Alternatives are natural gas and coal with CCS

Alternatives are natural gas and coal with CCS

Environment Canada, an arm of the national government, did not respond to requests for comment. Prentice said in his comments yesterday, however, that the government "would guard against any rush to build noncompliant coal plants" between now and 2015.

In a statement, the country's largest operator of coal-fired power plants, TransAlta Corp., said it saw "opportunities" to replace its oldest coal plants with a mix of natural gas, renewables and coal plants equipped with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. At the same time, it raised concerns about the costs of the plan and its impact on the electrical grid.

"There is still a lot to do to ensure that Alberta's electricity system can make this transition in an efficient and equitable manner, especially for our customers," said Steve Snyder, president and CEO of TransAlta.

Several coal industry representatives in the United States said the Canadian move would have little impact on domestic operations, considering that Canada receives a small portion of U.S. coal exports.

Carol Raulston, a spokeswoman for the National Mining Association, said the Canadian move "demonstrates that we need to be doing more for carbon capture and storage technology." Billions of dollars are flowing for carbon capture and sequestration projects globally, but the technology has yet to be proven at scale on coal-fired power plants. The coal industry considers the technology critical for survival in a carbon-constrained world, while many environmentalists claim money for clean-coal research could be better used on ramping up renewables.

Under the Canadian rules, new coal-fired power plants that incorporate carbon capture and storage technology will be exempt from the new standard until 2025.

Dems, industry negotiating fracking disclosure plan

Environment and Energy Daily, 24 June 2010, By Mike Soraghan

Rep. Diana DeGette and the natural gas industry are actively negotiating a plan to require public disclosure of the sometimes toxic chemicals that drillers use to flush gas out of the ground, according to sources on both sides of the talks.

The Colorado Democrat has authored a much tougher bill calling on U.S. EPA to regulate fracturing. Now she is trying to hammer out a deal with industry representatives, but the industry is reported to be split about whether to cut a deal with Democrats or hope that Republican gains in November's midterm elections will stamp out any regulatory efforts.

"There is an ongoing dialogue about disclosure that would be kept within the parameters of the states," said Jason Hutt, an energy lawyer with Bracewell & Giuliani representing gas producers.

One version of the legislation in circulation on Capitol Hill would require companies to disclose to state regulators the chemicals that they put in their fracturing fluid, but not the formula of how they are mixed, which companies consider a trade secret. States would be required to post the ingredients on the Internet. If a state did not have a program to accomplish that, U.S. EPA would handle the disclosure.

The negotiations are taking place against the backdrop of the BP oil spill, which could erode the public's faith in industry assurances that oil and gas production is safe. And the industry is closely monitoring the well-publicized release of "Gasland," an HBO documentary that lambastes the industry, saying fracturing is fouling groundwater across the country.

In fracturing, crews inject tanker-loads of water and sand into gas wells to blow apart the rock and release the gas. A small fraction of that concoction is a mixture of chemicals as mundane as ice cream thickener and as toxic as benzene. In 2005, the Republican Congress and George W. Bush administration exempted fracturing from EPA regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act, heading off an appellate court ruling that had said the law should cover fracturing.

Since then, fears have grown among environmentalists, community groups and some Democratic lawmakers that the chemicals used could contaminate groundwater. But fracturing has also become even more vital to U.S. natural gas production. Vast shale formations under Pennsylvania, Texas and Louisiana have doubled U.S. gas reserves by some measures -- but they can be tapped only with fracturing.

Industry groups like the Independent Petroleum Association of America say that fracturing is safe and state regulation is sufficient. They maintain there has never been a proven case of groundwater contamination from the injection process.

On the other side, DeGette, Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) introduced legislation to strip out the exemption and order public disclosure.

The industry has vehemently fought EPA regulation, fearing that the agency would shut down production while it developed rules that could clamp down on gas production. There has been some give on disclosure, with some in the industry worried that some form of regulation is inevitable and they want to be involved in crafting it.

"We're interested in finding a solution on disclosure," said an industry source familiar with the negotiations.

Gas producers like Chesapeake Energy Corp. Chairman and CEO Aubrey McClendon have called for more transparency about what chemicals are used. Range Resources Corp. has posted the chemicals it uses in fracturing, along with the amount used in the process.

Still, many drillers are adamant that there should be no compromise on the industry's ability to access a resource that contributes to the country's energy independence.

DeGette is seeking to attach a compromise plan to the reauthorization of the Safe Drinking Water Act, which passed out of the Energy and Commerce Committee by a 45-1 vote last month (E&E Daily, May 27). But Democratic leaders have labored to avoid Republican objections to the bill, and they are likely to balk at adding controversial amendments that might bog the bill down. So DeGette would need agreement from Republicans and industry to add the amendment. In committee, DeGette introduced her amendment, then withdrew it, saying she wanted to negotiate a compromise with industry.

"I think we're close to an agreement," said a House Democratic leadership aide. "I'm optimistic."

The proposal making the rounds in the House would largely keep EPA out of the process and require disclosure beyond the "material safety data sheets" that many in industry have insisted are sufficient. Critics say that the documents, designed for worker safety rather than groundwater protection, lack important details about the chemicals in fracturing fluid.

In the Senate, the climate and energy bill sponsored by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) includes a provision requiring the documents to be posted on the Internet. But with the entire Senate energy bill in flux, it would presumably be up to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to determine whether to strengthen the fracturing provision, keep it as is or drop it from the bill.

Environment and Energy Daily, 24 June 2010, By Robin Bravender

Backers of a sweeping cap-and-trade climate bill may settle for a narrow emissions cap on the utility sector if politics force their hand, but they insist that it can only be a first step.

A scaled-back approach limiting emissions from the electric power sector seems to be gaining traction as a compromise that could reach 60 votes needed to clear the Senate. The White House and key Senate Democrats have indicated that they would be willing to consider the approach in order to secure a greenhouse gas cap in an energy and climate bill.

And while environmentalists and liberal Democrats say they are willing to consider it, they want to ensure that it is the jumping-off point for broader efforts to clamp down on emissions.

Utilities are responsible for "about 40 percent of the CO2 emissions," said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.). "There's another 60 percent out there, so we want to make sure we don't lose sight of that."

Carper and others are hopeful that utilities would pave the way so that other sectors could be brought in later.

"If we can't get a bill started, we're never going to get to the comprehensiveness that we all want," said Janet Peace, vice president of markets and business strategy at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. "It's not a way to finish, but it is important to get started now."

The prospect of a utility-only approach is likely to be on the table when Senate Democrats meet today to map out their summer floor strategy on energy and climate.

Several Republican senators seen as key swing votes on a climate bill also said they would consider supporting legislation that imposed greenhouse gas limits on just the utility sector.

"That's something I've suggested as a possibility," said Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine.).

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) was skeptical about its chances but did not rule it out. "I don't think it's going to go anywhere, but I'm willing to look at it," he said.

And Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) said if it is part of a broader compromised package, "I might take it under consideration."

Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, and Duke Energy Corp. CEO Jim Rogers wrote an op-ed yesterday in Politico urging utilities to pave the way with a national emissions cap.

"It's time to get started" they wrote. "If that means capping emissions from the utility sector first -- so be it. There is growing consensus in the electric utility industry to act now, so let's move forward.

"Electric utilities may be willing to go first," they said. "But they are not going to be willing to go alone."

Still, not all utilities are backing the approach. American Electric Power Co. Inc. spokeswoman Melissa McHenry said the company would not support a utility-only bill, although it did support the economywide approaches in the House-passed energy and climate bill and the Senate bill co-sponsored by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).

"We think it will only raise electricity rates in states that are dependent on fossil fuels and won't get at the real issue, which is reducing global concentrations of CO2 because utilities are just one part of the bigger issue," McHenry said.

Some lawmakers said their support for a utility-only bill depends on how it is structured and what other provisions are included in a final package.

"I'm certainly open to anything at this point, but I would want to have resources available for development of new technology and there's a question of that that we have to work on," Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said yesterday.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said "there are more questions than answers at this point. I don't say don't look at it or don't try to figure out a way to do that, but I think the questions are not close to being answered."

Even if a utility-only cap does get to 60 votes, stakeholders say it has some serious disadvantages, including less certain emission reductions and reduced flexibility and revenue than a broader cap would produce.

"It's a little more complicated than just doing an only, because you'd need to be able to help your industries to be able to transition," Kerry said earlier this week of a utility cap. "You've got to be able to find some new revenue to help you do that."

With fewer allowances than a broader program, much less revenue would be generated than under an economywide cap, said Joe Mendelson, director of global warming policy at the National Wildlife Federation. "There are many interests in the legislation and it just becomes more of a scramble for each interest to get what they would like out of the bill."

Chad Stone, a chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the approach would also take flexibility out of the system by eliminating the opportunity for efficiency tradeoffs between utilities and other sectors.

"You're restricting trading" and opportunities for discovering ways to do things better, he said. "It's far from ideal."

The approach might also leave the United States short of its international emission reduction targets, said Jason Grumet, the president of the Bipartisan Policy Center. "A power sector cap is not likely to achieve the commitments that the U.S. has made subsequent to the Copenhagen accord, which is, I think, a very significant downside," he said.

Still, Grumet said, "it's probably the most likely to get to 60 votes of the alternatives on the table."

G20 Tackles Fuel Subsidies Again, With Caveats: Draft

Reuters, 24 June 2010, By Jeff Mason

The Group of 20 major economies will agree to "continue working" to phase out fossil fuel subsidies while allowing member nations to develop their own approaches for doing so, a draft G20 document shows.

The draft version of the summit communique, obtained by Reuters before the G20 leaders meeting in Toronto this weekend, suggests a softening in language from the group's commitment last year to eliminate subsidies for fuels such as oil and gas.

"We reviewed progress made to date in identifying inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption," said the text of the document, which must be agreed by leaders and could change in the coming days.

"We agree to continue working to develop voluntary, member-specific approaches for the rationalization and phase out of such measures."

Environmentalists pounced on the inclusion of "voluntary, member-specific approaches" as evidence of a move to water down the pledge.

"The Gulf oil disaster has focused minds worldwide on the need to end our oil addiction and begin an energy revolution," said Kumi Naidoo, executive director of environmental group Greenpeace International.

"G20 leaders need to put their money where their mouths are and keep their promise to cut fossil fuel subsidies."

The world's largest economies agreed in September to phase out subsidies for oil and other carbon dioxide-spewing fossil fuels in the "medium term" as part of efforts to combat global warming. The agreement was seen as a victory for U.S. President Barack Obama, who hosted the Pittsburgh summit and wanted to show progress on climate change ahead of U.N. talks.

Eliminating such subsidies by 2020 would reduce greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming by 10 percent by 2050, leaders said at the time, citing data from the International Energy Agency and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The Pittsburgh G20 statement said energy and finance ministers would develop timeframes and strategies for implementing the subsidies phase-out and report back at the next G20 summit.

That summit takes place in Toronto on June 26-27.

Though it is largely focused on the economy, the draft document makes reference to fighting global warming in ways other than phasing out subsidies for high-polluting fuels.

"We reiterate our commitment to a green recovery and to sustainable global growth, including through investments in clean energy," the draft said.

"We reaffirm our resolve to address climate change and to continue to engage constructively in the negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change toward a post-2012 climate change regime with the participation of all major economies."

(Editing by Doina Chiacu)

The Globe and Mail, 24 June 2010, By Shawn McCarthy

Environment Minister Jim Prentice on Wednesday trumpeted the Harper government’s climate-change action in advance of this week’s global leaders summit, but his upbeat message was undermined when 50 members of U.S. Congress announced their opposition to growing imports from Canada’s “filthy” oil sands.

As Prime Minister Stephen Harper prepares to meet leaders from the Group of 20 nations, Mr. Prentice turned the spotlight on Canada’s relatively clean electricity sector by announcing the government will require utilities to phase out coal-fired power plants in the coming decades.

In an interview, the minister argued that Canada does not get enough credit – domestically or internationally – for the fact it has one of the cleanest electricity sectors in the industrialized world in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

He said Canada is moving more aggressively than any of its global competitors to reduce the electricity sector’s emissions, which account for 17 per cent of the country’s total. The oil sands produce 5 per cent of the country’s emissions, the minister said, though he acknowledged that figure will grow dramatically given the industry’s aggressive expansion plans.

In Washington, a group of 50 members of Congress and environmental groups urged the State Department to block the construction of TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry 500,000 barrels of oil sands crude to refineries in the gulf coast of Texas. Because the pipeline crosses international boundaries, the State Department must approve it.

In a teleconference, the politicians and environmentalists compared the oil sands environmental impact to the devastation caused by BP PLC’s blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.

“As oil continues to pour into the Gulf, we should take a step back and consider the wisdom of trusting these oil companies that are out to make a profit and with no thoughts about anything but oil, oil and cutting corners to make higher profits for their shareholders,” said Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Tennessee.

“We need to stop promoting filthy tar sands that pollute the air we breathe and water we drink and start increasing development of clean, domestic renewable technologies.”

Calgary-based TransCanada, the largest pipeline company in North America, rejected any suggestion it was cutting corners on safety, and disagreed with the notion that the environmental review of the pipeline should include an assessment of oil sands pollution.

In the face of international criticism of the oil sands, Mr. Prentice prefers to talk about electricity sector, which produces far more emissions than does the oil sands.

“With the exception of France [which relies heavily on nuclear], Canada will have the cleanest electricity sector of any major industrialized country in the world,” he said.

The Canadian government – and the oil industry – argue that U.S.-based environmental groups and some members of Congress focus unfairly on the oil sands as a source of emissions.

Mr. Prentice said the American electricity sector emits 60 times more emissions than the oil sands. The United States has more than 600 coal plants, with no plans in place to regulate emissions from those plants, he noted.

Under the regulations to be introduced next year and take effect in 2015, utilities would not be able to replace their current coal plants with new ones, unless they are equipped with technology to capture greenhouse gas emissions and sequester them underground.

Mr. Prentice said two-thirds of the country’s 51 current coal units should be retired by 2025, and they will have to be replaced with low-emitting electricity such as clean coal, natural gas, hydro, nuclear, wind and tidal power.

The regulations will not force the industry to reduce emissions from existing plants, and will not achieve the minister’s previous pledge to have 90 per cent of the country’s power supply come from non-emitting sources by 2020.

The Harper government has pledged to reduce emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020 – a target that matches U.S. President Barack Obama’s stated goal. G20 leaders are expected to recommit to negotiating a global agreement on combatting climate change, after reaching a broad deal at the Copenhagen summit last December.

Mr. Prentice also announced Canada will provide $400-million this year for an international climate fund. He said the investment represents “Canada’s fair share” of a $10-billion (U.S.) per year fund to help poor countries combat climate change. The “fast start fund” was negotiated at the Copenhagen climate change conference last December as a $30-billion, three-year effort that will grow in future years.

The Ottawa Citizen, 24 June 2010, By Bruce Hextall

SYDNEY - New Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard moved to revive a stalled carbon trading scheme on Thursday, pledging more consultation with industry and voters to win support for an issue that has split the nation.

Gillard, in her first comments to the media after former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd stepped down earlier on Thursday, said she believed in climate change, backed renewable energy and that the nation needed a price on carbon emissions.

But she also said emissions trading laws would lead to a significant structural shift in the resources-rich nation and they needed to be explained properly to the community.

Analysts said Gillard's comments could soothe disgruntled Greens voters who swept Rudd to power in 2007 on the promise of action on climate change but she would need to tread carefully.

"It is as disappointing to me as it is to millions of Australians that we do not have a price on carbon," Gillard told reporters. "And in the future we will need one. But first we need to establish a community consensus for action." 1/8ID:nSGE65M0LY 3/8

Australia is the world's top coal exporter and among the highest per-capita emitters of planet-warming carbon dioxide, with coal used to generate about 80 per cent of electricity.

Gillard faces a national election within months and climate change will be a major election issue.

Support for Rudd plunged in part because he decided to shelve the scheme in April after failing three times to get Senate support, disillusioning voters who wanted action on climate change.

"If elected as prime minister, I will re-prosecute the case for a carbon price at home and abroad," Gillard said, although any steps to revive emissions trading laws are likely to be in 2011 after the elections expected towards the end of this year.

KNIFE-EDGE

Her call might also win support from the Greens, who said the stalled emissions trading scheme was flawed and not ambitious enough, while the opposition had labelled it a great big new tax, leading to policy paralysis.

"I think consensus building is part of her nature," political analyst Norman Abjorensen told Reuters.

"I think voters need reassurance that the emissions trading system and climate change policies are still under consideration. I would think that would work to Labor's advantage," Abjorensen, of the Australian National University in Canberra, said.

But analyst Nick Economou from Melbourne's Monash University said Gillard faced a knife-edged struggle on climate policy.

"Those issues are dangerous for Labor because they have the potential to divide blue-collar and white-collar constituents," he said, with blue-collar voters worried over higher power bills associated with emissions trading, versus white-collar voters who wanted action on climate change.

Industry and green groups welcomed Gillard's comments.

"It seems she wants to have a very open negotiation with the view to resolution so that's definitely in investors' interest," said Nathan Fabian, chief executive of the Investor Group on Climate Change that represents institutional investors with about $500 billion under management.

"We're all on the same page for an ETS (emissions trading scheme). We're all on the same page for tax reform," Mitchell Hooke, chief executive of the Minerals Council of Australia, told an industry forum. "It comes down to design and consultation."

Opinion polls show a recent shift to the Greens party and a spectacular plunge in support for Rudd and the Labor Party.

"We believe the Labor Party's backflip on the emissions trading scheme and its associated decline in the polls is a key reason we now have a new leader," said Greg Bourne, chief executive of WWF-Australia.

Rudd had made fighting climate change and a carbon trading scheme, in particular, central to his administration, but was widely seen as unable to properly explain and sell the complex scheme to voters fearful of higher fuel and power prices, while miners expected shrinking profits and losses to overseas rivals.

Reuters, 24 June 2010, By Kristen Hays and Ayesha Rascoe

BP Plc said on Wednesday it was starting to reinstall an oil-siphoning cap on its blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico after an earlier disruption unleashed a torrent of crude.

"Operations have now begun to reinstall the cap," the British energy giant said in a statement.

Oil gushed largely unchecked from the well on Wednesday after an undersea robot collided with a system intended to capture some of the crude from the worst spill in U.S. history.

While BP struggled to restart its oil collection operation, the U.S. government said it would impose a more flexible ban on new deepwater drilling after a federal judge overturned an initial moratorium as too far-reaching.

Oil companies, trying to stop the government from keeping the ban in place, swiftly returned to court to ask the judge to enforce his ruling, accusing the Obama administration of choosing to "ignore and disobey it."

The government imposed a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling after an offshore rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers and rupturing BP's well. The White House plans to appeal the ruling.

Washington is taking a tough line on other fronts as well. The House of Representatives agreed on Wednesday to give subpoena power to the commission created by President Barack Obama to investigate the spill.

In another development, Kenneth Feinberg is stepping down from his role as U.S. Treasury's "pay czar" later this summer to focus on administering BP's $20 billion oil spill fund, a Treasury spokesman said on Wednesday.

After siphoning off a record amount of oil from the well the day before, BP suffered the setback when an undersea robot crashed into the containment cap system that channels leaking oil to a ship from the well on the seafloor.

The containment cap system installed on June 3 captured 16,600 barrels on Tuesday, BP said. A separate oil-flaring system that collected 10,5000 barrels is still operating. A team of U.S. scientists estimate the leak is spewing between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels a day.

The massive oil slick has shut down rich fishing grounds, killed hundreds of turtles and seabirds and dozens of dolphins and soiled the coastlines of four U.S. states.

OIL COATS PENSACOLA BEACH

Florida saw its worst effect yet from the spill as thick oily sludge washed ashore on Pensacola Beach.

Emergency workers said the pudding-like mixture covered 3 miles of Pensacola Beach, a barrier island that is part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore.

"It's just a line of black all the way down the beach as far as you can see in both directions. It's ruined," said Pensacola fisherman Steve Anderson.

The oil spill prompted the Obama administration to impose the deep-sea drilling ban while it investigated the causes of the accident and set new safety guidelines for offshore rigs.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told a congressional hearing he would reissue the drilling ban blocked by the federal judge but suggested some drilling in proven fields might move forward.

"We will in the weeks and months ahead take a look at how it is that the moratorium in place might be refined," he said.

That would be welcomed by companies like Petrobras and Royal Dutch Shell, which were set to delay major projects on fields that offer the best new source of domestic crude.

Salazar said initial investigations showed evidence of "reckless conduct" leading up to the April 20 rig blast, but he did not point the finger at any individual company.

U.S. lawmakers, however, have accused BP of cutting corners and putting cost savings over safety. BP leased the rig from Transocean and was a part owner in the ruptured well with Anadarko.

INVESTORS TO SUE BP

The criticism has fueled investor fears about BP's future and its stock has tumbled since the April 20 spill, losing half its value and trading at levels not seen since 1996.

New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said on Wednesday the state pension fund planned to sue to recover losses from the drop in BP's stock. Other big U.S. state funds are watching New York's lawsuit but have not yet taken legal action.

"BP misled investors about its safety procedures and its ability to respond to events like the ongoing oil spill and we're going to hold it accountable," said DiNapoli, a Democrat, who will stand for election in November.

BP's share price fall has led some major investors, including Aviva Investors and UBS Asset Management, to start buying again, despite worries about the oil giant's total liabilities related to the spill.

Under the Clean Water Act, which levies a $4,300 per barrel fine, BP could face penalties of more than $15 billion. That does not include the $20 billion compensation fund it agreed to last week or the many billions of dollars in criminal fines that analysts have said are likely.

According to U.S. government estimates, up to 4 million barrels of oil have spewed into the ocean since April 20, about 15 times as much as was spilled by the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989. BP said it has collected about 325,700 barrels so far.

Workers at a bird cleaning facility in Fort Jackson, Louisiana were collecting blood and feather samples as evidence of environmental damage that could be used in possible lawsuits against BP.

About 50 workers removed caked-on crude from pelicans, gulls and other animals with dark, dirty brown feathers.

"Most spills are over really quick, but this is like a new spill every day. It's really discouraging," said Jay Holcomb, director of the International Bird Rescue Center.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Oil Sludge Washes In Florida, Dolphin Stranded

Reuters, 24 June 2010, By Ben Gruber

Florida saw its worst impact yet from the BP oil spill as thick oily sludge washed ashore on Pensacola Beach on Wednesday and emergency workers found an oil-covered dolphin stranded on the shore.

State emergency workers said the pudding-like mixture covered 3 miles of Pensacola Beach, a barrier island that is part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore.

"It's just a line of black all the way down the beach as far as you can see in both directions. It's ruined," said Steve Anderson, a Pensacola fisherman.

Small tar balls have washed ashore intermittently on beaches in the tourism-dependent western Florida Panhandle in the last couple of weeks, but large slicks of oil and tarry mats floated in on Wednesday.

Governor Charlie Crist toured the area, prodding the oily goo with a stick in the Casino Beach section of Pensacola Beach.

"We've seen tar balls but never this kind of stuff," the Pensacola News-Journal quoted the governor as saying.

The oil-covered dolphin was found in the area affected by the sludge, near Fort Pickens. With the help of the Coast Guard, emergency workers kept it wet until a wildlife decontamination crew arrived.

The sludge-covered part of Pensacola Beach was closed, although a handful of sunbathers were there, keeping well back from the water line. Hundreds of workers were trying to scoop up the mess with small shovels and a pungent smell permeated the air.

"I jumped in my car this morning, drove out here and immediately the smell hits you in the face. It's like you're pulling up to a gas station to get gas," said Pensacola resident Gary Deshazo.

"There are sheetrock-size balls of oil in the surf out there and they're still coming in."

Charles Fitzsimmons, a federal on-scene representative working with the Coast Guard, said it would take days to clean up the gooey sludge on Pensacola Beach even if no more arrived.

"It's a little bit more than normal, there's no doubt," Fitzsimmons said. "It's a continuous process, it's non-ending for a while."

(Editing by Sandra Maler)

Los Angeles Times, 23 June 2010, By Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Richard Fausset

The immense difficulties facing workers trying to contain and clean up the gulf oil leak were made frighteningly evident Wednesday, after a charter captain despondent over the spill apparently committed suicide, and technical issues forced oil company BP to remove the cap collecting some of the oil, sending thousands more of barrels of crude gushing into gulf waters.

The apparent suicide of the 55-year-old fishing captain, William Allen "Rookie" Kruse, was a grim reminder of the mental health toll that may haunt the Gulf of Mexico region for years as industries are damaged and estuaries are despoiled by the BP oil disaster.

"How can you deal with watching the oil kill every damn thing you ever lived for in your whole life?" said Ty Fleming, a land-bound charter captain who spoke Wednesday afternoon at the Undertow bar in Orange Beach, Ala.

Far out to sea at the site of the oil leak, the containment cap was lifted Wednesday morning after a robotic submarine bumped into it and closed an oil vent, raising fears that slushy hydrates might form under the cap, U.S. Coast Guard Rear Adm. Thad Allen said in a media briefing.

"Out of an abundance of caution … they moved the containment cap with the riser pipe and moved away so they can assess the condition," Allen said.

On Wednesday evening, BP was attempting to reinstall the cap. A smaller containment system with a capacity of 10,000 barrels a day was still working. A federal panel estimates the leak is gushing 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil a day into the gulf.

Allen said that if hydrates hadn't formed, workers would attempt to reinstall the cap, but that if hydrates were found, clearing the equipment and reinstalling the cap would take "a considerable amount longer."

Allen, the federal government's point man for the response, said Wednesday that even if the cap system was put back, rough seas from tropical weather systems might force workers to disengage it for a number of days.

A more hurricane-resistant system is being built. In the meantime, Allen said, the Discoverer Horizon ship collecting oil from the cap via a fixed pipe would need "six or seven days' advance notice to be able to evacuate."

"That means we're going to have to look at the tracks of these storms, look at the probabilities, and have to act very early on," he said.

That threat is ramping up as the heart of hurricane season approaches. AccuWeather.com hurricane expert Joe Bastardi warned Wednesday that a tropical storm could form in the region next week. One computer model projects a strengthening tropical cyclone moving toward Louisiana from the Caribbean.

"The tropics are bubbling and the lid is about to pop off for our first threat of the season," Bastardi said in a statement.

On the Alabama coast, friends remembered Kruse as a cheerful man who had left a good job at UPS years ago to pursue his dream of a life on the water.

He earned his nickname, "the Rookie," as a deckhand on a fishing boat in the 1960s. Although he had been a captain of his own boat for a couple of decades, his unflagging enthusiasm made the nickname apropos: A recording on his work phone announced in a bright, drawly voice that "the Rookie's ready to go now! Please leave me a message so we can go catch that big one!"

Charter Capt. Johnny Greene, a longtime friend, said that he spoke with Kruse in May, and that "he was very upbeat … talking about fisheries, hoping BP would get it shut off in the early part of May … so we could salvage some of our summer."

It was not to be. Kruse, like many gulf fisherman, hired on with BP; his 50-foot custom sport boat became part of a BP's cleanup and containment flotilla.

According to Stan Vinson, the Baldwin County, Ala., coroner, Kruse reported to work Wednesday morning at the Gulf Shores Marina in Gulf Shores, Ala. He met up with his two deckhands at his boat, also named the Rookie, then sent them off to fetch ice.

They heard a sound like a firecracker, but thought nothing of it. When they returned to the boat they found Kruse's lifeless body, with a gunshot wound to the head, in the captain's bridge above the wheelhouse. A Glock handgun was recovered from the scene; investigators do not suspect foul play, the coroner said.

Fleming said that it had to be the oil spill that weighed so heavily on Kruse. If the mental health toll after the Exxon Valdez in Alaska spill was any guide, Fleming said, they could expect more heartbreak along the coast in the months and years ahead.

"Did you check out what the boys did in Alaska — all the suicides and divorces?" he said. "Well, get ready for some more."

Amid the human tragedy, lawmakers continued to bicker. In Louisiana, the state government continued its brinksmanship with the federal government, violating its agreement regarding the construction of sand berms to protect the state's barrier islands from oil.

The federal government shut down the dredging project outside the Chandeleur Islands on Tuesday night because the state was taking sand from a sensitive area it had agreed to leave alone.

State officials say they needed to dredge in the area, east of the Mississippi River, because they didn't have enough pipe to move the material from the site approved by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Coastal scientists have complained that wholesale reconfiguring of the barrier island system would have negative consequences.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who has championed the project, said Wednesday that the time for studies was over. "We have jumped through every hoop that the federal government has placed in front of us since this spill started," he said.

In Washington, the House overwhelmingly approved a measure that would give subpoena power to the presidential commission investigating the rig explosion and spill.

Republicans supported the bill but attacked the Obama administration's plan to try to reinstitute a deep-water drilling moratorium struck down by a federal judge Tuesday.

"The last thing we need is the federal government adding to the disaster by crippling one of the largest economic drivers in my state," complained Rep. John Fleming (R-La.).
Coast Guard to investigate command structure on Deepwater Horizon

Los Angeles Times, 24 June 2010, By Tom Hamburger

A top Coast Guard official told the House Education and Labor Committee on Wednesday that his agency would be investigating the command structure aboard the Deepwater Horizon to see if that played a role in the confusion surrounding the rig's April 20 explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

"We do need to clarify who was in charge," said Rear Adm. Kevin Cook, testifying with a panel of other government agency heads about safety issues facing oil and gas industry workers. An Interior Department official pledged at the hearing that the agency would issue new mandatory safety guidelines for oil rig and cleanup workers, dozens of whom have already reported illnesses.

The Deepwater Horizon was licensed to operate by the Marshall Islands, which authorized a drilling manager to be in charge of the vessel while it was seeking oil at sea.

U.S. law would have placed a specially trained sea captain in command, Cook told the congressional panel, promising to look into the effect of the difference, which was first described in an article published last week by The Times' Washington bureau.

In an interview after the hearing, Cook said the Coast Guard would investigate the extent to which the bifurcated command of the Deepwater Horizon contributed to confusion on board or to an inappropriate emphasis on production over safety, as some critics have suggested.

"Our goal is to eliminate confusion," he said, adding that the topic would probably be pursued by a joint Coast Guard-Interior Department commission investigating the accident.

At the hearing, the acting head of offshore regulatory programs at the Interior Department promised that the agency would turn once-voluntary worker safety rules into a mandatory program.

Previously, the voluntary programs used guidelines written by the American Petroleum Institute. The chairman of the House panel, Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), urged that these proposals be reviewed by independent federal agencies, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, whose chief was also testifying.

OSHA is responsible for workers who are on land or near shore, but its responsibility ends beyond three miles offshore, said David Michaels, the assistant Labor secretary in charge of OSHA.

The Washington Post, 24 June 2010, By Joel Achenbach

The Deepwater Horizon well became an uncapped geyser once again Wednesday, the hydrocarbons surging freely into the deep sea after engineers were forced to remove the dome that had been capturing significant quantities of oil.

Engineers scrambled late in the day to recap the well, and the video feed showed a protracted battle to seat the dangling dome on the spewing pipe atop the blowout preventer. Late Wednesday, the company said the cap was successfully reinstalled. But it was unclear when it would return to its previous level of performance.

The struggle with the cap provided another reminder, if any was needed, that engineers are trying to control the blown-out well with novel tactics and jury-rigged hardware. Nothing has come easily, and the incremental progress has been vulnerable to swift reversal.

The morning mishap with the makeshift cap on the well ended a 24-hour period of relative success. On Tuesday, the cap had managed to capture 16,668 barrels (700,056 gallons) of oil; 10,429 more barrels (438,018 gallons) were flared through a separate containment operation that continues uninterrupted. The amount was the highest yet contained since the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon.

But at 9:45 a.m. Wednesday, workers on the drillship Discoverer Enterprise, which is parked above the well and directly connected to the blowout preventer via the cap and a riser pipe, noticed liquid pouring from a valve inside the ship. A BP spokesman said the company thinks the liquid was seawater. What's certain is that it was not expected and indicated something had gone awry with a system designed with great delicacy earlier this month.

Engineers quickly disengaged the cap and the riser. Scrutiny of the cap indicated that a vent had been inadvertently closed, possibly bumped by one of the many remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, that conduct the subsea operations, Coast Guard Adm. Thad W. Allen said.

Officials spent much of Wednesday studying the cap for signs that it might be clogged with methane hydrates, a slushy substance that forms when cold seawater mixes with gas in the pressurized depths of the sea. The live video feed from the gulf showed a scene not witnessed for weeks: a plume of oil and gas surging from the sheared-off pipe atop the well's blowout preventer. The overall flow has been estimated by the government at 35,000 to 60,000 barrels (1.47 million to 2.52 million gallons) a day.

Storm precautions
Complicating matters in coming days and weeks is that hurricane season is kicking into full gear. A tropical wave in the Caribbean -- not yet a tropical depression or tropical storm -- slowly drifted west. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gave it a 30 percent chance of strengthening into a tropical cyclone by Friday.

The industry rule in the gulf is that all personnel are evacuated in advance of a major storm. Some ships can handle heavy weather, but others will need to find a safe port. There are more than 25 ships and rigs at the disaster site in the gulf. The Q4000, the semi-submersible rig that is flaring oil and gas, can detach from the blowout preventer and sail away relatively quickly, Allen said, but the Discoverer Enterprise will need six or seven days' warning ahead of a storm so it can disengage from the well.

"We're going to have to look at the tracks of these storms, look at the probabilities, and have to act very early on," Allen said. "If you kind of look at the area between the Yucatan Channel, Cuba and the Straits of Florida, that's kind of a radius or a parameter. Anything approaching that area . . . should prompt some action at that point."

State-federal conflict
Off the coast of Louisiana, another storm raged Wednesday, this one political and involving the federal government and the state of Louisiana.

The state began an ambitious dredging operation this month to create "sand berms" to serve as barriers against the encroaching oil on either side of the Mississippi River delta. But federal officials halted the dredging east of the river Tuesday, declaring that the state had failed to live up to an agreement to use sand from deeper water to build the berms. Assistant Interior Secretary Tom Strickland told reporters that the dredges were taking sand from shallow areas, potentially putting fragile stretches of the Chandeleur Islands in jeopardy.

"You don't want to destroy the village to save the village," Strickland said.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) scoffed at the federal protest after touring the dredging operation by helicopter.

"This is a disaster for our state. Days count. Hours count. We cannot wait for more conference calls and meetings for discussions. We need to adapt to the situation on the ground and continue our dredging operations for as long as possible until we can move to the next borrow site and continue to create sand boom," Jindal said in a statement released by his office.

In New Orleans, the Obama administration tried to delay a federal judge's ruling Tuesday that tossed out the government's moratorium on deep-water drilling. The government had already announced it would appeal the ruling, which said the moratorium overstepped federal authority. The oil industry had vociferously protested the moratorium, claiming that the Deepwater Horizon disaster did not mean that all drilling at great depths is unsafe.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar testified Wednesday in Washington that he might order a new, but less sweeping, moratorium on operations in water deeper than 500 feet.

"It might be that there are demarcations that can be made based on reservoirs where we actually do know the pressures and the risks associated with that versus those reservoirs that are exploratory in nature," Salazar said in an appearance before the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The Washington Post, 24 June 2010, By Dana Hedgpeth and David A. Fahrenthold

Allen Kruse had been a charter fishing boat captain for more than two decades -- long enough that people called him by his boat's name, Rookie, as if they were one and the same. But then, two months ago, the leaking BP oil well began pouring crude into the waters where he took families fishing for snapper and amberjack.

Two weeks and two days ago, with his fishing grounds closed, Kruse, 55, took a job working for BP's cleanup crew. For the very people who'd caused the mess.

Other boat captains said Kruse, like them, found the effort confusing, overly bureaucratic and frustrating. He told them to keep their heads down, not to worry about the hassles. But those close to him saw he was losing weight.

On Wednesday morning, Kruse drove to his boat as usual. As the deckhands prepared for the day's work, Kruse, as the captain, was supposed to turn on the generator. But after a few minutes, the crew members said, they didn't hear anything and went looking for him. A deckhand found him in the wheelhouse, shot in the head.

The Baldwin County, Ala., coroner's office called his death an apparent suicide and said Kruse didn't leave a note. There's no way to be sure why he would have taken his life. But his friends see the tragedy as a clear sign of the BP spill's hidden psychological toll on the Gulf Coast, an awful feeling of helplessness that descends on people used to hard work and independence.

"We're helping cover up the lie. We're burying ourselves. We're helping them cover up the [expletive] that's putting us out of work," said a 27-year-old deckhand who was working for Kruse on Wednesday and spoke on condition of anonymity. He said Kruse was facing the same problems as others in his business: "It's just setting in with 'em, you know; reality's kicking in. And there's a lot of people that aren't as happy as they used to be."

Around the gulf, social service providers are dealing with a rising tide of mental health crises. Groups of Baptists are deploying extra chaplains in parishes along the coast. In southern Louisiana, where the impact was felt first, about 1,500 people have received counseling services from Catholic Charities.

From past disasters, such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, health experts say they expect a wave of physical health problems, such as high blood pressure and heart disease. But they also expect more-subtle problems, as people absorb the spill's impact on their lives: depression, anxiety, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic issues.

"We're seeing already an increase in suspiciousness, arguing, domestic violence. . . . We're already having reports of increased drinking, anxiety, anger and avoidance," Howard J. Osofsky of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans said during a two-day hearing this week on the physical and emotional impact of the spill.

Michele Many, a social worker who helps fishermen's wives, said the stress of the spill is compounded by its uncertainty. Oil is still pouring out, spreading, with an unmanageable toxicity that evokes comparisons to disease.

"The oil spill is like a cancer or tumor," said Many, who works at Louisiana State University. "It is creeping and unpredictable from whether people will have livelihoods or health issues later from helping clean it up. You just don't know whether it is benign or malignant."

'No end in sight'
In Lafitte, La., 200 hundred miles from the marina where Kruse died, Claudia Helmer heard about the suicide Wednesday afternoon.

“Oh, Lord," she said. "That is really, really sad."

And she immediately began to fret about her fisherman husband, Gerry, and their 19-year-old son, who were spending five days on the Gulf, helping clean up oil.

"I do worry that my husband isn't one to show what he's feeling," she said. "He doesn't want me to worry, but I do. I think he's going to keep it all bundled up."

She sees the stress in those around her. "I was with a next-door neighbor [Tuesday], and he's a 42-year-old fisherman, and he just broke down crying," she said. "It was a shock to see him so upset. He's afraid we're not going to have anything left. We all are."

On Monday afternoon, Helmer chatted with a half-dozen other wives of fishermen as they sat in a crowded hall of a nearby Catholic church waiting for gift cards to a supermarket. Many agreed that their husbands -- some of whom weren't fishing and shrimping because the waters are closed, and others who are out helping to clean up oil -- are in need of counseling. But few thought that their men, raised in the self-sufficient lifestyle of the bayous, would actually seek it.

Tony Speier, assistant deputy secretary of the Louisiana Office of Mental Health, said that what makes the oil spill harder for people to deal with than, say, a natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina is that "people don't know how long this is going to be."

"They can't put a psychological boundary on it and start their recovery because this is ongoing," he said.

At Our Lady of the Isle Catholic Church in Grand Isle, La., the Rev. Mike Tran said he's getting more phone calls from worried fishermen and their wives. He's offering daily Masses and a support group for those trying to deal with the spill. Some parishioners have said they're drinking more and have little energy -- signs of possible depression.

"This is really taking a toll on people," Tran said. "It's devastating because it is dragging out. There seems to be no end in sight."

Some in Louisiana were just getting their businesses back on their feet or moving back into rebuilt houses five years after Katrina.

Lorrie Grimaldi, her husband, Lance Melerine, and two young daughters recently moved before the spill into a new brick home after years of living in a FEMA-issued trailer and with family members after Katrina.

Now she's worried about how much her husband, who's trying to do some shrimping in waters that are open, will make this season. Her doctor put her on medication to help deal with her anxiety and the onset of depression.

"If his boat isn't out, then we're not making money," said Grimaldi, 33. She said she and her husband rarely fought but now are snappy with each other and their kids.

"My daughter asks him, 'Daddy, what's wrong?' " she said. "He'll just tell her, 'Don't worry about me. I'm supposed to worry about you.' " She said her husband used to sit up and talk with her and watch TV until midnight but now eats his dinner and goes to bed as soon as he gets home. "He's sad, baby," she tells her 9-year-old daughter, Laken.

As time passed, the oil spread toward the waters off Alabama, where Kruse used to take families out from 15 to 30 miles. Like most charter boat captains, who need to deliver a good time even when the fish don't cooperate, he was as much entertainer as fisherman. Friends said Kruse would let little kids drive the boat and chat up the parents.

"Fishing was second. Fun was first," the deckhand said.

But Thad Stewart, a friend who works at the Orange Beach, Ala., marina where Kruse docked his boat, said he noticed a difference about the time Kruse went to work for BP. "He stopped talking. That's all there is to it. He stopped talking," Stewart said. "I'm not saying that this was the cause of it . . . but he was seeing what was his home, which was the Gulf of Mexico, just be slowly destroyed."

Frank Kruse, his identical twin brother who is a probate lawyer in Mobile, Ala., said his brother was waiting for about $70,000 in payments from BP for working two of his boats for the past two weeks. "There's no question in my mind that this is directly related to the oil spill," Frank Kruse said in a phone interview Wednesday night. "He had been losing weight. Every day he was worried."

He said his brother "was very, very upset at the way BP was handling the oil spill. There was a lot of wasted money, a lot of wasted time. They'd give him a different story of what needed to be done."

Frank said he had talked to one of Kruse's captains the night before, who told him he should talk to his brother. "Before I could call him, one of his captains appeared at my door," he said.

Tom Ard, another fishing boat captain, knew Kruse for 25 years.

"I could tell he was having a hard time coping," said Ard, president of the Orange Beach Fishing Association. Kruse was on its board of directors.

Ard said BP has done everything it said it would do and that despite setbacks and delays, "they have been working hard to make things right."

But Ard said Kruse "was just very stressed out. He was worried about getting paid from BP, about our livelihoods being taken out from under us. He was one of the top boats in this community. Everybody really looked up to him. It's just a terrible loss, and it has really floored this whole community.

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"This would not have happened if it weren't for this oil spill," Ard said. "Our livelihood has been pulled out from under us. We're fishermen. Everything we got we built ourselves with our own hands. All of a sudden, we're not in control of anything."

In Kruse's world, a lot of people were down. There were fights with wives, troubles over money and impending bills. Charter fishermen say they were glad they could make some money working for BP. But they were annoyed by the petty bureaucracy of it: the paperwork, the inane training in avoiding sunburns and wearing life jackets and tennis shoes instead of flip-flops, the runaround when somebody had a question.

Other fishermen, who looked up to Kruse as a veteran captain, turned to him for advice.

"His quote to me was, 'Don't try to rationalize it. . . . Just sign your name and get on your boat, and don't try to tell anybody how to run the program, and don't try to tell 'em what the local knowledge is,' " Capt. Chris Garner said. The point was: The cleanup is hopeless, and you'll just tire yourself out trying to improve the situation. "I said, 'Rookie, that sounds an awful lot like prison,' " meaning the loss of control, Garner said Wednesday. "He said, 'That's a pretty good analysis, Chris. It's just like prison.' And he didn't make it another week."

House votes to give subpoena power to spill investigators

Environment and Energy Daily, 24 June 2010, By Katie Howell

The House yesterday voted overwhelmingly to grant subpoena power to a panel investigating the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Lawmakers approved H.R. 5481 by a vote of 420-1. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) was the sole opponent.

The legislation would allow the seven-member White House commission charged with examining the Gulf of Mexico oil spill authority "to compel the attendance and testimony of witnesses and the production of books, records, correspondence, memoranda, and other documents."

President Obama created the panel last month through an executive order to examine the causes and effects of the spill. But the White House does not have subpoena authority. Congressional action is needed to give such power.

Congress has previously granted subpoena power to presidential commissions investigating national crises, including the Warren Commission and the Three Mile Island Commission.

Some in Congress, including Reps. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the bill's primary authors, were worried BP PLC and the other companies involved in the spill would try to stonewall the investigation.

"We need to ensure that neither BP, Halliburton, Transocean, nor any other party could prevent the commission from getting to the bottom of what went wrong at the bottom of the ocean," Markey said in a statement.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) has introduced similar legislation (S. 3462) in the Senate.

Obama has named William Reilly, former director of U.S. EPA under President George H.W. Bush, and former Florida Sen. and Gov. Bob Graham (D) to chair the commission. Five other academics, environmentalists and industry experts round out the seven-member panel. Yesterday, the co-chairmen appointed Richard Lazarus, a Georgetown University environmental law professor, as the commission's executive director.

Landrieu urges commission to hurry up on moratorium decision

Earlier this week, Reilly said the panel likely would not meet for the first time until mid-July, extending the six-month deadline to deliver its final report -- and an official end to the Obama administration's drilling moratorium -- until next year (E&ENews PM, June 21).

But Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) is urging the commission to reconsider that plan. "This is unacceptable," she wrote in a letter sent yesterday to Reilly.

"The blanket moratorium on deepwater drilling is likely to have a greater negative effect on Gulf Coast families and businesses than the spill itself," she wrote. "Preventing new offshore drilling is far more likely to worsen, and not improve, the impacts of this spill upon both the economy and the environment of the Gulf Coast."

"Your decision to delay even an initial meeting of the commission until mid-July does not convey an adequate appreciation of this urgency," she wrote.

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Obama administration to lift the moratorium, saying the government had not provided adequate reasoning for the blanket drilling ban. But Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said yesterday he would reinstate the ban, although he added that it could be a more flexible mandate, allowing some drilling operations to proceed.

In the letter, Landrieu blasted Salazar's plan to issue a new moratorium order.

The plan "reflects an unwillingness to acknowledge the hardships this policy is causing to Gulf workers," she wrote.

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ENVIRONMENT NEWS FROM THE

UN DAILY NEWS

24^th June 2010

UN News Centre: Migratory species face disaster from climate change, UN-backed report warns

Migratory species face disaster from the effects of climate change unless urgent action is taken, according to the preliminary findings of a forthcoming United Nations-backed report.

“Increasing temperatures, changes in precipitation, sea level rise, ocean acidification, changes in ocean currents and extreme weather events will all affect migratory species populations,” said Aylin McNamara, who led the research project at the Zoological Society of London.
“It's hard to see how any of these species will be able to survive” under the current “business as usual” approach to controlling greenhouse emissions, she said today. “I'm afraid that's how serious the situation is.”
International efforts for species conservation across national borders and to mitigate climate change were imperative, Ms. McNamara added. “These vulnerability assessments show us the likely order in which these species will become extinct” if such action is not taken.
The research, conducted in support of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), shows that even subtle changes in environmental conditions caused by climate change could have catastrophic consequences for animals that migrate.
Loggerhead turtles, for example, face the loss of suitable beaches for nesting due to sea-level rise, while a rise in temperature could cause the entire male population of a species to be eradicated. Green turtles, hawksbill turtles and leatherback turtles are also at high risk from climate change, along with the blue whale, West African manatee and giant catfish.
“Migratory species are particularly threatened by climate change as they depend on different habitats to breed, feed and rest,” the Executive Secretary of the Convention’s Secretariat, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, said.
“The findings from the report will facilitate the Convention's response to assist migratory species in adapting to climate change at a global level.”
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S.G’s SPOKESPERSON DAILY PRESS BRIEFING
25^th June 2010 (None)

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