Project Katrina

Clearly a much larger sample size would be nice, but I fear this is just the first of many reports we’ll see that indicate what happened in the Gulf is far, far worse then we understand:

This month, the Louisiana Environmental Action Network released the blood test results from 12 Gulf residents between the ages of 10 and 66 that were taken in September, November, and December of 2010. According to Treehugger, these people consisted of cleanup workers, crabbers, and people living along the coast. The study consisted of six women, four men, and two boys, aged 10 and 11.

Four of the people had unusually high levels of benzene, which, according to the ISS, is a highly toxic chemical from crude oil. It has been linked to many health problems, including anemia, leukemia, irregular menstrual periods and ovarian shrinkage. Those four were all crabbers from the Biloxi area, and consisted of three adults and one 10-year-old boy.

Ethylbenzene was detected in all 12 blood samples from Gulf residents at high levels and 11 of the 12 individuals had relatively high concentrations of xylenes. Ethylbenzene can cause damage to hearing and to the ear, dizziness, kidney damage, and may even cause cancer. Xylene can cause dizziness, headaches, skin irritation, confusion, and a whole slew of other ailments.

According to the relevant Federal agencies the response would seem to be yes, well yes it is:

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in consultation with the Food and Drug Administration, announced the re-opening of 5,130 square miles of the Gulf for commercial and recreational fishing. “This is a significant area of importance to fishing and tourism,” said NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco in announcing the decision. “The gulf seafood taken from these waters is safe to eat, and today’s reopening announcement is another signal to tourists that the northern gulf is open for business.”

I sure hope it is safe. I love seafood more then just about any food and this would be equally good news for the fishermen and shrimpers in the Gulf region. But as Gina Solomon, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, has noted, the data used to decide whether to reopen the area included only 12 samples of shrimp, for a total of 73 individual shrimp.

Solomon goes on to note that the FDA has currently only released data on 42 shrimp samples from Louisiana, 12 from Florida, 7 from Alabama, and 6 from Mississippi. I clearly have no idea if seafood (shrimp specifically) from the Gulf is safe. It very well could be. The problem is this sample size is so small if you attempted to use a similar data set in a Statistics 101 course you wouldn’t be getting a passing grade.

You got to be shitting me. According to the New York Times BP is starting to float the idea that if Congress keeps them from drilling new wells in the Gulf of Mexico, it might not be able to fulfill its commitment to “make this right.”

[A]s state and federal officials, individuals and businesses continue to seek additional funds beyond the minimum fines and compensation that BP must pay under the law, the company has signaled its reluctance to cooperate unless it can continue to operate in the Gulf of Mexico.

Now it needs to be clear at this point BP says it will honor its pledge for a $20 billion fund for damages and fines, $100 million for rig workers idled by the moratorium, and $500 million to research the effects of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. But it is equally as clear they are going to attempt to scare lawmakers, with velied threats they won’t be able to honor their comittments, if they are not allowed to continue to drill whereever and whenever they want.

What is so important to note here is that in the last Fortune 500 rankings BP was the fourth largest corporation in the world, with profits—profits, not revenue—of $16,578,000,000. So it is laughable that not allowing BP to drill any new wells would even remotely hinder their ability to pay.

The Washington Post reports:

The “blowout preventer” from BP’s Macondo well—which infamously failed to prevent this summer’s spill—has begun its transition from sub-sea equipment to federal evidence.

The 450-ton device was removed Friday afternoon from the Gulf of Mexico floor and attached to a long section of pipe that will be used to haul it 5,000 feet to the surface, according to a statement from retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad W. Allen, the federal government’s point man on the BP oil spill.

The FBI and multiple other Federal investigators are waiting on the shore for the device to arrive, where it will undergo the mechanical equivalent of an autopsy. The results should be interested.

I’ve always felt months and years later as we look back on this we’re going to find it was a cluster fuck beyond comprehension. This makes me think I am correct at levels I’ve not even considered:

In hindsight, if BP had removed the 5,000-foot-long tangle of riser pipe from its damaged Gulf well in the early days of the spill, a new blowout preventer or cap could have been installed, shutting down the well perhaps within weeks instead of months, according to both the federal incident commander and petroleum engineers.

“I think that is one thing we will look at,” retired U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said during a recent interview with the Press-Register editorial board. “Obviously what finally worked was cutting the riser pipe. [....] If we had elected to cut the riser pipe we might have been able to do it much quicker.”

To say I question anything and everything a government agency or funded research facility says about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill gusher, but I sure hope this is accurate:

Petroleum-eating bacteria—which had dined for eons on oil seeping naturally through the seafloor—proliferated in the cloud of oil that drifted underwater for months after the April 20 accident. They not only outcompeted fellow microbes, they each ramped up their own internal metabolic machinery to digest the oil as efficiently as possible.

The result was a nature-made cleanup crew capable of reducing that reduced the amount of oil amounts in the undersea “plume” by half about every three days, according to research published online Tuesday by the journal Science.

The findings, by a team of scientists led by Terry C. Hazen of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, help explain one of the biggest mysteries a mystery of the disaster: Where has all the oil gone?

I pretty much slept through my high school and college science classes, so I really should comment, but there are so many things about this story that just don’t add up. But again, I really hope I am wrong.

According to the Federal Government the Deepwater Horizon well gushed up to 2.6 million gallons a day.  That is the equivalent of more than 19 Exxon Valdezes. Of course, for months BP insisted it was only 5,000 barrels a day (less than one tenth the actual amount). Well the new government estimate means BP is liable for a $17.6 billion fine—$4,300 for each barrel of oil, less the 800,000 barrels directly siphoned from the wellhead.

At its height, BP’s leaking well gushed 62,000 barrels of oil a day, the federal government said Monday in a revision of its figures that reveals how far off initial estimates turned out to be. The government and BP initially offered estimates of the leak at 1,000 and 5,000 of barrels a day shortly after it began in late April, eventually reaching an estimate of between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels a day after several revisions. The new estimate Monday by federal scientists means 4.9 million barrels of oil likely were released by the well before it was temporarily capped last month. BP hopes to complete an operation this week that will permanently seal the ill-fated well.

With those type of dollars in play is it any wonder BP was low-balling the size and scope of the spill.

Over the weekend, news broke that three months after his oil company’s rig set off the largest oil spill in American history, BP CEO Tony Hayward would be stepping down. In his resignation statement, Hayward stressed that, “BP will be a changed company as a result of” its oil spill in the Gulf. Yesterday morning BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg went on CNBC to celebrate Hayward’s performance at BP:

SVANBERG: Tony Hayward has done a great job for the company through his almost thirty years and he has done it very well, greatly as a CEO. He has driven the company’s performance and developed the company in many, many ways. He has also led an unprecedented response in the Gulf of Mexico. But it became obvious to him and to us that in order to rebuild our position, in order to rebuilt our brand and reputation, we needed fresh leadership and that is why we are doing the change.

Not only didn’t Hayward get shit canned, it did a “great job for the company” and will receive a £600,000-a-year ($930,000) pension when he leaves the firm in October. Kind of makes you wonder doesn’t it.

A former BP contractor has come forward to denounce the “cutthroat individuals” running the oil disaster response. On Friday, contractor-turned-whistleblower Adam Dillon told New Orleans television station WDSU he was fired “after taking photos that he believes were related to the use of dispersants and to the cleanup of the oil.” As a BP liaison, he had rebuffed reporters’ attempts to observe cleanup operations in Grand Isle, LA, in June, before being promoted to the BP Command Center near Houma, LA. At the command center BP manages the private contractors running practically every aspect of the spill response. Dillon, a former U.S. Army Special Operations soldier, “has lost faith in the company in charge”:

There are some very great, hardworking individuals in there. But the bottom line is just about money. There are some very cutthroat individuals. They’re not worried about cleaning up that spill as it is. . . .

I will never have loyalty to this company. I will always have loyalty to my country. And my country comes first. What this company is doing to this country right now is just wrong.

Before he was fired, Dillon was “confined and interrogated for almost an hour.” WDSU’s Scott Walker will air more of his interview with Adam Dillon on Monday night.

BP CEO Tony Hayward has flown to Abu Dhabi today. Rumors are it is to raise funds and secure new investors from the region as his company’s stocks continue to plummet:

BP’s embattled CEO flew to the wealthy emirate of Abu Dhabi to meet officials amid speculation the oil giant is looking to raise cash to cover clean up costs from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Chief Executive Tony Hayward arrived in the Emirati capital Tuesday and would be staying “a couple of days,” BP spokesman Andrew Gowers said. He would not say whether Hayward planned to sit down with the region’s powerful investment funds, which have provided needed cash to Western multinationals in past times of crisis. “He’s visiting partners as he does from time to time. He’s conducting normal business,” Gowers said.

The Financial Times writes that an “official in the Gulf familiar with BP’s discussions” said “there have been communications between the group and investors in the region since the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, describing them as an ‘immunisation strategy’ as BP looks to its future.” Additionally, the Saudi paper “Al-Eqtisadiah reported Wednesday that a delegation of Saudi investors was headed to London to discuss an acquisition of up to 15 percent of BP.”