U.S. oil spill waters contain carcinogens: Report

By Joshua Schneyer
Reuters/Rebecca Cook
NEW YORK
Thu Sep 30, 2010 7:09pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - University researchers said on Thursday they recently found alarming levels of cancer-causing toxins in an area of the Gulf of Mexico affected by BP's oil spill, raising the specter of long-lasting health concerns.

Oregon State University (OSU) researchers found sharply heightened levels of chemicals including carcinogens in the waters off the coast of Louisiana in August, the last sampling date, even after BP successfully capped its runaway Gulf well in mid-July.

Near Grand Isle, Louisiana, the team discovered that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) -- which include carcinogens and chemicals that pose various risks to human health -- remained at levels 40 times higher than before the area was affected by the oil spill.

The compounds may enter the food chain through organisms like plankton or fish, a researcher said.
"In a natural environment a 40-fold increase is huge," said Oregon State toxicologist Kim Anderson, who led the research. "We don't usually see that at other contamination sites."

The PAH chemicals, which are often linked to oil spills, are most concentrated in the area near the Louisiana Coast, but levels have also jumped 2 to 3 fold in other spill-affected areas off Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, Anderson said.

As of last month, PAH levels remained near those discovered while the oil spill was still flowing heavily, Anderson said. The team will continue to sample for chemicals in months to come.

Although BP has sealed its well, experts are still cataloging the environmental and health hazards left in the wake of the spill. Scores of research teams, including Anderson's, are working with Federal Superfund grants to measure how the spill affected the environment.

Also on Thursday, Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva told Reuters he would press for a congressional investigation into whether estimates of the oil spill volume and its related environmental risks were misrepresented in a federal report from early August.

BP's ill-fated Macondo well spilled a total of up to 4.9 million barrels before it was capped, the report said. But it also suggested that most of the oil had been dispersed naturally or removed by clean-up efforts at the time.

Grijalva, who chairs a subcommittee that oversees some wetlands damaged by the spill, said it was unclear whether the Federal report was peer-reviewed and whether its estimates remain accurate.

"I don't want to let BP off the hook, and my suspicion is that the numbers may be wrong and that the oil is still a danger," Grijalva said in an interview.

BP representatives were not immediately available for comment.

(Editing by David Gregorio)

Gulf Update: Day 112

News Alert: BP: Tests clear way for relief well

03:18 PM EDT Sunday, August 8, 2010

BP says pressure tests indicate the cement plug forced into blown-out gulf well has hardened and is firmly in place, clearing the way for drilling of the relief well to resume. The company did not say when it would begin drilling the final 100 feet of the well, though BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells has said it should resume Sunday night.

Once the relief well intersects the broken well, more mud and cement will be pumped in for the "bottom kill" meant to seal the well for good.

____________

BP wraps up Macondo Cementing

BY: Noah Brenner, Anthea Pitt & Tan Hwee Hwee
Upstreamonline.com
05 August 2010 03:17 GMT

BP finished pumping cement to seal the Macondo blowout about 2:15 pm local time Thursday after receiving the green light from the head of US Gulf spill response team.

Retired US Coast Guard admiral Thad Allen, who is heading the US Gulf spill response team, called the successful cement job “a major step forward” in a briefing with reporters Friday.

Allen OK’ed the decision to cement the well from the top after engineers determined that it would not harm the integrity of the well and would help make the eventual bottom kill through the relief well more effective.

“This is not the end but it will virtually assure us there will be no more oil leaking into the environment,” Allen told reporters during a briefing Thursday.

Allen spent Wednesday in Houston conferring with federal and BP engineers.

He said much of the discussion revolved around whether the drill pipe, which remains in at least some portion of the well casing, was intact, and how it would affect the cement job.

BP began cementing at about 830 am local time Thursday.

It came after a successful static top kill operation that was wrapped up on Wednesday.

Crews on the Helix Energy Solutions semi-submersible platform pumped 13.2-pound mud at about five barrels per minute over about eight hours until the hydrostatic pressure of the mud pushed the oil back into the reservoir.

Though it is not expected that any more oil will leak out of Macondo into the Gulf, Allen has been reluctant to dub well officially “killed” until the first relief well intercepts the bore and kills it from the bottom as well.

“This will not be done until we complete the bottom kill,” he said.

Drilling on the well was stopped during the kill and cement operations but likely will restart Friday after the cement in the well has cured at least partially, Allen said.

Crews on the Transocean semi-submersible rig Development Driller 3 have already back into the bore with a drill string and are at a cement shoe placed in the bottom of the final casing string.

After testing the blowout preventer, the rig needs to drill through the cement shoe before continuing down hole.

It will take about five days to drill the final length because the rig will stop about every 25 feet to locate Macondo and make sure the relief well is on target.

Once it intercepts the Macondo bore, crews will either verify that the well was successfully cemented and killed through the top kill or will proceed with a bottom kill and final cement job.

Transocean said Thursday that after that final operation, it plans to carry out subsea tests of the blowout preventer to pinpoint any malfunctions.

It will then pull the massive unit off the sea floor and take it ashore for further “forensic tests.”

The operation is expected to happen later next month or into October, the company said on a conference call Thursday.

Gulf Oil Update: Day 103

Time Teams With BP and Government in Concerted Effort to Disperse Concerns About Gulf Pollution

By: Jim White
Firedoglake.com
Friday July 30, 2010 7:57 am




Yesterday, Time magazine published a disgusting screed telling us all to calm down about the hundreds of millions of gallons of crude oil BP has released into the Gulf of Mexico and then even sent the author to push his drivel on Hardball. In starting the corporate media’s push-back against the level of damage arising from BP’s irresponsibility, Time has joined a team that previously consisted of BP, Thad Allen, EPA and NOAA.

Note that immediately after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig, BP started spraying massive quantities of the toxic dispersant Corexit. EPA made a half-hearted attempt to get BP to change its choice of dispersant to a less toxic one and/or to dramatically decrease the amount being released, but BP’s response was to game the terms of the EPA order and change absolutely nothing. EPA simply accepted BP’s decision and said nothing further about dispersants. On Countdown this week, Hugh Kaufman of EPA made the revelation that a political decision was made within the government to allow BP to take the lead on the use of dispersants, despite concerns on the part of EPA toxicologists.

The use of dispersants led to huge underwater plumes of small oil droplets. NOAA then jumped into the act to suppress as long as possible any admission that these plumes might be connected to the leak and the use of dispersants. Just last week, we finally got confirmation from the University of South Florida that the oil in the underwater plumes is indeed from the BP leak. Ironically, in the TV news piece out of Tampa (where USF is located) announcing the confirmation of the source of the oil plumes, that news is tacked briefly onto the beginning of an interview with Senator George LeMieux where LeMieux drones on about the need to continue drilling in the Gulf:




Also last week, a third of the area that had been closed to fishing was re-opened. Yesterday, some portions of Louisiana waters also were re-opened. These re-openings, while welcome news to the fishermen who have been idled by BP’s spill, come after extensive testing of the waters and the fish in those waters. However, the lingering question remains whether the tests that were carried out were properly designed. The problem is that crude oil has over 40,000 different chemicals in it. Let’s hope that the tests that were carried out chose wisely from among that huge number of compounds, because it is impossible to detect something for which no test is run.

Note also how Thad Allen has allowed BP to game the appearance of the leaks on the cap that is now blocking most of the flow from the well and from the "seeps" in the well area. Click on one of the pages showing the multiple feeds from the ROV’s in the well area, and you will see that BP is no longer allowing any feeds that convey information to be broadcast. We no longer get a view of the base of the blowout preventer where it rises from the floor of the Gulf, so we don’t know whether gas or oil is escaping around the outside of the well casing. We also aren’t seeing feeds from any of the seeps surrounding the well, so we don’t know if the flow from them is changing over time. Thad Allen is standing by idly and missing a chance at the collection of vital data while BP is hiding what they don’t want us to see.

One more shortcoming by Thad Allen is his refusal to force BP and the government to provide a more accurate flow rate on the leak when it was flowing. By allowing BP to continue to lowball the estimate, the fines BP eventually will pay will be lower, possibly by billions of dollars.

Heckuva job, Thaddie.

____________


Massive Amounts of Underwater Oil Droplets Which Organisms Eat Does Not Equal Victory in the Gulf

By: David Dayen
Firedoglake.com
Friday July 30, 2010 11:08 am

Michael Grunwald took a run at carrying forward this idea that the BP oil disaster is actually, you know, not so bad, a perspective contrasted by his own colleague at Time, Bryan Walsh:

I think it’s far too early to declare the oil spill a bust. It’s true that the coastlines don’t seem to have experienced the damage they might have—though as Mother Jones’s Mac McClelland points out, there’s definitely still oil in the waters and the beaches. (One of the challenges of covering this spill has been geography—as Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen has said, it’s like fighting hundreds or thousands of smaller spills, each of which can hit hundreds of miles of coastlines. It’s the fog of environmental war—just because one island hasn’t been hit by oil doesn’t mean another might not be, and vice versa.) [...]

But look beyond the coastline. The truth is we know very little about what the release of tens of millions of gallons of oil underwater will do to the marine ecosystems of the Gulf. Add in the application of some 2 million gallons of chemical dispersants, which have never been used—and were never meant to be used—in such vast quantities. We know that there are oil plumes under the water—but we don’t know what they might be doing to marine life. And there are great fears that the Gulf’s rich fisheries might take years to recover. The spill hit during the nursery season, and might have damaged oysters, shrimp and other species when they were young and vulnerable. 20 years after the Exxon Valdez spill, fisheries in Prince William Sound haven’t fully recovered, and nearly every fisherman you meet on the Gulf coast worries the same thing will happen to the waters they once plied.

Indeed, the real problem now might be that the oil, along with dispersants, have absorbed into the marine life. The whole PR strategy for BP has been to keep the oil off the shore, so people like Michael Grunwald would bail them out with articles about how the disaster isn’t all that bad. But just because we can’t see the insides of the organisms in the food chain, that doesn’t mean their intake of oil and other chemicals isn’t devastating for the ecosystem:

Scientists have 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 foodchain.

Marine biologists started finding orange blobs under the translucent shells of crab larvae in May, and have continued to find them “in almost all” of the larvae they collect, all the way from Grand Isle, Louisiana, to Pensacola, Fla. — more than 300 miles of coastline — said Harriet Perry, a biologist with the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory.

And now, a team of researchers from Tulane University using infrared spectrometry to determine the chemical makeup of the blobs has detected the signature for Corexit, the dispersant BP used so widely in the Deepwater Horizon spill.

Toxic droplets that can affect the ocean life in the Gulf for generations – that’s not my idea of a dodged bullet. So the idea that BP can “scale back” their operations now is outrageous. They can scale back the dumping of toxic chemicals into the Gulf, to be sure, but it’s way too early to take the cleanup crews out of the water. The situation is still bleak.

____________


Where things stand
The Gulf Oil Blog
By Samantha Joye, University of Georgia, Professor of Marine Sciences
| Published: June 20, 2010 9:54pm

The gulfblog is back. Sorry it took me so long to do this update. The past couple of weeks have been the busiest and most demanding of my career. Everyone in the lab has been working feverishly to complete the analyses of samples collected on the Pelican and Walton Smith cruises. Those data sets are almost complete and I am now working to complete two manuscripts that I hope will be submitted by the end of June.

Below I answer some of the questions that came in to the blog over the past two weeks. At the end, I talk about what our next research steps will be.

Questions posed to the Gulfblog

(1) Could you briefly define both, or distinguish between, DOM and CDOM?

Colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) is a fraction of dissolved organic matter (DOM) that is “optically active” or “optically measurable”. Put simply, CDOM absorbs light. Oil is a type of CDOM. The light CDOM absorbs ranges from blue to ultraviolet so CDOM makes water appear greenish to yellow-green to brown (the color changes with increasing CDOM concentration).

(2) If you could gather dispersant concentration data from multiple water samples in the gulf, what question(s) would you try to answer with that information.

I can easily envision several ways to use dispersant concentration data. First, it would be useful to know how widespread – and at what concentration – the dispersants are present. Some forms of COREXIT contain dangerous components (e.g. 2-Butoxyethanol) and COREXIT is more toxic to some organisms than crude oil. COREXIT can be long-lived in the environment so we need to know the concentrations present around the Gulf – not just in the areas where it was applied; it will move around with the ocean currents.

I have added the material safety data sheets (MSDS) for COREXIT 9500 and 9527 to the resources page of the blog. Read these for yourself to learn more about these products.

Other questions—how do these dispersants impact microbial populations and microbial activity; are dispersants bioaccumulated, in other words, are they passed up to higher trophic levels?; are the dispersants toxic to key Gulf fishery species (shrimp, blue crap, tuna) and if so are some phases (larval, juvenile or adult) more sensitive than others. MORE...

It's Unstoppable: Oil Well Blowout May Never End

By Washington's Blog

June 24, 2010 "Washington's Blog" -- As I have previously noted, it is now clear that there is damage to BP's well beneath the sea floor.

Recently-retired Shell Oil President John Hofmeister told MSNBC yesterday:

The question is whether there is enough mechanical structure left at the base of the reservoir to hold the cement when they start pouring cement in [from the relief well].

***

The more oil we some coming out, the more it tells you that the whole casing system is deteriorating. The fact that more oil would be coming out rather than less oil, would suggest that the construction within the pipe is offering no resistance whatsoever, and we’re just getting a gusher.



Newsweek gives a balanced view regarding the risk of a total structural failure of the well:

The likelihood of a complete collapse is difficult to assess, in part, engineers and legislators say, because BP hasn’t shared enough information to evaluate the situation. But a handful of clues suggest that the company is concerned. On Friday, BP spokesperson Toby Odone acknowledged that the 45-ton stack of the blowout preventer was tilting noticeably, but said the company could not attribute it to down-hole leaks. “We don’t know anything about the underground portion of the well,” he said. But, the stack “is tilting and has been tilting since the rig went down. We believe that it was caused by the collapse of the riser.” The company is monitoring the degree of leaning but has not announced any plans to run additional supports to the structure.

As many have speculated ... concerns over structural integrity are what led BP to halt “top kill” efforts late last month. When it was digging this particular well, the company ran out of casing–the pipe that engineers send down the hole–and switched to a less durable material called liner. This may have created several weak spots along the well that would be particularly vulnerable to excessive pressure or erosion. So instead of sealing the well, the company has been focused on trying to capture the oil as it flows out the top.

At this point, some experts say, additional leaks wouldn’t matter much. “It’s very possible that there are subfloor leaks,” says [Roger Anderson - an oil geophysicist at Columbia University]. “But that doesn’t change the strategy moving forward.” The linchpin of that strategy involves drilling relief wells that would absorb all possible leaks, both at the top and the bottom of the hulking, teetering structure. Relief wells are drilled straight down into the sea bottom. After running parallel to the existing well for a few thousand meters, they cut in and intersect the original well bore. BP is drilling two such wells, one on either side of the main well. Once they are complete, the company will use them to pump heavy fluid and cement into the main well, stopping the oil at its source. The approach usually has a 95 percent success rate.
But to work, the well must be sealed as far down as possible–if it’s sealed too high, oil could still escape through any leaks beneath the seal. In this case, relief wells will have to drill down to 5,500 meters, and that takes time, at least until August. The real question now is whether the entire structure can hold out long enough.

One of the dangers which the relief wells are racing against is that the blowout preventer (BOP) is leaning ... and might fall over.


The well casing itself is attached to the BOP. And - as discussed below - the BOP is very heavy. So if the BOP fell over, it would likely severely damage the structural integrity of the casing.

As Think Progress points out:

In a press teleconference Monday, National Incident Commander Thad Allen announced that the riser package is tilting “10 or 12 degrees off perpendicular,” twice the 5.5 degree tilt of the Leaning Tower of Pisa:

The entire arrangement is kind of listed a little bit. I think it’s 10 or 12 degrees off perpendicular so it’s not quite straight up.

As the Times-Picayune notes:

The integrity of the well has become a major topic of discussion among engineers and geologists.

"Everybody's worried about all of this. That's all people are talking about," said Don Van Nieuwenhuise, director of geoscience programs at University of Houston. He said the things that BP has being doing to try to stop the oil or gain control of it have been tantamount to repeatedly hitting the well with a hammer and sending shock waves down the pipe. "I don't think people realize how delicate it is."

"There is a very high level of concern for the integrity of the well," said Bob Bea, the University of California Berkeley engineering professor known to New Orleanians for investigating the levee failures after Katrina, who now has organized the Deepwater Horizon Study Group. Bea and other engineers say that BP hasn't released enough information publicly for people outside the company to evaluate the situation.
***

When wells are drilled, engineers send links of telescoping pipe down the hole, and those links are encased in cement. The telescoping pipe, called casing, unfolds like a radio antenna, only upside down, so the width of pipe gets smaller as the well gets deeper.

The cement and layers of casing are normally quite strong, Van Nieuwenhuise said. But with the BP well, there are several weak spots that the highly pressurized oil could exploit. BP ran out of casing sections before it hit the reservoir of oil, so it switched to using something called liner for the remainder of the well, which isn't as strong. The joints between two sections of liner pipe and the joint where the liner pipe meets the casing could be weak, Van Nieuwenhuise said.

Bill Gale, an engineer specializing in fires and explosions on oil rigs who is part of Bea's Deepwater Horizon Study Group, said the 16-inch wide casing contains disks that are designed to relieve pressure if necessary. If any of those disks popped, it could create undesirable new avenues for the oil to flow.

Bea said there are also concerns about the casing at the seabed right under the blowout preventer.

Van Nieuwenhuise said he's never actually heard of oil from a blown out well rupturing the casing and bubbling up through the ocean floor. He would consider that an unlikely, worst-case scenario.

A more likely problem, he said, is that oil could find its way into open spaces in the casing string, known as the annulus, and travel up the well in areas where it isn't supposed to be. This scenario could be one reason why more oil than expected is flowing at the containment cap that BP installed earlier this month to collect the oil.

Bea is more concerned about the worst-case scenario than Van Nieuwnhuise. In an answer to a question, Bea said, "Yes," there is reason to think that hydrocarbons are leaking from places in the well other than the containment cap.

"The likelihood of failure is extremely high," Bea said. "We could have multiple losses of containment, and that's going to provide much more difficult time of trying to capture this (oil)."

Meanwhile, observers monitoring the video feeds from the robotic vehicles working on the sea floor have noticed BP measuring a tilt in the 40-ton blowout preventer stack with a level and a device called an inclinometer.

***

Bea said BP isn't sharing enough information for others to know. If there is oil and gas escaping from the sides of the well, it could erode the sediments around the well and eat away at the support for all the heavy equipment that sits above. Bea said reports that BP is using an inclinometer is significant news. "It tells me that they are also concerned," he said.

Here are videos of BP measuring the tilt of the BOP.

While the BOP weighs 40 tons, the riser package as a whole weighs over 450 tons. If the BOP and riser package fell over, it would inflict severe damage to the attached well casing.

The Houston Chronicle reports:

Money-saving measures BP took while designing the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico appear to have dogged efforts to bring the massive oil spill under control.

Documents released by congressional investigators show that modifications to the well design BP made last year included a reduction in the thickness of a section of the casing — steel piping in the wellbore

The modification included a slight reduction in the specified thickness for the wall of a 16-inch-diameter section of pipe toward the bottom of the well, according to a May 14, 2009, document.

***

The condition of the well also limits how much oil and gas can flow into containment systems now being used successfully to capture some of the flow. Even if a vessel could capture all the hydrocarbons gushing from the well, some would have to be released to keep well pressure under control.

Marvin Odum, president of Houston-based Shell Oil, the U.S. arm of Royal Dutch Shell, told the Houston Chronicle last week that the integrity of the well casing is a major concern. Odum and others from the industry regularly sit in on high-level meetings with BP and government officials about the spill.

If the well casing burst it could send oil and gas streaming through the strata to appear elsewhere on the sea floor, or create a crater underneath the wellhead - a device placed at the top of the well where the casing meets the seafloor - that would destabilize it and the blowout preventer.

The steel casing used in oil wells is strong, said Gene Beck, petroleum engineering professor at Texas A&M, but pressures deep in a well are powerful enough to split strong steel pipe or "crush it like a beer can."

The strength and thickness of casing walls are key decisions in well design, he said. If the BP well's casing wasn't strong enough, it may already be split or could split during a containment effort.

BP spokesman Toby Odone said the decision to reduce the pipe thickness was made after careful review. The company said it doesn't know the condition of the well casing and has no way of inspecting it.

BP is drilling two relief wells to intercept the Macondo well near the reservoir and plug it with cement. A rupture in the Macondo well casing probably wouldn't affect that effort, said Donald Van Nieuwenhuise, director of geoscience programs at the University of Houston.

"When they start the bottom kill the cement will try to follow oil wherever it's escaping, so it would actually hide a lot of sins in the well bore," Van Nieuwenhuise said.

So far there are no signs that the section of the pipe below the sea floor is leaking.

The blowout preventer has been listing slightly since the accident, but officials believe that may have happened when the Deepwater Horizon sank while still attached to the well via a pipe called a riser.

***

But the longer the well flows uncontrolled the more likely it is that the well casing could be damaged or the blowout preventer damaged further. Sand and other debris that flows through the pipes at high velocity can wear through metal over time, said Van Nieuwenhuise.

The chances of the well eroding from underneath and the blowout preventer tipping may seem unlikely.
"But everything about this well has been unlikely," said David Pursell, an analyst with Tudor Pickering Holt & Co

Indeed, oil industry expert Rob Cavner says that he wouldn't be surprised if the BOP ended up falling over entirely:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Real Consequences of An Ocean Floor Collapse

Nick Doms
SOTT
Tue, 22 Jun 2010 15:49 EDT

A collapse of the ocean floor in the Gulf of Mexico is in our near future but all depends on how such will occur. Two possible scenarios have been analyzed and described by several oceanographic institutions including the Florida Atlantic University (FAU) known for its in depth maritime expertise.

The two possible scenarios are either a complete collapse of the ocean floor right above the Deepwater Horizon well and surroundings or a partial collapse in the form of a mud slide on one side of the well.

The first scenario is unlikely at this time but remains a possibility given the number of crevices that have been created naturally due to the high pressure inside the well. This pressure is created by the large amount of methane gasses that is building up inside the well.

Should this scenario occur, then the prediction is that a vast amount of oil and methane will be released immediately into the water and towards the surface. The aftermath would be a tidal wave, caused by the fast displacement of a large amount of water that will reach the shores of all the Gulf States.

The immediate danger will be to cope with the height of the wave along the shoreline and not necessarily the mixture of oil and Corexit. Both products will obviously affect the local population in the aftermath of the tidal wave and during clean up.

The second scenario, a partial collapse of one side of the well in the form of a large mud slide, will cause a similar effect but to a far lesser extent given that the collapse will happen in a more or less slow motion fashion where water will replace oil and methane over a brief period of time.

A wave is expected to form off the Gulf Coast but will cause less damage and will be far less destructive.

Nevertheless, the impact on the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida will be enormous. The tourism industry represents a combined annual income of 150 billion dollars for Alabama and Florida. This industry has been hit hard and may not be able to recover within the next few years after a collapse.

The fishing and shrimping industry that represents the livelihood of small business owners will be affected for at least 10 years and maybe longer.

The ports of New Orleans, Pascagoula and Mobile are and will be inaccessible until the cleanup has been completed. The three ports rely on European and Asian trade for 50% of their annual revenue.

The environmental impact is hard to measure but one thing is certain; 80% of the world's dolphin population lives in the affected area of the Gulf of Mexico and the whale population migrates to the region to have their babies there.

The BP solution to place relief wells to pump out the oil and methane gas may seem like a good solution but it also represents serious dangers to the integrity of the well's surface and may cause further cracks and crevices to open.

For the time being this may be the only solution available and let's hope that the first scenario never occurs.

NOTE:

I have been unable so far to independently validate the claims made in this article. I encourage readers to investigate them and report back. If these scenario's are even remotely possible i.e. <10% probability, they should be taken seriously.

--Dr. J. P. Hubert

Details Emerge on Weakness in Well Design

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Dot Earth - New York Times blog
June 21, 2010, 11:47 am

The New York Times has published a detailed and devastating report on weak links in the design and operation of the blowout preventer that was the last line of defense against an uncontrolled seabed gusher like the one at BP’s Macondo Prospect well in the Gulf of Mexico.

The central component of blowout preventers is a powerful device called a blind shear ram that crimps the well pipe in an emergency. These complicated rams are controlled by shuttle valves that deliver hydraulic fluid. The reporting package includes an annotated trove of documents, including a risk analysis from 2000 identifying a shuttle valve in the preventer as the source of more than half of the total “failure likelihood.”

There’s a great package of explanatory graphics and animation. (Editor's NOTE: in the New York Times article HERE... including a video which demonstrates how the blind shear ram is designed to work)

The story shows how companies doing offshore oil drilling had shifted progressively to cutting the risk of failure by adding a second blind shear ram to blowout preventers. The well installed by the Deepwater Horizon team for BP did not have the twin rams. The story includes responses from BP and Transocean on the absence of the backup equipment.

There’s also a passage in the story vividly showing how industry pronouncements about the safety of deepwater drilling — which undoubtedly contributed to President Obama’s decision to support expanded oil and gas development off American coasts — were a smokescreen:

Last year, Transocean commissioned a “strictly confidential” study of the reliability of blowout preventers used by deepwater rigs.

Using the world’s most authoritative database of oil rig accidents, a Norwegian company, Det Norske Veritas, focused on some 15,000 wells drilled off North America and in the North Sea from 1980 to 2006.

It found 11 cases where crews on deepwater rigs had lost control of their wells and then activated blowout preventers to prevent a spill. In only six of those cases were the wells brought under control, leading the researchers to conclude that in actual practice, blowout preventers used by deepwater rigs had a “failure” rate of 45 percent.

For all their confident pronouncements about blowout preventers (the “ultimate failsafe device,” some called it), oil industry executives had long known they could be vulnerable and temperamental.

There’s much more in the package, which demonstrates the vital role of investigative teams who can take the time to dig deep. Let’s hope The Times and other media can find ways to invest in such efforts even as they race to find new sources of income in an online world where “ information wants to be free.”

Steven Lendman Asks Some Important Questions

Oval Office Duplicity: Cover for Corporate Criminality

By Stephen Lendman
WarIsacrime.org original HERE...

Since taking office, Obama proved himself a machine politician, not a man of the people, an earlier article explaining it this way:

He promised peace and delivered war; real health and financial reform, not same old, same old; help for millions losing jobs, homes, hope and futures, not handouts to Wall Street and other industry favorites; regulatory oversight, not the usual incestuous government-industry ties, making disasters like in the Gulf possible, and when they happen conspiring with offenders in coverup, distortion, lies, and a total disregard for the environment, wildlife, and way of life for thousands - let alone permanent damage to a vital ecosystem.

At the same time, Big Oil gets billions in subsidies, special tax breaks and other financial benefits, besides being free to operate recklessly in a regulatory-free environment. Little wonder that a disaster now threatens to become the greatest ecological one ever, gushing oil that's potentially unstoppably from multiple sea floor ruptures, worsened apparently by BP fix attempts done as PR stunts, the company and administration knowing they wouldn't work but used them anyway as a charade to fool the public.

In addition, for nearly two months, company officials:

* obstructed cleanup efforts and hasn't provided proper equipment to do it;
* suppressed vital information;
* told cleanup workers they'd be fired if spoke to the media;
* lied from day one about what happened and its severity;
* denied adequate compensation to Gulf victims;
* withheld respirators and other protective gear from cleanup workers, many now ill from flu-like symptoms, including severe headaches, dizziness, nosebleeds, chest pains, and trouble breathing that may persist, become worse and for many be long-lasting or permanent;
* ordered workers showing up with respirators and other protective gear to remove it or be fired; and
* on June 17, BP CEO Tony Haywood stonewalled the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation by refusing to provide information he knows as chief operating officer.

Yet BP got White House, cabinet, and congressional backing from the start, collaborating in a likely trillion or multi-trillion dollar crime, affecting the entire regional economy as well as the lives, health and welfare of tens of thousands of its residents, on their own and out of luck, like millions of others nationwide facing enormous hardships from job losses, home foreclosures, growing poverty, hunger, and unaffordable illnesses because of Washington's indifference during the gravest economic crisis since the Great Depression.

One of Many Disturbing Views

On June 12, theOilDrum.com assessed the crisis as follows:

"First of all....set aside all your thoughts of plugging the well and stopping it from blowing out oil using any method from the top down. Plugs, big valves to just shut it off, pinching the pipe closed, installing a new (blowout protector) or (lower marine riser package), shooting any epoxy in it, top kills with mud etc etc etc....forget that, it won't be happening....In fact, (it) actually open(s) up the well at the subsea source and allow(s) it to gush more."

"It's really an inescapable conclusion at this point (based on expert oil and gas professional opinions) that "The well bore structure is compromised 'Down hole.' That is something which is a 'Worst nightmare' conclusion to reach....It means they will never cap the gusher (at) the wellhead. They cannot (and) the more they try and restrict the oil gushing out the top, the more it will transfer to the leaks below."

"The down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. (In fact), we are beginning to (see) the well's total integrity beginning to fail....I am convinced (that) the entire system is accelerating and attacking more key structural areas of the well." After enough damage is done, "the casing will buckle and the (blowout preventer) will collapse the well."

BP and Washington know it but conceal it from the public and residents most affected.

At some point, "the worst things you can think of" will happen. "The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail....the least damaging outcome (being) that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more."

The longer the oil gushes, the worse things will get, and in the end every fix tried will fail, including relief wells to relieve pressure. At that point, "the system will collapse or fail substantially....and the worst is yet to come," increasing the magnitude of the disaster "exponentially."

Response from The New York Times

The paper of record largely supported Obama's address, including his supposed humbling BP with a $20 billion escrow fund for claims, saying in an editorial headlined, "From the Oval Office" that:

"Americans have been anxiously waiting for President Obama to take full charge of the gulf oil catastrophe," and he did by "vow(ing) to 'fight this spill with everything we've got for as long as it takes' and declared that 'we will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused.' "

Agreeing that follow through is essential "with more energy and dedication than they have shown so far," and that his speech "was short on specifics and devoid of self-criticism," The Times was hopeful that "Obama was right when he predicted that in 'coming weeks and days,' up to 90 per cent of the oil leaking....will be captured and the well finally capped by this summer" - a virtual impossibility for either to happen, something the "newspaper of record" should know and report.

The Times also endorsed the Senate's "long-stalled comprehensive energy and climate bill, a necessary first step to reducing this country's dependence on fossil fuels and tackling the problem of global warming," when, in fact, it's a scheme to raise energy prices and create a huge new bubble through carbon trading derivatives speculation, and has nothing to do with the environment except increase pollution.

Yet the editorial says "Time is quickly running out for Congress to act before the midterm elections. There is no chance at all (for passage) unless Mr. Obama takes full charge of that fight as well," typical irresponsible misinformation, backing powerful corporate interests, a longstanding Times tradition, why nothing it reports can be believed in editorials or news coverage, why most of what it publishes isn't "fit to print" or read, for sure not believe.

Gulf Gas Bubble Danger Alert

On June 14, author Richard C. Hoagland, citing insider BP and US government sources, told the BBC that "a gas bubble approximately 15 - 20 miles across 10+ feet high near (BP's) well head....had formed that that it may cause a massive explosion within weeks or months."

(Editor's NOTE: I have been unable to independently verify this assertion which I encourage reader's to research further).

He said the pressure is enormous, around 100,000 pounds per square inch, so if it happens it will be an underwater volcanic eruption, creating a huge tsunami, traveling at 400 - 600 miles per hour, sinking all vessels in its path, besides causing vast shoreline damage and deaths, driving up oil prices, and spreading hazardous dispersant's and gasses well inland.

Florida, he believes, will be hardest hit, but the entire region will be affected. A mass evacuation will be ordered, affecting about 40 million people, what Jane Burgermeister reported on her birdflu.666 site, saying under "martial law:"

"The US military is preparing to 'evacuate' 40 million people in the (Gulf) region....under the pretext of toxicity, according to sources," taking them to "notorious FEMA camps, built around the country and resembling concentration camps or prisons...."

(Editor's NOTE: I do not know who the "sources" are and the veracity of this statement).

Citing sources she calls reliable, she adds that "if the seabed is fractured, then all gulf drilling will be suspended (and) will force the price of energy and gas to double worldwide within a few months." Only time will confirm if true, but already the situation is grim, with nothing in prospect for improvement, according to some reliable oil experts.

In readiness, Hoagland said the Coast Guard is calling up former officers and seamen, "offering enticements to come back into service quickly," and that "measurements at Venice and (New Iberia), LA are (already) showing health endangering levels of toxic hydrogen sulfides and benzene gasses." He believes evacuation will likely come or millions may die or suffer severe health consequences, because of toxicity in large amounts being emitted.

Again, whether or not true remains to be seen, but better to know the possibilities (even if exaggerated or proved false) than remain uninformed and unprepared for the worst. Under the best case scenario, this is an unprecedented environmental catastrophe, criminally covered up by Washington and BP.

Oval Office Cover and Capitulation to Corporate Predation

Obama's June 15 address was disingenuous, shameless, hypocritical and supportive of Big Oil interests, much like his backing for the Israeli Lobby, Wall Street bandits, Big Pharma, the insurance lobby, auto giants, agribusiness, defense contractors, and other corporate favorites, while endorsing big cuts in vital public benefits and services to show fiscal restraint.

Playing front man for BP, he didn't explain the cause or severity of the crisis in terms of its effects on the economy, ecosystem, and lives, welfare and health of Gulf state residents. Nor did he demand accountability for perhaps the greatest ever environmental crime, as a result of government-corporate complicity that neither this or any other disaster will change, and unless it does, profits will always supersede public welfare and ecological safety, externalities indifferently sacrificed without concern, no matter how severe. Obama, of course, is a front man for a human and environmentally destructive system, his pious rhetoric and brave face a shameless lie.

To a nationwide audience, he said nothing about regulatory laxity, BP's disregard for worker safety, its shoddy history of dangerous practices, the disrepair of its equipment by cutting corners on maintenance and proper controls, years of manager warnings to top officials ignored about safety concerns risking serious accidents, employees pressured to be silent, say nothing, or be fired, and the company's single-minded pursuit of bottom-line issues, everything else be damned - to such an extreme that it got former EPA debarment attorney, Jeanne Pascal, to say after investigating company practices:

"They are a recurring environmental criminal and they do not follow US health safety and environmental policy. At what point are we going to say we are not going to do business with you any more, bye? None of the other super-majors have an environmental criminal record like they do."

So why did Obama provide BP cover from day one, and in his 18 minute nationwide address? Why hasn't he held a corporate scofflaw accountable, run the cleanup from the start, demand BP provide full information on the problem and cooperate with Washington in charge or face criminal prosecution, huge fines, and nationalization? Why hasn't the public been fully informed? Why do the administration, its officials, the Congress and Coast Guard work for BP instead of the other way around?

Why has he unquestioningly accepted all BP pronouncements on faith, including deliberately falsifying gush estimates - first, 1,000 barrels a day, then 5,000, then 25,000 - 40,000, and now 30,000 - 60,000 when reliable evaluations are double these numbers or higher and explain a problem that may turn the entire gulf and beyond into dead zones, as well as contaminate the entire Atlantic coast and waters well beyond?

Why hasn't he explained Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen's offhand comment that most oil isn't flowing up BP's pipe but is "in communication" with the sea floor and surrounding formations, meaning it's gushing from multiple ruptures, perhaps more to come because of the enormous pressure eroding the well's walls? Why hasn't he announced that perhaps nothing can stop them short of technologies that don't exist, other than perhaps a nuclear option that might fail and magnify the problem as well as irradiate the Gulf and regional shorelines?

Why did he said nothing about noxious air and toxic rain if one or more hurricanes hit the Gulf? Why isn't he warning residents and providing help in case of the worst? Why doesn't he use the military for cleanup, restoration and other aid, and bring home US forces from Iraq and Afghanistan to do it?

Why does he repeat BP's lies, censor the media, conspire to destroy evidence, and keep the public in the dark when they have every right to know anytime, let alone when there's an unprecedented disaster affecting this and other nations?

Why hasn't his Justice Department indicted BP officials, ordered their arrest, and imprisoned them where they belong? Why did he deliver shameless boilerplate to a nationwide TV audience, instead of a detailed action plan, with facts and hard numbers, including seizing BP's assets, mandating all be used to cover recovery and restoration costs, even if it bankrupts the company? Why hasn't BP, and perhaps the entire industry been nationalized - one responsible for global environmental disasters, mostly where victims aren't compensated and get shot if they complain?

After a choreographed White House meeting with top BP officials, why did he let them off easy with a bogus $20 billion escrow fund, amounting to two quarters of dividends, affecting only company shareholders, that's way less than needed to compensate affected residents, who'll be trashed in deference to Big Oil interests? Why did he appoint Kenneth Feinberg as overseer, a notorious Washington fixer who'll protect BP and the administration, not affected Gulf residents?

Why didn't he announce a complete halt to offshore drilling, especially in dangerous deep waters? Why didn't he (belatedly) order immediate environmental impact studies on all current and future drilling operations as well as mandated safety regulations, placing worker and ecological issues above bottom line ones?

Why isn't he our president, instead of BP's front man, stooge, shill, willing agent, betrayer of the public trust, like he's been in all ways since taking office? When will the public realize they've been fooled again, scammed, betrayed, Obama no different from the rest, and, in fact, worse, by fiddling, lying, obfuscating, and concealing the truth while America and other nations face a potentially catastrophic disaster? When will they understand that only grassroots activism brings change when it's determined enough to demand nothing less - and what better time to try than now?

NOTE:

Mr. Lendman's many assertions require further study and must be independently verified but I applaud his effort to arrive at the truth.

--Dr. J. P. Hubert

BP Admits That - If It Tries to Cap the Leak - the Whole Well May Blow

By: Washington's Blog original HERE...
Tuesday, June 15, 2010

As I previously noted, oil industry expert Rob Cavner said that BP must "keep the well flowing to minimize oil and gas going out into the formation on the side":

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

This has just been confirmed by BP.

Specifically, BP's Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles told CNN last Thursday that BP's data indicates that BP can't cap the leaking oil, or it might cause the well casing to blow out:



Suttles denies that there is evidence that the well casing has already blown out beneath the sea floor.

But many experts - including experts working for BP - say that there is damage beneath the sea floor. Indeed, Matt Simmons told Bloomberg today that America's top research vessel - the Thomas Jefferson - found that the well casing is gone, and can no longer even be seen on the sea floor, having been destroyed.

Gulf Oil Disaster: A Transatlantic Pollution Catastrophe Looms

by Finian Cunningham
Global Research, May 21, 2010

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster threatening to wipe out tourism and fishing industries and countless numbers of marine wildlife habitats along the entire US southeast coast could be just the prelude to a much greater transatlantic pollution catastrophe.

The furthest eastern state of Florida – 600 miles from the Deepwater Horizon spill site off Louisiana – is next at risk to devastating pollution as a result of giant undersea oil plumes being swept up by fast-moving Caribbean currents known as the Gulf Loop. But US government officials are now warning neigbouring countries to also prepare for contamination. Indeed, the US state department has taken the highly unusual step of contacting the Cuban government to warn it of the pollution risk.

With efforts to curtail the flow of oil gushing from the seabed well by British Petroleum proving ineffective a month after the explosion on an exploratory rig, it is feared by several marine scientists and engineers based in the region that the spill could reach up to a total of six million barrels of crude oil equivalent – 25 times greater than the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident off Alaska, which up to this was considered one of the worst human-made environmental disasters.

With up to 70,000 barrels of oil spewing into the Caribbean every day, there are well-founded fears that the Gulf Loop will pass on its contamination load to the Gulf Stream which, in turn, pours into the North Atlantic. If this happens then the countries of Western Europe that are bathed by this giant oceanic current will also suffer the hydrocarbon toxic fallout from the Deepwater Horizon, scientists say. The multibillion-dollar damage to communities, industries and the incalculable ecological cost might then be multiplied to trillions.

And the full extent of this transatlantic catastrophe does not even stop there. In the South Atlantic, the offshore territories off West Africa – including those of Ghana, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone – have in recent years become major players in global oil exploration. Since discoveries of huge undersea oil reserves in 2007 off Ghana, in particular, international oil companies, including Exxon and Russian and Chinese state-owned firms, have been flocking to the West African country eager to exploit its newfound natural wealth. More than 50 international oil companies are vying for this equatorial oil bounty, according to the Ghanaian energy ministry.

One of Ghana’s major offshore oil prizes is the Jubilee Field, which is estimated to contain reserves equivalent to 1.8 billion barrels (1,800 million barrels). Production from oilrigs off this former British colony is scheduled to begin later this year – for the first time.

Of concern is that Transocean – the operator and owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig contracted by BP – is also the major operator in Ghana’s nascent offshore industry. The New York and Zurich-listed company is the world’s biggest such operator, with over 300 rigs worldwide, according to its website. The company views West Africa as one of its growth areas. [1]

It is now well documented in the case of the Gulf oil spill, which resulted from an explosion on 20 April on Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon rig claiming the lives of 11 workers, that the disaster stemmed from negligence in safety standards and procedures carried out by Transocean. The two main safety shortcomings were the faulty method by which the rig tried to shut off the exploratory wellhead and the failure of a blow-out valve to activate in order to seal the resulting gusher. Not only that, but these systemic dangers in the company’s drilling operations were highlighted over several years by independent engineers and consultants. Both US government officials and the oil industry ignored the warnings, evidently in a rush to maximise profits. [2]

This revolving door relationship between the US government and the oil industry whereby a blind eye was turned on safety regulations, in particular those of Transocean, raise deeply troubling concerns about the risk of an equally disastrous oil spill in the newly opened West African offshore fields.

Sam Danse, who is Oxfam’s country director for Ghana, told BBC World Service (19 May) that he fears international oil companies are using their colossal economic strength to ride roughshod over West African government officials and safety regulations. He cited Transocean in particular with regard to Ghana.

Transocean’s annual profits of over $4 billion is more than a quarter of Ghana’s gross domestic product and approximately the same as the country’s total debt. That is a lot of leverage on a government of a poor country desperate to get its oil industry up and running as quickly as possible. As Danse pointed out: “If that’s what this company got away with with American industry regulators, what can it get away with those in Ghana?”To make matters worse, Ghana has already an unenviable reputation for endemic government corruption. The World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business (2010) ranks the country 92nd out of a total of 183. Ordinary Ghanaians often complain that their government ministries are “in the pockets” of foreign investors. Former British deputy high commissioner Craig Murray, who fell foul of his own government in the late 1990s for blowing the whistle on bribery and fraud involving British companies in Ghana, says that the country’s energy sector is particularly prone to corruption.

“The truth is that sadly there was a major increase in corruption in Ghana especially in 2007 and 2008. That was a major reason why the Ghanaian people voted to change their government. But so far there is little indication that the new government has done much to root out the corruption,” says Murray.

If the level of corruption that has been shown in the Gulf of Mexico oil industry is replicated in West Africa’s inexperienced offshore enterprises, then this opens up the possibility of a ticking bomb for a similar oil spill disaster occurring in the South Atlantic. Given that this oceanic region off West Africa drives major ocean currents back to the Americas in a manner countercyclical to the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic [3] this opens up an appalling vista of a transatlantic triangular catastrophe in oil pollution.

Notes

1. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-22/transocean-has-25-of-fleet-standing-by-in-shipyards-update3-.html

2. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/may2010/spil-m14.shtml


3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Ocean

Why Did The U.S. Refuse International Help on The Gulf Oil Spill?

by Dian L. Chu
Global Research, June 10, 2010
Economic Forecasts & Opinions - 2010-06-09

Despite the vow by President Obama to keep the Gulf oil spill a top priority until the damage is cleaned up, 50 days after the BP rig exploded, a definitive date and meaningful solution is yet to be determined for the worst oil spill in the U.S. history.

So, you would think if someone is willing to handle the clean-up with equipment and technology not available in the U.S., and finishes the job in shorter time than the current estimate, the U.S. should jump on the offer.

But it turned out to be quite the opposite. .

U.S. Refused Help on Oil Spill

According to Foreign Policy, thirteen entities had offered the U.S. oil spill assistance within about two weeks of the Horizon rig explosion. They were the governments of Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations.

The U.S. response - Thank you, but no thank you, we've got it.

"..While there is no need right now that the U.S. cannot meet, the U.S. Coast Guard is assessing these offers of assistance to see if there will be something which we will need in the near future."

Blame It On The Jones Act?

Separately, Belgian newspaper De Standaard also reported Belgian and Dutch dredgers have technology in-house to fight the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but the Jones Act forbids them to work in the U.S.

A Belgian group--DEME-- contends it can clean up the oil in three to four months with specialty vessel and equipment, rather than an estimated nine months if done only by the U.S. The article noted there are no more than 5 or 6 of those ships in the world and the top specialist players are the two Belgian companies- DEME and De Nul - and their Dutch competitors.

The U.S. does not have the similar technology and vessel to accomplish the cleanup task because those ships would cost twice as much to build in the U.S. than in the Far East. The article further criticizes this "great technological delay" is a direct consequence of the Jones Act.

What Is The Jones Act?

The Merchant Marine Act of 1920 is a United States Federal statute that regulates maritime commerce in U.S. waters and between U.S. ports. Section 27, also known as the Jones Act, deals with coastal shipping; and requires that all goods transported by water between U.S. ports be carried in U.S.-flag ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents.

The purpose of the law is to support the U.S. merchant marine industry. Critics said that the legislation results in increased costs moving cargoes between U.S. ports, and in essence, is protectionism, Supporters of the Act maintain that the legislation is of strategic economic and wartime interest to the United States. .

European Service Sector - Offshore Subsea Specialist

As discussed in my analysis of the oil service sector, the European companies typically possess the knowhow in offshore and subsea; whereas their North American counterparts excel in onshore drilling and production technologies.

So, it is more than likely that European firms do have the expertise to clean up the spill quicker and more effectively as DEME asserts.

Since the Jones Act means the Belgian ship and personnel cannot work in the Gulf, it does seem the Act has inhibited technology and knowledge exchange & development, and possibly prevented a quicker response to the oil spill.

Jones Waiver Time

On the other hand, waivers of the Jones Act may be granted by the Administration in cases of national emergencies or in cases of strategic interest. It would appear the U.S. government's initial refusal to foreign help most likely stemmed from a mis-calculation of the scale and deepwater technological barriers for this unprecedented disaster, and/or perhaps ..... pride.
Whatever the rationale, and if De Standarrd's claim that the Jones Act forbids the European companies to help fight the spill is true, it is high time the U.S. government grant the Jones waiver, and let this be an international collaborative effort. (Editor's bold emphasis throughout)
It's always better late than never.

Masking the Extent of the Disaster: The Worst of the Gulf Oil Spill has not been Revealed

by Brian Merchant
Global Research, May 25, 2010
Treehugger - 2010-05-20

One of the biggest hurdles to covering the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was actually getting a good look at the oil. For somewhat murky reasons (health, safety of fragile habitats), press has been repeatedly forbidden to enter impacted areas by the Coast Guard, BP, or the Fish & Wildlife Service.

I was on the ground in the Gulf. Trying to get the story from one of the fishermen contracted to work with BP was like asking them if they'd like a root canal on the spot. Word is that cleanup workers are told if they talk to the press, they're fired. And then there are the toxic chemical dispersants, which plays the biggest role in masking the extent of the disaster's damage by breaking the oil up and spreading it out -- at who knows what cost. So, the question is, will anyone ever see the worst of the catastrophic BP Gulf oil spill? Here are the five main reasons that you might not.

1. It's Not a Photogenic Disaster ... Yet

I spent the last 10 days traversing the Gulf coast, and I hardly saw few traces of actual oil. I know that there are videos out there that show how devastating the spill is -- the one that shows the 'Gulf bleeding' is especially powerful. But I'm afraid it's not powerful in the conventional sense -- most people probably don't see the copper colored water and the oily sheen over the waves as tragic, necessarily, but bizarre.

There is no doubt that the millions of gallons of oil currently floating around in the Gulf of Mexico will be supremely hazardous to wildlife and the local economy. But it sometimes seems the whole event is registering closer to a curiosity than a tragedy to those not immediately connected to it.

2. Chemical Dispersant Cover-Up

Which brings us to what may be BP's greatest aide in furthering this aim: the chemical dispersants. BP's plan to spray the dispersants on the leak from the source -- as well as dump them from planes flying above -- will effectively prevent oil from reaching the shore in the same form that the notorious slicks did in famous spills like the Exxon Valdez.

Despite the fact that nobody is sure exactly how toxic the stuff is, or how being deployed on such a large scale will effect ecosystems, it will have at least one effect: it will delay public outrage by masking the apparent extent of the spill's damage. After all, BP must know how damaging the Valdez spill was for Exxon's image -- some people still conjure up pictures of oil-coated birds at the mention of the brand. But make no mistake -- chemical dispersants will disrupt ecosystems in a massive way, even if you never see the true effect with your own eyes.

3. BP, Feds Cutting Off Press?

But there are other concerns as well. Most recently, video surfaced of the Coast Guard turning press away, claiming it was BP's orders. An NPR team was turned away when trying to access the oil-hit Chandeleur barrier island chain. The workers hired to cleanup the spill seem to be under pressure not to talk to press -- whenever I would approach a hired fisherman or contractor, they'd most often wave me away, or refuse to talk on record.

When I contacted a BP community liaison, he essentially dared me to call his bluff: he didn't deny the contractual clause, but he did say "I've got fishermen in my office all the time -- you want to talk to one right now?" But that was hardly reassuring, and obviously not an acceptable circumstance for an unbiased interview.

I attribute some of the press exclusion from the feds to a messy bureaucratic command structure -- officials flown in from all over the nation were giving, deflecting, and misinterpreting orders, and sending them on down the line to crews. But there does seem be a pointed effort, especially from BP, to drastically restrict press access.

4. Relative Public Apathy

Satellite images, oddly colored water, a collapsed hi-tech rig -- it all might seem more like a strange spectacle than a catastrophe. Fox News' anchor Brit Hume summed up the apathy the other day when he retorted "Show me the oil."

Of course, the thousands of people who are losing their livelihoods and the conservationists who understand the impact oil will have on undersea food chains are confidant that this is nothing short of a disaster. But without pictures of devastated wildlife -- which thus far have been few and far between -- or blackened coastlines, I fear that most will continue to underestimate how damaging this spill will be. That would, of course, play directly in BP's favor -- and undercut further investigative efforts.

5. It's More Convenient to Conceal the Devastation

One oft-voiced worry among conservation groups and other press that I heard as I trekked from marina to marina, city to city around the Gulf, was that there would only be interest in ensuring that justice was brought to those impacted by the spill as long as the cameras were rolling. And without any distinctly shocking material to film, those cameras would be rolling away sooner rather than later.

Which is why it's important that the Coast Guard explain a concrete policy for press access and that BP encourage the fishermen who've been out in the field to speak up about their encounters with the oil. If they have nothing to hide, then why clamp down, right? It's a spooky thought, but if there are images of gruesomely oil-slicked beaches and blackened birds, the public has a right to see it. Even if this does sound distressingly like a call for sensationalism -- it's in part because that very sensationalism will help bolster conservation efforts and strengthen sound policy initiatives.

And of course, I believe that the use of chemical dispersants is far too dangerous a gamble, and not only because it helps prevent people from grasping the severity of the spill, but because of the unknown long-term threats they pose to marine habitats. This stuff could yet emerge as the dominant narrative of the Gulf spill in hindsight, damaging food chains for generations, or worse.

The point of all of this is: don't believe just your eyes -- listen to reports coming in from legitimate conservation scientists and investigative journalists. Much of the press down there are out on the boats every day, desperately trying to get the best sense of what's going on -- and being thwarted by weather, BP, the dispersants, and sometimes evidently the Coast Guard. For 10 days, I was trying my best, too -- and I can tell you, it's looking like we may never see the worst of this spill with our own eyes.

Gulf oil spill: Flow rate now 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day, panel says [Updated]

By: Bettina Boxall
Los Angeles Times
June 15, 2010 | 2:51 pm

As many as 60,000 barrels of oil per day may be flowing from the blown-out wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the newest government estimates.

Basing their calculations partly on pressure readings from the wellhead and acoustic soundings, a team of federal and independent scientists said Tuesday the current daily well flow ranges from 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per day.

The figures are the latest in a series of flow estimates that have steadily risen in recent weeks, but they may not be the last.

"As we continue to collect additional data and refine these estimates, it is important to realize that the numbers can change," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "In particular, the upper number is less certain, which is exactly why we have been planning for the worst-case scenario at every stage and why we are continuing to focus on responding to the upper end of the estimate, plus additional contingencies."

[Updated at 4:04 p.m.: Federal officials said they have greater confidence in the latest numbers than earlier ones because the new calculations are based on a greater variety of data.

“This estimate brings together several scientific methodologies and the latest information from the sea floor, and represents a significant step forward in our effort to put a number on the oil that is escaping from BP’s well,” Chu said.

The new flow rates are based on high-resolution videos taken by underwater robots, acoustic soundings, new pressure readings from inside the recently installed containment cap and measurements of the volume of oil the cap is funneling to a production ship.

“This estimate ... is the most comprehensive estimate so far of how much oil is flowing one mile below the ocean’s surface,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said.

The higher flow rates are ratcheting up pressure on BP to quickly get enough tankers and equipment on site to capture the full amount.

On Monday, 15,420 barrels of oil were collected. The system BP currently has in place can capture up to 18,000 barrels a day. The company is adding additional capacity that will soon give it the ability to handle up to 28,000 barrels.

That will grow to about 50,000 barrels per day by the end of June and 60,000 to 80,000 barrels by mid-July, federal officials said.

The new estimates take into account any increase that occurred when a riser pipe attached to the well was sliced off early this month. Engineers had previously said the cut might push up the flow by as much as 20%. But Tuesday's release did not discuss the cut's effect. ]

In the early days of the spill, oil company BP and federal officials said the flow was 1,000 barrels per day, a figure that was ramped up to 5,000 after an environmental group challenged the figures. The scientific panel was formed, and it issued a preliminary estimate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels per day. Last week, the same group upped its estimate to 20,000 to 40,000 barrels per day.

The day after the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig, the U.S. Coast Guard evaluated the "potential environmental threat" of a spill and concluded that, in addition to 700,000 gallons of diesel from the vessel, there was an "estimated potential of 8,000 barrels per day of crude oil, if the well were to completely blow out," according to Coast Guard documents released last week.

Two days later, Coast Guard logs included a new estimate that a full blowout could result in a spill of 64,000 to 110,000 barrels per day. (Editor's bold emphasis throughout) (A barrel equals 42 gallons.)

Gulf oil spill: Oil execs scolded for 'cookie cutter' spill plans

By: Richard Simon
Los Angeles Times
June 15, 2010 | 1:28 pm

Oil company executives came under attack during congressional hearings Tuesday for having what Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) called "cookie cutter’’ oil spill response plans that are similar to, and no better than, BP’s plan in the Gulf of Mexico.

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) asked Lamar McKay, chairman and president of BP America Inc., to "apologize to the American people’’ for his company’s underestimating the amount of oil spewing into the gulf, now pegged at between 20,000 and 40,000 barrels a day since the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.

Update: A government panel on Tuesday revised that figure to 35,000 to 60,000.

Markey contended that "BP’s low-balling’’ was "either deliberate deception or gross incompetence.’’

"We are sorry for everything the Gulf Coast is going through,’’ McKay said, though he disputed that his company was responsible for the earlier estimates, which ranged from 1,000 barrels to 5,000 barrels in the early days of the disaster.

Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) went further – calling on McKay to resign. "I really think in light of the performance of you as the CEO and what has occurred, I really think you should be resigning as chairman of BP America,’’ Stearns told McKay.

McKay did not respond.

Bringing up the devastating 1969 Santa Barbara spill during the hearing, Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara) displayed pictures showing how a boom used then had barely changed from the booms being used today.
"I don’t see a lot of difference in technology between the cleanup in Santa Barbara and the cleanup now underway in the gulf,’’ she said.

The hearing came during what has become an almost daily frenzy of activity on Capitol Hill over the disaster, which killed 11 men and started the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

A group of lawmakers, mostly Republicans and some Democrats from the Gulf Coast, stepped up their efforts to get deep-water drilling underway again, underscoring that energy policy is often shaped by regional interest rather than party affiliation. The Obama administration has enacted a six-month moratorium on such drilling, pending the findings of a presidential panel investigating ways to prevent another disaster like this one.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) likened the moratorium to "taking a jackhammer to the bedrock of the Louisiana economy’’ that depends on energy production for jobs.

On Tuesday, a group of Democratic senators sent another letter to BP calling on the company to "refrain from setting aside any funds for a dividend payment until the amount of the damages related to the oil spill can be estimated and the company has established an escrow account to cover those costs.’’
Yet more spill-related legislation was introduced, including one that would require oil companies to drill emergency relief wells at all new offshore drilling sites.

BP cut corners in days before oil well blowout in Gulf of Mexico, documents say

The Associated Press
Monday, June 14, 2010, 10:40 PM

BP made a series of money-saving shortcuts and blunders that dramatically increased the danger of a destructive oil spill in a well that an engineer ominously described as a "nightmare" just six days before the blowout, according to documents released Monday that provide new insight into the causes of the disaster.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee released dozens of internal documents that outline several problems on the deep sea rig in the days and weeks before the April 20 explosion that set in motion the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history. Investigators found that BP was badly behind schedule on the project and losing hundreds of thousands of dollars with each passing day, and responded by cutting corners in the well design, cementing and drilling mud efforts and the installation of key safety devices.

"Time after time, it appears that BP made decisions that increased the risk of a blowout to save the company time or expense. If this is what happened, BP's carelessness and complacency have inflicted a heavy toll on the Gulf, its inhabitants, and the workers on the rig," said Democratic Reps. Henry A. Waxman and Bart Stupak.

The missteps emerged on the same day that President Barack Obama made his fourth visit to the Gulf, where he sought to assure beleaguered residents that the government will "leave the Gulf Coast in better shape than it was before."

Obama's two-day trip to Mississippi, Alabama and Florida represents his latest attempt to persevere through a crisis that has served as an important early test of his presidency. The visit coincides with a national address from the Oval Office on Tuesday night in which he will announce new steps to restore the Gulf Coast ecosystem, according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to upstage the president's announcements.

"I can't promise folks ... that the oil will be cleaned up overnight. It will not be," Obama said after encouraging workers in hard hats as they hosed off and repaired oil-blocking boom. "It's going to be painful for a lot of folks."

But, he said, "things are going to return to normal."

The breached well has dumped as much as 114 million gallons of oil into the Gulf under the worst-case scenario described by scientists -- a rate of more than 2 million gallons a day. BP has collected 5.6 million gallons of oil through its latest containment cap on top of the well, or about 630,000 gallons per day.

But BP believes it will see considerable improvements in the next two weeks. The company said Monday that it could trap a maximum of roughly 2.2 million gallons of oil each day by the end of June (Editor's bold emphasis) as it deploys additional containment efforts, including a system that could start burning off vast quantities as early as Tuesday. That would more than triple the amount of oil it is currently capturing -- and be a huge relief for those trying to keep it from hitting the shore.

"It would be a game changer,"said Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Mark Boivin, deputy director for near-shore operations at a command center in Mobile. He works with a team that coordinates the efforts of roughly 80 skimming boats gathering oil off the coast.

Still, BP warned its containment efforts could face problems if hoses or pipes clog and engineers struggle to run the complicated collection system. Early efforts at the bottom of the Gulf failed to capture oil.

Meanwhile, congressional investigators have identified several mistakes by BP in the weeks leading up to the disaster as it fell way behind on drilling the well.

BP started drilling in October, only to have the rig damaged by Hurricane Ida in early November. The company switched to a new rig, the Deepwater Horizon, and resumed drilling on Feb. 6. The rig was 43 days late for its next drilling location by the time it exploded April 20, costing BP at least $500,000 each day it was overdue, congressional documents show.

As BP found itself in a frantic race against time to get the job done, engineers took several time-saving measures, according to congressional investigators.

In the design of the well, the company apparently chose a riskier option among two possibilities to provide a barrier to the flow of gas in space surrounding steel tubes in the well, documents and internal e-mails show. The decision saved BP $7 million to $10 million; the original cost estimate for the well was about $96 million.

In an e-mail, BP engineer Brian Morel told a fellow employee that the company is likely to make last-minute changes in the well.

"We could be running it in 2-3 days, so need a relative quick response. Sorry for the late notice, this has been nightmare well which has everyone all over the place," Morel wrote.

The e-mail chain culminated with the following message by another worker: "This has been a crazy well for sure."

BP also apparently rejected advice of a subcontractor, Halliburton Inc., in preparing for a cementing job to close up the well. BP rejected Halliburton's recommendation to use 21 "centralizers" to make sure the casing ran down the center of the well bore. Instead, BP used six centralizers.

In an e-mail on April 16, a BP official involved in the decision explained: "It will take 10 hours to install them. I do not like this." Later that day, another official recognized the risks of proceeding with insufficient centralizers but commented: "Who cares, it's done, end of story, will probably be fine."

The lawmakers also said BP also decided against a nine- to 12-hour procedure known as a "cement bond log" that would have tested the integrity of the cement. A team from Schlumberger, an oil services firm, was on board the rig, but BP sent the team home on a regularly scheduled helicopter flight the morning of April 20.

Less than 12 hours later, the rig exploded.

BP also failed to fully circulate drilling mud, a 12-hour procedure that could have helped detect gas pockets that later shot up the well and exploded on the drilling rig.

Asked about the details disclosed from the investigation, BP spokesman Mark Proegler said the company's main focus right now is on the response and stopping the flow of oil. "It would be inappropriate for us to comment while an investigation is ongoing," Proegler told AP. BP executives including CEO Tony Hayward will be questioned by Congress on Thursday.

The letter from Waxman and Stupak noted at least five questionable decisions BP made before the explosion, and was supplemented by 61 footnotes and dozens of documents.

"The common feature of these five decisions is that they posed a trade-off between cost and well safety," said Waxman and Stupak. Waxman, D-Calif., chairs the energy panel while Stupak, D-Mich., heads a subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

Attorney: Deepwater Horizon Managers Knew About Oil Rig Problem Before Explosion

“The rig’s on fire! I told you this was gonna happen”


Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Top Houston attorney Tony Buzbee says he has new evidence which indicates that Deepwater Horizon’s managers knew that the BP oil rig had major problems before its explosion on April 20, citing the eyewitness account of a crew member who rescued burning workers on the rig of a conversation between Deepwater Horizon installation manager Jimmy Harrell and someone in Houston. According to the witness, Harrell was screaming, “Are you fucking happy? Are you fucking happy? The rig’s on fire! I told you this was gonna happen.”

Harrell was talking via satellite phone and whoever was on the other end of the line was apparently trying to calm him down as the rig burned.

“I am fucking calm,” said Harrell, according to Buzbee. “You realize the rig is burning?”

A boat captain then asked Harrell to leave the bridge. Transocean have refused to confirm or deny that the conversation took place.

Buzbee is a respected lawyer with a successful history of winning cases brought against oil companies. He represents 15 rig workers along with dozens of shrimpers, seafood restaurants, and dock workers. The witness to the conversation signed a 3 page statement attesting to the fact that it took place, but refuses to be identified for fear of reprisals.

Though Harrell himself has denied allegations of a feud with BP or Transocean in public hearings, the Atlantic’s Josh Harkinson points out that there were two other witnesses who personally experienced Harrell’s problems with their safety procedures.

“Testifying before the Coast Guard and MMS panel last month, Douglas Brown, the chief mechanic on the Deepwater Horizon, said that on the morning of the day that the rig exploded Harrell had a 'skirmish' over drilling procedures during a meeting with BP’s 'company man,' well site leader Robert Kaluza. “I remember the company man saying this is how it’s going to be,” Brown told the panel. As Harrell was leaving the meeting, according to Brown, “He pretty much grumbled, ‘I guess that’s what we have those pincers for,’” referring to the blowout preventer on the sea floor that is supposed to be the last resort to prevent a leak in the event of an emergency. The blowout preventer failed following the explosion on the rig, causing the massive spill. (Transocean’s chief electronics technician, Mike Williams, also recalled the argument but named a different BP 'company man,' BP’s top official on the rig, Donald Vidrine),” writes Harkinson.

“Other rig workers have also claimed that they were pressured by BP and their supervisors to cut corners,” adds Harkinson. “Transocean roustabout Truitt Crawford told the Coast Guard that he overheard senior management saying that BP was “taking shortcuts” by replacing drilling mud in the well with saltwater, which would have provided less weight to contain the well’s surging pressure. Transocean’s Williams told 60 Minutes that a supervisor had dismissed evidence that the well’s blowout preventer had been damaged. And workers with Halliburton, the well’s cementing contractor, had complained that BP’s use of cement 'was against our best practices' and told the oil company that it would likely have 'a SEVERE gas flow problem' unless the well’s casings were centered more carefully.

The details of this story would appear to point to mere negligence on behalf of Transocean and BP were it not for the plethora of other evidence indicating foreknowledge of the event and even possible deliberate sabotage of the oil well.

As we highlighted yesterday, on page 37 of British Petroleum’s own investigative report into the oil spill, it is stated that the Hydraulic Control System on equipment designed to automatically seal the well in an emergency was modified without BP’s knowledge sometime before the explosion.

Highly suspicious stock and share trades by people connected to BP before the explosion indicate some extent of foreknowledge.
Goldman Sachs dumped 44% of its shares in BP Oil during the first quarter of 2010 – shares that subsequently lost 36 percent of their value, equating to $96 million. The current chairman of Goldman Sachs is Bilderberg luminary Peter Sutherland, who is also the former chairman of British Petroleum.

Furthermore, as reported by the London Telegraph on June 5th, Tony Hayward, the current BP CEO sold £1.4 million of his shares in the fuel giant weeks before the spill. (Editor's bold emphasis)

On April 12th, just over one week before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, Halliburton, the world’s second largest oilfield services corporation, surprised some by acquiring Boots & Coots, a relatively small but vastly experienced oil well control company.

Halliburton is named in the majority of some two dozen lawsuits filed since the explosion by Gulf Coast people and businesses who claim that the company is to blame for the disaster.

Halliburton was forced to admit in testimony at a congressional hearing last month that it carried out a cementing operation 20 hours before the Gulf of Mexico rig went up in flames. The lawsuits claim that four Halliburton workers stationed on the rig improperly capped the well.

Alex Jones discusses more of the evidence which indicates a cover-up and the potential motivations behind it in the clips below.



Editor's NOTE:

I have not independently varified the claims of Alex Jones that the Gulf Oil Leak is likely a "False Flag" attack and that BP and the Federal government are purposely not capping the leak. Nvertheless, his claims are worthy of further investigation.

--Dr. J. P. Hubert