Scoop Sea's Oil Spill Thread

[Scoop Sea]

I made it up to Famous Dave's for the Captain's meeting with my daughters and had the opportunity to meet Tom while I was there. It didn't look like the greatest showing of folks, however, this was the first year that I went to a Wed. night Captain's meeting so I am comparing it against the past 14 years of attending the Coastal captain's meeting. I just have to assume that the coastal meetings are better attended. Either way, folks should still get out and register.

Unfortunately, I got home and read the following:

NOAA Expands Fishing Closed Area in Gulf of Mexico
June 16, 2010

NOAA has expanded the closed fishing area in the Gulf of Mexico to capture portions of the oil slick moving beyond the area’s current northern boundary, off the Florida panhandle’s federal-state waterline. This boundary was moved to Panama City Beach.

This federal closure does not apply to any state waters. Closing fishing in these areas is a precautionary measure to ensure that seafood from the Gulf will remain safe for consumers.

The closed area now represents 80,806 square miles, which is approximately 33.4 percent of Gulf of Mexico federal waters. This leaves more than 66 percent of Gulf federal waters available for fishing. The closure will be effective at 6:00 p.m. EDT. Details can be found at http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/. The last closed area modification was June 7, when 78,264 square miles were closed to fishing, or roughly 32 percent of federal waters of the Gulf.

The federal and state governments have systems in place to test and monitor seafood safety, prohibit harvesting from affected areas, and keep oiled products out of the marketplace. NOAA continues to work closely with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the states to ensure seafood safety, by closing fishing areas where tainted seafood could potentially be caught, and assessing whether seafood is tainted or contaminated to levels that pose a risk to human health. NOAA and FDA are working to implement a broad-scaled seafood sampling plan. The plan includes sampling seafood from inside and outside the closure area, as well as dockside- and market-based sampling.

According to NOAA, there are approximately 5.7 million recreational fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico region who took 25 million fishing trips in 2008. Commercial fishermen in the Gulf harvested more than one billion pounds of fish and shellfish in 2008.

Fishermen who wish to contact BP about a claim should call 800-440-0858.

NOAA will continue to evaluate the need for fisheries closures based on the evolving nature of the spill and will re-open closed areas as appropriate. NOAA will also re-evaluate the closure areas as new information that would change the boundaries of these closed areas becomes available.

Needless to say, this absolutely stinks. I hope this is not the beginning of more closures that will impact our neck of the woods.

[Jumptrout51]

Other countries have offered specific oil spill vessels,equipment and manpower.
It has been rejected.
That makes no sense to me.

[Scoop Sea]

Hey JT, I am not aware of those offers. I'm not saying that's not the case, but I can attest that foreign countries have been called upon to supply equipment and resources and those resources have been mobilized. Examples include the new "burner" that is going to be used to burn off the oil coming up the choke/kill lines when they get that going, as well as large and small skimming vessels. As far as I am aware, it's been bring all applicable resources.

[Jumptrout51]

Todays' Tallahassee Democrat named.Japan,Norway and Sweden as offering and being turned down.

[Barhopr]

Be careful Steve. If you don't tow the line you may be called out as a chicken little. I'm sure BP,MMS,BO et.al. have everything under control and we should trust that everyone is doing everything possible to look out for our interest. We should just carry on with our lives as if nothing has happened and they will make it all better.

[Jumptrout51]

BP did not turn them down.
YOUR President did.
The same one that last night had no answers to the problem except to build windmills.
Put a sail on your truck.
Perhaps he can hang glide around the world on his vacations and let AF1 sit in a hangar.

[Scoop Sea]

Hey Mills, please recall the quote below from earlier in the thread, specifically the part in which I advise that I do not know every detail and the comments I make are relative to a moment in time, as well as what I do know about. Please also note in my response to JT concerning the foreign countries offering equipment, I stated I was not aware of the offers he referenced, but went on to state that me not knowing did not mean that was not the case. I wrote about the offers I knew about and were accepted, plain, simple facts, nothing more, nothing less. If you re-read the threads you will find were I agree this is a trajedy that will not end quickly enough and that we have a lot of challenges associated with this spill. I just provide a view, based on facts, nothing more, nothing less. Right now, there are three facts that stand out: There is an on-going oil spill that will last for at least another couple of months, No oil has hit our area, yet due to over-hyped media our local businesses are suffering, and lastly,there are a lot of folks busting their humps trying to reduce the economic and environmental impacts related to this spill.

JT, I tried to look up that article on TDO.COM and couldn't find it, I assume it has to be in the printed edition. If you know of it being on-line, I'd appreciate getting a copy of it. Thanks.

Thanks BBG for the kind words. I would feel remiss if I didn't tell it like I see it and try to provide an insightful perspective that will hopefully let folks know the sky isn't falling. Yes, we have some stormy weather we have to get through over the next few months, but we'll make it out the other side.

As long as folks remember I don't know every detail, especially for La. and westward operations and the fact that I call it like I see it for "that moment in time", there should be no problems. My point being, I foresee some challenges in the future with folks saying "well you said this", but they may fail to realize that I am not overly knowledgeable on La/westward operations and they confuse something for that area with something in the Al,Ms,Fl area. Or they mix up what I am saying at that particular moment of time vs. something I may have said weeks earlier when the facts were different. I hate this line, but "it is what it is". Circumstances will change, but facts will be facts for any given moment in time. We should stick to those facts, good, bad, and ugly......Take Care.

[Jumptrout51]

I read it in print while having a tire repaired.
It was in the first section of the paper.

[Scoop Sea]

Hey JT, I found this article on-line that sounds similar to the one you mentioned. In this article it goes on to say that Hillary pushed the White House to use foreign aid for practical and political reasons, who would of thunk it.......


This story was written by Juliet Eilperin and Glenn Kessler

Four weeks after the nation's worst environmental disaster, the Obama administration saw no need to accept offers of state-of-the-art skimmers, miles of boom or technical assistance from nations around the globe with experience fighting oil spills.

"We'll let BP decide on what expertise they do need," State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid told reporters on May 19. "We are keeping an eye on what supplies we do need. And as we see that our supplies are running low, it may be at that point in time to accept offers from particular governments."

That time has come.

In the past week, the United States submitted its second request to the European Union for any specialized equipment to contain the oil now seeping onto the Gulf of Mexico's marshes and beaches, and it accepted Canada's offer of 9,842 feet of boom. The government is soliciting additional boom and skimmers from nearly two dozen countries and international organizations.

In late May, the administration accepted Mexico's offer of two skimmers and 13,779 feet of boom; a Dutch offer of three sets of Koseq sweeping arms, which attach to the sides of ships and gather oil; and eight skimming systems offered by Norway.

"As we understand what we need and identify domestic and foreign sources, we will act," said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, who said the United States has received 21 aid offers from 17 countries and four international groups. "We are maintaining contact with these countries, we are grateful for the offers, and we will take them up on these offers."

But some lawmakers and outside experts are questioning whether the administration has been too slow to capitalize on these offers, lulled by BP's estimates on the oil flow rate and on its capacity to cope with the aftermath of the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig.

"We're clearly behind the curve because BP did not have the game plan to deal with this spill," said Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), who visited Louisiana on Friday. "I don't know if the federal government has the capacity it needs at this point."

Anthony H. Cordesman, a national security and energy analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the administration has been hampered because the spill is "a rare case" where the traditional emergency response routine does not apply.

"Most emergency relief is based on proven technology and precedence," he said. "We are now confronted by something that doesn't match any of the models."

The State Department sent letters to some U.S. allies two weeks after the accident, and the Coast Guard initially sought to assess what supplies might be available overseas, but the administration's public posture on aid has been inconsistent. On May 5, Crowley announced that 13 international offers had been received and that decisions on what to accept would be made "in the next day or two." Two weeks later, the State Department said the government saw no reason to accept any of the offers.

Crowley said the Obama administration is well aware of what happened after Hurricane Katrina, when the U.S. government failed to capitalize on an unprecedented amount of foreign aid offers. Allies offered $854 million in cash and in oil meant to be sold for cash. In the end, only $126 million in cash from 40 donors was received.

"This is different," Crowley said of the oil spill. "We are and will be drawing on the foreign assistance."

In many cases, this equipment is being provided by private companies -- at BP's expense. And like other elements of the joint response, decision-making has been complicated because federal officials must consult with the oil giant before signing off on any offer.

"The coordination on this side of the ocean was not completely clear," said Floris van Hovell, press counselor for the Dutch Embassy in Washington, adding that when a Dutch official was seeking to broker an aid agreement last month, "it was for a long time unclear on where he should go to and who should take the decision."

According to government sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appealed to the White House several weeks ago, suggesting that it needed some foreign aid for practical and diplomatic reasons.

BP declined to comment.

Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Christopher T. O'Neil wrote in an e-mail that decisions on foreign assistance are made between the top federal official on the scene, BP and "other represented agencies including state and local governments." The Coast Guard has a 51 percent "overriding vote in cases where consensus is not possible," he wrote. "All qualifying offers of assistance have been accepted."

In some cases, the administration rejected offers because they failed to meet U.S. specifications: The private consortium that serves as Norway's spill-response team uses a chemical dispersant that the Environmental Protection Agency has not approved.

In other cases, domestic politics are at play. Dutch authorities have worked in Louisiana since Katrina hit and were among the first to offer to help. After some hesitation, BP has obtained the state-of-the-art Dutch skimmers, two of which are in operation. Meanwhile, a massive sand-dredging operation is moving slowly.

A plan by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) to create sand berms to keep oil from reaching the coastline originally came from the marine contractor Van Oord and the research institute Deltares, both in the Netherlands. BP pledged $360 million for the plan, but U.S. dredging companies -- which have less than one-fifth of the capacity of Dutch dredging firms -- have objected to foreign companies' participation.

Garret Graves, who chairs Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, wrote in an e-mail that state officials "have made it clear to our contractors from the beginning that we want to use American dredges to complete this sand berm as quickly as possible . . . Ultimately, any effort to expedite these berms will be fully considered, but we remain committed to our American companies."

In the meantime, governments around the world are mobilizing help. In addition to boom, Canada has dispatched an aircraft for surveillance flights as well as several technical experts. Japan is still offering to send boom; the Swedish Coast Guard said it can send three ships that can each collect 370 barrels of oil an hour, but it is waiting to hear from the U.S. government or BP.

The Norwegian Coastal Authority has approved sending nearly a third of the nation's spill response equipment to the gulf if asked.

"We want to help the U.S. with whatever they need," said Espen Myhra, energy counselor at the Norwegian Embassy. "But of course, it's up to the U.S. and BP to decide what they need, and we will respond to that."

[Barhopr]

Steve...buddy... you need to settle down. I am not now nor have I ever been a fan or supporter of the current Admin. There is plenty of blame to go around on this one. From BP (and their subs),MMS, the Prez and all of the other gov. agencies involved. The ban on drilling will do far more long term economic damage IMO than the spill itself and should be or have been lifted once the plans for new drilling have been checked out and OK'd. I equate the ban on new wells in the gulf with banning all tourists from Florida after one drunken kid falls off of a balcony in Panama City. Sure it's tragic that the kid fell, and someone may have even pushed him over, but to ban all tourist from the state is an over reaction.
Scoop: I have no ill feelings for you or your agency, there is only so much that can be done once something like this happens. You minimize the damage as much as you can until it's capped then pick up the pieces and move on.
If people think that BP is going to pay for this clean-up effort and the economic loss to those affected you have another thing coming. Sure, BP will pony up the cash on the front end but mismanagement; corruption and legal fees, much like with the TARP fund, will squander it. Some folks will be happy in thinking that the "evil" oil company is made to pay, but BP will make the money back through higher fuel prices (if they have to) as well as an increases across the board for other materials made from crude by-products. And that’s OK, it's called capitalism. Do I look forward to higher prices for things? No. Do I like the fact that BP et. al. screwed the pooch on this one and as a result all of our lives along the gulf coast are going to be just a little bit harder for a time? No. Is just keeping it quiet and not discussing what may result and how to set it right the right thing to do? No. If the well had ruptured without the DWH catching on fire and burning to the waterline killing nearly a dozen people how long would it have taken us to find out about it? More than likely it would have been just another footnote on some obscure list of violations held by the MMS. Who knows? I also don't think it's wrong to bash those involved and to some extent responsible for this mess... Hell I'm mad and I feel like bitching a little, so what! It's not going to do any good but it makes me feel better about a bad situation that I can't do anything about.

[Barhopr]

Scoop: I never mentioned you or the EPA in that earlier post. I understand things change daily and what is known today may not have been known yesterday. I'm not calling you out dude just warning a friend( sarcastically) to be carful with criticism.

[MudDucker]

MudDucker: Yeah, the third party administrator was about the only thing that I took out of the speech that sounded overly positive. What I did hear, that was somewhat surprising, was the appointment of the Secretary of The Navy as the leader of the Gulf Coast Recovery efforts. I would have thought that the recovery efforts would have been handled by each State independently through direct claims to BP. To me, this appointment somewhat dilutes the authorities of the Federal On Scene Coordinator assigned to oversee this response and whose position was created by Federal law (over 30 years ago). Furthermore, with what we have going on world wide, it seems like the Secretary of The Navy would already be pretty taxed. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for taking care of our own homefront first and then the rest of the world second, but it seems to me like the appointee may already have their plate full.

This administration with its Czars loves to confuse the chain of command. The one has NO EXECUTIVE EXPERIENCE so I am not surprised that he is not getting On the Job Training at our expense.

[Scoop Sea]

Scoop: I never mentioned you or the EPA in that earlier post. I understand things change daily and what is known today may not have been known yesterday. I'm not calling you out dude just warning a friend( sarcastically) to be carful with criticism.

Barhopr: I don't know what your "friend" quote means or implies, but here's the deal, if you want to read a thread that concentrates solely on the negative aspects of this response, then it may be best to open up a separate thread. However, if you want to read a thread that discusses facts about the response, while trying to highlight some of the occasional successes related to the spill, this thread is an option. You have to remember, I am discussing actions that occur in Ms, Al, and Fl., so when I post intel about the oil impact being more minimal than the press makes out, the seafood being o.k. to eat, the mad run on claims money, etc., etc. I am only talking about in Ms, Al, and Fl. If that gives the appearance of being too optimistic relative to the spill, sorry. I for one am glad that we are nearly two months into this spill and not a drop of oil has hit the shores in our neck of the woods.

Maybe I drank the kool-aid on BP paying the response costs, but I know that the Federal law says they will pay the response costs and damages, and thus far, they have paid the response costs, paid claims, and have not given any indication they will not continue to do so. I do agree that greed will get into the mix and there will be folks taking advantage of the system while others suffer. We’ve already seen folks making claims that shouldn’t be doing so. That will just drive up the whole costs of this event unfortunately.

As I was asked to start this thread to provide a broader view of this response (vs. media driven only) for the forum members, I hope you enjoy it and stick around, if not, no harm-no foul, maybe I’ll see you out on the water sometime.

[KYFRED]

I read an article, well more of an hupothesis that seemed to imply that the BOP is not actually on the sea floor, but was supported by the pipe and teh vessels above. The supposition was that the pipe below teh floor of the gulf had been compromised and the reason flows had been increased was not due to teh new cap and preassures above the sea floor, but to relieve what may be a hole in teh pipe that is erroding the sea floor. The theory was that as it erroded teh floor, the pipe would eventually cause a larger hole that could not be contained and we would be looking at billions of gallons of oil that could not be contained until they finished teh new pipeline. I am sure there is a little bit of truth here and a little bit of falsehood, but, I hope, most of it is complete supposition. Any word?

[Scoop Sea]

Hey KYFRED, I haven't heard anything like that, but the well is not in my jurisdiction, it's over in the La. response area. It is my understanding that the BOP was not designed to be on the sea floor. I have been advised that the increase in flow was due to the pipe being cut, which removed a "pinch" in the pipe that was restricting flow. That was the theory behind cutting the pipe as a last resort, i.e. removing the pinch would allow more flow and it was not a total given that the cap would hold. It was a risk vs. benefit decision. With options running short, that was the decision made. The cap is doing a decent job of capturing portions of the flow, but the next cap and the use of the kill/choke lines should help out even more. Hopefully this will be completed in the near future.