Riley: Spill claims taking Alabama for a ride

The Associated Press

Published: Saturday, November 6, 2010 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, November 5, 2010 at 8:38 p.m.

MOBILE | Gov. Bob Riley says the oil spill claims process is on a roller coaster, speeding up when leaders call a meeting to air complaints and slowing down again soon after.

Riley voiced his complaint after he joined Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Rep. Jo Bonner, R-Mobile, in a meeting Thursday in Mobile with oil spill claims czar Ken Feinberg.
Feinberg spent most of the morning listening to business owners explain how they and others in their industry feel left out in the cold by Feinberg’s Gulf Coast Claims Facility.
Most of the owners said that they and others got payments that covered only a fraction of their losses.
Feinberg took down claim numbers from many of those present and promised to give them his personal attention. Feinberg said he would “try to do right” by the business owners he talked with.
The (Mobile) Press-Register reported that Riley told Feinberg about one claimant who presented all the required documentation and had it audited by a certified public accountant — then was told only 2 to 10 percent of the claim would be paid and the claimant must agree not to sue BP.
Riley, who did not name the claimant, called it “an incredible injustice.” Feinberg said he would check on that specific claim, Riley said.
“This has been as much of a roller coaster ride as anything that I have participated in since I’ve been governor,” said Riley, in his eighth year in the office. “I hope that Mr. Feinberg understands he holds the future of all these small businesses in south Alabama in his hands.”

While oil-soaked birds get much attention, Gulf rigs remain bright, often fatal beacons

Published: Monday, November 01, 2010, 4:45 AM

Ben Raines, Press-Register

(Photo courtesy Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij) 

This platform in the North Sea was outfitted with new green-hued lights believed to be less attractive to migrating birds. In the Gulf of Mexico and other oil fields around the world, huge flocks of birds have been documented flying in circles around oil platforms at night, often until they die of exhaustion. Scientists believe the birds become disoriented by the brightly lit platforms. Based on the experiment at this platform, Dutch researchers suggested a switch to green lighting in the North Sea would reduce the number of birds affected by lights from 6 million per year to fewer than 600,000.

While the plight of a few thousand oil-coated birds received much attention during the BP spill, scientists believe that the mere presence of 4,000 oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico may take a much larger toll on the bird population every single year.

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A 2005 federal study found that birds migrating across the Gulf at night can become disoriented by the brightly lighted oil platforms and fly around them in circles for hours at a time, often until they become exhausted and fall into the sea and die.
That study called for further investigation into the newly discovered “nocturnal circulation” phenomenon, but federal officials never followed up, according to a statement that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management e-mailed to the Press-Register.
The agency — formerly known as the U.S. Minerals Management Service — did not provide an answer when asked last week why the call for further study was ignored.
Meanwhile, Dutch researchers working on platforms in the North Sea believe that simply switching to a new kind of light bulb could nearly eliminate the problem.
Two Dutch oil companies teamed up with Royal Philips Electronics to create a new green-hued light that doesn’t seem to attract birds. Employed on a platform off Holland in 2007, the green light appeared to work so successfully that Dutch scientists suggested it could reduce the number of birds that circle platforms in the North Sea by 90 percent, from 6 million a year to less than 600,000.
“That’s terrific. What a nice simple solution,” said Van Remsen, a Louisiana State University researcher who participated in the 2005 study by MMS, “Interactions Between Migrating Birds and Offshore Oil and Gas Platforms in the Northern Gulf of Mexico.”
Remsen said he hadn’t heard of the green light solution before last week, but believed that the circling problem in the Gulf could be more significant than in the North Sea, where researchers have documented up to 100,000 birds flying around a single platform.
The difficulty in estimating the actual toll on bird populations moving through the Gulf, he said, is that most of the victims fell into the sea and were eaten by fish, so there were no carcasses to count.
He said that estimates of flocks of 100,000 or more birds circling platforms sounded plausible for the Gulf based on observations during the federal study. All manner of birds — including hummingbirds, warblers, herons, cuckoos, doves, egrets, falcons, orioles, sandpipers, osprey and dozens of other woodland and shore birds — cross the Gulf.
The circling occurs primarily on cloudy nights, when the stars are obscured, Remsen said.
“Even if a bird that spent the night flying in circles around a platform heads back on its way in the morning when the sun comes up, it very likely won’t have enough gas left to make it all the way to shore,” Remsen said. “If this problem can be solved simply by changing the lights, I’d say we could save tens of thousands of birds a year, perhaps many, many, more birds.”
Remsen said he expected that it would be difficult to get federal officials to require the use of bird-friendly lighting systems. A more likely path, he said, would be for oil companies to embrace the technology voluntarily.
Representatives of Royal Dutch Shell, which participated in the Dutch research, did not respond to requests for comment about the green light experiment.
When the MMS released its 330-page study in 2005, it also issued a release titled “Oil and Gas Platforms Provide Haven for Migrating Birds.” The release made no mention of the circling behavior, although it was listed in the full study as one of three “primary” impacts that platforms have on migratory birds.
Stan Senner, head of conservation science for the Ocean Conservancy and former executive director of the Audubon Society’s Alaska office, said federal officials had clearly dropped the ball. He said that numerous studies document the millions of birds that die each year after colliding with towers or buildings on land.
“I am appalled that MMS got that report and highlighted that birds land on the platforms and didn’t talk about them colliding with platforms or flying around them in circles until they die,” Senner said.
“Certainly there were impacts on birds from the spill. Maybe getting the right kind of lighting on the platforms can be one of the ways we help counter those impacts.”
Senner also noted that federal officials just released an announcement promoting a $1.5 million study along the Atlantic Coast aimed at determining possible impacts on birds there from wind farms.
“Why are they studying possible future impacts on the Atlantic Coast and ignoring an obvious problem in the Gulf?” Senner said.
The Gulf study in 2005 found that “Once they get inside the cone of light surrounding the platform, they are either reluctant to leave or have a difficult time getting out, seemingly becoming trapped by the surrounding wall of darkness.”
The authors of the study wrote that they were ill-equipped to analyze the circling phenomenon, and that 75 species had been identified while circling platforms.
“If it’s a relatively easy fix to change the lighting on offshore structures, I’d like to know why MMS hasn’t taken any action,” said John Amos, head of SkyTruth, which monitors environmental problems using satellite imagery.
“Once again we find ourselves trailing other nations in ensuring that our offshore operations provide economic benefits while being safe for people and safe for the environment. We can do better. We should do better.”

Migrating Brown and White Pelicans in flight over South Louisiana.

Photo by John L. Wathen, Hurricane Creekkeeper
Flight privided by SouthWings

Tests warned of cement troubles before BP blowout

By DINA CAPPIELLO - Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Tests performed before the deadly blowout of BP's oil well in the Gulf of Mexico should have raised doubts about the cement used to seal the well, but the company and its cementing contractor used it anyway, investigators with the president's oil spill commission said Thursday.
It's the first finding from the commission looking into the causes of the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. And it appears to conflict with statements made by Halliburton Co., which has said its tests showed the cement mix was stable. The company instead has said BP's well design and operations were responsible for the disaster.
The cement mix's failure to prevent oil and gas from entering the well has been identified by BP and others as one of the causes of the accident.

Patrick Semansky, File

AP Photo - FILE - In a Sept. 4, 2010 file photo, The Transocean Development Driller II, left, which is assisting in the drilling of the Deepwater Horizon relief well, floats near support vessels on the Gulf of Mexico near the coast of Louisiana. The federal government has set up a security zone around the wreckage site of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which lies on the sea floor about 50 miles southeast of the Louisiana coast after it exploded and sank in April, leading to the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.The Justice Department said Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010 that the zone extends 750 feet in all directions from the rig and its debris field.

Gerald Herbert, File

AP Photo - FILE - In this April 21, 2010 file aerial photo taken in the Gulf of Mexico more than 50 miles southeast of Venice, La., the Deepwater Horizon oil rig is seen burning. Tests performed before the deadly blowout of BP's oil well in the Gulf of Mexico should have raised doubts about the cement used to seal the well, but the company and its cementing contractor used it anyway, U.S. investigators with the president's oil spill commission said Thursday, Oct. 28, 2010.

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• Fed panel gets 60-day extension on spill report
• Security around site where rig exploded in Gulf
• http://www.oilspillcommission.gov

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• Tests before oil rig explosion showed faulty cement, panel says
  

  Tests before oil rig explosion showed faulty cement, panel says
  

  Weeks before the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank, oil company BP and subcontractor Halliburton learned that tests had shown the cement mixture designed to seal the well was unstable, but they continued to use it anyway, President Barack Obama's special commission investigating the environmental disaster reported Thursday.
  The cement mixture is used to secure the metal casing around the string of pipes and the drill bit as they penetrate the reservoirs of oil and gas lying deep beneath the ocean floor. Cement also is supposed to keep oil and gas from pushing back up the well, causing a blowout.
  After running independent tests on the particular cement mix Halliburton used and reviewing the company's documents, the commission's chief counsel sent a letter to commission members saying that BP and Halliburton had information about problems with the cement mix they were using in the well but did nothing about it.
  
• HEADLINE HERE
  

  HEADLINE HERE
  

  Houston-based Halliburton knew that the cement it was using to seal BP's Deepwater Horizon oil well was likely to be unstable, but it didn't tell BP or act on the information itself before the well blew up on April 20, the staff of the presidential commission investigating the disaster reported Thursday.
  In a letter to the commission's seven members, the staff said the failure of the cement was a key factor in the blowout, which resulted in millions of barrels of crude oil escaping into the Gulf of Mexico in a torrent that went largely unchecked for three months.
  But the staff also took pains to point out that unstable cement wasn't the sole factor - or even the most crucial one - in the well's failure. That blame, the letter said, belongs to BP and Transocean, the company that BP had hired to drill the well.
  
• Report: Halliburton knew BP well's cement likely unstable
  

  Report: Halliburton knew BP well's cement likely unstable
  

  WASHINGTON — Houston-based Halliburton knew that the cement it was using to seal BP's Deepwater Horizon oil well was likely to be unstable, but it didn't tell BP or act on the information internally before the well blew up April 20, the staff of the presidential commission that's investigating the disaster reported Thursday.
  In a letter to the commission's seven members, the staff says the failure of the cement was a key factor in the blowout, which resulted in millions of barrels of crude oil escaping into the Gulf of Mexico in a torrent that went largely unchecked for three months.
  But the staff also took pains to point out that unstable cement wasn't the sole factor _ or even the most crucial one _ in the well's failure. That blame, the letter says, belongs to BP and Transocean, the company that BP had hired to drill the well.
  
• BP investigation cites multiple failures, but not well's design
  

  BP investigation cites multiple failures, but not well's design
  

  WASHINGTON — A BP internal investigation released Wednesday concludes that eight key factors contributed to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, including a poor cement job by Halliburton and the failure by Transocean workers to notice for 40 minutes that oil and gas were gushing into the well.
  BP's probe acknowledges that a key BP official aboard the rig misinterpreted a critical pressure test and then mistakenly authorized the removal of heavy drilling mud — the only impediment to gas and crude oil surging up the well's drill pipe — before the well's integrity was confirmed.
  The investigation concluded, however, that the well's design was sound and didn't contribute to the explosion, which killed 11 rig workers and sent more than four million barrels of oil spewing into the Gulf over nearly three months — the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
  
• BP, Transocean, Halliburton will blame one another for spill
  

  BP, Transocean, Halliburton will blame one another for spill
  

  WASHINGTON — Top executives from three companies involved in the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster will face a barrage of questions on Tuesday from angry senators eager to make it clear they intend to hold someone responsible for a blowout that killed 11 and continues to spew 210,000 gallons of oil each day into the Gulf of Mexico
  But it's also clear the three companies will have another source of finger-pointing — each other.
  In testimony released Monday before the first of Tuesday's two Senate hearings, the executives, from BP America, which owned the well, Tansocean Ltd., which owned the rig, and Halliburton, a contractor on the rig, blame other companies for the as-yet-undetermined cause of the explosion.
  

BP and Halliburton decided to use a foam slurry created by injecting nitrogen into cement to secure the bottom of the well, a decision outside experts have criticized.
The panel said that of four tests done in February and April by Halliburton, only one - the last - showed the mix would hold. But the results of that single successful test were not shared with BP, and may not have reached Halliburton, before the cement was pumped, according to a letter sent to commissioners Thursday by chief investigative counsel Fred H. Bartlit Jr.
BP had in hand at the time of the blowout the results of only one of the tests - a February analysis sent to BP by Halliburton in a March 8 e-mail that indicated the cement could fail. The slurry tested in that case was a slightly different blend, and assumed a slightly different well design, but there is no indication that Halliburton flagged the problem for BP, or that BP had concerns, the letter said.
"Halliburton (and perhaps BP) should have considered redesigning the foam slurry before pumping it at the Macondo well," Bartlit wrote.
Independent tests conducted for the commission by Chevron on a nearly identical mixture were also released Thursday. The results concluded that the cement mix was unstable, raising questions about the validity of Halliburton's final test.
BP, as part of its internal investigation, also conducted independent tests that showed the cement mix was flawed, but its analysis was criticized by Halliburton, which said it was not the correct formula. BP's report also mentioned a cement test Halliburton performed in mid-April, but it appears BP obtained the results after the accident and considered its methods flawed.
By contrast, the commission obtained proprietary additives from Halliburton as well as a recipe to re-create the slurry that was used on the well. One and a half gallons of the actual mix used on the rig remain, but it is being held as evidence in criminal and civil investigations.
A spokeswoman for Halliburton said the company was reviewing the findings and would have a response later. BP said it would not have a comment on the panel's conclusions Thursday.
Halliburton shares dropped from near $34 to below $30 in New York trading in the half hour after the commission released its finding. The shares recovered a bit, and closed at $31.68, down $2.74, or 8 percent. BP shares rose from $40.38 to $41.28, then quickly reversed course and fell to $40.28. The shares finished trading with a gain of 49 cents at $40.59.
In testimony before the joint Coast Guard-Bureau of Ocean Energy Management investigative panel, Halliburton engineer Jesse Gagliano, when asked if he would pour the same cement again, said he would. Thomas Roth, a vice president at the company, said before a panel assembled by the National Academy of Engineering in September that Halliburton had used foam cement on 1,000 jobs, including 279 wells at 15,000 feet or deeper.
Roth faulted BP's well design and BP's decision not to run a test to confirm the cement had set properly. He also said Halliburton's cement could have been contaminated by the oil-based muds BP used to drill the well. Such contamination can form channels in the cement through which oil and gas can escape.
The independent investigators do not address other decisions that could have contributed to the cement's failure and the eventual blowout, such as BP's decision to use fewer centralizers than recommended by Halliburton. Centralizers make sure the well's piping is centered inside the well so the cement bonds correctly.
BP has also been criticized for not performing a cement bond long, a test that checks after the cement is pumped down whether it is secure. There are also questions about whether BP pumped down enough cement to seal off the bottom of the well, which was located more than three miles below sea level.
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Associated Press writer Harry R. Weber in Atlanta contributed to this report.
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Online:
Presidential Oil Spill Commission: http://www.oilspillcommission.gov

Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2010/10/28/1499184/tests-warned-of-cement-troubles.html#ixzz13hRm3Ot2

Published on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 by Inter Press Service

Despite Heavy Oil, Louisiana Keeps Fisheries Open

by Dahr Jamail

NEW ORLEANS - Massive slicks of weathered oil were clearly visible near Louisiana's fragile marshlands in both the East and West Bays of the Mississippi River Delta during an overflight that included an IPS reporter on Oct. 23. The problem is that, despite this, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has left much of the area open for fishing.

Dean Blanchard, of Dean Blanchard Seafood Inc. in Grand Isle, Louisiana. "The Coast Guard should change the colour of their uniform, since they are working for BP. We've known they are working for BP from the beginning of this thing. None of us believe anything they say about this oil disaster anymore."(Photograph: Leslie Rose)

Four days prior, on Oct. 19, federal on-scene cleanup coordinator for the BP oil disaster, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, declared there was little recoverable surface oil in the Gulf of Mexico.Both bays cover an area of roughly 112 square kilometres of open water that surround the Southwest Pass, the main shipping channel of the Mississippi River. While East Bay remains closed for fishing, West Bay was open for fishing when IPS spotted the oil on Oct. 23, despite the fact that the day before a BP oil cleanup crew had reported oil in West Bay to a local newspaper.
"They are literally shrimping in oil," Jonathan Henderson, the Coastal Resiliency Organiser for the environmental group Gulf Restoration Network, who was also on the flight, exclaimed as our plane flew over shrimpers trawling in the oil-covered area.
Others remain concerned about the use of toxic dispersants that BP has used to sink the oil.
"Potential ecosystem collapse caused by toxic dispersant use during this disaster will have immediate and long-term effects on the Gulf's traditional fishing communities' ability to sustain our culture and heritage," Clint Guidry of the Louisiana Shrimp Association told IPS.
"This has been an exercise in lessening BP's liability from day one. I think we're moving into a situation where the PR is saying the area is safe to fish and it's safe to eat, but that's not the reality," he said.
The waters in the East and West Bays are under the jurisdiction of Louisiana's Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF), while waters further from the coast are under federal jurisdiction. LDWF does receive input, however, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Earlier on the same day IPS spotted the oil, a spotter pilot for LDWF had flown over the same area and told Southern Seaplanes there was no oil.
"He is the spotter for LWDF and saw that bay, and it is still open," Henderson told IPS. "He should have closed the bay for fishing. So now you can see how sophisticated they are in tracking this. Either this guy is completely incompetent, or has an agenda to keep as much of Louisiana's waters open for fishing as he can, whether there is oil or not. I don't see how he could have flown down there today and not seen it. It's criminal."
When IPS called the LWDF requesting to talk with the LDWF oil spotter, department officials said "that person is not available to comment".
The LWDF website has a number to call in order to report oil sightings. When IPS called that number, the call was answered by a BP response call centre.
On Oct. 23, the Coast Guard claimed that the substance floating in the miles-wide areas of West Bay appeared to be "an algal bloom".
Lt. Cmdr. Chris O'Neil said a pollution investigator for the Coast Guard collected samples from the area, and while they had yet to be tested, "based on his observation and what he sees in the sample jars, he believes that to be an algal bloom."
Fishermen who have traveled through and fished in the area over the weekend, however, refuted these Coast Guard claims.
"I scooped some up, and it feels like oil, looks like oil, is brownish red like all the dispersed oil we've been seeing since this whole thing started," fisherman David Arenesen, from Venice, Louisiana, told IPS.
"It doesn't look like algae to me. Algae doesn't stick on your fingers, and algae isn't oily," he said. "The area of this stuff spans an area of 30 miles, from Southwest Pass almost all the way over to Grand Isle, and runs very far off-shore too. We rode through it for over 20 miles while we were going out to fish, I dipped some up, and it's oil."
Arenesen saw the substance on Friday, the same day it was reported by the Times Picayune newspaper in New Orleans.
"It was at least an inch thick, and it went on for miles," Arenesen said, adding, "It would be easy to clean since it's all floating on the surface."
IPS spoke with Gary Robinson, a hook and line mackerel commercial fisherman working out of Venice who was also in the substance in question recently.
"I was out in West Bay on Oct. 22, and I was in this thick brown foam, about five inches thick, with red swirls of oil throughout it, and there was a lot of it, at least a 10-mile patch of it," Robinson said while speaking to IPS on his boat. "I've never seen anything like that foam before, the red stuff in it was weathered oil, and there was sheen coming off my boat when I came back into harbor. I'm concerned about the safety of the fish I'm catching."
Dean Blanchard, of Dean Blanchard Seafood Inc. in Grand Isle, Louisiana, spoke with IPS about the Coast Guard claim that the substance was likely algae.
"Hell, we got oil coming in here every day, it's all around us, we know what oil is," Blanchard said. "The Coast Guard should change the colour of their uniform, since they are working for BP. We've known they are working for BP from the beginning of this thing. None of us believe anything they say about this oil disaster anymore."
"Everyone, including the feds, are talking about the fact that less of the oil actually reached the surface than was below," Captain Dicky Tupes of Southern Seaplanes told IPS, "And now we're seeing some of that submerged oil surface here. How long will this go on?"
The East Bay area appeared to be completely covered in kilometres-long strands of weathered oil of various colors. While flying approximately 16 linear kilometres across the bay, IPS saw nothing but streaks of the substance across the surface.
"That oil is covering just about the entire length of Southwest Pass," Tupes said.
A recent month-long cruise by Georgia researchers reported oil on the sea floor that they suspect is BP's. While government officials question whether there is oil on the sea floor, the Georgia scientists say the samples "smelled like an auto repair shop".
The research team took 78 cores of sediment and only five had live worms in them. Usually they would all have life, said University of Georgia scientist Samantha Joye, who went on to call the affected area a "graveyard for the macrofauna".
"The horrible thing is they've been inundated with this oily material... There's dead animals on the bottom and it stinks to high heaven of oil," Joye added.
University of South Florida's Ernst Peebles said the oil on the floor if the Gulf "is undermining the ecosystem from the bottom up".

Fish Kill and BP Cover Up Confirmed on Grand Isle by Jerry Moran - Gulf Coast Oil Spill

Fish Kill and BP Cover Up Confirmed on Grand Isle by Jerry Moran - Gulf Coast Oil Spill

10/25/2010

Fish Kill and BP Cover Up Confirmed on Grand Isle by Jerry Moran

In light of recent comments made by LDWF and NOAA biologists in an article on CNSNews.com that there is no evidence that ANY fish died as a result of the oil spill I feel compelled to revisit a few photos from the first days of the spill and to repost some information and photos gathered just this week by intrepid New Orleans photo-journalist Jerry Moran.  Jerry found the stench of death every where on Grand Isle, and mounds of dead fish buried in the sand by BP clean up crews, just this week!!!
First, lets look at what Bo Boehringer of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said," Fish have died for seasonal related reasons, said Bo Boehringer, spokesman Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.", and “We’ve investigated fish kills, but none have yet been tied to oil impacts,”
Here are some photos from May 23rd on Grand Terre Island.  We encountered MANY dead large Redfish and Black Drum that day. All of these fish were still there when I revisited the island later that week, meaning NONE had been tested by LDWF.

Massive stretches of weathered oil spotted in Gulf of Mexico

Bob Marshall, The Times-Picayune

Just three days after the U.S. Coast Guard admiral in charge of the BP oil spill cleanup declared little recoverable surface oil remained in the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana fishers Friday found miles-long strings of weathered oil floating toward fragile marshes on the Mississippi River delta.

Enlarge Matthew Hinton, The Times-Picayune MATTHEW HINTON / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE A boat travels through oil that was spotted in West Bay just west of the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi River Friday October 22, 2010. Oil Slick in West Bay gallery (9 photos)

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The discovery, which comes as millions of birds begin moving toward the region in the fall migration, gave ammunition to groups that have insisted the government has overstated clean-up progress, and could force reclosure of key fishing areas only recently reopened.

The oil was sighted in West Bay, which covers approximately 35 square miles of open water between Southwest Pass, the main shipping channel of the river, and Tiger Pass near Venice. Boat captains working the BP clean-up effort said they have been reporting large areas of surface oil off the delta for more than a week but have seen little response from BP or the Coast Guard, which is in charge of the clean-up. The captains said most of their sightings have occurred during stretches of calm weather, similar to what the area has experienced most of this week.
On Friday reports included accounts of strips of the heavily weathered orange oil that became a signature image of the spill during the summer. One captain said some strips were as much as 400 feet wide and a mile long.
The captains did not want to be named for fear of losing their clean-up jobs with BP.
Coast Guard officials Friday said a boat had been dispatched to investigate the sightings, but that a report would not be available until Saturday morning.
However, Times-Picayune photojournalist Matt Hinton confirmed the sightings in an over-flight of West Bay.
Robert Barham, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said if the sightings are confirmed by his agency, the area will be reclosed to fishing until it is confirmed oil-free again.

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Just Tuesday, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, in charge of the federal response, and his top science adviser, Steve Lehmann, said that little of the 210 million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf remained on the surface or even on the Gulf's floor. Lehmann pointed to extensive tests conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that included taking samples of water from various depths, as well as collections of bottom sediments both far offshore and close to the coast.
Those claims, announced on the six-month anniversary of the spill, brought quick rebuttals from a variety of environmental and fishermen's groups who insist their members have been reporting sightings of surface oil all along.
LSU environmental sciences professor Ed Overton, who has been involved in oil spill response for 30 years, said he believes both claims could be accurate. The Louisiana sweet crude from the Deepwater Horizon is very light and has almost neutral buoyancy, Overton said, which means that when it picks up any particles from the water column, it will sink to the bottom.
"It's quite possible that when the weather calms and the water temperatures changes, the oil particles that have spread along the bottom will recoagulate, then float to the surface again and form these large mats.
"I say this is a possibility, because I know that the (Coast Guard) has sent boats out to investigate these reports, but by the time they get to the scenes, the weather has changed and they don't see any oil."
"I think the reports are credible, but I also think the incident responders are trying to find the oil, too,'' Overton said. "This is unusual, but nothing about this bloody spill has been normal since the beginning."
Overton said it is important for the state to discover the mechanism that is causing the oil to reappear because even this highly weathered oil poses a serious threat to the coastal ecology.
"If this was tar balls floating around, that would be one thing, but these reports are of mats of weathered oil, and that can cause serious problems if it gets into the marsh," he said
The reports are a great concern to wildlife officials. The Mississippi delta is a primary wintering ground for hundreds of thousands of ducks and geese, some of which already have begun arriving. The West Bay area leads into several shallower interior bays that attract ducks, geese and myriad species of shore and wading birds each winter.
Earlier this month state wildlife officials were expressing optimism the spill would have minimal impact on most waterfowl visitors because little oil had penetrated the sensitive wintering grounds.

BREAKING NEWS: Fresh Oil Dead Fish Cover Grand Isle As Crews Bury Fish On Public Beach

This is Not the State Park But Zone 1 Public Beach