Monthly Archives: August 2010

More on current international disasters

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We refer you to the posting today (August 12) by fellow blogger Phil Palin, titled Fire, flood, and famine are white swans. He asks why we continue to be surprised about disasters that are in fact quite predictable. Granted the recent natural disasters in Pakistan, China, and Russia are huge even if the disaster agent if not unusual.

Also unusual, yet not unpredictable, is the huge ice chunk that broke away in Greenland this past week. Presently, this is a new threat and not yet a disaster, but it poses serious future problems.  See Huge ice island could pose threat to oil, shipping

An island of ice more than four times the size of Manhattan is drifting across the Arctic Ocean after breaking off from a glacier in Greenland.

Potentially in the path of this unstoppable giant are oil platforms and shipping lanes — and any collision could do untold damage. In a worst case scenario, large chunks could reach the heavily trafficked waters where another Greenland iceberg sank the Titanic in 1912.

It’s been a summer of near biblical climatic havoc across the planet, with wildfires, heat and smog in Russia and killer floods in Asia. But the moment the Petermann glacier cracked last week — creating the biggest Arctic ice island in half a century — may symbolize a warming world like no other.

Oil Spill Disaster — “lessons learned” discussed

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Critical Lessons from the Federal Response to the Gulf Oil Spill (HSPI Commentary) from the Geo. Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute, August 10, 2010.  While I agree with only some of the authors’ opinions, I think this piece is worth considering.  Readers are invited to comment, of course.

On the topic of what did BP learn,  Al.com ( an Alabama media site) posted Gulf oil spill a learning experience, say BP executives. While it is not entirely clear if BP thinks it has learned, or will learn, from the spill event, it is interesting to note that the firm is required to report out on the topic.

ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and ConocoPhillips said last week that they would create a $1 billion system to handle blowouts and deepwater spills. And … BP had agreed to submit two documents on “lessons learned” after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded — one covering spill containment and response and another on drilling safety.


International Disasters – some perspectives

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While we in the U.S. have been focused on the oil spill and its many ramifications, elsewhere in the world at least three large countries (Russia, China, and Pakistan) have been experiencing record-setting disasters. According to the source ReliefWeb, August 10. Extreme weather fuels debate over global warming, and as noted in a Scottish newspaper, August 10th, Pakistan’s floods to outstrip world’s last three disasters.

The  United Nations is to launch an appeal for the victims of floods in Pakistan, which it warned could affect more people than the world’s last three great disasters combined.  It said the toll could exceed the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Two wikis have been set up to facilitate aid and donations for Pakistani victims.  Please help, if you can.

Oil Spill – focus shifts to long-term effects

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Worries about recovery come to the foreground, now that the well has been capped. See As oil spill cleanup shifts gears, gulf residents fear they’ll be forgotten.

The [LA] state government said this week that erosion eats away 29 square miles — more than Arlington County — every year.

What about the gulf’s “dead zone”? This year, it covered 7,722 square miles of the gulf, an area nearly the size of Massachusetts that lacked the oxygen that some fish, crabs and oysters need to breathe. But fixing it would require making changes all the way up the Mississippi River, which brings down the pollutants that feed the algae blooms that suck out the oxygen — making changes at feedlots in Iowa and sewage plants in Illinois. “I can’t see how they could just restore everything that needs restoration. There’s just too many problems,” said Nancy Rabalais, who heads the LA Universities Marine Consortium….

She worries, in essence, that the gulf will simply be returned to its regularly scheduled disaster.  “It doesn’t have the political attention” that the spill commanded, she said.

In an interview over the past weekend, Adm. Allen was asked to assess the job that BP did. His partial reply is as follows: Allen gives BP a mixed grade.

“The technology that was needed to be brought in for other parts of the world, was [brought in]. It took a long time to engineer it. It took a long time to install it. But, ultimately, it helped us put the cap on and control the well. So I give them fairly good marks there.” But Allen added that where the energy giant’s performance has been lacking is in having a human touch. *** “… they’re a large global oil production company. They don’t do retail sales or deal with individuals on a transactional basis. Anything that’s involved, that has been a real struggle for them….”


Minerals Management Service – Gulf office scrutinized

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An in-depth article about the peculiar culture in LA regarding oil drilling and the man who dominated the Gulf Office of the Mineral Management Service. In addition to showing the failings of the MMS, the article also notes a huge failure by Congress — badly written legislation that resulted in a loss of federal income amounting to $60B.  Plenty of candidates to blame for the recent disaster!

Minerals Service Had a Mandate to Produce Results, NY Times, August 8.

In some states, drilling has been seen as a threat to native cultures. In Cajun country, it opened a door to the middle class — even as a typical offshore schedule (two weeks on, two weeks off) let workers still fish, hunt and farm.

“The industry didn’t destroy the old culture — it saved it,” said Diane Austin, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona. What it did largely destroy, through cash and cunning, was significant political opposition. Local groups have typically been weak and small — no match for an industry that Mr. Oynes calls the “900-pound gorilla.”

Hurricane Katrina – 5th anniversary

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Since the 5th anniversary will occur at the end of this month, several organizations have been reviewing the events and accomplishments.  The Brookings Institution has issued a series of reports on what has been learned since  Sept. of 2005; the listing of all reports is on the page titled The New Orleans Index at Five.

Their  overview paper (20 pp) is subtitled From Recovery to Transformation, is a very thoughtful report that provides a excellent discussion of the key elements of recovery.

Oil Spill Disaster – regulating oil and gas drilling is hard to do

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One has to wonder if the “public interest” is being served, given that the regulation of oil and gas drilling at both federal and state levels is under attack by industry forces.

See Drilling Industry and Gubernatorial Candidates Move to Weaken Some State Regulations, ProPublica, August 5.

As the federal government focuses on strengthening regulations for deepwater drilling, the gas and oil industry is quietly trying to weaken state regulations for drilling on land.

Oil Spill Update – -Not all clear just yet

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NOAA issued a major report on August 4, titled Federal Science Report Details Fate of Oil from BP Spill. Nevertheless, other scientists are questioning the methodology and results of the NOAA study.  See Scientists question government team’s report of shrinking gulf oil spill, Wash Post, Aug. 5.  Some quotes from that article:

* * *  in interviews, scientists who worked on the report said the figures were based in large part on assumptions and estimates with a significant margin of error.

Some outside scientists went further: In a situation in which many facts remain murky, they said, the government seemed to have used interpretations that made the gulf — and the federal efforts to save it — look as good as possible.

Regarding some of the human impacts of the spill, see  Oil Spill Has Far-Reaching Effects on Children and Families, a new report by Dr. Irwin Redlener, Columbia University. His study found significant impacts on  health, economic stability, and daily routines. August, 2010. From the report:

More than one-quarter (26.6%) of coastal residents said they thought they might have to move away from the Gulf Coast. Among those earning less then $25,000, the figure was 36.3%. Children whose parents think they may move are almost three times more likely to have mental health distress than are children whose parents do not expect to move.

BP Oil Disaster–Where is the oil?

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Yesterday we reported the official estimate  that almost 5 million barrels of oil have been released into the gulf, yet, everyone seems to be asking the same question: Where did it all go?  A couple of interesting sources are available to address this quandary.

First, a Louisiana based television station took a camera and reporter out to a barrier island to investigate reports of oil beneath the sand. The beaches appeared clean, however, just walking in the sand provided hints to the trouble below as oil oozed up in the footprints, and many dead sand crabs littered the beach.

Secondly, another blog written by the University of Georgia Department of Marine Science, simply entitled “Gulf Oil Blog” also asked the question:  Where has the oil gone?  Their Aug. 1 blog posting attempts to quash rumors that the oil has just magically evaporated and/or been eaten by microorganisms. From that posting:

Should we be relieved?  Is this disaster over?

On the whole, I believe the answer to both questions is no.  It is a relief that the volume of surface oil is reduced, as this lowers the probability of oil-fouling of coastal beaches and marshes.  However, it’s likely that a great deal of oil is still out there in the Gulf of Mexico’s waters, it’s just no longer visible to us.

While some of the oil has most certainly evaporated, much of it was dispersed and this oil is still floating around, invisible to our eyes, within the ocean’s water column.   Some of the oil has probably sedimented to the seafloor, where it is also invisible to our eyes.  The fact that this oil is “invisible” makes it no less of a danger to the Gulf’s fragile ecosystems.  Quite the contrary, the danger is real and the danger is much more difficult to quantify, track and assess.

The Gulf Oil Blog also addresses the question of how to determine the long-term impacts from all of the dispersants used in this response. Although official tests have pointed to no more toxicity than oil alone (per yesterday’s EPA report), some scientists seem to be unconvinced. This Huffington Post article, originally posted on July 29 is entitled: “Scientist Find Evidence that Dispersant Mix are Making Their Way into the Food Chain“. The scientist they quote are from the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory and Tulane University.

Clearly there is much to learn, and this disaster will be with us for many years to come.

Thanks again to Claire for letting me blog, Kim.

BP Oil Spill–New Spill Estimates: almost 5 million barrels

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New spill estimates released August 2 suggest that 4.9 million barrels of oil (give or take 10%), or 205,000,000 gallons have been released from the Deepwater Horizon oil well.  Of that, they estimate that about 16%, or 800,000 barrels (33.6 million gallons) has been captured. For comparisons sake, the Exxon Valdez spilled 750,000 barrels (31.5 million gallons), and this spill now exceeds the former-largest spill, the 1979  Ixtoc I, which released 140,000,000 gallons.  How they achieved this new estimate is described on the  Deepwater Horizon Unified Command page:

The installation of a new containment cap and the subsequent well integrity testing procedure provided the opportunity to calculate the flow by measuring the pressure at the top of the well as the choke and kill valves were manipulated after the main containment valve was closed to trap hydrocarbons.

Also of interest on the Deepwater Unified Command page was the EPA’s release of the results from toxicity testing on “mixtures of eight oil dispersants with Louisiana Sweet Crude Oil.” The result: “dispersant-oil mixtures are generally no more toxic to the aquatic test species than oil alone.”

On other note, the spill is having an impact as far north as Canada. According to the Ontario Star newspaper, as fall approaches the issue of migratory birds that winter in the Gulf Coast region has come into focus. Of major concern are white pelicans, which just came off the endangered species list, but many other birds could be “flying to their demise”. This is impacting many segments of Canadian society:

Scientists aren’t the only ones concerned about the impact the spill may have on Canada’s migratory birds. Aboriginal groups who have for centuries hunted ducks, geese and other waterfowl to feed their families are urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama to get involved.

The article mentions a program established by the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service which has set up the “Migratory Bird Habitat Initiate” in an effort to mitigate this problem. They are paying farmers in portions of eight states to flood their fields in order to “enhance habitat for migratory birds”.

The Diva will be back from vacation tomorrow. Claire, thanks for letting me stand in for you!

Guest Blogger, Kim Stephens