Louisiana officials backed off alarms they had sounded Monday about a Gulf of Mexico fish kill, saying that the kill was far smaller than they had reported and was the result of low oxygen levels unrelated to the BP oil spill.

A news release issued Monday by St. Bernard Parish had quoted Parish President Craig Taffaro saying, "By our estimates, there were thousands, and I'm talking about 5,000 to 15,000 dead fish." It also noted that a half-mile-long swirl of thick substance with several tar balls and a strong smell of diesel was discovered around Louisiana's Grassy Island.

However, Taffaro was also quoted as acknowledging that "we don't want to jump to any conclusions because we've had some oxygen issues by the Bayou La Loutre Dam from time to time."

In a follow-up news release Tuesday, the Parish announced: "Biologists from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries conducted a thorough investigation of a fish kill found in the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) over the weekend. They found low oxygen levels to blame and have confirmed the kill is a result of natural events and is not associated with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. 

"High nutrient content from the Mississippi River in combination with seasonal occurrences have been the cause of hypoxic conditions for years. Although essential in fertilizing the estuaries, in some cases the nutrient load is too great and hypoxic conditions arise. 

"Hypoxic events typically occur in late summer to fall and are also associated with processes that bring deep low-oxygen water to the surface. Fish need an oxygen level of at least three parts per million to survive.

Measurements taken by LDWF staff at various samples sites showed less than one part per million of oxygen at the bottom of the water. A "borderline" oxygen level of perhaps three parts per million was found at the top.

"The only large concentration of dead fish was noted in a bayou immediately adjacent to the MRGO. An estimated 500 fish were found in the area. The dead fish found appeared to be roughly five days old. Species observed included large red drum, sheepshead, hardhead catfish, spotted sea trout, croakers and stingray.

"Seasonal fish kills are normally found in much of southern Louisiana associated with low oxygen events.  LDWF biologists expect these to be common in areas such as marinas, dead-end canals, and other areas with poor circulation."

Ralph Portier, a Louisiana State University biologist, had expressed skepticism Monday that the kill could be spill-related, but added in an interview, "It goes to show how sensitive the [oil spill] issue is. You can imagine the angst of a lot of people in the seafood industry when they hear about a fish kill now."

-- Margot Roosevelt 

A Halliburton employee said he warned BP that its design to seal its oil well could fail -- a warning given to BP two days before the well surged out of control and the oil rig atop it erupted in flames.

The testimony, given in Houston on Tuesday at a joint Coast Guard and Interior Department hearing probing the cause of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, is the latest to show that some personnel were uneasy about the way the oil rig was operating in the days before the Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20.

On April 18, Jesse Gagliano, a Halliburton technical advisor, sent a document to BP warning that its design to use fewer centralizers, which keep a pipe centered in the bore hole, could result in a “SEVERE” gas flow problem. He said he also talked to BP employees about the risk.

A severe gas flow problem can happen when a cement seals are done imperfectly. Such a flaw in the cementing could allow a dangerous flow of natural gas to burst up from below the seafloor and into the belly of the rig.

The controversial BP plan to seal the well called for a cheaper, and -- according to experts -- less-safe design.

Specifically, Gagliano recommended that BP use 21 devices called “centralizers” in the well, a recommendation BP ignored. The company eventually used only six.

“My best engineering analysis would have been to run 21 centralizers,” Gagliano said.

Centralizers are doughnut-shaped sheaths that surround pipes and keep them from knocking into the side of the well’s outer wall. A properly centered pipe makes it easier to seal the well with a cement mixture, which should reduce the risk of a gas blowout.

Engineers widely agree that using more centralizers is safer than using fewer. But installing the devices takes time and money.

A BP drilling engineer, Brian Morel, wrote an e-mail April 15 defending the use of fewer centralizers, writing, “Hopefully, the pipe stays centralized due to gravity,” adding that “it’s too late to get any more product to the rig.”

Another e-mail, by BP drilling engineer Brett Cocales, four days before the explosion, expressed a note of caution about how more centralizers can be important. But he didn’t press the point.

“But, who cares, it’s done, end of story, will probably be fine,” Cocales wrote.

Gagliano said he received no response from BP regarding his April 18 warning. Under questioning, Gagliano testified that BP did not tell him about its decision to use fewer centralizers, and that he learned about it from Halliburton coworkers.

Gagliano stopped short of saying the decision to use fewer centralizers was “unsafe,” saying it only “increased risk.”

Gagliano said there is a way to verify if the cement job had any problems that could lead to dangerous formations of natural gas. That test, called a “cement bond log,” works with acoustics, like an ultrasound, to uncover defects in the cementing.

BP canceled that test, saving more than $100,000.

If that test showed problems in the cement seals, BP could have gone back and tried to fix the problem.

Federal investigator David Dykes questioned whether Gagliano’s 33-page report was clear enough in making its point about a gas-flow warning. The warning was on page 18 of the report, and there was no executive summary that underlined the important warning.

Some BP managers have testified they weren’t aware of the warning.

BP lawyer Richard Godfrey said that Halliburton, in its report after the cement corking was done, did not warn BP that the job was done improperly and caused any danger. He referred to a Halliburton e-mail that said, “We have completed the job and it went well.”

-- Rong-Gong Lin II in Houston

Another BP employee is refusing to testify in the investigation into the cause of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, invoking his Fifth Amendment right to not produce testimony that could incriminate him.

BP’s two top officials on the rig also have refused to testify, one also taking the Fifth and the other repeatedly invoking a medical excuse.

The latest refusal to testify came from Brian Morel, a BP drilling engineer. If he had testified, Morel probably would have been asked to explain an e-mail message he wrote in which he rejected a suggestion that experts believe would have resulted in a safer and more costly well design.

Such a design would have reduced the chance of a dangerous bubble of natural gas shooting up from underneath the seafloor to the rig’s belly and exploding, according to engineering experts.

Specifically, Morel rejected a suggestion from a contracting company, Halliburton, to place 21 devices called "centralizers" in the well bore, opting to use six.

Centralizers are doughnut-shaped sheaths that surround pipes and keep them from knocking into the side of the well’s outer wall. A properly centered pipe makes it easier to seal the well with a cement mixture, which should reduce the risk of a gas blowout.

Engineers widely agree that using more centralizers is safer than using fewer. But installing the devices takes time and money, and BP employees testified that such approaches are not always necessary.

In an e-mail, Morel defended the decision to use fewer centralizers, writing, "Hopefully, the pipe stays centralized due to gravity," adding that "it's too late to get any more product to the rig."

A lawyer for Morel told a joint U.S. Coast Guard and Interior Department panel in Houston on Tuesday that his client was invoking his right not to give testimony that would incriminate himself. The panel is investigating the cause of the worst offshore oil spill disaster in U.S. history.

-- Rong-Gong Lin II in Houston

Before the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, employees aboard the oil rig voiced “confusion” about the interpretation of a key safety test that could have led them to take different action and possibly avoid the disaster that killed 11 crew members and started the worst offshore oil spill in history, according to testimony Tuesday at a federal hearing in Houston.

Daun Winslow, a Transocean performance manager who was visiting the rig the day it exploded, testified that while he was touring the driller’s shack, a key control room aboard the rig, he saw BP well-site leaders and other key decision makers discussing a pressure test.

"It appeared that there was some confusion about some pressures or volumes circulated, or something along that line. And I heard the word negative test,” Winslow said.

Winslow said he suggested the tour group move along, saying, “it wasn’t a good environment to have a tour group there.”

The testimony demonstrated the confusion over a "negative pressure test," which is done to see if there are any dangerous bubbles of natural gas that might flow out of the well into the riser pipe leading to the rig.

An expert witness testified in July that the crew of the Deepwater Horizon did not conduct the negative pressure tests properly. If the test was done correctly and revealed that dangerous gas bubbles were lurking in the well, the crew might have taken different action to avoid disaster.

Instead, BP continued with a procedure that left open avenues that could allow bubbles to flow up the well into the belly of the rig, where it exploded.

Winslow later changed his testimony, saying, “I didn’t hear any confusion.”

The testimony was heard in Houston at a joint hearing Tuesday of the U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Interior, which is investigating the cause of the worst oil spill disaster in history.

-- Rong-Gong Lin II in Houston
 

Is it a good idea to have a captain of an oil rig who has no say in decisions that could jeopardize the safety of his crew?

That's one key question a lead federal investigator has for Transocean, the owner and operator of the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon, whose destruction caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

At a federal hearing Tuesday in Houston, investigator Hung Nguyen, a U.S. Coast Guard captain, illustrated how no single person seemed to be in charge and aware of all risks on the oil rig.

BP was a decision-maker on the much-criticized oil well design that experts have said was flawed and dangerous, and the company skipped a number of safety procedures that could have detected or prevented a dangerous flow of flammable gas from below the seafloor onto the rig, causing disaster.

Transocean, meanwhile, was in charge of running the floating, mobile oil rig. In addition to questioning the rig's history of poor maintenance, investigators have questioned many of the captain's actions and qualifications. Testimony has shown that the captain was kept out of the loop on key decisions, which were decided either by another Transocean manager or BP officials in charge of drilling and sealing the well.

Pointed questions by Nguyen illustrated his skepticism that the rig's captain failed to have "overriding authority and the responsibility to make decisions with respect to safety," as required by the global code on maritime safety, the International Safety Management Code.

Nguyen also raised questions on the judgment and qualifications of Deepwater Horizon Capt. Curt Kuchta. Kuchta did not complain to Daun Winslow, a senior Transocean division manager, about lacking enough staff to work on overdue maintenance jobs despite a BP audit showing major problems, according to testimony Tuesday.

Nguyen also questioned Transocean's oversight of the rig. He recalled testimony given Monday that two Transocean managers lacked the technical background to determine whether the planning and procedures aboard the Deepwater Horizon were sound from an engineering perspective.

Furthermore, shore-based Transocean rig manager Paul Johnson testified Monday that he never received documents from BP that are important to his job duties -- the BP morning reports and the plan to plug the well.

Nguyen castigated Winslow, the Transocean performance manager, for not knowing whether Transocean had conducted an internal audit as to whether its safety management system was adequate according to the International Safety Management Code.

"It's been four months since the tragedy, and you don't know?" Nguyen asked.

"That is correct," Winslow said softly.

Also Tuesday, testimony and questions indicated that as Kuchta hesitated in the crucial moments after the April 20 explosion, Winslow, the Transocean division manager, instead facilitated the evacuation of the 115 survivors.

On Monday, Winslow testified that he told Kuchta to get people to the lifeboats when Kuchta apparently did not realize the extent of the destruction aboard the rig.

Greg Linsin, an attorney on behalf of the Marshall Islands, where the Deepwater Horizon was registered, offered his thanks to Winslow for helping with the evacuation.

The testimony took place at a joint hearing by the U.S. Coast Guard and the Department of the Interior, which has been ordered by the federal government to determine the cause of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, which killed 11 crew members.

-- Rong-Gong Lin II in Houston

Testimony by a senior Transocean official at a hearing to determine the cause of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill indicated that the rig's captain hesitated before making critical safety decisions in the moments after the explosion.

Daun Winslow, Transocean performance division manager, was touring the rig on the day of the explosion and was going to get a half-cup of coffee and smoke a cigarette on the rig when he heard the explosion.

Winslow saw the derrick ablaze and ran to the bridge. Winslow, who was not included in the rig's chain of command, saw Capt. Curt Kuchta initially waving him back to the accommodation area. He assumed that meant Kuchta thought the accommodation area was a safer place to be, implying Kuchta was not aware of the massive scale of damage to the rig.

"I ran up the stairs ... to where the captain was and told him the accommodation area appears to be severely damaged," Winslow said. "I told him, 'You got to put people in the lifeboats.'"

Winslow heard someone saying a crewman was preparing to jump overboard, and he ran back to coax him back and head to the lifeboats. Winslow went back to the bridge, where Kuchta gave him a report.

"We got no power. We got no water, no emergency generators. We've got nothing," Winslow recalled Kuchta saying. "Can we, or should we ... disconnect" from the well? Winslow recalled Kuchta asking.

"I said, 'If you haven't disconnected by now, please do,'" Winslow said. Winslow said he heard Chris Pleasant, a subsea engineer, saying, "I've already done that. There's nothing here," meaning it didn't work.

At the same time, Winslow said he heard offshore installation manager Jimmy Harrell saying, "Yeah, we must disconnect." Harrell suffered injuries in the explosion that made it hard for him to hear and see.

"There's nothing else we can do," Winslow recalled saying.

Winslow and the rig's top commanders then fled to the lifeboats.

-- Rong-Gong Lin II in Houston

Louisiana state biologists Monday were investigating whether a large fish kill at the mouth of the Mississippi River was caused by oil or dispersants from the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The gulf also contains a vast dead zone created by agricultural runoff along the river.

"By our estimates, there were thousands, and I'm talking about 5,000 to 15,000 dead fish," St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro said in a news release Monday. "Different species were found dead, including crabs, sting rays, eel, drum, speckled trout, red fish, you name it, included in that kill."

The fish were found floating at the top of the water, collected along plastic booms that were placed to contain millions of gallons of oil from the spill that was touched off by the April 20 explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. The oil flowed into the gulf until July 15 when the gusher was capped.

A half-mile long swirl of thick substance with several tar balls and a strong smell of diesel was discovered Monday around Louisiana's Grassy Island, St. Bernard Parish officials announced. Skimmers were collecting the scum.

"There is what we believe to be some recoverable oil in the area," Taffaro said. "We will be sampling that and recovering what we can. We don't want to jump to any conclusions because we've had some oxygen issues by the Bayou La Loutre Dam from time to time.

"The Marine Division of Wildlife and Fisheries is on it ... It does point to the need for us to continue to monitor our waters."

According to St. Bernard Parish spokeswoman Karen Bazile, the fish were found in the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a 76-mile shipping shortcut from the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans that was dug by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the 1960s. "It is blamed for massive wetlands loss and is widely believed to have worsened the flooding from Hurricane Katrina," she said in an e-mail. "Since that storm, the federal government has paid for a rock structure across the channel at Bayou La Loutre to stop the flow of salt water, also putting an end to shipping in the channel."

UPDATE: On Monday evening, St. Bernard Parish oil disaster information officer, Jennifer Belson, said that preliminary testing by the state's Wildife & Fisheries indicated that the cause of the fish kill was "hypoxia" or lack of oxygen. "But we don't have the final testing back," she said.

Ralph Portier, an environmental scientist at Louisiana State University, cautioned in an interview that, "A lot of things can explain a fish kill, which is not uncommon during the hot summer weather in Louisiana. It could be the nutrient-rich environment with a lot of heat. It could be rainfall. It could be changes in salinity or upwelling from disturbed sediment."

The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, he noted, is "like a dead end canal with water that does not mix as much as you would like it to."  If oil were the cause, he said, he would expect a more gradual, rather than a sudden fish kill.

But he said he could not rule out that the fish kill could be related to the oil spill. Fresh water, which has been diverted into the marshes since the spill, can change salinity levels and affect fish, he noted. The fish kill announcement, he said, "goes to show how sensitive the (oil spill) issue is. You can imagine the angst of a lot of people in the sea food industry when they hear about a fish kill now."

-- Margot Roosevelt

Photo: A dead fish lays along and oil boom deployed along the Louisiana shore in May. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Who was in charge when the Deepwater Horizon exploded and caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 crew members?

A top official from Transocean, which owned the rig and leased it to BP, could not answer that question when grilled by investigators probing the cause of the April 20 disaster.

When the mobile rig is moving, the captain is in charge of the vessel, said Paul Johnson, a Transocean rig manager told investigators. When the rig is anchored and drilling a well, a person called the "offshore installation manager" is in charge of the vessel, he said. Both are Transocean employees.

When the Deepwater Horizon exploded, the rig had been anchored. But during an emergency, the authority transfers to the captain, said Johnson, who supervised both the captain and offshore installation manager. Johnson couldn't answer whether the transfer of command took place during the emergency.

He said he didn't know who was in charge when the rig exploded because communications had been cut off. He never followed up.

Federal investigators Monday suggested that BP knew of major technical problems but failed to take significant action before the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, killing 11 men.

Troubling flaws aboard the oil rig were detailed Monday, the start of the fourth set of hearings by a joint panel of the U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Interior. The panel is charged with determining the cause of the worst offshore oil spill disaster in history.

A key line of questioning Monday in Houston involved whether major equipment failures aboard the rig contributed to the disaster, which is believed to have occurred when a burp of natural gas shot up from underneath the seafloor, exploding in the rig. The explosion occurred despite numerous procedures that are designed to prevent such a disaster.

Investigator Hung Nguyen, a U.S. Coast Guard captain, said that a BP audit in September 2009 identified problems on board the Deepwater Horizon, including:

-- Not all relevant personnel on the rig were knowledgeable of drilling and well operation practices;

-- A review of the maintenance management system or showed there were significant overdue maintenance jobs that required in excess of 3,545 man hours;

-- No one on board the rig could account for which alarms had been overridden or for what reason;

-- Despite previous recommendations, it could not be shown whether all critical digital and analog drilling instrumentation had been calibrated.

A federal appeals court panel on Friday ruled that wild steelhead remain an endangered species and rebuffed Central Valley irrigators' efforts to relax federal government protections on the Pacific salmon.

Six irrigation districts had challenged the National Marine Fisheries Service decision to list the oceangoing steelhead separately from more plentiful freshwater rainbow trout on grounds that the two fish interbreed and the steelhead were therefore protected from extinction. Both types of Pacific salmon are born in freshwater, but the steelhead migrate to the ocean while rainbow trout remain in rivers and lakes.

Wild steelhead once returned to the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems in the millions each year, but their population has dwindled by 95% due to excessive water use, pollution, dam construction and urban sprawl, Earthjustice attorney Steve Mashuda argued on behalf of a group of conservationists and fishing enthusiasts.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the steelhead were in need of separate classification, despite their interbreeding. The two salmon species grow to different sizes and have different predators and prey, the court noted, adding that abundant steelhead can regenerate dwindling rainbow trout stocks "but the reverse does not seem to be the case."

The ruling was hailed by the environmental and fishing groups who intervened to defend the government agency against the irrigators' lawsuit. "Anyone who's ever been lucky enough to see or catch a steelhead in the wild knows they're a special fish," said Mark Rockwell of the Northern California Council of the Federation of Fly Fishers.

-- Carol J. Williams

Photo: Steelhead were once found in abundance all along the Pacific Coast. In 2003, the last steelhead trout in Devil Canyon, near Camp Pendleton, was sighted and photographed by a California Fish and Game biologist. Environmentalists fear the fish will become extinct in Northern California too.  Credit: Los Angeles Times

Documents released Friday about how claims will be paid from BP's $20-billion fund to deal with the aftermath of the Gulf of Mexico oll spill show that how close a person or business is to the spill will play a key role.

The claims process is shifting from BP to the Gulf Coast Claims Facility effective Monday. It will be run by Washington attorney Kenneth Feinberg, who also handled claims from the 9/11 terror attacks.

The new rules govern emergency claims that can be made between Monday and Nov. 23. Claimants will not give up their right to sue BP and other spill-related companies in return for the emergency money, but final settlements coming later this year are to include a waiver of the right to sue.

The documents say claimants must show how the spill caused damage or economic loss, including their geographic proximity to the disaster and “dependence upon injured natural resources.” That could leave out many people and businesses -- such as a real estate agent who lost sales, or a restaurant supply company miles from the gulf whose customers stopped buying.

The losers could, however, still file a lawsuit seeking damages or become part of an existing class-action case.

Some attorneys representing fishermen, property owners, hotel operators and others say the lawsuit waiver to be included in the final claims phase will force many people to make a difficult choice: take a potentially lesser claim now or wait for a possibly larger payout later through court action. It could also protect BP from huge damage awards in some cases.

"They realize that small payments will be grabbed by some, and then in the future they will have no access to justice. Which is sad but true," said Jere Beasley, a plaintiffs attorney in Montgomery, Ala.

More than 300 lawsuits have been filed against BP and the other companies involved in the April 20 blowout aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that triggered the massive oil spill. BP said earlier this week it has already paid more than $368 million in claims.

-- Associated Press

California lawmakers took steps Thursday to ban jewelry that contains detectable levels of cadmium from being manufactured, shipped or sold in the state.

The Assembly approved SB 929 on a 41-15 vote, the bare majority needed. The legislation was sent back to the state Senate for expected final approval of Assembly amendments. Under the bill, jewelry containing more than 300 parts per million of cadmium could not be made or sold in California beginning in 2012.

Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills), the bill's author, credited a January investigation by the Associated Press that found manufacturers in Asia were substituting the toxic metal because the U.S. had banned the use of lead in jewelry. "Cadmium is a known cancer-causing agent, and there is no reason for our most vulnerable citizens, our children, to be exposed to this highly toxic metal," Pavley said in a statement.

Cadmium is a naturally occurring metal that, if ingested, can weaken bones and kidneys. Children can be exposed if they bite and/or suck on products containing it. The AP investigation found that some jewelry was as much as 91% cadmium by weight and that high levels of the metal could leach out.

Since then, necklaces, bracelets and earrings sold by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and the teen-oriented stores Justice and Limited Too have been recalled. McDonald's restaurants also recalled about 12 million Shrek-themed drinking glasses. Other U.S. companies have responded by announcing reviews of their own testing standards.

Pavley's office said that at least four other states -- Connecticut, Illinois, Minnesota and Washington -- have banned cadmium at varying levels.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Small pieces of children's jewelry purchased at various Wal-Marts across the country earlier this year. Testing by Ashland University chemistry professor Jeff Weidenhamer showed that the jewelry contains cadmium. Credit: Phil Long / Associated Press

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a controversial “oil spill budget” Aug. 2 estimating that a large part of the oil released into the Gulf of Mexico by the Deepwater Horizon spill was gone. But in a hearing on Capitol Hill, a NOAA official conceded that three-fourths of the pollutants from the 4.1 million barrels spewed into the gulf are still lingering in the environment.

Bill Lehr, senior scientist with NOAA’s Office of Restoration and Response, said booming and burning probably cleaned up only about 10% of the spilled oil.  Much of the oil has evaporated or dispersed, but remains a source of hydrocarbons in the ecosystem, he said.

 “This is a continuing operation,” Lehr emphasized. "The spill is far from over. We’re beginning a new phase, and NOAA and all the other agencies will be involved in this.”

“We have seen some premature celebration,” said Rep. Edward Markey, (D-Mass.), who convened the House Energy and Environment subcommittee hearing.  “What we have learned today is that the oil is not gone. The oil remaining in the Gulf waters or washed up on the shore is equivalent to 10 Exxon Valdez spills, and could be much more.” 

The report released recently by NOAA and the Department of Interior -- in which the agencies said the “vast majority” of the oil had been either recovered, dispersed or evaporated --  rendered more optimistic figures because it counted as recovered the 800,000 barrels of oil captured directly by ships, Lehr conceded  under questioning by Markey.

He said agency scientists also have not tallied the significant quantities of methane gas and heavy metals released into the gulf as a result of the spill.

If only 10% of the spilled oil was actually recovered, that is equivalent to the 10% to 15% recoveries scientists estimated were possible from a major spill at the time of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, Markey noted. “So it seems to me that BP comes in only at the low end of what was possible 20 years ago.... I think it’s important that even using a 21-year-old grading system, that BP has done a very poor job in cleaning up the gulf.”

A complete sealing of the BP oil well is not likely to occur until sometime after Labor Day, the federal government’s spill response chief said Thursday.

The delay is necessary because federal officials are requiring that BP engineers take new, precautionary steps before drilling into the damaged well with a “relief well” that will permanently jam it with mud and concrete, said National Incident Commander Thad Allen.

Most significantly, experts from the government and BP have decided to replace the existing blowout preventer with a new one that should be able to withstand any pressure surges when the area outside of the well casing, called the annulus, is intersected by the relief well.

Before the blowout preventers are swapped, BP will also try to yank out a piece of stray pipe that is believed to be wedged in the existing blowout preventer.

Those steps, along with additional pressure testing, mean that the relief well will not intersect the original well until the week after Labor Day, which falls on Sept. 6.

Allen said the new moves, which were intensely debated by government and BP experts, are part of an attempt to ensure that all goes smoothly with the final “bottom kill” operation. In particular, experts want to be able to handle any potentially dangerous pressure that might build up in the annulus when mud is pumped into it.

Oil stopped flowing from the well July 15, when the company attached a metal cap on top of the blowout preventer. The well was further stabilized by a massive injection of mud and concrete.

“We are very close to putting this well away,” Allen said. “None of us wants to make a mistake at this point.”

-- Richard Fausset in Atlanta 

 

The company that owned the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico is accusing BP of withholding what it describes as critical evidence needed to investigate the cause of worst maritime oil spill in history, according to a confidential internal document obtained by the Associated Press.

In a sternly worded letter to BP's attorneys, Transocean said the oil giant has in its sole possession information key to identifying the cause "of the tragic loss of eleven lives and the pollution in the Gulf of Mexico," and that the company's refusal to turn over the documents has hampered Transocean's investigation and hindered what it has been able to tell families of the deceased and state and federal investigators about the accident.

"This is troubling, both in light of BP's frequently stated public commitment to openness and a fair investigation, and because it appears that BP is withholding evidence in an attempt to prevent any entity other than BP from investigating the cause of the April 20 incident and the resulting spill," the letter said. Copies of the letter were also sent to government agencies and lawmakers investigating the spill's cause.

President Obama sternly warned months ago that companies involved in the accident needed to work together and with the government on the investigation, saying: "I will not tolerate more finger-pointing or irresponsibility."

BP spokeswoman Elizabeth Ashford confirmed that the company had reviewed the letter, but called its accusations misleading and misguided, particularly the charge that BP was withholding evidence."We have been at the forefront of cooperating with various investigations commissioned by the U.S. government and others into the causes of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy," Ashford said. "Our commitment to cooperate with these investigations has been and remains unequivocal and steadfast."

Engineers will conduct more tests on BP's troubled oil well before deciding how to proceed with a plan to kill it for good, a government officials said Wednesday.

Thad Allen, the federal spill response chief, told reporters that crews planned to test the pressure at the top of the well in an attempt to better understand the condition of the annulus, the area between the pipes and the well bore.

"This will be one of the final vital signs we'll need in order to make a determination on how to go forward," Allen said.

The damaged well hasn't gushed oil since a cap was affixed to the top on July 15. It was further secured with a huge dose of mud and cement that was piped into the well from the top.

However, federal officials say that in order to consider the well completely dead, the annulus must also be jammed with mud and cement using a relief well, which will penetrate the original well deep underground.

Allen said experts are concerned about the extra pressure that will build in the annulus when the material is pumped in, and whether that pressure could break a seal at the top of the well.  He said scientists are deliberating two ways to deal with the pressure – either by building a pressure-release system on the capping mechanism on top of the well, or by removing the well's blowout preventer and replacing it with a stronger one.

Allen would not say how long the new tests would take, or when the government would announce how it will move forward. Once a decision is made, it will probably take a couple of weeks to make preparations, drill the well and test it to ensure that it has been fully killed.

-- Richard Fausset in Atlanta

                 

Days after a vacationing President Obama swam in gulf waters and tasted fish caught off the coast of Florida, scientists with the Natural Resources Defense Council said the gulf oil spill probably still will have far-reaching health effects on both seafood and people.

The commentary, published online Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., examined the potential effects of the oil spill on workers, residents and seafood coming out of the Gulf of Mexico. The  report followed seafood testing done by the Food and Drug Administration indicating that levels of the heavier toxic substances in oil that can kill marine life were well below federally set limits.

The paper was written by Dr. Gina Solomon, director of UC San Francisco's Occupational and Environmental Medicine Residency Program and a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Dr. Sarah Janssen, also with UCSF and a senior scientist with the NRDC. They pointed to the known effects of crude oil's lighter chemicals, which are released into the air once the oil reaches the ocean surface. Such "volatile aromatic hydrocarbons" can cause breathing problems as well as harm to the central nervous system. Benzene exposure has been linked to leukemia, and toluene to birth defects, Solomon said in a phone interview.

In Louisiana, Solomon added, hundreds of cleanup workers reported headaches, vomiting, trouble breathing and chest pain -- all possible symptoms of exposure to the airborne chemicals. The dispersants used to clear oil from the water's surface have been known to cause dermatitis and skin infections, she added.

A federal judicial panel's decision to consolidate lawsuits arising from the gulf oil spill in New Orleans has been praised by lawyers representing victims who have lost livelihoods and loved ones in the environmental disaster.

Commercial fishermen, gulf shore property owners, charter operators and tourism purveyors had filed the bulk of the 300-plus lawsuits in the Eastern District of Louisiana. Their lawyers say the New Orleans location will be most convenient to the majority of those harmed by the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig and the millions of gallons of oil that gushed into the gulf waters.

"We are pleased that the case will be heard in the area that has been most impacted by the BP disaster," said Charlie Tebbutt, an Oregon lawyer representing the Center for Biological Diversity in its suit under the Clean Water Act seeking as much as $19 billion in compensation.

"The decision is welcome news for Louisiana and our people, who have been at the epicenter of this tragic event,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said of the decision to send the legal fallout to U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, who has experience in handling complex, multi-jurisdictional litigation.

Nothing says Alfalfa Festival like solar panels and wind turbines. So says Element Power U.S., the Portland, Ore.-based renewable power company sponsoring this year’s festival paired with the Antelope Valley Fair later this month.

Maybe it has something to do with the company trying to butter up the community, where it’s planning to erect a 230-megawatt green energy facility with solar and wind generation abilities. The planned installation is very prettily and non-threateningly named “Wildflower” and is set for 2,200 private acres of former grazing land where the current property owner operates a horse ranch.

The company will have to tread carefully – wind energy and solar power projects proposed in California often attract opposition from residents worried about encroachment, or animal rights advocates concerned about endangered species and others with a host of complaints.

Element said Monday that it had filed an application for the project with the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning. The company is gearing up for environmental studies and research on how much local property tax revenue will be linked to the proposed facility.

The wind and solar farm, to be located 70 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, is expected to create more than 300 jobs during construction in an area currently suffering a 17% unemployment rate. The site will produce enough power for more than 70,000 California homes, which will be sold to a utility through a power purchase agreement.

-- Tiffany Hsu

BP resumed work Friday on the drilling operation meant to spell the ultimate end of its notorious gulf well as it continued to scale back its massive cleanup operation.

“We’re far from finished,” said Doug Suttles, the company’s outgoing cleanup chief. “But clearly we feel like we’re moving to a new phase because it has been three weeks since we’ve seen oil flowing into the sea and there is no recoverable oil on the water.”

It has been a landmark week for BP, which succeeded in plugging its deep-sea well with mud and then concrete, effectively shutting it down more than three months after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and began a slow-motion environmental disaster.

Friday, BP was waiting for the concrete to dry, after which it would administer pressure tests to make sure the plug was holding.“They’ve put a layer of fluid on top of the cement and then put more mud on top of that to press it down, to help add pressure to help cure the cement,” retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is in charge of the spill response, said Friday. “That will be going on for 24 hours through today. They will then start pressure testing to make sure the cement is set and is holding in the well.”

Pinnacles National Monument, a 26,000-acre swath of spectacular volcanic rock formations outside Soledad, Calif., would be elevated to a National Park under legislation introduced Thursday by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)

Pinnacles is a nesting place for the endangered California condor, North America's largest soaring bird, with wingspans up to 10 feet. And it is a global destination for naturalists and outdoor adventurers attracted by the park's scenic views and unique rock-climbing landscapes. Making Pinnacles a National Park, Boxer said, would "draw even more visitors to this spectacular piece of California's natural and cultural heritage."

Rep. Sam Farr (D-Carmel), who introduced companion legislation in the House, called the area "packed with historical significance," adding that "its geological distinctiveness is second to none." A park designation, he said "would be a major boon to an economically starved area, a huge benefit for the state's Central Coast. Pinnacles is a hidden gem."

Pinnacles is a culturally significant area for several Native American tribes, and it served as a backdrop for John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" and "East of Eden." The monument was established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908, and has expanded since.

In a recent travel piece on Pinnacle's condors for the Los Angeles Times, Tom Bentley described the monument as "an otherworldly place of jutting rock spires and twisted towers that looks as though it was wrenched from dinosaur times. 'Wrenched' is fitting: The park's craggy upthrusts are the partial remains of an ancient volcano. It's a landscape in which a pterodactyl might choose to make its home, and  thus a bird almost as rare (and with an impressive 10-foot wingspan) would feel cozy here too."

Supporters of Boxer and Farr's bills include the California Wild Heritage Campaign, the California Wilderness Project and the Wilderness Society.

-- Margot Roosevelt

Photo: Bear Gulch Reservoir at Pinnacles National Monument. Credit: Anna Marie Dos Remedios/ San Jose Mercury News. 

BP began pumping a stream of cement into its well Thursday morning, taking another in a series of final steps to ensure the broken well never again spouts polluting oil into the gulf.

After jamming the offshore well with heavy drilling mud earlier this week, the company began sending cement down the well at 7:15 a.m. PDT. The process, which should permanently seal shut at least part of the deep-sea well bore, is expected to last into Friday.

”This is not the end but it will virtually assure us there will be no chance of oil leaking into the environment. We will then proceed to finish the relief well,” said retired Coast Guard Adm.Thad Allen, who is overseeing the spill operation.

When the cement is dried, Allen said, work will resume on finishing a relief well that will pierce the base of the damaged well and entomb it with more mud and cement.

The final 100 feet of relief drilling will be conducted in increments, as engineers painstakingly aim at a pipe no bigger than a dinner plate. It will probably be mid-August before the relief operation is over and the well has been officially “killed.”

Since the well was mechanically capped three weeks ago, no oil has leaked into the gulf. Slicks have shrunk substantially and offshore cleanup crews are turning their attention to coastal areas.

“There’s not much oil that is visible,” Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said Wednesday after the government released a report on the whereabouts of the more than 200 million gallons of oil that gushed from the well before it was corked.

The analysis, greeted with skepticism by some gulf scientists, concluded that roughly half the oil has evaporated, dissolved or was burned, skimmed or collected.

The other half was dispersed into Gulf of Mexico waters in the form of tiny droplets, drifted around the gulf as tar balls and surface slicks, washed ashore or is buried in sand and ocean sediment.

-- Bettina Boxall

 

Tribal leaders who are battling plans for Pebble Mine, a $300-billion copper, molybdemum and gold deposit at the headwaters of Bristol Bay--home of the world's biggest sockeye salmon runs--are appealing now to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for help.

But already, Alaska's only congressman is hoping to block that exit.

Though the mine under study by the Pebble Ltd. Partnership lies on state lands--and Alaska has always been eager to promote natural resource development--opponents are hoping to persuade the EPA to exercise its veto power under the federal Clean Water Act.

In talks with EPA administrator Lisa Jackson during her visit to Alaska last week, native tribal members who depend on the healthy salmon stocks at Bristol Bay urged the EPA to invoke Section 404(c) of the act, which authorizes the agency to prohibit or restrict the discharge of dredge or fill material, such as metallic sulfide mine wastes, into waterways when there will be an "unacceptable adverse impact" on fisheries, wildlife, municipal water supplies or recreational areas.

This section of the law allows the EPA to override any permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the historically more development-friendly agency that oversees federal dredge and fill permits.

But wait! U.S. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) is diving to shut the door. A new billhe introduced July 30, two days after Jackson's visit to Dillingham, Alaska, seeks to eliminate the EPA's power to veto in such cases.

From the early days of the Obama administration, environmentalists believed that they had found the message to carry them to victory in what promised to be a grueling debate over energy and climate policy. It was this: At a time of soaring unemployment, a climate bill would create thousands or millions of new “clean energy” jobs.

Climate activists spent 18 months and millions of dollars pushing that message, contending that legislation to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change would spur investments and create jobs in solar, wind and other alternatives to fossil fuels.

But those arguments lost out in the Senate to competing forces -- most glaringly, warnings that emissions limits would push electric rates higher, killing jobs and stunting growth that depends on cheap oil, coal and natural gas.

Activists, along with some economists and business leaders, say the outcome stands as a stark example of the challenges in reshaping and revitalizing the United States economy.

A Sacramento judge Tuesday softened the ballot description of Proposition 23, a November initiative to suspend the state’s sweeping global warming law. Proponents of the initiative called the ruling “a tremendous victory,” but initiative opponents dismissed it as “cosmetic.”

Language drafted by Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown referred to “major polluters,” which the judge changed to “sources of emissions.” The judge also narrowed the wording of the title from “suspends air pollution control laws” to “suspends implementation of air pollution control law (AB 32).” The Brown language had in the initiative summary that it would require the state to “abandon” the law, which the judge changed to “suspend.”

When it comes to voting on a slew of complex ballot initiatives, California voters can be swayed by the title and summary printed on their ballots -- which is why the cases about language often end up in court.

Prop. 23 would delay AB 32, California’s 2006 law to slash the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists say that emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases have begun to disrupt Earth's climate, drying up water supplies from melting snow-packs, causing sea level to rise and spurring heat waves. The law aims to slash emissions from transportation, industry and other sources by about 15% below today’s level by 2020.