Emails and other documents obtained under Freedom of Information Act lawsuits or turned over as part of court proceedings ahead of the February 27 BP oil spill trial suggest politics and spin had more influence on determining the amount of oil BP’s blown-out Macondo well spewed into the Gulf of Mexico each day than actual science.
A former BP employee who helped form BP’s oil-spill cleanup response in Mississippi is suing the oil giant, alleging his bosses terminated him after he complained to them about how the company was handling cleanup efforts.
BP and federal authorities have denied the blown-out Macondo well may still be leaking, even as miles-long slicks of fresh oil continue to blanket areas of the Gulf near the site occupied by the Deepwater Horizon before it exploded in April 2010. In the fall, a number of flyovers thoroughly documented the new spill, and samples of crude collected by investigative reporters from the site were sent to Louisiana State University for analysis. Scientists there confirmed those samples as a “dead ringer” for the Macondo well oil. Still, even as several large ships contracted by BP lingered near the Macondo well site, neither BP nor the federal government offered answers that could satisfactorily explain the size and volume of all these new oil slicks.
Federal regulators have cited BP with another round of violations in connection with the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the workers killed in the incident, and the massive oil spill that erupted from the Macondo well a mile below the surface. Each safety violation the government cites BP for entails a civil penalty that the oil giant will have to pay should the charges stick.
When Bonny Schumaker flew her small plane over the Gulf of Mexico to conduct a survey of whale sharks, her search instead turned up a massive oil slick that stretched for miles on the surface. The oil appeared to be emanating from the exact site of BP’s blown-out Macondo well, which gushed oil for months and created the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.
The oily substance that has been spotted floating off the Louisiana coastline and washing up onto beaches is indeed oil, not silt from a dredging operation at the mouth of the Mississippi River as the U.S. Coast Guard said it likely was. Tests conducted over the weekend confirmed that the substance is actually Louisiana sweet crude.
NEW ORLEANS — The Gulf Coast Claims Facility said it has received more than 7,000 claims believed to be fraudulent and has referred many of them to the Justice Department for criminal investigation. The Gulf Coast Claims Facility, headed by attorney Kenneth Feinberg, is charged with paying claims from the $20-billion relief fund that the federal government pressured BP to establish in the wake of the Gulf oil spill disaster.
Louisiana state and Plaquemines Parish officials took journalists on a tour of Barataria Bay last week to showcase how oily sludge from BP’s Gulf spill is being covered up and neglected in this and other ecologically sensitive areas of the state’s coastline.
A Gulf Coast still reeling from the April 20 Deepwater Horizon drilling platform explosion, which killed 11 workers and dumped thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for months, braced for another round this morning when reports began coming in about another oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana. Again?? You could almost hear the groan of a weary population whose lives, livelihoods and lifestyle have been irreparably damaged by the BP oil disaster.
Update #2 (9/02/2010 @ 4:45pm) – Coast Guard Petty Officer Elizabeth Bordelon said there is a sheen on the water at the site of the platform, measuring about 100 feet wide and stretching for one mile. Jindal said the sheen can’t be confirmed.
The fire at the platform is not out yet, but it has been contained, Bordelon said.
Update #1 (9/02/2010 @ 12:31pm) – All thirteen people aboard a production platform that exploded in the Gulf are accounted for and safely on a commercial vessel according to initial information, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement.
“We continue to gather information as we respond with full force, and have oil spill response assets ready for immediate deployment should we receive any reports of pollution,” the statement said.
Original Story (9/02/2010 @ 10:30am) – An offshore petroleum platform exploded and was burning Thursday in the Gulf of Mexico about 80 miles off the Louisiana coast, west of the site where BP’s undersea well spilled after a rig explosion.
The Coast Guard says no one was killed in the blast, which was reported by a commercial helicopter flying over the area Thursday morning. All 13 people aboard the rig have been accounted for, with one injury. The extent of the injury was not known.
Coast Guard Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesau said some of those from the rig were spotted in emergency flotation devices.
Seven Coast Guard helicopters, two airplanes and three cutters were dispatched to the scene from New Orleans, Houston and Mobile, Ala., Ben-Iesau said. She said authorities do not know whether oil was leaking from the site.
The Department of Homeland Security said the platform was in about 2,500 feet of water and owned by Mariner Energy of Houston. DHS said it was not producing oil and gas.
The Deepwater Horizon rig leased by BP was in about 5,000 feet of water when it exploded and sank in April, killing 11 workers and triggering a leak of about 206 million gallons of oil.
