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GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) The Sierra Club and other members of the 12 Miles South Coalition say Mississippi is rushing toward drilling in state waters without addressing concerns about tourism, the environment or economics.

The group tells The Sun Herald (http://bit.ly/yiYfS2) that the Mississippi Development Authority appears to be using questionable numbers touting the economic benefits from offshore drilling for natural gas, the price and demand of which is at an historic low.

“There’s no reason to be in such a rush that you don’t get the rules right,” said Jeffrey Bounds, an engineer working with the 12 Miles South Coalition, which has fought offshore drilling in Mississippi for years.

“Once the state issues leases, it’s too late to go back and get the rules right,” Bounds said.

Earlier this month, the National Park Service said allowing drilling within one mile of Horn and Petit Bois islands would spoil the islands’ wilderness character. Casino operators said while they’re not opposed to drilling, they don’t want to see tourist areas overrun by industrial equipment, boats and workers.

The statements came during MDA’s a 43-day public comment period and in public hearings on its draft of offshore leasing and seismic surveying rules.

The coalition said MDA and Gov. Phil Bryant haven’t addressed key risks associated with drilling, including subsidence and loss of the barrier islands, contamination of the Mississippi Sound and economic losses due to damage of the Coast tourism industry. And, they said, state officials don’t appear to be sincerely interested in public input or open dialogue about drilling.

“There’s a national park (Gulf Islands National Seashore) out there for gosh sakes,” said 12 Miles member Louie Miller, director of the state Sierra Club. “That’s like Yosemite. That’s like the Grand Canyon a national treasure. We can’t make sure they’re protected?”

Bryant’s spokesman Mick Bullock issued a statement: “Gov. Bryant is moving carefully through the process to implement this nearly eight-year-old law that the Legislature passed in 2004. Although required to take public comments for a minimum of 25 days, MDA has kept the public comment period open for 43 days to allow more time for input. He will continue to work with MDA, DMR and DEQ as they move forward in finalizing these rules and regulations.”

Bounds said that “while Alabama is not a paragon, there is wide recognition that they have been fairly environmentally sensitive … They did their homework before they allowed it. MDA has not done its homework.”

Bounds said Alabama, while allowing drilling in some areas, has protected its tourist areas from drilling with a 15-mile “viewshed buffer” and other measures and that the state has strict rules against pollution from rigs and related industry.

Louis Skrmetta, a coalition member and owner of Ship Island Excursions, said the barrier islands draw thousands of tourists a year because of their pristine beaches and scenic views.

“The Gulf Islands is one of the few things Mississippi has to compete with West Florida and Gulf Shores,” Skrmetta said.

The casino operators recommended MDA include in its leasing- and seismic-testing rules language from a 2004 offshore oil and gas law that prohibits activity in most of the near-shore waters of the Mississippi Sound.

Many environmentalists and some coastal business leaders still oppose any offshore exploration or drilling and have said even after most of the Sound was put off limits, the barrier islands and other areas could still be harmed.

Casino operators and some other business leaders reigned in their protest when the 2004 law was written to secure protection for most near-shore water. Only two areas, on the Alabama and Louisiana lines, would allow exploration and drilling nearshore.

Opponents have said the Legislature could easily come back later and open water inside the Sound to drilling, and the Alabama-line area is near fragile habitat.

“I don’t think a high priority has been place on enforcement to date, and they don’t have the infrastructure in state agencies for enforcement,” said Robert Wiygul, an environmental attorney working with the coalition.

The 12 Miles group said MDA has placed no restriction on rig size, aesthetics “or shown in any way the attention to detail shown by Alabama in protecting its waters and tourism” and that no budget has been provided for enforcement and environmental monitoring or protection.

MDA has said offshore drilling and exploration will not harm the environment or tourism. They say the state has an estimated 350 billion cubic feet of natural gas offshore and stands to receive $250 million to $500 million over however many years it takes to pump it out.

Information from: The Sun Herald, http://www.sunherald.com

http://www2.wsls.com/entertainment/2012/feb/15/drilling-opponents-say-miss-should-slow-down-ar-1690993/

By Jeff Lawson

Video Gallery

85% of people at public meetings oppose gas drilling

BILOXI, MS (WLOX) –
It would appear a lot of people want don’t want oil and gas drilling rigs in state waters.

This week, the Mississippi Development Authority released the results of several public meetings held on the proposal. An estimated 85 percent of those comments are in opposition.

The MDA released the results after receiving a public records request from the 12 Miles South Coalition.

“If you put this to a popular vote out there, it would go down in flames,” Robert Wiygul said.

Wiygul, an Ocean Springs attorney, represents the local Sierra Club. Wiygul maintains the MDA is rushing through this process.

To prove his point, Wygal points out that the MDA denied repeated requests for an extension on the public comment period.

“There have been requests from citizens, requests from the National Park Service, requests from the Attorney General’s office to extend the comment period,” Wiygul said.

Wygal also said MDA did not even notify the National Park Service of the public comment period. Instead, MDA mistakenly told the Fish and Wildlife Service about the meetings.

Wygal contends what MDA is doing here is terribly wrong.

“The simplest explanation is that somebody wants to get out there and start working.”

But when pressed as to who that ‘somebody’ might be, Wiygul said that at this point, he really has no idea.

He also pointed to the Deepwater Horizon accident, as proof of what can happen when the proper safeguards are not in place.

He also said there is a possibility that the Sierra Club could take some type of legal action against the MDA.

Our attempts to reach MDA for any comment on this story, were not successful.

Copyright 2012 WLOX. All rights reserved.

http://www.wlox.com/story/16911631/sierra-club

NEW ORLEANS (CN) – U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ruled Friday that Transocean cannot sue the U.S. government for fault in the Deepwater Horizon blowout, as Uncle Sam has sovereign immunity.

During a status conference before the oral arguments, BP attorney Andrew Langan said the Department of Justice supports a continuing Gulf Coast Claims Facility and that “there are things in place to make that happen.”

BP set up the Gulf Coast Claims Facility last year under its obligation as responsible party for the April 20, 2010 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, which killed 11 and dumped millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, in the worst spill in U.S. history.

Under pressure from the Obama Administration, BP set aside $20 billion to pay claims of Gulf Coast residents.

Ideally, the GCCF would satisfy the claims of out-of-work commercial fishermen, restaurant and business owners and others hurt by the spill, so that litigation could be avoided.

But the GCCF has faced criticism from residents and lawmakers, who say it is too slow to pay claims, and sometimes assesses and pays claims unfairly.

More than 530 oil spill complaints have been filed in Federal Court, representing more than 109,000 plaintiffs.

Langan said there is a push to “enhance transparency” of the GCCF.

The U.S. Senate in October approved an independent audit of the GCCF. The audit, to be done this year, comes as several claims sites are closing for good.

Several GCCF claims sites closed on Nov. 15, or will close on Dec. 1. Of those, a handful will be open one day a week and by appointment, according to the GCCF website.

The claims center in Gulf Shores, Ala; three sites in Florida; two sites in Louisiana, and one site in Biloxi, Miss. will remain open during regular hours after Dec. 1.

During oral arguments after Friday’s status conference, Judge Barbier blocked Transocean from suing the U.S. government for fault in the blowout.
“The United States has sovereign immunity here,” Barbier said.
He went on: “There will be no alleged fault of the United States in this trial.”
If evidentiary issues come up, he said, “We’ll deal with those as they come.”

Also addressed in oral argument were terms of BP contracts with Vessels of Opportunity (VoO) participants who chartered their boats to BP to work in the cleanup.

Several thousand VoO participants have sued BP, saying BP kept them and their boats on standby, in some instances for several months, but failed to pay their wages or for the charters. Many say BP promised to decontaminate their boats after the work was done, but failed to do so.

During oral argument, Barbier asked for clarification of the contracts the VoO plaintiffs signed and what they expected from BP in return.

Plaintiffs’ attorney Clay Garside told the judge; “What we disagree with was BP’s attempt to restrict the terms of the charter hire. … We are contending that everyone that BP put on hire – BP used response terms, ‘put to hire,’ etc. – now BP is trying to restrict the pay to when the vessel was actually out on the water.”

Six test plaintiffs have been chosen for test trials that will begin in January 2012.

There are 63 working days left before the Transocean limitation trial opens, Feb. 27.

The next status conference is set for Dec. 16.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/11/21/41600.htm

NEW ORLEANS – Each day, a team of 70 lawyers gathers in a New Orleans office suite to pore over a mountain of documents, study depositions and formulate argument.

The attorneys, representing condominium owners, oyster fishermen, hoteliers, beach towns and others who claim to have been hurt by last year’s BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, are gearing up for one of the biggest legal showdowns in U.S. history.

More than 120,000 claimants have signed on to the federal lawsuit against BP and other energy firms, claiming financial and personal loss after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion. The explosion on April 20, 2010, killed 11 workers and gushed more than 155 million gallons of crude into the Gulf, making it the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

The legal proceedings, which begin in February, are expected to eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

“There hasn’t been a case quite as immediately large and as complex with so many moving parts,” says James Roy, a Lafayette, La., attorney and one of the lead plaintiff attorneys.

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, the New Orleans federal judge overseeing the case, has set Feb. 27 as the date of the first issue to be tried: Who was most responsible for the explosion aboard the rig? BP, which leased the rig, will be a defendant along with Transocean, the rig’s owner; Halliburton, responsible for the casing cement; and other companies.

The number of claimants joining the lawsuit is nearly as many as those who have chosen to take final claims payments through a $20 billion compensation fund set up by BP.

Last Monday, more than 150 protesters marched in front of the Washington offices of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, which is distributing the fund, calling on the group to pay all outstanding claims.

Many claimants applied for a payout rather than risk a drawn-out legal battle. Despite early concerns that lawyers for BP and other companies would drag out litigation for years, legal action for the spill is speeding through courts at an unprecedented pace, Roy says.

“This case is moving like a rocket ship,” he says. “It’s hard to imagine anything anyone can do to upset that trial date.”

At the February trial, Barbier will hear expert witnesses to determine the varying degrees of fault, Roy says. Other trials will follow, including ones to determine the environmental impact of the spill and how much companies should pay in damages.

BP officials so far have shouldered much of the blame for the spill but have repeatedly pointed to others’ involvement in the disaster. In a statement, BP said, “We are preparing to try the case scheduled to begin in February, where we will present evidence, consistent with all official investigations, that the Deepwater Horizon accident was the result of multiple causes, involving multiple parties.”

Transocean hopes to show that BP is responsible. Lou Colasuonno, a spokesman, calls the upcoming trial the “mother of all litigation” but says officials at the company are comfortable with their legal position. Halliburton declined to comment for this article.

A key question Barbier faces is whether any of the companies were “grossly negligent,” a label that could expose the companies to tens of billions of dollars in damages, says Blaine LeCesne, an associate professor at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law. Damages could potentially eclipse last decade’s massive tobacco settlements, which totaled more than $200 billion, LeCesne says.

“It’s not about whether BP is negligent. They know they’re negligent,” LeCesne says. “They’re desperately trying to avoid that ‘gross negligence’ label.”

The case is so big and includes so many parties that Barbier appointed an executive committee — led by Roy and New Orleans attorney Stephen Herman — and a steering committee of 15 lawyers to coordinate the plaintiffs’ efforts. Those attorneys, along with another 200 across the Gulf Coast, have amassed more than 226 depositions, 70 expert reports and 25 million pages of documents, he says. The more than 400 lawsuits filed against the companies after the spill have been merged into one “master suit,” Herman says.

The proceedings are moving much more quickly than those after the Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska in 1989, LeCesne says.

That legal wrangling stretched for nearly a decade and ended in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling slashing damages against the oil giant from $2.5 billion to $500 million, he says.

The trials also could set an important precedent for how companies compensate victims in future spills, says Robert Wiygul, a Mississippi environmental attorney representing about 1,000 claimants in the proceedings. “In 10 or 15 years, we’re going to look back at this and say, ‘Did this really work? Did we compensate people fairly?’ ” he says. “This is a real-life laboratory.”

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/story/2011-11-11/bp-lawsuits/51187214/1

The administrator of the $20 billion fund set up by BP to compensate individuals and businesses hurt by last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill said Thursday new rules are being formulated to make payouts more generous for hard-hit shrimpers.

Washington attorney Kenneth Feinberg told a House Committee on Natural Resources hearing he hopes to announce the rules within two weeks.

He agreed with concerns from shrimpers that the length and extent of damage they have suffered because of the April 2010 disaster has been more significant than first thought.

“I think we’ve got to do better for the shrimpers,” Feinberg said.

Hearing the news, Coast attorney Robert Wiygul recalled Feinberg’s comments for more than a year about how generous his formula was for fishermen, how they could either accept those payments or fight for an eternity in court.

Many did accept final or “quick” payments, signing away their rights to file lawsuits.

“Now he’s saying, ‘My bad,’” said Wiygul, who represents residents with claims and serves on the legal panel embroiled in multi-jurisdictional litigation over the catastrophe.

He believes Feinberg’s claims process has been geared toward getting shrimpers and other claimants to accept offers before they knew the extent of the harm they would suffer.

Feinberg remains under fire for the slow pace of payments and for denying many claims. Eighteen months after the spill, the fund has paid $5.5 billion to 213,408 claimants. More than 300,000 other claimants have been denied compensation. Feinberg agreed in July to a Justice Department audit. He said at the hearing the audit hasn’t started. A Justice spokesman said the agency is receiving input from officials along the Gulf and the audit is expected to start before the end of the year.

The committee chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said despite assurances from the White House following the oil spill that BP would be held fully accountable, “that does not appear to be the case.”

He said the number of people paid to date, considering how many have applied for money, is “simply unacceptable.”

Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the committee and a frequent critic of BP, offered support for BP’s efforts with regard to compensating victims through the fund.

“Here I believe the company did the right thing,” Markey said. He said “the fund kept families and businesses afloat.”

An Associated Press review published in February that included interviews with legal experts, government officials and more than 300 Gulf residents found a process beset by red tape and delay, and at the center of it all a fund administrator whose ties to BP have raised questions about his independence.

Critics say little has improved since then, and in some cases has gotten worse.

Many observers worry a big chunk of the $20 billion will be returned to BP when the Gulf Coast Claims Facility ceases making payouts, which is currently scheduled for August 2013. At one point, Feinberg told reporters that he expected half of the fund to be sufficient to compensate all victims. He took considerable heat for making that prediction, and he has declined to speculate on the issue in the months since then.

“The $20 billion was supposed to be the floor, not the ceiling,” Rep. Steven Palazzo, R-Miss., told Feinberg at Thursday’s hearing.

Eleven rig workers were killed when the Deepwater Horizon exploded roughly 50 miles off Louisiana while the crew was working to temporarily abandon an undersea well drilled by oil giant BP PLC.

According to government estimates, some 206 million gallons of oil spewed from BP’s Macondo well, making it the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. BP owned the well and was leasing the rig from Transocean Ltd.

New, deeper well OK’d

BP is preparing to drill a new well in 6,000 feet of water in the Gulf — deeper than at Macondo — 246 miles south of Lafayette, La., after receiving the go-ahead Wednesday from the U.S. government. It’s the first such permit BP has received since the oil spill.

The semi-submersible drilling rig West Sirius, owned by Norwegian offshore drilling firm Seadrill Ltd., is already at the site. BP said it will start drilling “as soon as operationally possible.”

Staff writer Anita Lee, contributed to this report.

http://www.sunherald.com/2011/10/27/3537204/feinberg-shrimpers-pain-continues.html

People who participated in BP’s Vessels of Opportunity program can now pursue claims for damage to their boats and possibly other grievances, even if they settled claims for economic losses from the oil spill with the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, according to a letter from BP. But, BP, leaseholder of the ill-fated Macondo well, also says in the letter that it reserves the right to deduct any wages that boat owners earned in the Vessels of Opportunity program from any ultimate settlements.

“The GCCF has overcompensated claimants who participated in the VoO (Vessels of Opportunity) program,” the Sept. 21 letter from BP attorney Dan Cantor to GCCF deputy administrator Jackie Zins reads. “BP reserves…the right to account…for VoO compensation that should have been but was not offset from GCCF awards.”

Steve Herman, co-lead plaintiffs attorney in the litigation over the April 2010 well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, said in an e-mail that VoO program participants have not been overcompensated, and called the letter “a classic bait and switch” by BP.

“They went out, risked their lives and exposed their boats to oil and dispersants to help BP clean up its mess,” Herman said. “In addition, they — like other fishermen who didn’t participate in the VoO program — suffered, and continue to suffer losses from not being able to shrimp and fish.”

The question of whether or not boat owners should have their compensation from oil clean-up work deducted from any economic loss or damage settlements has been hotly contested. On one hand is the principle, reflected in the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, that workers harmed by a spill have a duty to mitigate their economic injury, meaning that if someone can reduce their economic pain by finding other work, they should. On the other hand, deducting wages for oil clean-up work would mean that displaced fishermen helped BP clean up its mess for free, and that they would be treated the same as someone who took the summer off and didn’t work at all.

In the initial weeks after the spill, BP was deducting wages earned in the oil clean-up program from payments made to commercial fishery workers who were unable to fish, catch shrimp or harvest oysters. When one of Herman’s law partners raised concerns about the practice to BP in a May 2010 letter, BP attorney A.T. Chenault responded, “Lastly, we confirm that BP will not offset payments to vessel owners or other volunteers against claims they might have.”

Herman says that statement is a pledge from BP that it won’t deduct wages earned in the VoO program from ultimate settlements, and that BP reneged on that promise in the Sept. 21 letter.

BP counters that it has been consistent in its position that wages that displaced fishers earned in cleaning up oil in summer 2010 must be deducted from any ultimate settlements, as spelled out in the Oil Pollution Act. The company wrote to Herman in August 2010, dismissing the May letter as unclear. BP said that it regretted “any miscommunication,” and that any VoO wages could be deducted from ultimate settlements.

In other correspondence with the GCCF in 2010 and 2011, BP has restated that it believes the claims facility is overpaying people. “To date, the GCCF has not offset from its damages payments amounts earned by claimants from participating in the oil spill response through the Vessels of Opportunity program. OPA requires that VoO earnings are offset from GCCF damages payments,” BP says in comments filed with the GCCF in July 2011 about its claims process.

Big money is riding on whether or not VoO compensation is ultimately deducted from settlements: BP has paid about $600 million in wages through the VoO program.

Spokesman Scott Dean said the company’s position is clear. “From the outset, BP has been committed to paying all legitimate claims. Legitimate claims do not include claims in excess of actual losses or claims seeking double recovery. Our counsel’s letter, which responds to a question posed by several plaintiffs’ lawyers, simply reiterates this basic position. If a claimant who received an overpayment from the GCCF subsequently makes a claim to BP for additional VoO compensation, BP is reserving the right to take into account and offset the GCCF’s overpayment. This is the law, and it is fair and equitable,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Gulf Coast Claims Facility said it will continue compensating claimants without deducting wages earned in the Vessels of Opportunity program. “We are not deducting it. BP is reserving their rights to deduct it when someone makes a property claim or a contract claim to them. What BP does is completely distinct from our program,” Zins said. “This letter has no impact on our methodology.”

As such, the parties seem to be on a collision course over the issue. But it could get resolved through six test cases of disputes arising from the Vessels of Opportunity program. Attorneys selected six participants in the Vessels of Opportunity program who represent the various issues at stake, and U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier has allowed for limited discovery and depositions and then mediation to find solutions to any problems with the program.

If that fails, plaintiffs in the consolidated litigation over the oil spill have filed a motion for summary judgment over the issue.

For anyone who has settled an economic loss claim with the GCCF, but now wants to pursue a claim over boat damage or other issues from the Vessels of Opportunity program, they must first go to the GCCF. If they are not satisfied with the outcome and want to go to court, the court may come up with a simple form allowing people for file their grievances.

BP’s stance that legal releases signed as part of GCCF compensation won’t preclude claims for boat damage and other grievances from the Vessels of Opportunity program could have other implications as well. Plaintiff attorney Joel Waltzer has long questioned how waivers that were signed before problems with the Vessels program had become apparent could be binding. Now that BP says it won’t enforce releases on Vessels of Opportunity, Waltzer believes it could open the door for attorneys to press for additional relief on fishing for subsistence, property damage and other types of claims.

Rebecca Mowbray can be reached at rmowbray@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3417.

This morning I set out on a long flight to investigate reports of oil sightings near BP’s Macondo well, the site where the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank into the Gulf killing 11 workers and spewing at least 4.9 million barrels of oil. Whenever I here reports like this I tend to get antsy and want to fly out to see for myself so I can document and report back. So, thanks to the generous support of Lamar Billups, I was lucky enough to fly again with Bonny Schumaker of the nonprofit On Wings of Care and GRN’s Canvass Director, Tarik Zawia. You can read Bonny’s report from the flyover here. It was a long and productive flight so there are lots of things that I could write about. Nevertheless, I will cut to the chase and just highlight the most important things.

First, we spotted oil on the surface above the exact location where the Deepwater Horizon and Macondo well are located, in Mississippi Canyon Block 252. Take a look at the captions in the photos for coordinates. Obviously, from the air I cannot confirm that the oil is BP’s and from their Macondo well. I can only report that I spotted oil above that location. I reported this to the National Response Center and had a lengthy conversation with a Coast Guard official. Notice that the oil seems to be clustered in round formations. I have no idea why or how this could happen and neither could the USGC official. I can only speculate. The formations are clearly rainbow in color and in some cases have also a brownish tint. Take a look:

Second, we spotted an oil slick near the Taylor energy leak that has been leaking since 2004. The last time I visited this site was in the spring (with Bonny) and there were no boats or rigs nearby. I posted a blog about the leak then, but if you missed it please have a look here. I also filed a report with the National Response Center and filed a Freedom of Information Act Request with the Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement seeking any and all information on the leak, particularly what was being done to stop it and enforce the Clean Water Act fines and penalties that should be levied. Today there was, once again, activity at the location. Go figure. It looks as if there is a submersible deployed from the vessel just above where the leak is emanating from.

Third, we spotted two or three leaks in and around Breton Sound. I say maybe two or three because two of the leaks may be connected. With at least two of the leaks there are clear sources of the oil. Again, check the photo captions for coordinates.

Finally, the best news of the day was that we spotted 4 Whale Sharks and three Sperm Whales! It was nice to see something spectacular and happy. We also saw Bottlenose dolphins, Hammerhead sharks, sting rays and lots of schools of fish! By far, that was the highlight of the day.

I have a feeling this is not the last we will be hearing about what all was documented today and I am sure lots of questions will be coming my way once this blog gets posted and reposted (please share!). In the meantime, take a moment to help protect the Gulf and those amazing creatures we spotted today by taking action on our action page, Bpdrillingdisaster.org. If anything, today’s multiple oil sightings just screams for the need for a Regional Citizens’ Advisory Council to watchdog what is going on out there.

Jonathan Henderson is the Coastal Resiliency Organizer for GRN.

Today we flew about 500 miles over the Gulf to check out yet more reports of oil. We didn’t even get to some of the places reported, because in just a few hours we had already found plenty in at least four distinct locations — all within 75 miles of the shores of Louisiana!

Our plan for today was to check out three areas:

1. Breton Island, where last May we documented many subsurface dark reddish brown plumes surrounding the island rookery and spanning many miles north and south (see stories here).

2 The site of the defunct Ocean Saratoga platform owned by Taylor Energy, whose leak and extensive surface oil slick we documented this past July (see story here).

3. The site of the Deepwater Horizon (DH) explosion in April 2010, where fresh oil has been reported to be present still.

We’ve included a few photos in the descriptions of each significant sighting below; see the galleries below the article for many more photos and videos taken today by our friends from Gulf Restoration Network (Jonathan Henderson and Tarik Zawia).

[Note: To see exactly where this flight took us and look at the waypoints we marked, download the free program called "Base Camp" from Garmin (here). We'll provide a link very soon for you to download our GPS track file for today. (In the meantime just email us at info@OnWingsOfCare.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and we'll send you the file!). You'll instantly see our entire flight tracksuperposed on a detailed map, and all waypoints we entered for points of interest will be marked. When you select them, you'll be given information such as date and time and any photos we might post with each waypoint. ]

As we headed toward Breton Island, just about at the point where the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (“MR-GO”) meets the Gulf (waypoint “9113″ in the BaseCamp file — lat/longs 29°44.35′N, -089°28.9′ W), we began to see vast sheets of those dark reddish brown subsurface plumes and streamers again. They extended to and beyond Breton Island (roughly lat/long 29°30′N, -088°10′W), and they reached right up to the coastlines. We would love to hear from experts out there who could improve on our naive speculations about whether this was algae, part of a dead zone, a mix of Mississippi river sediment, or whether it could be related to subsurface oil leaks. We saw little or no sheen with it, nor did the coastal vegetation look burned. (If you have ideas, please email us at info@OnWingsOfCare.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ! We always welcome comments, questions, and edification!) Here are a few photos; see the galleries below for more.

Next we headed toward the Taylor Energy (Ocean Saratoga)site (roughly 29°’N, -089°W, waypoint 9110). Not far from there we saw four buoys and a large vessel with platform for a submersible, and trailing for about a half-mile behind that vessel but not obviously coming from it was a line of strange-looking oily spherical globules. Later we would see much more of this strange-looking oily stuff near the DH site.

Heading toward the DH site (9111), we came across an interesting vessel knows as “Helix”, and noted that their submerged equipment must have been about as deep as they could put it, for their cable was run out to the max. If you look at our gps map, the waypoint position for the “Helix” was number 9114 in the screen shot of our gps map below. (The gps file will tell you that the photo was taken from about 600′ above the water at lat/longs 28° 42.160′ N, -088° 35.994′W.)

We decided to explore farther east, in part because there were more platforms in that directions with smaller vessels (presumably supply boats) around them. We wanted to see if those “40 shrimp boats” rumored to have been out there earlier this week might still be there!

We saw no shrimp boats, but we did begin to see bait balls jumping with tuna. I told my passengers that last year around this time, we used to find whale sharks at the center of those bait balls…. so of course we had to check some of them out. BINGO! Within ten minutes we had found four whale sharks, one in each active bait ball we explored! These sightings correspond to waypoints 9118 (two whale sharks in close proximity — but still in distinct bait balls), 9119, and 9120. If you don’t have our BaseCamp file with these points yet, the lat/longs for the whale sharks were all very close to 28°45′N, -088°10′W.

Continuing northwestward, roughly back toward New Orleans, we spied a lone sperm whale (waypoint 9121 — 28°53′N, -088°22.5′W), and nearby a leatherback turtle! Soon after we came across a pair of sperm whales — looked like a mom and teenager (waypoint 9122 — 28°54′N, -088°22.7′W)!

Oh this was getting to be really fun (way more fun that seeing oil where there should be blue water).

Farther north, as blue water faded to green, we began to see dense arrays of oil platforms. And soon after that we saw a barge pulling large pipes (for dredging? or perhaps oil pipeline?) and another towboat nearby pulling what looked to be the top of an offshore drilling platform (9123 — 29°07′N, -088°38′W).
Then came the oil sheen… ugh (9124 — 29°13′N, -088°38.47′W). This sheen extended at least a mile north-to-south — but there were no rigs or platforms nearby. Was this a leaking pipeline? And then, within a mile to the north and northeast, there were one, two, ….. EIGHT shrimp boats in the near vicinity, all with their nets down! We wondered if they knew that all this oil was floating so close to them.
We continued homeward toward New Orleans, observed another surface sheen, about 2 miles long (northeast to southwest; waypoint 9125 — 29°32.6′N, -089°07.8′W). Nearby there was a platform with a jack-up barge next to it. And just to the northeast of that (waypoint 9126 — 29°34.4′N, -089°07.05′W) we saw some very serious surface rainbow sheen, at least two miles long and joining the previous one. The platform was labeled “BSBLK21″. Not only was the facility leaking badly, they must have known they were having some problem with gases, because a short distance away they were burning their flare. We later reported this and the two other leaking sites to the NRC.
We also saw many schools of redfish scattered to the southwest of this area, and a large school of cownose rays northwest of here, sitting along a very distinct convergence line

To summarize: We found significant amounts of oil in globule form still at the Deepwater Horizon (DH) site and at the Taylor Energy site, and we saw miles-long surface rainbow sheens from two different leaking platforms between DH and the Chandeleur Islands. Eight shrimp boats with their nets in the water were within one mile of these two leaking platforms. In the ‘blue waters’ out toward the DH site we were puzzled by some long, wide, unnatural-looking dark-green colored stripes. Finally, dark brownish-red subsurface plumes like what we had previously documented around Breton Island (Mar 2011) spanned miles in width and length, right up to the coastlines, beginning where the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (“MR-GO”) meets the Gulf south to Breton Sound. With all of that, we were ecstatic also to see three sperm whales, one leatherback turtle, four whale sharks, tuna, redfish, bottlenose dolphin, and cownose rays.

Some things puzzle us: We have seen substantial oil almost every time we’ve flown in the Gulf since March of this year, and yet we hear about very little of it in the media. Is that because no one else has been flying over the Gulf to see what’s really going on? Is it just coincidence that all of these other offshore platforms have suddenly been leaking since the Deepwater Horizon (DH) explosion in April 2010? Or has the Gulf been suffering chronically from this kind of leakage? How much of the oil we’ve been seeing this year has anything to do with the DH explosion? A large fraction of the samples taken from these observed phenomena have contained oil whose ‘fingerprint’ matches that from the DH site. That doesn’t mean that everything we’re seeing comes from the DH incident; but it does seem safe to conclude that 1) oil from the DH explosion has made it quite a ways from the original site; and 2) there are many other oil leaks present in the Gulf!

We intend also to fly over a large semi-submersible oil platform located about 150 miles southeast of New Orleans. The “Thunder Horse PDQ” (Production Drilling facility with crew Quarters) is a joint venture between BP and ExxonMobil — the largest offshore installation of its kind in the world. BP has admitted that “a silvery oil sheen measuring 2 feet by 30 feet has been reported on the surface” there, and they have supposedly sent vessels to check it out. Stay tuned for our check on it soon!

Here are some videos of the two oil slicks we found on the way back from the DH site, and a few of the sperm whales. Following these are galleries of more of our favorite photos from those Jonathan Henderson of GRN took yesterday. If you want high-resolution (~8MB) versions of any of these, contact us and tell us the filenames and we’ll oblige asap.

Follow Our Flights!

You can track our paths for several days after them, when we keep our GPS “SPOT” transmitter on “Track” mode. For the latest flights, see
For our latest journeys see (Track our flights).

http://www.onwingsofcare.org/protection-a-preservation/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-2010/gulf-of-mexico-oil-spill-2011-spring/166-oil-gulf-flight-aug2011.html

The oil giant’s earnings have bounced back into the black with last quarter earnings after taxation of $5.62 billion. And taking the “you can’t make this stuff up” application to a whole new level of incredulity, ex-BP CEO Tony Hayward has taken a lucrative job with Houston-based commodities trader Glencore in charge of (get this) environment, health and safety. Who better qualified than the man that unleashed the worst environmental disaster in the history of the United States? I wonder how that reads on Mr. Hayward’s resumé.

With all the “good news” we’re hearing from BP and its partners, I thought it might be helpful to remind everybody of what reality looks like down here on the Gulf. Does anybody remember reality? It’s hard to recall sometimes because of the cacophony of rosy assessments and outright lies that fog the way, like so many barrels of oil.

This is truly startling footage – shot just last month by Louisiana charter boat captain, Allen Walker – particularly when it’s viewed against the backdrop of BP’s blusterings about a full Gulf recovery. If you think the oil is more or less gone and the Gulf is in the throes of a full recovery, this video will disabuse you of that notion.

The scene opens with Capt. Walker and members of his team in a small motor boat parked just off a beach in Bay Jimmy – which lies roughly 35 miles south of New Orleans in the northern reaches of the much larger Barataria Bay. In many ways it looks like footage from July 11, 2010 not 2011. The beach is completely black, soaked with oil, and according to Walker, it’s not only weathered oil but also what appears to be fresh oil coiling up on the beach with each wave (as you can see in the video).

Capt. Walker’s observations are in line with the theory, presented by myself and others, that the Macondo well site may still be leaking (see link to my previous post below). In May, members of my research team established a fingerprint match to BP’s Macondo Well from fresh oil washing ashore on Breton Island, approximately 40 miles due west of Bay Jimmy. We will report back with test results from the water and tar-ball samples Capt. Walker’s team took on this July 11 excursion.

The footage shows thick black tar mats the size of serving platters stuck to the beach, oyster beds choking under heavy sheen and tar, large swaths of dead mangroves and dozens of air cannons (used to scare wildlife away from heavily oiled areas) dotting the shoreline. You won’t see this on CNN or Fox News.

For part of the trip, Capt. Walker and his team were joined by a Grand Isle oysterman (who requested anonymity). “We went to an oyster lease with the owner,” Walker said. “After we lowered our prop, it only took a couple minutes before oil kicked up from the bottom covered the bay as far as we could see with heavy sheen. …By the end of it, the harvester sat down in the boat and cried.”

I spoke to Capt. Walker shortly after he shot this video, and he too was very emotional about what he saw. And I should note that this isn’t Walker’s first rodeo. He grew up on these waters and has seen many spills and slicks over the years. He is a life-long Gulf fisherman who has been patrolling these areas since last summer. “It’s ridiculous really, the beaches are stained totally black,” said Walker. “It looks, feels and smells like the spill happened yesterday out there not a year ago. The fumes still burn your eyes and throat, and it stinks like gasoline everywhere you go.”

Capt. Walker’s July 11 video is also disturbing in the lack of progress it reveals, showing that this area of Barataria Bay seems to be frozen in time. Here’s an April 13 report from the Times-Picayune of what Bay Jimmy looked like three months prior to Capt. Walker’s patrol:

In Bay Jimmy and along Pass a Loutre, where numerous cleanup workers are still working to remove matted oil from wetlands, air cannons and poles with strips of reflective foil are being used to scare away birds. But those efforts will have little success with many of the species returning to the state, she said.

On inspection trips to Bay Jimmy and other spots in Barataria Bay and along the coast, Audubon’s director of bird conservation for the Gulf, Melanie Driscoll, found several locations where marshes normally populated by birds in the spring remained heavily oiled.

One small marsh grass island that hosted nests of seaside sparrows and clapper rails last year has already disappeared into the Gulf as a result of the oil spill, Driscoll said. Elsewhere, Driscoll found both living and dead crustaceans along shorelines where birds were returning to nest.

“I watched fiddler crabs and hermit crabs dead on the oiled marsh, and watched live young crabs of both species scuttling through pools of oil,” she said. “These are the food for some of our declining birds, including clapper rails, seaside sparrows and Wilson’s plovers.”

In addition to the plight of Gulf seabirds and crabs, Capt. Walker points out that Bay Jimmy is “premium sea turtle nesting ground.” The fact that turtles are returning to this “heavily oiled” area, the place where they were born, to lay eggs was particularly hard for Walker to stomach. He’s been involved with sea turtle rescue for many years. As the video shows thick brown oil rolling up against the marsh and thick sheen floating on the surface, Capt. Walker reports: “Sea turtles nest like salmon, they go back to where they were originally born. And here they have oil-saturated marsh and air cannons as far as the eye can see. …It smells like gasoline all around here…”

So that’s what reality looks like. How can it be reconciled with BP’s claims of a miraculous recovery?

Capt. Walker: “I’ve been fishing Bay Jimmy since I was a kid. But after seeing how much oil is still out there, I’ll never fish those waters again. And that’s a really sad reality.”

Read my previous post suggesting the Macondo well site may still be leaking: http://www.stuarthsmith.com/is-bps-macondo-well-site-still-leaking-fresh-oil-on-the-gulf-raises-concerns-and-haunting-memories

Read the full Times-Picayune report here: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2011/04/oil_from_bp_spill_remains_thre.html

© Smith Stag, LLC 2011 – All Rights Reserved

Time may be the most implacable enemy Louisiana faces in its struggle to save its eroding coastline, and that’s why the state cannot afford delays in critical restoration projects, like those aimed at the Caminada shoreline and Shell Island.

KARI DEQUINE / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE Through a collaboration of non-profits and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, 800 “Gulf Saver Bags” were deployed at Pass a Loutre to prevent erosion and mitigate oil damage.
Those projects, which were approved by Congress in 2007, could serve as a case study in how procrastination is killing Louisiana’s coast.

Plans call for restoring a sand dune along the Caminada shoreline south of Port Fourchon and piping in sand to rebuild Shell Island, a mostly vanished barrier island. Doing so would help suppress storm surge, protecting the Port Fourchon offshore oil service industry and interior wetlands.

Garret Graves, chairman of the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, said that the work should have been done “in months.” Instead, four years have elapsed, and now the price has gone up beyond what Congress authorized, leaving the possibility that only the sand dune will be built.

“This is the corps’ process, the corps’ attorneys, being incapable of responding to this urgent coastal crisis we have in Louisiana,” Mr. Graves said.

His frustration is understandable — the corps does need to develop a greater sense of urgency. Delays inevitably mean cost increases, and the state is continuing to lose coastal wetlands in the interim.

Congress authorized the Caminada and Shell Island projects as part of the $1.9 billion Louisiana coastal restoration program, but specified that the cost had to stay below $346 million.

The corps is recommending that Congress provide the funds for all the work, according to Fay Lachney, senior plan formulator with the corps. That’s encouraging. But the agency wants to move forward on the shoreline project while Congress considers whether to provide additional money for Shell Island.

That needs to happen — and quickly. Unfortunately, the corps is citing other obstacles to getting started, including pollution caused by the BP oil spill.

The corps says that it cannot acquire contaminated property. The Edward Wisner Donation Trust, which owns much of the land needed for the sand dune project, has been struggling to get BP to clean up oil since weeks after the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

“We’ve been told now that the removal is stagnant and that the Unified Command seems content to leave oil on the beach, against our will,” said Joe Waltzer, an attorney representing the trust.

BP shouldn’t be allowed to get away with leaving beaches contaminated — especially if doing so in any way jeopardizes vital coastal restoration work. Mr. Graves complained to Congress last week about the pace of cleanup efforts and the potential harm that it presents to a number of restoration projects.

Oil is in the Gulf and will likely wash up for years to come, Mr. Graves pointed out. “To say we can’t do restoration anywhere where there’s oil would mean we wouldn’t build restoration projects for years in coastal Louisiana — and that’s not an option.”

He’s right, and state and federal officials need to keep the pressure on BP to make it right.

http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2011/07/corps_of_engineers_delays_are.html