BP Accused of Using Gulf of Mexico as ‘Toxic Testing-Ground’, Telegraph.co.uk, May 15, 2010, by Jacqui Goddard, Miami, photo © Reuters, quoted verbatim:

Louisiana officials have accused BP of turning the Gulf of Mexico into a toxic testing-ground after winning permission for experimental chemical methods of fighting the oil slick.

State officials are angry that federal regulators gave the company permission to try out new chemical techniques to break up and hold back the growing tide of oil.

Despite registering concerns about the potential implications for the environment, marine life and human health, Governor Bobby Jindal’s administration was cut out of deliberations over the use of dispersants that break up the oil, as the Environmental Protection Agency granted BP permission to release large quantities underwater.

“We don’t have any data or evidence behind the use of these chemicals in the water. We’re now basically using one of the richest ecosysystems in the world as a laboratory,” complained Alan Levine, the head of Louisiana’s Department of Health and Hospitals.

Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive officer, told WAFB Channel 9 news station that the chemical has undergone “lots of testing” and is biodegradable. “We believe it’s a very effective way of containing this spill until such time as we can eliminate the leak,” he added.

But Robert Barham, the state’s Secretary of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, stated that it has not been used at such depths before – BP’s leak stems from a pipe one mile below the surface – and that its potential impact and consequences are unknown. This includes how it travels through the water over time.

“We’re very disappointed in their approach,” he said of BP and the EPA. “The federal procedures call for a consensus between federal authorities, the responsible party and the states involved. When we met and expressed our concerns, apparently they decided to go without us.”

Efforts to minimize the flow of oil from the ruptured well are continuing today. Technicians stationed on ships anchored above the leaking pipeline – which was sheared off when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and sank on April 20 – have been attempting to insert a second, smaller pipe into the break to divert the flow to tankers on the surface. Over the coming days, they also plan to perform a “junk shot”, a procedure in which debris including shredded tires and broken golf balls will be fired into the well at high pressure to create a plug.

The oil industry is facing a growing backlash over the crisis, with President Barack Obama publicly criticizing executives on Friday for creating a “ridiculous spectacle” at congressional hearings into the incident. Officials from BP, which leased the rig, Transocean, which owned it, and Halliburton, which was assisting operations to complete the well when tragedy struck, were guilty of “falling over each other to point the finger of blame at somebody else”, he said.

Decrying the “cosy relationship” between the oil industry and the federal body that regulates it, the Minerals Management Service, he vowed changes to a regime under which drilling permits were “too often issued based on little more than assurances of safety from the oil companies.”

Environmentalists accused the president of acknowledging his administration’s errors too late, accusing the Department of the Interior of having turned the Gulf of Mexico into a “sacrifice area” where Big Oil’s profits won priority over marine protection laws.

More than 100 seismic surveys and 300 drilling permits have been issued under Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s watch without the prior environmental consideration that is required under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, according to the Centre for Biological Diversity. The legislation protects marine life such as whales and dolphins by making it inherent on oil companies to prove that they have taken measures to minimize the environmental impact of drilling and other activities.

“The Department of the Interior is well aware of its obligations under the law,” said Miyoko, the Centre’s ocean’s director, “as well of the harm to endangered whales that can occur from oil industry operations, yet it has simply decided it cannot be bothered. You or I have to follow the law, but Interior Secretary Salazar seems to think that he and the oil companies he is supposedly overseeing do not.”

Mr Sakashita added: “Under Salazar’s watch, the Department of the Interior has treated the Gulf of mexico as a sacrifice area where laws are ignored and wildlife protection takes a back seat to oil company profits.”

Mr Salazar will appear before a hearing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, to face his first grilling since the crisis began.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government reform has also announced that it is opening an investigation into potential oversight lapses at the Minerals Management Service.

Meanwhile questions remained as to how much oil is really spilling into the sea, with a number of scientists and expert analysts stating that the official figure of approximately 5,000 barrels a day (210,000 gallons) is a gross underestimate. Some believe that it could be 10 times that figure, though none have been granted access to the site to take official readings and there has been scepticism over BP’s claims not to know.

John Amos of Skytruth, an environmental monitoring group, said: “There are instruments and technologies available to measure this kind of flow on the sea floor.”

He added: “On satellite imagery day in and day out we continue to see an oil slick that’s several thousand square miles in size out there and the good news is that it hasn’t made serious landfall yet. That may be partly down to the response but also down to wind and current conditions. There’s an element of luck in there. But I’m not sure how much longer we can get lucky.”

2 scientists say oil is nearing a far-reaching current

UPDATE: See 2 scientists say oil is nearing a far-reaching current, The Boston Globe, May 18, 2010, by John M. Broder, excerpt quoted verbatim:

WASHINGTON — Scientists warned yesterday that oil from the spill in the Gulf of Mexico is moving rapidly toward a current that could carry it into the Florida Keys and the Atlantic Ocean, threatening coral reefs and hundreds of miles of additional shoreline.

Government officials insisted that the oil had not yet entered the gulf’s so-called loop current and said they are continuing to monitor the movement of the spill closely. But two independent scientists, analyzing ocean current and satellite data, said the oil is in an eddy that is quickly being drawn into the current, portending a much wider spread of the hazardous slick.

See Scientists: Underwater plume of oil headed out to sea, USA Today, May 17, 2010, by Rick Jervis.

Huge Underwater Oil Plumes Found in Gulf of Mexico

Huge Underwater Oil Plumes Found in Gulf of Mexico, AP quoted on Common Dreams.org, May 16, 2010, by the Associated Press’s Jeffrey Collins:

ROBERT, La. – Scientists have found huge plumes of oil lurking under the surface of the water in the Gulf of Mexico, as BP hit a snag in its latest effort to slow down the oil blasting out of a broken undersea pipe.

At least 210,000 gallons of oil a day has gushed into the Gulf of Mexico since an oil rig exploded April 20 and sank two days later. Eleven people were killed in the blast.

BP PLC is trying to use a mile-long pipe to capture the oil flowing into the Gulf, but engineers on Saturday failed to connect two pieces of equipment a mile below the water’s surface. BP PLC chief operating officer Doug Suttles said one piece of equipment, called the framework, had to be brought to the surface and adjusted to fit with the long tube that connects to a tanker above.

Read the full article, here

See Deepwater Plume, the size of 2 States and some fun with Maps, Daily Kos, May 17, 2010, by jamess.

BP Slows Oil Leak Using Mile-Long Straw

BP installs insertion tube, begins siphoning oil from leaking pipe, The Washington Post, May 17, 2010, by Steven Mufson and Joel Achenbach, excerpt quoted verbatim:

In the first progress in containing the oil gushing from a blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, BP engineers on Sunday inserted a tube into a leaking pipe and began siphoning some of the oil to a drilling rig at the surface.

The deep-sea plumbing did not do anything to close the well, and a substantial amount of oil continues to leak at the bottom of the gulf, but the day’s efforts were a rare bulletin of good news about 3 1/2 weeks into the crisis.

On Sunday, a four-inch-wide pipe was inserted into the broken section known as the riser, from which the majority of the oil has been leaking. If it works, the inserted pipe could keep a substantial amount of the oil out of the sea by siphoning it up a mile-long pipe to the Discoverer Enterprise drillship and then to nearby barges.

“So far it’s working extremely well,” said Kent Wells, senior vice president for exploration and production at BP.

But the race against time continued. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned over the weekend that plumes of oil already spilled and suspended beneath the water surface might, as soon as Tuesday night, start to get picked up by the powerful “loop current.” The current could carry the oil to the Florida Keys and beyond, scientists fear.

Moreover, BP said that to completely stop the oil from flowing into the gulf, it would have to plug the damaged well at the top. The company said it will try to do this in the next 10 days or wait weeks for a relief well to be complete.

Wells called the insertion tube, which functions like a straw, a “positive step forward.” He said the company has been able to flare, or burn, some of the natural gas at the surface, an indication that the insertion pipe is working.

UPDATE: See Shep Smith lays smartest smackdown ever on BP’s CEO “At least act like you care”, Daily Kos, May 17, 2010, by MinistryOfTruth, excerpt quoted verbatim:

After BP’s CEO Tony Hayward told a British reporter “It’s a relatively small leak compared to the volume of water in the gulf” and “Come on, this is America, there will be frivolous lawsuits.”.

Yeah, cause what’s a few hundred million gallons of oil in the gulf? It’s like saying, “So there is some urine in your tea, it’s still tea! Drink up!

BP Stands for Bad Petroleum, RobertReich.org, May 16, 2010, by Robert Reich, excerpt quoted verbatim:

Saturday the White House warned BP that it expects the oil giant to pay all damages associated with the disastrous oil leak into the Gulf of Mexico, even if the costs exceed the $75 million liability cap under federal law. BP responded Sunday saying its public statements are “absolutely consistent” with the Administration’s request.

When you hear dueling public statements like these, watch your wallets. You can safely assume BP’s lawyers are already at work to ensure that the firm pays not a cent more than $75 million — not to taxpayers bearing cleanup costs, not to consumers whose gas bills will rise, not to businesses along the coasts that will lose a fortune. And BP won’t pay more unless or until there’s a law requiring it to.

BP has been making public statements about its supposed corporate social responsibility for as many years as it’s behaved irresponsibly.

See Quest for oil leaves trail of damage across the globe, McClatchy Newspapers, May 16, 2010, by Tom Knutson.

See A Slick and Slimy Killer, Common Dreams.org, May 14, 2010, by Tom Turnipseed.

BP Chose More Toxic, Less Effective
Oil Dispersant — Guess Why …

BP Chose More Toxic, Less Effective Oil Dispersant — Guess Why …, AlterNet, May 17, 2010, by Alex Seitz-Wald, excerpt quoted verbatim:

As BP believes it has finally made progress plugging the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, it has managed to prevent much of the oil already released from washing onshore by using huge quantities of oil dispersants. BP rounded up a “third of the world’s available supply of dispersants” and has been deploying them aggressively. But Greenwire reports that the chemical BP is using is more toxic and perhaps even less effective than other available dispersents:

So far, BP has told federal agencies that it has applied more than 400,000 gallons of a dispersant sold under the trade name Corexit and manufactured by Nalco Co., a company that was once part of Exxon Mobil Corp. and whose current leadership includes executives at both BP and Exxon. And another 805,000 gallons of Corexit are on order, the company said, with the possibility that hundreds of thousands of more gallons may be needed if the well continues spewing oil for weeks or months.

But according to EPA data, Corexit ranks far above dispersants made by competitors in toxicity and far below them in effectiveness in handling southern Louisiana crude.

Of 18 dispersants whose use EPA has approved, 12 were found to be more effective on southern Louisiana crude than Corexit, EPA data show. Two of the 12 were found to be 100 percent effective on Gulf of Mexico crude, while the two Corexit products rated 56 percent and 63 percent effective, respectively. The toxicity of the 12 was shown to be either comparable to the Corexit line or, in some cases, 10 or 20 times less, according to EPA.

BP “shares close ties” with Nalco. A BP board member who served as an executive at the company for 43 years also sits on Nalco’s board, and critics suggest there may be a conflict of interest in BP’s choice of Corexit. “It’s a chemical that the oil industry makes to sell to itself, basically,” said Defenders of Wildlife’s Richard Charter. ….

See Environmentalist pessimistic about Gulf oil spill cleanup, TuscaloosaNews.com, May 16, 2010, by Lydia Seabol Avant.

Gulf Gusher – Worse than BP admits

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