of BP oil spill

BP engineers have been drilling relief wells since May in an effort to kill the flow of oil at its source. The job involved drilling several thousands of feet below ground and intersecting the oil near the base of the damaged well with tons of mud and cement, a process that some scientists likened to capping a Coke bottle from 2 miles away.

The oil giant finally managed to block the flow of crude on July 15, after several attempts to cap the ruptured wellhead had failed. However, BP and government officials warned the “top kill” procedure was only a temporary way to stop the oil flow while engineers worked on a permanent ”bottom kill.” The Obama administration ordered BP to drill 2 relief wells simultaneously from different angles so that one could serve as a backup in case the other failed.

Government officials and industry experts estimate that about 172 million gallons of crude and millions of cubic feet of natural gas erupted from the well. Last month, a government report declared that all but about 52.7 million gallons of the oil had been skimmed, burned at the surface, chemically dispersed, naturally dispersed, evaporated, or recovered but scientists warn these numbers are too optimistic.

Independent researchers have found that miles of the ecologically vital Gulf floor are covered in chemically dispersed oil, in some places up to 2 inches thick. The findings indicate that the oil spill will likely affect marine life and coastal residents for years to come in ways that aren’t entirely clear.

Oil continues to wash ashore in mats, especially in Louisiana, and scientists predict that tropical storms and hurricanes will continue to stir up the oil from the bottom and deposit it on land. While elated that BP has permanently killed the “nightmare well,” residents of the Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi coast now worry that their hardships may be forgotten. The oil may be stopped, but for many the pain and loss inflicted by the catastrophic well is as raw and as real as it ever has been.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP says it has finally killed its blown-out Gulf oil well

The announcement led Alabama governor Bob Riley to cut school funding by 2 percent for the month of September on top of cuts of 7.5 percent imposed earlier. Riley said the budget reductions will cause many schools to forfeit repairs and supplies this month, and will likely force many districts to borrow money for payroll.

Riley blamed the education cutbacks to King’s lawsuit, which he disagreed with and vocally protested.

“If that lawsuit hadn’t paralyzed our negotiations, we wouldn’t have to make these additional cuts to education funding,” Riley said in a statement. “One man made a brash, reckless decision to sue BP while the state was still working to recover lost tax revenue from the company,” he added.

King lashed back at the governor, saying that in claiming damages, “Governor Riley embarked on a process that was doomed to fail. I don’t know why anybody is surprised that BP strung him along and refused to pay his claim.”

King, who was appointed by Riley in 2004, accused the governor of obstructing the state’s efforts to receive adequate compensation from BP. Both men are Republicans.

“We’ve tried it the governor’s way and it did not work. Now it is time for him to get out of the way and let us do our job. It is obvious that BP is not dealing in good faith and is using every excuse possible to keep from paying its obligations both to the individuals and businesses with claims as well as to the state,” King said.

Earlier this month BP reported that contractors Halliburton and Transocean were also to blame for the blast that sunk the Deepwater Horizon platform, killing 11 workers and creating an oil spill a mile beneath the surface. Many legal analysts believe the statement represented BP posturing itself in an effort to shed some of its responsibility for the spill.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP refuses to pay Alabama’s claim, forcing budget cuts

The report was compiled by Mark Bly, BP’s head of safety, after an investigation of the April 20 explosion that caused the largest oil spill in history. Bly’s findings indicate Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon platform, and Halliburton, the company that cemented the well, are mostly to blame for the explosion. The errors of those companies, according to the BP report, led to the explosion.

Many analysts believe the report effectively eases the accusations of recklessness and flagrant safety violations aimed at BP since the onset of the oil spill, making a gross negligence case against the oil giant difficult to prove.

If independent findings bolster the BP report, then Andarko Petroleum, which owns 25 percent of the blown-out well, and Mitsui, a Japanese company that owns 10 percent, will also have to pay clean-up costs and damages, which could peak at $50 billion.

But some experts caution that the report is critically skewed and will likely do more harm to BP in the long run.

Ken Medlock, energy fellow at the Baker Institute at Rice University in Texas, told Reuters that “The report doesn’t discuss at all whether or not there were people cutting corners or if some compromises were made.”

“I think that’s really what the government’s focus will be,” Medlock told Reuters.

The report also blames Transocean and Halliburton for oversights of key safety issues that rival oil companies manage themselves, such as pressure monitoring and determining appropriate types of drilling mud, thereby undermining BP’s claims that it is a safety-oriented company.

Moreover, the report fails to hold BP accountable for its decision to circulate the mud in the well for a much shorter time than the industry standards call for. The process of circulating mud reveals whether gases from the oil reservoir are escaping into the well.

Beasley Allen attorney and American Association for Justice President Gibson Vance said that the BP report would not sit well with the government.

“The politicians are going to remain skeptical. With this report, BP has discredited itself,” he said.

Beasley Allen is representing the state of Alabama in a lawsuit against BP and has also filed lawsuits on behalf of Gulf Coast businesses and individuals harmed by the massive oil spill.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP report finds others to blame for Gulf oil spill

Masses of dead fish surfacing in the Gulf of Mexico are unfortunately  common events, especially near the mouth of the Mississippi River where oxygen-depleted dead zones created by miles of fertilizer runoff frequently choke the life out of fish and other sea creatures. Many environmentalists say that increasing dead zones make the Gulf of Mexico a dying sea. But what’s especially troubling about this fish kill is its enormous size and the unusual variety of sea life in it.

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser told CBS News, “This is an extremely large fish kill, and there are many species in there. It’s not just one group of fish — it’s redfish and trout and flounder. All species have been identified in this fish kill.”

The fish kill follows the discovery of a starfish kill in nearby Barataria Bay and the unusual discovery of a dead baby whale near Venice, Louisiana. Other residents have documented dead and dying dolphins, sea birds, and a broad range of other creatures in the area.

Although a conclusive link between BP’s oil spill and Friday’s fish kill has yet to be established, concern continues to mount over BP’s unprecedented and possibly unlawful use of Corexit chemical dispersants to minimize the spill’s appearance. Scientists were puzzled earlier last month when they found the size of the oil mass on the surface shrinking at a surprisingly fast rate. Now that disappearing oil has been discovered on the sea floor or hovering above it for miles, from Louisiana all the way to Panama City, Florida.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries dispatched biologists to the site of the fish kill to perform tests and try to determine its cause.

“Here we are, trying to get our fishing back, trying to get our seafood back and with these kind of fish kills, it will have a lasting effect, if we don’t do something about it,” Nungesser told CBS News.

Plaquemines Parish officials have requested the involvement of the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in investigating the fish kill.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Enormous mass of dead fish troubles scientists and Louisiana residents

The “Fisheries of the United States 2009” report shows New Bedford’s port brought in more than $249 million of fish that year, with an increase of 23.6 million pounds from 2008. It was the tenth consecutive year New Bedford occupied the top “best for value” spot on the NOAA’s list.

The agency ranked Dutch Harbor-Unalaska best in amount of fish landed, with more than 506 million pounds of seafood, and second in value, pulling in just shy of $160 million. Dutch Harbor-Unalaska has occupied the NOAA’s top spot for 21 consecutive years.

Louisiana and Mississippi ports among the top 10 were Empire-Venice, Louisiana; Intercoastal City, Louisiana; Pascagoula-Moss Point, Mississippi; Cameron, Louisiana; and Dulac-Chauvin, Louisiana.

According to the report, Empire-Venice, Louisiana ranked second after Dutch harbor-Unalaska for total pounds landed in 2009, bringing in 411.8 million pounds – a 15 percent increase from 2008’s catches. The total value of the catch was $67.1 million.

Intercoastal City, Louisiana occupied fifth place, landing 244.7 million pounds in 2009.

Pascagoula-Moss Point, Mississippi ranked sixth with 217.8 million pounds. The sixth largest tonnage came in through Cameron, Louisiana with 178.8 million pounds.

Dulac-Chauvin, Louisiana ranked tenth in the nation for value. Its 2009 catches totaled $60 million – an increase of $2 million from 2008.

After BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf about 45 miles from Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, the federal government was forced to close large areas of the Gulf to fishing, just as fishing season was set to start.

The area closed to fishing now covers 43,000 square miles, or about 18 percent of the federal waters in the Gulf. The boundaries of the fishery closure have changed 26 times since it was first instituted on May 2, at which time it covered about 3 percent (6,817 square miles) of Gulf waters around the blown-out wellhead. The area grew in size as oil continued to spill from the wellhead, peaking at 37 percent (88,522 square miles) of Gulf waters on June 2.

Although it will be another year before 2010’s fisheries statistics are ready, it is almost certain that none of the Gulf Coast ports that ranked in the top ten in 2009 and many years prior will make it onto this year’s list. The larger economic losses are difficult to quantify since nobody really knows how extensively the oil spill damaged the Gulf’s ecosystem.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › NOAA report offers glimpse of Gulf fishing losses after BP’s oil spill

London, England-based BP (British Petroleum) catapulted the safety of offshore oil rigs to the world’s attention after its Deepwater Horizon platform exploded and sank into the Gulf of Mexico last April, killing 11 workers and creating the largest known oil spill in history.

Figures released by the Health and Safety Executive show that there were 50 major injuries reported in 2010 − up 20 from 2009 and higher than the average of 42 over the previous five years.

The combined fatal and major injury rate almost doubled to 192 per 100,000 workers in 2010 compared with 106 in 2009 and 156 in 2008.

A marked rise was also recorded in 2010 of the combined number of major and significant hydrocarbon releases, regarded by the HSE as potential precursors to a major incident, with a provisional total of 85. There were 61 such releases last year.

“I am pleased to see no fatalities for a third consecutive year in the areas we regulate, but the fact that 17 workers tragically died in other offshore related travel incidents in the year is a stark reminder that hazards are ever present offshore,” said Steve Walker, head of HSE’s offshore division.

Walker said that considering a workforce of nearly 27,000 the number of offshore injuries may seem low. But, he added, the fact that the major injury rate has almost doubled is extremely worrisome.

“This year’s overall health and safety picture is simply not good enough. The industry has shown it can do better and it must do in future.”

Walker said that he was particularly disappointed and concerned by the number of major hydrocarbon releases rising by more than a third since last year. “This is a key indicator of how well the offshore industry is managing its major accident potential, and it really must up its game to identify and rectify the root causes of such events,” Walker said.

“We will continue to take a tough line on companies who put their workers at risk,” Walker concluded.

BP has broken vital health and safety rules 54 times over the last five years in the UK, according to the HSE.

The entire offshore statistics bulletin is available at http://www.hse.gov.uk/offshore/statistics.htm

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › UK government report reveals deteriorating offshore oil safety

The new explosion occurred just after 9 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 2, sending 13 platform workers into the sea. Thankfully, the crew were protected by survival gear, and were rescued fairly quickly. Only one worker is reporting minor injury; the others appear to be unharmed.

This rig, owned by Mariner Energy, was reportedly undergoing maintenance at the time of the explosion, but company officials and the Coast Guard later confirmed that the rig was producing oil and gas when it caught fire, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Unlike the Deepwater Horizon, this platform also is not located in deep water. It is moored in an area around 340 feet deep. The Deepwater Horizon was drilling at a depth of almost a mile below the ocean surface. This platform also is not a drilling platform, but an oil production platform. It produces about 1,400 barrels of oil and 9.2 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. It is located in Vermilion Bay, off the coast of Louisiana, and about 200 miles west of the BP explosion site.

It is not yet known if there are any leaks, although a sizable oil slick surrounds the site, stretching out for about a mile. The company reports that there were seven wells active at the time of the explosi0n, but says that they have been shut in.

However, the new explosion raises fresh fears about the safety of offshore drilling. Some are calling for an extension of the moratorium on deep water drilling, which currently is scheduled to end in December. In a press conference this morning, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the administration is watching the situation, but said at this time he is not aware of whether or not the new explosion will have any effect on the current moratorium.

Additional Source: USA Today

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Second oil rig explosion in the Gulf underscores danger of drilling

Update #2 (9/02/2010 @ 4:45pm) – Coast Guard Petty Officer Elizabeth Bordelon said there is a sheen on the water at the site of the platform, measuring about 100 feet wide and stretching for one mile. Jindal said the sheen can’t be confirmed.

The fire at the platform is not out yet, but it has been contained, Bordelon said.

Update #1 (9/02/2010 @ 12:31pm) – All thirteen people aboard a production platform that exploded in the Gulf are accounted for and safely on a commercial vessel according to initial information, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement.

“We continue to gather information as we respond with full force, and have oil spill response assets ready for immediate deployment should we receive any reports of pollution,” the statement said.

Original Story (9/02/2010 @ 10:30am) – An offshore petroleum platform exploded and was burning Thursday in the Gulf of Mexico about 80 miles off the Louisiana coast, west of the site where BP’s undersea well spilled after a rig explosion.

The Coast Guard says no one was killed in the blast, which was reported by a commercial helicopter flying over the area Thursday morning. All 13 people aboard the rig have been accounted for, with one injury. The extent of the injury was not known.

Coast Guard Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesau said some of those from the rig were spotted in emergency flotation devices.

Seven Coast Guard helicopters, two airplanes and three cutters were dispatched to the scene from New Orleans, Houston and Mobile, Ala., Ben-Iesau said. She said authorities do not know whether oil was leaking from the site.

The Department of Homeland Security said the platform was in about 2,500 feet of water and owned by Mariner Energy of Houston. DHS said it was not producing oil and gas.

The Deepwater Horizon rig leased by BP was in about 5,000 feet of water when it exploded and sank in April, killing 11 workers and triggering a leak of about 206 million gallons of oil.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Oil rig explosion in Gulf of Mexico

The journalism organization invited Mr. Landrieu to speak about the progress New Orleans is making with its rebuilding efforts on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and about the effects the oil spill continues to have on his city.

Landrieu criticized BP’s cleanup efforts in the Gulf, telling the Press Club, “In my opinion, they’re poised to cut and run.”

“BP and others are acting like this is the beginning of the end. It is not,” Landrieu said. “We have no confidence in the claims that much of the oil is gone,” he added, explaining that a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report released on Tuesday “found 70 percent of the oil is still in the ecosystem. This is the beginning of the beginning,” Landrieu said.

New Orleans does not sit directly on the Gulf of Mexico, but the city is vitally linked to the Gulf environmentally and economically. Many seafood businesses in the city have had to shut down in the wake of the oil spill, New Orleans restaurants specializing in and serving seafood have been hurt, and the wetlands that help protect the city from hurricanes are threatened.

Landrieu said that preliminary data reveals that tourism is down 12 percent to 16 percent so far this year because of the spill – a blow that could cost the city still struggling to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina millions in revenue.

According to Landrieu, BP’s massive oil spill – the largest known oil spill in history – and Hurricane Katrina were both man-made disasters. New Orleans is protected from hurricanes by miles of rapidly disappearing coastal wetlands that serve as a buffer zone against tropical storms. As more and more square miles of the wetlands disappear every year due to commercial activity, New Orleans stands to take a more direct hit from Gulf storms. Also, the vast majority of the destruction in New Orleans after Katrina happened when man-made levees failed and 80 percent of the city was flooded.

Landrieu, like his younger sister Mary Landrieu, a Democratic Senator from Louisiana, is an ally of offshore drilling and an opponent of the Obama Administration’s temporary offshore drilling ban.

“It is not a zero-sum game,” Landrieu said, describing offshore drilling. “We are not limited to ‘drill baby drill’ or ‘stop drilling forever.’ We can do better. We must drill and restore.”

“We have had hell and high water, pain and salvation. We survived Katrina, Rita, Ike, Gustav, the great recession, and the BP oil catastrophe. And so the message is clear. Through it all, we are still standing. Unbowed, unbroken and ready to face whatever challenges come our way. Not because we want to, but because we have to.”

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › New Orleans mayor says BP is ready to “cut and run”

A University of South Florida research vessel carrying 13 scientists has been plying the Gulf waters for 10 days investigating the oil spill. The researchers told CNN that they have found toxic levels of oil and dispersants affecting marine organisms off the coast of Panama City.

According to CNN, the researchers found micro-droplets of oil scattered across the ocean floor, and they also found those droplets moving through a part of the Gulf called the DeSoto Canyon, a channel that funnels water and nutrients into the popular commercial and recreational waters along the Florida Gulf Coast.

“This whole concept of submerged oil and the application of dispersants in the subsurface and what are the impacts that it could have, have changed the paradigm of what an oil spill is from a 2-dimensional surface disaster to a 3-dimensional catastrophe,” David Hollander, a chemical oceanographer and one of the lead scientists on the recent USF mission, told CNN.

The organisms affected at this stage, he explained, consist of phytoplankton and other microscopic bacteria in the water, which form the foundation of the Gulf’s food chain. “It feeds and fuels the ecology of the ocean, and if those guys are in trouble, the ocean is in trouble.”

The USF findings contrast sharply with those of government scientists. Dr. Jane Lubchecho, the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said earlier this month that the dispersed oil wasn’t making its way up the food chain.

“Fish will degrade that oil and process it naturally. And so it doesn’t bio-accumulate, so it’s not a situation where we need to be concerned about that. Over time, it will be broken down,” Dr. Lubchencho said.

The USF scientists warned that this is a “shortsighted” view of dispersed oil’s hazards. NOAA officials and other scientists haven’t responded yet to the criticism.

Mr. Hollander said that the presence of oil throughout the DeSoto Canyon means that it is traveling to protected marine areas and critical commercial and recreational fishing habitats.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Scientists find up to 80 percent of BP’s spilled oil is on the Gulf floor

Attorney General Troy King filed the lawsuits in federal court in Montgomery late Thursday afternoon.

In a statement released Friday, King said “their history of saying one thing and doing another, and now, new information that they have been secretly working to gain a legal advantage, can only further damage our people.”

The lawsuits reference the dramatic difference between BP’s initial oil flow estimates and the latest estimates. In the early stages of the oil spill, BP claimed that the well was leaking 1,000 barrels per day. The company later upped the estimate to 5,000 barrels per day, still critically short of the 60,000 barrels per day that the federal government found to be gushing from the blown-out well.

Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon rig and leased it to BP for exploratory drilling.

According to the lawsuits, the spill estimates reveal that the “defendants were slow and incompetent, if not dishonest, in their announcements and warnings to the state of Alabama and its citizens and businesses.”

The lawsuits also cite BP’s use of a “highly toxic chemical used to disperse oil in the ocean” as evidence of its incompetence and dishonesty. In the peak of the spill, BP was found to be injecting massive quantities of Corexit oil dispersant into the oil flow about a mile below the surface. Application of Corexit in the deep sea and in such large quantities had never been studied, and signs that the chemical could be doing more harm than good later emerged in the form of massive miles-wide oil plumes that suffocated sea life.

The lawsuits seek unspecified money damages plus punitive damages.

According to the Associated Press, King filed the lawsuit against the wishes of Governor Bob Riley, who wants the state to pursue an out-of-court settlement with BP first.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Alabama attorney general files lawsuits against BP, Transocean

The agreement resolves failure-to-abate citations OSHA levied for problems found in a follow-up investigation last year. In addition to paying the record fine, BP has agreed to take immediate steps to protect workers currently employed at the Texas City refinery, allocating a minimum of $500 million to that effort.

“This agreement achieves our goal of protecting workers at the refinery and ensuring that critical safety upgrades are made as quickly as possible,” Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis said in a public statement. “The size of the penalty rightly reflects BP’s disregard for workplace safety and shows that we will enforce the law so workers can return home safe at the end of their day.”

Under the agreement, BP is to immediately begin performing safety reviews of its refinery equipment according to set schedules and to make permanent corrections where they are needed. BP has also agreed to address concerns that OSHA says need immediate attention and will hire independent experts to monitor the company’s progress in fixing the known problems.

The agreement also provides an unprecedented level of oversight of BP’s safety program, including regular meetings with OSHA, frequent site inspections, and the submission of quarterly reports for the agency’s review. In a step toward workplace safety throughout all of its U.S. facilities, BP agreed to establish a liaison between its North American and London boards of directors and OSHA, which will allow the agency to raise compliance problems at the highest level of the company’s ranks.

“Safer conditions at this refinery should result from this arrangement, which goes far beyond what can normally be achieved through abatement of problems identified in citations,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Dr. David Michaels. “Make no mistake, OSHA will be watching to ensure that BP complies with the agreement and safeguards its workers.”

In September 2005, OSHA cited BP for a then-record $21 million as a result of the fatal explosion at its Texas City refinery in March of that year. Upon issuance of the citations, the parties entered into an agreement that required the company to identify and to correct deficiencies. In a follow-up investigation in 2009, OSHA found that BP had made some changes but that it failed to honor several critical terms of that agreement. Those violations earned BP an $87.4 million fine, which was later lowered after duplicate violations were discovered. The $50.6 million fine is still the largest penalty OSHA has ever issued and agreed to by an employer. The fine also makes BP the recipient of the largest back-to-back fines in OSHA history and does not include fines that will likely result from the Deepwater Horizon explosion, which killed 11 workers and injured several others.

During the 2009 follow-up investigation at Texas City, OSHA also identified 439 new willful violations and assessed more than $30 million in penalties. Litigation before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission regarding those violations and penalties is ongoing and is not resolved by today’s settlement.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP agrees to pay record OSHA fines for Texas City refinery explosions

AAPCC says that 268 of the calls have come from Alabama, followed by Louisiana with 262 calls, Mississippi with 244, and Florida with 236. Calls from individuals worried about their exposure to BP’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have also been received in Arkansas, California, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

Most of the reported exposures have occurred via inhalation, consistent with complaints registered by Gulf fishermen involved in oil cleanup and containment efforts. Many workers have experienced a host of symptoms, including dizziness, fatigue, vomiting, coughing, choking, wheezing, shortness of breath, headache, eye and throat irritation, and loss appetite.

While medical experts are familiar with the impact oil fumes and burning fuel have on humans, much remains unknown due the oil spill’s unprecedented size.

“The potential physical, psychological, and socioeconomic impacts of the Gulf oil spill and clean-up response on the short- and long-term health of individuals in the affected region — including land- and sea-based clean-up workers, fishermen, and other commercial workers, residents, visitors, and communities as a whole — are unknown,” said a report released today by the Institute of Medicine under the direction of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

According to the Institute, the spill’s impact on human health is largely unknown because nothing of its size and scope has happened before in the U.S. “From the origin of the leak, to the amount of oil released into the environment, to the spill’s duration and ongoing nature, the Gulf oil spill poses unique challenges to human health,” the Institute said in a statement.

Anyone who is concerned about their exposure to the oil spill, fumes, dispersants, and other toxic substances are encouraged to call their local poison center at 1-800-222-1222. Help may be reached 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Poison Control Center says most oil exposure calls come from Alabama

In May, BP asked the judicial panel to consolidate the lawsuits, then numbering nearly 100, under U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes of the Southern District of Texas in Houston. The Texas City serves as London-based BP’s North American headquarters, and is also the home city of Halliburton and scores of other oil and energy corporations.

The lawsuits now number more than 300 and have been filed in every Gulf Coast state by fishermen, charter boat companies, seafood companies, hotels, restaurants, and other tourism-related businesses.

Included among the lawsuits are wrongful death claims filed by family members of the 11 workers who were killed when the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20.

Some plaintiffs’ attorneys suggested the lawsuits be consolidated in Mobile, Alabama; Gulfport, Mississippi; or Miami, Florida. The panel chose New Orleans because it is the largest city near the spill site. Many of the most devastated shores and wetlands are located just a few miles south and east of the city.

The MDL panel was established in 1968 to decide if lawsuits filed in different federal districts have enough in common to be decided once and applied to all cases. The process allows a streamlining of the judicial process by exchanging evidence and avoiding redundancy. After pretrial proceedings are completed, the individual cases are returned to the courts where they were first filed for trial.

The representative MDL case for the oil spill lawsuits is In Re Oil Spill by the Oil Rig “Deepwater Horizon” in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, MDL Docket No. 2179.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Federal oil spill lawsuits will be consolidated in New Orleans

Since May, the charity has distributed nearly $2 million in aid to 20,000 people of St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes and seven other coastal relief sites. BP contributed $1 million to those efforts. The money helped people affected by the crisis by providing emergency counseling services, food, rent, and cash assistance.

The charity is now spending out of its reserves at a cost of more than $100,000 a week.

“We are now spending our meager reserves to assist fishermen and fishing communities affected by the spill. We will not waver in our commitment to the people,” Catholic Charities co-president Gordon Wadge said. “We believe supporters locally and nationally will come through for us and enable us to continue to provide the quality services that have allowed so many to cope and keep their lives together.”

Catholic Charities has been relying on small donations from individuals and companies that can contribute because BP hasn’t responded to the organization’s modest proposal for additional funds.

In June, the archdiocese and 24 secular and faith-based partners presented BP with a $12 million plan to finance relief efforts for another 3 months. According to Catholic Charities co-president Jim Kelly, BP representatives were impressed with the plan’s efficiency and the fact that it incorporated valuable lessons local relief agencies learned in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

But since then, Catholic Charities has heard nothing from BP and is at risk of losing its ability to help the people.

“The real danger is that our ability to put food on people’s tables, to counsel those in need, and to pay outstanding bills for fishing families with no income could come to an end,” Kelly added. “We have a covenant with these brave and hard working people, but our work is not sustainable without new funding.”

Source: Catholic News Agency

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Catholic oil spill relief efforts running on fumes

Government analysts believe the spill began more powerfully than it ended, releasing about 62,000 barrels of oil per day and gradually weakening as the weeks passed to about 53,000 barrels a day. A diminishing reservoir of hydrocarbons feeding the oil flow led to the lower pressure, scientists say.

BP originally estimated the spill’s size to be 1,000 barrels per day. That number was eventually bumped up to a still grossly inadequate 5,000 barrels.

The scientists say that the current estimates are accurate to within 10 percent. They also say that BP captured roughly 800,000 barrels of the crude in its containment efforts prior to the capping stack that successfully plugged the oil on July 15, which leaves over 4 million barrels, more than 168 million gallons.

When BP effectively refused to spend resources on measuring the oil spill, the Obama administration established a group of scientists dedicated to monitoring and studying the oil’s flow rate. In late May, the Energy Department group reported that between 12,000 and 19,000 barrels a day were gushing into the Gulf, but even that estimate was widely met with skepticism throughout the scientific community.

Not until BP capped the well did it have a truly accurate way of measuring the oil flow using pressure readings within the well. The government team continues to monitor the well and said that the estimate could be refined over time.

The spill estimate will be used to determine how much in civil penalties BP will pay the federal government. The penalties are based on a per-barrel rate that varies depending on whether the spill involved gross negligence.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Director said that “The sheer volume of oil that’s out there has to mean there are some pretty significant impacts. What we have yet to determine is the full impact the oil will have not just on the shoreline, not just on wildlife, but beneath the surface.”

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Government says BP spilled 4.9 million barrels of oil into Gulf

If the tests are successful, BP will begin the initial stages of plugging the well tomorrow. BP senior vice president Kent Wells said in a press conference that BP wasn’t anticipating a problem with the “injectivity” tests. The company’s “static kill” of the well, in which mud is forced into the well to drive the gushing oil back down into the reservoir, is slated to begin Tuesday. The procedure could take a couple of days.

Mr. Wells said that plugging the well from the bottom is more likely to succeed than BP’s previous attempts to stop the oil flow from the top. BP’s “top kill” efforts repeatedly failed until July 15, when its new “3 ram capping stack” succeeded in containing the oil and diverting it to fuel tankers on the surface. The containment cap also boosts the chances that BP will succeed in killing the oil flow at the source because there will be no outlet for the cement to escape when it is injected into the well.

BP will evaluate how well the “static kill” procedure is working before moving on to the final “bottom kill,” in which mud and cement are poured into the lower part of the well through a line connected to the freshly drilled relief well.

BP expects the static kill operation will require about 2,000 barrels of mud but says that is has nearly 30,000 gallons on reserve in surface vessels at the site. The mud will be transferred from BP’s Blue Dolphin and HOS Centerline storage ships to the Q4000, which will pump the substance into the well’s blowout preventer just below the 75-ton capping stack.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP may start permanently sealing oil well tomorrow

BP has sprayed the Gulf waters with more than a million gallons of Corexit and it has shot an undetermined amount of the chemical into the cloud of crude that gushed uncontrollably from the broken wellhead. (The oil giant’s use of the chemical is estimated to be nearly 2 million gallons.) Broken down into finer particles, much of the dispersed oil hovers somewhere between the seabed and the surface in enormous plumes.

The goal in using Corexit, at least ostensibly, is to break the oil into particles small enough that they can be consumed by microorganisms and to keep the sticky sludge from reaching vulnerable coastal environments. Now it’s looking more and more like the genuine aim was to hide the actual size of the spill from the public.

Why? Because oil dispersants don’t actually remedy anything. While they may change the appearance of an oil spill and make it appear less threatening, they are known to make matters worse.

On the most fundamental level, oil is energy. And energy never disappears or dies. It merely goes somewhere else or transforms into something else.

Marine toxicologist Dr. Susan Shaw, one of the few scientists who dove in the Gulf after the Deepwater Horizon sank to witness the oil spill’s effects firsthand, told ABC News that the dispersants aren’t just killing marine life, they’re hindering cleanup and containment efforts.

“The only way to get at an oil spill safely is to get it off the surface while it is still all in one mass,” she told ABC.

The oil that BP released deep beneath the surface is now a thin cloud cloud of congealed oil and there is no way to collect it. Had it risen to the surface, it could have been skimmed and pumped onto containment ships.

Unfortunately, BP used Corexit in unprecedented amounts, and so no data exists to indicate what its effects will be immediately or years in the future. EPA Director Lisa Jackson called BP’s unrestrained use of Corexit  “uncharted water.”

The Environmental Protection Agency said in June that it measured the toxicity of the Corexit types used in the Gulf and found them to be less toxic than oil. But Dr. Shaw said those tests were pointless.

“We already know that dispersants are less toxic than oil,” she told ABC. “But nobody in the Gulf is encountering Corexit on its own — it’s Corexit combined with oil they need to be testing.”

Indeed, studies have revealed the combination to be more toxic than Corexit or oil alone. Coral has a 98 percent fertilization rate in the presence of oil alone, but when exposed to a Corexit and oil combination, it has a zero percent fertilization.

The Corexit and oil combination also makes it easy for marine mammals to ingest, and the petroleum solvents that cut through the oil also cut through cell membranes, leading to internal bleeding and causing the animals to bleed to death.

According to the Corexit manufacturer’s safety sheet, the dispersed oil actually becomes more toxic once it’s been eaten, a process known as ‘bioaccumulation’. That toxicity then travels up the food chain, to larger fish like tuna and other predators.

According to an environmental report in the Huffington Post, “scientists have already found signs of an oil-and-dispersant mix under the shells of tiny blue crab larvae in the Gulf of Mexico, the first clear indication that the unprecedented use of dispersants in the BP oil spill has broken up the oil into toxic droplets so tiny that they can easily enter the food chain.”

While scientists are certain that the oil and chemicals are now present in the smallest forms of marine life, nobody knows what effects they will have on animals further up the food chain and on human health.

On Tuesday, Beasley Allen filed a lawsuit on behalf of individuals who claim they have sustained personal injury as a result of exposure to toxic chemical dispersants used in the oil spill cleanup.

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/29/scientists-find-evidence_n_664298.html

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/29/2967160.htm?site=thedrum

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Concern grows over effects of oil dispersants in the Gulf

Subcommittee chair, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) grew increasingly frustrated as she questioned Flynn about the company’s safety record. She appeared incredulous at Flynn’s claim that BP fostered a “culture of safety” and that “safety is our top priority.” She pointed out that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster, in which the deepwater drilling platform exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers, and sank two days later sparking the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history as it poured oil into the Gulf of Mexico, was far from the company’s first tragic incident.

Murray read out a laundry list of BP safety failures, including a 2005 explosion at BP’s Texas City oil refinery, which resulted in 15 deaths, as well as additional worker deaths at that same facility since; and “countless reports” of unsafe practices at BP pipelines in Alaska. She also pointed out that BP was handed one of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fines in history, in 2009, again for violations at the Texas City plant. She also cited earlier testimony provided by people who worked on the Deepwater Horizon rig before it sank, in which they told the Senate panel that a number of safety concerns were ignored when presented to BP officials. These included disconnected alarms and bypassing safety alerts.

“Do such reports like that depict a culture of safety that you’re trying to establish?” she demanded of Flynn.

The executive repeatedly bypassed the question, saying only that the cause of the Deepwater Horizon explosion has not yet been established. He said that BP is “concerned” by such reports.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP top safety officer refuses to testify on history of safety violations

According to a Los Angeles Times financial report, “the tragedy stemming from the April 20 explosion of the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, which killed 11 workers and created an underwater fountain of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico for more than three months, erased what would have been an impressive quarter for BP.”

If not for the disastrous oil spill – the largest ever in U.S. history – BP would have posted a quarterly profit of $5.6 billion, or $1.79 a share — more than 80 percent higher than the $3.1 billion the company recorded this time last year. The oil company’s revenues would have been just as impressive – up more than 34 percent to $73.7 billion, compared with $54.8 billion the same time last year.

Company stock surged in value following its success in stopping the oil spill from the top (relief wells, expected to permanently stop the oil flow, are still in the works), but the disaster will affect the company for years to come. Market analysts say the spill has already knocked BP’s company value down by $68 billion.

BP announced Tuesday that it would sell an additional $30 billion in company assets on top of the $7 billion sale of assets to Apache Corp it previously announced. BP first said it would sell company assets after the Obama administration demanded the company establish a $20-billion escrow fund to provide relief for Gulf Coast residents harmed by the spill.

BP also announced on Tuesday that Tony Hayward would be replaced by native Mississippian Robert Dudley as CEO – part of the company’s plan to regroup and rebuild itself after severe losses and penalties, which analysts say could cost the company $60 billion out of pocket.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Oil spill turns BP’s major gains to record losses for BP

Hayward leaves the oil giant’s top position to become head of TNK-BP, the BP-owned Russian oil company that Dudley led from 2003 to 2008. Although esteemed by his colleagues in the oil world, Mr. Hayward became reviled by residents of the Gulf Coast and beyond for public remarks he made that painted him as insensitive and out of touch with the people of the Gulf Coast.

Speaking to the press last month at a time when oil spill estimates skyrocketed, Mr. Hayward said that “There’s no one who wants this thing over more than I do. I’d like to have to my life back.” Weeks later, as the oil continued to gush uncontrollably into the Gulf, Mr. Hayward attended a yachting event in the U.K. People angered by the oil spill eventually dubbed Mr. Hayward “Toxic Tony.”

BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, who himself evoked anguish when he repeatedly referred to Gulf residents as the “small people,” said that BP is “saddened” to lose Mr. Hayward as its CEO. However, Mr. Svanberg also recognized the stigma attached to Mr. Hayward’s name and the need for BP to renew its reputation by selecting a new leader.

“The tragedy of the Macondo well explosion and subsequent environmental damage has been a watershed incident,” Svanberg said in a statement, adding that BP “will be a different company going forward, requiring fresh leadership supported by robust governance and a very engaged board.”

Mr. Dudley, who will take the company’s reins the same day Mr. Hayward steps down, said he is “honored to be given the job of rebuilding BP’s strengths and reputation but sad at the circumstances.”

“I do not underestimate the nature of the task ahead, but the company is financially robust with an enviable portfolio of assets and professional teams that are among the best in the industry. I believe this combination will put BP on the road to recovery,” he said.

In BP’s official announcement, Mr. Hayward said that as BP’s leader he accepted responsibility for the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil spill but he also indicated blame for the disaster lies elsewhere.

“As the man in charge of BP when it happened, I will always feel a deep responsibility, regardless of where blame is ultimately found to lie,” Mr. Hayward said.

“From day one I decided that I would personally lead BP’s efforts to stem the leak and contain the damage, a logistical operation unprecedented in scale and cost. We have now capped the oil flow and we are doing everything within our power to clean up the spill and to make restitution to everyone with legitimate claims,” he added.

Mr. Hayward will be working closely with the incoming CEO from now until October to “ensure a smooth transition.”

Mr. Dudley has been assigned as the BP executive in charge of the company’s Gulf Coast Restoration Organisation responding to the Gulf oil spill. BP has not announced who will assume leadership of the cleanup group.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP says CEO Tony Hayward to step down Oct. 1

Hayward was largely reviled by the American public after stating that he hoped the oil spill could be contained and cleaned up soon so he could “get my life back.” This, said in the face of thousands of Gulf Coast residents who lost their livelihoods as commercial and charter fishing was shut down, tourism plunged and business across the region plummeted in the face of oil spill realities and fears. Hayward also was criticized for saying the oil spill only affected a relatively tiny bit of the ocean when you look at how big the whole ocean is, and for attending a luxurious yacht race while Gulf Coast residents struggle to survive.

According to an official BP news release, Hayward said: “The Gulf of Mexico explosion was a terrible tragedy for which – as the man in charge of BP when it happened – I will always feel a deep responsibility, regardless of where blame is ultimately found to lie.”

The Wall Street Journal reported this morning that a surprising feature of Hayward’s departure is that he will not receive a so-called “golden parachute,” the term applied to a large payout to executives who leave big companies sometimes under dubious circumstances. The BP news release confirms this, saying Hayward will receive a year’s salary as severance, which amounts to a little over £1 million. This is a drop in the bucket considering some of the huge sums provided to departing company heads in recent years. Speculation says while BP may have been able to afford such a payout financially, it could not afford the additional public relations damage a package of that sort would cost.

Dudley is the first American selected to head the British company. When he assumes the role of CEO, he will move to the company’s London headquarters. Lamar McKay, Chairman and President of BP America will take over Dudley’s duties as the face of the oil spill cleanup. Although BP expects to finish drilling on two relief wells and permanently plug the oil leak by the end of August, no doubt recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast – both environmental and economic – will continue for many months into the future.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › It’s official: Hayward is out as head of BP oil with no ‘golden parachute’

Government regulators have grown increasingly concerned about the safety of the Marcellus Shale operations since the blowout, which occurred when well operator EOG Resources and contractor C.C. Forbes LLC were performing post-fracturing cleanout activities.

The state fined EOG $353,400 and CC Forbes $46,600 after inspectors found the companies relied on untrained personnel and failed to use the proper well control procedures, both of which led to the blowout.

“The blowout in Clearfield County was caused by EOG Resources and its failure to have proper barriers in place. This incident was preventable and should never have occurred,” said DEP Secretary John Hanger.

State and federal authorities have been actively concerned with the natural gas extraction operations at the site throughout July. Officials concluded the last of four field hearings in Pittsburg Monday.

The DEP sent letters to every company drilling in the Marcellus Shale coalition telling them they must use at least two pressure barriers during all post-fracture cleanout operations and that they must test blowout preventer equipment immediately after its installation and before its use. The agency also said that each drilling operation must have at least one well supervisor with current well control certification from a recognized institution on site during post-fracture operations.

DEP also proposed better state regulations for casing and cementing wells, asserting that improvements would prevent gas from migrating from a well and contaminating water supplies.

The natural gas industry has capitalized on the BP oil disaster to promote natural gas, which is unlocked from shale during the hydraulic fracturing process, as a clean alternative to fossil fuels. Unfortunately, energy companies inject a range of toxic chemicals into the ground during the fracturing process to assist in breaking up the rock, and research now indicates that those chemicals are seeping into underground aquifers and contaminating water supplies.

Congress is considering a new law that would require energy companies to disclose the chemicals they are blasting into the ground. The new measure and growing outrage in communities affected by the drilling operations over pollution of natural resources is prompting some companies to be more transparent.

Fort Worth-based Range Resources Corporation, for instance, announced it will voluntarily disclose the hydraulic fracturing additives it uses in Pennsylvania gas wells to DEP and post them on its website, allowing the public to know which additives are used in what amounts at each well.

The Marcellus Shale operations will been shut down for 40 days until the appropriate environmental and worker protections are finalized.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Pennsylvania natural gas well suspended amid safety concerns

Oxford Economics considered current spending, the oil spill’s predicted trajectory, and the effects that 25 past crises had on tourism dollars to determine how likely the damage will be throughout the Gulf Coast.

According to Adam Sacks, managing director for Oxford Economics, changing peoples’ perceptions of the damage done to the Gulf’s vacation destinations is key to mitigating financial losses. Often, places that have experienced no direct damages from a disaster can and generally do suffer by association.

“Given that traveler reaction is the key lever that we have at our disposal in terms of being able to affect and mitigate the impacts, perceptions matter a lot,” Sacks said at a news conference last Thursday.

The effects of the disaster can also last long after the crisis has been resolved. Case studies in the report included Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 Tsunami in Asia, and the outbreak of SARS respiratory disease.

The U.S. Travel Association is pushing BP for $500 million in emergency marketing funds to combat the negative images and perceptions of the Gulf Coast  created by the spill. The association believes the investment in marketing campaigns could help curb the total economic impact of the oil spill on tourism by as much as a third, or $7.5 billion.

The association has also recommended the federal government expand tax breaks to businesses hurt by the oil spill and provide more incentives for travel to the region.

On the low end, the study estimated the disruption of Gulf Coast tourism would last at least 15 months and cost $7.6 billion in revenues.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › US Travel Association analyzes oil spill’s impact on Gulf tourism

It is also expected that Bob Dudley, BP’s current Managing Director, will replace Hayward as CEO. Dudley would be the first American to lead the British company. Dudley already maintains a leadership role with the company, and took over as spokesperson for the oil giant after a series of public relations gaffes by Hayward, most notably when he irritatedly told the media he hoped the oil cleanup finished quickly, as he would “like my life back.” This was seen as a distinct slap in the face to the thousands of Gulf Coast residents whose lives and livelihoods were destroyed when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20. Eleven workers were killed in the explosion and 17 others critically injured. The rig sank two days later, pouring more than 180 million barrels of oil into the Gulf.

Dudley is in London for the Board meeting.

Source: CBS News

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Word from inside: Hayward to leave BP by October

According to testimony by Mike Williams, chief electronics technician for Transocean, which owned the drilling rig that was being operated by BP, an alarm system in the drilling area, was set to “inhibited.” This meant that equipment could still record high gas levels or detect a fire, but that it would not sound any warning of such a dangerous event occurring. He said he brought the equipment status to the attention of two other rig workers prior to the April 20 explosion, but they told him the alarms were set to bypass status on orders of higher-ups in the company.

The reason given for shutting off the warning bells? Top Transocean officials didn’t want to be woken up by “false alarms.”

Williams said he also told Transocean officials about a similar problem with the blowout preventer, which is blamed as the source of the explosion. Again, critical controls on this crucial piece of equipment were set on a bypass setting. This would allow the equipment to continue operating, rather than shutting down, if it detected a problem with the gas purging system, he testified. He says that after reporting the danger to a supervisor, he was told not to fix the setting, because “the entire (Transocean) fleet runs them in bypass.”

Source: The Times-Picayune

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Oil rig employee testifies to disabled alarm system; workers not warned

Current hurricane forecast and tracking maps show the storm moving west / northwest, which would place a possible hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana – the approximate location of the spill site – around July 25. Already, some oil skimming ships have come into port, and non-essential workers have been evacuated from eight offshore drilling platforms currently being operated by BP in other Gulf locations. No personnel have yet been evacuated from the oil spill cleanup site, but officials from BP and the U.S. government are closely watching the developing weather.

A hurricane approaching the spill site would cause yet another delay in plans to permanently cap the leaking oil well nearly a mile below the ocean surface. The well has been gushing oil into the ocean since the Deepwater Horizon deepwater drilling platform exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers, and sank two days later. The first sign of hope came just last week, when BP was able to successfully cap the well, cutting off the flow of oil for the first time since the disaster.

The cap itself is actually just a temporary measure, and is still being pressure-tested to ensure it will not cause damage anywhere else along the pipeline that could create more problems. Scientists are testing seismic readings and pressure readings to ensure all is well. Meanwhile, BP is drilling two relief wells – one as a backup to the other – through which they plan to permanently plug the pipeline by filling it with drilling mud and cement. It is not expected that the relief well will be complete until mid-August. Now, that drilling would be halted again by a hurricane evacuation.

Relief well drilling was halted once already, when BP removed a leaky cap it had placed on the well in order to cut the pipe and install the current tight-sealing cap. Drilling had to be stopped in order to ensure accurate pressure readings could be taken during the new cap’s installation and early testing.

BP officials have not yet said if they would leave the new containment cap sealed tightly in the event of an evacuation, or if they would loosen it, allowing oil to once again enter the Gulf, as a safety measure. If they leave the cap tightly in place, they will be unable to monitor pressure once they are away from the site. Additionally, underwater robotic cameras that provide visual evidence of a leak also would be evacuated from the site, so there would be no way to tell if the cap failed or, worse, pressure caused additional blowouts along the sea floor or wellhead, which would then have to be dealt with after the storm.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP braces for possible hurricane at oil spill site

To whom it may concern, come here, first things first.
Tell me, how much is this dead pelican worth?
How does it feel to have a man’s blood on your shirt?
To single-handedly put a whole industry out of work?

Shamarr says he was moved to write the song after flying into Louis Armstrong International Airport. From the air, he could see the dark cloud of oil covering the Gulf. It brought to mind a television interview where BP CEO Tony Hayward sympathetically told the camera, “To those affected and your families, I’m deeply sorry.” But sorry, Shamar says, “ain’t enough no more.” He uses Hayward’s quote in the beginning of his music video before the lyrics begin:

Keep your sorry.
Sorry won’t clean the spill.
Save the lives you killed.
Nor change how I feel.

So don’t say sorry
Think that we don’t know
But we know how it goes
It’s just damage control.

Watch the video here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › New Orleans musician to BP: “Sorry Ain’t Enough No More”

After two court rulings against Obama’s earlier ban on new offshore drilling, the President has issued a new moratorium that he hopes will stand up in court. The move has sparked further outrage in the oil industry and throughout those states that benefit directly from offshore drilling.

Louisiana Democrat Nancy Landrieu, a staunch supporter of offshore drilling, said that the moratorium would do more harm than good, arguing that the ban is “unnecessary and ill-conceived” and could cost more in jobs and revenues than the oil spill itself. Speaking to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Landrieu said that floating rigs such as the Deepwater Horizon are “some of the best rigs in the world idle at $500,000 a day at a minimum. They’re not going to stay idle until November 30.”

Landrieu said that oil companies would move their floating rigs to other regions of the world, to countries with fewer regulations and inferior court systems.

Supporters of a temporary ban say that arguments against the moratorium are strictly economic and dangerously myopic.

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that after 3 months of BP’s oil spill, the risk of other blowouts and spills resulting from deep-water drilling hasn’t diminished. Not only do these problems persist, Salazar said, but evidence “grows every day of the industry’s inability in the deep water to contain a catastrophic blowout, respond to an oil spill, and operate safely.”

If any good came out of the Deepwater Horizon, it would be that it exposed BP’s horrible safety record and the far greater risks hidden in its other Gulf of Mexico rigs and elsewhere. The unprecedented catastrophe has also drawn attention to other oil spills and environmental disasters, some of which have been ignored for a long time.

Is the U.S. really prepared to handle another catastrophe like the oil spill in the Gulf? Are we wise to allow economic concerns to trump our protection of the environment, especially since it is the environment that sustains our economy, from multi-billion dollar seafood and tourism industries to all supporting businesses and jobs?

However the U.S. government chooses to restore the Gulf of Mexico and all its harmed communities, one thing is certain: such a disaster must never happen again. A temporary pause in deep-water drilling until we can address the flaws in our current technology and legislation — those that concern safety, environmental protections, blowout prevention, and oil-spill cleanup and containment — may be a wise, completely justified investment in our future.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Would an offshore drilling moratorium make a bad oil spill worse?

Now that the leak has been successfully capped on the surface, government authorities and BP executives are at odds on what to do until the relief wells are bored out and the well can be permanently sealed, a process that might be complete some time in mid August.

Federal authorities want to hook the new containment cap to a mile-long pipe that would deliver captured oil to ships on the surface. But doing so would require BP to remove the cap, allowing the oil to gush uncontained again for at least 3 days. Wanting to avoid further environmental and economic damage, BP is pushing to keep the cap in place until a relief well permanently stops the oil flow.

Keeping the cap in place, however, could turn out to be a deadly gamble. If too much pressure builds underneath the cap, the trapped oil could find another outlet to the surface, the sea floor could fracture, and the wellhead could become damaged more than it is or collapse altogether, making cleanup much more complicated and difficult.

Over the weekend, the White House had concerns that BP wasn’t living up to its commitment to adequately monitor the capped well. Those concerns were addressed in a series of lengthy meetings, however, and federal authorities gave BP another 24 hours to keep the cap in place.

Allen said that BP would continue rigorously monitoring the leak. The company must vent the cap immediately if it experiences a quick rise in pressure, which could force the oil to find another release in the ruptured drill shaft or elsewhere.

Because of the dynamic and unprecedented situation, federal authorities will decide on a day-to-day basis whether the cap should stay in place.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP to keep cap in place, monitor for other problems

Although Bayou La Batre has been repeatedly battered by hurricanes, Benjamin acknowledged that the residents of the town and the wider Gulf Coast face a new and even more formidable challenge – one that is causing great deal of emotional stress and anxiety.

“This oil spill is probably one of the most devastating things we’ve ever dealt with,” Benjamin told a crowd gathered at a local church. “We dealt with (Hurricane) Ivan and we dealt with Katrina, and this is different.”

Many of the people Benjamin spoke to included out-of-work and displaced seafood industry workers and some patients of Bayou Clinic, which still serves the community.

Benjamin also said that the seemingly unending nature of the BP oil spill is causing a multitude of health problems from stomach aches in children to substance abuse, suicide, and domestic violence in adults. Benjamin said that it was important for communities to pull together and to encourage neighbors to seek available help if they’re struggling with joblessness, financial hardship, anxiety, depression, and other illness as a result of the spill.

Many boat operators and shrimpers from the Gulf Coast’s Southeast Asian community are having an especially difficult time because they speak little English and cannot understand what is happening. There are no Vietnamese and Cambodian speaking therapists in the area who can help the immigrants with their anxiety and depression.

One man who can understand the Vietnamese fisherman is Vietnam-born Louisiana congressman Joseph Cao. Cao spoke with groups of Vietnamese Americans in May and found that many of them were in such despair over the oil spill and lack of work that they were considering suicide as the best solution.

Benjamin’s clinic, Bayou Clinic, still sees patients in the small town and many residents still call her “Doc.” Her picture still appears amongst the staff on the center’s website, where she is still listed as the founder and CEO. Her Gulf Coast tour also included stops in Mississippi and Florida.

Benjamin indicated that a sense of isolation and abandonment can set in among residents of the rural coastal communities.

“What we don’t want is for them to feel alone,” she said.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Surgeon General returns home to Alabama to talk with oil spill victims

“While the incident in the Gulf does not signal the end of drilling off America’s coasts, it certainly is a game changer and is proof positive that broad reforms are needed,” Representative Nick Rahall, a West Virginia Democrat and the panel’s chairman, said in a statement.

Oil companies with a history of violating federal and state safety regulations will be barred from U.S. offshore drilling under the bill. Violators would have to show a record of breaking and ignoring the rules more than five times the industry average over a seven-year period before being banned.

The bill would also ban new leases to oil companies that have received $10 million or more in fines for Clean Water Act violations. Companies that have had more than 10 fatalities over the seven-year period would also be banned.

BP is the only oil company that meets the criteria of the new legislation. The law would not affect BP’s current leases and operations, and the company would still be allowed to participate in future drilling as a minority partner on future leases.

Before BP’s Deepwater Horizon operations exploded in the Gulf of Mexico killing 11 workers, a 2005 explosion at the company’s Texas City refinery killed 15 workers. The following year, a BP pipeline leak dumped 200,000 gallons of crude oil into Prudhoe Bay, Alaska – a remote Arctic location where oil cleanup and containment is close to impossible.

The committee also adopted an amendment that encourages geothermal energy production on federal lands. Geothermal energy, obtained by extracting heat from the ground, is a significant source of power for many countries with land affected by volcanic and tectonic activity.

The new measure would also require companies to disclose the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, a drilling process that involves mixing millions of gallons of water with chemicals and injecting it underground to break layers of rock.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › New law would ban BP from new offshore drilling in U.S.

So far, engineers examining the structure and the integrity of the wellhead itself have found they are both holding up to the increased pressure. They will continually monitor the structures for leaks and other signs of failure. Earlier, engineers discovered a leaking pipe on the side of the towering 75-ton capping stack, sending the procedure back to start, but they have successfully repaired that leak by replacing an assembly called the “choke line.”

The cap is considered a temporary measure to stop the flow of oil until the well can be permanently sealed several thousand feet below the seafloor at the source. BP is currently drilling two relief wells in an attempt to pinpoint the spill’s source. Once engineers precisely tap the leak, BP will pump heavy drilling mud and cement into the area, creating a permanent seal.

“Make no mistake, the number-one goal is to kill the well — to stop it at the source,” Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said today at a briefing.

BP will also be monitoring pressure underneath the cap to determine whether there may be other leaks. Company officials say that their hope is to find high degrees of pressure under the well. Anything lower than six thousand pounds per square inch of pressure points to another leak further down in the well.

BP says it will keep the oil trapped within the new cap for 48 hours in an effort to determine whether there are other leaks not yet discovered.

Today marks the 86th day of the massive oil spill, which has contaminated the Gulf of Mexico with an estimated 93.5 million to 184.3 million gallons of oil.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP stops the oil completely, waits to see if cap and well will hold

Part of the concern about sealing the new cap is that it could reveal or create new leaks at other locations along the site. BP and government officials want to be careful not to create new problems at the site nearly a mile below the ocean’s surface.

During this testing, drilling on two relief wells also has stopped, so that BP can accurately measure the effect of the pressure tests. They had worried that the drilling would interfere with their ability to collect accurate readings. The relief wells offer the hope of a permanent solution. They are being drilled simultaneously to double the chances that one of them will be successful in delivering drilling mud and cement that will permanently plug the leak. Optimistic projections had this process complete by the end of July, but more realistic estimates say it will take until at least the middle of August. With this drilling stop, the later date seems more probable.

Meanwhile, Gulf Coast residents are growing weary of the slow pace of progress in stopping the leak. It is estimated that since the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform exploded on April 20 and sank two days later, between 93.5 million and 184.3 million gallons of oil have poured into the Gulf.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP proceeding with caution to test new cap on leaking oil well

The halt comes at the request of the federal government, amid concerns that putting pressure on the wellhead could cause even bigger problems at the leak site, possibly an explosion or other incident that could create even bigger problems. Despite the fact that oil is flowing out around the new cap virtually unchecked, the current theory seems to be that it’s better to deal with the witch you know than the devil you don’t.

Right now, BP has been concentrating its efforts at the wellhead, but some scientists are worried that when the new cap is tightened, pressure may push oil into other areas along the site and create or worsen leaks in multiple areas. The original plan called for a series of pressure tests on the new cap over a period of about 48 hours, which would slowly close off the flow of oil in one valve and then the next until the flow was completely contained. The government is calling for at least another 24 hours delay in even beginning those pressure tests, if it is allowed to proceed at all.

Perhaps even more disheartening is the work stoppage on the two relief wells, which are the best – and only – hope for a permanent end to this disaster, which is now the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history. Concerns about redistribution of pressure were also cited as the reason for this delay. The relief well drilling will not resume for at least 48 hours.

Source: MSNBC

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Oil gushes as BP delays tests on new cap, halts relief well drilling

As a responsible party, BP is financially responsible for all costs associated with the spill response, including efforts to stop the leak at its source, reduce the spread of oil, protect the shoreline and mitigate damages, as well as long-term recovery efforts to ensure that all individuals and communities impacted by the spill are made whole, the government said in a news release Tuesday.

The bill will cover the expenses of two dozen federal agencies involved in the spill response, and future expenses will be billed to BP and other responsible parties in subsequent invoices, the government release said.

The federal government added that BP and the other responsible parties have paid the three previous bills, totaling $122.3 million, in full.

BP has announced that it has spent more than $3 billion to date responding to the oil spill, which continues to gush millions of gallons of oil every day a mile beneath the surface. Previous efforts to stop the spill have either failed or have been partially successful.

BP has replaced the cap on the gushing wellhead with a new, tighter fitting receptacle that could allow the oil to be completely stopped at the surface if successful. BP plans to close the vents on the cap gradually, allowing pressure to build inside the cap. The company said today that it may take 2 days to fully determine whether the cap is strong enough to withstand the mounting pressure.

The company is also drilling two relief well columns that involve plugging the origin with tons of cement pumped from the surface. The procedure is the only way the oil can be permanently stopped.

None of these procedures nor the government’s latest bill will be drawn from the $20 billion equity fund BP agreed to establish to mitigate financial hardships faced by Gulf Coast residents and businesses.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Government bills BP $100 million for oil spill response costs

“Not only are these actions appalling – they’re illegal,” reports the National Wildlife Federation.

Five species of threatened and endangered sea turtles live in areas consumed by the oil spill, including the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle, the most endangered sea turtle in the world. Anyone responsible for killing this precious sea turtle could face criminal penalties including imprisonment and fines of up to $25,000 per violation.

BP is corralling and burning off oil as part of its attempt to clean up what has become the country’s largest environmental disaster. Any living wildlife trapped in the corralled oil is burned alive without any attempt at saving it. The National Wildlife Federation calls the action an “outrage” and is asking the public to join in its fight to make sure BP “takes responsibility for its actions and puts a stop to the senseless killing of wildlife.”

For more information on how the federation hopes to save wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico, visit its website at nwf.org.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › Wildlife Federation: BP is burning endangered sea turtles alive

The new containment cap was put into place Monday evening, but is currently just resting over the leak site. It must be tested to ensure it can withstand the pressure of a “complete shut-in” before it can be tightened over the wellhead. The old cap only siphoned off gushing oil. If pressure tests are favorable, this new cap will provide a seal that will contain and stem the flow of oil.

However, even if this measure is successful, the cap is still only a temporary solution. Drilling will continue on two relief wells, which will be used to plug the leak, hopefully permanently.

Pressure testing also will help BP engineers to determine if the source of the leak is centered at the wellhead, or if there are other leak sites along the drilling site. The process involves slowly closing off a series of three valves to stop the flow of oil. This must be done slowly and with caution to avoid a sudden change in pressure, which could lead to another explosion. High pressure readings will indicate the leak is contained within the wellhead machinery.

BP officials estimate pressure tests will take about 48 hours to complete. If all goes well, they hope to have the well sealed off by July 19, one day before the three-month anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

SOURCE: Oil Spill Lawsuit Information › BP crews still prepping new cap for pressure tests, oil containment