Gulf Coast Post

Oil is more toxic than previously thought, study finds

2012-01-19T17:04:00.001-05:00

By Dean Kuipers, Los Angeles Times
December 27, 2011, 12:00 p.m.

Bad news for the Gulf of Mexico: a study released this week sheds new light on the toxicity of oil in aquatic environments, and shows that environmental impact studies currently in use may be inadequate. The report is to be published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study, spearheaded by the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory in collaboration with NOAA, looked into the aftermath of the 2007 Cusco Busan spill, when that tanker hit the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and spilled 54,000 gallons of bunker fuel into the bay.

The key finding involved the embryos of Pacific herring that spawn in the bay. The fish embryos absorbed the oil and then, when exposed to UV rays in sunlight, physically disintegrated. This is called phototoxicity, and has not previously been taken into account when talking about oil spills.

“This phenomenon had been observed in the laboratory, but had never been observed in the field, and there were even some skeptics out there wondering if this was just a phenomenon that people would see under lab conditions,” said Gary Cherr, director of the marine lab and professor of environmental toxicology.

Read the rest of the story . . .

Gulf Coast Task Force Releases Ecosystem Restoration Strategy For Public Review

2011-10-07T15:55:00.001-04:00

CONTACT

EPA PressOffice

202-564-4355

FOR IMMEDIATERELEASE

October 5, 2011

Gulf Coast TaskForce Releases Ecosystem Restoration Strategy For Public Review

Agenda outlinesblueprint for reversing decline of Gulf Coast ecosystem

WASHINGTON - TheGulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, chaired by U.S.

EnvironmentalProtection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, today released for

public review andfeedback its comprehensive preliminary strategy for long term

ecosystemrestoration. The strategy, which will be presented to President Obama atthe

end of the publicreview period, represents an historic opportunity for addressing

long-standingissues contributing to the decline of the Gulf’s critical ecosystem. The

preliminarystrategy is the first effort of its kind to be developed with the

involvement ofparties throughout the region, including the states, tribes, federal

agencies, localgovernments and thousands of interested citizens and organizations. The

plan strategy,which builds upon on-going efforts underway in the Gulf Coast states

includes specificsteps for on-the-ground action and represents the Task Force’s

commitment toputting Gulf coastal restoration on an equal footing with other national

priorities.

One year agotoday, President Obama established the Task Force by executive order, in

response torecommendations from a report by Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, to

continue theAdministration’s ongoing commitment to the Gulf region. The group is made up of representatives from the five GulfStates and 11 federal agencies, including the

EnvironmentalProtection Agency, Council on Environmental Quality, Department of the

Interior,Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Agriculture,

Department ofJustice, Department of Transportation, Office of Management and Budget,

Office of Scienceand Technology Policy and Domestic Policy Council.

"Even beforelast year’s oil spill, the Gulf of Mexico endured decades of decline that

threatened theenvironmental and economic health of this region. This strategy is

designed toprepare the region for transitioning from a response to the spill into a

long-term recoverythat supports the vital ecosystem and the people who depend on it,"

said AdministratorJackson. "The health of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem starts and ends

with its peopleand its communities. The individuals and families who visit the Gulf,

who work in theregion, who depend on its resources, and especially those who call it

home, know itsneeds and challenges best. They will be integral to creating and

executing thislong-term strategy."

“The Task Force’sdraft strategy identifies fundamental obstacles that have plagued

restoration andprotection efforts in Louisiana and other states for decades. The

report attempts tobegin reversing 80 years of mismanagement,” said Garret Graves, Task

Force vice-chairand chair of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority of

Louisiana. “It identifies critical issues such aschanges in river management, the use

of dredgedsediment, navigation channel bank stabilization, and the need to expedite

the snail’s paceprocess of implementing water resources projects. History has proven that being reactive on disaster mitigationcosts exponentially more. This report isan

important firststep in moving toward a proactive strategy as recognized through the

implementation ofthe state's coastal master plan. Thereis much work still left to be done andwe look forward to continuing to work with Task Force agencies and our fellow

Gulf States tofinally stabilize our coast and protect the Gulf communities.”

The naturalresources of the Gulf’s ecosystem are vital to many of the region’s

industries thatdirectly support economic progress and job creation, including tourism

and recreation,seafood production and sales, energy production and navigation and

commerce. Among the major initiatives with specificactions recommended by the

preliminarystrategy to protect and restore those natural resources are:

• Stopping the Loss of Wetlands

Stopping the lossof critical wetlands, sand barriers and beaches is a key

recommendation ofthe preliminary strategy. Key habitats for a wide range of fish and

other animals arebeing lost or reduced across the Gulf. The creation of channels and

levees fromdredging in the Lower Mississippi often can “disconnect” the vast wetland

delta from thesource of sediments that built the delta over thousands of years. The

strategy aims torestore the supply of sediments needed to build up eroding wetlands

and to ultimatelyreconnect these valuable resources to their historic source of

sediments,particularly in the Lower Mississippi. To help do this, the strategy

recommends placingecosystem restoration on an equal footing with historic uses such as

navigation andflood damage reduction by approaching water resource management

decisions in a farmore comprehensive manner that will bypass harm to wetlands, barrier

islands andbeaches. The strategy also recommends implementation of several

congressionallyauthorized projects in the Gulf that are intended to reverse the trend

of wetlandsloss.

• Reducing the Flow of Nutrients into theGulf

The strategy callsfor working in the Gulf and upstream in the Mississippi watershed to

reduce the flow ofnutrients into the Gulf by supporting state nutrient reduction

frameworks, newnutrient reduction approaches, and targeted watershed work to reduce

agricultural andurban sources of nutrients. The strategyrecommends addressing the

complex issuessurrounding the transport of nutrients in excess to our Gulf coast by

broadly supportingaction-oriented innovations from all sectors that address both the

environmental aswell as the economics of effective nutrient management.

• Enhancing Resiliency Among CoastalCommunities

The strategy callsfor enhancing the quality of life of Gulf residents by working in

partnership withGulf with coastal communities themselves -- the living laboratories

for facing thechallenges posed. The strategyspecifically recommends working with

each of the Statesto build the integrated capacity needed through effective coastal

improvement plansto better secure the future of their coastal communities and to

implement existingefforts underway.

Additionally, theTask Force will begin immediately reviewing existing policies,

programs andregulations that are slowing down restoration progress, particularly in

the habitatrestoration area. The Task Force willalso explore innovative ways to

implementrestoration, measure success and support the restoration with science.

The following arestatements on the release of the preliminary strategy from

representatives ofthe member states on the task force:

N. Gunter Guy,Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural

Resources said,“The combined efforts of the federal and state members of the Task

Force haveresulted in the release of a preliminary strategy focused on restoring the

Gulf Coastecosystem. Alabama looks forward toreceiving feedback from the public on

the strategy andcommits to continue working to improve Alabama’s Gulf Coast

communities andprotecting its natural resources.”

Mimi A. Drew,Florida’s representative on the task force and Special Advisor to the

Florida Departmentof Environmental Protection Secretary Herschel T. Vinyard, Jr. said,

“Today’s releaseof this important report is the culmination of more than a year’s

worth ofcollaboration and hard work to identify priorities and a strategy to improve,

restore andprotect the fragile and vital Gulf ecosystem. The Gulf of Mexico provides

huge environmentaland economic benefits to Florida and we look forward to input from

the public torefine this plan.”

Trudy D. Fisher,Executive Director of the Mississippi Department of Environmental

Quality said,"The Task Force marked an unprecedented commitment at the federal and

state levels tocreate a shared vision for a healthier Gulf Coast ecosystem. We are

confident that theresulting strategy will set the stage for future cooperation and

success. Mississippi will be a critical partner as thework continues."

Helen S. Young,Deputy Commissioner of Coastal Resources in the Texas General Land

Office commented,"The collaborative federal, state, and local process that involved

visits to the fiveGulf states and listening sessions with locals highlighted the

states' sharedissues and unique needs. For instance,it emphasized the importance of

Texas's barrierislands, which are the first line of defense against storm surge like

Hurricane Ikeproduced in 2008, making it the second costliest hurricane in recent

times with damageof $127 billion. The Strategy alsounderscores the significance of

the Gulf of Mexicoto the national economy and identifies the issues of greatest

concern for theregion. Restoration efforts based on thestrategy will help ensure

that thesecritical environmental and economic resources remain viable."

This preliminarystrategy represents the Task Force’s strong commitment to the

restoration of theGulf Coast. The strategy was developedfollowing more than 40

public meetingsthroughout the Gulf to listen to the concerns of the public. It is

available to thepublic for review and feedback at www.epa.gov/gulfcoasttaskforce,

until 11:59 p.m.EST October 26, 2011. The Task Forcewill release the final version

in December.

_______________________________________
Thanks to Anne Weinberg
weinberg.anne@epa.gov on behalf of:

U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency · 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue NW · Washington DC 20460 ·

202-564-4355

Large Set of Oil Spill & Environs Photos On-Line

2011-01-14T08:08:00.001-05:00

You will find a large set of photos from the oil spill area, Louisiana, at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cedareden/sets/72157625783207926/

More will be appearing soon . . .

BP cleanup a 'cover-up,' La. says, pointing to oil via msnbc.com iPhone app

2011-01-07T19:38:00.000-05:00

http://on.msnbc.com/hKxjuZ

BP cleanup a 'cover-up,' La. says, pointing to oil

4:54 PM ET, Fri, January 7, 2011

msnbc.com staff and news service reports

PORT SULPHUR, Louisiana - Federal and Louisiana officials got into a heated argument Friday over the cleanup of oiled marshes during a tour of an area that remains fouled 8½ months after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

State and Plaquemines Parish officials took reporters on a boat tour of Barataria Bay, pointing out an area where oil continues to eat away at marshes and protective boom is either absent or has been gobbled up by the oil. The heavily saturated area that reporters saw was 30 feet to 100 feet wide in sections. No cleanup workers were there when reporters toured the area.

The marshes are critical to the Louisiana coast because they protect the shore from hurricanes and serve as a nursery for Gulf sea life.

"This is the biggest cover-up in the history of America," Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser told reporters, gesturing with his gloved right hand, which was covered in oil.

. . .

Read entire story at http://on.msnbc.com/hKxjuZ

2010-10-06T22:52:00.000-04:00

Panel: Feds blocked worst-case Gulf spill figures

7:16 p.m. ET, Wed., October 6, 2010

DINA CAPPIELLO
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration blocked efforts by government scientists to tell the public just how bad the Gulf oil spill could become and made other missteps that raised questions about its competence and candor during the crisis, according to a commission appointed by the president to investigate the disaster.

In documents released Wednesday, the national oil spill commission's staff describes "not an incidental public relations problem" by the White House in the wake of the April 20 accident.

Among other things, the report says, the administration made erroneous early estimates of the spill's size, and President Barack Obama's senior energy adviser went on national TV and mischaracterized a government analysis by saying it showed most of the oil was "gone." The analysis actually said it could still be there.

"By initially underestimating the amount of oil flow and then, at the end of the summer, appearing to underestimate the amount of oil remaining in the Gulf, the federal government created the impression that it was either not fully competent to handle the spill or not fully candid with the American people about the scope of the problem," the report says.

The administration disputed the commission findings, saying senior government officials "were clear with the public public what the worst-case flow rate could be."

In a statement Wednesday, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco and White House budget director Jeffrey Zients pointed out that in early May, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen told the public that the worst-case scenario could be more than 100,000 barrels a day, or 4.2 million gallons.

For the first time, the documents — which are preliminary findings by the panel's staff — show that the White House was directly involved in controlling the message as it struggled to convey that it, not BP, was in charge of responding to what eventually became the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Citing interviews with government officials, the report reveals that in late April or early May, the White House budget office denied a request from NOAA to make public its worst-case estimate of how much oil could spew from the blown-out well. The Unified Command — the government team in charge of the spill response — also was discussing the possibility of making the numbers public, the report says.

The White House budget office has traditionally been a clearinghouse for administration domestic policy.

The report shows "the political process was in charge and science really does not have the role that was touted," said Christopher D'Elia, dean of environmental studies at Louisiana State University.

But Jerry Miller, head of the White House science office's ocean subcommittee, told The Associated Press in an interview at a St. Petersburg, Fla., scientific conference on the oil spill that he didn't think the budget office censored NOAA.

"I would very much doubt that anyone would put restrictions on NOAA's ability to articulate factual information," Miller said.

The explosion in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers, spewed 206 million gallons of oil from the damaged oil well, and sank the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

BP's drilling permit for the well originally estimated the worst-case scenario to be a leak of 6.8 million gallons per day. In late April, just after the spill began, the Coast Guard and NOAA received an updated worst-case estimate of 2.7 million to 4.6 million gallons per day.

While those figures were used as the basis for the government's response to the spill — they appeared on an internal Coast Guard situation report and on a dry-erase board in NOAA's Seattle war room — they were never announced to the public, according to the report.

However, they were, in fact, announced, as news stories from May 2 to May 5 show, though the figures received little attention at the time.

For more than a month after the explosion, government officials were telling the public that the well was releasing 210,000 gallons per day. In early August, in its final estimate of the spill's flow, the government said it was gushing 2.6 million gallons per day — close to the worst-case predictions.

The documents also criticize Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, saying that during a series of morning-show appearances on Aug. 4, she misrepresented the findings of a federal analysis of where the oil went and incorrectly portrayed it as a scientific assessment that was peer-reviewed by inside and outside experts.

"I think it's also important to note that our scientists have done an initial assessment, and more than three-quarters of the oil is gone," Browner said on NBC's "Today" show.

But the analysis never said it was gone, according to the commission. It said it was dispersed, dissolved or evaporated — meaning it could still be there. And while NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco was more cautious in her remarks at a news conference at the White House later that day, the commission staff accuses the two senior officials of contributing to the perception that the government's findings were more exact than they actually were.

Florida State University professor Ian MacDonald, who has repeatedly clashed with NOAA and the Coast Guard over the size of the spill, the existence of underwater plumes and oil in the sea floor, said he felt gratified by the report.

From the beginning, there was "a contradiction between discoveries and concerns by academic scientists and statements by NOAA," MacDonald said in an interview with the AP at the oil spill conference.

And he said it is still going on. MacDonald and Georgia Tech scientist Joseph Montoya said NOAA is at it again with statements saying there is no oil in ocean floor sediments. A University of Georgia science cruise, which Montoya was on, found ample evidence of oil on the Gulf floor.

___

Associated Press Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed reporting from St. Petersburg, Fla.

Gulf seafloor coated in oil from BP spill

2010-09-14T00:50:00.001-04:00

Samples taken from the seafloor near BP's blown-out wellhead indicate miles of murky, oily residue sitting atop hard sediment. Moreover, inside that residue are dead shrimp, zooplankton, worms and other invertebrates.

"I expected to find oil on the sea floor," Samantha Joye, a University of Georgia marine sciences professor, said Monday morning in a ship-to-shore telephone interview. "I did not expect to find this much. I didn't expect to find layers two inches thick."

The scientists aboard the research vessel Oceanus suspect it's all from the BP spill, but will have to wait until they return to shore this week to confirm it's the same oil source.

"It has to be a recent event," Joye said. "There's still pieces of warm bodies there."

If it is BP oil, it could undermine the federal government's estimate that 75 percent of the spill either evaporated, was cleaned up or was consumed by natural microbes.

What the scientists do already know is that the oil is not coming naturally from below the surface.

"What we found today is not a natural seep," Joye wrote in her blog on Sept. 5 when the first surprise sediment was found.

"The near shore sediments contained grayish muddy clay and a thin layer of orange-brown oil at the surface," she added. Oil seeping naturally would create an oily stain throughout the sediment cores, but these samples only had oil at the top.

"The oil obviously came from the top (down from the water column) not the bottom (up from a deep reservoir)," Joye wrote.

'Slime highway'
The researchers also have a name for it: a slime highway.

That's because they're confident much of the oil was trapped by mucus coming from microbes that feast on oil in a natural process that helps break up the contaminant. Those microbes are well documented, but not that their mucus was sinking along with oil to the seafloor.

"The organisms that break down oil excrete mucus — copious amounts of mucus," Joye told National Public Radio. "So it's kind of like a slime highway from the surface to the bottom. Because eventually the slime gets heavy and it sinks."

Another factor that could be trapping the oil was the earlier use of chemical dispersants, which might have made the oil so small that it wasn't buoyant enough to rise.

Joye wrote that the scientists call the substance "'oil aggregate snow' — because it settled down the water column to the seafloor just like snow falls from the sky to the ground."

"If you take a close look at the snow layer, oil aggregates are clearly visible," she added. "Also visible are pteropod shells (which must have been recently deposited because the shells dissolve rapidly) and remnants of zooplankton (skeletons) and benthic infauna (dead worms and their tubes)."

The researchers took new samples on Monday and Sunday, and hope to take several more, especially closer to the wellhead, before they return.

"It's weird the stuff we found last night," Joye said. "Some of it was really dense and thick."

The samples have come from seafloors at depths ranging from 300 to 4,000 feet deep.

Since the well was capped on July 15, and after some 200 million gallons flowed into the Gulf, there have been signs of resilience on the surface and the shore. Sheens have disappeared, while some marshlands have shoots of green. This seeming recovery is likely a result of massive amounts of chemical dispersants, warm waters and a Gulf that is used to degrading massive amounts of oil, scientists say.

Animal deaths also are far short of worst-case scenarios. But at the same time, a massive invisible plume of oil has been found under the surface, shifting scientists' concerns from what can be easily seen to what can't be.

For Ian MacDonald, a Florida State University biological oceanographer who wasn't part of Joye's team, the latest findings confirm that government assessments about how much oil remains — especially a report on the subject by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in August — were too optimistic.

The oil "did not disappear," he said. "It sank."

Some skeptics
Not all scientists agree with this assessment.

Ed Overton, a Louisiana State University chemist who has analyzed the spill for NOAA, doubted much oil was resting on the bottom. He said the heavier components in oil — the asphalts — make up only about 1 percent of the oil that was spilled.

And Roger Sassen, an organic geochemist at Texas A&M University who has studied natural oil seeps, said so much oil seeps naturally into the Gulf each year that it's hard to argue that the BP spill will make a significant difference.

Nonetheless, the big questions now are exactly how much oil is at the bottom and how many organisms are being exposed to it, said Robert Carney, an oceanographer and deep-sea expert at Louisiana State University. The answers to those questions could shed some light on the unseen damage to wildlife from the oil spill.

"Deep-sea animals, in general, tend to produce fewer offspring than shallower water animals, so if they are going to have a population impact, it may be more sensitive in deep water," he said. "There is also some evidence that deep-sea animals live longer than shallower water species, so the impact may stay around longer."

At first, scientists, the media and the federal government focused their attention on tracking rainbow sheens approaching land, tar balls hitting beaches, measuring oil in marshes and scouting for oiled birds and sea turtles. But a spate of recent studies increasingly points to the deep.

NOAA's Aug. 4 pronouncement that the oil was mostly gone also indicated that some 53 million gallons remained in the Gulf. At the time, federal officials said some of that could be on the sea floor, adding that the rest was mostly broken down naturally or by the widespread use of chemical dispersants.

"As we get into weathered oil, there is more likelihood that it will get into the sediment" on the seafloor, said Steve Murawski, chief scientist at the National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of NOAA.

Getting a handle on where the oil is at extreme depths will not be easy. Scientists will have to use expensive 1,000-pound devices that look like moon landers. The spindly legged machines land on the bottom and shoot tubes into the sea floor to collect 20-inch-long samples.

The terrain is exceedingly difficult. The area where the busted BP well sits is on the continental slope, formed by millions of years of deposits from the Mississippi River. It's a region of bumps and valleys, salt domes, canyons and slopes.

Government scientists acknowledge they've not done enough to look for oil in the obscure corners of the Gulf's bottom, but promise to do a better job.

Joye's latest discovery backs up the findings of a University of South Florida crew that reported pulling up oily sediment in August.

Source: MSNBC.com

Millions of Migrating Birds Heading to Oil

2010-09-12T04:19:00.000-04:00

Millions of Migrating Birds Heading to Oil

September 8, 2010 9:38:00 AM
Larry O'Hanlon

Nearly five million Migratory birds from Canada are now winging their way south across North America, and many of them could be in for a nasty shock when they reach the oily marshes and beaches along the Gulf Coast.

"There's a lurking time bomb for many waterfowl and shorebirds that breed in Canada's boreal forest and winter or stop in the Gulf," said Jeff Wells, senior scientist at the Boreal Songbird Initiative.

There are several concerns ornithologists have about the birds. First of all, they could come into direct contact with oil that's present in many salt marshes, as well as just under the surface of shores and islands off Louisiana.

Then there is the problem of food. Many shorebirds eat small invertebrates that live in the sand along the shore. Now a lot of that sand is saturated with oil just below the surface, which has wiped out the invertebrates.

"The birds are actually dipping their bills down into the oil," said Wells.

The marshes, shores and islands of the Gulf Coast are a bottleneck for birds heading south, as they provide the last chance for many of these birds to fatten up before flying 500 miles across the Gulf to their wintering grounds in the Caribbean or South America. It's arguably one of the word's the worst places to have a major environmental disaster, said Melanie Driscoll, director of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society's Louisiana Coastal Initiative.

In order to see whether migrating birds get mired directly in oil, or if there are any other surprises in bird behavior or health due to the oil spill, the Audubon Society is planning on expanding teams of volunteer and professional bird watchers to monitor what happens in the coming months, and even years.

Among the first things that might be observed, said Driscoll, is a desperate search for food. If shorebirds can't find food, they will start moving around, looking for it in other areas.

"Migrant birds have very plastic behavior," said Driscoll. "We should be able to see changes in the use of habitat."

Driscoll said she recently visited one of the barrier islands off Louisiana and confirmed Wells' concern about the oil. She found oil-saturated sand just a half inch from the surface of the sand. The oil-soaked sand went down as far as she dug, which was about 15 inches, she said. That's very bad news for shorebirds.

"We're not really sure what will happen," Driscoll told Discovery News. Birds might fail to find enough food and then not complete their migration, search much further and find food, or try to fly without eating enough, and not make it.

"To get answers, we're really looking at these long-term monitoring efforts."

It could take years to sort out the effects to migrating birds, because they are difficult to count and, by their nature, move around a lot.

In the case of the Exxon Valdez disaster, the effects to birds are still being seen because oil is still surfacing on the beaches -- 21 years later. But because the Gulf Coast is so much warmer, Driscoll and others hope that the bacterial degradation of the oil will happen faster than in Alaska's colder Prince William Sound.

"What's really going to matter is the long term impacts to this ecosystem," said Driscoll. "It's a bad place to have a really bad natural disaster."

Source: Discovery Online

Seaswarm Brings Swarm Robotics To Oil Spill Cleanup

2010-09-03T00:08:00.001-04:00

by Evan Ackerman (source: BotJunkie)

Getting oil out of water isn’t that hard, on principle. What is hard is getting a huge amount of oil out of an even huger amount of water. If you think about it, this is really a perfect task for a swarm of robots, since it’s simple and repeatable and just needs to be done over and over (and over and over and over) again. With this in mind, MIT’s Senseable City Lab has created Seaswarm, a swarm of networked oil spill cleanup robots:

Seaswarm is designed to be simple, cheap, and efficient. To collect oil, the robots use a wide belt covered in a special hydrophobic nanofabric (about the consistency of a paper towel) that sucks 20 times its own weight in oil (and other pollutants) out of water. The belt moves around like a treadmill, which passes the befouled nanofabric back to be cleaned while simultaneously propelling the robot forward. The video talks about heat being used to separate oil from the nanofiber, while the description on the Seaswarm website makes it seems like the oil is squeezed out using rollers… Whatever floats your robot, I guess.

What I’m not too sure about is where all of that captured oil goes. Using their solar panels for power the bots can collect for several weeks at a time, and the more oil they collect, the heavier they’ll get, and the more energy it’ll take to keep them moving. The website does mention that the oil will be ‘digested,’ which I assume implies microbes, but they’ll either have to collect oil very slowly or have some wicked crazy hungry bugs to be able to get around the problem.
Seaswarm is designed from the water up to utilize swarm behaviors. To combat a spill the size of the recent one in the gulf, about 5000 fully autonomous Seaswarm units would cooperate for a month, using GPS and WiFi to organize themselves for most efficient coverage. And of course, you get all the usual swarm benefits of scalability, adaptability, and robustness.

While Seaswarm as a whole is currently just a concept, they have built an actual working prototype (in the pic above), which was just tested out on the Charles river in Boston, I guess because the designers figured they’d teach the robot some humility when it comes to pollution clean-up.
[ Seaswarm ]

BP Abandons Arctic Drilling Interests in Greenland

2010-08-26T02:33:00.001-04:00

With a rubber stamp of disapproval in the Gulf of Mexico, the oil company is reportedly having difficulty convincing other countries to partake in an offshore handshake. The Guardian learned that BP has relented on its interest in procuring an exploration license in Greenland. A company spokesman told the paper that it removed itself from bid-round contention, and further sources note that the decision stemmed from a mutual agreement between BP and Greenland over the inappropriateness of the oil company's participation. In the oil world, this is code for 'we're breaking up', 'you're out of the club' or other relevant adult adages. (Can BP ever rebuild its reputation?) The setback, which follows the announcement this week of a major find in the region by British rival Cairn Energy, is the first sign that the Gulf of Mexico disaster may have permanently damaged BP's ability to operate — not just in US waters, but in other environmentally-sensitive parts of the world.

Source: Times Mobile

Gulf Waste Heads to Landfills, Problems Ahead

2010-08-26T02:30:00.001-04:00

AP / Reuters - Times Mobile

(NEW ORLEANS) -- The cleanup of history's worst peacetime oil spill is generating thousands of tons of oil-soaked debris that is ending up in local landfills, some of which were already dealing with environmental concerns.

The soft, absorbent boom that has played the biggest role in containing the spill alone would measure more than twice the length of California's coastline, or about 2,000 miles. More than 50,000 tons of boom and oily debris have made their way to landfills or incinerators, federal officials told The Associated Press, representing about 7% of the daily volume going to nine area landfills. (See pictures of BP oil spill victims.)

A month after the oil stopped flowing into the Gulf, the emphasis has shifted toward cleanup and disposal of oily trash at government-approved landfills in coastal states.

Environmental Protection Agency officials say the sites meet federal regulations, are equipped to handle the influx of waste and are being monitored closely, although three sites have state environmental issues. State records show two are under investigation and one was cited in May for polluting nearby waters. (See pictures of protests against BP.)

Some residents and experts question the wisdom of adding crude-covered refuse to dumps, since it could take years for potential problems to surface. They worry about the impact on groundwater if contaminants leach past liners enclosing the decaying garbage.

"Common sense would tell you you probably shouldn't keep dumping there if there are already problems," said Eric Schaeffer, a former head of the EPA's enforcement office who now heads a Washington-based legal advocacy group. "EPA needs to be able to say why despite the violations and discharges these are safe."

Weathered oil is less toxic than fresh oil, the EPA says, but can still contain some levels of benzene and other risky chemicals.

Both BP and the EPA are sampling the waste each week at the landfills, and the EPA and U.S. Coast Guard officials alike say so far it has not turned out to be hazardous. In some landfills, the spill waste is being mixed directly with regular household and industrial trash, which can contain chemicals, plastics and food.

It is too soon to tell if the potential hazards from the oily waste would be greater than any risks posed by what's already in the landfills, experts say. That will depend on the volume of the Gulf trash, the mass of industrial chemicals already there and how all those agents interact over time, said Conrad Volz, who directs the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Environmental and Occupational Health.

In the meantime, the alternative to using already troubled landfills is placing oily waste in other dumps without environmental issues -- where oily waste's potential impacts could be tracked separately, experts say.

"The oily waste may not be the most toxic thing in those landfills," said Kurt Pennell, an environmental engineer at Tufts University who sits on a National Research Council committee studying groundwater problems near landfills and Superfund sites. "But obviously if ... the landfill isn't well controlled, that is problematic."

EPA Assistant Administrator Mathy Stanislaus, who oversees the agency's waste management plans, said the landfills can handle the oily waste properly.

"The landfills ... have the system in place, the kind of liner, the kind of monitoring systems to manage this so that there are not environmental impacts," Stanislaus said in an interview. "If there are any issues of concern, we will revisit."

The Gulf trash's trip to the landfill begins in oiled marshes and beaches where tar balls washed up regularly. Recently, near the mouth of the Mississippi, workers standing in small boats collected 16,000 feet of oily absorbent boom in one day alone from waters surrounding one oil-covered marsh.

The boom is wrung out and dried before being shipped to landfills or incinerators.

Concerns about pollution prompted Harrison County, Miss., supervisors to decide against accepting more oily waste in their coastal county, which is recovering from Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Waste is being trucked to the Chastang Landfill 25 miles north of Mobile, Ala., where state officials are investigating high levels of mercury and barium found in the dump's groundwater monitoring wells.

Nearby residents said they were worried that more chemicals were coming to the facility.

"We already got enough problems here, and now they're going to bring us the oil and everything that comes out of those Gulf beaches?" said Lawrence Andry, 70.

The landfill's owner, Waste Management, believes the water contamination is the result of naturally occurring metals in the soil, not the dump, and is performing tests, said spokesman Ken Haldin.

Gulf waste also is taken to the county-run Magnolia Landfill about 60 miles south in Summerdale, Ala., which is being investigated for groundwater tainted with arsenic, acetone and other pollutants. State officials fined the dump $30,000 last month for failing to properly monitor methane flares used to burn off gas from the heap.

Ed Fox, who manages the facility, said people should not worry because the well water used to monitor pollution is tested twice a year.

The Colonial Landfill in Sorrento, La., which is receiving Gulf waste, was cited in May for exceeding its permitted spills into a stream feeding the Lake Pontchartrain basin 11 times last year. State officials said the dump fixed the problem last month, but got another state citation for failing to show inspectors log books and install proper barriers around its monitoring wells -- problems the operator says were addressed. Louisiana environmental authorities said Friday they are still in violation.

When informed that three landfills had issues, Stanislaus said EPA officials had visited the facilities and knew of the deficiencies, but that didn't disqualify them from accepting spill waste.

"We take these issues very seriously," he said. "If we find any major violations at any landfill that would impact the health of communities, and the state doesn't step in and act swiftly ... the on-scene coordinator and EPA will step in and stop any waste shipment."

BP's three waste hauling contractors say they're following strict procedures to ensure safe disposal, as do operators of the receiving dumps. Houston-based Waste Management Inc. has a contract to dispose of waste from Mississippi, Alabama and part of the Florida Panhandle. The rest of Florida is handled by Phoenix-based trash hauler Republic Services Inc., and Heritage Environmental Services has the BP contract for Louisiana.

Burke reported from Fresno, Calif.

Deep Water Dead Zone Predicted in the Gulf - Discovery News

2010-08-26T01:08:00.000-04:00

http://news.discovery.com/earth/oil-spill-dead-zone.html

Deep Water Dead Zone Predicted in the Gulf

August 23, 2010 11:20:00 AM

The oil gusher on the Gulf seabed may be stopped, but much of the spilled oil still lurks in a plume of oil and dissolved methane gas 3,200-4,300 feet below the surface.

New research predicts that this plume will likely create a low-oxygen "dead zone" inhospitable to life in these deep waters, as microbes consume the oil and gas entrained in the plume.

The cold temperatures in the plume will slow the growth of the microbes compared to microbes acting at the surface. Because of this slower growth, the team predicts that it will be sometime in the fall before the oxygen levels hit their minimum.

But weak currents at that depth mean that the low oxygen levels may persist for a long time, with little mixing to bring in oxygenated waters: the team estimates it will be a couple of years before the oxygen levels return to normal.

The findings, now in press at the journal Geophysical Research Letters, predict that the zone will be similar in size to the well-known seasonal dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi River caused by nutrient runoff upriver, though the new zone will remain within about 100 kilometers (62 miles) of the spill site.

"The area of the seasonal dead zone on the shelf is much larger, but it's much thinner," said study author Robert Hallberg of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, NJ. "This one is a smaller area, but it's thick. It's still a small area compared to the Gulf of Mexico."

Many researchers have been speculating that the deepwater plume would create a dead zone as microbes ate the undersea oil and gas, consuming oxygen in the process. The new work combines the best estimates for how much oil was released with detailed models of ocean currents and information about typical microbial oil degradation rates to show that the conditions in the Gulf should, indeed, produce one.

Unlike the seasonal dead zone, which occurs in shallow waters, the oil-caused zone will be deep enough that fisheries shouldn't be affected. "I'm not expecting that this is going to have really dire consequences for people," Hallberg said. "There may be consequences for deep ecosystems."

"It's almost a separate ocean down there," agreed Monty Graham of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama, who observed oxygen depletion in shallower waters following the spill. "That doesn't mean it's not important for diversity. We don't know the impact on the deep-diving marine mammals that might be going down searching for food."

While this study predicts oxygen depletion near the spill site, plume measurements made in June and published in Science last week showed very little oxygen consumption by microbial oil degradation.

"On the face of it, it might appear to be in contradiction to what we are saying," Hallberg said. "but if you take into account the temperature, the oxygen depletion should be peaking in the fall. Those observations from June may have been taken too soon and too close to the source so that the oxygen drawdown may not have been realized yet."

Another possibility, Graham said, is that the oil degradation rate estimates that the team used in their simulations may not match those of the actual microbial community in the plume. "It could be a time lag difference that the community of microbes hasn't established itself and therefore it's not operating at its maximum efficiency."

The study also provided information about the spill's toxicity by estimating the concentrations of various oil components in the deepwater plume over time.

"We weren't finding widespread concentrations of the oil that would be acutely toxic at the level that kills organisms over a couple of days," Hallberg said.

"I am less worried about the hypoxia than I am about the potential chronic effects of these hydrocarbons on the organisms and larvae," said Nancy Kinner , head of the Center for Spills in Environment at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.

"What we really don't know is if you have a low dose -- a low concentration in the water for a long exposure -- what's the chronic impact going to be?"

Hallberg agreed. "We know that compounds like toluene and benzene are regulated as known human carcinogens. You could imagine that there could be something similar for marine organisms, or something that affects development, or something that doesn't actually kill them. That's something where I think there's going to be a lot of research in the coming year."

Microbes Munching Gulf Oil - Discovery News

2010-08-26T01:05:00.000-04:00

http://news.discovery.com/earth/oil-microbes-bacteria-plume.html

Microbes Munching Gulf Oil

August 24, 2010 1:01:00 PM

Oil-degrading microbes in the deep ocean have been munching away on the Gulf of Mexico oil plume at rates faster than expected for the cold temperatures found almost 4,000 feet below the water's surface, according to research published today.

"This paper is great news," said Nancy Kinner, director of the Coastal Response Research Center at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. "I think this paper is another piece in the puzzle showing us that degradation was occurring and was occurring fairly rapidly, even at the cold temperatures."

The results, published today in the journal Science, came from measurements taken between May 25 and June 2. The team has also made follow-up observations since the leak was stopped on July 15. The recent figures indicate that the bacteria -- plus dilution into clean water -- have made quick work of the oil plume.

"Within two weeks we saw the plume entirely disappear," study lead author Terry Hazen of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., told Discovery News. "We have not been able to detect this plume at all for the last three weeks. They haven't been able to detect oil at the surface. What we do find is that the bacteria are still there."

"Slowly the bacteria will go back to natural levels, assuming that there's no more carbon input," Hazen said.

The team used a long list of methods to compare water inside and out of the plume. They measured levels of oil-related compounds, identified what microbes were present at what quantities, and surveyed which genes were active in the microbes' metabolisms.

Compared to water outside the plume, the oil-laden waters were enriched in microbes known to consume oil at cold temperatures, according to the team's analysis. The researchers also found that many genes responsible for oil degradation were active in these organisms.

The degradation rates estimated by the team were higher than other measurements for the deepwater temperature of 41 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius), but they are not unprecedented, Hazen said.

"This is what we expected because the Gulf of Mexico receives the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez spill every year in seeps of oil," he said. Since the waters continuously receive oil from natural seeps on the sea floor, the Gulf's deep marine microbes have evolved to eat oil.

"This is the only carbon source that they have, so naturally they've become adapted to using this well," Hazen said. The results suggest that these organisms were at the ready when the plume formed.

While the team measured relatively fast degradation rates, they found fairly low overall oil concentrations and little resulting depletion of the oxygen dissolved in the water.

While the study is good news in the context of a disaster, the findings do not mean that everything is back to normal in these waters, Kinner emphasized.

"The book is still open on whether there are impacts on organisms that may have been exposed, or to larvae that may have been exposed," she said. "This shows the power of biodegradation as a mechanism for the weathering of the oil. This does not mean that there are not some organisms that were impacted."

Executive Order for the Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes

2010-08-12T15:33:00.003-04:00

The President has issued an Executive Order (EO) that establishes the nation's first comprehensive national policy for the stewardship of the ocean, our coasts, and the Great Lakes. The EO adopts the final recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, and directs federal agencies to take steps to implement them. It also creates an interagency National Ocean Council to strengthen ocean governance, and provide sustained, high-level focus on the national priority objectives for action to advance the national policy.

"Protecting our oceans, coasts and Great Lakes is critical to the health of our communities, vibrancy of our economy and overall security of our nation," said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. "The new national policy provides a clear road map for all federal agencies to work together, with local partners, to protect our vital waters for future generations. EPA is proud to have played a role in the development of this plan and the continued protection of our treasured natural resources."

The EO, final recommendations, other key documents, and the full press release can found at the National Ocean Council website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/oceans.

Source: EPA Waterheadlines

Most Abundant Food Source Disappearing

2010-07-29T15:30:00.001-04:00

In oceans around the world, there has been a surprisingly large and extensive decline in phytoplankton -- the tiny algae that keep marine food webs afloat.

The drifting green flecks have been dying off for at least a century, with a staggering 40 percent decline since 1950, according to a new study.

Phytoplankton make up half of all plant matter around the globe, said marine ecologist Daniel Boyce, whose study appears this week in the journal

Nature. Its disappearance threatens the stability of climate, the well-being of fisheries and the overall health of the oceans.

"It's hard to really imagine phytoplankton could be so important because most people don't see them in their daily lives. They're microscopic and they live out at sea," said Boyce, of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. "But everything that happens to them affects the entire marine food chain, including us."

Some recent satellite images have shown the ocean turning from green to blue as a result of phytoplankton declines, but those data stretch back only 13 years. Other studies have offered mixed results.

To get a more accurate picture and to look further into the past, Boyce and colleagues collected a half-million measurements of ocean clarity from a public data set that dated back to 1899.

Over the last century-plus, analyses showed, phytoplankton levels have dropped by one percent each year in eight out of 10 large ocean regions. The greatest decline occurred in areas around the poles, near the equator and in the open oceans. The rate of disappearance picked up after 1950, totaling a 40 percent drop-off since then.

"It's really big," said David Siegel, a marine scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "I'm a little leery about how big that number is."

The scientists can't yet say what's causing the mass die-off of phytoplankton, but temperature data offer a clue. The declines were worst in places where the surface of the sea has warmed the most. Warmer ocean water limits the amount of nutrients that can get from the depths to the surface. Phytoplankton need those nutrients to live.

With less phytoplankton around, fish have less to eat. As the decline works its way up the food chain, fishermen will have less to catch and fish-eaters less to eat. Phytoplankton even affect climate by taking up carbon dioxide and absorbing heat.

"Everyone looks at blue oceans and goes: 'Isn't that beautiful?'" Siegel said. "But a blue ocean is full of nothing. You really want something, and we're only making more of the blue ocean."

Source: Discovery News
http://news.discovery.com/earth/phytoplankton-oceans-food-web.htmlOcean's

100 Days in, Oil Spill Questions Still Unanswered

2010-07-29T14:45:00.001-04:00

The Gulf of Mexico oil disaster reached the 100-day mark Wednesday with hopes high BP can finish the job, but years of legal wrangles and probes lie ahead even after the well is killed.

BP aims to start the "static kill" on Sunday or Monday, pumping heavy drilling mud and cement down through the cap at the top of the well that has sealed it for the past two weeks.

Five days later a relief well should intercept the damaged well, allowing engineers to check the success of the "static kill" and cement in the area between the drill pipe and the well bore.

The so-called "bottom kill" should finally plug the reservoir once and for all, but it will not answer how the catastrophe was allowed to occur and who is responsible.

While the last surface patches of toxic crude biodegrade rapidly in the warm waters of the Gulf, the long-term impact of what is thought to be the biggest accidental oil spill ever may not be realized for decades.

As the focus shifts to the clean-up in the marshes and beaches of the Gulf coast, so it does to the Justice Department investigation and state probes in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday that a team has been established to examine whether the notoriously close ties between BP and federal regulators contributed to the April 20 disaster.

The "BP squad" will also probe rig operator Transocean and Halliburton, the oil services company which had finished cementing the well only 20 hours before the rig exploded, the paper reported.

If BP needs a reminder of the long legal road ahead as it tries to rebuild its reputation, one will be provided on Thursday as lawyers at a session in Boise, Idaho set the stage for a potential trial of the century.

The proceedings will examine whether complaints from around 200 plaintiffs can be consolidated and determine where the hearings should take place and under which judge.

They will also give trial lawyers a test run for the arguments they will make during what could be years-long legal proceedings against the oil behemoths.

BP announced Tuesday it would replace gaffe-prone British CEO Tony Hayward with Bob Dudley, an American, in a bid to repair its tattered reputation.

It also posted a quarterly loss of $16.9 billion and set aside $32.2 billion to pay costs associated with the spill.

While BP has said it is the "responsible party" for the clean-up because it leased the Deepwater Horizon rig and owned the leaking Macondo well, it maintains it is not to blame for the disaster.

It has set up a $20-billion fund to pay compensation to the battered fishing, oil, and tourism industries, and must pay civil damages for each of the up to 5.2 million barrels (218.4 million gallons) spilt.

Source: Discovery News
http://news.discovery.com/earth/gulf-oil-spill-100-days.html

Chasing an Oiled Brown Pelican

2010-07-08T07:26:00.000-04:00

Here are images of an oiled brown pelican that we chased for a short distance before capture.

At Risk: Nesting Birds & Island Rookeries

2010-07-07T08:33:00.046-04:00

The inner waters of the Mississippi Delta in Louisiana are home to several island rookeries. Some of the smallest islands contain the greatest mix of nesting seabird species: pelicans, terns, cranes, herons, spoonbills.

Young Roseate Spoonbills

Brown pelicans among the mangrove

Pelican chicks on the nest

Trees filled with Roseate Spoonbills

Oil & Cleanup - Bay Jimmy, Louisiana

2010-07-06T10:26:00.001-04:00

Here are some images from near Bay Jimmy, June 20 & 21. This area is approximately 20 miles INLAND from the Gulf.

A patch of oil with oil sheen

Oiled salt marsh

Oiled shoreline, booms, and a VOO (vessel of opportunity) skimmer

VOO skimmer

Suction trucks on a barge

Tug moving barge with suction trucks on board

Attempting to clean oiled salt marsh grasses using low-pressure water spray

Rehabilitated Brown Pelicans Relocated to Texas National Wildlife Refuge

2010-07-03T13:26:00.000-04:00

June 24, 2010

More than 132 brown pelicans exposed to oil along the Louisiana Coast have been rehabilitated, transported on Coast Guard planes and released at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas in the past week. The refuge was picked since it meets the important coastal habitat needs of the pelicans for breeding. Other refuges along the Texas coast are being considered for more releases in the coming weeks.

Source: US Fish & Wildlife Service
http://www.fws.gov/home/dhoilspill/index.html

Oiled Shore Miles & Amount of Dispersants Used to Date

2010-07-02T10:28:00.001-04:00

And you say you wanted to go SWIMMING this weekend?! I don't THINK so!

Amount of Dispersants Used
• Surface dispersant used: approximately 1.03 million gallons
• Subsea dispersant: more than 577,000 gallons
• Total dispersant used: approximately 1.61 million gallons

Shoreline impacted:
• approximately 423 miles of Gulf Coast shoreline is currently oiled
• approximately 259 miles in Louisiana
• 48 miles in Mississippi, 47 miles in Alabama
• 69 miles in Florida

Source: US Fish & Wildlife Deepwater Horizon Response
http://www.fws.gov/home/dhoilspill/whatyou.html

US FWS Threat Assessment

2010-07-02T03:18:00.001-04:00

The US Fish & Wildlife Service reports that they have 598 personnel actively engaged in response to the Deepwater Horizon/BP Oil Spill. FWS is also reporting that there are 36 National Wildlife Refuges at risk from the BP Oil Spill (http://www.fws.gov/home/dhoilspill/refuges.html). These precious national resources are home to dozens of threatened and endangered species, including West Indian manatees, whooping cranes, Mississippi sandhill cranes, wood storks and four species of sea turtles.

Many species of wildlife face grave risk from the spill.

Birds can be exposed to oil as they float on the water or dive for fish through oil-slicked water. Oiled birds can lose the ability to fly and can ingest the oil while preening.

Sea turtles such as loggerheads and leatherbacks can be impacted as they swim to shore for nesting activities. Turtle nest eggs may be damaged if an oiled adult lies on the nest.

Oil has the potential to persist in the environment long after a spill and have long-term impacts on fish and wildlife.

For More information on the Effects of Oil on Wildlife and Habitat, see http://www.fws.gov/home/dhoilspill/pdfs/DHJICFWSOilImpactsWildlifeFactSheet.pdf

Source: US Fish & Wildlife Service
http://www.fws.gov/home/dhoilspill/index.html

Four states having set up their own websites for Gulf Oil Spill volunteers

2010-07-02T02:58:00.001-04:00

The US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) recently provided the following information for those who wish to assist along the Gulf Coast hit by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Four states have set up their own websites for volunteers. These are:

• Louisiana: http://www.volunteerlouisiana.gov/
• Mississippi: http://www.volunteermississippi.org/1800Vol/OpenIndexAction.do
• Florida: http://www.volunteerfloridadisaster.org/
• Alabama: http://www.servealabama.gov/2010/default.aspx

FWS Contact Information:

A toll free number has been established to report oiled or injured wildlife. To report wildlife, call (866) 557.1401. Individuals are urged not to attempt to help injured or oiled animals, but to report any sightings to the toll free number.

If you're interested in volunteering to aid in the recovery effort, call (866) 448.5816.

Reporters with questions about FWS wildlife response should contact Tom MacKenzie at (678) 296.6400 or tom_mackenzie@fws.gov. For general media questions, reporters can call the general number at 985-902-5231 for information.

Citizens with claims related to damages caused by the spill should call (800) 440.0858 for more information about filing those claims.

Adirondack scientist helps with Gulf cleanup

2010-07-01T12:52:00.003-04:00

Harrietstown, New York - June 30, 2010 • Video of Story

Michael Martin sits in his office at Cedar Eden Environmental on Route 86 in Harrietstown. He just returned from a two week mission to the Gulf of Mexico. Martin is freshwater scientist who was hired to help with the disaster down south.

"It really makes your heart sink when you see this oil out there just floating free," Martin said.

He worked 12-hour days with several other people, rescuing waterfowl from the water and nesting islands around Grand Isle, La., about 50 miles west of the gusher on the ocean floor.

"Most of the birds were alive; they were moderately soaked but could still fly. But they would tire very easily," Martin explained. "Once we identified them we would chase them and scoop them in a net and bring them to a triage center where they would receive immediate care and then shipped to another facility for long-term rehabilitation."

Martin and his crew rescued hundred of birds during the two week stay. He recalls one mission in particular.

"I think the biggest adventure was when we found this white pelican, it was unable to fly. It tried its darndest to fly; it got its wing out, paddles its feet, but it could never get in the air," he said.

While the trip to the save birds may have been exhausting, Martin says the efforts are worth it.

"If they remain out there, even if they are lightly to moderately oil soaked, they will eventually die, either from cleaning their feathers or eventually their inability to fly," he said.

Martin hopes to return to the Gulf of Mexico in the near future to assist with the disaster cleanup.

Source: Matt Henson, WCAX Channel 3 News

Oil Spill Projected across Wide Swath of Gulf Coast

2010-06-22T09:16:00.000-04:00

Below is the 24 hour trajectory map for the Gulf Oil Spill, with landfall across most of the northern Gulf Coast. Click HERE for the trajectory map as a PDF file.

June 18 - Oiled Grass

2010-06-22T09:10:00.000-04:00

Below are some areas of marsh grass hit with oil.

June 18 - Flotilla of Response Vessels

2010-06-22T09:01:00.001-04:00

Below you see a flotilla of response boats in the bays north of Grand Isle area. Many are shrimp boats converted to oil skimmer operations.

Below are several other odd assortments of ships being assembled, including several barges lashed together with suction vehicles on top.

June 17, 2010 - A Few Good Pictures

2010-06-17T23:11:00.000-04:00

Small oil rigs in Fourchon

Large flock of Roseate Spoonbills in small bay off Bayou Fourchon, protected by boom

Large areas inside passes from Gulf of Mexico protected by absorbent booms and barriers

Shoreline area protected by absorbent booms

Hot Hot Hot

2010-06-17T17:02:00.000-04:00

In the mornings you run and seek shelter from rain storms. In the afternoon, you pray for one just for the brief moment of cool it provides by way of its wind and down draft.

(Clouds building before 10AM on Gulf coast)

Drilling Rigs

2010-06-17T11:11:00.000-04:00

A couple of drilling rigs in Port Fourchon

Grand Isle Report

2010-06-17T09:06:00.000-04:00

Well, good morning. It's another beautiful day on southern Louisiana. Today marks a week that I have been down here working.

There has been a lot of negative and inaccurate press about the work we are doing. It is a bit disheartening to the dedicated men & women, experts in their field, from all over the country, who have left behind the comforts of home & family, to help out.

While the Deepwater Horizon has pumped out far more oil than Exxon Valdez, this is a totally different situation. Whereas Exxon Valdez dumped all its oil all at once in a small area, the spill here is spreading throughout the Gulf and much of it has not impacted the coastline, YET. The potential for serious impacts exist, but at present I see good protection with booms and absorbent material, great coverage of area looking for wildlife.

Yesterday we only brought in a few birds. The number has been declining as the date of the last wave of oil recedes. I worry that complacency will cause a withdrawal of interest and support that erodes our numbers here, leaving an inadequate response team in place for when the "BIG OIL" hits. Perhaps there is. I'm not privy to any of that and don't have time to sit down and watch the news.

My other concern is that there needs to be a plan in place for massive rapid response should, or when, a large mass of oil comes ashore. What oil I have been seeing is fresh and unweathered. And I've heard some of the captains report that there is a large slick not too far offshore.

Off Grand Isle

2010-06-17T08:43:00.000-04:00

Another beautiful day off Grand Isle. Here you can see a work tent set up on Grand Isle Beach. The entire beach is protected and constantly cleared of any oil, tar balls, and oiled seaweed that washes up. I don't know anything about the land operation but I do know that, for the moment, not much oil is reaching the shore.

CNN

2010-06-15T23:08:00.000-04:00

I heard CNN slammed us down here. Ask the locals, the state, and the feds. They love us and impressed by the work we are doing to save Louisiana wildlife. I didn't see it. We are up at 5AM, in morning briefing at 6AM, at docks before 7AM, dispatched to boats (cramming in a breakfast standing at staging area) and on the water by 7AM to 7:30AM. We are on the water until 5PM, covering vast distances, and often without much of a break for lunch. We unload and stow gear and hit the chow line by 5:30PM. Shower, quick check of emails, often another meeting and MaYBE an hour or two of personal time before crashing into bed by 9PM - 9:30PM.

This goes on 7 days a week without any days off. And we love it.

Catching a White Pelican

2010-06-13T20:57:00.001-04:00

Today I netted a White Pelican - they are a lot bigger than the Browns once you have them in a net and try to bring them on board and into a crate. (click for larger images)

The bird doesn't appear oiled from any distance, but was unable to fly

When "spooked," it did a little flap and paddle to try and escape

Up close, you can see the oiled feathers

Booms around "Bird Island," large rookerie

2010-06-13T07:26:00.000-04:00

Good night from Grand Isle

2010-06-12T23:01:00.000-04:00

Sorry, folks, I was just too exhausted to go through all my pictures and post a few select ones to the blog.

We saw some more cool bird species today. We found ourselves at a small, narrow grass island with shrubs being used as a rookerie and hang out for a wide variety of birds, including Ibis, Great Blue Heron, Little Blue Heron, terns, egret, and others. We also saw probably a dozen and a half or more Magnificent Frigates. They were perching in groups of six to ten on top of pilings or other structure, in one case the emergent superstructure of a sunken shrimp boat.

Feels like I'm still on a boat, rocking, and I am exhausted even though we didn't catch any oiled birds today.

Thoughts & Impressions

2010-06-12T11:12:00.000-04:00

I'm not saying this isn't a disaster, but you learn quick that the media looks hard for "the story" that gets ratings. The shock images you see on the news are carefully constructed, almost staged. Naturally, they want to be taken to where they can say "it's a tragedy."

Well, of course it is. And has the potential to become much worse. But what you don't see is the expanses of unimpacted ocean, wetlands, and bayous. You don't see the huge flocks of healthy, clean birds. You don't see the flotilla of small boats and trawlers skimming oil, the airboats servicing booms, and the army of workers on nearly every beach cleaning up.

In addition to miles of booms, some of which cordon off entire bays, there are small barriers built along strategic areas to keep oil out. I saw NO oil until we got into the pass that opens into the Gulf. Then, I saw a gasoline-like sheen on the water, and, after a bit of a search, patches of red oil along the shore where the wind had swept it.

Don't get me wrong. I am glad to be part of the effort looking for oiled birds. And when we catch one, it is a great feeling that we have probably saved this guys life. But for every bird we capture, there are hours and hours of manpower searching likely areas for affected birds.

And as a scientist, I think I can be a bit more objective. I recognize the impacts, economic and environmental, but also appreciate the large expanses of unimpacted ecosystems (and unlikely to be impacted unless we get a direct hit hurricane, then its all bets off and likely a disaster of epic proportions). I also appreciate the recovery response of natural systems and populations.

A few pictures from today

2010-06-11T22:49:00.001-04:00

Here are a few pictures from today. I will also be uploading high-resolution images to http://gulfcoastpost.cedaredenphoto.com as I get time to sort through them all. Be sure to CLICK on these images for a larger view.

Brown Pelican (clean) in flight - why we are here

A couple of Brown Pelicans (clean) hanging out

Our first oiled pelican of the day

The chase is on (below)

This particular bird was tired enough that we were able to chase it

a little ways and net it once it landed

Day One Update

2010-06-11T11:47:00.000-04:00

We are running back to port to deliver three oiled brown pelicans that we captured on open water. We chased them a bit until they tired, then ran up on them & scooped them up with a large net.

This area west of Grand Isle is an interesting mix of natural wildelife habitat and industrial-looking marine facilites.

Day One

2010-06-11T09:27:00.000-04:00

Driving up the coast east of Grand Isle - good news is they aren't finding many oiled birfd any more. I've seen a few brown pelicans, a lot of laughing gulls, ibises, an egret or two and a cormorant. There is water and wetlands everywhere. The weather is cool (84) and mostly cloudy. The seas are heavy - 4 - 5 foot swells but it is calm behind the barriers and bayous.

Eve of Action

2010-06-10T22:56:00.000-04:00

I am settled into a house on Grand Isle with a number of other workers from Matrix. We are staying in a rental with the owner, who also happens to be one of the boat captains. Tomorrow starts early, with a briefing at 6AM, where we are given our boat assignments. Down at the docks, we are given out gear, boxed breakfast and lunch, water and gatorade-type beverages. Then it is off to look for oiled birds.

I'm told we will see a lot of neat sea birds (most not oiled), including white & brown pelicans, frigates, ibises, roseatte spoonbills. We are also allowed to bring cameras and take lots of pictures! So if I am not too beat, tomorrow will be a night to upload some choice pics.

Boats are catching anywhere from none to 5 or so oiled birds a day, so it sounds like the numbers are low.

The biggest issue is the heat, especially for this Adirondack-acclimated boy. Right now we have a heat advisory for high temperatures and humidity, so it will be a little rough in that respect.

Catching Pelicans

2010-06-10T16:49:00.001-04:00

Deployment - Grand Isle

2010-06-10T16:28:00.001-04:00

I have checked in and had my orientation. I am now on my way to Grand Isle Louisiana to join up with US Fish and wildlife service did capture oiled birds. i am the first of my group to be deployed And will be relieving a biologist there. I have already made some new friends but I think for the moment we will be deployed to different areas.

Southward Bound Chronicles

2010-06-09T13:27:00.001-04:00

I have crossed into Alabama with 432 miles to go until I reach Houma Louisiana. This is my second day of driving 13 or 14 hours. The traffic hasn't been bad and I have made good time. So far I have avoided run-ins with local and state law enforcement officers, which is good since I'm cruising at a pretty high rate of speed. I think I have a pretty good excuse - rushing to the gulf coast help with the oil spill.

I was sent off with a nice prayer circle and laying on of hands this past Sunday's praise service. It was quite moving to have my pastor and congregants gather around and say a prayer over me. There was also a funny coincidence. When I got home from church there was an email informing me it was time to leave for the Gulf coast after I'd been waiting 6 weeks to be deployed.

I stepped outside a few miles back to pick up some things from Walmart and, as a warm breeze blew across the parking lot, I thought to myself, "I am definitely no longer in the Adirondacks."

I promise that future posts won't be so free form and will be more newsworthy. I intend to document the work I am doing, the things that I see, the impact of the oil spill, and efforts being made to protect and clean up the flora and fauna of the Gulf coast ecosystem.

This blog post has been created on my BlackBerry bold 9700 using Vlingo Pro word recognition software.

Post from the road

2010-06-08T10:57:00.002-04:00

6/8/2010 10:57:53 AM • I am on my way, day 1 of the two day drive to Louisiana. I making good time and on the road approaching Harrisburg Pennsylvania right now. I will stop tonight in Greensboro North Carolina and visit with my daughter whs is at college there.

Final Preparations • June 7, 2010

2010-06-07T18:05:00.001-04:00

I am enjoying the fresh, cool Adirondack air for one last evening before I begin my drive to Louisiana. I completed my OSHA training today. Most of my gear is packed. A late-arriving Deployment Checklist added a few items that I still need to track down and pack. Driving down, I'll be able to pack one of my guitars. My only regret is not being able to trailer my motorcycle.

A special thank you once again to Peter at Major Plowshares Army & Navy Surplus in Saranac Lake. A last minute call to his establishment just before closing netted me several pairs of lightweight BDUs. You owe yourself a visit to his shop at 18 Broadway, as it is chock full of new and used clothing and et cetera.

The Journey Begins & Information on Safety for Workers and Volunteers

2010-06-05T13:40:00.002-04:00

I am in the middle of completing the required OSHA training program, HAZWOPER. That stands for "Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response" and is mandated under federal regulations as 29 CFR 1910.120. Although my main responsibilities will be cleanup oversight and impact assessment, OSHA requires all respondents (workers) to be trained to the highest level of responsibility that might be assigned to them.

A Note to Volunteers & Potential Volunteers

Federal OSHA regulations do not cover uncompensated workers, aka volunteers. However, in states with their own approved State OSHA Plans, volunteers are covered by the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) own HAZWOPER standard (Superfund Worker Protection or 40 CFR 311), which has identical requirements as OSHA's standard, but covers state and local government employees, both compensated and volunteers. NONE of the Gulf coast states (AL, FL, LA, MS) currently impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill have approved State Plans.

See http://www.osha.gov/Publications/3172/3172.html for detailed information about HAZWOPER specifically for Marine Oil Spill Response Workers. This same document provides information on the hazardous chemicals and their effects associated with marine oil spill response and cleanup operations.

Beneath the Oil Slick

2010-06-04T03:29:00.000-04:00

Here is a diagram of the Deepwater Horizon site showing drill site, oil rig wreckage and drilling of relief well.

Source: The Times-Picayune

On The Road with the Gulf Oil Spill

2010-06-04T00:49:00.003-04:00

Now that oil is coming ashore in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, it looks like I will soon be rolling on the Gulf Oil Spill, joining a group of scientists monitoring clean up and evaluating environmental impacts. I might also spend some time helping the US Fish and Wildlife Service catch oily birds and deliver them to cleaning stations.

Follow the action on my oil spill blog, Gulf Coast Post (http://GulfCoastPost.org) and on Twitter @GulfCoastPost (http://twitter.com/GulfCoastPost). I'll be posting photographs on my Cedar Eden Photo online gallery (http://GulfCoastPost.CedarEdenPhoto.com) as well as selected photos on the Gulf Coast Post blog.

How Big is Oil Spill? Google Earth/Google Maps Tool compares Gulf oil spill to any place on earth

2010-06-03T18:04:00.000-04:00

A new tool from Google uses Google Maps/Google Earth to project the size of the Gulf Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill to your city or geographic area. The tool is entitled How Big is Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. When you first go to this website, you see the current coverage of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. You can see size of the spill versus your neighborhood by entering a location in the provided text box or click on links to some well-known cities from around the world.

Current extent of Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

compared to upstate New York and Vermont.

Oil Pours Ashore in Mississippi, Alabama & Florida Panhandle

2010-06-03T17:27:00.003-04:00

The latest projected oil trajectories show oil hitting the ground in mainland Alabama and Florida by Saturday, June 5, impacting miles of shoreline.An extended period of onshore winds are projected to drive the oil spill onto the shorelines of Alabama, Mississippi and Florida over the next 24 - 72 hours. Oil is expected to move beynd the barrier islands and impact the shoreline and inland areas.

Deepwater Horizon 72Hr Trajectory Map 2010-06-02-2100

New Estimate of BP Oil Spill Volume: 12,000 - 15,000 barrels per day

2010-05-27T17:57:00.000-04:00

USGS Director Dr. Marcia McNutt today announced that the National Incident Command’s Flow Rate Technical Group (FRTG) has developed an independent, preliminary estimate of the amount of oil flowing from BP’s leaking oil well.

Based on three separate methodologies, outlined below, the independent analysis of the Flow Rate Technical Group has determined that the overall best initial estimate for the lower and upper boundaries of flow rates of oil is in the range of 12,000 and 19,000 barrels per day.

Transcript:

Three methodologies that I have cited today suggest that a lower bound on the flow is 12,000 barrels per day and two methodologies used by the Flow Rate Technical Group suggest that the flow rate could be as much as 19,000 barrels per day. I want to emphasize that these numbers are preliminary based on new methodologies being employed to understand a highly dynamic and complex situation. As we get more data and improve our scientific modeling in the coming days and weeks ahead, we will continue to refine and update our estimates.

MAP: Deepwater Horizon/BP Daily Oil Impact Assessment

2010-05-27T17:49:00.000-04:00

The Department of the Interior and US Fish and Wildlife Service, through the BP and the Deepwater Horizon Joint Information Center, are producing maps showing the Deepwater Horizon/BP Daily Oil Impact Assessment.The link here is to a high-resolution PDF of today's map (May 27, 2010).

The BP and the Deepwater Horizon Joint Information Center now appears to be renamed the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command and maintains a website entitled Deepwater Horizon Response.

Obama to inspect Gulf Coast oil spill Friday

2010-05-25T18:56:00.001-04:00

President Obama will travel to Louisiana's Gulf Coast on Friday to inspect damage from the oil spill.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs confirms that Obama will take a break from a Memorial Day weekend holiday trip to Chicago to make the trip.

This will be Obama's second visit to the region since last month's explosion and sinking of oil giant BP's Deepwater Horizon rig. Since then, workers have been trying to plug the leak, which has been gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico and wreaking havoc on the environment.

Source: Catalina Camia, USA Today

Oil is onshore for sure

2010-05-23T02:44:00.000-04:00

Coast Guard officials said Saturday the spill's impact now stretches across a 150-mile swath, from Dauphin Island, Ala. to Grand Isle, La.

Plaquemines Parish officials on Louisiana's coast discovered a major pelican rookery awash in oil on Saturday. Hundreds of birds nest on the island, and an Associated Press photographer saw that at least some birds and their eggs were stained with the ooze. Nests were perched in mangroves directly above patches of crude.

"Oil in the marshes is the worst-case scenario," said Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the head of the federal effort to contain and clean up the spill. Over time, experts say weather and natural microbes will break down most of the oil. However, the crude will surely poison plants and wildlife in the months — even years — it will take for the syrupy muck to dissipate.

Source: Associated Press

Will Louisiana's Sand Bar simply divert the spill onto neighboring shores?

2010-05-21T19:12:00.001-04:00

By now you've heard of Louisiana's plan to proceed with their colossal 80 miles of sand bars outside the barrier islands to divert the oil spill away from the Mississippi Delta and LA coastal wetlands. I can understand their concern and justification, but how can we predict how this change in the near-shore geomorphology will affect the oil spill. Protecting a critical estuary is important. What of the shores of neighboring states if these sand bars divert the oil spill their way?

Check out NPR's LA Sand Bar Plan Worries Some Scientists at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127018713

BP Recasts Spill Size As Oil Fouls Louisiana Marshes

2010-05-20T21:22:00.001-04:00

BP Recasts Spill Size As Oil Fouls Louisiana Marshes

by NPR Staff and Wires

- May 20, 2010

A BP official conceded Thursday that more oil is spewing into the Gulf of Mexico than the company had previously acknowledged, as crude from the massive spill seeped into coastal areas from Louisiana to Alabama.

Company spokesman Mark Proegler said about 5,000 barrels of oil a day are being diverted by a mile-long tube inserted into the leaking pipeline -- equal to the amount that BP and the government have estimated is gushing out. But Proegler said some oil is still escaping into the water, though he would not say how much.

Proegler said the 5,000-barrel figure has always been just an estimate. The British oil giant's admission comes a full month after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank -- and after scientists' reports of vastly larger estimates.

But White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday that the White House is asking the company to put more information about the Gulf oil spill -- including measurements of the size of the leak -- on its website and be more transparent about its response.

A live video feed of the leak posted online Thursday at the insistence of lawmakers shows what appears to be a large plume of oil and gas still spewing next to the tube that's carrying some of it to the surface.

"What you see are real-time images of a real-world disaster unfolding 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf," said U.S. Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA). "These videos stand as a scalding, blistering indictment of BP's inattention to the scope and size of the greatest environmental catastrophe in the history of the United States."

As chocolate-thick crude penetrated Louisiana marshes, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said a small part of the slick had drifted into the Gulf Stream's "loop current." The powerful north-flowing Gulf Stream could act as a conveyor belt for the oil, carrying it around Florida and up the Eastern seaboard.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said the presence of thick oil, instead of the light sheen that had already penetrated areas along the Gulf Coast, represented a worst-case scenario.

"This is serious -- this is the heavy oil that everyone has been fearing. It is here now," Jindal said Wednesday as he toured the Mississippi Delta by boat and swept a fishnet through water, holding up dark, dripping glop. The region is home to rare birds, mammals and a wide variety of marine life.

"This is one of the oldest wildlife management areas here in Louisiana, and now it is covered in oil," Jindal said.

Billy Nungesser, the president of coastal Plaquemines Parish, La., said the oil "has laid down a blanket in the marsh that will destroy every living thing there."

A young brown pelican, one wing and its neck matted with oil, was found dead Thursday morning on a sand spit in Louisiana's Breton National Wildlife Refuge. Scientists said it's likely that oil killed it.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency directed BP to use a less toxic form of chemical dispersants to break up the oil spill.

In a notice to BP, the EPA said that while it initially approved the current dispersant being used, much about the effects of the chemical remains unknown. One of the chief agents being used, called Corexit 9500, is identified as a "moderate" human health hazard that can cause eye, skin or respiratory irritation with prolonged exposure, according to safety data documents.

Under the order, which BP received Wednesday night, the company has 24 hours to identify at least one approved dispersant product that is effective, available in large quantities and meets specified toxicity limits.

The notice says BP must begin using only the approved alternative within 72 hours of submitting its list of alternatives to the EPA and getting EPA approval.

Florida's state meteorologist said it would be at least another full week before the oil reaches waters west of the Keys, and state officials sought to reassure visitors that its beaches are still clean and safe.

U.S. officials were also talking to Cuba about how to respond to the spill should it reach the island's northern coast, a State Department spokesman said.

Even by BP's initial leak estimates, more than 140,000 barrels have already poured into the Gulf since the April 20 rig blast that has created the worst U.S. environmental disaster in decades. The Exxon Valdez tanker spilled 260,000 barrels in Alaska in 1989.

An independent scientist who analyzed underwater footage of the gusher for NPR says the spill appears to be even larger than he previously thought.

Purdue University engineering professor Steven Wereley originally estimated the flow rate could be as high as 70,000 barrels a day -- far outpacing the official figure of 5,000 barrels. After examining newly released video of the well rupture, he told a House panel this week that he now believes the spill is 100,000 barrels daily.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Thursday that scientists will be using that live video, along with satellite imagery, to check BP's estimates.

"The government will be making its own, independent verification of what those total numbers are," Salazar said on CBS' The Early Show.

The president of the National Wildlife Federation told the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee this week that BP had not been adequately forthcoming with information on the spill.

"Too much information is now in the hands of BP's many lawyers, and too little is being disclosed to the public," said Larry Schweiger. "The Gulf of Mexico is a crime scene, and the perpetrator cannot be left in charge of assessing the damage."

BP has received thousands of ideas from the public on how to stop the oil gusher, but some inventors have complained that their efforts are being ignored. Company spokesman Mark Salt said that while BP wants the public's help, considering the proposed fixes takes time.

"They're taking bits of ideas from lots of places," Salt said. "This is not just a PR stunt."

Over the weekend, BP engineers succeeded in hooking up a mile-long tube to the broken pipe and channeling some oil to a ship on the surface. On Thursday, they were marshaling equipment and conducting tests ahead of a new effort to choke off the oil's flow.

BP said it hopes to start what's known as a "top kill," which involves shooting heavy mud into the blown-out well, by Sunday. The procedure has never been tried at a depth of 5,000 feet below sea level, so scientists and engineers have been preparing for some time for the complex operation, according to BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles.

"The philosophy from the beginning is not to take any action which could make the situation worse, and those are the final steps we're doing," he said.

If that fails, engineers are considering a "junk shot," which involves shooting knotted rope, pieces of tires and golf balls into the blowout preventer. Crews hope the debris will lodge into the nooks and crannies of the device to plug it.

Greenpeace activists scaled BP's London headquarters Thursday and hung up a banner accusing the oil company of polluting the environment. BP spokesman Robert Wine called it "a very calm and genteel protest" and said no employees had been prevented from getting to work.

Environmental groups in Washington also criticized how the British company has handled the response since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank, and urged the U.S. government to take greater control of the situation.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127012041&sc=17&f=1001

USF Oil Spill Movement Animations - wind, surface currents, subsurface currents

2010-05-20T15:01:00.006-04:00

The College of Marine Science - USF, Ocean Circulation Group maintains a coordinated program of coastal ocean observing and modeling for the West Florida Continental Shelf (WFS).They have recently released a series of animated models showing the movement of the Gulf Oil Spill driven by winds, surface currents, and submerged currents at numerous depths.

Still frame showing oil spill trajectory based on surface currents in Gulf of Mexico

NASA Images show Gulf Oil Slick Approaching Loop Current

2010-05-20T14:31:00.000-04:00

This pair of sea surface temperature images shows how the warm waters of the Loop Current connect the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean (top image, May 1–8, 2010) and the dynamic northern margin of the Loop Current a week and a half later, on May 18 (bottom image). Based on observations of infrared energy collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite, the images show cooler temperatures in blue and purple and warmer temperatures in pink and yellow. Cloudy areas are light gray.

Thermal sea surface image of Gulf of Mexico showing loop current (acquired May 1 - 8 2010)

Thermal sea surface image showing loop current (May 18, 2010) with overlay of oil slick (May 17)

Source: NASA Earth Observatory

What a difference a day makes -- New oil trajectory predictions show movement toward and continued threat to AL, MI and FL

2010-05-19T19:05:00.002-04:00

Predictions are simply estimations made with (one hopes) best professional judgment based on data available at the time the predictions are made. When the data change, predictions must also change. Yesterday, oil spill trajectories showed the spill gathered in a tight group around the drill site. Today, those trajectories once again show the imminent threat to the Mississippi delta and the shores of LA, AL, and MI. In addition, offshore trajectories predict far-ranging transport of oil to the south and east towards Florida as the spill enters the Gulf loop currents.

Surface Oil Trajectory Prediction for Mississippi Canyon, May 19 - showing renewed threat to LA, MI, AL, and FL

Offshore Surface Oil Forecast for May 19 showing effect of oil entering Gulf Loop currents

Loop Current
Dr. Jane Lubchenco, NOAA Administrator, spoke today at a press briefing on the subject of the Loop current. Dr. Lubchenco's remarks are summarized below:

The Loop Current is an area of warm water that comes up from the Caribbean, flowing past the Yucatan Peninsula and into the Gulf of Mexico. From there, it generally curves east across the Gulf and then flows south parallel to the west coast of Florida. As it flows between Florida and Cuba it becomes the Florida Current which moves through the Florida Straits, where it finally joins the Gulf Stream to travel up the Atlantic Coast.
Both the location of the Loop Current and location of the oil slick are dynamic. Both move around from day to day. The present location of the oil is identified daily through analysis of satellite imagery, observer overflights with helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, as well as advanced sensing technology on aircraft.
Satellite imagery on May 17 indicates that the main bulk of the oil is dozens of miles away from the Loop Current, but that a tendril of light oil has been transported down close to the Loop Current. NOAA is conducting aerial observations today to determine with certainty whether oil has actually entered the Loop Current.
NOAA conducts aerial observations every day to observe the plume from the air. These observations help develop NOAA’s trajectory models. Additionally today, the NOAA P-3 research aircraft will be dropping sensors to get better observations of the location of the loop current.
The proximity of the South East tendril of oil to the Loop Current indicates that oil is increasingly likely to become entrained. When that occurs, oil could reach the Florida Straits in 8 to 10 days.
Once entrained in the Loop Current, persistent onshore winds and/or the oil getting into an eddy on the edge of the Loop Current would be required to bring the oil onto the Florida shoreline.
During this transit time, the natural processes of evaporation and dispersion would reduce the oil volume significantly. The remaining oil could be composed of long strips of emulsified oil and mostly as “tar balls”.
The Loop Current is dynamic. At present, at the top end of the Loop Current there is a counter-clockwise eddy. Thus, some amount of any oil drawn into the Loop Current would likely remain in the eddy, heading to the northeast, and some would enter the main Loop Current, where it might eventually head to the Florida Strait.
NOAA will continue to closely monitor this portion of the oil over the next days to weeks. I emphasize that the bulk of the oil remains well to the north of the Loop Current, near the well site and towards the west and northwest from there. Currently only the southern tip of the slick, consisting of sheens and potentially unobserved tarballs, is in the vicinity of the Loop Current.
In response to the possibility oil entering the Loop Current, NOAA is acting with an abundance of caution and announcing an expansion of the fisheries closure area at 12 PM today. The revised closure will be effective at 6 PM this evening and is just over 45,000 square miles, or just about 19% of federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico. Details will be available on our homepage, noaa.gov.
The expansion of the fishing closure is one part of a pro-active stance that NOAA is taking to ensure public and seafood safety. To ensure the safety of seafood harvested from the Gulf of Mexico, NOAA is working with the Food and Drug Administration to re-align its assets to implement a broad-scaled seafood sampling plan. The plan includes sampling seafood from inside and outside of the closure area, as well as dockside and market-based sampling. Also, NOAA is increasing its monitoring of the biological implications of oil and dispersants.
State Governors and International colleagues have been alerted of the closure area expansion and the joint NOAA/FDA seafood sampling plan.
We have also created a virtual Incident Command Center in St. Petersburg, Fla., that is ready to engage quickly when needed.
There is no indication yet whether the oil might impact another country. We will notify and consult other nations as appropriate. The United States and Mexico are currently sharing information under the MEXUS Plan, a bilateral agreement on pollution incidents in coastal waters.
NOAA is engaging experts within and outside government to develop long-term oil movement forecasts. Predicting where the oil may go if the release continues allows for adequate response measures and resources to be placed in appropriate locations.

Gulf Oil Spill likened to crime scene, environmental impact widening

2010-05-19T18:40:00.005-04:00

In prepared testimony for a congressional committee, National Wildlife Federation President Larry Schweiger said BP had failed to disclose results from its tests of chemical dispersants used on the spill. He also said it had tried to withhold video showing the true magnitude of the leak.

(image: Greenpeace Senior Campaigner Lindsey Allen walks through a patch of oil from the Deepwater Horizon on the breakwater in the mouth of the Mississippi River where it meets the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana, May 18, 2010. Credit: REUTERS/Sean Gardner/Greenpeace/Handout)

"The federal government should immediately take over all environmental monitoring, testing, and public safety protection from BP," he said. "The Gulf of Mexico is a crime scene and the perpetrator cannot be left in charge of assessing the damage."

The Washington-based Center for American Progress published comments by its health experts Lesley Russell and Ellen-Marie Whelan saying the huge spill, and the dispersants being used against it, posed "insidious and unknown" human risks.

Noting the federal government had allowed BP to test the undersea use of dispersants, they added, "But are we letting the fox guard the hen house by letting the oil companies determine the safety of these cleaning agents?"

(image: Greenpeace volunteer Lauren Valle walks along a sandy beach on the east bank of the Mississippi River where it meets the Gulf of Mexico as globs of oil wash up on shore in Louisiana May 17, 2010. Credit: REUTERS/Hans Deryk)

In a sign of the widening environmental impact, the United States nearly doubled a no-fishing zone to 19 percent of U.S. waters in the Gulf seen affected by the spill.

The spill has forced Obama to put a hold on plans to expand offshore oil drilling and has raised concerns about planned oil operations in other areas like the Arctic.
(see Article for more)

BP siphoning more oil in effort to stem Gulf crisis while Florida landfall seems more likely

2010-05-19T18:37:00.004-04:00

(Reuters) - Florida's pristine coast braced for the impact of an oil slick from a Gulf of Mexico leak borne by powerful ocean currents as efforts by BP Plc to capture the flowing crude showed progress on Wednesday. According to private forecasters at AccuWeather, tendrils from the massive rust-colored oil slick have already entered the powerful Loop Current curling around the Florida Peninsula, which could take it east to the Florida Keys and possibly to Miami and Cuba within eight to 10 days.

(image: Ships work around a barge funneling some of the leaking oil from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead in this aerial view over the Gulf of Mexico, May 18, 2010. Credit: REUTERS/Daniel Beltra/Greenpeace/Handout)

British oil giant BP, its reputation on the line in an environmental disaster that could eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, has marked some progress at siphoning some of the oil from the mile/-deep well to an ocean vessel on the surface. BP is now siphoning about 3,000 barrels per day of oil, said Tom Strickland, an assistant interior secretary. BP declined to comment on Strickland's new estimate, which is up from about 2,000 barrels (84,000 gallons/318,000 liters) a day that BP said it is capturing.
BP has estimated that 5,000 barrels per day has been gushing out of the well since shortly after an April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers. U.S. lawmakers and scientists say the figure is unreliable and probably much higher.

The development may still be welcome news for the company and its battered share price. BP shares closed down nearly 2 percent in London on Wednesday, extending recent steep losses.

TOURISTS AND TAR BALLS

Florida's tourism gained a respite when tar balls found on Keys beaches were shown not to come from the Gulf of Mexico oil leak, but officials said the $60 billion-a-year industry was already taking a beating from the unchecked month-old spill.

The spill has already dumped oil debris ashore, especially in Louisiana but also on the coasts of Mississippi and Alabama, threatening fisheries and wildlife refuges. The Obama administration is grappling with a widening environmental and economic disaster for which it holds BP responsible.

(image: Oil sits on the bank of the the breakwater in the mouth of the Mississippi River where it meets the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana, May, 18, 2010. Credit: REUTERS/Sean Gardner/Greenpeace/Handout)

Wildlife and environmental groups accused BP of holding back information on the real size and impact of the growing slick, and urged President Barack Obama to order a more direct federal government role in the spill response.
(see Entire Article)

Oil Spill Trajectory Maps predict movement into Gulf, away from shore

2010-05-18T15:48:00.002-04:00

The latest set of oil spill trajectory predictions show the spill confined around the oil rig and tailing south into the Gulf of Mexico. Keep in mind that these are primarily surface conditions and much of the oil may be subsurface at this point, although this is still a matter of debate, as seen in this article in the Los Angeles Times:

Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, called media reports of large underwater oil plumes "premature," adding that research conducted by an academic ocean institute was inconclusive.
. . . .
One of the researchers, Vernon Asper, a professor of marine science at the University of Southern Mississippi, appeared to stick to his assessment during a taping of PBS NewsHour, with Gwen Ifill. "It's not only the size of Manhattan in area, but it's also several hundred meters' depth," Asper said.

Deepwater Horizon Spill moving out to sea; agencies begin assessing wildlife impact; worries over oil in Florida Keys

2010-05-18T15:41:00.002-04:00

According to NOAA Office of Response and Restoration, Rear Admiral Landry helped share the news about the successful riser insertion over the weekend that BP is saying is catching some oil and gas from the riser. Landry also said it was going to be a good week for continuing to fight the oil spill at sea. The weather is good for controlled burns, dispersants at the surface and subsea and the Mississippi River is high and pushing the oil back out into the Gulf.

A meeting was held with federal wildlife experts to discuss the latest numbers of wildlife that may have been affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the potential for broader ecosystem impacts, as well as the ongoing response efforts to protect the Gulf of Mexico’s national wildlife refuges, national parks and species.See http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doc/2931/550739/ for more information and a link to an audio recording of the call.

Meanwhile, tar balls are showing up in the Florida Keys and causing concern that the Deepwater Horizon spill is already having far-reaching effects. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6430AR20100518 Some estimates are that the spill has been leaking 4 million gallons per day for the past three weeks.

Oil Spill Not Imminent Threat To Shorelines - Coast Guard

2010-05-14T16:05:00.002-04:00

MOBILE, Ala. -(Dow Jones)- Oil leaking from a deepwater well in the Gulf of Mexico is not yet an imminent threat to the coastline in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, the U.S. Coast Guard said Thursday.
Coast Guard officials said oil sheen has appeared in Louisiana at Chandeleur Island and South Pass. Also, 'tar balls' have washed up on beaches in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama this week.

But favorable weather patterns and offshore containment efforts through controlled burns, skimming and the use of dispersement chemicals continue to keep the oil away from coastlines in the northern Gulf, said Capt. Steven Poulin, Coast Guard incident commander in Mobile, during a press briefing Thursday."

"The environmental factors right now seem to be keeping the oil offshore. It allows us an opportunity to implement our strategy," he said.

The Gulf spill resulted from the explosion and sinking in April of the Transocean Ltd. (RIG, RIGN.EB) Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which was finishing a well for BP PLC (BP, BP.LN). Eleven members of the crew were killed by the blast.

A BP spokesman earlier Thursday said that the company will deploy a top hat- shaped dome to try to contain the spill over the next few days, or possibly next week. Company officials had previously predicted that the dome would be in place by the end of this week.

A BP official who attended the press briefing declined to comment further on efforts under way to stop the Gulf leak.

Thousands of people are preparing for possible additional coastal impacts, from the Louisiana National Guard setting up protective dams on barrier islands to a boom system being floated at the mouth of Mobile Bay to protect one of the nation's largest estuaries.
-By Mark Peters, Dow Jones Newswires, mark.peters@dowjones.com, 212-416-2457

Shout Out to Major Plowshares, Saranac Lake, NY

2010-05-14T14:34:00.000-04:00

Here is a shout out to Peter and Major Plowshares Army and Navy Surplus of Saranac Lake NY for his assistance outfitting this adventurer with suitable gear for the Gulf Coast. Check them out on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Major-Plowshares-Army-Navy-Surplus/248663921952 and be sure to drop in and give them your business when you are in town.

Tar balls found on Mississippi, barrier islands beaches - Pass Christian - SunHerald.com

2010-05-14T09:43:00.003-04:00

Tar balls found on Mississippi, barrier islands beaches - Pass Christian - SunHerald.com:
By GEOFF PENDER - and MICHAEL NEWSOM

BILOXI — The first bits of “tar balls” from the Gulf oil spill have begun washing ashore in Mississippi and on its barrier islands. But they are small, few and far between and appear to be from the offshore burning aimed at getting rid of the spill, officials told the Sun Herald.

“(On Wednesday) they found some small tar balls that were widely dispersed on West Ship Island, Horn Island and on the beach near Pass Christian,” said Dan Turner, spokesman for Gov. Haley Barbour. “(Thursday) in Long beach area there were some very small tar balls.”

Coast Guard Capt. Steven Poulin said today tar balls and “tar patties” had been found on Dauphin Island and Gulf Shores in Alabama and Perdido Key in Florida."

Tar balls were also found Saturday at Dauphin Island off the Alabama Coast. To the west, tar balls have been found in Louisiana this week, including some at South Pass in Plaquemines Parish. Off the coast of Terrebonne Parish, tar balls were reported at Whiskey Island and some oily residue was found at Raccoon Island. As of Thursday afternoon no oil had been found west of Terrebonne Parish, according to the Associated Press.

Daily Situation Report: and Latest Oil Spill 24 Trajectory Map for May 12, 2010

2010-05-13T23:58:00.004-04:00

Here is the latest on the spill. The trajectory map is projecting oil in several isolated shores of the Mississippi delta within the next 24 hours. The 72 hour trajectory forecast shows oil impacting numerous places, especially long thr western side of the Mississippi delta.

Daily Situation Report: and Latest Oil Spill 24 Trajectory Map for May 12, 2010

Today, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Administrator of NOAA, participated in a media briefing on the use of dispersants with EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, Dave Westerholm, the Director of NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration, and others.

Click image for larger map

Mary Glackin, Deputy Under Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere; Buck Sutter, Gulf of Mexico Regional Team Lead, National Marine Fisheries Service; and David Kennedy, the acting Assistant Administrator for NOAA's Ocean Service are confirmed to attend three EPA sessions scheduled Wednesday and Thursday in various regions in the Gulf. These meetings are designed to bring together local leaders and community members with federal representatives from NOAA, Department of Interior, Department of Labor, Health and Human Services, Department of Homeland Security and the Coast Guard to discuss meaningful solutions and strategies to work together to address the spill.

Dr. Larry Robinson, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere at NOAA and David Kennedy visited the JIC in Robert, Louisiana today and will remain in Louisiana for another day or two.

Oil continues to spread with winds and currents. With the persistent SE winds this week, the oil may pose a threat to Breton Sound and the Mississippi Delta,

Source: NOAA

Deepwater Horizon Unified Command Posts Response Timeline

2010-05-12T21:20:00.000-04:00

The Deepwater Horizon Unified Command has posted an "ongoing timeline" of events starting with the night of April 20 through today, May 12. This timeline is posted on "The Official Site of the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command." Unified Command has been established to manage response operations to the April 20, 2010 “Deepwater Horizon” incident.

A Unified Command links the organizations responding to an incident and provides a forum for those organizations to make consensus decisions. This site is maintained by the Unified Command’s Joint Information Center (JIC), which provides the public with reliable, timely information about the response.
The organizations involved include nearly everything you could imagine, Check out their ABOUT US PAGE to see all their cool logos:

BP
Transocean
United States Coast Guard
US Dept of Interior Minerals Management Service
NOAA
US EPA
US Dept of Homeland Securties
US Dept of the Interior
Dept of Defense
US Fish and Wildlife
National Park Service
Dept of State
USGS
CDC

It is hard to imagine why some are involved, but it is nice to know this is getting the attention it deserves. Hopefully it doesn't turn into a case of too many cooks in the kitchen

'Don't Blame Me' Is Refrain At Gulf Oil Spill Hearing

2010-05-12T13:56:00.003-04:00

'Don't Blame Me' Is Refrain At Gulf Oil Spill Hearing

by NPR Staff and Wires - May 11, 2010

The company that owned the oil rig that exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico dismissed the possibility Tuesday that its failed safety mechanism caused the disaster, which has spewed millions of gallons of crude and spurred the federal government to tighten oversight of the offshore oil and gas industry.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar urged Congress on Tuesday to approve splitting up the agency that monitors offshore drilling as a result of the leak and asked for millions of dollars to boost oversight.

Industry Executives Shift Blame

Executives of the three companies involved in one of the worst spills in U.S. history acknowledged in testimony before a Senate panel that investigators have yet to pinpoint exactly what caused the disaster, but they spent little time before trying to shift responsibility for the crisis to qeach other.
See full story at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126721481&sc=17&f=1001

Contributed by Michael R. Martin

Using NPR app on iPod Touch

To learn more about the NPR iPhone app, go to http://iphone.npr.org/recommendnprnews

Deepwater Horizon Incident, Gulf of Mexico | Most Recent NOAA Update

2010-05-12T10:06:00.002-04:00

Deepwater Horizon Incident, Gulf of Mexico | Most Recent NOAA Update

Deepwater Horizon Incident, Gulf of Mexico

24 Hour Trajectory Map: Jump down to Current Trajectory Maps on this page for full-sized versions.

As the nation’s leading scientific resource for oil spills, NOAA has been on the scene of the Deepwater Horizon spill from the start, providing coordinated scientific weather and biological response services to federal, state and local organizations. More

Updated daily
Situation: Tuesday 11 May
Today weather conditions prevented vessel skimming and in-situ burning operations, but overflights and SCAT teams were in the field. Sea conditions are expected to moderate over the course of the week and marine operations are expected to recommence. Also today, NOAA Fisheries announced modifications to the area closed to fishing in the Gulf of Mexico due to the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill, which now will include federal waters seaward of Louisiana State waters in the vicinity of Timbalier Island, to waters off Florida’s Choctawhatchee Bay. These changes will leave more than 93 percent of the Gulf’s federal waters open for fishing, and supporting productive fisheries and tourism.

NASA mobilized its remote-sensing assets to help assess the spread and impact of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill at the request of U.S. disaster response agencies. NASA has deployed its instrumented research aircraft, the Earth Resources-2 (ER-2), to the Gulf. The agency is also making extra satellite observations and conducting
additional data processing to assist NOAA, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Department of Homeland Security in monitoring the spill.
NOAA is sending one of its top fisheries science directors to the Gulf this week to lead its effort to rapidly assess, test, and report findings about risks posed to fish in the Gulf of Mexico by contaminants from the
BP oil spill and clean-up activities.

Response to date

Personnel were quickly deployed and approximately 13,000 are currently responding to protect the shoreline and wildlife.
More than 460 vessels are responding on-site, including skimmers, tugs, barges, and recovery vessels to assist in containment and cleanup efforts—in addition to dozens of aircraft, remotely operated vehicles, and multiple mobile offshore drilling units.
Approximately 1.4 million feet of boom (regular and sorbent) have been deployed to contain the spill—and approximately 1.4 million feet are available.
Approximately 3.6 million gallons of an oil-water mix have been recovered.
Approximately 372,000 gallons of dispersant have been deployed.
More than 180,000 gallons are available.
14 staging areas have been set up to protect vital shoreline in all potentially affected Gulf Coast states (Biloxi, Miss., Pascagoula, Miss., Pensacola, Fla., Panama City, Fla., Dauphin Island, Ala., Grand Isle, La., Shell Beach, La., Slidell, La., Venice, La., Orange Beach, Al., Theodore, Al., Pass Christian, Ms., Amelia, La., and Cocodrie, La.).

NOAA’s Damage Assessment Remediation and Restoration Program (DARRP) is conducting a Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA). From past experience, NOAA is concerned about oil impacts to fish, shellfish, marine mammals, turtles, birds and other sensitive resources, as well as their habitats, including wetlands, mudflats, beaches, bottom sediments and the water column. Any lost uses of these resources, for example, fishery and beach closures, will also be evaluated. The focus currently is to assemble existing data on resources and their habitats and collect baseline (pre-spill impact) data. Data on oiled resources and habitats are also being collected.

EPA Responds to the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico

2010-05-12T07:33:00.001-04:00

Since the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico on April 22, 2010, EPA has mobilized resources to support the U.S. Coast Guard and protect public health and the environment. Their Emergency Operations Center at headquarters has been activated, trained EPA responders are working on the scene, and special mobile equipment has been sent to the Gulf area.

The Agency has several online resources available:

1) EPA is posting updated data and other information on our BP oil spill site (www.epa.gov/bpspill):

•Get air quality and water data
•Find answers to common questions
•Submit technology solutions

2) Connect with EPA on social media sites:
•Administrator Jackson's personal account of the response to the oil spill: Facebook and Twitter
•EPA's announcements about our response: Facebook and Twitter

3) Subscribe to EPA's oil spill updates at http://service.govdelivery.com/service/subscribe.html?code=USAEPA_389.

You can also visit the coordinated government response site (www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com) for:

•Information about the spill and efforts to stop the oil from flowing
•Hotlines to report oil on land or injured wildlife
•Details of how you can volunteer

Oil Slick Forecast to affect much of Mississippi Delta by May 14

2010-05-12T00:34:00.000-04:00

Here is NOAA's prediction for the Deepwater Horizon oil slick by May 14, 2010. You can see that the SE winds will have driven the slick across much of the Mississippi Delta.

Latest Gulf oil spill forecast shows push west to fragile Louisiana wetlands

2010-05-11T21:55:00.000-04:00

Latest Gulf oil spill forecast shows push west to fragile Louisiana wetlands
By Press-Register staff
May 10, 2010, 7:01AM

Winds from the east or southeast this morning, then continued east or southeast winds through Tuesday have the potential to move new oil onshore along the Louisiana coastline, according to the latest 72-hour project map produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

As with other forecast maps in recent days, the forecast map that extends until Wednesday evening continues not to show landfall of oil along the Mississippi, Alabama or Florida within the forecast period.

NOAA's longest-term forecast is the 72-hour map because officials say there are too many variable factors -- namely wind -- to look with any certainty into the more distant future.

The most recent map said the Mississippi Delta, Breton Sound, the Chandeleur Islands and areas directly north have a potential for shoreline contacts throughout the forecast period. West of the Mississippi Delta, the shoreline west of Barataria Bay to Isles Dernieres is threatened today.

Should winds continue east or southeast, potential oil contacts could reach as far west as Oyster Bayou on Tuesday and Atchafalaya Bay on Wednesday, the federal experts said.

NOAA's forecasts are based on the latest National Weather Service forecasts, overflight and satellite observations, current models and tracking devices placed within the oil spill. Officials caution that tar balls associated with the leading edge of the spill are difficult to track and so are not taken into account.

Follow Deepwater Horizon Incident on Twitter

2010-05-11T19:15:00.000-04:00

Deepwater Horizon Response on Twitter This site is providing information regarding the April 20 incident in the US Gulf of Mexico involving a Transocean drilling Rig Deepwater Horizon. Leaves NOAA for a non-government site

The shortcut for the Twitter Savy is twitter.com/Oil_Spill_2010

Oil spill at 4 million gallons; Mobile Bay protection plan stymied by currents

2010-05-11T19:10:00.000-04:00

Oil spill at 4 million gallons; Mobile Bay protection plan stymied by currents
By Rena Havner Philips

May 11, 2010, 5:00AM

(Courtesy NOAA)This NOAA map shows the forecast location of the oil spill at 6 a.m. today.Strong currents have knocked down some of the 50-foot-long wood piling set under water to anchor boom across the Mobile Bay, leaving state officials looking for a new option to block a Gulf oil spill that officials said Monday tops 4 million gallons.

. . . Go to http://blog.al.com/live/2010/05/oil_spill_at_4_million_gallons.html for the rest of the story

Gulf Coast Post: Set to Deploy

2010-05-11T15:27:00.000-04:00

Well, as some of you know, I am still safely ensconced in my abode at Cedar Eden while oil continues to spew into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon site. All that is set to change very soon. While winds were out of the north, the oil slick remained off-shore and therefore my services were not needed. It is looking like the spill will make landfall in MS and AL sometime this week, at which time I will take off fast from here.

My gear is still packed. In fact, I have been living out of duffel bags for a week, waiting to deploy on a moments notice. I'll send a few quick posts as I travel and then expect frequent if not daily posts from the scene, with photos included.

Follow me on twitter as CedarEden as well as on this blog, GulfCoastPost.blogspot.com

Gulf Coast Post

Oil is more toxic than previously thought, study finds

Gulf Coast Task Force Releases Ecosystem Restoration Strategy For Public Review

Large Set of Oil Spill & Environs Photos On-Line

BP cleanup a 'cover-up,' La. says, pointing to oil via msnbc.com iPhone app

Panel: Feds blocked worst-case Gulf spill figures

7:16 p.m. ET, Wed., October 6, 2010

Gulf seafloor coated in oil from BP spill

Millions of Migrating Birds Heading to Oil

Millions of Migrating Birds Heading to Oil

September 8, 2010 9:38:00 AMLarry O'Hanlon

Seaswarm Brings Swarm Robotics To Oil Spill Cleanup

BP Abandons Arctic Drilling Interests in Greenland

Gulf Waste Heads to Landfills, Problems Ahead

Deep Water Dead Zone Predicted in the Gulf - Discovery News

http://news.discovery.com/earth/oil-spill-dead-zone.html

Deep Water Dead Zone Predicted in the Gulf

August 23, 2010 11:20:00 AM

Microbes Munching Gulf Oil - Discovery News

http://news.discovery.com/earth/oil-microbes-bacteria-plume.html

Microbes Munching Gulf Oil

August 24, 2010 1:01:00 PM

Executive Order for the Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes

Most Abundant Food Source Disappearing

100 Days in, Oil Spill Questions Still Unanswered

Chasing an Oiled Brown Pelican

At Risk: Nesting Birds & Island Rookeries

Oil & Cleanup - Bay Jimmy, Louisiana

Rehabilitated Brown Pelicans Relocated to Texas National Wildlife Refuge

Oiled Shore Miles & Amount of Dispersants Used to Date

US FWS Threat Assessment

Four states having set up their own websites for Gulf Oil Spill volunteers

Adirondack scientist helps with Gulf cleanup

Oil Spill Projected across Wide Swath of Gulf Coast

June 18 - Oiled Grass

June 18 - Flotilla of Response Vessels

June 17, 2010 - A Few Good Pictures

Hot Hot Hot

Drilling Rigs

Grand Isle Report

Off Grand Isle

CNN

Catching a White Pelican

Booms around "Bird Island," large rookerie

Good night from Grand Isle

Thoughts & Impressions

A few pictures from today

Day One Update

Day One

Eve of Action

Catching Pelicans

Deployment - Grand Isle

Southward Bound Chronicles

Post from the road

Final Preparations • June 7, 2010

The Journey Begins & Information on Safety for Workers and Volunteers

Beneath the Oil Slick

On The Road with the Gulf Oil Spill

How Big is Oil Spill? Google Earth/Google Maps Tool compares Gulf oil spill to any place on earth

Oil Pours Ashore in Mississippi, Alabama & Florida Panhandle

New Estimate of BP Oil Spill Volume: 12,000 - 15,000 barrels per day

MAP: Deepwater Horizon/BP Daily Oil Impact Assessment

Obama to inspect Gulf Coast oil spill Friday

Oil is onshore for sure

Will Louisiana's Sand Bar simply divert the spill onto neighboring shores?

BP Recasts Spill Size As Oil Fouls Louisiana Marshes

USF Oil Spill Movement Animations - wind, surface currents, subsurface currents

NASA Images show Gulf Oil Slick Approaching Loop Current

What a difference a day makes -- New oil trajectory predictions show movement toward and continued threat to AL, MI and FL

Gulf Oil Spill likened to crime scene, environmental impact widening

BP siphoning more oil in effort to stem Gulf crisis while Florida landfall seems more likely

Oil Spill Trajectory Maps predict movement into Gulf, away from shore

Deepwater Horizon Spill moving out to sea; agencies begin assessing wildlife impact; worries over oil in Florida Keys

Oil Spill Not Imminent Threat To Shorelines - Coast Guard

Shout Out to Major Plowshares, Saranac Lake, NY

Tar balls found on Mississippi, barrier islands beaches - Pass Christian - SunHerald.com

Daily Situation Report: and Latest Oil Spill 24 Trajectory Map for May 12, 2010

Deepwater Horizon Unified Command Posts Response Timeline

'Don't Blame Me' Is Refrain At Gulf Oil Spill Hearing

Deepwater Horizon Incident, Gulf of Mexico | Most Recent NOAA Update

September 8, 2010 9:38:00 AM
Larry O'Hanlon

Oil spill at 4 million gallons; Mobile Bay protection plan stymied by currents
By Rena Havner Philips