Monthly Archives: September 2010

BP Oil Spill Outcome – continuing arguments

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BP Says Well Is Sealed, but Oily Gulf and Accountability Questions Remain. Pro Publica, Sept. 20

Response to the spill isn’t over yet, either. According to the Financial Times, 25,000 people are still working on spill response [5], down from the 47,000 working at peak levels in June. About 40,000 square miles of the Gulf remain closed to fishing [5], according to the Times. (That’s about half of what was closed at the spill’s peak.)

While some preliminary research has been conducted, much remains to done [6]. The St. Petersburg Times reported that the Florida Institute of Oceanography, a consortium of several universities, is starting on $10 million worth of studies [2] on the environmental impact of the oil spill.

BP currently faces about 400 lawsuits [14], according to Bloomberg. In July, the company said the Justice Department’s probe could lead to prosecution of the company or its employees, suspension of licenses, or debarment [15] from government contracts.http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/bp-says-well-is-sealed-but-oily-gulf-and-questions-remain-100920

Scientists Clash Over Amount of Oil in Gulf , Sept. 27, WSJ.

Adm. Allen and Capt. Edwin Stanton, a U.S. Coast Guard commander, said Coast Guard responders hadn’t been influenced by the estimated size of the spill.

“We assumed at the outset this would be a catastrophic event,” Adm. Allen said.

But Messrs. Graham and Reilly, the co-chairman, said the low estimates probably did affect the handling of the spill response. “I would assume it’s common sense that the flow rate will determine how many skimmers you need; how many thousand feet of boom you bring into the area; what you’re going to do with respect to dispersants that you order,” Mr. Reilly said. “It’s not entirely clear to me how it could be that flow rate did not affect the response.”

Long-Term Recovery Plan issued for Gulf after BP Oil Spill

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America’s Gulf Coast; A Long Term Recovery Plan after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, 130 pp. Sept.29, 2010. The report does not have a table of contents or an executive summary. The only summary I could find was the press release.

The first 20 pages are the body of the report.  A series of Recovery Planning Checklists are included in the report, which are interesting.  This is more specific guidance than has been offered to state and local officials than provided to date by any federal officials, to my knowledge. The BP Oil Spill disaster is important, since it is the only example we have of all phases of emergency management taking place under the authority of the Oil Pollution Act/National Contingency Plan rather than the  Stafford Act /National Response Framework for major-to-catastrophic size disaster.

I welcome comments and feedback.

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After six months and 100 posts, we invite your feedback

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Feedback-loop-general

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Today is the anniversary of our start up and the day we reached the milestone of 100 posts by the Diva.

We truly would appreciate your comments on why you read the blog and what you do and do not like about the site and its contents.

If you prefer to write to me offline, use the email address in the About page of this blog. Your feedback is really important to us.

Use of digital media for disaster recovery – the NZ example

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In the course of recent online research regarding the Canterbury, NZ earthquake, I was given a website produced by GNS Science, which contains a comprehensive list of information about the quake. (GNS is a”research institute operating as a limited liability company owned by the New Zealand government.)

In reviewing it, it became clear to me that the folks in NZ have effectively taken advantage of several forms of new digital technology; namely, Google maps, a recovery blog, data gathering from citizens, GIS, and more. For example, they not only have a link to their twitter feed but also a twitter “how to”  so that citizens can understand how to follow the latest information and/or send out their own tweets using hashtags designated for the quake.

In the U.S., most of the discussions regarding the use of digital technology have focused on the response and preparedness phases of emergency management.  But the NZ website site demonstrates how many of the new means of gathering data and communicating can be used for the  recovery phase as well.

By means of  comparison, here are some details about the recent BP Oil Spill disaster in the U.S.  The BP Oil Spill Restore the Gulf website provides information in a highly polished format, but the communication only goes one-way. And the seemingly interactive “Ask a Responder” tab is pre-scripted: the questions and answers are already provided and the opportunity to actually ask a question is zero. Furthermore, the site does not include any place for citizens to record their experiences with the disaster, though there is a tab with a list of phone numbers to “report a concern”.  In contrast, the NZ GNS site has a “felt it” questionnaire for citizens to fill out their observations of the quake. (It should be noted that the U.S.Geological Survey does have a stand alone Did you Feel it website for earthquakes).

In short, while many public agencies in the U.S. use social media, this NZ one-stop shop model, produced by a credible, semi-autonomous national agency, should be useful to U.S. communities and organizations responsible for managing the recovery process. After a disaster, providing information to citizens as well as providing an opportunity for them to record their experiences, probably will be something the public comes to expect, if not demand.

[Thanks to Mr. Ian McLean and Ms Kim Stephens for their assistance.]

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Oil Spill Science and Gulf State Politics – probably not a good mix

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According to the LA Times, Sept. 24, Planned Distribution of  BP research funds worries some scientists. The article goes on to not that BP is about to dispense $500 million for scientific research to an alliance of research organizations overseen by Gulf state governors and that critics feat that ocean science expertise in other than Gulf state locations will be overlooked. Some details from the article follow:

With its well finally shut down, BP is close to agreement on funneling a promised $500 million in research funds through an organization overseen by Gulf Coast governors, not the nation’s scientific community. The pending decision has stirred concern among some scientists who fear most of the money will be doled out to institutions in the governors’ home states — in effect making the distribution of research grants more like pork-barrel projects, rather than pure scientific pursuits.

Critics worry the expertise of distinguished oceanographic organizations such as the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California could be excluded from the complex task of determining the full effects of the massive spill.

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Special Report on BP Oil Spill in National Geographic

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National Geographic Map Indexes

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For those of you with an abiding interest in the oil spill and its ramifications, the Oct. issue of National Geographic has an excellent series of articles and a fascinating map insert as part of its Special Report on “The  Spill.” The map offers a unique graphic of The Gulf of Mexico: A Geography of Offshore Oil.

This special report provides great retrospective documentation of the largest oil spill in history.

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Planning for Recovery Prior to the Disaster Event

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Statue of John Harvard, founder of Harvard Uni...

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Some call it pre-event planning and others call it advance planning for recovery. Whichever term you use, the process is worth highlighting again.  Recently Eric Holdeman’s blog captured some advice from a seminar at Harvard on the topic of advance recovery planning.  Although that info is not yet available online, some of the recent work by Harvard University professors can be found below:

Herman B. “Dutch” Leonard and Arnold M. Howitt. 2010. Advance Recovery and the Development of Resilient Organisations and Societies. In Simon Woodward (Ed.), Integrative Risk Management: Advanced Disaster Recovery (pp. 45-58). Zurich: Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd.

Legal Conflicts re BP Oil Spill Disaster Plans and Response

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Lawmakers Question Coordination of Federal, Local Responses to Emergencies
by Rob Margetta, CQ Today, September 22, 2010 [Subscription service.]

Two of the major issues that emerged in a recent House hearing on the SP Spill are ( 1) conflicts between state and federal laws, and (2) which federal dept. should have the lead for disaster planning and response.

After hearing descriptions of a disconnect between Louisiana officials and the Coast Guard during the response to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, members of the House Homeland Security Committee said they may have to re-examine the laws that connect the state to the federal government during emergencies. Craig Paul Taffaro Jr., president of St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana, told the committee that his state has different authorizing legislation for response efforts than other Gulf Coast states.
“Louisiana law specifically grants emergency powers to local authorities . . . during times of declared disasters,” he said. “This construct seemed to create a bureaucratic obstacle that has plagued the coordination of the response effort throughout.”

The problem, Taffaro said, is that the Clean Air Act (PL 101-549) and other federal statutes governing emergency response do not recognize or mesh well with the Louisiana system. Local authority was met with “resistance, exclusion and power struggles” after the spill, he said.

The Homeland Security Department (DHS) was expected to take a leadership role after the spill, Thompson said. “Yet, as we all now know, the department did not have a role in reviewing or assessing the plans for the response and recovery of this type of disaster,” he added. Instead, the agency in charge of regulating offshore platforms — then known as the Minerals Management Service, a bureau within the Interior Department — was responsible for the plan. Coast Guard officials testified that their agency had no role in overseeing the Deepwater Horizon emergency procedures.

With regard to which federal agency/department should have the lead role,

Sheila Jackson Lee, chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection, said DHS needs to be at the center of all response planning, adding that DHS would have been more appropriate than Interior in the case of Deepwater Horizon. “The backbone of response has to be Homeland Security,” the Texas Democrat said.

The situation reflects other regulatory issues that affect DHS, Thompson said, including the fact that the Federal Emergency Management Agency plays a role in reviewing the nuclear power plant emergency response plans required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. FEMA is unclear on whether it should be working with the NRC, plant owners or local authoritiesThe Homeland Security Department (DHS) was expected to take a leadership role after the spill, Thompson said. “Yet, as we all now know, the department did not have a role in reviewing or assessing the plans for the response and recovery of this type of disaster,” he added.

Instead, the agency in charge of regulating offshore platforms — then known as the Minerals Management Service, a bureau within the Interior Department — was responsible for the plan. Coast Guard officials testified that their agency had no role in overseeing the Deepwater Horizon emergency procedures.

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Recommended Blog Resources

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This is the first installment of Recommended Blog Resources on environment, disasters, and emergency management.  If you have an ongoing interest in these topics, you will want to collect new sources.  I welcome suggestions from readers, so that I can add to this list.

(1) Andrew Revkin (N.Y Times blogger) writes the Dot Earth blog, http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com. See his Blogroll list at lower right-hand column of his homepage.

(2) John Solomon writes the Incaseofemergencyblog, http://Incaseofemergencyblog.com.  See his blogroll , also at lower right side of homepage.