Relief well completed, but environmentalists worry about long-term oilspill issues

GHN News Staff - Admiral Thad Allen, National Incident Commander, announced today
the completion of the relief well, even as Gulf Coast residents continue to experience oil sightings in
areas near land and environmentalists still worry about long term environmental impact.

"After months of extensive operations planning and execution

under the direction and authority of the U.S. government science and
engineering teams, BP has successfully completed the relief well by
intersecting and cementing the well nearly 18,000 feet below the surface, "
reported Allen today.  He went on to say, " With this development,
which has been confirmed by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Ocean
Energy Management, we can finally announce that the Macondo 252 well is
effectively dead." 

What's next?  Allen explained, "  Additional
regulatory steps will be undertaken but we can now state, definitively, that
the Macondo well poses no continuing threat to the Gulf of Mexico.  From
the beginning, this response has been driven by the best science and engineering
available.  We insisted that BP develop robust redundancy measures to
ensure that each step was part of a deliberate plan, driven by science,
minimizing risk to ensure we did not inflict additional harm in our efforts to
kill the well." 

With these statements, Allen underlined the belief that the oil no
longer presents a hazardous condition for the Gulf Coast. 

In recognition of the difficult work involved in the relief effort
Allen said, " I commend the response personnel, both from the government
and private sectors, for seeing this vital procedure through to the end.
And although the well is now dead, we remain committed to continue aggressive
efforts to clean up any additional oil we may see going forward." 

The Deepwater Unified Command reinforced the completion of the
project and Allen's role now transitioned to official government agencies.
Oversight of the well now transitions from the National Incident Command
to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement under the
process laid out in the National Response Framework.  The Department of
the Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and
Enforcement will oversee the continuing decommissioning of the Macondo well and
its associated relief wells. 

BP announced today it " will now proceed to complete the
abandonment of the MC252 well, which includes removing portions of the casing
and setting cement plugs. A similar plugging and abandonment of both relief
wells will occur as well.  It also declared it "will also now begin
the process of dismantling and recovering containment equipment and
decontaminating vessels that were in position at the wellsite." 

The efforts involved in the response effort were summarized by BP
as it completed its announcement of the relief well completion and the
company's promise to make good on its promises to restore the Gulf and
compensate victims.  

BP tells us, "No volumes of oily liquid have been recovered
from the surface of the Gulf of Mexico since July 21 and the last controlled
burn operation occurred on July 20.  BP, as part of Unified Command,
continues to conduct overflights and other reconnaissance to search for oil on
the surface.  At peak, approximately 3.5 million feet of containment boom
was deployed in response to the oil spill. Currently 670,000 feet of
containment boom remains deployed." 

So are all those scientific reports of long-term impact to be
disregarded? 

Greenpeace wrote on April 28,  "And
regardless of how long it takes to staunch the flow of oil, the impacts of the
oil spill on the people, economy and environment of Gulf coast states will
persist for decades." 

Advisors for Greenpeace remain in the Gulf, even as their
personnel had told Green Heritage News in early July that the disaster would
not be ended with the plugging of the well.   

Today the organization reminds the world that the disaster needs a
proper investigation and assessment of continuing potential problems.

"We all need to know the true extent and nature of this oil
catastrophe, as well as the real reasons why this happened so we can make sure

it never happens again." Greenpeace USA Executive Director Philip Radford

Mental illness caused by BP oil spill must be treated advocacy groupinsists

[caption id="attachment_11445" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Deepwater drilling and the explosion in the Gulf"][/caption]

 Carol Forsloff -- NAMI has asked BP pay equitably for mental health problems caused by the BP oil
spill, declaring BP has failed its responsibility for these issues and declaring Feinberg"s remarks showing victims not treated equitably.

In remarks directed to Kenneth Feinberg, the independent claims administrator for the $20 billion relief fund created by BP Oil Company,  the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has underlined that those who have suffered mental health issues should be compensated from the $20 bilion relief fund created by BP.

The organization is responding to Feinberg's  comments before the House Judiciary Committee on July 21,
when he said that the fund is not likely to pay damages for mental
illness and distress caused by the spill unless a "physical injury" is
also present.

Underlying the unfairness of this attitude, NAMI Executive Director Michael J. Fitzpatrick said the statement is "incompatible with modern scientific knowledge of mental illness and the impact of traumatic events."

"Denial
of a class of individuals with medical disorders affecting the brain
from compensation that is available to those with medical disorders
affecting other organs of the body would be neither fair nor
equitable."

In a July 15 letter to BP,
NAMI also reproached the Big Oil company for ignoring appeals made by
the State of Louisiana for $10 million to help fund mental health care.
There have been documentations from mental health experts of the
growing problems caused by stress and anxiety related to the oil spill.
NAMI states these requests and the documentation supporting them have
been ignored.

Similar requests made by Alabama, Florida and Mississippi have also been ignored.

On July 9, Louisiana
advised the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services that it was
encountering "increases in anxiety, depression, stress, grief, excessive
and earlier drinking and suicide ideation."  These reports, however,
from mental health experts have been going on for some time.

The Institute of Medicine in New Orleans has underlined mental health
issues to be serious health concerns related to the BP oil spill.

State budgets are already strained, and having to take from funds set aside for people with schizophrenia,
bipolar disorder and other serious mental illnesses," is unfair.  NAMI
underlined the fact states are "ill-prepared to divert already scarce
mental health dollars from existing services for people" with these more
serious conditions.

Fitzpatrick wrote on behalf of NAMI and those who are experiencing mental health
problems related to the BP oil spill, that "denying compensation to
individual victim experiencing serious psychiatric symptoms would be an
injustice."

"Mental illnesses are medical conditions that disrupt a person's
thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others and daily
functioning. Just as diabetes is a disorder of the pancreas, mental
illnesses are medical conditions that often result in a diminished
capacity for coping with the ordinary demands of life," NAMI tells us.
The organization also underlines mental illness can be treatable, and
many people are able to live with or recover from it.

NAMI is the nation's largest grassroots mental health organization

BP didn't learn the lessons of history

 

[caption id="attachment_11307" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="oil spill"][/caption]

 Carol Forsloff - BP did not learn  lessons from its history, and folks hope it will in time but aren't optimistic given the failures of the company during the great oil spill disaster the company caused in the Gulf.  Besides the crisis isn't really over. 

So what is that history?   “Their biggest mistake overall is not learning from previous failures,” said Tim Sellnow, a professor in the University of Kentucky’s Department of Communication. Sellnow points to a disaster that occurred in 2005 when there was an explosion at a BP refinery in Texas that ended up killing 15 employees.  A year later a corroded BP pipeline left miles of Alaskan wilderness covered with 270,000 barrels of oil.  The way BP responded to these disasters worsened their public relations. 

The way they are handling their public relations now only worsens it, according to communications experts. 

It is a hard sell, communications tell us, when people see images of thick brown oil floating atop Gulf of Mexico waters, even when BP has primetime commercials that play continuously for the public.  They also have ongoing press conferences combined with the Coast Guard, to present a united front to the folks who live and breathe the problem on the Gulf Coast.  

BP had a history of other mistakes, and of cost-cutting, that should have taught them better how to communicate with the public.  But that didn't happen, experts say 

“If you look at the crisis chronology, it was a big mistake to not acknowledge the severity of the situation early on,” Sellnow said. “BP failed to provide a clear and consistent message early on, as far as what was going on at each stage.” 

Early communications efforts during the spill produced ongoing streams of ideas, most not well thought out or well presented and proclamations at press conferences that things were going well, even as things deteriorated. 

“It became seemingly preposterous,” said Sellnow. “They would get our hopes up and fail miserably again and again.”

Sellnow said some of BP's decisions have been good ones, such as setting up an escrow account to pay for the spill’s cleanup costs, and by cooperating with U.S. government cleanup efforts. “They have acknowledged they can’t handle it alone," he said. "They have replaced (former company spokesman) Tony Hayward with someone who has a better understanding of the local population.”

According to Sellnow,  BP may never be able to do enough in communicating its regret for causing this disaster.   It hadn't learned previously from its mistakes.  Perhaps in time things will change, but the disaster is significant; and memories of such high profile events are not soon forgotten.  Besides marine scientists declare the problem doesn't end when the oil spill stops so the future still is unknown.

“I think the best thing they can do, and it will take years, is cleaning up the area and getting people back to work,” said Sellnow. “Then, they need to be proactive and move to the forefront of their industry in oil drilling and oil transportation safety. That would require an entirely new culture in the organization.”