rigorousintuition.ca

No_Baseline wrote:Why?

I am really curious!

I check a number of blogs daily, including florida oil spill law, which I consider an incredibly-good credible source, and they do reference Huffington...why the detente? or bias?

Houston company accepts responsibility for oil spill off Louisiana
Published: Wednesday, March 23, 2011, 6:04 AM

By David Hammer, The Times-Picayune

A Houston-based oil company has accepted responsibility for a mysterious spill near Grand Isle, although it says it remains "surprised" that what it thought was a minor discharge from a long dormant well could have produced miles-long slicks.

Several hours after The Times-Picayune broke the story that state agents had traced the oil back to a well operated by Anglo-Suisse Offshore Partners, the Houston-based company put out a statement late Tuesday night.

It acknowledged that it was informed by the Coast Guard that it may be responsible for the spill, which has sent emulsified oil onto Louisiana shores yet again.

...

The company said it had reconnected the wellhead structure Tuesday morning and fully shut it in by 8:30 p.m.

The company said it was the 12th well it owned in the area to undergo plugging and abandonment operations. All of those wells were shut in after Hurricane Katrina caused damage to platforms and haven't produced any oil since, the company said. Crews have been monitoring the site since September and didn't report any oil discharge until the end of last week, the statement said.

New sightings of apparent oil near Chandeleur islands reported from flyover
Published: Tuesday, March 22, 2011, 7:26 PM

Even as officials tried to determine the source of weathered oil near Grand Isle, whole new swaths of what could be fresh surface oil have popped up on the other side of the Mississippi River, in the open water between the delicate coastal bayous and the sandy crescent-shaped Chandeleur barrier islands.

...

"I lived on Chandeleur Island for seven weeks before the (BP) spill and I have never seen anything like this, other than what happened with the Deepwater Horizon," said Abrams, who took photographs during the flyover.

"It's too early in the season for this to be an algal bloom. It's just not the color of the algae I've seen. I try to approach this very rationally and as a serious skeptic, so I'm not willing to say 100 percent conclusively it's oil. But I've been out to the islands during the BP spill and stepped in it and it looks very much like oil to me."

...

You won't see this in national headlines! Jennifer Rexford, a BP-hired oil spill cleanup worker has been documenting her condition that is getting worse by the day. Filming herself and her coworkers, all American workers, all are DYING and BP is NOT taking responsibility!!!! Severe neurological damage, paralysis, internal bleeding, death! Check out Jennifer's Youtube page, there are more videos. Watch her story. Watch her talk to BP claims line. Tragic!

SPREAD THE WORD TO GET THIS ON NATIONAL NEWS!!!! BP IS NOT PAYING FOR THEIR HEALTH CARE!!!!!

BP Oil Disaster: Obama Administration Tightens Lid on Dolphin Death Probe
Published on Saturday, March 26, 2011 by Reuters
by Leigh Coleman

BILOXI, Mississippi - The U.S. government is keeping a tight lid on its probe into scores of unexplained dolphin deaths along the Gulf Coast, possibly connected to last year's BP oil spill, causing tension with some independent marine scientists.

A bottlenose dolphin breaks the surface off Florida in this 2009 photo. Wildlife biologists contracted by the National Marine Fisheries Service to document spikes in dolphin mortality and to collect specimens and tissue samples for the agency were quietly ordered late last month to keep their findings confidential.

The gag order was contained in an agency letter informing outside scientists that its review of the dolphin die-off, classified as an "unusual mortality event (UME)," had been folded into a federal criminal investigation launched last summer into the oil spill.

"Because of the seriousness of the legal case, no data or findings may be released, presented or discussed outside the UME investigative team without prior approval," the letter, obtained by Reuters, stated.

A number of scientists said they have been personally rebuked by federal officials for "speaking out of turn" to the media about efforts to determine the cause of some 200 dolphin deaths this year, and about 90 others last year, in the Gulf.

Moreover, they said collected samples and specimens are being turned over to the government for analysis under a protocol that will leave independent scientists in the dark about the efficacy and outcome of any laboratory tests.

TRANSPARENCY UNDERMINED?

Some researchers designated as official "partners" in the agency's Marine Mammal Stranding Network complained such constraints undermine the transparency of a process normally open to review by the scientific community.

"It throws accountability right out the window," one biologist involved in tracking dolphin deaths for more than 20 years told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "We are confused and ... we are angry because they claim they want teamwork, but at the same time they are leaving the marine experts out of the loop completely."

Some question why the Marine Fisheries Service, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, has taken so long to get samples into laboratories.

"It is surprising that it has been almost a full year since the spill, and they still haven't selected labs for this kind of work," said Ruth Carmichael, who studies marine mammals at the independent Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama.

"I can only hope that this process is a good thing. I just don't know. This is an unfortunate situation."

NOAA officials expressed sympathy but insisted the control and confidentiality measures were necessary.

"We are treating the evidence, which are the dolphin samples, like a murder case," said Dr. Erin Fougeres, a marine biologist with the Fisheries Service. "The chain of custody is being closely watched. Every dolphin sample is considered evidence in the BP case now."

METHODICAL APPROACH

Blair Mase, a marine mammal scientist for NOAA, said lab results would go directly back to the Fisheries Service in about two to three months.

"We have to be very methodical," Mase said. "The criminal investigation does play a role in the delay of findings, but it has to be done this way."

As of this week, scientists have counted nearly 200 bottlenose dolphin carcasses found since mid-January along the shores of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, about half of them newly born or stillborn infants.

That tally, about 14 times the numbers averaged during that time of year between 2002 and 2007, coincides with the first dolphin calving season in the northern Gulf since BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded last April.

The blast killed 11 workers and ruptured a wellhead on the sea floor, dumping an estimated 5 million barrels (206 million gallons) of oil into the Gulf over more than three months.

Nearly 90 dead dolphins, most of them adults, washed up along the Gulf Coast last year in the weeks and months following the blowout.

The latest spike in deaths, and high concentration of premature infants among them, has led some experts to speculate that oil ingested or inhaled by dolphins during the spill has taken a belated toll on the animals, possibly leading to a wave of dolphin miscarriages.

But most of the specimens collected bear no obvious signs of oil contamination, making lab analysis crucial to understanding what caused the deaths.

Mase said the carcasses also are considered potential evidence in the natural resources damage assessment being conducted in conjunction with civil litigation pursued against BP by the government simultaneously with the criminal probe.

True toll of Deepwater disaster may be 50 times worse than thought
by ClickGreen staff. Published Wed 30 Mar 2011

The recorded impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on wildlife may have severely underestimated the number of deaths of whales and dolphins, according to a new report.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010 devastated the Gulf region ecologically and economically. However, a new study published in Conservation Letters reveals that the true impact of the disaster on wildlife may be gravely underestimated. The study argues that fatality figures based on the number of recovered animal carcasses will not give a true death toll, which may be 50 times higher than believed.

"The Deepwater oil spill was the largest in US history, however, the recorded impact on wildlife was relatively low, leading to suggestions that the environmental damage of the disaster was actually modest," said lead author Dr Rob Williams from the University of British Columbia."This is because reports have implied that the number of carcasses recovered, 101, equals the number of animals killed by the spill."

The team focused their research on 14 species of cetacean, an order of mammals including whales and dolphins. While the number of recovered carcasses has been assumed to equal the number of deaths, the team argues that marine conditions and the fact that many deaths will have occurred far from shore mean recovered carcasses will only account for a small proportion of deaths.

To illustrate their point, the team multiplied recent species abundance estimates by the species mortality rate. An annual carcass recovery rate was then estimated by dividing the mean number of observed strandings each year by the estimate of annual mortality.

The team's analysis suggests that only 2% of cetacean carcasses were ever historically recovered after their deaths in this region, meaning that the true death toll from the Deepwater Horizon disaster could be 50 times higher than the number of deaths currently estimated.

...

Shrimp Trawlers Have Started Dredging Up BP Oil In The Gulf Of Mexico

March 30

...

As the federal government proceeds with a long and complicated legal and scientific process, the Natural Resources Damage Assessment, they are holding a series of public meetings to get input and comments from affected Gulf-area residents. At a meeting last week in Biloxi, Mississippi,

Vietnamese shrimpers said they have pulled up nets full of oil from the seafloor and have had to decide whether to report the oil to the Coast Guard, which would mean dumping their day's catch, or pretend they don't see the oil.

John Lliff, a supervisor with NOAA's Damage Assessment Remediation and Restoration Program, said no one knows how much of the seafloor is covered in oil.

Until the oil totally disappears, it seems highly likely that this will continue. But we don't have a clue how long the oil will linger, or what the impacts of this would be on the health of fishermen, the recovery of the Gulf ecosystem, or the safety of seafood.

...

Feds approve deepwater drilling permit for new area in the Gulf

Wednesday, March 30, 2011, 1:44 PM
Updated: Wednesday, March 30, 2011, 2:07 PM
Richard Thompson, The Times-Picayune

Federal regulators have granted a permit for a deepwater well in a new area of the Gulf of Mexico located about 137 miles off the Louisiana coast. Last week the government approved Shell Offshore's exploration plan for the new area. On Wednesday, the first well in that new area was given the go-ahead.

The approved permit gives Shell the green light to drill a new well in Garden Banks Block No. 427, about 2,721 feet below the seabed, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement said in a statement.

BOEMRE said Shell has contracted with the Marine Well Containment Company to use its capping stack to stop the flow of oil if a well control event occurs. As part of its approval process, BOEMRE said it reviewed Shell's containment capability available for the specific well proposed in the permit application and confirmed that the capabilities of the capping stack met the requirements specific to the proposed well's characteristics.

"Today's permit approval represents a culmination of a broad and comprehensive review process involving an exploration plan, a site-specific environmental assessment, and the application for the drilling permit - all of which complied with our rigorous safety and environmental standards," BOEMRE Director Michael Bromwich said. "The completion of this process further demonstrates that we are proceeding as quickly as our resources allow to properly regulate offshore oil and gas operations in the most safe and environmentally-responsible manner."

All offshore wells are identified in either an exploration or development plan, which must be approved before drilling permits can be issued. On March 21, Shell's exploration plan, which seeks drilling permits for three new wells, became the first approved since last year's Macondo blowout.

This marks the seventh deepwater drilling permit issued under the new regulatory system, put in place after last year's oil spill.