Oil Leak at Gulf of Mexico Oil Well

[Guest LAW]

Reps. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Charlie Melancon (D-La.) today wrote the U.S. General Services Administration asking for answers on the trailers that are being used to house some workers cleaning up the oil from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The trailers, originally provided to Gulf residents following Hurricane Katrina, were found to have unhealthy levels of formaldehyde, which is a carcinogen. The story was first reported in The New York Times.

 

"There are oil spill workers who are cleaning up toxic oil by day and then inhaling carcinogenic fumes by night, sometimes with their families," said Rep. Markey, who chairs the Energy and Environment Subcommittee in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "These toxic trailers are like a recurring nightmare for the people of the Gulf."

 

"First hurricane survivors were exposed to hazardous fumes in these FEMA trailers, and now – five years later – oil disaster workers are facing the same threat from the exact same trailers," said Rep. Melancon. "We want to know why these trailers are still being used as housing, despite the many warnings and safeguards that have been put in place to prevent this situation. Workers along the Gulf Coast face enough dangers in the oil spill clean-up, without unknowingly being exposed to another danger when they come home at night."

 

In the letter, Reps. Markey and Melancon ask the GSA to explain how these trailers, which were never intended to be used as homes ever again, ended up being used for exactly that purpose. The Congressmen ask for details on whether proper procedures were followed when these trailers were sold, and what efforts are being taken to look into the matter.

 

Administrator Martha Johnson

U.S. General Services Administration

1800 F Street NW

Washington, DC 20405-0001

 

Dear Administrator Johnson:

 

Today, the New York Times reported that hundreds of formaldehyde-contaminated trailers that were previously provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to victims of Hurricane Katrina and Rita are now being repurposed as living quarters for workers involved in clean up efforts of the BP deepwater Horizon Oil spill.

 

These trailers were first procured by FEMA in summer 2005 to shelter and house displaced residents from the severe hurricanes that affected thousands of residents of the Gulf States. In 2006, claims arose that units were contaminated with high levels of formaldehyde, which posed a particular problem for the 'travel trailers' which are equipped with less capable ventilation systems than mobile home trailers. Formaldehyde, which was used as a component of the pressed wood in the construction of the trailers, is highly toxic when inhaled and is a known carcinogen. Despite the fact that these travel trailers are designed only as temporary living quarters and for recreational purposes, many displaced residents were using these trailers as long term shelter and as a consequence, were highly exposed to the toxic formaldehyde fumes.

 

After numerous reports of serious health concerns for those residing in these trailers and after federal substantiation of these claims by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), FEMA halted distribution of the remaining unused units.

 

Earlier this year, in an attempt to recoup taxpayer funds, FEMA, working with the General Services Administration (GSA), sold over 100,000 trailers through the public auction process. Many of these trailers were sold to companies and individuals located in Louisiana and other Gulf states.

 

It is our understanding that as part of the sale of these trailers, GSA took steps to educate and inform potential buyers and users about the contamination of the trailers with hazardous formaldehyde and required all buyers to sign contracts that the trailers would not be used as housing. Despite these safeguards, according to the New York Times article[2], dozens of the trailers have been sold or otherwise provided to unwitting workers who are flocking to the Gulf to fill the jobs being offered by disaster relief firms. We are concerned that workers who are being exposed to toxic oil fumes during their cleanup efforts are now returning after a long day of work to sleep in a toxic, formaldehyde contaminated trailer.

 

We therefore ask that you respond to the following requests for information.

 

Please provide the Subcommittee with documentation regarding all sales of the formaldehyde-contaminated trailers. In each case, were all of the trailers sold in compliance with GSA's requirement (1) that the purchaser sign an agreement that the trailer would not be used for housing, (2) that the trailers clearly display a label reading "Not to be used as housing", and (3) that the purchaser read documentation about the impacts of formaldehyde exposure?

 

Has GSA found any auctioned trailers that were purchased without the required signed agreement?

 

Has GSA discovered any of these auctioned trailers in which owners have failed to label the trailer as being unfit for habitation or have removed the required labeling?

 

How is GSA ensuring that secondary sales of these auctioned trailers are conforming to the original GSA requirements?

 

Has GSA determined if these trailers are indeed being used as temporary housing facilities as has been reported in the New York Times Article? If so, what is GSA going to do to protect the health and wellbeing of workers who are responding to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? If GSA is making no such efforts, why not?

 

Thank you for your assistance and cooperation in responding to this request. Should you have any questions, please have your staff the Subcommittee staff, Mr. Markey's staff, or Mr. Melancon's staff.

 

Sincerely,

 

Edward J. Markey

Chairman

 

Charlie Melancon

Member

 

Energy and Environment Subcommittee Energy and Environment Subcommittee

 

CC:

Honorable Henry Waxman, Chairman

 

Honorable Joe Barton, Ranking Member

 

Honorable Fred Upton, Ranking Member

[Guest LAW]

Not so fast

 

The EPA still is allowing BP use Corexit dispersant. The amount approaches 1.5 million gallons as of this writing. Corexit has only one use at this point; to try and hide the oil. Why is the EPA still allowing its use?

 

This toxin is being ingested by the sea life, which is then eaten by the birds to bring back to their chicks. Many birds are being coated in oil before they can get back to the babies to feed them poison. It is unknown how many birds are dying at sea.

 

Responding to increasing use of dispersants by BP in recent days, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) today wrote to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Coast Guard asking for an update on the analysis of the chemicals, and to respond to BP’s continued use of dispersants. The questions follow yesterday’s findings by government scientists that the underwater plumes identified are consistent with those that would be formed following the use of the chemicals, and ongoing concerns over the chemicals’ impacts on human and marine life health.

 

“Million of gallons of chemical dispersant have been added to the Gulf waters, contributing to a toxic stew of chemicals, oil and gas with impacts that are not well understood,” writes Rep. Markey in the letters. Rep. Markey chairs the Energy and Environment Subcommittee in the Energy and Commerce Committee.

 

In the letters, Rep. Markey says that an analysis of BP’s recent dispersant use shows the company has not eliminated surface application of the chemicals, saying “daily volumes hover around 10,000 gallons.” BP has also exceeded the recommended daily levels of 15,000 gallons of subsurface application at the spill source.

 

The Honorable Lisa Jackson

Administrator

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Ariel Rios Building

1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

 

Dear Administrator Jackson,

 

I write to request additional information on the use of dispersants as a means to mitigate the effects of the oil that has been spewing into the Gulf of Mexico for 9 weeks. As slicks and plumes of oil and gas expand in the Gulf, the list of unknowns that surround the disaster's impact on the marine life and health continue to grow.

 

Although I appreciate your May 27 response to my May 17, 2010 letter, I am concerned that your response left many questions unanswered, in part because of the timeframes required to perform necessary scientific analysis. Additionally, while the volume of dispersant BP was using following you May 26, 2010 directive was consistent with your request that the use of Corexit be greatly reduced, BP has yet to achieve the overall goal set forth by the EPA and US Coast Guard.

 

One of BP's primary mitigation strategies involves the application of chemical dispersants to break up the oil into tiny droplets that scatter in the ocean and may be more readily consumed by microbes. These chemicals are being sprayed onto the surface of the ocean, and for the first time in U.S. history are also being applied at the source of the leak, almost one mile below sea surface. Millions of gallons of chemical dispersant have been added to the Gulf waters, contributing to a toxic stew of chemicals, oil and gas with impacts that are not well understood.

 

There has been much speculation that the use of the dispersants has contributed to the formation of large plumes or clouds of oil that are suspended well below the ocean surface. Many experts have raised concerns about these plumes' potential to cause significant harm to aquatic life in the Gulf of Mexico. This can occur via two mechanisms. First, the toxic constituents of oil and dispersants can poison the aquatic life exposed to them and may lead to death or non-lethal harm to species and contamination of the marine food chain. Second, as naturally-occurring bacteria consume the oil, they also use up oxygen that is critical to the survival of many marine organisms. This can turn lead to localized depletions of oxygen levels that could cause marine life to die of asphyxiation. Oxygen depleted at the depths that these plumes have been found can take years to replenish, causing long-term damage to the deep Gulf ecosystem. One June 23, 2010, NOAA scientists re-confirmed the existence of these plumes, and addionally confirmed that their characteristics are consistent with the use of chemically-dispersed oil.

 

In light of environmental concerns about dispersants, On May 20, 2010 EPA and the U.S. Coast Guard directed BP to identify and start using dispersant that is of lower toxicity and efficacy than Corexit, the trademarked name for the most toxic and least effective of the EPA-approved dispersants. After receiving BP's response, which defended the company's choice in selecting Corexit, EPA and the U.S. Coast Guard announced that they were not satisfied with BP's evaluation of alternatives and that EPA would undertake it own independent evaluation to determine the best dispersant available in the volumes necessary for this crisis. In the meantime, EPA and the U.S. Coast Guard directed BP to reduce the overall volume of dispersant by 75% from the maximum daily amount used (70,000 gallons per day) and to completely eliminate surface application of dispersants unless absolutely necessary.

 

An analysis of BP's recent dispersant use indicates that the company has not eliminated the surface application of dispersants, and although it has reduced the amount of dispersant used subsurface at the well head, it has exceeded the recommended daily level of 15,000 gallons at times. The surface application volumes, while reduced by approximately 50% have no way ceased, as daily volumes used hover around 10,000 gallons.

 

In your May 27th letter you described some technical aspects of the "Rocky Shore Test" which is a requirement for dispersant approval in the United Kingdom and was failed by Corexit products currently being used in the Gulf. In this test; a a type of snail, the common limpet, is sprayed with oil alone (which is highly lethal) or with dispersant alone, and the number of snails that lose adhesion (which for the purposes of the test are considered dead) are counted. Your letter describes this test as being a measure of "relative harm", as compared to oil alone, and not a measure of "inherent toxicity", but when reviewing the results of the Corexit Rocky Shore test, I was shocked to learn that the Corexit dispersant alone was twice as lethal as oil-a result that is of grave significance.

 

Finally, a month has passed since EPA launched it independent investigation into alternative dispersants. While I understand this type of scientific evaluation takes time to accomplish, I am writing to get an update on the progress of these studies as well as to follow up on your response to my May 17, 2010 letter. Consequently, I ask that you respond to the following questions:

 

1. As you know, both Corexit 9500 and 9527 were removed from the UK list of approved dispersants for near-shore use over a decade ago, because they failed to pass the "Rocky Shore Test" since use of the Corexit products alone were more lethal toxic to a common sea snail than oil.

 

a. Has EPA explored the effect Corexit 9500, the dispersant currently being used in the Gulf of Mexico, may have on similar grazing organisms, such as sea slugs and squids that are present in the Gulf of Mexico? If so, which species did you evaluate and what were the results of these tests? If not, why not?

 

b. Has EPA evaluated the potential for dispersants mixed into underwater plumes to travel to areas of Florida that have shores that may be similar to a "rocky shore"? If so, has EPA determined what effect these chemicals may on rocky shore organisms?

 

2. What types of tests is EPA performing on dispersants other than Corexit to determine if there are any less toxic and more effective alternatives to aid in the mitigation efforts? Is EPA evaluating BP's claim that some other dispersant ingredients break down the chemicals that may have endocrine disrupting properties, Please forward all results of this evaluation.

 

3. As EPA moves forward, what type of revisions does it plan on making to the way in which dispersants are evaluated for addition to the National Contingency Plan (NCP) Product Schedule?

 

4. In its My 26, 2010 directive' EPA and the U.S. Coast Guard instructed BP to eliminate surface application of dispersants, except in rare cases. While in the few days following the directive, the amount of surface application was reduced significantly, BP has not ceased surface application of dispersant. In fact for the last few days, more than 10,000 gallons of dispersants have been applied daily to the surface waters of the Gulf of Mexico. While that is a 50% reduction from the pre-directive daily average of approximately 20,000 gallons, the average daily volumes are certainly not zero.

 

a. The May 26, 2010 directive explicitly stated that if BP wanted to use surface dispersant it needed to make a request in writing to the Federal on Scene Coordinator for approval by the United States Coast Guard. Please provide me with copies of the BP requests to the United States Coast Guard, and any EPA feedback provided to the Coast Guard as these requests were considered.

 

b. The directive also instructed BP to use no more than 15,000 gallons a day on the well head. Since the directive was issued, BP has exceeded this daily maximum on four occasions (May 28, May 30, June 6, and June 20). Please provide me with copies of the BP requests to the United States Coast Guard, and any EPA feedback provided to the Coast Guard as these requests were considered.

 

5. On May 20, 2010 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and EPA wrote a letter to BP CEO, Tony Hayward, urging that the company make publically available all information and data related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on a website to be updated by BP daily, BP responded to this request committing to make every effort to collect and upload relevant data to BP's website. At a hearing held by the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee on June 17, in response to on of my questions, Mr. Hayward testified that all data and information by BP is "being published, as we make them, on a variety of web sites." It is my understanding that EPA is publishing only a portion of the data submitted by BP.

 

a. Has EPA confirmed that all the data submitted by BP is in fact being published? If so, where? If not, what steps will EPA take to ensure that BP is being transparent with all data and information relating to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and related clean up efforts?

 

Thank you for your assistance and cooperation in responding to this request. Should you have any questions, please have your staff contact Dr. Michal Freedoff of the Subcommittee or Dr. Avenel Joesph of my staff at 202-225-2836

 

Sincerely,

 

Edward J. Markey

Chairman

Subcommittee on Energy and Environment

[Guest EPA Press Office]

Today, the U.S. Coast Guard, with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreement, issued a directive to BP on how the company should manage recovered oil, contaminated materials and liquid and solid wastes recovered in cleanup operations from the BP oil spill. The U.S. Coast Guard, along with EPA, and in consultation with the states, will hold BP accountable for the implementation of the approved waste management plans and ensure that the directives are followed in the gulf coast states. While the states of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida are overseeing BP’s waste management activities and conducting inspections, this action today is meant to compliment their activities by providing further oversight and imposing more specific requirements. Under the directive, EPA, in addition to sampling already being done by BP, will begin sampling the waste to help verify that the waste is being properly managed. Waste sampling to date has been done in compliance with EPA and state regulatory requirements.

 

The directive will do the following:

 

· Provide guidelines for community engagement activities and set transparency requirements on information regarding the proper management of liquid and solid wastes.

 

· Require BP to give EPA and state agencies access to facilities or any location where waste is temporarily or permanently stored. Access includes allowing the agencies to perform any activities necessary, such as assessments, sampling or inspections.

 

· Require BP to comply with all applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations and to ensure that all facilities where waste is located or placed have obtained all permits and approvals necessary under such laws and regulations.

 

· Finally, the directive will require BP to submit to EPA and the Coast Guard specific plans, waste reports and tracking systems for liquid and solid waste.

 

In addition to the directive, the Coast Guard, with the agreement of EPA and in consultation with the states, developed waste management plans outlining how recovered oil and waste generated as a result of the BP oil spill will be managed. EPA has posted to its Web site the latest versions of these waste management plans for Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana that will be implemented under the directive.

 

More information on the waste management plans: http://epa.gov/bpspill/waste.html

 

More information on the directive: http://www.epa.gov/bpspill/waste.html#directive

[Guest Gulf Restoration Network]

In the second month of the BP drilling disaster, we revisit the Atakapa-Ishak people of Grand Bayou Community, in lower Plaquemines Parish, an area hard-hit by BP's crude oil. The fourth episode in our ongoing series features Interviews with Rosina Philippe and commercial fisherman Maurice "Bimbo" Phillips, describing what has happened to their traditional fishing grounds and community. As DC weighs in and the White House holds BP to their pledges, little effective action is seen on the water. Narrated by Tim Robbins, created by Gulf Restoration Network and NOLA Image Works, with the support of the Vitalogy Foundation.

 

[Guest NOAA]

NOAA ship Gordon Gunter will depart today to continue its mission to evaluate the effects of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill on whales and dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico, including the endangered sperm whale.

 

This project includes leading researchers from Cornell University, Oregon State University, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who will work with NOAA scientists to monitor the distributions and movements of whales over the next several months.

 

Twenty-one species of marine mammals call the deep waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico home, including the endangered sperm whale and a small, isolated population of baleen whales called Bryde’s (pronounced BRU-des) whales. Scientists will use a variety of tools during the mission to document how these species respond as oil comes into their habitats.

 

Gordon Gunter will be working in the Gulf until early August. NOAA scientists on the ship will be collecting tissues samples from sperm whales and other marine mammals, and will also be tracking their abundance and spatial distribution both with visual surveys and by recording sounds using a towed array of underwater microphones. The ship will also be measuring water characteristics and using acoustics to measure the amount of plankton, fish, and squid, the primary food for whales.

 

These studies will help describe the habitats of marine mammals and measure the possible effects of the oil on them. “We have assembled an exceptional partnership with world-class academic scientists who will work with us to evaluate the potential for effects from the spill on marine mammals throughout the Gulf,” said Lance Garrison, Ph.D., of NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center and the principal investigator for NOAA.

 

Bruce Mate, Ph.D., and his colleagues from Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute will attempt to attach satellite tracking tags to as many as two dozen sperm whales near the spill site and track their locations by satellite to see if the spill will affect the size of their “home range” and their movements within feeding areas. “Our previous research provided a wonderful blueprint of sperm whale movements in the Gulf of Mexico,” Mate said. “Now we will try to locate a number of different whale groups and tag selected healthy individuals – mostly females – and see if their movements are different than in past years.”

 

Data from the new study will be compared to similar data Mate collected between 2002 and 2005 as part of an interdisciplinary study of sperm whales funded by the U.S. Department of Interior. “We’ll also try to locate and tag whales that are in the projected path of the spill to get a better sense of what these individuals will do when the oil enters their habitats,” he added.

 

While the satellite tags are used to track the movements of individual whales, two types of seafloor listening buoys will be used to document changes in the distribution of whales and dolphins in deep water from the Louisiana/Texas border to southwestern Florida. These units will remain in place for up to four months and will record the moans, clicks and whistles that whales and dolphins produce for communicating, navigating, and finding food. These records will allow scientists to track changes in the occurrence of marine mammals as the amount of oil exposure changes throughout the summer and fall.

 

Nearly two dozen Marine Autonomous Recording Units from the Cornell University Bioacoustics Research Program will be deployed to listen for sperm whale clicks and Bryde’s whale calls. “The objective is to record the sounds that different species of whales use for communicating, navigating and finding food in order to document where they are and what they are doing over the 3-4 month period,” said Christopher Clark, Ph.D., who will oversee their deployment, recovery and the analysis of the data. “Based on our experiences in other offshore habitats I expect we’ll hear more than just sperm and Bryde’s whales. We should be prepared for fish and some acoustic surprises.”

 

In addition, a new technology, the High Frequency Acoustic Recording Package (HARP) developed by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography of the University of California San Diego, will be used to record sounds. One of the units was placed close to the Deepwater Horizon BP site last month, and additional units will be placed in areas with different degrees of exposure to oil. The HARP is capable of recording the full range of marine mammals that inhabit the Gulf of Mexico, including sperm whales, beaked whales, and a variety of dolphin species. By the end of the mission, four of these packages will have been deployed in the Gulf.

 

“By recording the sounds from all the marine mammals that live in the Gulf of Mexico, we can get a more complete picture of the health of this ecosystem,” said Dr. John Hildebrand of Scripps, who heads this effort. “By beginning our study soon after the spill began, we may see trends in the presence of animals in the affected area.”

[Guest NOAA]

Sea Turtles and Marine Mammals (effective June 30, 2010)

 

A total of 594 sea turtles have been verified from April 30 to June 30 within the designated spill area from the Texas/Louisiana border to Apalachicola, Florida. Between Tuesday, June 29, and Wednesday, June 30, 8 turtle strandings were verified (Five live in Mississippi, one dead in Florida and one oiled dead in Florida, one live oiled in Alabama). There are 142 sea turtles in rehabilitation centers. These include 98 sea turtles captured as part of on-water survey and rescue operations, and 44 turtles that stranded alive. A total of 113 stranded or captured turtles have had visible evidence of external oil since verifications began on April 30. All others have not had visible evidence of external oil.

 

Of the 594 turtles verified from April 30 to June 30, a total of 437 stranded turtles were found dead, 52 stranded alive. Four of those subsequently died. Four live stranded turtles were released, and 44 live stranded turtles are being cared for at rehabilitation centers. Turtle strandings during this time period have been much higher in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle than in previous years for this same time period. This may be due in part to increased detection and reporting, but this does not fully account for the increase.

 

The NOAA Ship Pisces reported a dead 25-foot sperm whale on June 15, 2010, that was located 150 miles due south of Pascagoula, Mississippi and approximately 77 miles due south of the spill site last week. The whale was decomposed and heavily scavenged. Samples of skin and blubber have been taken and will be analyzed. The whale had not evidence of external oil. Sperm whales are the only endangered resident cetacean in the Upper Gulf of Mexico. There are no records of stranded whales in the Gulf of Mexico for the month of June for the period 2003-2007.

 

From April 30 to June 30, 56 stranded dolphins have been verified in the designated spill area. One stranded dolphin from Mississippi was verified on June 30. Of the 56 strandings, five were live strandings, three of which died shortly after stranding, one was released and one is in rehabilitation. Fifty one dolphins were found stranded dead. Visible evidence of external oil was confirmed on five dolphins, two live and three dead stranded animals. We are unable at this time to determine whether three of the dead stranded dolphins were externally oiled before or after death. Since April 30, the stranding rate for dolphins in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle has been higher than the historic numbers for the same time period in previous years. In part, this may be due to increased detection and reporting and the lingering effects of an earlier observed spike in strandings for the winter of 2010.

 

A stranding is defined as a dead or debilitated animal that washes ashore or is found in the water. NOAA and its partners are analyzing the cause of death for the dead stranded and dead captured sea turtles and the stranded marine mammals.

[Guest EPA Press Office]

The US Environmental Protection Agency today released peer reviewed results from the first round of its own independent toxicity testing on eight oil dispersants. EPA conducted testing to ensure that decisions about ongoing dispersant use in the Gulf of Mexico continue to be grounded in the best available science.

 

EPA’s results indicated that none of the eight dispersants tested, including the product in use in the Gulf, displayed biologically significant endocrine disrupting activity. While the dispersant products alone – not mixed with oil - have roughly the same impact on aquatic life, JD-2000 and Corexit 9500 were generally less toxic to small fish and JD-2000 and SAF-RON GOLD were least toxic to mysid shrimp. While this is important information to have, additional testing is needed to further inform the use of dispersants.

 

"EPA is performing independent tests to determine the potential impacts of various dispersants. We will continue to conduct additional research before providing a final recommendation, " said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. "We want to ensure that every tool is available to mitigate the impact of the BP spill and protect our fragile wetlands. But we continue to direct BP to use dispersants responsibly and in as limited an amount as possible."

 

EPA continues to carefully monitor BP’s use of dispersant in the Gulf. Dispersants are generally less toxic than oil and can prevent some oil from impacting sensitive areas along the Gulf Coast. EPA believes BP should use as little dispersant as necessary and, on May 23, Administrator Jackson and then-Federal On-Scene Coordinator Rear Admiral Mary Landry directed BP to reduce dispersant usage by 75 percent from peak usage. EPA and the Coast Guard formalized that order in a directive to BP on May 26. Over the next month BP reduced dispersant use 68 percent from that peak.

 

Before directing BP to ramp down dispersant use, EPA directed BP to analyze potential alternative dispersants for toxicity and effectiveness. BP reported to EPA that they were unable to find a dispersant that is less toxic than Corexit 9500, the product currently in use. Following that, EPA began its own scientific testing of eight dispersant products on the National Contingency Plan Product Schedule (NCP-PS). Those dispersant products are: Dispersit SPC 1000, Nokomis 3-F4, Nokomis 3-AA, ZI-400, SAF-RON Gold, Sea Brat #4, Corexit 9500 A and JD 2000. Today’s results represent the first stage of that effort.

 

EPA tested these eight products for endocrine disrupting activity and potential impacts on small fish and mysid shrimp. The testing found:

 

* None of the eight dispersants tested displayed biologically significant endocrine disrupting activity.

* While all eight dispersants alone – not mixed with oil – showed roughly the same effects, JD-2000 and Corexit 9500 proved to be the least toxic to small fish, and JD-2000 and SAF-RON GOLD were the least toxic to the mysid shrimp.

 

The next phase of EPA’s testing will assess the acute toxicity of multiple concentrations of Louisiana Sweet Crude Oil alone and combinations of Louisiana Sweet Crude Oil with each of the eight dispersants for two test species.

 

To view the first round of test results please visit: http://www.epa.gov/bpspill/dispersants

[Guest Unified Area Command]

Use Of Respirators for Responders

 

The Unified Area Command is committed to stopping the oil spill, cleaning the gulf and restoring normal business in the area affected. Our highest priority is worker safety.

 

The Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have assessed the risk and provided information on workplace safety and health for these responders; the guidelines can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/oilspillresponse/protecting/

 

The primary means of controlling airborne exposures to harmful dusts, fogs, fumes, mists, gases, smokes, sprays, or vapors is always to prevent, control, or remove the atmospheric contamination. In situations when exposures cannot be otherwise controlled, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), including respiratory protection, may be needed.

 

Based on air monitoring data collected to date, exposures to hydrocarbons, dispersants and other hazardous chemicals are below established occupational exposure limits. In most situations that have been examined to date, mandatory wearing of respirators is not required.

 

That said, respirators will be provided to response workers engaged in the source control activities and for vessels involved in burning crude oil. These respirators are provided as part of a comprehensive respiratory protection program. Respirators only need to be worn when air-monitoring results indicate an elevated level of air contaminants, or when professional judgment determines there is potential exposure, or when workers are reporting health effects or symptoms.

 

Even when comprehensive and routine air monitoring indicates that no inhalational hazard exists, an employer may permit respiratory protection to be worn voluntarily by employees provided it will not in itself create a hazard. At this time, where air monitoring does not indicate a need, respirator use is voluntary and not recommended.

 

The only situation where voluntary use may be helpful is when an individual is bothered by non-hazardous levels of hydrocarbon odor and cannot be relocated to another work area. In that case, a carbon-impregnated odor-reduction filtering facepiece respirator may provide some odor reduction potential—and can be worn voluntarily without the employer having to implement a respiratory protection program. These types of respirators do not provide health protective effects; they only provide odor reduction.

 

Wearing any respirator will have adverse effects on breathing, vision and communication, will result in some discomfort, and may cause additional physiological stress. Wearing respirators, protective clothing, and other forms of PPE in hot environments can accelerate the onset of heat stress and exhaustion. Responders using any form of PPE, particularly dermal PPE, should be monitored for signs of heat stress, and take heat stress precautions (i.e., water, shade, rest) as needed.

 

When workers have concerns about environmental conditions, they are instructed to stop the job and call an occupational safety and health professional to evaluate the environment. If the occupational safety and health professional determines that there is a potentially hazardous exposure or if workers are reporting health effects or symptoms, workers are instructed to move out of the area until the workplace is judged to be acceptable, or they may be instructed to utilize approved respiratory protection.

 

For more information on health risks associated with oil spill response cleaning efforts, please visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/oilspillresponse/.

[Guest Unified Area Command]

Today, the U.S. Coast Guard, with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreement, issued a directive to BP on how the company should manage recovered oil, contaminated materials and liquid and solid wastes recovered in cleanup operations from the BP oil spill. The U.S. Coast Guard, along with EPA, and in consultation with the states, will hold BP accountable for the implementation of the approved waste management plans and ensure that the directives are followed in the Gulf Coast states. While the states of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida are overseeing BP’s waste management activities and conducting inspections, this action today is meant to compliment their activities by providing further oversight and imposing more specific requirements.

Under the directive EPA, in addition to sampling already being done by BP, will begin sampling the waste to help verify that the waste is being properly managed. Waste sampling to date has been done in compliance with EPA and state regulatory requirements.

 

The directive will do the following:

 

* Provides guidelines for community engagement activities and sets transparency requirements on information regarding the proper management of liquid and solid wastes.

* Requires BP to give EPA and state agencies access to facilities or any location where waste is temporarily or permanently stored. Access includes allowing the agencies to perform any activities necessary, such as assessments, sampling or inspections.

* Requires BP to comply with all applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations and to ensure that all facilities where waste is located or placed have obtained all permits and approvals necessary under such laws and regulations.

* Finally, the directive requires BP to submit to EPA and the Coast Guard specific plans, waste reports and tracking systems for liquid and solid waste.

 

In addition to the directive, the Coast Guard, with the agreement of EPA and in consultation with the states, developed waste management plans outlining how recovered oil and waste generated as a result of the BP oil spill will be managed. EPA has posted to its Web site the latest versions of these Waste Management Plans for Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana that will be implemented under the directive.

 

For more information on the waste management plans, visit EPA’s website at http://epa.gov/bpspill/waste.html.

 

For a copy of the directive visit:

http://www.epa.gov/bpspill/waste.html#directive

[Guest LAW]

Press Briefing by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and National Incident Commander Thad Allen, 7/1/2010

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

 

1:46 P.M. EDT

 

MR. GIBBS: Good afternoon. We are lucky to be joined today by our National Incident Commander -- and I’m sure you all read the press release yesterday, newly retired Admiral Thad Allen, joining us today sans his several decades of uniform, to give us an update on the BP oil spill, our response to Deepwater Horizon. And I will give it over to him.

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Afternoon. As you can see, my wife’s taken me to a men’s store in the last couple weeks. (Laughter.)

 

It was an honor to serve in the United States Coast Guard for 39 years, and today I transition to a senior executive on Secretary Napolitano’s staff as I carry on my duties as a National Incident Commander.

 

So with that quick overview on what’s going on, as you know, the hurricane passed by, generated some swells and weather up towards the well site that required us to delay bringing onboard the third production vessel, the Helix Producer, which we thought we would have online by today. We will need about three days after the weather calms to less than three to five feet for that vessel to be able to hook up to the flexible coupling that it will be required to do. So we’re looking at somewhere around mid-week next week to bring the third production vessel online. It will bring our capacity up to 53,000 barrels per day.

 

In the 24-hour period that ended last night at midnight, we actually recovered 23,000 barrels. The Discovery Enterprise had to stop operations a couple of times due to lightning in the area. As you remember, we had a situation a few weeks ago where lighting struck the derrick and caused a fire. So there are some safety reasons why they might have to stop from time to time. And the Q4000 actually flared 8,200 barrels.

 

Regarding the relief wells, Development Driller III now is at a distance of 11,641 feet below the seafloor. As you know, they’re going through a series of operations which we call ranging. They’re into their fourth cycle of this. In ranging, they withdraw the drill pipe and put down an electrical cable and actually try and sense the magnetic field around the wellbore. They are within around 15 feet of the wellbore at this point. They will continue down 700, 800 more feet, slowly close into the wellbore, and when they know they’ve got it exactly in range, know exactly where the drill pipe is in relation to the wellbore, then they will attempt to move in and drill through the wellbore and then the casing as well. At that point they’ll be in a position to be able to try the bottom kill or to be able to insert the mud, and hopefully after that, put a cement plug in that will kill the well.

 

Development Driller II is 6,720 feet below the seafloor and is making progress as well.

 

Our onshore and near-shore skimming and recovery operation has been significantly hampered by the weather. The small vessels that do the skimming have a difficult time operating out there; we had to pull them back. The same with the vessels operating in and around the well site itself.

 

The drilling rigs were able to continue, but we are now massing our forces to be able to move right back out once the weather will allow us to get on the water and skim. In some of the areas such as Barataria Bay and other places we were able to have back bay skimmers and actually make some progress there. But in general, waiting for the weather to abate so we can move on with recovery operations.

 

MR. GIBBS: Happy to take questions on this or other topics today.

 

Q For Admiral Allen, can you talk about this new 20-meter safety zone, and if that was done at BP’s request, or what the reason is to do this at this stage in the crisis?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Can you be more specific?

 

Q The safety zone for vessels around plumes and other oil response.

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Oh. It’s not unusual at all for the Coast Guard to establish either safety or security zones around any number of facilities or activities for public safety and for the safety of the equipment itself. We would do this for marine events, fireworks demonstrations, cruise ships going in and out of port.

 

Q Right, but we’re so far into this disaster now, why do it now and why the new --

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: I actually had some personal complaints from some county commissioners in Florida and some other local mayors that thought that there was a chance that somebody would get hurt or they would have a problem with the boom itself -- had not presented itself before, but once presented with it, the logical thing to do.

 

Q So it wasn’t a BP request?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Not at all.

 

Q And one really quickly for you, Robert. On the climate bill, is it -- I think some environmentalists are under the impression that the administration is now asking for a vote before August, and limiting any kind of cap or pricing to the electric utilities -- is that accurate?

 

MR. GIBBS: Well, we have said that -- and the Senate has said that after coming back from the recess, one of the things that they will do is likely take up energy. We think that’s the right thing to do. The President had a good meeting a couple of days ago with bipartisan -- with senators from both parties that have led on this issue. We’ve not made any final determinations about the size and scope of the legislation except to say that the President believes, and continues to believe, that putting a price on carbon has to be part of our comprehensive energy reform.

 

Q So he hasn’t decided yet to limit it to just one industry, for instance?

 

MR. GIBBS: No, again, this is -- whether this is energy or immigration, this is going to have to be something that’s discussed with Democrats and Republicans alike.

 

Yes, sir.

 

Q Thanks. First for the Admiral. Do you believe -- will skimming operations start again this weekend, or do you know when that will start again?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: It depends on the type of skimming equipment and the sea state. Some of the larger vessels that operate offshore will be able to get out quicker. When you get over three to five feet, some of the smaller skimmers -- say, 30, 40 feet in length -- have a very difficult time operating and being effective. So it will be weather-based.

 

Q There were some rumors in the financial markets today that the well had been capped, which is obviously not true. Is there any information that we haven’t gotten about progress --

 

MR. GIBBS: Including me. (Laughter.)

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Nothing that I’m aware of. I would say this, as they get closer to the wellbore, getting into the position to make that final drilling into the wellbore and the casing itself, there is a chance -- slight chance -- they could nick the wellbore. Because of that, they have a vessel up there that’s full of mud waiting to be able to shoot it in if they have a problem there. But nothing to my knowledge.

 

Q Robert, along the same lines, can you give us an idea as to when the administration will be releasing its new report on -- or its new decision on the offshore drilling moratorium?

 

MR. GIBBS: I think that will come from the Department of Interior, I would expect in the next few days.

 

Q In the next few days?

 

MR. GIBBS: Yes.

 

Q Great. And one non-oil-spill-related question -- there’s growing fear among economists and financial markets about the possibility of a double-dip recession. The President met with Chairman Bernanke earlier this week. Is that a concern that the President has, and is there -- are you preparing plans or a way to address that now?

 

MR. GIBBS: Well, look, we continue to work towards improving our economy, creating an environment for job creation. The Senate took up I think two days ago a cloture vote on our small business lending initiative that the House had previously passed. Obviously we believe financial reform is a big part of our economic recovery so that we don’t find ourselves in the same situation this September that we did two years ago.

 

So I would just simply say we continue each and every day to look at and to monitor events here, and obviously we now understand over the course of the past several months the news that -- from overseas, how much that can affect our markets here and economic prospects here.

 

So the economic team continues to look at and advise the President on anything that they believe would be important to continuing our economic recovery.

 

You heard the Vice President a week or so ago come in here and describe the ramping up of projects inside the Recovery Act that’s taking place this summer. We’ll get new jobs numbers obviously tomorrow. And we’ll get a chance to evaluate sort of where we are.

 

Q Does that word, “double-dip,” come up in those morning economic briefings?

 

MR. GIBBS: Look, that’s -- our economic conditions and the plight that we face, based on the fact that what we’re -- the pothole that we’re in, if you will, if you look at that chart, what I mean by that is the chart that I showed you guys on the amount of job loss, of 8.5 million jobs, obviously you’re always concerned about the trajectory of and the fragility of that recovery. That’s been the case, though, honestly, Jeff, since the moment we walked in here.

 

So it’s -- the state of the economy is constantly on our mind.

 

Yes, sir.

 

Q Robert, on immigration reform, what are the chances that enough Republicans will come onboard and that this will get done this year, in 2010?

 

MR. GIBBS: Well, look, if you had, as you heard the President say -- look, well, let me start it this way. I think where there’s a will there’s a way, right? If there’s a will among Democrats and Republicans, specifically Republicans on this issue, then there’s a way. We know that’s true.

 

We have, as you heard the President talk about, Republicans that have supported this in the past that haven’t been as supportive or as vocal in their support of comprehensive reform as they have been in the past, as they were when, as the President lauded former President Bush for dealing with this issue.

 

We know this, that the issue of immigration and immigration reform has been in the news a lot lately because of the steps that were taken in Arizona. We understand that we can’t have each state have its own immigration law, and that it’s up to those in Washington to solve the problems that have existed, quite frankly, for many, many years.

 

So where there’s a will on the Republican side of the aisle, there will be a way forward on comprehensive immigration reform.

 

Q And on the oil spill, if I may, House Republicans today released a report that’s critical of the administration’s cleanup efforts. Specifically they say they have evidence that administration officials “have misrepresented key facts, including the number of assets dedicated to cleaning up the spill, the timing of when officials knew about the oil leak.” What is your response to that?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, I think we’ve been pretty transparent throughout this response. I’ve stood up here and talked to you all very frankly. I’ve given you the numbers that we have. Those numbers are rolled up from the reports we get from the folks that are downrange there.

 

I’ve been downrange myself. I’ve been to all four states; I go frequently, traveled both with the President and the Vice President this week. Every indication I have that the numbers are coming up are the numbers that are there.

 

You can always find a place where there’s somebody on the beach not cleaning, where it’s empty, and you can find a piece of water where there’s no skimmer; it’s just that big an area down there. But this thing has evolved from the start, and from a massive monolithic oil spill to thousands and hundreds of thousands of small patches of oil. It’s required us to change our tactics, move to a more skimmer-based approach from the boom approach that was originally requested by the governors. But I think throughout the entire life cycle of the event we’ve been pretty up front with the resources that have been out there.

 

Q So it’s more about the complexity of this operation rather than transparency?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, it’s no doubt it’s the most complex thing we’ve ever been involved in. It’s transformed itself way beyond a normal oil spill response. And early on the governors were very concerned about protecting their resources with boom, and we put a lot of boom out. And we’re at a point now where were double- and triple-booming places. And our goal is to approach 200 percent of the basic boom requirement, to just continue to do that to make sure we’re protecting everything as much as we can.

 

But the fact of the nature of the spill has changed. We had new flow rate numbers several weeks ago, as you know. That’s put a premium on skimming capability -- all kinds of skimming capability, very shallow skimming capability into the back areas like Barataria Bay, to the very heavy-duty skimmers offshore. And we’re very aggressively acquiring those right now. The spill has evolved and we’ve evolved with it.

 

MR. GIBBS: Let me just add to this. I scanned a portion of this. Part of what he purports to address is that somehow it took the command 70 days to accept international help. That is -- it’s a myth that has been debunked literally hundreds of times. There were already 24 foreign vessels that were operating in the Gulf before the State Department announced two days ago additional international assistance. As early as May 11th, boom had arrived from Mexico, Norway and Brazil.

 

Part of the report mentions that our failure to waive the Jones Act has been a problem; that, again, a myth that has I think been debunked on any number of occasions. And I would say one thing to Congressman Issa, Plaquemines is spelled P-l-a-q-u-e-m-i-n-e-s.

 

Q Two questions.

 

Q Can I follow up on that, though?

 

Q The first one to Admiral Allen, about the skimmers. I understand that there is somewhat of a super skimmer, a mega-ship called “A Whale, from the Taiwanese. I just wonder what is the status of approval on that and how effective do you think that ship will be?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: I’m not sure I’d call that a skimmer. I think that’s a developmental project that we want to see how it works. The owners made an offer to bring it down at their expense and have it operate in the Gulf area to see if it could be effective. We have worked with EPA and other regulatory agencies to give it a go, and it’s down in the area; it will be ready to operate in a couple of days.

We’re anxious to find out how effective it will be. But it is a very large ship that’s been converted to be able to recover oil, and we’ll see how it goes.

 

MR. GIBBS: We can get a timeline for you. It I think came from Portugal, was retrofitted until mid-June in Lisbon, and then made its way down to the Gulf.*

 

Q Do you have high hopes for that?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, we have high hopes for anything that can be effective down there. As you realize, this is an all-hands-on-deck evolution. We need to mass our forces, and anything that’s effective we’re looking forward to using.

 

Q And, Robert, to follow on Dan’s question about immigration reform, I just wondered, the President is famous for saying that nothing in D.C. happens without a deadline. Why not set one?

 

MR. GIBBS: Well, again, this is -- we’ve made progress on this before. We know Washington can do this. But unless or until Republicans that have been doing this before, that have been supportive of immigration reform, that have spoken out eloquently about the need for it -- until they get back into this game -- and by that I mean into the legislative arena to solve this problem -- it’s not going to get solved. And people should understand that.

 

We all know that despite what you learned on Schoolhouse Rock, it’s not 50, it’s 60 votes in the Senate, right? Probably to rename a courthouse it takes 60 votes, right? There aren’t 60 Democrats in the Senate and they’re not necessarily -- of the 59 that are there, or that normally vote with the Democrats, they may not all support it. You have to have the support of the many Republicans that have in the past believed that comprehensive immigration reform was the only way to move forward.

 

Q So if this doesn’t get done, is this the President’s fault or is this a Republican failure?

 

MR. GIBBS: I think it is clear -- if it wasn’t clear before today, the President laid out exactly what the problem was that we’ve been facing for years. He laid out very specific solutions to what needs to happen. He is ready, willing and able to work with anybody. But unless or until those on the Republican side come back into this arena and decide this is a situation that they want to solve, it won’t be solved.

 

Yes.

 

Q Admiral, what is the percentage chance that the relief well project is going to work? Is it close to 100 percent? And what do you think now -- can you pick a date and say when it is really going to happen?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: I’m not sure I’m willing to attach a percentage to anything we’re doing in this spill. I will tell you this. Contrary -- unlike some other things that have been done on the seabed out there at 5,000 feet -- you heard me say before, we’re doing something we’ve never done before. Relief wells are things that these companies have done before, not just BP, but all the companies. The methods they’re using, the technology they’re using, it’s all been proven in the water, on land.

 

So I think we have a little bit better basis by which to understand the potential for this to be successful. In fact, they’re not reinventing the wheel, if you will, it’s something they’ve done before.

 

We’ve mitigated the risk by having the second well be dug. I’ve had a lot of detailed briefings and I’ve discussed this quite in detail -- the technical issues associated with this ranging in how they do that, and this is a very precise method for locating that wellbore.

 

So I think we stand a good chance -- I’m not sure I’m going to put a number on it. The current goal is by mid-August. We’re slightly ahead of schedule. But I don’t think we ought to say -- we shouldn’t come off that mid-August date until we know they’ve actually gone through the wellbore.

 

Q But “good chance” doesn’t sound very optimistic. It sounds like you’re --

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: I’d rather under-promise than over-deliver with you folks. (Laughter.)

 

Q Following -- same with us -- on the “Whale,” a little more on that, 21 million gallons it can scoop up a day. I mean, it sounds like it could be the closest thing you’ve had to a silver bullet yet if it works. I mean, do you see it that way?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, we’ve talked before about modifying tankers and whether or not we could do that. This is one where they actually went out and modified it. The others, we were waiting to have them modified. That’s the reason this one is in the fight.

 

A couple unusual things about working around this well site: First of all, it’s very congested. We can have anywhere between 20 and 30 vessels, a number of ROVs operating around there. Industry would call that simultaneous operations, or SIMOPS.

 

The oil is only suitable for that type of collection within a few miles of the wellhead itself because that’s when it comes up as a pretty good size slick. It becomes disaggregated after that. So if you have a huge tanker capable of 21-million-gallon capacity chasing down half-mile slicks, that’s probably a different type of platform you want to use for it. So we’re going to have to use it right around the well site where it’s got the greatest economy of effort in dealing with the oil and where it can give us the greatest return on investment. I think we just need to see how it works.

 

Q Robert, if I could ask you about unemployment insurance, who’s to blame for Congress leaving town without passing this? And how much of a role did the President play? Did the President aggressively get in there and push for this, or did he leave it to Congress?

 

MR. GIBBS: Well, this is -- I think last night’s effort was the fourth effort to -- this one was a scaled-back version of unemployment insurance through I believe November, with I think a home tax credit added as well.

 

Look, again, this is -- it’s an example of it takes 60 votes to get something done. It shouldn’t take 60 votes to get the long-term unemployed -- to make sure that the long-term unemployed do not suffer an interruption in what they need to keep going. It certainly doesn’t make any economic sense.

 

And we will continue to push Congress and to work with them -- obviously we’ll -- Senator Byrd’s replacement will be at some point back into the voting of all this as well, which obviously is one of the things that we’re going to need. But we’ll continue to push forward on this so that -- again, I think if you just look at the economic sense of if you’re an unemployed -- if you’re somebody who’s unemployed, if you’ve -- we now obviously have the type of chronic long-term unemployment that greatly exceeds the previous worst case, which was in the early ‘80s. We’re well past that.

 

If you’re worried about long-term economic growth you have to be worried about the long-term unemployed. They are -- it’s obvious that if you’re unemployed you’re far more likely to take your benefits and use them to keep going. That money obviously gets into the economy rather quickly.

 

So we will continue to push forward on this and try to convince 60 senators -- we got good help last night from two senators from Maine -- to try to get what shouldn’t be hard to get done for the American people.

 

Q Some Republicans say Democrats are just using this as a political issue, they want the issue more than they want the vote, and that the White House is involved in that, too.

 

MR. GIBBS: Chip, we have -- again, I think if you read any article about the plight of those that are unemployed and have been unemployed for really long periods of time -- we’re seeing that like we’ve never seen it before. We’re seeing that impacting not just lower-wage, lower-skill jobs; it’s impacting those that have been employed for long periods of time prior to this, that have college educations -- folks, quite frankly, that are not used to being in the pool of what would be in a normal recession considered likely to be long-term unemployed. But we’re seeing that in a way that we’ve never seen it before.

 

If they’re worried about the politics of this issue, it seems to me it just makes common sense to ensure that people that cannot find work because the recession that we’re dealing with is greater than anything we’ve dealt with since the Great Depression -- why on Earth would you take a group that has been chronically unemployed and for some reason stop their unemployment benefits? It just -- economically, it makes absolutely no sense at all.

 

Q A few weeks ago, one percentage figure that has been used by the President, and I believe you, Admiral Allen, was 90 percent -- a few weeks ago the President said that in a few weeks 90 percent of whatever it is, the gas and the oil, the carbons coming up from the floor, would be capped. Where are we on that? Ninety percent of what?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Ninety percent of the flow coming out of the wellbore right now.

 

Q Which is what?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, the current estimate is 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day from the last flow rate estimate. Let me walk you through the sequence -- it’s a good question.

 

Right now we have three ways to remove oil from that wellbore -- the riser pipe that goes up to the Discovery Explorer [sic], and the choke and the kill lines -- those are the lines we tried to push mud down during the top kill exercise. We are taking oil out of two of those right now. We intend to take oil out of the third, the kill line, with the Helix Producer once the weather calms down. That will take us to a capacity of 53,000 barrels a day.

 

Now, we don’t know what that’s going to do to that picture you see of the imagery with the vents open and the oil. We would like to get that down to where there’s a minimum amount of oil escaping as possible. But it’s never going to be zero because if it goes to zero that means water could intrude and we’d have a hydrate problem with the capping device.

 

BP has proposed, and we are reviewing right now, the placement of a new cap on it, which would -- they would actually unbolt that stub section of pipe that was cut off. That’s what we call -- that wide area is called a flange -- actually unbolt the flange and actually put another containment device on that we bolted on that would ensure a complete seal. And when the President talks of achieving a greater than 90 percent recovery rate, he’s talking about with the new capping device.

 

They’ll be in a position to do that in about two to three weeks, and also provide redundant production capability on the surface -- it will take us to 60,000 to 80,000 barrels a day production capacity.

 

They did that at our direction because we wanted two things. We wanted redundancy, so if there’s lightning in the area and somebody has to shut down we could keep producing. We wanted additional flexibility to be able to unhook and hook up faster in the event of a hurricane. And we also wanted a risk mitigator against a complete failure.

 

Q So this new device would essentially replace the three that you have online or are about to have online?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: It would allow us to actually run four lines with the new cap, yes.

 

Q When will the President make the determination on when to approve that second cap?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: No decision like that is forthcoming right now. We’re technically reviewing all of those options right now.

 

MR. GIBBS: Also, to add a little context to what the Admiral said, the hope for the kill line to the Helix was obviously the end of June -- largely around today. Because of weather, equipment had to be taken off of the Enterprise that’s needed for the Helix. So the date for -- which the Admiral said earlier in the briefing -- is sort of midweek next week to bring the kill line to the Helix online that would take us what we believe to a capacity of around 50,000 to 53,000 barrels a day.

 

Q But that’s not 90 percent.

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: No, the 90 percent is achieved with the second cap.[NOTE added to the transcript for clarification: As Admiral Allen clarifies below, by increasing our containment rate to 53,000 barrels per day, we’ll be collecting 90% of the hydrocarbons that are leaking into ocean – given the current high end of the estimated flow rate.]

 

Q Which is two or three weeks after what happens next week, right?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Let me be specific here. If we’re close on the flow rate, the 35 to 60, we could get there with the 53. But we’re not assured because it’s not a perfect seal.

 

Q And you said -- maybe I was confused -- you said that it was -- the bore -- the relief well was in 15 feet of the wellbore, but you said there’s several hundred feet left to bore. I’m not sure I follow you there.

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: It’s within 15 feet, side by side, going down, and it’s slowly getting closer until they’re sure they know exactly where they’re at and they can go in for the kill.

 

Q Robert, a question for you, back to Congress and pending legislation on the war supplemental. House Democrats want to trim I guess it’s $500 million from the President’s Race to the Top program in order to offset the war supplemental. What’s your feeling about that?

 

MR. GIBBS: Well, look, we -- obviously the President has put a lot of energy, as Secretary Duncan has, into the Race for the Top, which is where this money that Congress is looking to take a part of. Understand this -- and I think it’s important that we have a little perspective over what Race for the Top has done -- and that is 40 some states that have applied for this have made -- have basically undergone the type of education reform that people had hoped to see in this country for decades.

 

That has happened based on the incentive of these investments. We do not believe that taking money out of that important investment makes any sense at all. The President has been clear with Congress about the fact that that doesn’t make any sense at all. I believe we can come to a conclusion on this as we’ve given them additional places to look for cuts that shouldn’t require taking away from that important investment that has led to fundamental education reform in this country.

 

Q Can it lead to a veto?

 

MR. GIBBS: I don’t think it will get to that. But the President has been very clear with the leaders in Congress that that money is a -- is important and is a big priority for this administration.

 

Laura.

 

Q Thank you. You and the President both on immigration have made clear that it’s the Republicans who are blocking this from moving forward. Was one of the purposes of the speech today to make it crystal clear to the people who care about this issue that it’s the Republicans’ fault this hasn’t moved?

 

MR. GIBBS: Well, look, I think that’s just the legislative reality that we live in. Again, if you had given that speech three or four years ago, you would likely have -- you all could name the Republicans that you were likely to have seen statements from that supported comprehensive immigration reform.

 

I mean, the reality, Laura, is that you can’t -- again, you’ve got to get 60 votes. There aren’t that many Democrats, and you’ve got to get Republicans involved. This is a problem of national significance and it is going to require Republicans to be part of that solution.

 

Q Was this a political purpose, in the sense that you were hoping to direct the anger from the Hispanic community elsewhere?

 

MR. GIBBS: I don’t think -- look, keep in mind, I don’t think it’s just the Hispanic community that cares about immigration. This is not about directing anybody’s anger. This is about working toward a comprehensive solution. We can’t find ourselves having a series of patchwork immigration laws that change every time you see a sign that says “Welcome” to a different state. It has to be done in a comprehensive way, and we have to do this together.

 

Q But given that everything he said this morning he has said in one place or another over time -- granted, not all in one speech -- but has said before, and that you’ve said before, in fact, how did this speech advance anything?

 

MR. GIBBS: Well, this is -- because I think we are -- we have talked about immigration reform over the course of the last several weeks mostly as it relates to what is happening in one state, right? You’re not going to solve the immigration problem, again, one state at a time or a series of states at a time. This is a topic that has been talked about for many weeks now, and the only way to solve it is once again for Congress to come together, Democrats and Republicans, and pass a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform.

 

Mark.

 

Q Robert, is the homebuyers’ tax break extension going to be signed today as well?

 

MR. GIBBS: I don’t know the answer to that. Let me check on --

 

Q Also, were you able to get an answer from last week when you were asked about Steny Hoyer suggesting -- considering the possibility of raising the retirement age for Social Security?

 

MR. GIBBS: Steny Hoyer, or -- that was -- I thought it was -- I was asked about Alan Simpson, was I not?

 

Q It was Hoyer, also last week.

 

Q Hoyer said --

 

Q Simpson also --

 

Q Both.

 

Q I went back in the transcript, you were asked about Hoyer.

 

MR. GIBBS: Oh, I don’t remember being asked about Hoyer. I don’t know the answer to that, but I’ll try to look into it.

 

Q Any thought on the five Democrats that voted for the new oil spill commission? Do you think that undercuts the President’s oil spill commission?

 

MR. GIBBS: No, look, there are -- there has been some suggestion, I don’t think it’s well placed, that somehow the commission that the President set up is too -- is made up of too many sort of pro-environment members. We’ve got a commission member from Alaska who has supported drilling in ANWR. The co-director -- the former EPA administrator under George Bush is on leave from the board of Conoco-Phillips. There’s no way to look at what has happened and what has to move forward in terms of the type of regulatory structure without including voices from industry, and that’s what we’ve done.

 

Q But you’re not worried about dueling commissions, or --

 

MR. GIBBS: No, again, I think we’ll get this in a place that makes sense moving forward and that gives us a strong report and a good framework, again, for the type of regulation that’s needed to make this type of activity safe again.

 

Q Admiral Allen, with the State Department announcement a couple of days ago, what can you do now that you couldn’t do before with the assets that you are now bringing in from outside?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, actually, four to six weeks ago, when we saw the skimmer issue start to emerge and we saw a shifting landscape from booming requirements to skimming requirement, we talked to the State Department. They sent a cable out -- I believe it was around the 13th of June -- actually soliciting input from the countries; a lot of that has come back now. We’re in the process where we can screen it, actually do letters of acceptance and we’re moving on that right now.

 

We have well over 100 offers. We’re going through them right now. Roughly about 40 of those have been accepted and we’re reviewing all those right now. But we’re looking at everything very, very seriously.

 

Q So mostly you’re increasing skimmer capacity?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: It will come from three areas, basically. Obviously we’re looking for any foreign assistance that can be provided. We’re actually -- almost all the skimmer production capability in this country now is tied up in the orders we placed out for the next four to six weeks. We have an emergency rulemaking that was announced yesterday that would ease some of the requirements for standby equipment around the country for other operations that could flow those to the Gulf as well. So the combination of those three together are allowing us to mass our skimming forces in the next four weeks.

 

Q And if I read the EPA announcement on dispersants correctly yesterday, they said they’re safe but that there still needs to be more testing of the way the dispersants are interacting with the oil and its composition as it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. Is that correct?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: The two big deals on dispersants are we’ve never used them in this quantity before, whether it’s subsurface or surface, and we’ve never used them subsurface. And I know Lisa Jackson -- we’re very good friends, we talk about this almost daily. She is concerned -- she understands when there’s an operational imperative of why you need them, and there are times when you do need to do that. But there also is an imperative to do sampling and testing and understand the impacts of the dispersants while they’re being used.

 

And it’s a tradeoff, it’s a tradeoff operationally and sometimes it’s a tradeoff on safety, because dispersants reduce volatile organic compounds, which are a workplace problem for the folks that are working on the ships out there. So what we are trying to do is understand more about the dispersants, use this as a learning situation to get more data and where we’re going. And we all generally agree, if we can ratchet down the use of dispersants, focus more on skimming and in-situ burning, that’s a good thing. But there’s a floor to which we’re probably going to get to because there are opportunities we can’t achieve to mitigate the impact of the oil other than using dispersants. The question is where is that right spot.

 

Q So we don’t know yet exactly how safe or unsafe and whether there’s a significant environmental tradeoff --

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, we know the dispersants are less toxic than the oil. And we also know that when you make a decision to use dispersants, you’re deciding to have the fate of the oil and the ultimate impact of the oil be absorbed in the water column, not the shore.

 

MR. GIBBS: But, Major, I would just say that’s why we continue to do that type of testing.

 

Q I just want to make sure I understand.

 

MR. GIBBS: Right -- to ensure that -- as the Admiral said, you’re using this in quantities not previously seen.

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: The same would apply to air quality monitoring around in-situ burnings and the flaring that’s going on out there.

 

Q A couple questions for you, Robert. You said, the last time I was able to ask you about this, that the final legal language with BP about the $20 billion fund and the $100 million for the -- wasn’t finalized. Has it been finalized yet? And is that --

 

MR. GIBBS: I can check with -- I can check with DOJ.

 

Q Because Bill had said that you’d release it when it is finalized. Is it finalized?

 

MR. GIBBS: Let me check. I don’t know the answer.

 

Q Okay. A couple of other non-oil spill things. Are you comfortable, Robert, with the way the Romanoff endorsement from former President Clinton went down? And would you be encouraged if there were more direct communication between the former President and the political arm of the White House about things going forward?

 

MR. GIBBS: Good try. Look, the President -- President Clinton has relationships that extend a long time back, and will make endorsements for a whole host of reasons, including that. So, look, I was asked if we had -- if we heard from him prior to that endorsement, and the answer to that was no.

 

Q Would you like to in the future?

 

MR. GIBBS: Before you guys? Sure. (Laughter.)

 

Q Do you feel the need in any way, shape or form, to coordinate these things, or to at least discuss them informally before they’re publicly acknowledged?

 

MR. GIBBS: I think I answered that, despite your many attempts at creating a news story.

 

Q All right. The President wants the Bush tax cuts that apply to the middle class to be extended. What is the mechanism by which he’s going to have Congress achieve that before the end of this year?

 

MR. GIBBS: Let me check with Legislative Affairs on that.

 

Q Okay. Lastly, do you expect the supplemental funding to be resolved this week? At least on the House side.

 

MR. GIBBS: Look, it certainly our hope is that. I don’t --

 

Q Obviously these conversations are intense -- you feel confident about that, you think that you’re going to get a vote this week?

 

MR. GIBBS: They were -- there are conversations that have been had even today on that. I’m not going to get into whether it’s this week or the first week they’re back. But, again, we think this is something that can be worked out, giving the President and our troops the funding that they need in Afghanistan without taking money away from important investments like Race to the Top.

 

Q Robert, can you talk about the President’s meeting today with Senator Reid, what he said about the immigration --

 

MR. GIBBS: Look, they’re going to have an opportunity to talk about what is going to be on the Senate’s agenda moving forward when they get back. Obviously between now and the end of the year, the Senate will take up and I believe approve Elena Kagan to be the next Supreme Court justice. I think we’re making good progress on ratifying the New START treaty; energy, which we’ve talked about earlier; small business lending and unemployment benefits -- all of that will be on the docket today that they discuss, so largely the agenda moving forward.

 

Q The President asked -- made it clear today that Republicans are the only way this is going to happen if immigration doesn’t -- he met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus this week and with advocates. Does he plan to meet with any particular Republicans in the coming days and weeks?

 

MR. GIBBS: Well, I don’t know -- I don’t have any meetings that are headed in the future. Obviously he made not too recently a series of calls to five Republicans and continues to be in contact through Legislative Affairs and the chief of staff’s office on how we move forward.

 

Q Lastly, the President is going to sign this afternoon or this evening the Iran Sanctions Act. Can you talk a little bit about what he expects that to do or why -- what his assessment of that is?

 

MR. GIBBS: Well, look, this I think -- we have seen over the course of this year, we have seen Treasury make designations regarding activities and doing business with Iran. The United Nations has passed the strongest sanctions on Iran that we’ve ever had. We have -- our allies in Europe are working on continuing to make progress. The Congress has weighed in. And I know that the Treasury will continue to work on designations so that we can increase, quite frankly, the pressure on the government of Iran to live up to its commitments and give up its nuclear program.

 

And this is -- none of this stuff is a silver bullet, but all of it continues to make progress to give what we believe is far more than sufficient incentive to start to comply.

 

Q Are there things you want the allies to do that would mirror what the Congress has done in that regard?

 

MR. GIBBS: Well, look, I don’t want to speak directly for them but I know they continue to work on it.

 

Mark.

 

Q Just financial regulatory reform briefly, the President hoped to sign it this week; it’s now going over to next week in the Senate. Is there any -- or, sorry, till after the break. Is there a danger that you lose votes over that break? Are you confident that you’ll have another Democratic senator back in place in time to get something done?

 

MR. GIBBS: Well, to the next question -- to the last question, yes. Look, obviously the events of the passing of Senator Byrd certainly have delayed for the time being the passage of financial reform. I do think it’s important that if you go back to January or February or even a few weeks ago, it wasn’t -- it was a question of whether this was ever going to come to be. I don’t think that’s now up for any debate. It’s just a matter of when. And I think when we get back, the President will -- when the Senate and House get back, I think the President will very quickly have an opportunity to sign the strongest regulations dealing with the financial industry that we’ve seen put in place since right after the Great Depression.

 

Q Admiral, very quickly, have you decided -- are you going to be going back down to the Gulf or have you decided where you can now be most effective at this point in the spill? Are you better used in Washington or is it better for you to be down in the Gulf area?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: I think it’s been about a 50/50 split thus far. Things going on in Washington this week having to do with the meetings with the Cabinet secretaries and BP officials regarding the transition of the systems we talked about earlier. I’ll be down there next week, will be traveling around. I hope to get out to the Helix Producer as it’s hooked up. But I’ll move back and forth.

 

Q Okay. And Robert, can you give us an idea of what the President will be doing over the holiday weekend?

 

MR. GIBBS: They -- when he returns tomorrow from the funeral, he and the family will travel to Camp David, and then be back for fireworks and such here on Sunday. We’ll have more details in terms of --

 

Q Will he have guests on the lawn?

 

MR. GIBBS: Yes.

 

Q Will we see the President tomorrow on the jobs numbers?

 

MR. GIBBS: Yes. We’ll have guests there, yes.

 

Q Who?

 

MR. GIBBS: Ethan will be here on Sunday.

 

Q Like military or something?

 

MR. GIBBS: Yes.

 

Q Can you talk about the Netanyahu visit on Tuesday and what it will involve, how public it will be?

 

MR. GIBBS: Right. Look, the President obviously looks forward to hosting the Prime Minister, who had to cancel a meeting obviously last time. I think they’ll host -- discuss a series of important bilateral issues, the implementation of Israel’s recent policy changes in Gaza, regional security, our ongoing proximity talks, and the need and the hope to get quickly to direct talks. The visit I think is scheduled for the 6th and we do have a -- we’ll have a pool spray there, yes.

 

Q And can I -- some Jewish groups are disappointed that the President hasn’t been to visit Israel yet. Is anything along those lines in the works?

 

MR. GIBBS: None that I’m aware of.

 

Q Robert, on immigration, one thing the President didn’t mention in his speech this morning was a temporary guest worker program, which obviously was a big sticking point the last time around and something that business groups say must be part of any compromise now. Why didn’t he address the idea and does he support a temporary guest worker program that would allow immigrants to come here without being put on an eventual path to citizenship?

 

MR. GIBBS: Well, I think what you just mentioned is certainly part of the details that are ultimately going to have to be worked out because there are different ways -- if you go back into the debate in ‘05, ‘06, and even in ‘07, there were different ways to structure guest worker programs. Some, as I think you just alluded to in your question, structured it in a way that, come here for a certain amount of time and then go back before coming into the process of potentially staying here.

 

So obviously that is certainly one of the aspects that have to be worked through. The President sat down with Senator Graham and Senator Schumer and applauded their framework in moving forward. And obviously this is part of what would be important for Democrats, Republicans and the President to sit down and start working through.

 

Q So he’s open to different approaches?

 

MR. GIBBS: Well, I’m not going to close the President’s options. What we need is a group on the other side that’s willing and ready to have that meeting.

 

Yes, sir.

 

Q For both of you, to get back to the House Republicans’ report about the federal government’s response, spelling aside, their bottom line is that they don’t believe they can get -- they’re getting straight answers from the government with regard to the positioning of assets, to the point where some are suggesting that the government make available GPS information about where things are down there.

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: We have put Coast Guard officers with every parish president. We have Coast Guard liaisons for Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Those liaisons are working down at the county level. I visited there earlier this week with the Vice President. We met with Governor Crist in Florida. These officers are there to cut down on decision time, deploy resources. We’ve had a tremendous response on vessels of opportunity that have signed up to get their boats out there.

 

We are putting locating devices on that, providing tactical communications, and integrating that with air surveillance. We have partnered with the 1st Air Force and we’ve taken control of the airspace in the Gulf, especially the temporary flight restriction zone over the well site, so we can integrate all that together to make it more effective. Any local leader down there that has a question on asset deployment and priorities just needs to turn to his Coast Guard liaison officer.

 

Q Is it in a sense real-time information?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, ultimately what we’re going to have is this displayed on what we call a common operating picture, and anything that’s got a locating device can be seen on a website. And hopefully this data will become more available as we get it up and operating.

 

Q Thank you, Robert. A question for the Admiral and a question for you. Admiral, when you spoke to us at the end of May along with Ms. Browner, you mentioned that a science summit was going to be held at the beginning of June at Louisiana State University. Have they released a report, a white paper, from that summit or can you summarize any of the results?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: It is done. The report is out. If I can follow up and tell where that’s at, we’d be happy to do it.

 

Q Okay. And Robert, recently Senator Durbin and Congressman Don Manzullo from the President’s home state of Illinois wrote the Pentagon complaining about the bidding process with a contract. It seems as though IDT, a company in Belvidere, Illinois, had been asked to bid on a contract to make protective barriers for troops. And they were turned down and the Defense Logistics Agency promptly asked a British company, Hesco, to rebuild. They filed a complaint with the General Accounting Office and, as I said, two Illinois members of Congress have complained. Is this something the administration is following?

 

MR. GIBBS: I don’t know if you’ve talked to DOD on this. I have not seen the correspondence on this but I’m happy to look into this with DOD.

 

Q Will you?

 

MR. GIBBS: Yes.

 

Q Thank you, Robert.

 

Q One for the Admiral. You said that the onshore skimming activities have been significantly disrupted by this heavy weather. Does that mean that more oil than you would normally expect has been coming ashore in the last few days? And given the fact that this was a fairly sort of moderate storm as to what you might expect in hurricane season, has the disruption it’s caused caused you to sort of reexamine the contingencies you might face if there was a more direct hit from a hurricane?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, the surge we’ve had in and around Louisiana has been two to three feet, so there’s some areas where the oil would probably be further in to the beaches or the marsh areas than it would be before. On the other hand, weather that gets violent like that has an emulsifying effect and actually breaks up the spill. I’m not sure they counterbalance each other that well, but we’ll be out there and be able to assess that very, very quickly.

 

As it relates to hurricane preparedness, this is something we’ve been working on for well over two months. We understand there are going to be challenges associated with especially with evacuating the wellhead site and the production units that are out there. The number one priority will be safety of life and moving those people far enough ahead of the storm so they don’t get involved with the evacuation of citizens. Our general timeline for dealing with a storm will start at about 120 hours away from when we predict gale-force winds will be at the well site.

 

MR. GIBBS: April.

 

Q Admiral Allen, the last time you were here I asked you a question about the dispersants and the oil and you said over time it would biodegrade and you said you would get back to me as how long it would take for the biodegrading to occur. Do you have that timeline?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: We do. And if we didn’t get back to you, that’s my apologies -- we’ll get that to you. Jane Lubchenco and NOAA are the ones that are developing that information and we get it from them, and we’ll make sure you get it.

 

Q Do you have -- do you remember any kind of roundabout time --

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, it has to do with actually how the oil has been treated and the fate of the oil. Dispersed oil will biodegrade quicker. Undispersed oil will weather and ultimately -- it all biodegrades, it’s part of the metabolic process of the Earth. It’s a question of how fast it happens.

 

Q Well, what I was asking at the time, Van Jones, a former green czar here, said that it’s about -- dispersants are not “disappearants,” and he said it goes down and it’s more toxins that go down to the bottom of the ocean. And you said over time it would biodegrade.

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Over time the oil will biodegrade -- yes, it will. It will.

 

Q Okay. So maybe 10, 20 years or --

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Oh, no, it’s much sooner than that. And if we didn’t get you the response, we’ll get it to you.

 

Q Okay. And also, Robert, on immigration. The work visa issue has been a contentious point for many, many, many years, even going back to Vicente Fox when he was President of Mexico. What’s the President’s stance on the work visa issue?

 

MR. GIBBS: I think this was one of the questions that we had earlier. Obviously there are a number of different proposals that -- timelines, differences about how long you’re here, whether you go back before you become part of the line. All of those are issues that would need to be worked through, Democrats and Republicans.

 

Q And what kind of safeguards would be put in place to make sure that some Americans will not be without a job so other people from other countries will get those jobs?

 

MR. GIBBS: Those are the types of things that have been addressed in previous legislation. Obviously one of the things that the President worked on with Senator Grassley was as you get -- obviously as you get work permitting done, you’ve got to create a database to ensure that there are not -- you’re not having undocumented workers and you don’t have businesses that are hiring those. All of those, again, are part of the comprehensive proposal that Congress needs to get into.

 

Sam.

 

Q Solicitor General Kagan seemed to have done very well with all the people grilling her during her confirmation hearings except for one. Arlen Specter thought that the hearings lacked serious substance, were not revealing, and didn’t meet the standards that Kagan herself had set in the 1995 Chicago University Law article she wrote. What’s your response to Senator Specter’s complaints about the quality of the hearings and the information that the Solicitor General --

 

MR. GIBBS: Look, I think -- I didn’t see Senator Specter’s note on that. I know at one point in the hearings on television he said that she was being very forthcoming. Obviously you’re not going to get into discussing cases that you may hear in front of the Supreme Court, and that’s something that has -- that’s been the case for quite some time.

 

Again, I think she was candid, she was forthcoming, and I think she’s going to be not only approved by the committee but approved by the entire Senate.

 

Ken.

 

Q A question for each of you. Admiral Allen, could you give us an update specifically on the contamination to the fishing grounds? Has it been contained in some areas? Has it spread? Has it gotten worse? Just really from top to bottom where we’re at right now on Gulf fishing and the industry.

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: It tends to move around based on the trajectory of the spill and this is something that NOAA has responsibility over through the National Marine Fishery Service. Jane Lubchenco and I and the Vice President met with some fishermen down in the Gulf earlier this week. And one of the things we’re trying to do that did need to happen -- there wasn’t a synchronization between the closures of the state of Louisiana, for instance, and how long they gave advance notice when they closed the fishery and what the federal government was doing as far as the advance notice in closing their fishing areas. They now have an agreement and they will do that on the same schedule so it will be the right notice for the fishermen.

 

Generally as soon as they can clear an area for fishing, they will do it based on the trajectories. And when they close it, they’ll give a 24-hour advance notice from noon one day till noon the next day. And I believe -- and I don’t have the percentage in front of me right now -- I believe it’s about somewhere around 33 percent of the Gulf that is covered by the closure area right now, but I’d have to confirm that.

 

Q As you know, some boats have been docked. Has there been an effort or has there been a way to get these ships back into the waters?

 

ADMIRAL ALLEN: Well, that was a -- that’s a terrific question. We spent a long time in Louisiana at a fish house where the people actually take the crabs and so forth and then ship them out. The gentleman there was on the verge of having to close down because he had not got his claim paid yet to be able to keep operating. Once he closed down, there were 30-some vessels that would not have a place to bring their catch.

 

The Vice President spent almost two hours listening to them, talking to them. Some of them choose to try and stay in the fishery and fish where they can. Others want to come into the vessel of opportunity system where they get paid and we use them to deploy boom and do the things out there that we’re trying to do for spill response. And it’s a little bit mixed about what they really want to do. Right now, a very small percentage are trying to still fish where you can fish. Most of them are opting to go to the vessel of opportunity program.

 

Q Thank you. And Robert, on health care reform, there are some reports, there’s some evidence, that as some of the provisions are getting ready to be rolled out, that in some parts of the country, quite frankly, local offices, state and regional offices, are not prepared to handle some of this. Have you heard these reports? Is this something that’s on the radar screen?

 

MR. GIBBS: I have not -- I have not myself have heard it. I will -- I can certainly see if any of the folks downstairs have. Obviously we rolled out a new website today that allows consumers to get -- put themselves back in control of their own health care through a lot more transparency at healthcare.gov, which provides a ton of information for consumers that are interested. I’ll check on the -- thanks, guys.

 

END

2:41 P.M. EDT

 

 

* Below is the timeline for when the A WHALE was first mentioned, when its modifications were completed, and when it arrived in the Gulf.

 

June 7 - Coast Guard R&D Center received white paper on the concept, selected it for further evaluation

 

June 15 - A WHALE finishes modifications for skimming in Portugal

 

June 24 - Vessel arrives in Norfolk, Va., and is visited by Coast Guard personnel

 

June 25 - Vessel departs Virginia

 

June 30 - Vessel arrives in the Gulf for evaluation

[Guest BP]

Everyone involved in the response effort should "feel free to talk" to media about their experiences.

 

BP today offered additional guidance and clarification to all personnel to ensure that members of the response team – including, but not limited to, all government, BP, and contract personnel – know they are free to talk to the media.

"I want to thank everyone for their tremendous commitment to lead and support the response and cleanup efforts," said Doug Suttles, COO of BP. "I really cannot say this enough: BP wants all individuals to feel free to share their thoughts and experiences with journalists, if they so choose. BP has not and will not prevent anyone from sharing his or her own experiences, opinions, or views."

BP has provided guidelines and "media access cards" (samples attached) to be distributed at all levels of operations. The cards include helpful tips and a 1-800 number personnel can call for more information.

 

View guidelines

 

View media access cards

 

Further information:

BP Press Office London: +44 20 7496 4076

BP Press Office, US: +1 281 366 0265

[Guest Fedup]

The US Environmental Protection Agency today released peer reviewed results from the first round of its own independent toxicity testing on eight oil dispersants. EPA conducted testing to ensure that decisions about ongoing dispersant use in the Gulf of Mexico continue to be grounded in the best available science.

 

EPA’s results indicated that none of the eight dispersants tested, including the product in use in the Gulf, displayed biologically significant endocrine disrupting activity. While the dispersant products alone – not mixed with oil - have roughly the same impact on aquatic life, JD-2000 and Corexit 9500 were generally less toxic to small fish and JD-2000 and SAF-RON GOLD were least toxic to mysid shrimp. While this is important information to have, additional testing is needed to further inform the use of dispersants.

 

"EPA is performing independent tests to determine the potential impacts of various dispersants. We will continue to conduct additional research before providing a final recommendation, " said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. "We want to ensure that every tool is available to mitigate the impact of the BP spill and protect our fragile wetlands. But we continue to direct BP to use dispersants responsibly and in as limited an amount as possible."

 

EPA continues to carefully monitor BP’s use of dispersant in the Gulf. Dispersants are generally less toxic than oil and can prevent some oil from impacting sensitive areas along the Gulf Coast. EPA believes BP should use as little dispersant as necessary and, on May 23, Administrator Jackson and then-Federal On-Scene Coordinator Rear Admiral Mary Landry directed BP to reduce dispersant usage by 75 percent from peak usage. EPA and the Coast Guard formalized that order in a directive to BP on May 26. Over the next month BP reduced dispersant use 68 percent from that peak.

 

Before directing BP to ramp down dispersant use, EPA directed BP to analyze potential alternative dispersants for toxicity and effectiveness. BP reported to EPA that they were unable to find a dispersant that is less toxic than Corexit 9500, the product currently in use. Following that, EPA began its own scientific testing of eight dispersant products on the National Contingency Plan Product Schedule (NCP-PS). Those dispersant products are: Dispersit SPC 1000, Nokomis 3-F4, Nokomis 3-AA, ZI-400, SAF-RON Gold, Sea Brat #4, Corexit 9500 A and JD 2000. Today’s results represent the first stage of that effort.

 

EPA tested these eight products for endocrine disrupting activity and potential impacts on small fish and mysid shrimp. The testing found:

 

* None of the eight dispersants tested displayed biologically significant endocrine disrupting activity.

* While all eight dispersants alone – not mixed with oil – showed roughly the same effects, JD-2000 and Corexit 9500 proved to be the least toxic to small fish, and JD-2000 and SAF-RON GOLD were the least toxic to the mysid shrimp.

 

The next phase of EPA’s testing will assess the acute toxicity of multiple concentrations of Louisiana Sweet Crude Oil alone and combinations of Louisiana Sweet Crude Oil with each of the eight dispersants for two test species.

 

To view the first round of test results please visit: http://www.epa.gov/bpspill/dispersants

 

Looks like our government and BP are about to get caught.

 

http://www.examiner.com/x-33986-Political-Spin-Examiner~y2010m6d30-Whistle-blower-to-testify-on-oil-spill-worst-fearBP-deliberately-sinks-oil-with-Corexit-as-cover-up

 

In a shocking interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on June 29th, Allegiance Capitol Corporation V.P. Fred McCallister said that BP is deliberately sinking oil with the toxic chemical disbursant Corexit, to hide the size of the oil spill. By sinking the oil before it can be collected, BP won’t have to pay fines on it.

 

McCallister said, “Everybody in Europe, where the standard practice is to raise the oil and collect it, is scratching their heads, and quite honestly laughing at what’s happening in the Gulf.” He added, “Everyone is looking at us and wondering why we’re allowing this to happen.”

[Guest Hoodoo]

The corporate sector owns America, and through media and political control, Americans have become the most docile and obedient people on earth.

[Guest Maggie]

Fred McCallister, an investment banker with Allegiance Capital Corporation, will testify tomorrow before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee in a hearing titled "The Deepwater Horizon Tragedy: Holding Industry Accountable". For weeks, McCallister has labored to pierce the red tape involved in bringing oil skimmers and other equipment from Europe to the Gulf of Mexico to assist in cleanup efforts.

 

"We submitted proposals for oil skimming vessels to BP on Monday June 14th - 25 million gallons of oil ago - and were promised they would be reviewed on an expedited basis. To date we have received no meaningful response," said McCallister.

 

On June 22, McCallister gained assistance from Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) in requesting a waiver from the Jones Act, which prevents foreign-flagged vessels from cleaning the BP oil spill and protecting the U.S. coastline from the onslaught of oil. To date, neither Senator Cornyn's office nor Allegiance Capital has received a response regarding the waiver. McCallister's first request for a waiver was sent to Admiral Thad Allen on June 16.

 

McCallister believes there may be an underlying issue affecting BP's resistance to bringing all available oil skimming equipment to the Gulf.

 

"We believe BP has chosen to 'disperse and sink' the oil rather than to 'surface and collect' the oil," said McCallister. "Sinking and emulsifying the oil keeps the problem out of site and better serves BP's financial interest than does removing the oil from the water. This way BP can amortize the cost of the clean up over the next 15 years. Unfortunately this strategy exacerbates the significant cost to the Gulf of Mexico and the people and animals who live there."

 

McCallister's proposals include equipment that is Coast Guard compliant and designed to:

 

1. Install and maintain booms for trapping oil

2. Skim oil off the surface of the water before it reaches the beaches or

marshes

3. House and support conservation volunteers in the rescue, cleaning and

housing of animals.

 

Additionally, the proposals include opportunities for 1,200 workers, the vast majority of whom can come from the state utilizing the equipment.

 

"These vessels are just sitting idle," McCallister said. "It's hard to believe."

[Luke_Wilbur]

llinois-based Nalco Holding Company NYSE: NLC (formerly Ondeo Nalco) is responsible for the Corexit 9500 which is an oil dispersant and is widely being used in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The Blackstone Group, Apollo Management L. P. and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners have large financial ties to Nalco.

 

Are there any other material business relationships with entities associated with any of the Company’s Directors or Executive Officers or any other “related persons”?

 

The Blackstone Group, L.P., Apollo Management L.P. and Goldman Sachs & Co. (each a “Sponsor” and collectively the “Sponsors”) purchased a predecessor of our Company in 2003 through a holding company, Nalco LLC. The Sponsors sold a portion of the direct and contingent interests in Nalco LLC to certain members of our executive management in June 2004 as part of an equity incentive compensation program (the “Nalco LLC 2004 Unit Plan”), described more fully at page 32. In February 2007, the Sponsors sold their remaining direct and indirect interests in the Company.

 

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MzczMjExfENoaWxkSUQ9MzcwOTIzfFR5cGU9MQ==&t=1

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orjr233TRVw

 

Nalco Company

Corporate Headquarters

1601 W. Diehl Road

Naperville, Il 60563-1198

630-305-1000 Phone

630-305-2900 Fax

 

Nalco Energy Services Headquarters

7705 Highway 90-A

Sugar Land, TX 77478

281-263-7000 Phone

 

http://www.nalco.com

[Guest Truthseeker]

I still want to know why Goldman Sachs Management (US) sold 6,025,387 of its shares in the British oil giant days before this disaster. The sell off represented 43.7 per cent of the total BP stocks owned by the Wall Street firm, reaping $276,770,112. I also want to know why BP’s former Chairman, Peter Sutherland, left the firm to become Chairman of Goldman Sachs International. Insider manipulation?

[Guest Question Authority]

Truthseeker: I love conspiracies as much as the next person and really can't stand big corporations, but Goldman (and I particularly dislike Goldman Sachs - a Lot) selling 44 percent of their BP stock 3 weeks before the Deepwater catastrophe for 276 million dollars just sounds like a standard trade, and in the big picture (even for one day) 276 mil. is a drop in the bucket. It's nothing to Goldman, sadly.

[Guest LAW]

Briefing by National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen

July 2, 2010

9:00 a.m. CT

 

Adm. Thad Allen: Good morning, folks. Let me start off with a summary of recovered oil for the last 24 hours ending at midnight last night. We were able to produce 16,918 barrels from the Discovery Enterprise. And we're able to flare 8,236 barrels from the Q4000 for a total of 25,154 barrels.

 

Of note, I'd just point out—I don’t think we passed these numbers to you routinely but accumulative with the amount that’s been produced through the Discover Enterprise and the Q4000 we are now gone over 19 million gallons either produced or flared that otherwise would have gone into the environment with the containment strategy we have right now.

 

As you know we had hoped to at this point have a third containment vessel on board. The Helix Producer which will be capable of providing another 20,000 to 25,000 barrels per day capacity. We were forced to pull the vessels off sea. They were going to do the connection of the Helix Producer to the flexible pipe to the vertical riser.

 

We need three to five foot seas to do that. They're still laying down out there. As soon as we have the window to move the vessels back on sea we will do that. The Discover – excuse me, the Helix Producer is out there right now. What we are need are the support vessels and a sea state to be able to finish the connection.

 

We hope to do sometime within the next 48 hours subject to sea state calming down. That will put the Helix Producer online somewhere around the 7th of July to begin production. That would then bring us to a total of 53,000 barrels a day and allowing us to assess how much oil is escaping around the containment hat at that time. We're anxiously awaiting that to happen so we can get a sense of how that’s affecting the overall flow.

 

At that point as you know our current flow rate range is 35 to 60,000 barrels a day. We should get an idea on the accuracy of that flow rate but just by the visual evidence of how much oil is actually coming out around that cap once the Helix Producer is in place.

 

Regarding the relief well operations, Development Driller III which is leading the relief, the first relief well, is now at 11,817 feet below the sea floor. At this point, they are conducting ranging operations and they drill 15 feet, stop, and do a position vis-à-vis the well bore.

This is anticipation of slowly closing and being able to get to a point where they’ve exactly located the well for the purpose of an intercept. Development Driller II is 7,775 feet below the sea floor and proceeding on pace as well. As I said earlier we hope to hook up to the Helix Producer and get that going.

 

There is a second vertical riser being installed that will allow us to by the 15th of July to go to another production platform out there. That is in anticipation of the second production framework being available during mid July. It would take us between 60 and 80 thousand barrels.

 

A couple of other updates, we are at this point poised to start doing over flights and surveillance to check both boom damage assessment and then take a look at the extent of oil and where it is coming in as a result of the swells and waves generated by Tropical Storm/Hurricane Alex.

 

Our first priority is marsh areas and we will take a look at not only the condition of the booms that is protecting the marsh areas but in the extent of oil in the marsh areas. To the extent that we locate oil and there is no longer boom there because it’s been damaged or whatever. We will attempt to put down what we call snare or absorbent boom that will basically act as an absorbent and try and mitigate the fact that the oil is present there until we can get to some kind of response and reestablish the boom there and then restart our recovery efforts.

 

We have a number of task forces of skimming vessels related Vessels of Opportunity and actually dedicated skimming vessels that are ready to go. We are still waiting for the weather to calm down a little bit out there and as soon as that happens we will be matching our forces to move back out and start the skimming. And with that I will be glad to go to your questions.

 

Operator: At this time if you would like to ask a question please press star one on your telephone keypad. Again that is star one to ask your question. We’ll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Jordan Burke with Bloomberg News.

 

Jordan Burke: Thank you for taking my call. I’m wondering when you think interception will be. You talked about doing these measures every 15 feet how much longer do you have to keep doing that?

 

Adm. Thad Allen: Yes. The folks in BP have what they call a depth to day chart. And it’s the depth of the well versus the date the schedule is. As you know this is originally scheduled to be done around mid-August. As I’ve said on several public statements in the last week or so they are ahead of schedule at this point. I am reluctant to tell you it will be done before the middle of August because I think everything associated with this spill and response recovery suggests that we should under promise and over deliver.

 

But at this point it appears that they are seven to eight days ahead of schedule. We’ll continue to monitor that and I will continue to give you an update but at this point I don’t want to presuppose because these last 700 or 800 feet go very, very slow I’m talking about 10 to 20 feet at a time and then making sure they know exactly where that pipe’s at through sensing.

 

Jordan Burke: And how many more feet do they have left? Dudley said 600 feet yesterday, I don’t know what numbers we’re comparing is it 600 feet they have left or 900 feet?

 

Adm. Thad Allen: I think 600 is probably pretty close. The increments that they are moving ahead now is probably 10 or 15 feet at a time so I guess that 600 feet’s probably a pretty good estimate right now.

 

Operator, next question?

 

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Allison Bennett with Bloomberg News.

 

Allison Bennett: Thank you for taking my call. If the second riser is to be installed by July 15th does that – where does that put the new cap timeline on and is the decision for the new cap totally dependant on who – who is to make that decision?

 

Adm. Thad Allen: The sequence will go as follows: We hope by the end of next week to have a 53,000 barrel per day capacity with the existing cap. At that point we will be in a position to make a decision on whether or not to remove the existing containment cap and put another cap on that will allow us to recover all of the oil.

 

And that will be done by unbolting the flange connectors, that short stub of pipe where we cut the riser pipe, removing that and actually bolting another cap on top on top of that to allow us to produce from four different lines to the surface. That's what gets us to 80,000 barrels.

 

The procedures to do that are being briefed right now. In fact this morning we briefed the local Gulf governors on the sequence that would take place and how we would do that. The decision window associated with that would be sometime in the next I would say 7 to 10 days.

 

We have a government technical team that has been reviewing the BP drawings of the equipment that's involved, looking at the risks associated with what happens when the, you know, the current stub of pipe is removed and how long it would take to put the new cap on board.

 

We would still be producing through the Helix Producer at that point and the Q4000 so it wouldn’t be a complete unmitigated release. But all of this is being weighed very, very carefully and we're closing in on a decision point but exactly the time that that will happen has not been established yet.

 

Operator, next question?

 

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Kristen Hayes with Reuters.

 

Kristen Hayes: Yes. Good morning Admiral. Can you hear me?

 

Adm. Thad Allen: I can.

 

Kristen Hayes: OK, great. Just one more question about the cap switch? Is it still possible that you might be satisfied with 53,000 barrels a day and not make a switch at all? Or is the hurricane readiness important enough to follow through with it?

Adm. Thad Allen: You understand this very well. And you framed the question very well. It could be that we're recovering a substantial amount of oil at that point. I think we’ll know that just by visual inspection of what's coming out around that skirt or the rubber seal at the bottom.

But the second issue is you accurately stated is the time it takes to disconnect and reconnect in advance of a hurricane. Right now the Discover Enterprise would have to remove the cap and then bring that riser pipe and remove it in approximately 40 foot sections.

 

As I think I mentioned earlier you almost need 120 hours or five days out to be able to remove this equipment and then have 24 hours to (inaudible) from the site to be able to avoid the weather.

 

So in addition to understanding the – our ability to produce and contain the spill, we'd also have to take into account our ability to disconnect quickly in terms of weather. We also need to understand that we need to have time to be able to make the switch over and you need a weather window to do that.

 

And those are all the factors that are being considered right now. It's a very complex situation as you might imagine and it's being looked at by a number of scientific advisers and BP itself.

 

Kristen Hayes: OK, thank you.

 

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of (Vivian Tsu) with CNN.

 

Aaron Cooper: Hi, this is actually Aaron Cooper with CNN right now. But my question is about the respirators. I saw the release that went out yesterday and I'm unclear exactly who's going to be provided with respirators.

 

I understand that anyone basically can wear them voluntarily, but exactly who is getting respirators? And now the decision has been made to give respirators, some people need respirators. Do you have a concern that there have been people that have been exposed to toxic gasses or things that may harm their health over the past times now that we've decided that people do need respirators in certain circumstances?

 

Adm. Thad Allen: Well, let me take you to a sequence that got us to where we're at. Several weeks ago, in fact maybe even some month ago, I don't have the dates in front of me right now. We sat down with the Department of Labor and OSHA and talked about how best to manage this to make sure that the response workers and everybody that was out there were operating in a safe environment.

 

As a result of that, we established an MOU between the National Incident Command and OSHA. They have a number of folks that are in theater that are helping us down there. I think they probably have between 30 and 35 inspectors that are just moving around making sure that – the second thing one establishing exposure limits that are realistic, understanding that the ones that are published have been out of date for some time, but the ability to get rules out in regard to those exposure limits have been limited on the Department of Labor.

 

So we’ve come up with an exposure limits we think are reasonable and that basically drive the respiratory requirements and when those limits are met the respirator are required as you correctly stated somebody can voluntarily use that if they want to but – if those standards aren’t met.

 

The following issue about the overall effect to public health is being discussed right now. We have not traditionally in this country had a good way to establish health baselines and understand the impact of these large events. We have the opportunity to maybe think about that more on a national level right now.

 

To that end, I met with Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary Sebelius, yesterday and we talked about options for general surveillance of the public regarding health issues associated with this oil spill. And to that end, they have assigned public health service admiral to my staff, James Galloway, who’s going to be my personal advisor.

 

And over the next week or so, we’re going to take a look at what our options are what might be able to be done and how we might want to approach the issue of general surveillance of the public in relation to health issues. So it is on our screen, I talked personally with Secretary Sebelius about this, and it’s something we’re going to be discussing over the next four or five days.

 

Aaron Cooper: So who exactly is getting the masks?

 

Adm. Thad Allen: Well where we have the thresholds where they’re met, they’re being provided as part of the workplace personal protective equipment and tapping down to the incident command level. I can give you some more detail on that and we can follow-up if you like.

 

Aaron Cooper: Thank you.

 

Adm. Thad Allen: Yes.

 

Lt. (Joe Clinker): Operator, next question?

 

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Katie Howell with Greenwire.

 

Katie Howell: Hi, Admiral thanks for taking my call. Going back to the switching the cap issue I think you mentioned earlier that once you switch the cap or if you switch the cap that you’ll be able to get a more accurate reading of how much oil is actually flowing out of the well. Is that correct and if so how exactly will that – just because it’s a better seal you’ll be able to measure it better or what – can you walk us through you know what would be involved there?

 

Adm. Thad Allen: First of all, we’ll replace the current containment cap. If you look at the way that oil is releasing it’s coming out two ways either through the vents (or crowd) around the rubber seal at the bottom because we don’t have a true fast seal because the cut was imperfect. And we have got to put a cap over it with a rubber gasket at the bottom if you will.

 

We will actually unbolt the lower section of the riser pipe and replace that with a hard cap that will be bolted on that will give us a seal. We’ll basically shut in the well at that point. We’ll have valves so we can release pressure if we need to and we’ll have the option to bring four lines out of that to four different production platforms. That gets us to the 80,000 barrels a day capacity.

 

Since it’s enclosed at that point we can measure the flow rate. We will then have an empirically based way to measure the flow rate and that will allow us to see how close we came with our current range, which is 35 to 50,000 barrels a day.

 

And we’ll also know about how much we’re producing we’ll also know if by pressure readings within the cap itself. We expect there’s a certain amount of pressure that we should expect to have at that cap once we close it based on the hydrocarbons being pushed up from the reservoir.

 

If it is lower than that, that would be some kind of indication that there might be some other source where the oil might be going and we need to know about that as well as it relates to the integrity of the well bore. Was that responsive?

 

Katie Howell: It was and one quick follow-up. Is there a chance that you can actually shut in the well with this cap? I think someone from BP had mentioned that as an option.

 

Adm. Thad Allen: There is a chance. It depends on what those pressure readings are if we can get the right pressure reading by – assuming the decision is made, the cap is put on and the pressure readings are taken. If the pressure readings indicate that there is no damage to the well bore we don’t have any leakage at that point you have pretty much contained the outflow of oil.

 

And you also at that point will also raise the likelihood you’ll have a successful killing of the well down below because you have a back pressure against which the mud can be pumped into the well bore.

 

Katie Howell: OK, thanks a lot.

 

Adm. Thad Allen: Yes.

 

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Richard Harris with National Public Radio.

 

Richard Harris: Good morning, I have two quick questions, one of which is BP had been planning to install a sub-sea dispersant dispenser essentially, by about now, I wonder if that’s in place and also about the Q4000, it seems to have reduced its oil collection capacity to about 8,000 barrels a day and I wondered if there's a reason for that? Thanks.

 

Adm. Thad Allen: First of all BP has constructed and has proposed an is being reviewed right now, an autonomous sub-sea dispersant delivery system that could be used in event that the site was abandoned for hurricane and there was no way to mitigate the flow of hydrocarbons out of the well bore. There's been no approval or any decision made on that, it's merely been presented as an option and we are reviewing that inside the administration right now.

 

Could you restate your second question please?

 

Richard Harris: Yes, I was curious about the Q4000, which seems to have reduced the amount of oil it's collecting from last week or so to about 8,000 barrels a day from 10,000. I wonder if that's – obviously not a big deal, but I was sort of curious about why that had happened.

 

Adm. Thad Allen: We’ll will go back and I'll give you a statement on a later – my guess is it's probably due to environment conditions that are out there you know while they're hooked up and they're working, there has been some wobble down on the well bore itself as the sea state is moved around you know that stub of pipe is not fixed it's kind of at an angle, it can move a little bit and we can't – you know it is – the actual hydrocarbons coming up change in their makeup from time to time as far as amount of gas, oil and water that are collected in that.

 

And it's not unusual to have that fluctuate. What you really need to do is kind of level that out over a number of days and kind of average it to get the exact time because it will vary on a 24-hour basis.

 

Richard Harris: All right, thanks very much.

 

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Susan Daker with Dow Jones Newswire.

 

Susan Daker: Hi Admiral, I have two questions, they're related. One, I was wondering if you could sort of quantify how much Hurricane Alex has set back the operation in terms of both skimming and the set up of the Helix Producer and then two, if you guys are planning to stick with your hurricane plan as you laid it out last week with you know needing a 120 some hours in advance seeing as we may be having another hurricane as early as late next week.

 

Adm. Thad Allen: Well, let me take your first question, regarding the (velocitic) capacity because of the storm. What we've lost is if we had been able to have the Helix Producer online, as of 1 July, it looks like it's not going to be to about 7 July, what we've lost is six times 20 to 25,000 barrel a day production capacity…

 

Susan Daker: OK.

 

Adm. Thad Allen: … that we could have had online but we could not because of the weather.

 

Susan Daker: OK.

 

Adm. Thad Allen: So now I guess that would be the greatest opportunity cause so far of the weather.

 

Susan Daker: OK.

 

Adm. Thad Allen: Regarding the skimming capability, we cannot skim 24 hours a day all the time anyway, certain sea states …

 

Susan Daker: OK.

 

Adm. Thad Allen: … thunderstorms and so forth inhibit our ability to do that, but we will – what I will do is we'll get you an average maybe of the week before on what we were taking off the water and we'll try to extrapolate that for you and get you some information on that.

 

Susan Daker: OK.

 

Adm. Thad Allen: Regarding your third question, if we had a classic storm moving through the Caribbean into the Gulf of Mexico, as we said we would need 120 hours from when we have forecasted gale force winds at the well head to begin the redeployment.

 

Now obviously, there are pop-up storms and there are squalls that can come through and present us weather problems as well, and we know that we may or may not get that 120 hours of the classic you know tropical depression moving through Caribbean into the Gulf of Mexico, that’s the reason we were watching the low pressure that’s sitting off the panhandle of Florida very, very closely right now.

 

In a perfect world, we want 120 hours. You don’t know whether you're getting it because Mother Nature gets a vote in these things and – but we're watching it very, very closely.

 

Susan Daker: OK, thank you so much, sir.

 

Adm. Thad Allen: Yes.

 

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jaquette White with the Times Picayune.

 

Jaquette White: Hello, Admiral. Thanks for taking my question. I was hoping you could update any – the contingency plan for the relief well in the case that there is a problem there. You had mentioned about a week ago the opportunity to pump oil to another platform. And I wondered if you had made any progress in identifying platforms whether it could go and if you could just update those plans.

 

Adm. Thad Allen: Yes, there are three potential mitigators for the relief well. One is the second relief well itself that’s being drilled by Development Driller II which is now a little over 7,000 below the sea floor right now.

 

So if for some reason there was a problem with the first relief well, we have a crack with the second relief well. The second is an idea that’s being follow-up after meeting here in Washington several weeks ago with American Petroleum Institute and members of the industry where they're looking at plans on how they would – could lay pipelines from the well bore to other production facilities that are in the area two, three, four, five miles and actually pump that oil back down into reservoirs that have been depleted where it’s not a problem.

 

The third one quite frankly is to continue to produce. If a decision is made to go with a new containment cap and we have basically shut in the well, I mean and it’s not killed by the relief well, the option is until you are able to stabilize and come up with an alternative strategy, just go ahead and produce all the oil that’s coming out of there at that point.

 

That is assuming we'll have an 80,000 barrel a day capacity which at this point exceeds the flow rate predications we have of 35 to 60,000 barrels a day.

 

Jaquette White: And how long could that last option go on? Would you try to drill a third relief well or what would be – would that be an ongoing solution until there is nothing left to produce?

 

Adm. Thad Allen: Well, I think the notion is the second relief well is the risk mitigator for the first one and then other two are just holding strategies that would allow us to stabilize the situation and not have hydrocarbons going into the environment while the second relief well is drilled.

 

Jaquette White: OK.

 

Lt. (Joe Clinker): Operator, this will be the last question.

 

Operator: Your next question comes from the line Joel Achenbach with the Washington Post.

 

Joel Achenback: Thank you. Good morning, Admiral. Can you walk us through just for a second how long the bottom fill by the relief well will take? I mean just what that end game will look like. And as a sort of related matter, how granular does the government get in making decisions about some of the sub-sea technical stuff that’s going on that if I understand it is that those decisions are made out of Houston at the BP office there.

 

But how – to what extent is the government get involved with every technical thing that’s happening in the sub-sea environment? Thank you.

 

Adm. Thad Allen: Well Joel, I can tell you we're involved in every facet of every technical aspect of this entire sub-sea operation. Nominally under the leadership of Secretary Salazar and Secretary Chu but most notably the on scene reps have been Tom Hunter, who is head of the Sandia National Lab and Marsha McNutt, who is head of the U.S. Geological Survey.

 

They have lead the technical team representing the U.S. government down there in the scientific community. But they basically oversee every facet of the engineering details and the plans that have been brought forward. And I can tell you these things are reviewed closely. I've been personally involved in the briefings associated with it.

 

This team also briefed the Gulf Governors this morning on the proposed way ahead. And there is a lot of oversight associated with this and anything that comes out of this is going to be – as a result of bringing to bear the best minds of the government and the academic institutions around the country to bear on this.

 

And the large – the technical team is largely led by Tom Hunter from the Sandia National Lab who has done a terrific job thus far. Is that OK on that one? I can go to the second part; is that responsive?

 

Joel Achenbach: Yes, that’s great thank you.

 

Adm. Thad Allen: OK all right. What’s going to happen is they’re going to slowly close the well bore 10 or 15 feet at a time for the next 600 feet or so when they get to the – and this will be slow and laborious because they’re going to stop every 10 to 15 feet and make sure they know exactly where that well bore is at.

 

When they finally make the decision to go in this could be a two stage process but you have a pipe in the well bore and then you have the area the well bore between the pipe and the outside of the well bore, which they would call the (annualist).

 

That is basically a ring of area out there. They will intercept the well bore and start pumping mud in and the mud at first will probably go up the well bore to a point where it stops. That’s the reason having the capping device would be of some assistance at this point.

 

And then the column would slowly fill with mud down the well bore to the reservoir and at that point the total weight of the mud in the well bore will overcome the pressure at the reservoir and create a static situation where there are no hydrocarbons coming up. It would then allow cement to be pumped in and basically plug the well.

 

This could happen in two stages because it may be necessary to pump mud into the (annualist), which is the area between the pipe and the well bore perimeter, and then actually drill into the pipe itself and repeat that process inside the pipe. Talking to the folks at BP and the scientists that are overseeing this, this could happen very quickly or it could take several days depending on the actual status of the well.

 

If you’ll remember, I’ve stated earlier that we don’t know the status of the well bore right below the wellhead itself down about 1 or 2,000 feet. We don’t know if there are integrity problems with that. That might require a large amount of mud to be pumped in because some that might go out into the strata of the formation around it.

 

I think the general – I think the general estimates that I’ve heard it could be as quick as two or as many as five to get this done depending on the condition of the well bore.

 

Joel Achenbach: Thank you.

 

Adm. Thad Allen: Thank you.

[Luke_Wilbur]

A friend of mine stated

 

Apparently NOAA had a documented federal response plan that was "not" put into action. If it was carried out, 95% of the oil would have been captured via burn off methods. As it stands, no one has seen nor heard from FEMA?? Isn't their existence based off responding to these types... See More of situations? The list goes on in regards to the federal mismanagement of this crisis. From the pre-spill lack of oversight to the clean-up, the ball has been fumbled.

 

I went to the Elastec/American Marine web site. The company made a statement about their part in oil spill cleanup efforts:

 

Elastec/American Marine is a world leader in the design and manufacture of fire boom. We have been supporting the effort in the Gulf of Mexico to minimize the impact from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill - our Hydro-Fireboom systems have now been used in multiple "In-Situ" burns. This specialized boom is a patented water cooled boom, multiple systems have been operating with great success, reducing the shoreline impact. The Joint Information Center released figures on the 25 May 2010 "On Monday, crews conducted 14 controlled burns for nearly 12 hours bringing the response total to 53 burns and 62,000 barrels of oil removed." This effort is continuing.

 

http://www.elastec.com/oilspill/fireboom/index.php

 

That still did not answer the question of why the government did not burn everything.

 

I do know FEMA is supporting the operation by providing personnel to the National Integration Center and additional Logistics and External Affairs support to the Federal On-Scene Coordinator. FEMA is also leading the Social Services and Small Business Interagency Working Group (Claims and Benefits).

 

Any help with answers would be appreciated.

 

 

 

[Guest HUMAN]

Law try posting in your own words rather then hiding behind some one else’s words.

 

Having said that; Your group rode my group with no valid alternatives to clean up the oil.

Ya know some thing Democrat "Law"? Your group is getting a clean bill of health over the financial mess of which Fannie and Freddie were the predominant players.

 

But there is no clean bill of health over the oil spill "there is no where to run".

[Guest Lori]

I like millions of Americans cannot wait for November. Then there will be real change.

 

Koseq offered their help directly after the disaster took place. By that time they promised that with 4 ships no oil would reach landfall. Just today the US have requested for flying in their booms. Why did the administration not use them? They fumbled the ball all over the place.

[Guest LAW]

NOT THIS TIME.

 

The democrats for YEARS have been rubbing the face of the Republican Party into the oil, and NOW with the democrats in charge of the WORST ECOLOGICAL DISASTER IN UNITED STATES HISTORY.

 

What is there response? Legislation at most "For Christ sakes!"

 

We have the technology to do it ourselves. Hey DUMOCRATS would you like for me to post it? Hummmm? Wanna really play?

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

HUMAN,

As I stated before, I would love for you to post a solution. I would gladly say it came from a Republican.

 

Once again, I post what is actually being stated by both sides of the aisle to quash your spin.

 

From my vantage point all the words I see you write are just simple rants with little thought behind them.

 

Where are your valid alternatives to clean up the oil? There are members of your side that are very thoughtful with their responses. But, you have none.

 

You look at this disaster like a political game. So I will give you this analogy.

 

There are many unforeseen moves that cause one to revise their strategy to change the situation. In this circumstance their are less moves you can make to drift around. Soon their will be little moves to reveal your true position. The only hope for you is to hope nobody will be watching.

 

I look at this disaster for what it is. Not a political disaster, but a disaster for everyone.

 

Statements and decisions both sides make that effect the outcome are important to me. I will be the first one to admit mistakes have been made by Obama administration. But, I will not just listen to the lies of pundits trying to undermine the effort.

 

 

Lori,

I can understand your frustration. This decade has been an emotional roller coaster for everyone. No one knows who to believe anymore.

 

It is difficult for me to believe that four Koseq ships would be able to solve this massive problems. But, the Dutch are masters of the waterways. They are building the largest port in the world. No one can dispute they are masters at constructing artificial dikes and islands in Hong Kong, Dubai, and Japan.

 

I am personally surprised we have not asked for more assistance from them. But, I do not claim to know the whole back end story. I will see what I can dig up.

 

I will be posting more statements here. I will highlight areas that I consider important. And from time to time I will make my own personal statement if I consider it appropriate dialogue.

[Guest Independant Thinker]

I think we all were sold a bill of goods with the Obama administration. We all were frustrated with Bush, so we voted the other option. He just does not lead very well.

[Guest NOAA]

 

NOAA has used modeling of historical wind and ocean currents to project the likelihood that surface oil from the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill will impact additional U.S. coastline. This modeling, part of NOAA's comprehensive response to the unprecedented Gulf oil disaster, can help guide the ongoing preparedness, response and cleanup efforts.

 

Probability of Shoreline Threat, as of Day 120, for a 33,000 barrels/day release for 90 days.

 

Probability of Shoreline Threat, as of Day 120, for a 33,000 barrels/day release for 90 days.

 

"This NOAA model shows where oil may be likely to travel, thereby giving coastal states and communities information about potential threats of shoreline impacts. This kind of information should assist in the preparation of adequate preparedness measures," said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. "NOAA is strongly committed to providing reliable information to the public and to responders at all levels."

 

In the technical report being released today, the model's results aggregate information from 500 distinct scenarios (model outcomes). Each assumes a 90-day oil flow rate of 33,000 barrels per day – the net amount from the flow rate ceiling of 60,000 barrels per day (the lower bound is 35,000 barrels/day) minus the daily estimated amount being skimmed, burned, and/or collected by the Top Hat mechanism. The model also accounts for the natural process of oil "weathering" or breaking down, and considers oil a threat to the shoreline if there is enough to cause a dull sheen within 20 miles of the coast. If, for example, 250 of the 500 scenarios indicated a shoreline threat for a particular area, the overall threat for that area would be a 50 percent probability.

 

Considering these factors, the NOAA model indicates:

 

* The coastlines with the highest probability for impact (81 to 100 percent) extend from the Mississippi River Delta to the western panhandle of Florida where there has been and will likely continue to be oil impacts.

 

* Along U.S. Gulf of Mexico shorelines, the oil is more likely to move east than west, with much of the coast of Texas showing a relatively low probability of oiling (ranging from less than one percent in southern Texas to up to 40 percent near the Louisiana border).

 

* Much of the west coast of Florida has a low probability (20 percent down to less than one percent) of oiling, but the Florida Keys, Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas have a greater probability (61 to 80 percent) due to the potential influence of the Loop Current. Any oil reaching this area would have spent considerable time degrading and dispersing and would be in the form of scattered tar balls and not a large surface slick of oil.

 

* There is a low probability of shoreline impacts from eastern central Florida up the Eastern Seaboard (20 percent diminishing to less than one percent). Potential impacts become increasingly unlikely north of North Carolina as the Gulf Stream moves away from the continental U.S. at Cape Hatteras. If oil does reach these areas, it will be in the form of tar balls or highly weathered oil.

 

The threat outlined in the model does not necessarily indicate that oil will come ashore. Whether or not oil comes ashore will depend upon wind and ocean currents at the time. In addition to these and other natural factors, booms and other countermeasures could be used to mitigate the actual coastal contact.

 

The modeling results released today are based on several simplifying assumptions. In particular, they do not start with the current footprint of the spill, but rather model the spill beginning at day one, based on historical weather and current patterns. Also, the analysis does not adjust for effects of dispersants on the volume, weathering and movement of oil on the water's surface. To date, no significant amount of oil has entered the Loop Current.

[Guest Vacation Florida]

Worried about the quality of Florida's beaches? Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, FL has set up the following link providing an up to date beach condition report for 33 counties along Florida's Gulf Coast.

 

http://coolgate.mote.org/beachconditions/