Scripps Institution of Oceanography chips in to help study Gulf oil spill

BY JOSEPH PEÑA,  SDNN
Friday, May 28, 2010

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While British Petroleum scrambles to stop the worst oil spill in U.S. history, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography is shipping an undersea glider to the Gulf Coast Friday to study currents and conditions and try to measure oil in the water.

The glider, also called Spray, that Scripps is sending to the Gulf Coast was scheduled to be deployed in the Pacific to study the effects of climate on California's coast -- but, said Scripps oceanographer Daniel Rudnick, in "national interest" the Scripps team is redirecting it to the Gulf. (Photo by Robert Todd, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego)

Conservative estimates say more than 20 million gallons of oil have leaked into the Gulf waters since the Deep Horizon oil well ruptured April 20.

The glider, also called Spray, that Scripps is sending to the Gulf Coast was scheduled to be deployed in the Pacific to study the effects of climate on California's coast — but, said Scripps oceanographer Daniel Rudnick, in "national interest" the Scripps team is redirecting it to the Gulf.

"This is a national effort and we're collaborating with our colleagues at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; we're just trying to do our part by taking some of the assets we have and devoting them to something that is of great national interest," Rudnick said.

The irony is BP — the energy company responsible for the spill — has funded Scripps' studies to track ocean currents and conditions in the Gulf since 2004.

Using GPS and a remote control system, the glider's operator can chart its path. The Spray moves to a testing location and drops more than 1,600 feet underwater. At that point, it glides in the water, scanning horizontally for distances up to 2 miles. The test lasts about three hours, and operators can retrieve data at the end of every test. Using the data, they can redirect the glider from a laptop and sometimes an iPhone.

Some data is transmitted immediately online, and the glider's path and some measurements can be monitored at spray.ucsd.edu.

"It's going to give us data on oceanographic conditions and currents, and that's very valuable information to the folks trying to model the flow and make predictions about where the currents are going. The reason we care is we'd like to know where the oil is going to go," said Rudnick.

When the oil leaks from the ocean floor, teams use dispersants to keep it from creating a huge surface slick that eventually reaches land. Oil that reaches the surface is the slick you see in photos; but dispersed oil gathers in a subsurface slick. Studying the subsurface oil is also critical to knowing where the oil will move.

"We're doing something we've never done before; we're trying to measure and detect the oil in the water," he said. "This is new territory for so many of us. In principal, though, we should be able to measure the oil in the water using the same sensor we use to measure chlorophyll. And, if we're completely successful, we'll be able to see where the oil subsurface is."

Rudnick said the data provided by the Spray is "fundamentally valuable."

"Having this capability to observe the ocean does have value, especially when we have very urgent problems like the oil spill," he said.

Researchers in Scripps Whale Acoustics Lab are also deploying a high-frequency acoustic recording package (HARP) to the Gulf to record marine mammal and other sounds to document which marine mammals are in an area impacted by the oil slick.

Tags: BP Oil spill, Daniel Rudnick, Deep Horizon oil well, Scripps Institution of Oceanogrphy, SDNN, Spray underwater glider

Read more: http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2010-05-28/business-real-estate/scripps-chips-in-to-help-study-gulf-oil-spill#ixzz0pMotj97p

TOP KILL OPERATION FAILED

ROBERT, La. — BP admitted defeat Saturday in its attempt to plug the Gulf of Mexico oil leak by pumping mud into a busted well, but said it's readying yet another approach to fight the spill after a series of failures.

BP PLC Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said the company determined the "top kill" had failed after it spent three days pumping heavy drilling mud into the crippled well 5,000 feet underwater. More than 1.2 million gallons of mud was used, but most of it escaped out of the damaged riser.

In the six weeks since the spill began, the company has failed in each attempt to stop the gusher, as estimates of how much is leaking grow more dire. It's the worst spill in U.S. history – exceeding even the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989 off the Alaska coast – dumping between 18 million and 40 million gallons into the Gulf, according to government estimates.

"This scares everybody, the fact that we can't make this well stop flowing, the fact that we haven't succeeded so far," Suttles said. "Many of the things we're trying have been done on the surface before, but have never been tried at 5,000 feet."

The company failed in the days after the spill to use robot submarines to close valves on the massive blowout preventer atop the damaged well, then two weeks later ice-like crystals clogged a 100-ton box the company tried placing over the leak. Earlier this week, engineers removed a mile-long siphon tube after it sucked up a disappointing 900,000 gallons of oil from the gusher.

Suttles said BP is already preparing for the next attempt to stop the leak that began after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in April, killing 11 people.

The company plans to use robot submarines to cut off the damaged riser from which the oil is leaking, and then try to cap it with a containment valve. The effort is expected to take between four and seven days.

"We're confident the job will work but obviously we can't guarantee success," Suttles said of the new plan, declining to handicap the likelihood it will work.

He said that cutting off the damaged riser isn't expected to cause the flow rate of leaking oil to increase significantly.

Story continues below

The permanent solution to the leak, a relief well currently being drilled, won't be ready until August, BP says.

Experts have said that a bend in the damaged riser likely was restricting the flow of oil somewhat, so slicing it off and installing a new containment valve is risky.

"If they can't get that valve on, things will get much worse," said Philip W. Johnson, an engineering professor at the University of Alabama.

Johnson said he thinks BP can succeed with the valve, but added: "It's a scary proposition."

Word that the top-kill had failed hit hard in the fishing community of Venice, La., near where oil first made landfall in large quanities almost two weeks ago.

"Everybody's starting to realize this summer's lost. And our whole lifestyle might be lost," said Michael Ballay, the 59-year-old manager of the Cypress Cove Marina.

___

The River Will Provide -- Oil Flow Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico Has Created the Opportunity to Restore Coastal Louisiana

I knew a worst-case scenario was unfolding as soon as I heard that the Deepwater Horizon rig blew over one month ago. True to our namesake, we quickly discovered that there is a lot going on below the surface. A growing consensus among scientists estimates that over one hundred million gallons of oil have poured into the Gulf of Mexico so far. Oil booms are ineffective, dispersants are creating a toxic-stratified chemical cocktail throughout the Gulf of Mexico, and BP is still calling the shots while simultaneously dropping the ball.

Our exploration team, from Below the Surface, had plans for a cordial rendezvous with our friends and partner organizations in Louisiana as a follow-up to an expedition we launched down the Atchafalaya River this past February, which is chronicled in the June/July issue of Reader's Digest

Instead we found ourselves in a much different scenario--defense as opposed to offense. As our crew motored in the warm, turquoise waters off the Gulf Coast National Seashore, a National Park, with a pod of 20+ bottle-nosed dolphins, I knew that their fate had been sealed. I did all I could to keep my tears hidden from the other guys onboard behind my aviator sunglasses. The damage has been done; we need to recognize that the disaster has occurred! When I first arrived, I expected to see scores of oiled-birds being taken to the triage centers and thick goo lapping up on the beaches--I was conditioned to the images of the Exxon-Valdez spill.

However, this travesty is completely different from the one that occurred in Alaska over twenty-years ago. That was a spill of a finite amount. This is still flowing, and marine life is taking the brunt of the impact. We've found dead dolphins and dead sea turtles and countless jellyfish (a staple for sea turtles) washing up everywhere despite the fact that the alluring greenish-blue waters and white-sand beaches appeared to be clean. This makes the dispersants a prime culprit. The dispersants in and of themselves are toxic, and the compounds they create when interacting with oil make them even more toxic. Worse yet, dispersants spread oil throughout water column contaminating a higher percentage of the ocean instead of concentrating oil on the surface.

It is fairly safe to say that most containment methods have been for aesthetic purposes. Oil continues to flow, and BP's several attempts at containment have all failed. The contingency techniques and their names offer little assurance: top hat/top kill, junk shot, and insertion. How about a shot in the dark? After all, that's exactly what this is. BP has repeatedly claimed that this type of recovery operation has never been done in 5,000 feet of water. Why then were they allowed to take such a calculated risk by scraping the bottom by the barrel for oil without a response strategy?

Had we invested more in our oceans, this travesty may have been averted or quickly resolved. On the contrary, we know very little about our oceans; in fact, about 90% of our oceans remain unexplored. It is disturbing to think that we have better maps of Mars than of our own oceans. NOAA and other marine exploration institutions are desperately underfunded relative to other fields. For instance, NASA's annual budget would fund NOAA's budget to explore our oceans for 1,600 years. It is time to focus on the reality of issues faced by our planet and America's waterways.

Many feel that this disaster has been worse than Katrina, and the impacts will be felt for a much longer period of time. This man-made disaster has been and will be destructive to the Louisiana coastline for the exact same reasons as Hurricane Katrina--the vanishing wetlands.

What's the Solution?

This solution runs parallel to the discoveries we made while underway on the Atchafalaya expedition, dubbed Gaining Ground. Louisiana loses about one football field of land every hour, which equates to land loss of about 30 square miles per year and is approximately 2,300 square miles since 1930 gone! This is because the highly managed, dredged, and leveed Mississippi River no longer provides sediment to replenish coastal wetlands. In contrast, we found that the Atchafalaya River has the only two growing deltas in Louisiana. This is because the river is allowed to exist in a more natural state and sediment slows down and settles to form new coastal marshland known as accretion (the opposite of erosion).

When we leveed rivers, we lost the resiliency of the entire area; the best thing we can do is open up substantial and strategically placed diversions that flow around 100,000 cubic feet per second to provide the sediment necessary for rebuilding the coast. The river can do the work for us and reverse the damage done relatively quickly!

The hasty, man-made creation of barrier islands off the coast is panic-based, not science-based and may be more destructive to the coast long-term. I spoke with a number of leaders spearheading Gulf Coast conservation efforts and they believe that dredged up barrier islands will be expensive and will fail. They will certainly fail from a hurricane surge and hurricane season begins the first of June. Selectively breaching the levees to let the Mississippi River naturally reconstitute the wetlands is likely cheaper and offers a permanent benefit. Seemingly irreparable damage to wetland marshes has ensued, but nature will rebuild if we rebuild the natural conditions that make it all possible.

With all of the conservation work going on in the Gulf Coast, it seems to me that if it were easy to just build these islands, it would have been done decades ago. Repairing this disaster is beyond our control; the Mississippi River brings over 200,000 dump-truck loads of sediment to the Gulf of Mexico every day. Unfortunately most of that is sent over the continental shelf. We need to match power with power by following nature's model; the river will provide!

To minimize collateral damage, we must stop the use of any and all dispersants. Our public servants must raise the liability cap retroactively and through the roof! In addition, politicians should pass the Bingaman Baucus Senate Bill to provide $900 million per year for conservation from oil revenues. To guarantee transparency within the Unified Command we must create an NGO Representative position to serve as an ombudsman to for a more coordinated front of the well-established and experienced groups in the area. Last, but certainly not least, it would be prudent to focus on the often-overlooked issue of actually stopping the oil flow instead of allowing BP to try to salvage the well.

Southern Hospitality

I returned to the south to help my friends from various organizations and universities because of the care and generosity they have shown me. I believe that they are conditioned to be so hospitable because they are survivors. The ever-giving people in the South are in need of help. Despite all of the adversity bestowed upon the South our fellow Americans are in trouble, their true voices are not getting heard, the truth is not being revealed, and there are still a lot of questions that remain unanswered.

Remember, the only way to solve an environmental disaster is to work with nature. In the words of my dear friend and legendary outfitter and guide, John Ruskey, "May the river be with you."

Kristian Anders Gustavson, Co-Founder of Below the Surface.

Petition to Stop Attempts to Limit BP Liability

Click Here!

Bill Nye Science Guy on Oil Spills

http://gizmodo.com/5545316/watch-bill-nye-evaluate-citizens-oil-spill-solutions

The River Will Provide - Kristian Gustavson in the Huffington Post

Full Article HERE.


I knew a worst-case scenario was unfolding as soon as I heard that the Deepwater Horizon rig blew over one month ago. True to our namesake, we quickly discovered that there is a lot going on below the surface. A growing consensus among scientists estimates that over one hundred million gallons of oil have poured into the Gulf of Mexico so far. Oil booms are ineffective, dispersants are creating a toxic-stratified chemical cocktail throughout the Gulf of Mexico, and BP is still calling the shots while simultaneously dropping the ball.
Our exploration team, from Below the Surface, had plans for a cordial rendezvous with our friends and partner organizations in Louisiana as a follow-up to an expedition we launched down the Atchafalaya River this past February, which is chronicled in the June/July issue of Reader's Digest
Instead we found ourselves in a much different scenario--defense as opposed to offense. As our crew motored in the warm, turquoise waters off the Gulf Coast National Seashore, a National Park, with a pod of 20+ bottle-nosed dolphins, I knew that their fate had been sealed. I did all I could to keep my tears hidden from the other guys onboard behind my aviator sunglasses. The damage has been done; we need to recognize that the disaster has occurred! When I first arrived, I expected to see scores of oiled-birds being taken to the triage centers and thick goo lapping up on the beaches--I was conditioned to the images of the Exxon-Valdez spill.
However, this travesty is completely different from the one that occurred in Alaska over twenty-years ago. That was a spill of a finite amount. This is still flowing, and marine life is taking the brunt of the impact. We've found dead dolphins and dead sea turtles and countless jellyfish (a staple for sea turtles) washing up everywhere despite the fact that the alluring greenish-blue waters and white-sand beaches appeared to be clean. This makes the dispersants a prime culprit. The dispersants in and of themselves are toxic, and the compounds they create when interacting with oil make them even more toxic. Worse yet, dispersants spread oil throughout water column contaminating a higher percentage of the ocean instead of concentrating oil on the surface.
It is fairly safe to say that most containment methods have been for aesthetic purposes. Oil continues to flow, and BP's several attempts at containment have all failed. The contingency techniques and their names offer little assurance: top hat/top kill, junk shot, and insertion. How about a shot in the dark? After all, that's exactly what this is. BP has repeatedly claimed that this type of recovery operation has never been done in 5,000 feet of water. Why then were they allowed to take such a calculated risk by scraping the bottom by the barrel for oil without a response strategy?
Had we invested more in our oceans, this travesty may have been averted or quickly resolved. On the contrary, we know very little about our oceans; in fact, about 90% of our oceans remain unexplored. It is disturbing to think that we have better maps of Mars than of our own oceans. NOAA and other marine exploration institutions are desperately underfunded relative to other fields. For instance, NASA's annual budget would fund NOAA's budget to explore our oceans for 1,600 years. It is time to focus on the reality of issues faced by our planet and America's waterways.
Many feel that this disaster has been worse than Katrina, and the impacts will be felt for a much longer period of time. This man-made disaster has been and will be destructive to the Louisiana coastline for the exact same reasons as Hurricane Katrina--the vanishing wetlands.
What's the Solution?
This solution runs parallel to the discoveries we made while underway on the Atchafalaya expedition, dubbed Gaining Ground. Louisiana loses about one football field of land every hour, which equates to land loss of about 30 square miles per year and is approximately 2,300 square miles since 1930 gone! This is because the highly managed, dredged, and leveed Mississippi River no longer provides sediment to replenish coastal wetlands. In contrast, we found that the Atchafalaya River has the only two growing deltas in Louisiana. This is because the river is allowed to exist in a more natural state and sediment slows down and settles to form new coastal marshland known as accretion (the opposite of erosion).
When we leveed rivers, we lost the resiliency of the entire area; the best thing we can do is open up substantial and strategically placed diversions that flow around 100,000 cubic feet per second to provide the sediment necessary for rebuilding the coast. The river can do the work for us and reverse the damage done relatively quickly!
The hasty, man-made creation of barrier islands off the coast is panic-based, not science-based and may be more destructive to the coast long-term. I spoke with a number of leaders spearheading Gulf Coast conservation efforts and they believe that dredged up barrier islands will be expensive and will fail. They will certainly fail from a hurricane surge and hurricane season begins the first of June. Selectively breaching the levees to let the Mississippi River naturally reconstitute the wetlands is likely cheaper and offers a permanent benefit. Seemingly irreparable damage to wetland marshes has ensued, but nature will rebuild if we rebuild the natural conditions that make it all possible.
With all of the conservation work going on in the Gulf Coast, it seems to me that if it were easy to just build these islands, it would have been done decades ago. Repairing this disaster is beyond our control; the Mississippi River brings over 200,000 dump-truck loads of sediment to the Gulf of Mexico every day. Unfortunately most of that is sent over the continental shelf. We need to match power with power by following nature's model; the river will provide!
To minimize collateral damage, we must stop the use of any and all dispersants. Our public servants must raise the liability cap retroactively and through the roof! In addition, politicians should pass the Bingaman Baucus Senate Bill to provide $900 million per year for conservation from oil revenues. To guarantee transparency within the Unified Command we must create an NGO Representative position to serve as an ombudsman to for a more coordinated front of the well-established and experienced groups in the area. Last, but certainly not least, it would be prudent to focus on the often-overlooked issue of actually stopping the oil flow instead of allowing BP to try to salvage the well.
Southern Hospitality
I returned to the south to help my friends from various organizations and universities because of the care and generosity they have shown me. I believe that they are conditioned to be so hospitable because they are survivors. The ever-giving people in the South are in need of help. Despite all of the adversity bestowed upon the South our fellow Americans are in trouble, their true voices are not getting heard, the truth is not being revealed, and there are still a lot of questions that remain unanswered.
Remember, the only way to solve an environmental disaster is to work with nature. In the words of my dear friend and legendary outfitter and guide, John Ruskey, "May the river be with you."

Kristian Anders Gustavson, Co-Founder of Below the Surface.

Congressional Testimony and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Very detailed account of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, especially for technical account of disaster.

 

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6462

 

 

BP Top kill procedure - aptly named?

Top kill procedure diagram (jpg, 729KB)

The primary objective of the top kill process is to put heavy kill mud into the well so that it reduces the pressure and then the flow from the well. Once the kill mud is in the well and it’s shut down, then we follow up with cement to plug the leak.

For the top kill procedure we are designing equipment to pump the highest kill rate we can, irrespective of the flow rate of oil from the well (COMMENT: Wouldn't having an accurate estimate of the output of the well allow you to make better decisions regarding the practicality of this approach?), to force a downward flow of mud into the well. This, combined with the heavy drilling fluid is designed to eventually stop the flow. This has never been attempted at these depths. This is very complex – and involves several complex procedures coming together.

Detailed description of the procedure We have the Q4000 vessel at the surface which has a crane for lifting heavy equipment and is a central part of the surface equipment for this procedure. We also have a number of other vessels: the HOS Centerline, with Halliburton pumping equipment; the HOS Strongline; and the BJ Services Blue Dolphin and Halliburton Stim Star IV pumping boats.

A total of 50,000 barrels of mud will be on location to kill the well – far more than necessary, but we want to be prepared for anything. Pumping capacity on location is more than 30,000 hydraulic horsepower.

The mud will be pumped down the 6-5/8 inch drill pipe (pipe is connected to the Q4000), then through 3-inch hoses, which go through the manifold on the seafloor. Then the mud moves through another set of 3-inch hoses attached to the Deepwater Horizon BOP choke and kill lines.

With the manifold, we can also pump the ‘junk shot’ if necessary to stop too much of the kill mud going out through the top of the BOP rather than going down into the well to stop the flow. By switching valves in the subsea manifold, we can inject the ‘bridging material’ (the junk), which will prevent such losses and enable the top kill to continue.

We’ve been testing the junk shot on-shore, looking at different configurations of what might restrict the flow out of the Deepwater Horizon riser and what types of materials would help shut it off. Materials in a junk shot can include well-known items such as pieces of tires, golf balls, and pieces of rope.

Most of the equipment is on site and preparations continue for this operation.

This page was last updated 23 May 2010

http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=9033657&contentId=7062095

Watch BP in Action as they Fix the Oilspill!!! So exciting! Can't Miss!!!

Watch BP Fix Oil Leak Live

Watch BP as they ensure the safety of America's coastline and the main migratory flight path for most of the birds of North America, which follows the Mississippi River, crosses the Gulf of Mexico to the Yucatan.  Just imagine if the water is polluted for ten years and fish numbers decline.

When we kill the fish, we kill the birds.  We kill the birds, it comes to land in a serious way and will go up the food chain.  This balance with nature is an ancient concept and even with all of our advanced scientific understanding of the world, we cannot effectively legislate against these disasters. 

Denial science is to blame.  Taking well established concepts and theories and casting a shadow of doubt across our poorly educated nation.  This may seem off-base, but maybe if scientific education were improved in our country with properly funded programs, maybe we wouldn't be in such a pickle.

Cap the Well! Skip the junk shot.

Watch BP in Action Now!

Watch BP Fix Oil Leak Live

WBBM Posted: Monday, 24 May 2010 4:42PM Reverend Jesse Jackson is calling for a nationwide boycott of BP Steve Miller Reporting

CHICAGO (WBBM)  -- The Reverend Jesse Jackson is calling for a nationwide boycott of BP - because he says the company is not moving fast enough to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Reverend Jackson marched back and forth in front of a BP gas station at Roosevelt and Wabash - holding a sign that said, "Don't pay the bill for the spill." "The birds are already affected. The economy is affected. And the ecology is affected. And now people who have been watching this drama cannot just watch it and be spectators. It is now time to act. We do not have to subsidize BP's behavior." Meanwhile, at the BP station a few feet away, Antoine Bishop of Chicago was putting gas in his SUV, an Audi Q7. He says he'll go along with a boycott. "I feel it's right. It's a great thing to do. But, there's only one gas station in the South Loop. So it's hard to get gas." Reverend Jackson was joined by protesters from the Sierra Club of Chicago.

"Testing today shows very little oil in the water" BP Doug Suttles and the Latest MODIS Image

For Original Image go to MODIS at SSEC

Arnold already budgeting water bond money

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/24/MNB71DIMCT.DTL

BP Pledges $500 Million for Independent Research into Impact of Spill on Marine Environment

This press release indicates that research still needs to be done to answer the questions we've all had regarding the effects of oil on a marine environment. BP's dedication of $500 million to research this event is an indication that this truly is research in action and we have no idea what the long-term effects will be.

At least from a scientific perspective the damaging results that BP's research will disclose should be good fodder for future generations.

BP Pledges $500 Million for Independent Research into Impact of Spill on Marine Environment
Release date: 24 May 2010
BP today announced a commitment of up to $500 million to an open research program studying the impact of the Deepwater Horizon incident, and its associated response, on the marine and shoreline environment of the Gulf of Mexico.

"BP has made a commitment to doing everything we can to lessen the impact of this tragic incident on the people and environment of the Gulf Coast. We must make every effort to understand that impact. This will be a key part of the process of restoration, and for improving the industry response capability for the future. There is an urgent need to ensure that the scientific community has access to the samples and the raw data it needs to begin this work," said Tony Hayward, BP's chief executive.
The key questions to be addressed by this 10-year research program reflect discussions with the US government and academic scientists in Washington DC last week. BP will fund research to examine topics including:
•Where are the oil, the dispersed oil, and the dispersant going under the action of ocean currents?
•How do oil, the dispersed oil and the dispersant behave on the seabed, in the water column, on the surface, and on the shoreline?
•What are the impacts of the oil, the dispersed oil, and the dispersant on the biota of the seabed, the water column, the surface, and the shoreline?
•How do accidental releases of oil compare to natural seepage from the seabed?
•What is the impact of dispersant on the oil? Does it help or hinder biodegradation?
•How will the oil, the dispersed oil, and the dispersant interact with tropical storms, and will this interaction impact the seabed, the water column and the shoreline?
•What can be done to improve technology:
◦To detect oil, dispersed oil, and dispersant on the seabed, in the water column, and on the surface?
◦For remediating the impact of oil accidently released to the ocean?
BP already has ongoing marine research programs in the Gulf of Mexico. Building on these, BP will appoint an independent advisory panel to construct the long term research program. Where appropriate, the studies may be coordinated with the ongoing natural resources damages assessment. The program will engage some of the best marine biologists and oceanographers in the world. More immediately, a baseline of information for the long term research program is needed. A first grant to Louisiana State University will help kick start this work.

"LSU has a significant amount of experience in dealing with the oil and gas industry and deep knowledge pertaining to the Gulf of Mexico across numerous topical disciplines. The first part of the program is about obtaining and analyzing samples and assessing immediate impacts. Other areas of importance will emerge as researchers become engaged and the potential impacts from the spill are better understood," said Professor Christopher D'Elia, Dean of the School of the Coast and Environment.

Subsequent awards will be controlled by the independent advisory board.
Notes to editors: •BP has been collaborating with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography since 2004 in a program aimed at gaining a better understanding of the environment and hazards in oceans, including marine electromagnetic research. The focus of oceanography efforts has been loop currents in the Gulf of Mexico.
•In 2008, as part of the Deepwater Environmental Long-term Observatory System (DELOS), BP installed the world's first system designed to monitor deep-sea marine life. DELOS is supported by Texas A&M in Galveston, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, University of Aberdeen, National Oceanography Centre in Southampton and the University of Glasgow.
Further information: BP Press Office London +44 20 7496 4076
BP Press office, US: +1 281 366 0265
Unified Command Joint Information Center +1 985 902 5231
www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com
www.bp.com/gulfofmexico

BP Chooses Not To Change Dispersants Despite EPA Directive

This is an e-Alert from our good friends at the Louisiana Environmental Action Network!

In a letter dated May 20, 2010 BP responded to an EPA directive requiring BP to use a less toxic dispersant by defending its use of COREXIT products as the best option available.

Based on the information that is available today, BP continues to believe that COREXIT was the best and most appropriate choice at the time when the incident occurred and that COREXIT remains the best option for subsea application.

Before the Coast Guard and EPA issue further directives requiring a change in dispersant products or monitoring, we would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you to discuss the options and their efficacy and potential impacts, in view of the circumstances at the spill site, and the proposed methods of usage.

The EPA directive stated:

Within 24 hours of the issuance of this Addendum 2, BP shall identify to the FOSC and the EPA RRT Co-chair for EPA's and the FOSC's approval, one or more approved dispersant products from the National Contingency Plan Product Schedule that are available in sufficient quantities, are as effective at dispersing the oil plume, and have a toxicity value less than or equal to  23.00 ppm LC50 toxicity value for Menidia or 18.00 ppm LC50 for Mysidopsis, as indicated on the NCP Product Schedule  (http://www.epa.gov/oem/content/ncp/tox_tables.htm).  The less toxic dispersant product(s) shall be used by BP for surface application and subsurface application as directed by the FOSC. Within 72 hours after submitting the list of alternatives, and after receiving EPA approval, BP shall immediately use only the approved alternative dispersant.  Should BP not be able to identify alternative dispersant products, BP shall provide the FOSC and EPA RRT CO-Chair a detailed description of the products investigated, the reason the products did not meet the standards described above.  Availability shall be based on existing stockpiles of dispersants, the estimated time to begin and aerial and subsurface application, time for manufacturing, shipping, and warehousing.

In other words BP was asked to:

1. Identify one or more alternative (to the currently used COREXIT products) dispersant products that is already approved for use in the national oil-spill response plan that is:
1. as effective as the currently used COREXIT products
2. has a toxicity that is less than 2 specific toxicity test measurements
   
2. Provide the identified products to the Federal On Scene Coordinator (FOSC), Rear Admiral Mary Landry of the U.S. Coast Guard and the EPA Regional Response Team (RRT) Co-chair, Samuel Coleman of the EPA for their review.
3. Then, if the EPA approved the alternative dispersant(s), within 72 hours of receiving EPA approval BP was to immediately use only the alternative dispersant for surface and subsurface use.

If BP was unable to do the above, then BP was to give a detailed description of the products that it had investigated and the reasons why they did not meet the given criteria.

BP asserted in its letter that only 5 products in the list of dispersants in the national oil spill response plan meet the criteria given by the EPA. These are: Sea Brat #4, Nokomis 3-F4, Nokomis 3-AA, Mare Clean 200 and Neos AB3000.

BP went on to assert that of the 5 alternative products identified only Sea Brat #4 was available in sufficient quantities for use. However, BP believed that Sea Brat #4 should not be used without further evaluation because it contains a small amount of a chemical that may degrade to a nonylphenol.

Nonylphenol is a family of organic compounds that are considered to be endocrine disruptors due to a weak ability to mimic estrogen and in turn disrupt the natural balance of hormones in a given organism. Nonylphenol is persistent in the environment, and therefore lingers with the potential to negatively affect organisms it comes in contact with. Nonylphenol also bioaccumulates, which means that it could work its way up the food chain.

In BP's letter the availability of sufficient quantities of the dispersants is repeatedly given as "one of the most important criteria" in the selection of dispersants. In its letter BP states that "the manufacturers (of the other dispersants) tell us that they cannot produce the requested volume for 10 to 14 days or more."

In the BP letter an attachment is referenced a number of times. This attachment is said to contain "a table that describes the availability and production capacity for each dispersant option." As well as "a table that shows the expected effectiveness ratings for the four other dispersants that meet the acute toxicity criteria in (the EPA directive)."

Attached to the letter is a document titled "Attachment: Evaluation of EPA-Pre Approved Chemical Oil Dispersants" However this attachment contains evaluations of Corexit EC9500A, COREXIT EC9527A, JD-2000, Nokomis 3-FA, Sea Brat #4 and Saf-Ron Gold. It does NOT contain evaluations of Mare Clean 200, Nokomis 3-AA or Neos AB3000.

Interestingly, JD-2000, according to the attached tables, appears to be, by far, the least toxic product evaluated and slightly more effective than the COREXIT products and yet it does not appear in the actual BP letter.

The attachment also makes it clear that BP has or claims to have insufficient data to make proper evaluations of the dispersant products.

BP's response to the EPA directive makes it more clear than ever that EPA in cooperation with NOAA and the Coast Guard should be making the decisions about which dispersants are to be used and in what manner they are to be used.

Approximately 785,000 gallons of total dispersant have been deployed - 685,000 on the surface and 100,000 subsea.

Animation of Gulf Oil Spill - Deepwater Horizon, BP, and Transocean Oil Spill Disaster

The Coast Guard Is In Charge In The Gulf | David Pettit's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

The Coast Guard Is In Charge In The Gulf | David Pettit's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

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Attempts to Hold BP and Other Responsible

Our legislature is slowly pulling it together, hopefully they can get something passed before summer break kicks in...

Introduction of Bills on Oil Spill Liability
In the last several weeks, Representative Holt (D-NJ) introduced the Big Oil Bailout Prevention Act of 2010 (H.R. 5214). This bill is intended to amend the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 to require oil polluters to pay the full cost of oil spills, and for other purposes. The bill has been referred to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) introduced a companion bill in the Senate, S. 3305. The bill has been referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works. For more information, visit: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.5214: and http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.3305:

The CSO Weekly Report
May 21, 2010/ Issue 15.11
Coastal States Organization
http://www.coastalstates.org