Oil Spill in the Gulf

Hurricane Could Bring Bureaucratic Delays to Gulf

August 9, 2010

AP – If a hurricane hits the Gulf Coast and whips up oil from BP's massive spill, cleanup workers will not be able to swoop into action to fix the mess. A new Obama administration edict requires that the oil be tested before it can be cleaned, according to a response plan obtained by The Associated Press.

The extra step is supposed to make it easier for the government to get reimbursed if a hurricane slings oil from the Gulf of Mexico into backyards, neighborhoods and wetlands.

But it also could cause frustrating additional delays and prevent residents from returning to their homes while the government figures out who pays the bill.

Nearly 207 million gallons of crude oil has gushed into the Gulf of Mexico since a BP rig exploded in April, and the government estimates some 53 million gallons are still there. Coast Guard and BP officials say the well is close to being permanently capped. But this year's hurricane season isn't over until November.

Charlotte Randolph, president of Lafourche Parish in Louisiana, said her community will insist that BP contractors clean up after a hurricane, regardless of the federal government's plan.

"The assumption will be that the oil belongs to BP," Randolph said. "I don't care what the federal government says."

President Barack Obama used his first remarks about the oil spill to promise that BP would pay for the cleanup. But the BP well is not the only source of crude in the Gulf Coast, which is home to tens of thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells.

If a hurricane hits, the Obama administration's response plan says workers must sort out where the oil came from and who should pay for it "prior to removal of contaminated debris."

"The cleanup process after a storm will require representative sampling and investigative work to maintain accountability," the 35-page document, dated July 14, said.

"The sampling process will be conducted as quickly and efficiently as possible to help identify the source of the oil."

The July 14 document is the fourth revision of the plan. The third revision does not state that the source of the oil be identified before debris is removed.

The Homeland Security Department, Coast Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency did not respond to requests for comment. But FEMA and the Coast Guard have privately assured Congress there will be no delays in cleanup, according to a congressional staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations with the administration.

Delays caused by the testing could range from hours to days, said Ed Overton, a professor of Environmental Studies at Louisiana State University. Once a sample is collected, it takes three to five hours to process the material. Ultimately, the time will depend on how many samples are being tested, said Overton, who is also head of the joint Coast Guard-Northern Oceanic Atmospheric Administration hazmat chemical analysis team. He called the government's plan crazy.

"This is insane," Overton said. "You don't have to hold up the cleanup just because you're waiting on a crazy lab analysis."

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said he's disappointed that the only plan out of Washington is one that will leave oil-soaked debris on the ground until it's determined who should pay to clean it up.

"At best, this 'plan' will prolong the time it takes for the community to recover from a hurricane," said Issa, who has raised concerns that the federal government is not prepared to respond to a major hurricane in that region. "At worst, it could force displaced residents to remain sheltered at distant locations while the government squabbles over who should clean up the mess."

David Paulison, the FEMA director hired to help fix the agency after its poor response to Hurricane Katrina, said delaying the cleanup of a contaminated area could make recovering from a hurricane even worse on a community. He left the agency in 2009.

"I just don't believe it's a workable plan," he said.

Katrina affected 93,000 square miles of land.

Toxicologists Warn That Waters That Look Clear of Oil Can Be Deceiving

August 2, 2010

USA TODAY -Out of sight, out of mind?

As surface oil plumes fade from view in the Gulf of Mexico, courtesy of the capped Macondo well, it would be wrong to think that the oil still isn't there, forensic toxicologists warn.

"We're finding less and less oil as we move forward," disaster response chief Thad Allen said last week, noting that skimmer boats were having trouble finding slicks.

The retired Coast Guard admiral also pointed out that 40% of the leaked oil — more than 90 million gallons of crude by U.S. Geologic Survey scientist estimates — is unaccounted for.

"There's the issue of whether or not we may find oil under the water," Allen added.

Under the water is where the oil is, say environmental chemists such as Jeffrey Short of the conservation group Oceana — not just in deep sea clouds of oil reported by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists.

"Oil tends to congeal, and where you saw a broad slick, you now have a lot of droplets and tar balls," he says.

Whether floating as tar balls, buried under Mississippi River mud or carried off in currents to the Atlantic, much of the spilled oil remains in the water, Short says.

Chemist Kim Anderson of Oregon State University in Corvallis heads a team tracking how much of the worst toxins in the oil — organic chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons — have been dumped in the water by the spill. They'll be measured at four sites off the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Earlier samples from Louisiana alone showed that by June 7, concentrations of the toxic chemicals had risen 40 times higher than levels on May 1, although the water looked clear of oil.

Complicating the search for the chemicals is the amount of dispersant, about 1.84 million gallons, applied to oil from the leak. The dispersant has done its job, acting like dish soap on bacon grease, congealing the oil into tiny droplets that microbes can begin eating.

"That means they are in the food chain." Short says. "Whether people will want to swim or eat food from water that looks clear but has high concentrations of (toxins) will be interesting," she says.

Heavy use of the dispersants came under fire over the weekend when Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., charged that "BP often carpet bombed the ocean with these chemicals and the Coast Guard allowed them to do it." BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said the company had operated under a protocol agreed on by the Coast Guard and the federal government.

A temporary cap has held the gusher in check for more than two weeks, and engineers are planning to start as early as tonight on an effort to help plug the well for good, Allen said. The procedure, dubbed a static kill, involves pumping mud and possibly cement into the blown-out well through the temporary cap.

As the response shifts from capping the leak to fixing the damage, we have seen only the start of the story, Anderson says:

"Years. I'll be here for years."