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

Gulf Shrimp Are Scarce This Season; Answers, Too

The New York Times ~ Oct. 11, 2011
by Campbell Robertson

LAFITTE, La. — The dock at Bundy’s Seafood is quiet, the trucks are empty and a crew a fraction of the normal size sits around a table waiting for something to do. But the most telling indicator that something is wrong is the smell. It smells perfectly fine.

“There’s no shrimp,” explained Grant Bundy, 38. The dock should smell like a place where 10,000 pounds of shrimp a day are bought off the boats. Not this year. In all of September, Bundy’s Seafood bought around 41,000 pounds.

White shrimp season began in late August, and two months in, the shrimpers here say it is a bad one, if not the worst in memory. It is bad not just in spots but all over southeastern Louisiana, said Jules Nunez, 78, calling it the worst season he had seen since he began shrimping in 1950. Some fishermen said their catches were off by 80 percent or more.

“A lot of people say it’s this, it’s that, it’s too hot, it’s too cold, it’s BP,” Mr. Nunez said. “We just don’t know.”

There is plenty that is not known. Louisiana’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has not compiled landings data for the season, so at this point it is hard to measure with any certainty the degree to which it is abnormal.

Even if the reports of a dismal season prove true, any forensic work is complicated by the oddities of this year’s weather, with a severe drought in the states along the Gulf of Mexico interrupted by spring flooding on the Mississippi River that brought millions of gallons of fresh water into the marshes. In addition, white shrimp crops have fluctuated over the decades for various reasons. (A BP spokesman said in a statement that some preliminary sampling indicated that the 2011 white shrimp population was within the historical range of variability.)

“We’re going to have to look at all of those different things and come up with reasons why it’s down, if it is down,” said Jim Nance, a shrimp biologist at the National Marine Fisheries Service.

But while all scientists acknowledge the difficulty of determining a cause for a reported decline in the shrimp crops, some say there is evidence that is at the very least suggestive of a culprit.

Joris L. van der Ham, a researcher at Louisiana State University who has been studying white shrimp, said he had found more white shrimp than usual last winter in estuaries that were affected by the BP oil spill. That abundance might have been due in part, he said, to a decrease in the number of people out shrimping last year, but a significant decline in this year’s season would undercut that assumption.

While cautioning that his study is incomplete, Dr. van der Ham speculated that certain compounds in the oil may have stunted the shrimp’s growth rate, and that the large numbers he found last year might have never made it out into the gulf to spawn, thus explaining a missing generation.

“There are numerous lines of evidence now that are sort of lining up that chronic exposure to this material could be problematic,” said James Cowan, a professor in L.S.U.’s department of oceanography and coastal sciences.

Those who work in the gulf seafood industry, as well as their lawyers, have watched closely for signs of a species collapse similar to the one that decimated the herring fishery four years after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. The causes of even that collapse remain a matter of dispute, but it is often cited as an example of the delayed disaster that shrimpers and others fear.

This concern was stoked further by a recent study by L.S.U. researchers that reported that a species of fish abundant in Gulf marshes was showing signs of cellular damage, problems typically due to exposure to oil. The functions of the fish, a minnow called the killifish, have been affected in ways that could harm reproduction, the study found.

Seafood industry representatives say there is enough uncertainty to raise doubts that the shrimp harvest will recover by 2012, a supposition in a report that Kenneth R. Feinberg, the administrator of the $20 billion compensation fund for victims of the spill, used in his formula for determining final settlements.

Mr. Feinberg, in an interview, pointed out that he had, all along, described his report as preliminary and open to revision depending on new findings.

“We are monitoring this, and we are sensitive to these concerns,” he said. “We reserve the right to change the formula if anecdotal and empirical evidence justifies it.”

Concerns about the lack of shrimp are different from concerns about the state of shrimp that are found. Repeated studies have shown gulf seafood is safe to eat, a fact trumpeted by industry representatives and government officials, who launched a gulf seafood safety Web site last week to reassure consumers.

All of this demonstrates just how hard it has become to make a living on shrimp boats, said David Veal, the executive director of the American Shrimp Processors Association.

Mr. Veal has heard the anxieties about the white shrimp season, but while “clearly something is going on,” it is too early to say whether it is the worst in memory, he said.

Whether it is the worst or just very bad is almost immaterial, Mr. Veal said; it is still another blight on the shrimping life, compounded by the decline in the domestic market, the steep rise in fuel prices and the battery of hurricanes over the last decade.

“The fact that anybody is still in this business is a testament to their tenacity,” he said.

Gulf of Mexico oil spill survey conducted by University of Southern Mississippi

By The Associated Press ~ Oct 1, 2011

About 100 student researchers from the School of Social Work at The University of Southern Mississippi on the Gulf Coast are conducting a survey of coastal residents on the effects of last year’s BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi Press reports that the survey was set to take place Saturday.

Tom Osowski of the university said 260 interviews were scheduled in Jackson, Harrison and Hancock counties of residents living south of Interstate 10.

Residents will be asked about the oil spill’s effects on their health, emotions, social well being, economics and family.

A similar survey was conducted last year. Different households are being contacted this year.

Last year’s results are still being edited, but will eventually be published in an academic journal, he said, adding that the results won’t be surprising.

“If you are not connected to the Gulf or seafood industry, or tourism in some way, the BP oil spill really had no effect on people,” he said.

“Obviously, if you are a fisherman, if you are in the tourism industry, if you are in the casino industry, restaurants, last year did have a major effect on people’s economics, social functioning, those sorts of things,” he said.

The study should help further understanding on how people respond to disasters and how services can be improved to help them, he said.

The first study was funded by BP and this year’s study is funded by a federal grant, Osowski said.

The Arctic and the Lessons of the Gulf

The New York Times Editorial Section~ Published: October 20, 2011

The Interior Department has been inching closer to approving Royal Dutch Shell’s ambitious plans to drill for what are believed to be huge deposits of oil in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska. In August, it approved an exploratory drilling plan for the Beaufort Sea, and two weeks ago it upheld the validity of leases in the neighboring Chukchi Sea that had been challenged by environmental groups.

The Interior Department and Shell both insist that they have learned the lessons of the disastrous BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. They must prove it. The Interior Department has written tough new regulations governing drilling, including requirements for subsea containment systems to plug a runaway well.

Before issuing final permits to drill, the government must insist that Shell test such a system and verify that it can operate in Arctic conditions. The company must also have on hand a rig capable of drilling a relief well, as well as the equipment — skimmers, booms and other equipment — to clean up any oil that escapes.

The stakes here are undeniably huge. Shell has already paid nearly $4 billion to acquire leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. Estimates of the recoverable reserves range as high as 30 billion barrels of oil, the equivalent of more than four years’ worth of annual oil consumption in this country. The cost of a mistake would also be huge. Arctic waters provide nutrients for large fish populations, extensive habitat for wildlife and sustenance for native peoples.

The Arctic presents an extremely forbidding environment, with sea ice, howling winds and stormy conditions that will make drilling difficult and any cleanup far more complicated than it was in the warm and relatively benign waters of the gulf. Shell says it knows all this. It has agreed to drill only in warmer months and notes that these will be shallow wells, drilled at an average of 150 feet instead of 5,000 feet (the depth of the BP’s Macondo well), making a blowout easier to reach and contain.

Yet much remains to be done. The containment system, for instance, is in what Shell calls the “fabrication” stage. The Interior Department obviously has to insist that this and other equipment actually exists.

A 2008 report by the United States Geological Survey produced a mean estimate of 90 billion barrels for the waters north of the Arctic Circle. Some of these waters are international, some belong to other nations like Russia. As global warming opens up sea lanes, the opportunities for drilling, shipping and commerce will grow. So, too, will the risks of grave environmental damage. Unless the United States makes smart decisions about drilling in American waters others are unlikely to do any better.

GASLAND- a film about Fracking

– ROBERT DESMARAIS SULLIVAN, Coordinator, Social Justice Team, First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans, aiglefort@gmail.com

Join us to think about the consequences for our health and our environment, if  hydrolic fracturation, also called ‘fracking’, begins in Louisiana, as is currently being discussed.

WHAT: ‘GASLAND’, film about fracking in Pennsylvania
 
WHEN: Sunday, Dec. 4, 12:30 (This is right after Sunday services, so bring a lunch or snack. Coffee will be served.)
 
WHERE: First Unitarian Universalist Church, 5212 South Claiborne Avenue, intersection Jefferson and South Claiborne Avenue, New Orleans
 
BACKGROUND:
 
It is long past time to invent ways to provide safely the energy for daily life. That is no longer just an economic or political issue, but also a moral one. So it is an obligatory issue for those of us concerned with survival of the human species . It is certainly an appropriate issue for churches. Otherwise, they may as well close their doors.
 
According to scientists, peak oil has probably passed, so it is no longer possible to extract hydrocarbons from surface layers of the earth, and we must go deeper, further and longer to find the oil and gas we want to maintain our lifestyles without inconvenience.
 
In the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere, that means deep-water drilling like the Deepwater Horizon that exploded and killed eleven men and perhaps the Gulf in 2010. On all Earth’s  continents, that means forcing chemical-laden water under high-pressure to push natural gas out of the sedimentary layers, like the ones now poisoning  water supplies. It means blowing off the tops of Appalachian mountains and digging deep into the Alberta plains to produce toxic petroleum that is supposed to be shipped by pipeline across aquifers and fertile farm fields.
 
How much are we willing to destroy our planet to profit a few exploiters and to maintain an obsolete lifestyle? The industry claims there will be jobs, but do what good are jobs, if we cannot safely live? BP may drill in the Gulf again, but can the fishermen fish?
 
The Social Justice Team of First Church launches with the film ‘Gasland’ a series of presentations in the tradition of the Truth-Out Forums for the Gulf. Those Forums, which began in October, 2010, have focused on the health of the Gulf Coast residents and brought Dr. Wilma Subra, Dr. Riki Ott, and Dr. Michael Robichaux to New Orleans to draw attention to the fact that the oil was NOT gone, the seafood was NOT safe, and the people were NOT in good health after the BP disaster.  Our Forums have met with moderate success, moderation suggests that New Orleans does not take these issues seriously. We cannot ignore them.
 
While the Social Justice Team of First Church will continue to invite knowledgeable speakers in its Truth-Out Forum series, with this film it widens the focus of that series. It adds consideration of other challenges to living in a post-peak oil world. Besides looking at the dangers of extracting hydrocarbons with extreme techniques, the new series of films, lectures, and discussions will explore alternative energy sources, anti-democratic political intrigues, and corporate malfeasance in the search for energy.
 
The series will also examine simpler possibilities like changes in lifestyle that could liberate us from the desire for so much energy.
 
COMMENT FROM JOSH FOX, PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR OF ‘GASLAND’:
 
Dear audience, press, and peers:
 
I have been overwhelmed by the amazing, positive responses to the film. From the incredible reviews, the great HBO ratings, the effusive and impassioned response to our website and Facebook page, the powerful responses of the news media and the thousands of audience members at sold-out community screenings.
 
I am humbled that Gasland has been so well received and is helping to bring the crisis of gas drilling in the USA to greater attention.
 
Even before its release, the significance of the film was not lost on the gas industry. In the March 24th
edition of the Oil and Gas Journal, Skip Horvath, the president of the Natural Gas Supply Association said
that Gasland is “well done. It holds people’s attention. And it could block our industry.”
 
Although I am thoroughly dismayed and disappointed in the recent attacks on the veracity of Gasland and on my credibility as a filmmaker and journalist by Energy-In-Depth and other gas-industry groups, I can’t say that I am surprised.
 
When I was investigating gas drilling across the United States, I heard time after time from citizens that the industry disputed the citizens’ claims of water and air contamination and denied responsibility for their health problems and other problems related to drilling.
 
I now know how the people in my documentary feel, to have the things they know to be true and the
questions they are raising so blatantly discounted and smeared. It is truly unfortunate that the gas-drilling industry continues to deny what is so obvious to Americans living in gaslands across the nation instead of  taking responsibility for the damage they are causing.
 
JOSH FOX, PRODUCER AND DIRECTOR OF ‘GASLAND’

INVITATION:

There aren’t any regulations in place to protect us. To “frack” or not to “frack” is not the question…the question is who is going to regulate, protect, repair, and fund the following concerns resulting from fracking:

 

-Surface water contamination

-Aquifer contamination

-Toxic Bi-Product storage and disposal

-Air pollution associated with construction, leaks and drilling

-Road Repairs needed cause by construction impacts

-Private Well Protection

-Disaster Recovery plans

-Land Lease Advocation for residents

-Well Abandonment procedures

LEAN, LMRK, Waterkeeper Alliance & Gulf Coast Waterkeepers Serve Notice of Intent to Sue Under Federal Environmental Laws, Targeting Chronic Oil Spill from the “Taylor Wells” in the Gulf of Mexico

Louisiana Environmental Action Network & Lower Mississippi RIVERKEEPER©
Oct. 13, 2011

New Orleans, LA- Louisiana Environmental Action Network and Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper along with Waterkeeper Alliance and several Gulf Coast Waterkeeper organizations announced today that Taylor Energy Co. LLC, Samsung C&T America, Inc., and Korea National Oil Corp. have been put on formal notice that the Waterkeepers intend to file suit under the citizens suit provisions of the Clean Water Act and Resource Conservation Recovery Act, for ongoing discharge violations that pose an imminent and substantial endangerment to health and the environment. The Notice follows the Waterkeepers’ investigation of Oil platform #23051 and its associated wells, referred to as the “Taylor Wells,” located in the Gulf of Mexico, approximately 11 miles off the coast of Louisiana.

Aided by satellite imagery and research expertise provided by SkyTruth the Waterkeepers learned that violations have been ongoing from the Taylor platform since at least October 1, 2006 and that the oil continues to discharge between 100 to 400 gallons of oil per day. The discharge produces visible slicks of oil on the water. One observed by SkyTruth on June 18, 2011, contained an estimated 3,157 gallons of oil. A chronology of observations and records of National Response Center (NRC) Pollution Reports can be found here: http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=z47jaxbab&et=1108087323615&s=4582&e=001DKkpnRBivJqk-OCBhFiB0-HtdZj1KyLImBXx4PUYD_KB2YNQawdmZxFCUop6SgPljQWimRCoRBukMz5KOmELT9GSgbnq8cceAAkVQBDAbx0QhEd_oV1G7x78s9D5iyigSE4ocooZSVdRzu6jnGFl1MgBBTqThKEs

Joining LEAN and Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper and representing their individual members are: Waterkeeper Alliance, New York, NY; Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, Baton Rouge, LA; Emerald Coastkeeper, Pensacola, FL; Galveston Baykeeper, Galveston, TX; and Louisiana Bayoukeeper, Lafitte, LA. The Waterkeepers are represented by the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic.

Paul Orr, the Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper, remarked that, “for more than five years the owners and operators of these wells have been polluting our Gulf waters and government regulators have allowed it to continue. These spills degrade the natural resources that are the lifeblood of our Gulf Coast communities. It is time to put an end to the thousands of spills that happen every year in the Gulf.”

Oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico are a daily occurrence. In their recently released State of the Gulf report, the Gulf Coast Waterkeepers revealed that at least 3,156 new crude oil spills have occurred in the Gulf between September 2010 and September 2011. A link to the report can be found at: http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=z47jaxbab&et=1108087323615&s=4582&e=001DKkpnRBivJpblT4t4kyjCNFJKY8r9ziDgQUei-aCOPFGezbLJ7QnF_ziLJUK0mASto9yVeoqs0tTwyeBPKwmB3aE21xHo0Su3o60WYbolscIpF6coNnbdPP2CooVHmSy9CopVsJHBkFrOcrZkh-_BXByMBcAfjbjsDgirbNivRK9B6DnEw1y3g==. Sadly, there appears to be little incentive on the part of industry to be more vigilant. According to a report in Bloomberg News in 2009, in Louisiana alone, only 1 oil spill out of 100 resulted in a financial penalty (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-03/oil-spills-in-most-imperiled-u-s-coastal-wetland-escape-fines.html).

“The BP oil disaster was not the first oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and it won’t be the last. The industry clearly has an oil spill problem. Most people are not aware of how little accountability there is for polluters. Out of sight, out of mind seems to be the status quo, but our Gulf of Mexico Waterkeepers hope to bring visibility and action to stop oil spills that affect communities all along the Gulf Coast,” said Renee Blanchard of Waterkeeper Alliance.

“At a time when we most need the protections offered by our environmental laws, they are under increasing attack. As the Clean Water Act turns 39 next week, keep in mind that these are the tools that we as a nation rely upon for a healthy environment and our future prosperity,” said Marc Yaggi, Executive Director of Waterkeeper Alliance.

Jamie Rodgers, the Florida Panhandle’s Emerald Coastkeeper commented that, “the Clean Water Act and other Federal Environmental Laws are the foundation for the private and public response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. These critically important tools are what we rely upon to curb the continuing pollution of the Gulf of Mexico, to make violators accountable.”

Non-Violent Direct Action Protest at The Shrimp Festival set for Oct. 15th

A Non-Violent Direct Action Protest at The Shrimp Festival against the Big Polluter BP and to make the call for Clean Energy Alternatives and Jobs in Gulf Coast Communties!
 
The event will be held in Gulf Shores, AL, on Oct.15, 2011, Noon - 4pm.
 
For more information, please go to the link below…
 
http://www.wearepowershift.org/100actions/nvda-gulf-shores-al-because-oil-still-here-and-so-are-we  Please share and make plans to attend.

BP Busted, Again: LSU Scientist Proves Fresh Oil Surfacing at Deepwater Horizon Site is from Macondo Reservoir

By Stuart H. Smith (504) 593-9600
http://www.stuarthsmith.com/bp-busted-again-lsu-scientist-proves-fresh-oil-surfacing-at-deepwater-horizon-site-is-from-macondo-reservoir

The debate is over, and both BP and our federal government have some serious explaining to do. Upending repeated denials from the British oil giant and ongoing obfuscation from NOAA officials, a Louisiana State University scientist has confirmed through rigorous testing that oil surfacing in the vicinity of the Deepwater Horizon site – the epicenter of last year’s catastrophic Gulf spill – is indeed coming from BP’s Macondo Prospect. In a story we broke here on this blog Aug. 17, subsequently confirmed by the Mobile Press-Register on Aug. 23, large amounts of fresh oil are bubbling to the surface where the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank to the Gulf floor on April 20, 2010 (see link to my previous post below).
BP met the “new leak” allegation in its typical reflex fashion – with blustering, indignant denials, snorting that “None of this is true” in an Aug. 18 statement.
The following day, flyover surveillance footage from On Wings of Care pilot Bonny Schumaker and her crew revealed expanses of oil “globules” in the water .

The much-anticipated test results are in at LSU, and they bear out our initial report: The infamous site that launched last year’s 200-million-gallon oil spill is leaking again.
Chemical confirmation that the oil is from the Macondo wellsite provides vindication for those of us who stayed with the story for more than a month now despite a hard-nosed campaign of denial, intimidation and obfuscation executed by BP and its bedfellows in our federal government. LSU scientist Ed Overton – who made the initial, preliminary tie to the Macondo reservoir – was browbeaten for weeks and accused of rushing to judgment. Even as he is exonerated, Overton’s indignation is unmistakable.