Suffering in the Gulf; BP's culpability

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In this Monday, June, 7, 2010 file picture, oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon spill floats on the water with clouds reflected in the sheen on Barataria Bay off the coast of Louisiana. An April 20, 2010 explosion at the offshore platform killed 11 men, and the subsequent leak released an estimated 172 million gallons of petroleum into the Gulf of Mexico. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)




NEW ORLEANS (AP) — BP PLC closed the book on the Justice Department's criminal probe of its role in the Deepwater Horizon disaster and Gulf oil spill Tuesday, when a federal judge agreed to let the London-based oil giant plead guilty to manslaughter charges for the deaths of 11 rig workers and pay a record $4 billion in penalties.
What the plea deal approved by U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance doesn't resolve, though, is the federal government's civil claims against BP. The company could pay billions more for environmental damage from its 2010 spill.


Vance noted that the company already has racked up more than $24 billion in spill-related expenses and has estimated it will pay a total of $42 billion to fully resolve its liability for the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.


The judge said the $4 billion criminal settlement is "just punishment" for BP, even though the company could have paid far more without going broke. In accepting the deal, Vance also cited the risk that a trial could result in a much lower fine for BP, one potentially capped by law at $8.2 million.
The criminal settlement calls for BP to pay nearly $1.3 billion in fines.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/29/bp-guilty-plea-gulf-oil-spill_n_2571785.html

 

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[h=1]seafood safe, but health effects being measured[/h] By Mark Schleifstein, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on January 22, 2013 at 6:13 PM, updated January 22, 2013 at 6:15 PM Print

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There continues to be no evidence that harmful levels of chemicals from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill are in seafood, but initial study results show that former spill cleanup workers are carrying biomarkers of many chemicals contained in the oil in their bodies, and women and children along Louisiana's coast are reporting health effects believed linked to oil.

Those were some of the public health findings discussed Tuesday during the second day of the three-day Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill & Ecosystem Science Conference, which is aimed at understanding the effects of pollution resulting from the spill and its effect on natural systems in the Gulf and along the shoreline, as well as on the people who live and work there.

View full size MICHAEL DeMOCKER / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE With oil rigs and pelicans behind them, workmen scoop globs of oil from the sand on the beach in Port Fourchon on Tuesday, June 1, 2010.
Several studies described Tuesday also indicate a significant percentage of coastal residents are reporting continued mental health problems related to the spill, ranging from anxiety and depression to post-traumatic stress syndrome.
The seafood safety issue has remained a bone of contention for some fishermen and coastal residents who have reported finding either deformed fish or evidence of hydrocarbons in shrimp or oysters.

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2013/01/bp_deepwater_horizon_spill_sci.html

 

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[h=4]National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration[/h] [h=4] Sea turtles discovered bathed in oil after the BP spill were some of the pictures taken by the federal government.
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New photos released Monday offer a vivid view of the damage wrought on marine life in the Gulf of Mexico following the colossal BP oil spill two years ago.
The images, provided by the federal government to Greenpeace, include sea turtles covered in brown sludge and sperm whales navigating through an oil slick.
The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in April 2010 resulted in nearly 5 million barrels of oil pouring into waters off the Gulf Coast. The spill was finally capped after almost three months.
John Hocevar, Greenpeace’s director of ocean campaigns, said the photos paint a different picture of the spill — including garbage bags filled with dead sea turtles — rather than “rosy stories of rescued animals being released back into the wild.”

(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...-spill-photos-article-1.1074073#ixzz2JTTjxLri

 

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[h=1]Gulf Oil Spill: Coral Death 'Definitively' Linked To BP Spill[/h]

First Posted: 03/26/2012 4:01 pm Updated: 05/26/2012 5:12 am



NEW ORLEANS (AP) — After months of laboratory work, scientists say they can definitively finger oil from BP's blown-out well as the culprit for the slow death of a once brightly colored deep-sea coral community in the Gulf of Mexico that is now brown and dull.

In a study published Monday, scientists say meticulous chemical analysis of samples taken in late 2010 proves that oil from BP PLC's out-of-control Macondo well devastated corals living about 7 miles southwest of the well. The coral community is located over an area roughly the size of half a football field nearly a mile below the Gulf's surface.

The damaged corals were discovered in October 2010 by academic and government scientists, but it's taken until now for them to declare a definite link to the oil spill.
Most of the Gulf's bottom is muddy, but coral colonies that pop up every once in a while are vital oases for marine life in the chilly ocean depths. The injured and dying coral today has bare skeleton, loose tissue and is covered in heavy mucous and brown fluffy material, the paper said.

"It was like a graveyard of corals," said Erik Cordes, a biologist at Temple University who went down to the site in the Alvin research submarine.
So far, this has been the only deep-sea coral site found to be seriously damaged by the spill.

On April 20, 2010, the well blew out about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, leading to the death of 11 workers aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and the nation's largest offshore spill. More than 200 million gallons of oil were released.

"They figured (the coral damage) was the result of the spill, now we can say definitely it was connected to the spill," said Helen White, a chemical oceanographer with Haverford College and the lead researcher.

She said pinpointing the BP well as the source of the contamination required sampling sediment on the sea floor and figuring out what was oil from natural seeps in the Gulf and what was from the Macondo well. Finally, the researchers matched the oil found on the corals with oil that came out of the BP well.

Also, the researchers concluded that the damage was caused by the spill because an underwater plume of oil was tracked passing by the site in June 2010. The paper also noted that a decade of deep-sea coral research in the Gulf had not found coral dying in this manner. The coral was documented for the first time when researchers went looking for oil damage in 2010.
The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/26/gulf-oil-spill-coral-death_n_1380712.html