Gulf Coast Disaster - Friday, August 27

Day 130

Highlights in this issue:
- BP to begin work to remove cap on Monday
- Doomed rig had a good reputation
- Third BP employee refuses to testify
- Survey: Oil spill more traumatic than Katrina
- US reopens more fishing area
- Feinberg not winning support from state attorneys general

This afternoon’s summary:
It’s hard to miss all the hoopla surrounding the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina which comes this weekend. And it’s harder not to compare the devastation five years ago with what is happening today on the Gulf of Mexico. The latest poll finds that the oil spill is more traumatic than Katrina when it comes to the mental health of Gulf residents. And it’s harder to ignore that the Gulf coast, devastated five years ago by a hurricane, is today trying to climb out of another disaster. We’re almost at the end of this disaster or maybe it’s just the beginning of the next phase. But there are plenty of ‘next acts.’ For example, the Department of Justice and other federal investigators are overseeing the work to remove the blowout preventer. Keeping the blowout preventer intact is important because it is considered an essential piece of evidence in determining what caused the blast aboard the Deepwater Horizon. We may get the answer one of these days to what happened and why. The bigger question is how will the Gulf be repaired and will its citizens be made whole again with some monumental efforts like those which took place after Katrina?

Quotable Quote
“I’m certainly not going to give it my Good Housekeeping seal of approval,” said Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, a Democrat, about claims administrator Kenneth Feinberg’s work so far.


National News

AP: BP to begin work to remove cap on Monday
The federal government said it will start work Monday to remove the temporary cap that stopped oil from gushing out of BP PLC's blown-out Gulf well so that engineers can raise the failed blowout preventer from the seabed. It’s the start of the finale but there’s still plenty of work ahead.

Read more:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704147804575455472501393074.html?KEYWORDS=oil+spill


Los Angeles Times: Doomed rig had a good reputation
It’s hard to believe it now, but the Deepwater Horizon, which exploded April 20 in the Gulf of Mexico, was considered one of the most efficient and safest mobile floating rigs in the Transocean Ltd. fleet, according to testimony Thursday at a hearing on the causes of the April 20 explosion.

Read more:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/08/the-deepwater-horizon-which-exploded-april-20-in-the-gulf-of-mexico-was-considered-one-of-the-most-efficient-and-safest-mob.html


Washington Post: Third BP employee refuses to testify
It’s a daily game these days of who’s going to testify and who won’t before investigators in Houston probing into the details of the Gulf oil spill. On Friday, Mark Hafle, who was involved in some of the most heavily scrutinized decisions about the well, became the third BP employee to invoke his constitutional right not to answer questions from the panel.

Read more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/27/AR2010082702663.html


MSNBC: Survey: Oil spill more traumatic than Katrina
There’s only so much you can learn by surveys of the public. But this survey is a clear indication that the oil spill is having a massive impact on the Gulf coast. The vast oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been more traumatic than Hurricane Katrina for coastal residents, with 30 percent of those interviewed apparently suffering mild to serious psychological distress, according to a survey by a health care provider released Thursday.

Read more:
http://fieldnotes.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/07/29/4778272-survey-oil-spill-more-traumatic-than-katrina-for-gulf-residents


Bloomberg: Feinberg not winning support from state attorneys general
Kenneth Feinberg’s effort to pick among claims on BP Plc’s $20 billion fund for victims of its oil spill has attracted a group of self-described watchdogs: attorneys general from affected Gulf Coast states. Among their concerns: The attorneys general have said they are concerned Feinberg may reject claims for indirect damage from the spill, such as those from hotels that lost guests who feared beaches might become tarred by oil.

Read more:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-08-27/feinberg-challenged-by-state-attorneys-general-on-bp-claims.html


Business

ComputerWorld: MIT builds swimming, oil-eating robots
We were waiting for American know-how to kick in. And apparently it has - MIT researchers have used nanotechnology to develop a robot that can autonomously navigate across the surface of the ocean to clean up an oil spill. They call it “seaswarm” because the robots would be used in fleets. A prototype will be unveiled at a conference in Italy this weekend.

Read more from Sharon Gaudin
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9182138/MIT_builds_swimming_oil_eating_robots


Regional

Wall Street Journal: US reopens more fishing area
Is the crisis over? Well, the worst may be. And a good sign is that government is allowing commercial and recreational fishing in more federal waters that had been closed because of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Read more:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704147804575455472501393074.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories


AP: Changes in Gulf sea turtle nest rescue announced
It was the stuff of which Disney epics are made. The eggs of sea turtles - including Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles - were scooped up from nests in Louisiana and flown to Cape Canaveral where they were painstakingly nurtured in a NASA warehouse until the hatchlings could be launched off the Atlantic coast of Florida. Now, officials announced Thursday, they will let nature really take its course. The hatchlings are free to enter the Gulf wherever they happen to be. Remember, the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle is one of the few species on earth that has biology dating directly back to the dinosaurs.

Read more
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/26/1793832/clean-sea-holly-means-sea-turtle.html


Press-Registrer: Claims still trickling in
BP PLC has paid out $2.5 million to Alabama governments to satisfy claims for lost tax revenue and expenses related to the spill. The problem, coastal officials say, is that the payout amount represents only about 22 percent of the $11.3 million in claims that they’ve filed so far.

Read more:
http://blog.al.com/live/2010/08/bps_oil_spill_payments_to_alab.html


Editorial

Huffington Post: Did we learn any lessons from the oil spill?
Now that oil has stopped flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, it is time to consider the lessons that can be drawn from the Deepwater Horizon spill. We all like inexpensive gasoline, the latest shiny electronic gadgets and mortgages cheap enough to let us trade up to a larger house. But as we have seen this year, neither our economy nor our planet can sustain this demand, writes Aron Cramer

Read more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aron-cramer/preventing-the-next-oil-s_b_696495.html


Washington Post: The oil spill’s economic cleanup
Victims would be wise to discount some of the shriller rhetoric and look carefully at what Kenneth Feinberg is offering. His first priority is to serve victims' needs in a fair and reasonably expeditious process. It's not clear how many of his critics can say the same.

Read more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/26/AR2010082605752.html


Huffington Post: Sec. Seblius: The people of the Gulf are survivors
People in the Gulf are survivors. They're facing down this latest disaster with the same courage and determination they showed after Katrina. And we're going to make sure the health system can -- and does -- meet their needs for generations to come, HHS Secretary Sebalius writes in the Huffington Post.

Read more
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sec-kathleen-sebelius/strengthening-the-gulfs-h_1_b_697154.html

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