Wasted money, diverted attention

Sand Berms Captured Little Oil, Panel Finds Sand piles designed to block oil in the Gulf of Mexico from hitting the Louisiana coast captured a "minuscule" amount of petroleum at an "overwhelmingly expensive" cost, according to a government report. The report by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling also says that federal officials who coordinated the government's cleanup efforts in the Gulf approved the use of berms not because they believed they would succeed in trapping oil but in response to the pleas of Louisiana politicians, whose demands "overwhelmed" the government's scientific analysis.

• Complete Coverage: Gulf Oil Spill

Not our fault, theirs

Hallibuton, Replying to Report, Says BP Is to Blame in Gulf

I am the walrus

Various stories and columns bandy about the disaster recovery plans of oil companies reference to walruses, which have not existed in the Gulf of Mexico for 3 million years.

The Atlantic: companies' plans for a similar disaster were basically 'cookie cutter' copies of BP's spill plan, all prepared by the same group, the Response Group. The plans include an assessment of the impact of a possible spill on walruses (which don't live in the Gulf) and the phone number of an expert who died in 2005 (well before the plans were submitted). 'ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Shell are as unprepared as BP,' said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). 'The only technology you seem to be relying on is the Xerox machine,' echoed Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)."

Gail Collins: At the ritual Congressional lashing of C.E.O.’s this week, we learned that none of the major oil companies have any idea how to control a spill like this, and that their faux plans for handling one in the gulf were made up of boilerplate so undigested that several had sections on protecting walruses — mammals that have not been seen in the area since the Ice Age. “It’s unfortunate that walruses were included,” admitted Exxon Mobil’s chief.


ABC News (Australia):  ExxonMobil ridiculed for walrus oil spill plan. ExxonMobil in particular was ridiculed for including plans to deal with walruses - an animal whose range is confined to the Arctic - in its plans for a Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Obama Goes Small

Quick impression: the president went a good way toward reasserting that he is in charge and BP is trouble. The no-nonsense tone, martial imagery ("battle plan"), the three-part plan, the identification of a bad guy (BP's CEO) who is going to be dealt with sternly, who was scolded for "recklessness," and whose company will be paying for the cleanup and damage--not asked, but told to pay, evidently--all of this was good theatrics, and moderately reassuring. But the address struck me as notably defensive in places, such as when  the president tried to explain away why he so confidently, and rather arrogantly, proposed to expand offshore drilling while waving away concerns just three weeks before the explosion. Obama said he was "under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe," which seems like buck-passing to whatever experts were whispering in his ear. I'm all in favor of the moratorium on drilling, a national commission to understand the causes of this disaster, and the idea that we need to move toward developing sources of clean energy. But I thought Obama reached for some pretty cheap platitudes on the latter point. "Seizing the moment," invoking World War II vets and the moon landing are all well and good, but it rang pretty hollow to me. What stood out was that for all his praise of the House climate bill and talk about the "consequences of inaction" and so forth, not once did he utter the phrase, "It's time to put a price on carbon." And that suggests to me that this speech was primarily about containing the damage to his administration, and was not the pivot point in the energy debate that many people were hoping for.

Joshua Green in The Atlantic.

The president says he was assured? Goodness, me, even the president is covering his ass; but, he can't, he's in charge.

Ankle-deep oil

Mousse-like oil on beach at Alabama-Florida line

By MELISSA NELSON
Associated Press Writer

PENSACOLA, Fla. -- Emergency officials on the western Florida Panhandle went into battle mode late Wednesday as heavier oil washed on shore at the Alabama state line and threatened inland bayous and estuaries in both states. Escambia County officials said the substance was ankle deep Wednesday on the beach outside the landmark FloraBama Lounge, on the Florida side of the line on Perdido Key. Signs were posted Wednesday on Perdido Key warning people to stay out of the water, but the beaches there remain open.

County Commissioner Gene Valentino said booms that the county had placed along its inland estuaries and waterways were being locked into place late Tuesday and would be monitored overnight. "Through the weekend, significant portions of the plume will be pushed into the Panhandle," County Commissioner Gene Valentino said.

Coin-sized tar balls began washing up along the shoreline from Perdido Key through Pensacola Beach and the Gulf Islands Seashore National Park seven days ago. On Wednesday, thicker oil was first reported near the state line and health warnings were posted on six miles of Florida beaches. Valentino said the county would do everything to protect the beaches and inland waters and deal with reimbursement from the federal government and BP later. "We will be deploying all of our resources," he said.

Earlier Wednesday, Greg Hall had watched dolphins off Pensacola Beach as he took his daily walk. The lifelong resident of the area is monitoring the beach for county officials. He was among the spotters who reported the first tar balls Friday. "Those guys are too close to shore, I haven't seen them that close in before. The water is pretty shallow there," he said as watched the dolphins. Moments later, the dolphins turned toward deeper water. Hall was relieved. "I snorkel a lot and I know there is so much more to this," he said. "How does BP compensate for an entire ecosystem?"

Florida officials were angry at officials in Alabama for giving late word on the heavy oil breaching booms designed to protect inland waterways on that side of the state line. John Temperilli, a contractor with the Washington-based James Lee Witt Group for crisis management, said the Coast Guard failed to relay the message. "No one bothered to notify us when they first intercepted the oil coming through the pass. Perdido Pass is our back door," he said.

Spill Shows a Profit

After reading article by Curtis C. Ebbesmeyer by last week in Journal, I took out and have started reading his book, Flotsametrics and the floating world

Not a spill, a gusher

In the early 1990s, thousands of desperate Cuban balseros cast themselves adrift on rafts, tires and any other makeshift craft that could float. They shoved off even from the island's far shore, entrusting their lives to the powerful Loop Current that pushes north from the Yucatán, rounds Cuba, rushes through the Florida Straits, and spills into the Atlantic, seeding the Gulf Stream. Many drowned or perished from thirst. But others survived to wash up on Florida's east coast.

Now the Loop Current is in the news once again. Oil from the Deepwater Horizon gusher—please don't call it a "spill"—has begun trickling into the current, prompting anxious speculation as to how much will be swept up and where it will be borne. Only a small quantity of surface oil has been seen entering the current, but much more swirls below. Given the complex natures of both petroleum and marine waters, these underwater plumes will be extremely difficult to measure and track.

Language used belies prejudices and lack of information. To call what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico a spill is erroneous. A spill is to cause or allow (a liquid substance) to run or flow from a container.The Exxon Valdez disaster was a spill, for petroleum spilled out of the ship. This current disaster is not a spill.

Oil is far from a homogenous substance, even before it gets emulsified by waves, currents and sun. It's a complex mixture of liquids, gases and waxy solids that vary widely in weight and solubility. Ocean waters are likewise not uniform; they are made up of distinct water slabs differentiated by temperature and salinity, and propelled by wind and currents. When I first began using monitoring equipment—newly available in 1967—I tracked these water bodies-within-bodies and dubbed them "snarks" because of their elusiveness.

Expertise has not been brought to bear; BP has been allowed to run the show. More than a month ago an academic ascertained that much more than 5,000 barrells a day were gushing out into the Gulf; no one made much of that. Even the media let it go, too busy with finding the sensational.

Some eddies veer west, bouncing along the continental shelf at about three miles per day toward Texas. By late last month, according to mapping by Mitchell A. Roffer's highly regarded ocean forecasting service, this process had already begun: Tentacles of oil were extending west past the Loop Current. One eddy appears to have broken off and begun crawling to Texas. It may entrain escaping oil deep underwater for several months, relieving the Florida, Alabama and Mississippi coasts and the upper water column where most marine life lies.

Big guv'ment? Sure. Not then, but now.

In Criticizing Cleanup, Jindal Finds His Voice is the headline. And this is the picture the Journal runs with the story.

Getty Images - The governor's aggressive stance has helped ratchet up pressure on the federal government.

This is the same government Governor Jindal and other Republicans wanted out of their way so the states and the entrepreneurs they  championed could get things done. Yet once BP's gusher sent tens of thousands of barrels of petroleum toward the Louisiana shoreline, the Governor started calling for the same government to come to his state's aid.

Now, Mr. Jindal, an ardent conservative who attacked big government in his rebuttal speech, is demanding greater federal aid.

 That was then, this is now, and now is different. Now theorizing has given way to pragmatism.

Here comes the sludge

Now it is estimated that 5,000 barrels a day are pouring out of the well in the Gulf of Mexico, not that 1,000 previously quoted. This NASA image from its Aqua satellite using its Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer shows the Louisiana coast on Tuesday.

Drill, baby, drill?

Obama Betrays the Left Again

As if he owes them anything. He has to govern for all Americans. Lefties and righties just don't get it. Still.


Obama Betrays the Left Again. Eric Alterman. March 31, 2010 | 10:41pm

The left is raging about the president’s new plan to jump-start offshore drilling. Eric Alterman on why liberals just don’t get who they’re dealing with.

The first person quoted in John Broder’s New York Times story on President Obama’s decision, announced Wednesday, to start drilling for oil and gas, beginning in 2012, along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska was Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. His statement read: “Drilling our coasts will doing nothing to lower gas prices or create energy independence. It will only jeopardize beaches, marine life, and coastal tourist economies, all so the oil industry can make a short-term profit.” Actually, that the Sierra Club opposes offshore drilling is not exactly news. If the Sierra Club liked a plan to drill offshore for oil and gas, now that would be news!

Like his decision to double down on the war in Afghanistan, together with his embrace of nuclear power, Obama is reminding doctrinaire liberals and progressives that while he likes them just fine, and hopes they like him too, he is not one of them; not when it’s politically inconvenient anyway. Liberals were all set to paint Obama as “their Reagan.” But this is deeply misguided. Yes, deep down he’s a liberal, but an intensely pragmatic one. As David Remnick demonstrates in his masterful new biography, The Bridge, Obama is unlikely to hold on to deeply ideological views with a goal of reordering American politics from top to bottom. He prefers to take what’s on the table.

So if the Sierra Club is unhappy, that’s OK with Obama. So too the environmental group Oceana. (“We’re appalled that the president is unleashing a wholesale assault on the ocean”) or Environment America (“It makes no sense to threaten our beaches, wildlife, and tourism industry with spills and other drilling disasters when we’re about to unleash the real solutions to oil dependence—cleaner cars and cleaner fuels."). Let alone Greenpeace (“Is this President Obama's clean energy plan or Palin's drill baby drill campaign?").

Amazing how pissed off doctrinaire liberals such as these bozos and doctrinaire right-wingers sich as the WSK bozo Henninger bothare at the same President for the same thing. He must be doing something right (er, correct).

Much more interesting to Obama is a plan that splits Republicans and leaves them wondering what to do next. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), sensing a trap, wanted to know if “the administration [would] actually take concrete steps to finish the studies, approve the necessary permits, and open these areas for production?” His counterpart in the House, John Boehner (R-OH) was having none of it, and played to perfection the “Dr. No” role in which Obama undoubtedly sought to cast him.

"At the same time the White House makes today’s announcement,” Boehner complained, “the Environmental Protection Agency is plotting a new massive job-killer that the American people can’t afford: a cascade of new EPA regulations that will punish every American who dares to flip on a light switch, drive a car, or buy an American product. Americans simply don’t want this backdoor national energy tax that will drive up energy and manufacturing costs and destroy jobs in our states and local communities." (He forgot to mention the new Obama regulations on frogs, vermin, pestilence, and the death of Republicans’ first born.)

McConnell might be right. This could be a trap. As the Times explains, “the Interior Department will spend several years conducting geologic and environmental studies along the rest of the southern and central Atlantic seaboard. If a tract is deemed suitable for development, it is listed for sale in a competitive bidding system. The next lease sales—if any are authorized by the Interior Department—would not be held before 2012.” In the meantime, Senate Democrats can define the debate in a way that works best for them. Right now the administration’s “cap and trade plan,” inadequate and corporate friendly as it is, is deader than Jimmy Hoffa. If this jump-starts that bill by peeling off a few oil-and-gas sensitive conservative Democrats and possibly even a Republican or two (Lisa Murkowski looks like a maybe), then Obama might be able to create the conditions for a deal to revive it—particularly if Republicans start to grow nervous about their “No, No Nanette” electoral strategy going into the fall. (Obama has repeatedly said that lifting the ban would always be considered part of an overall energy and conservation strategy.) And if not, well, the permits are four years away and Obama and the Democrats can at least claim to have defanged the issue of rising gas prices going into November.

But if that’s the plan, then why pre-empt with a concession? Where’s the strategy of giving away something and getting nothing? With no hope of challenging Obama from the left, liberals are, once again, left with unenviable choice of trusting that Obama has figured out something they haven’t and has a plan for how to get it.

In other words, “Hope.”

Eric Alterman is a professor of English and journalism at Brooklyn College and a professor of journalism at CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He is the author, most recently, of Why We're Liberals: A Handbook for Restoring America's Important Ideals.