The environment in the news thursday, 19 August, 2010
Los Angeles Times: Toxic levels of oil found in gulf area crucial to fish
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- Toxic levels of oil found in gulf area crucial to fish
- Gulf oil spill: scientists assess health effects
- Final well-killing procedure is pushed back
- Senate gives thumbs up to offshore drilling
- Gulf oil well kill plan on hold amid pressure fears
Los Angeles Times: Toxic levels of oil found in gulf area crucial to fishLos Angeles Times: Gulf oil spill: scientists assess health effects Los Angeles Times: Final well-killing procedure is pushed back The Globe and Mail: Senate gives thumbs up to offshore drilling The Vancouver Sun: Gulf oil well 'kill' plan on hold amid pressure fears Toxic levels of oil found in gulf area crucial to fishLos Angeles Times, 18 August 2010, by Sara Kennedyhttp://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-fish-20100818,0,7774739.storyResearchers describe 'a constellation' of oil droplets mixed with sediment. Phytoplankton, the base of the marine food web, is found to be in poor health nearby.St. Petersburg, Fla. — Scientists have found evidence that oil has become toxic to marine organisms in a section of the Gulf of Mexico that supports the spawning grounds of commercially important fish species. Researchers from the University of South Florida said Tuesday that, in preliminary results, there appear to be droplets of oil among the sediments of a vital underwater canyon where clouds of oil from the BP spill were found. "So, indeed, the waters have a level of toxicity that needs to be recognized, and I think these were some of the first indicators that the base of the food web — the bacteria and the phytoplankton — may be affected," said David Hollander, chief scientist on a research vessel that just returned from a 10-day trip in the gulf.
More than 200 million gallons of oil leaked into gulf waters from BP's broken well until it was capped last month. The company used millions of gallons of chemical dispersant to break up the oil as it gushed off the Louisiana coast. Researchers peering into the murk described what they saw using a process involving ultraviolet light. "We were able to detect sediments that had oil covering them," said Hollander. "It wasn't like a drape, don't get me wrong, like a blanket of oil; rather, it looked like a constellation of stars that were at the scale of microdroplets. They seemed to be at every location we looked east of the wellhead, and interestingly and surprisingly, at the top of the DeSoto Canyon to the east." He described the DeSoto Canyon as an underwater geologic feature that is thought to bathe the Continental Shelf with nutrient-rich waters. In subsurface waters east of the wellhead, phytoplankton — microscopic, plant-like organisms that form the base of the marine food web — was found to be in poor health, Hollander said. In those locations, phytoplankton was repressed, or "feeling a toxic response to those waters," he added.
Days after a vacationing President Obama swam in gulf waters and tasted fish caught off the coast of Florida, scientists with the Natural Resources Defense Council said the gulf oil spill probably still will have far-reaching health effects on both seafood and people. The commentary, published online Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., examined the potential effects of the oil spill on workers, residents and seafood coming out of the Gulf of Mexico. The report followed seafood testing done by the Food and Drug Administration indicating that levels of the heavier toxic substances in oil that can kill marine life were well below federally set limits. The paper was written by Dr. Gina Solomon, director of UC San Francisco's Occupational and Environmental Medicine Residency Program and a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Dr. Sarah Janssen, also with UCSF and a senior scientist with the NRDC. They pointed to the known effects of crude oil's lighter chemicals, which are released into the air once the oil reaches the ocean surface. Such "volatile aromatic hydrocarbons" can cause breathing problems as well as harm to the central nervous system. Benzene exposure has been linked to leukemia, and toluene to birth defects, Solomon said in a phone interview. In Louisiana, Solomon added, hundreds of cleanup workers reported headaches, vomiting, trouble breathing and chest pain -- all possible symptoms of exposure to the airborne chemicals. The dispersants used to clear oil from the water's surface have been known to cause dermatitis and skin infections, she added. The heavier parts of crude that don't make it into the atmosphere, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, can poison fish and shellfish, Solomon said, especially the latter. Invertebrates such as oysters, shrimp and crabs have far more trouble than vertebrate animals in purging the chemicals from their systems. Solomon also pointed to studies that documented mental health effects, such as high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, in the wake of oil spills. (On Monday, BP announced $52 million in grants to five gulf states for mental health services.) "The biggest of these issues depends on who you are talking to, and when," Solomon said. "Last month was air quality, this month was seafood safety -- maybe next month will be mental health." To assess the potential health fallout, Solomon drew on data from previous oil spills. She pointed, for example, to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, in which 15% of the filed 1,811 workers' compensation claims were for respiratory problems. But, the scientists wrote in the JAMA paper, "no information is available in the peer-reviewed literature about longer-term health effects of [the Exxon Valdez] spill." And without copious amounts of study from past spills, Solomon said, it's difficult to advise people about whether they should eat shrimp, find other work, or even leave town. "People are looking for clear guides," Solomon said, "and the guide right now is in shades of gray, not black and white." Final well-killing procedure is pushed backLos Angeles Times, 17 August 2010, by Richard Fausset http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-20100817,0,1628138.storyA federal official says experts need more time to mitigate any potential problems with increased pressure when the relief well operation begins.Reporting from Atlanta — The day the BP oil well can be permanently declared dead has been pushed back to late August so experts can devise plans to reduce risks during the final well-killing procedure, the federal government's spill response chief said Monday. "There's nobody that wants to have this happen any quicker than I do, but there's nobody that wants to incur more risk to this operation," said Thad Allen, the national incident commander.
"When we finish this thing, this will be a stake in the heart of this well, and that's my overall intention," he said. The runaway well off Louisiana gushed oil for 86 days until it was sealed July 15 with a huge custom metal cap that was affixed to the damaged blowout preventer. Since then, the well has been plugged more extensively with the "static kill" procedure, in which mud and concrete were pumped into the top of the well. However, experts cannot say whether they have thoroughly plugged the area between the well pipes and the well bore known as the annulus. To ensure that it too is dead, they plan to pierce the annulus with a relief well deep underground and pump it with mud and concrete as well. But experts have raised the possibility that pumping into the annulus could increase pressure on about 1,000 barrels of oil trapped inside, possibly damaging the seals at the top of the well. To mitigate any potential trouble, Allen said, experts need more time to analyze two options for dealing with a rise in pressure. One option would involve building a mechanism on the existing cap that could relieve the pressure. Allen said they hoped oil would not be released into the ocean under this plan. The other option would involve removing the existing blowout preventer and cap and replacing it with a stronger one that could withstand any pressure increases when the relief well process starts. Under the plan, the existing blowout preventer would not be removed until pressure tests proved that the concrete inside the well is strong enough to keep it plugged — at least until the new blowout preventer is in place. The first plan would take about a week to carry out; the second, less time. From there, it would take four days to complete the final 50 feet of drilling and intercept the original well. After the cement is pumped into the relief well, scientists would closely monitor the pressure for a few days before declaring that the undersea drama was finally over. Allen said a federal science team and Energy Secretary Steven Chu would make a recommendation on the procedures in the next day or two. In Washington on Monday, the Obama administration announced that it would no longer issue blanket exemptions for deep-water drilling projects that allowed oil companies to avoid extensive environmental reviews. BP's problematic well in the Gulf of Mexico was one of the projects that received such an exemption, known as "categorical exclusion," in April 2009. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, or BOEM, now plans to issue the exemptions on a "more limited basis," a statement said. The Obama administration issued a ban covering much of the gulf's deep-water drilling operations that extends through the end of November. Deep-water drilling will not be eligible for the exemptions even after the moratorium expires, the statement said. However, the exemptions will still be available for offshore activities that pose "limited environmental risk." "These changes in our regulatory framework and approach will serve to hold offshore operators accountable and ensure that the industry and the country are fully prepared to deal with catastrophic blowouts and oil spills like the Deepwater Horizon," said Michael R. Bromwich, director of BOEM, which was until recently called the Minerals Management Service. Representatives of the oil and gas industry — as well as some lawmakers in oil-producing states — are concerned that increased regulation will hamper the industry and threaten jobs in a region already hard-hit by the spill. Environmental activists gave the move a lukewarm review. Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, praised the administration for being "rhetorically committed" to ending the exclusions. But he said one shortcoming of the new policy allowed for shallow-water drilling to be exempt from extensive environmental reviews. "Full environmental review must also be done for these oil-drilling operations" that are also dangerous undertakings, Suckling said. The government also plans a comprehensive review of how the National Environmental Policy Act applies to offshore oil drilling. The landmark 1970 act requires extensive federal reviews of projects that could affect the environment. In Louisiana, some fishermen returned to the seas for the opening of the fall shrimp season. However, many areas remain closed to fishing, and there is a lingering concern that fishermen will not be able to market their seafood after all of the negative publicity. Commerce Secretary Gary F. Locke toured a seafood processing plant Monday in Lafitte, La., a fishing village about 25 miles south of New Orleans, and tried to put out the message that the seafood heading to market is ready for American dinner tables. "We need to let the American people know that the seafood being harvested from the gulf is safe to eat," Locke said. "I think there have been a lot of misperceptions out there. A lot of testing is done before we open state and federal waters to fishing." Senate gives thumbs up to offshore drillingThe Globe and Mail, 18 August 2010, by Gloria Galloway http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/senate-gives-thumbs-up-to-offshore-drilling/article1677199/ A Senate committee says there’s no need to prevent companies from drilling for oil in Canadian coastal waters. With oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico and Chevron drilling deep off the Atlantic coast, the Senate committee on energy, the environment and natural resources launched a study in May to determine the potential for a similar calamity in Canada. In particular, the committee looked at whether calls for a moratorium on drilling in Canadian waters were well founded. After hearing from 26 witnesses, the committee concluded in its report released Wednesday that they are not. "No evidence was adduced to justify any such ban or suspension and the committee is recommending that the said Chevron operation continue as planned, under close scrutiny and supervision by the regulators," the report says. The bipartisan committee did, however, say there is a need to examine the structure of regulatory boards to determine if there is a "material conflict" between their roles as promoters of development and environmental stewards. The committee also recommended that the regulators and industry take a hard look at the condition under which relief wells should be drilled. A relief well to take pressure off the BP well that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico has taken many months to drill. But David Angus, the Conservative who chairs the committee, told a news conference Wednesday the senators were satisfied that the safety precautions currently in place are sufficient to prevent a similar disaster in Canada. Senator Grant Mitchell, a Liberal from Alberta, said the report aimed to balance economic and environmental concerns and pointed out the huge financial benefit to Canadians that flows from allowing companies to drill offshore.
WASHINGTON - A long-standing deadline for sealing the ruptured Gulf of Mexico well deep below the seabed will be missed as US officials and BP tackle concerns about debris lodged in the well. BP and US government representatives had hoped to complete a "bottom kill" procedure and officially pronounce the well dead by mid-August, but the US pointman on the oil spill response said Monday the bid was on hold. Admiral Thad Allen said that an earlier successful process sealing the well from above may have wedged cement between two layers of casing, trapping leaked crude inside the void. That has forced officials to put on hold plans to seal the well from below by flushing first a heavy drilling fluid called "mud" and then cement into the damaged structure via an intercept from a second relief well. "When we do the intercept well and commence pumping mud and cement... it will create pressure," Allen said. "We want to make sure before I give the order and direct BP to do that, that we know the implications of that pressure, and how we will deal with it." BP is now studying two alternatives ways to tackle the potential problems posed by the debris and trapped crude. The first is a "pressure relief method" that would work with the sealing cap currently atop the well; the alternative would involve bringing in a new blow-out preventer device to withstand any pressure caused by the blockage. "I believe that we should have pretty much exhausted all the alternatives of what it would take to do all of this sometime in the next day or a two at a maximum and we'll be able to announce a decision," Allen said Monday. "I would say approximately seven days after I direct them to move ahead we would finish the pressure test and declare the well dead." The setback will be disappointing for weary Gulf Coast residents eager for the psychological relief of knowing a final death blow has been struck against a well that has unleashed such economic and environmental catastrophe. The Macondo well has not spilled crude since July 15, when a sealing cap was successfully closed over the leak, providing the first concrete success in efforts to contain the gushing crude. The spill, the worst in US history, was sparked April 20 by an explosion that ripped through the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon oil rig, killing 11 workers and sinking the platform two days later.
UN DAILY NEWS 18th August 2010
Recent satellite images suggest that more than 1 million hectares of forests have been destroyed in western Russia, one of the most important breeding and foraging areas for the country’s bat species, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a news release. The fires, which have killed at least 50 people, have also harmed about 40,000 hectares of protected forest areas, according to national authorities. “Our thoughts are with the Russian people who are suffering during this crisis,” said Andreas Streit, Executive Secretary of EUROBATS, a UNEP-administered body that promotes bat conservation throughout Europe. “Many people have lost their homes and even entire villages have disappeared. “The disappearance of forest habitats adds an extra dimension to the catastrophe,” he added. “Forest ecosystems are vital for our planet and for many local communities whose lives are intertwined with forests and nature.” The fires could have devastating consequences for populations of migratory bats, who will suffer long-term losses of habitats and foraging areas, as well as a decrease of available prey such as insects, UNEP noted. The future for Russia’s bats looks “worrying,” according to the agency, which added that while scientific research, monitoring and bat conservation projects are taking place in the country, additional actions to safeguard its bat populations are needed. Russia is not yet a party to the Agreement on the Conservation of Populations of European Bats, known as EUROBATS or the Bat Agreement, which came into force in 1994 and currently has 30 European States among its parties. The Agreement, set up under the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, aims to protect all 45 species of bats identified in Europe, through legislation, education, conservation measures and global cooperation with both parties and those who have not yet joined. To promote bat conservation, research and awareness-raising about the ecological importance of bats, EUROBATS and the Convention have designated 2011 as the Year of the Bat. The Year also coincides with the UN International Year of Forests, which aims to raise global awareness of the urgent need to protect the planet’s fragile forests, vital ecosystems that are home to many vulnerable and endangered species. UN official calls on young Olympians to help improve their home communities The thousands of athletes competing in the first-ever Youth Olympic Games, currently under way in Singapore, should use their experiences at the event to help promote change and improvement in their local communities, a senior United Nations official said today. Wilfried Lemke, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace, called on the estimated 3,600 participants to serve as socially responsible figures when they return from the competition.“This is a unique opportunity for young athletes to look beyond sports competitions and to get exposed to pressing global issues,” said Mr. Lemke at a workshop run by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on the sidelines of the Youth Olympics in Singapore. The 12-day Games contain a cultural and education programme that is designed to help the young athletes to better understand key issues, such as the importance of leading healthy lifestyles, avoiding doping and acting in a socially responsibly way. Mr. Lemke also attended a workshop run by the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and toured the Olympic Village and various booths run by UN agencies, including UNAIDS, UNICEF and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). “Your experiences here will enable you to act as ambassadors when you return to your communities by sharing what you have learned and encouraging those around to be agents of change,” the Special Adviser told some of the competitors Back to Menu ============================================================= S.G’s SPOKESPERSON DAILY PRESS BRIEFING 18th August 2010 (None) Back to Menu ============================================================= Directory: cpi -> briefs briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news briefs -> The environment in the news Download 231.95 Kb. Share with your friends:
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