Gulf of Mexico oil spill environmental data drives damage assessment

Jan. 12, 2012- Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune

BP’s chief environmental scientist assigned to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on Thursday said the company, working with state and federal trustees, remains on a fast pace aimed at restoring resources damaged during the 2010 spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Briefing reporters by phone in advance of a month-long series of hearings on proposed “early restoration projects” along the Gulf Coast, Robin Bullock said the formal Natural Resource Damage Assessment process required under federal law has developed “the largest set of environmental data at one point in time associated with an oil spill incident within the Gulf of Mexico.”

Hundreds of scientists — from universities, federal agencies and hired by BP — have gathered data on the status of Gulf resources before the spill, and the potential for resource damage from the estimated 5 million barrels of oil that gushed from BP’s Macondo well. That information was used to develop projects to restore natural resources and compensate the public for the use of those lost resources.

The hearings will focus on the first eight projects proposed in December by states’ trustees and BP, which total $57 million for the Gulf Coast and includes $28 million for Louisiana projects. BP has pledged to spend $1 billion on “early restoration” projects, but the company and other parties responsible for the spill may eventually have to spend as much as $20 billion on natural resource projects.

The first two Louisiana projects will build more than 100 acres of wetlands in Plaquemines Parish, place oyster cultch on six public seed beds in several parishes and upgrade an oyster hatchery on Grand Isle.

The projects were approved by a committee of trustees representing the five Gulf Coast states, the federal departments of Interior and Commerce and BP. Under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the trustees and the parties responsible for the spill are required to cooperatively complete the damage assessment process.

The early projects are driven by the early lessons learned by scientists, Bullock said.

“We knew a few things about the injuries very quickly,” she said, including the effects on recreational fishers by the closure of wide swaths of the Gulf to fishing, and to tourists by beach closures.

The $4.4 million proposed for building boat ramps and $600,000 for coastal dunes in Florida is aimed at compensating for such lost recreational opportunities.

“On the ecological side, we do know that oil reached the shorelines,” Bullock said. “We do know that we did have some mortality associated with birds, some mortality associated with turtles,” and projects aimed at restoring near-shore environments would compensate for their losses, she said.

Louisiana’s projects fall into the resource restoration category, as do the $11 million for oyster cultch and $2.6 million for an artificial reef in Mississippi and the $9.4 million for marsh creation and $1.1 million for coastal dune improvements in Alabama.

Louisiana’s first two projects are part of a $533 million list of 13 projects that it proposed in July for a share of BP’s early restoration money, said Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority chairman Garret Graves, who acts as Louisiana’s trustee in the damage assessment process.

Louisiana is supposed to get $100 million of the first $1 billion, but hopes some of the projects could be paid for with shares of the BP money provided that will go to the Commerce and Interior departments.

Bullock and Graves could not say when additional projects will be announced, but the agreement signed by trustees and BP set a goal of beginning construction of projects by the end of 2012, Graves said.

“The intent of Louisiana is to stick to that time frame,” Graves said.

Public comments are being accepted on the first list of projects through Feb. 14, including on the web at http://losco-dwh.com/EarlyRestorationPlanComment.aspx . Recommendations for future projects also will be accepted.

In Louisiana, state officials will hold three public meetings to discuss the projects, each beginning at 5:30 p.m., with a public hearing at 6:30 p.m.:

    Jan. 31, Terrebonne Council Chambers, 8026 Main St., second floor, Houma.
    Feb. 1, St. Bernard Parish Council Chambers, 8201 West Judge Perez Drive, Chalmette.
    Feb.. 2, Belle Chasse Auditorium, 8398 Louisiana 23, Belle Chasse.

Gulf Coast Children Experiencing Health Challenges

In the wake of the BP Oil Disaster many Gulf Coast residents continue to face health challenges.

BP Oil Spill: Prosecutors Reportedly Preparing Criminal Charges

Dec. 29, 2011 ~ The Huffington Post

Federal prosecutors are preparing the first criminal charges against BP in connection with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the worst of its kind in U.S. history, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The charges, reportedly to be revealed early next year, center around several engineers and may include providing false information about the risks of drilling in the Guld of Mexico in federal documents, the WSJ reported.

The charge carries a penalty of a fine as well as up to five years imprisonment.

People familiar with the matter told NPR that no final decisions have been made about the charges, adding that even if prosecutors go ahead with the charges, attorneys for the engineers will have a chance to appeal to other Justice Department officials. BP spokesmen declined to comment to Bloomberg Businessweek on the WSJ report.

The Deepwater Horizon spill off of the coast of Louisiana in 2010 killed 11 and led to more than 200 million gallons of oil spewing under the water. After three months of searching for solutions, the well was finally capped, but not before the oil destroyed hundreds of miles of coastline and devastated the tourism and fishing industries.

The full economic impact of the oil spill is still unknown, with economists’ estimates expected to trickle in sometime next year, the Press-Register reports. Shortly after the spill, economists predicted that in a worst case scenario, the disaster would cost Alabama about two percent of its economic output. Still, the spill’s effects weren’t limited to states like Alabama, which were directly impacted. Businesses around the country were forced to contened with the spill’s aftermath; in restaurants as far away as New York City, business owners felt the pinch of a seafood price hike, according to CBS News.

As of March, the spill had cost BP $41 billion and severely damaged the company’s reputation. In addition, it likely cost BP’s former CEO Tony Hayward his job.

In October, the Obama administration granted BP permission to resume exploratory drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, saying that the company’s plans met the administration’s standards for deepwater drilling. But if the crisis were ever to happen again, the same laws would still be in place.

Despite a push from some Democrats to raise the cap on the amount that companies are required to pay to cover economic damages from an oil spill, the legislation never came to fruition.

Still, BP did set up a $20 billion compensation fund for victims of the spill. The Justice Department named BDO Consulting to conduct an independent audit of the claims fund, which is expected in March.

Trustees approve projects to restore wetlands, rebuild oyster beds using BP money

by Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune  Dec. 14, 2011

In a small nibble at what is expected to be a very large apple, federal and state officials announced approval Wednesday of the first $57 million for projects to reverse the damage caused by the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, including $28 million for Louisiana projects. Louisiana’s share will build more than 100 acres of wetlands in Plaquemines Parish, place oyster cultch on six public seed beds in several parishes, and upgrade an oyster hatchery on Grand Isle.The money is part of a $1 billion “early restoration” payment that BP pledged as partial compensation for damage to natural resources caused by the oil from the catastrophic failure of its Macondo well.

The projects were approved by a committee of trustees representing the five Gulf Coast states and the federal departments of Interior and Commerce, and by BP. Under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the trustees and the parties responsible for the spill are required to complete a “Natural Resources Damage Assessment” that measures damage to resources and recommends ways to compensate for them. BP and other parties responsible for the spill may have to pay as much as $20 billion in damages.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the projects during a news conference called to announce the results of the first sale of federal offshore oil leases in the Gulf since the BP disaster.

The news conference was held at Al Sunseri’s 135-year-old P&J Oyster Co. in the French Quarter, which was forced to dramatically curtail business in the aftermath of the spill because of both a lack of oysters and public fears that Louisiana oysters were contaminated.

The oyster cultch will be placed on 850 acres of public seed beds at six locations: 3-Mile Bay and Drum Bay in St. Bernard Parish, Lake Fortuna and South Black Bay on the east bank of Plaquemines, Hackberry Bay in Lafourche Parish, and Sister or Caillou Lake in Terrebonne Parish. The seed beds are used as a source of oyster larvae by owners of private leases in several parishes, who make up the bulk of Louisiana’s oyster harvesters.

The state’s oyster hatchery at the Department of Wildlife & Fisheries laboratory on Grand Isle also will be improved as part of the project.

The oyster project is designed to offset the effects of oil contamination of some oyster beds, and damage to others during efforts to block oil from moving into Louisiana marshes.

The state opened numerous freshwater diversion structures along the Mississippi River in an effort to keep oil from moving into wetlands, and the freshwater hurt numerous oyster beds. Garret Graves, senior adviser on coastal issues to Gov. Bobby Jindal, said that because it was a step taken to fight the spilled oil, the damage it caused is considered by Louisiana to be the result of the spill.

Mike Voisin, owner of Motivatit Seafoods Inc. and a member of the Louisiana Oyster Task Force, said the state’s oyster industry lobbied for inclusion of the oyster projects, adding that oyster production this year is down 65 percent.

“This is the trustees recognizing that damage to the oyster industry (from the spill) is an important issue, and BP also concurring that it’s an important issue,” Voisin said. “It’s not the end, but it’s a big step in the right direction.”

The Lake Hermitage project in Plaquemines Parish will allow about 70 acres of marsh terraces that were to be built as part of an ongoing federal-state project to be replaced with 104 acres of unbroken marsh. An existing pipeline used to pump sediment mined from the Mississippi River will be used to fill in the project area, which is west of Pointe a la Hache.

Projects approved in other states include $11 million for oyster cultch and $2.6 million for an artificial reef in Mississippi; $9.4 million for marsh creation and $1.1 million for coastal dune improvements in Alabama; and $4.4 million for boat ramps and $600,000 for coastal dunes in Florida.

The projects are outlined in an early restoration plan and environmental assessment available at www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov.

The public will have 60 days to comment on the projects, ending on Feb. 14. Public meetings will be held in Louisiana on Jan. 31, Feb. 1 and Feb. 2.

Environmental groups file suit to nullify Wednesday’s oil and gas lease sale

by Richard Thompson - The Time Picayune - Dec. 13, 2011

Environmental groups filed suit in federal court Tuesday to challenge the first oil and natural gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico since last year’s BP oil spill. The lawsuit was filed in District Court in Washington, D.C., by Oceana, Defenders of Wildlife, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Center for Biological Diversity.

The groups allege that the federal government is not prepared to handle a repeat of the April 2010 disaster that killed 11 rig workers and caused one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history. In turn, the lawsuit seeks to nullify the results of the lease sale until regulators “take a hard look at the environmental impacts of its proposed decision” to move forward with additional offshore drilling, according to the filing.

The motion was filed the day before the long-planned western Gulf of Mexico lease sale, slated to be held in New Orleans. Up for grabs on Wednesday: 3,900 unleased tracts offshore, some located up to 250 miles off the coast of Texas, covering about 20.6 million acres overall.

Despite the legal wrangling, Melissa Schwartz, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which oversees offshore drilling, said the lease sale will go on as scheduled.

The sale attracted 241 bids from 20 companies on 191 tracts offshore Texas, compared to 189 bids submitted by 27 companies on 162 tracts during the previous western Gulf lease sale in August 2009, the agency said in a statement Tuesday.

Upwards of 423 million barrels of oil and 2.65 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could be produced as a result of the sale, according to agency figures.

Hanging in the balance is the fate of the lawsuit, which alleges that the agency is “continuing the same irresponsible approach that led to the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and harm still being felt in the Gulf,” Catherine Wannamaker, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, who represents the groups in court, said in a statement. “It’s easier for the government and oil companies to return to business as usual without considering the oil spill’s impacts on the Gulf, but it’s illegal and irresponsible.”

Jacqueline Savitz, senior campaign director for Oceana, said in a statement that the group had filed suit “to protect wildlife and ultimately, the fishing, recreation and tourism industries, rather than just selling out to ‘Big Oil.’”

“The administration has buried its head in the sand, ignoring the devastating impacts of the BP spill, and acting as if nothing ever happened,” Savitz said. “But the spill’s impacts on endangered and commercially important species must be considered,” said

By moving ahead with the lease sale, the groups contend that the bureau has not incorporated lessons learned in the aftermath of the Macondo blowout and the months-long effort to stop the flow of oil from the gushing well.

2012-2017 Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program

From the BOEM: Bureau of Ocean Energy Management

Learn about the 5-year program.

Science of the Spill: Presentations on Emerging Impacts of the BP Oil Disaster

by LEAN: Lousiana Environmental Action Network 7 Lower mississippi Riverkeepers ~ Dec. 8, 2011

On December 5th, 2011, The Sierra Club, Louisiana Environmental Action Network, the Steps Coalition and Mississippi Coalition for Vietnamese-American Fisher Folk and Families sponsored an educational forum to discuss the BP Oil Disaster and its impacts to our environment and communities, and how Gulf Coast researchers are addressing these concerns.
 
Science of the Spill highlighted three Gulf Coast-based researchers, Dr. Scott Milroy, Wilma Subra and Dr. Ed Cake, who are tracking impacts of the BP oil disaster on blue water, fisheries, coastal wetlands and public health. The forum provided citizens the opportunity to ask the scientists questions related to their research and the ongoing impacts related to the oil disaster.

View 36 minute presentation

Targeting oil spill fines to ecosystem restoration could be big job generator, report says

Dec. 5, 2011 ~ by Bruce Alpert, The Times-Picayune

WASHINGTON — A new report by Duke University economists says legislation that would target Clean Water Act penalties from last year’s BP oil spill to ecosystem restoration could be a big job generator, including for firms facing cuts in oil and gas industry work.

The report was released Monday in advance of Wednesday’s House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing on legislation that would direct 80 percent of the fines to the five Gulf Coast states, with most of the money, estimated between $5 billion and $20 billion, earmarked for ecosystem restoration work.

“A recurring theme observed in interviews with sample firms is the unsteady nature of demand for coastal restoration work — in part because of uncertainties and delays in finding mechanisms, and in part because volume of funding historically has been low,” the study said. “Additional funding and stability in investment will make it easier to create and save jobs.”

The study identified 140 businesses in 37 states, though most are along the Gulf Coast, that would benefit from a major influx of financing for coastal restoration work. Firms that have traditionally assisted with the development of oil and gas exploration could easily transition to do some of the ecosystem work, the study’s authors said.

Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, who will be speaking at Wednesday’s hearing on behalf of his legislation to earmark the Clean Water Act fines to the Gulf States, applauded the study.

“This report underscores our claim that Louisiana’s coastal wetlands are invaluable, support critical national assets and should be restored immediately, and that by investing in our coast we create economic opportunities for the entire country,” Scalise said.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., a lead sponsor of the Senate bill, agreed, “Coastal restoration safeguards critical ecosystems, creates new jobs and protects current jobs in key industries based in the region,” Landrieu said.

Ken Feinberg expands oil spill claims payments for shrimpers, crabbers

Nov 30, 2011 
By David Hammer, The Times-Picayune

In a significant move for the gulf coast fishing industry, Gulf oil spill claims czar Kenneth Feinberg decided Wednesday to double compensation payments for shrimpers and crabbers. Feinberg announced that his Gulf Coast Claims Facility will compensate shrimp and crab harvesters at four times their documented 2010 losses from now on.

“The GCCF recognizes the ongoing uncertainty regarding the state of the commercial harvesting of shrimp and crab in the Gulf and the uncertainty of any ongoing impact from the spill,” reads the new methodology. “As a result of this uncertainty, the GCCF has adjusted its methodology for compensation to commercial shrimp and crab harvesters and processors to include additional compensation.”

That lifts shrimpers and crabbers above the two-times-2010-loss formula that most claimants have gotten to make up for the effects of the 2010 oil spill. It was the blowout of a BP offshore well that dumped millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days and soiled the coastlines of five states.

The calculation-formula changes recognize a greater economic impact on shrimpers and crabbers than on tourism-related businesses, something fishing industry leaders have been complaining about for months. Until now, all legitimate claims were paid twice their documented 2010 losses, except for oyster harvesters and leaseholders, who have been eligible for more since early this year.

The move also comes as Feinberg is under increasing pressure from BP to curtail payments, which have reached $5.7 billion to 216,000 claimants. Feinberg also announced Wednesday that he can no longer assume that claims from Texas and the Florida peninsula are due to the spill, unless they are commercial fishing claims.

Shrimpers in particular have complained that Feinberg didn’t understand the uncertainties they were still facing. But in the wake of a difficult 2011 white shrimp season, Feinberg said he was willing to re-evaluate his methodology. The new calculation formula of four times documented 2010 losses now applies to any shrimping or crabbing claims still under review by GCCF or any new claims received as of Wednesday.

The move by Feinberg could also have a major impact on litigation. BP is battling with thousands of claimants in a massive federal court case and the company argues that the economic impact of the spill has already run its course. It has been pushing for Feinberg to limit, not expand, payments.

Audit finds Shaw overbilled for sand berms after Gulf oil spill

NOLA.com ~ The Assoc. Press ~ Nov. 8, 2011

The Shaw Group may have overbilled the state about $500,000 after it was hired by Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration to build $250 million worth of sand berms along the Gulf of Mexico to block oil spewing from an out-of-control BP well from washing ashore, according to the state legislative auditor.

A legislative auditor’s report Monday said Shaw billed the state between June 2010 and August 2011 for $251 million — $12.2 million for labor and $238.8 million in other costs — and that about $495,000 worth of invoices either should not be paid or should be paid only with more documentation. The audit found problems with bills for material and equipment, travel charges and reimbursable expenses.

The berm project, which involved moving huge amounts of sand from the Mississippi River out to open water along the coast, has been regarded as a colossal waste of money because the sand islands probably did little to stop oil from coming ashore. Last December, a presidential commission set up to investigate the BP oil spill called the project “underwhelmingly effective, overwhelmingly expensive.”

The state agency overseeing the berm project, the Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration, asked the legislative auditor to help vet Shaw’s invoices.

“There were definitely some errors and exceptions that we called into question,” said John L. Morehead of the legislative auditor’s office. But he did not characterize the overbilling as egregious. The report did not provide examples or go into the details of the overbilling.

State and Shaw officials said they were working through outstanding bills.

“Considering the emergency conditions and the massive size of this effort, we were able to keep billing exceptions to a fraction,” said Garret Graves, a top aide on coastal affairs to Jindal. So far, he said the state has refused to pay about $200,000 of the outstanding bills.

The Jindal administration continues to defend the berm work, arguing that putting all that river sand onto the coast is helping restore badly eroding barrier islands.

“There is sand in the system that was not previously there,” said Robert Routon, a project manager with the Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration, the agency overseeing the berm project.

Initially, state officials hoped to build 36 miles of berms, but by the end of the project just roughly 16 miles were built with about 20 million cubic yards of sand.

Nathaniel Plant, an oceanographer with the U.S. Geological Survey, has been monitoring the berms built near the Chandeleur Islands and said they have been breaking apart after storms.

New holes have been breached,” he said. “If they continue (to break apart) at this rate, more than half has disappeared on two northern (berm) sites, another year could easily take the rest of it.”

USGS is tracking what happens to the berms because it wants to see if the sand transported to Chandeleur Sound winds up accumulating on the barrier islands, which scientists fear will disappear as sea levels rise and hurricanes pummel them.

“A research question is to what degree has putting that much sand out there turned the clock back (on island disintegration). We don’t have a final answer on that at all,” said Asbury Sallenger, a USGS oceanographer who heads up efforts to map changes along the Gulf Coast.

By Cain Burdeau, Associated Press