I’m on vacation this week, so I’m falling back to some of my
early entries for Amusing Monday. I found an old entry for Bowser
and Blue, a couple of funny Canadians who are getting older yet
continue to write songs and make fools of themselves, as they’ve
been doing for more than 30 years.
I featured their song “Halifax Harbour” in
Water Ways on Nov. 24, 2008. This time, I’ve added a new song
(in the video player at right) called the “BP Song.” They’re
singing about an oil spill that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico.
Their Bowser and Blue
Webpage includes many more songs of all kinds. But the advance
warning still stands: Some of their videos are irreverent,
off-color and even medically oriented to the point of going places
you never want to go — as in “Colon is
a Mighty Big River.”
During last year’s oil blow-out in the Gulf of Mexico, I kept
thinking about our home waters of Puget Sound.
I kept hearing reports about the conflicts and confusion among
the state, federal and local governments operating in the region. I
am fairly convinced that intergovernmental cooperation would be
better in Washington state, because I have seen representatives of
numerous agencies working together on blue-ribbon panels,
high-level committees, contingency-planning efforts and oil-spill
drills.
One big question that remains controversial is whether this
state has enough of the right kinds of oil-spill response equipment
in the right places.
On Tuesday, state Rep. Christine Rolfes, a Democrat from
Bainbridge Island, announced legislation to address this issue. She
offered her legislative proposal as the National Commission on the
BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill released its final recommendations
about what went wrong in the Gulf and what should be done to
improve deep-water drilling and oil-spill responses. Continue reading →
It seems there is finally some good news coming out of the Gulf
of Mexico.
After 170 days, the leaking oil well — nearly a mile under water
— was finally plugged with mud. Officials say it means an end to
the long spill. As BP stated in a
news release:
“Pumping of heavy drilling mud into the well from vessels on the
surface began at 1500 CDT on August 3, 2010 and was stopped after
about eight hours of pumping. The well is now being monitored, per
the agreed procedure, to ensure it remains static. Further pumping
of mud may or may not be required depending on results observed
during monitoring…
“A relief well remains the ultimate solution to kill and
permanently cement the well. The first relief well, which started
May 2, has set its final 9 7/8-inch casing. Operations on the
relief wells are suspended during static kill operations. Depending
upon weather conditions, mid-August is the current estimate of the
most likely date by which the first relief well will intercept the
Macondo well annulus, and kill and cement operations commence.”
If the spewing has indeed stopped for good, discussions about
the fate of the contamination and restoration of the ecosystem have
some real meaning. A report issued
this morning by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration starts to put the issue into perspective. Continue reading →
New formulations of dishwasher detergents will help reduce the
amount of phosphorus getting into lakes and streams throughout the
United States. As of Thursday, detergents containing more than 0.5
percent phosphorus by weight will be banned in Washington and 15
other states, as I reported in a story in
yesterday’s Kitsap Sun.
If you don’t live on a lake and never go swimming or boating in
a lake, this may seem like a needless effort. But when you see
excessive algae blooms and plant growth in a lake, there’s a good
chance that it is related to the amount of phosphate flowing into
the lake.
It is interesting that this phosphate issue comes up in the same
month that I have been writing about new state and federal permits
to bring pesticides into compliance with the Clean Water Act.
See Water Ways, June 9. Under current state permits, it is
fairly easy to get approval to kill the weeds in your lake. But
this does nothing to remove the phosphorus that feeds the plants,
if that is what is promoting the weed growth. See the Environmental
Protection Agency’s website
on nitrogen and phosphorus pollution.
Phosphates in laundry detergents were essentially banned in 1994
in Washington state. On Thursday, the ban is extended to dishwasher
detergents. That still leaves what is generally the largest source
of phosphates to our water bodies: fertilizers from lawns — and
especially from farms in some locations.
Do people who live near lakes make the connection that their
green lawns may be contributing to their green lakes?
This is an old story in Michigan and Wisconsin, where people
have been struggling for decades to keep their lakes healthy. In
2004, Dane County, WI, took the bold step of banning phosphates in
fertilizers, following research that showed that most soils in the
region already had adequate phosphorus for plant growth. Now,
unless a soil test confirms the lack of phosphorus, it is illegal
for county residents to apply fertilizer containing phosphate. See
Phosphorus
Control in Dane County.
I’m not sure if this ban on phosphate fertilizers is an option
anywhere in Washington state, but people probably could use
low-phosphate fertilizers, especially near lakes, or at least they
could conduct soil tests to see what nutrients need to be
added.
Another option is to reduce or eliminate your lawn, switching to
native plants that thrive in natural soils found in the region.
I find it interesting that some people are now calling on
residents who live in the vast watershed of the Mississippi River
to eliminate their lawns as a result of the oil spill in the Gulf.
Check out
“Want to Help the Gulf of Mexico? Kill Your Lawn” by the Ocean
Doctor.
Here’s the argument: The Gulf already suffers from a low-oxygen
problem blamed on fertilizers coming from farms and homes
throughout 40 percent of the continental United States. Methane gas
being released from the BP blowout is fertilizing the plankton that
contribute to the low-oxygen problem. The risk is high that many
fish and other creatures will be killed as a result of a massive
dead zone likely to be created. Since nobody seems able to stop the
gushing oil, people may reduce the damage by eliminating their use
of fertilizers.
I’m not sure if this makes sense, just as I’m not sure if the
use of phosphate-free dishwashing detergents will make much
difference. Researchers should be able to help us with these
calculations. But if we can live without excessive phosphates —
nitrogen, too, in the case of the ailing Hood Canal and South Puget
Sound — then maybe it’s worth a try.
As the worst ecological disaster in U.S. history unfolds in the
Gulf of Mexico, emotions are boiling over along the Gulf Coast.
An oil-covered pelican
flaps its wings on an island in Barataria Bay off the coast of
Louisiana on Sunday. The island, home to hundreds of brown pelican
and other birds, is being hit by oil washing ashore.
AP photo by Patrick Semansky
Sitting here in the Pacific Northwest, I am still dazed by the
realization that an oil well, nearly a mile under water, has gone
out of control, spewing millions of gallons of crude and creating
an underwater mess bigger than what we see on the surface.
I cannot fathom that we are experiencing a disaster likely to be
many times worse than Alaska’s Exxon Valdez. Until somebody figures
out how to turn off the flow of oil, we can’t begin to estimate the
size of this catastrophe or imagine that things will get
better.
BP is hoping that a process, never used underwater, will stop
the flow of oil. The technique, called a “top kill” and performed
on above-ground wells in the Middle East, involves shooting heavy
mud and cement into the well. The first shot could come tomorrow.
Chances of success are estimated at 60-70 percent by BP, but the
company’s track record for estimates has not been good so far.
Oily dead birds and other sea life, predicted weeks ago, are
washing up on shore. Sensitive marsh lands, impossible to clean
without destroying them, have been touched. Longtime fishermen and
fishing communities are shut down.
“Once it gets in the marsh, it’s impossible to get out,” Charles
Collins, 68, a veteran crew boat captain told reporters for the
Los Angeles Times. “All your shrimp are born in the marsh. All
your plankton. The marsh is like the beginning of life in the sea.
And it’s in the marshes. Bad.”
Yesterday, I joined a telephone press conference with Lisa
Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. She
was doing her best to calmly cope with the enormity of the
disaster. She had just come off a boat after witnessing oil piling
up on shore. Joining her was Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry, who
is in charge of the National Response Team.
Jackson said the federal government has ordered BP to cut back
on the use of dispersants, which break up the oil but may have some
toxic effects. No formal studies have ever been conducted on the
effects of applying huge quantities of dispersants underwater, but
limited studies in recent days suggest that this approach may be
the least harmful method to keep the oil from coming ashore.
Without such treatment, the oil itself is highly toxic and a
much greater concern, she said. BP has been ordered to look for
less toxic alternatives than the dispersant currently being used,
but safer alternatives may not be available in the quantities
needed. Meanwhile, Jackson said her staff believes the treatment
can be equally effective by using half or less the amount of
chemical applied until now.
Keeping as much oil off the shorelines as possible seems to be
the top priority. That starts by keeping some of the oil immersed
as tiny droplets underwater. Oil that reaches the surface is
attacked by skimmers and burned if necessary. Fighting the oil with
absorbent booms and pads along the shore is the last step.
I hope this strategy is not one of “out of sight, out of mind,”
because the oil immersed in the water becomes a problem of its own.
It’s been compared to a bottle of oil-and-vinegar salad dressing
that you shake up, breaking the oil into tiny globules that float
around. Smaller globules are believed to degrade faster in the
environment.
Still, with this oil starting 5,000 feet below the surface, it
could take months or years to coalesce, rise to the surface and
come ashore, where cleanup crews could be facing oil damage for an
undetermined amount of time.
“I’m afraid we’re just seeing the beginning of what is going to
be a long, ugly summer,” Ed Overton, who has consulted on oil
spills for three decades, told Bob Marshall, a reporter with the
New Orleans Times-Picayune. “I hope and pray I’m wrong, but I
think what we’re in for is seeing a little bit come in each day at
different places for a long, long time — months and months. That’s
not what I said in the beginning of this. But events have made me
amend my thoughts.”
Some constituents of the oil will never come ashore but will
drop to the bottom of the Gulf in various locations. As specialized
bacteria move in to break down the oily compounds, they will
consume oxygen, potentially adding to the dead zone in the Gulf of
Mexico.
If this were an earthquake, I would be reporting on damage
assessments and offering hope for a renewed community. If this were
an oil spill from a ship, I would be talking about worse-case
scenarios and long-term effects. But, frankly, it is hard to know
what to say when the spill goes on and on with no certainty at
all.
To view a live video feed of the oil spill, go to
BP’s web cam mounted on a remotely operated vehicle.
Last, but not least, I am learning a good deal from bloggers who
are part of the UC Davis
Oiled Wildlife Care Network. They are working in the Gulf and
providing an insider’s view about their work with affected
wildlife.
Pelicans fly past a nest of
eggs on an island off the the coast of Louisiana on Saturday. The
island, home to hundreds of brown pelican nests, is being impacted
by oil coming ashore.
AP Photo by Gerald Herbert
Washington state officials were wondering if spill responders
would be ready for an oil spill in Puget Sound this week, given
that 26 of the most knowledgeable contract employees had been sent
to assist in the Gulf of Mexico.
So officials with the Washington Department of Ecology announced
a surprise drill today, calling on Marine Spill Response
Corporation and its subcontractors to respond to six pretend spills
all at the same time.
“This was the first time we have ever been involved in a
simultaneous unannounced drill in multiple locations,” said Curt
Hart, media relations manager for Ecology’s spill program.
“It went very well,” Curt told me. “What we can say is that we
have not lost any readiness in Washington. But nothing is perfect.
There will be lessons to learn from every (spill exercise.)”
MSRC serves as the response contractor for 20 regulated
oil-handling and shipping companies in Washington state. With 26
top-level people gone from MSRC in this region, much the
responsibility fell to Global Diving and Salvage, a company that
normally get assignments for specific tasks. In this case, Global
officials played a key role in calling the shots.
Ecology had been stressing to MSRC that the company should send
people to help in the Gulf but not if it had to reduce its response
in Puget Sound. Today’s exercise tested that agreement, including
the capabilities of Global as it “backfilled” for MSRC.
Hart seemed pleased with the outcome. First-level responders and
their equipment were generally ready at the terminals where the
simulated spills took place, and additional equipment was called
into play.
The locations of the simulated spills were in Anacortes,
Bellingham, Port Angeles, Seattle and Tacoma, with Neah Bay added
at the last minute. The drill ultimately called out 16 vessels and
41 personnel. The drill tested communications and equipment.
“We held their feet to the fire,” Hart told me.
While today’s simultaneous exercise was a first, another 50
drills are scheduled through the rest of the year to test all
aspects of the industry’s oil-spill contingency plans, according to
Hart.
In addition to the drills, Ecology inspectors have conducted 23
inspections this year to make sure equipment is available and
ready, he said.
With 22 billion gallons of oil transferred across Puget Sound
each year, the risks of a spill are very real, Curt said, despite
an extensive prevention program, which includes placing boom around
ships during oil transfers whenever practical.
When Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared the
oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a matter of national significance,
she essentially put on alert all emergency management systems
across the country.
Washington Department of Ecology, which is responsible for
responding to oil spills in this state, has identified resources
the agency could send while maintaining an adequate local response
capability, said Ecology’s Curt Hart in a memo he issued Monday to
news reporters and editors.
Spill response companies in Washington and across the country
are identifying people and resources that could be sent to the
Gulf, he said.
Hart is communications manager for Ecology’s Spill Prevention,
Preparedness, and Response Program. Here’s a portion of his
memo:
Ecology expects to continue to receive requests for people and
equipment from the spill response community to assist in the
response. Our department is working to make sure we have a sound
plan in place to process these requests. It is important that we
are well coordinated in this effort and that no required response
resources are moved out of Washington state without explicit
approval.
Some, like the Marine Spill Response Corp., have already sent 26
experienced responders, 15,000 gallons of chemical dispersants used
to minimize oil shoreline impacts, 1,400 feet of special fireproof
boom to burn oil in place on the water.
On Friday, April 30, the Department of Homeland Security asked
state agencies in Washington, including Ecology, what resources
they could send to aid our Gulf coast communities if and when it
becomes necessary.
This type of issue is not new to Ecology. We have had mutual aid
plans in place with the other west coast states and the Province of
British Columbia since 1993. It is our general policy to provide
the appropriate resources necessary to support our partners in the
United States and Canada in order to protect our national
environmental and economic interest. We may also need their help in
return someday.
Ecology and other state agencies are participating in the state
Department of Military Emergency Management Division’s “Emergency
Management Assistance Compact (EMAC)” activation. EMAC is a
national interstate mutual aid agreement that enables states to
share resources during times of disaster. We have identified the
types and number of resources that we could send while still
maintaining our local response capability.
In addition to private responders, Ecology has indicated that it
could send 11 specialists in oil spills and natural resources and
27 shoreline cleanup technicians, according to an
Associated Press story by George Tibbits.
It is likely that the cleanup will go on for months. In previous
oil-spill cleanups, workers who come later to relieve the first
responders are invaluable — and that may be when the most workers
from the West Coast are called in.
I’ve been in a mild state of shock since I first heard about the
oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. I can’t begin to imagine
the devastation that will take place once this oil starts washing
ashore tonight in the fragile salt marshes along the Louisiana
Coast.
When I think about the prospect of a ship or oil tanker crashing
in Puget Sound, I consider the oiled birds that die, along with
affected seals and potentially killer whales. I think of the food
web being poisoned. As horrible as that would be, we are talking
about a finite amount of oil — because a ship or tanker can hold
only so much.
On the other hand, the best experts working in the Gulf of
Mexico can’t seem to stop the oil coming out of the seabed, 5,000
feet down. Now officials are saying the spill could be 200,000
gallons a day or more.
How long will the spill continue? That depends on the success of
several options for shut-off, from valves that aren’t working right
now to a domelike device to trap the oil, to a new shaft drilled
down to intercept the old one. It could take months to shut off the
oil.
Yesterday,
Times-Picayune reporter Bob Marshall wrote of the more than 400
species of animals — including dozens of threatened and endangered
species — that could be injured or killed by oil before this event
is over.
The area under threat produces the largest total seafood
landings in the lower 48 states, including 50 percent of the
nation’s wild shrimp crop, 35 percent of its blue claw crabs and 40
percent of its oysters.
Oil Spill Video: Reporters explain status
Marshall quoted Melanie Driscoll of Audubon, bird conservation
director for the Louisiana Coastal Initiative, who was clearly
worried: “This is a really important time for so many species in
this ecosystem, because they’ve just begun spawning and
nesting.”
Marshall along with reporter Chris Kirkham of the New Orleans
newspaper did a great job explaining the latest information on
video. Check out the video player, above right, in which they
interview each other.
As the spill continues and oil gets closer and closer to shore,
a sense of dread is coming over everyone who understands what oil
can do to birds and wildlife. This disaster could eclipse the
devastation of the Exxon Valdez in Prince William Sound,
Alaska.
“It is of grave concern,” David Kennedy of the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration, told
The Associated Press. “I am frightened. This is a very, very
big thing. And the efforts that are going to be required to do
anything about it, especially if it continues on, are just
mind-boggling.”
Maybe it’s too soon to talk about politics, what with 11 people
dead and an environmental disaster looming, but I can’t escape the
fact that a month ago President Obama called for a renewal of
offshore oil drilling.
“By responsibly expanding conventional energy development and
exploration here at home we can strengthen our energy security,
create jobs, and help rebuild our economy. Our strategy calls for
developing new areas offshore, exploring frontier areas, and
protecting places that are too special to drill. By providing order
and certainty to offshore exploration and development and ensuring
we are drilling in the right ways and the right places, we are
opening a new chapter for balanced and responsible oil and gas
development here at home.”
Today, White House officials are saying the oil spill in the
Gulf could change their energy policy. According to a report from
Patricia Zengerle of Reuters,
this is what spokesman Robert Gibbs said about Obama’s views given
the Gulf disaster.
“Could that possibly change his viewpoint? Well, of course. I
think our focus right now is: one, the area, the spill; and two,
also to ultimately determine the cause of it and see the impact
that that ultimately may or may not have.”
And from Carol Browner, Obama’s policy adviser for energy and
climate:
“Obviously this will become, I think, part of the debate; that
goes without saying. But I don’t think it means that we can’t get
the kind of important energy legislation that we need.”
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), urged people to keep the spill in
perspective, according to a story by Greenwire reporter Mike
Soragham in the
New York Times:
“I hope it (the crisis) will not be used inappropriately. We
cannot stop energy production in this country because of this
incident. If we push exploration off our shores … but force other
people to produce it, they will be in regimes and places where
there aren’t these kinds of equipment, technology, laws and
rules.”
Fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico are understandably excited by a
recent sighting of what may have been a “superpod” of more than 200
killer whales — all swimming relatively close together and
apparently fishing for tuna.
Up until the sighting earlier this month, Charter boat captain
Eddie Hall thought he had seen everything.
“Lot’s of cool stuff, everything from submarines to ships to
every kind of shark you can think of, never a killer whale,” he
said during an interview with Debbie Williams of WKRG News in the
Mobile-Pensacola area. “Never ever thought about seeing a killer
whale in my lifetime in the Gulf.”
(If the screen below doesn’t work, go straight to the
WKRG Web site.)
Until now, the population of killer whales in the Gulf had been
estimated at 150, according to Williams’ report.
Biologist Keith Mullin said 17 orca sightings have been
recorded. “Ten to 15 in a pod; that’s the most we’ve ever seen or
really even gotten reports of,” he told WKRG.
The
stock assessment report (PDF 152 kb) by the National Marine
Fisheries Service suggests that very little is known about killer
whales in the Gulf of Mexico. A report written in October 2007
offers a guesstimate of 49 animals in the Northern Gulf of Mexico
area.
Thirty-two individuals have been photographically identified to
date, with 6 individuals having been sighted over a 5 year period,
and 1 whale resighted over 10 years… The Gulf of Mexico population
is provisionally being considered a separate stock for management
purposes, although there is currently no information to
differentiate this stock from the Atlantic Ocean stock(s)…
There are insufficient data to determine the population trends
for this species. The total level of U.S. Gulf of Mexico
fishery-caused mortality and serious injury for this stock is
unknown, but the rarity of mortality reports for this species
suggests that this level is insignificant and approaching a zero
mortality and serious injury rate.
As you can see, the knowledge about killer whales in the Gulf is
considerably different from what we know about killer whales in the
Northwest, where every birth and death of our two fish-eating
resident populations are noted and where most of the seal-eating
transients have been identified and monitored over time.
For a little more about the recent Gulf sighting, Steve Layton
and Gary Finch wrote about the event on the
Orange Beach (Ala.) Community Web site, where they said video
would be coming soon.
Thanks go to Orca Network for
tracking down good whale stories, wherever they take place.
