Update on Deepwater Horizon Spill – from the CRS

Posted on May 29, 2014 by recoverydiva

New CRS Report: Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Recent Activities and Ongoing Developments

Aftermath of Deepwater Horizon Spill- health aspects

Posted on May 20, 2014 by recoverydiva

The Gulf Study Four Years after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill:

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Gulf Long-term Follow-up Study (GuLF) is a long term health study with over 100,000 participants composed of oil spill cleanup workers and volunteers who responded to the April 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The NIEHS held a teleconference on April 11^th to update members of the media, the public and study participants on the progress of the study. This post provides a summary of the call, including a review of progress made and preliminary observations. Go to: http://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/newsletter/2014/5/spotlight-gulf/index.htm

____________________________________

UPDATE: See the comment section for an additional recommended source of information.

__________________________________

One more source of information about the general recovery from the major spill incident is this recent CRS report.

Sometimes Money Is Not Enough – e.g., Gulf of Mexico After the BP Spill

Posted on June 6, 2013 by recoverydiva

An opinion piece in the Wash. Post, June 2, titled The Gulf of Mexico Cannot Wait, makes it clear that receiving money is not enough to move forward on a complicated and delicate project to deal with the harm done by the BP Oil spill to the Gulf of Mexico. Bureaucratic squabbling and lack of vision for dealing with the environmental and ecological issues has prevented progress.

Here are the direct links to two items mentioned in the article:

The Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council

Draft Initial Comprehensive Plan (7 pp.)

Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force – precedents

Posted on April 19, 2013 by recoverydiva

Ever since the H. Sandy Task Force was formed, with the HUD Secretary named as the lead, I have been trying to figure out where this idea came from. I think I have part of the answer.

After the Deepwater Horizon-B.P Oil Spill (2010), Pres. Bush issued an Executive Order that created the Gulf Coast Reconstruction effort. The organization was headed by then Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mobus, who was the former governor of MS. His mission was to create the Long-Term Gulf Coast Restoration Support Plan.

Then to implement the plan, the president asked EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to chair the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task. Force. This was an advisory body whose purpose was “… to focus on efforts to create more resilient and healthy Gulf Coast ecosystems, while also encouraging support for economic recovery and long-term health issues.” This group was formed by Executive Order #13554 on October 5, 2010.

For more information, see the Restore the Gulf website.

If anyone has any more information, or knows of other precedents, please let me know.

Scientific Lessons Learned from the Deepwater Horizon Spill

Posted on December 4, 2012 by recoverydiva

In an article titled Responding to Future Oil Spills: Lessons Learned from Deepwater Horizon, the HSWire (Dec.3) mentioned an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The NAS issue includes a 10 page article titled Science in Support of the Deepwater Horizon Response. A copy is available here: Deepwater Horizon Paper-Dec 2012

Research, response for future oil spills: Lessons learned from Deepwater Horizon (eurekalert.org)
Research, response for future oil spills: Lessons learned from Deepwater Horizon (phys.org)

Hurricane Isaac Stirred up BP Oil Deposits

Posted on September 12, 2012 by recoverydiva

See Storm Isaac tars Louisiana beaches with oil from BP spill, from Reuters, Sept. 12.

* Hurricane Isaac unearthed oil buried by previous storms

* BP claims “robust recovery” of Gulf ecosystems

* US govt, Louisiana point to lingering ecological damage

Two years after the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, mats of oily tar from BP Plc.’s ill-fated Macondo well have turned up on Louisiana’s shore after Hurricane Isaac stirred up submerged oil deposits, BP officials said on Tuesday.

BP said the oil that washed ashore after Hurricane Isaac made landfall in Louisiana on Aug. 28 was not unexpected, after Tropical Storm Bonnie in July 2010 buried oil under tons of sand. Isaac’s winds and tidal surge peeled back layers of sand and exposed tar balls and tar mats that were buried under up to five feet of sand, BP said.

One more take on the same topic appeared in the Huff Post today.

For the folks in LA and adjacent states, the 3 big disasters of the past 7 years must seem to be interconnected.

Two Years Since Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill – some gaps, some new reports – updates

Posted on April 20, 2012 by recoverydiva

From the Homeland Security Wire, April 23 — Scientists: Deepwater Horizon exposed gaps in deepwater oil spill knowledge

On the second anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a national team of scientists warns that inadequate knowledge about the effects of deepwater oil well blowouts threatens scientists’ ability to help manage comparable future events.

See also the Homeland Security Digital Library post on April 20th for 3 sources of information about the spill and its aftermath.

Some ground level truth, via Huffington Post, April 27.

__________________________________________________

Nagging and Lagging Problems with Off Shore Drilling Safety

Posted on April 17, 2012 by recoverydiva

Platform supply vessels battle the blazing remnants of the off shore oil rig Deepwater Horizon. ( Wikipedia)

This seems to be a week with all kinds of deficiencies in emergency management getting media coverage. Too bad none of the news is good.

Today, the Huffpost writes Oil Spill Commission Action Group Gives Congress Low Grades For Regulatory Reform On Drilling. Some quotes follow:

Two years after BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig foundered and sank in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 crew members and unleashing an 87-day torrent of oil that soiled surrounding beaches and poisoned delicate coral reefs, a pair of assessments paint a somewhat bleak picture of the subsequent regulatory reform.

Following the BP spill, which was set in motion on April 20, 2010, President Barack Obama established an investigatory body — the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling — that was charged with determining the cause of the accident and recommending steps to make offshore energy development more safe.

In January 2011, that commission issued a final report outlining a variety of “critical” safety recommendations. The panel disbanded two months later. On Tuesday, a group of former members of that commission, now calling itself Oil Spill Commission Action, issued an assessment of the government’s implementation of those suggestions.

The group — which includes former Democratic Senator from Florida Bob Graham, Natural Resources Defense council president Frances G. Beinecke and Cherry A. Murray, the dean of Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, among others — said that while some progress has been made, Congress in particular has failed to pass much-needed legislation.

See also this editorial in the NYTimes on April 17th, which provides a recap of outcomes in the two years since the spill. It too excoriates Congress for lack of action. [Thanks to Bill Cumming for calling this article to my attention.]

Spill panel slams Congress over inaction on safety (AP)
Nearly Two Years On, Did the BP Oil Spill Have to Happen to BP? (ecocentric.blogs.time.com)

Four Updates on Aftermath of the BP Oil Spill

Posted on January 9, 2012 by recoverydiva

Image via Wikipedia

(1) A Review of the year in photos — some of the results are good, some are bad. See these pictures provided by the Christian Science Monitor, Jan. 4, 2012.

(2) Some scientific results re bacteria that ate the oil: Spill Study Explains How Bacteria Cleansed Gulf; Wall St. Journal, Jan. 9, 2012.

(3) From the LicartaRisk co. a report on what BP did wrong re risk management. Jan. 10, 2012

(4) In a NY Times opinion piece, writer Joe Nocera has some kind words for BP and thinks it has been a “responsible party.”