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The Center for Biological Diversity has filed suit against Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, seeking to reinstate the moratorium on deepwater drilling:
The Arizona-based group says the ban should go back into place until the Interior Department completes a comprehensive analysis of drilling risk to the environment and wildlife.
The freeze lasted for six months before Salazar lifted it on Oct. 12. He said new rules had made drilling safer and reduced the risk of another catastrophic blowout.
Says the Center, in its press release:
"It is astonishing that despite the BP spill’s overwhelming toll on the Gulf of Mexico and its wildlife, Secretary Salazar lifted the moratorium by concluding there are no significant environmental effects from drilling," said Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director of the Center. "Salazar is repeating the same tragic mistakes that led to the massive spill in the Gulf by discounting the risks of drilling for oil thousands of feet underwater."
...
"We can no longer afford to have our government simply taking the oil industry at its word when it comes to ensuring the safety of people and the environment. Offshore drilling is a dangerous business, and Salazar’s Interior Department needs to take that threat seriously," said Sakashita.
In lifting the moratorium, Salazar produced an environmental assessment, finding that there is no possibility of significant environmental effects from drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The suspended drilling activities, which may now resume, evaded environmental review just like the BP exploration plan. Although there are some new safety rules in place, the environmental analysis required to protect the Gulf’s wildlife and habitat is still absent. The lawsuit seeks enforcement of the National Environmental Policy Act, specifically by ensuring that Salazar prepare an environmental impact statement.
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Meanwhile, there are new reports of extensive areas of weathered oil coming out of Louisiana. Reported by fishermen, and confirmed by a Times-Picayune reporter who did a flyover of the area, the oil endangers fragile marshlands.
Just three days after the U.S. Coast Guard admiral in charge of the BP oil spill cleanup declared little recoverable surface oil remained in the Gulf of Mexico [...]oil was sighted in West Bay, which covers approximately 35 square miles of open water between Southwest Pass, the main shipping channel of the river, and Tiger Pass near Venice. Boat captains working the BP clean-up effort said they have been reporting large areas of surface oil off the delta for more than a week but have seen little response from BP or the Coast Guard, which is in charge of the clean-up. The captains said most of their sightings have occurred during stretches of calm weather, similar to what the area has experienced most of this week.
...
The captains did not want to be named for fear of losing their clean-up jobs with BP.
...
Robert Barham, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said if the sightings are confirmed by his agency, the area will be reclosed to fishing until it is confirmed oil-free again.
The reports are a great concern to wildlife officials. The Mississippi delta is a primary wintering ground for hundreds of thousands of ducks and geese, some of which already have begun arriving. The West Bay area leads into several shallower interior bays that attract ducks, geese and myriad species of shore and wading birds each winter.
No sooner was the oil reported, than the US Coast Guard rejected the claim, saying what had appeared to be oil was, in fact, algae blooms.
[...B]oat captains working in the BP oil spill response team who first reported the sightings as oil said Saturday they were not convinced by the Coast Guard's initial assessment.
"I've never seen algae that looked orange, that was sticky, smelled like oil and that stuck to the boat and had to be cleaned off with solvent," said one captain, who like the others wished to remain anonymous for fear of losing their BP contracts. "I'll wait for the lab reports. In fact, we're also sending some samples off."
Boat captains had said Friday they had become frustrated by a lack of response from the Coast Guard after a week of reporting the sightings.
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Earlier this month, columnist George Monbiot reported that "The draft global plan for saving biodiversity contains no firm proposals at all."
As the summit begins, I’ve finally got round to reading the draft declaration on biodiversity the governments meeting at Nagoya in Japan will discuss. It’s 195 pages long. If it were a thesis about the causes and consequences of the decline of the world’s wild species, I would give it a fairly high mark. As an action plan for doing something about this decline, it’s a dead loss.
...
It blames the absence of progress on a lack of money and a lack of expertise on the part of many governments. But while these doubtless contribute, the truth is that these are secondary issues: the primary one is a lack of political will. Wildlife and ecosystems suffer from the same problems as all other environmental issues: their decline takes place on a timescale longer than the political cycle; while there is a collective interest in protecting them, there’s often an individual interest in destroying them; and, unlike special interest groups, they don’t lobby, bribe and threaten politicians.
The declaration also suggests a fairly reasonable list of what should, in principle, be done to defend biodiversity. It proposes 20 targets, which include recognising the value of biodiversity in national planning, getting rid of incentives to destroy it, switching to sustainable farming and forestry, protecting coral reefs from climate change, creating more protected areas, giving special help to threatened species and eradicating invasive species. There’s only one problem: the governments agreeing to these measures don’t actually have to do anything.
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And some folks just can't help landing in clover.
Lord Browne, the ex-boss of BP, will become chairman tomorrow of a new advisory board for Stanhope Capital, one of London's leading asset managers specialising in wealthy private clients, charities and endowments.
Julien Sevaux, Stanhope's managing partner and one of its founders, said Lord Browne's appointment will help the firm expand even further into the charity world, as well as helping to build its international presence: "John is a superb manager and his record at BP was extraordinary as he turned the company into one of the biggest in its sector. He's one of the UK's few businessmen who is as well-known here as he is overseas, and we are delighted he is joining us."
The new role will be one of the highest-profile in the financial world that Lord Browne has taken up since he left BP three years ago. Most recently, he headed the coalition's report into university funding which recommended lifting the cap on tuition fees.
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Turns out the cost of "good" PR for BP came with a hefty price tag:
The spinners were taken on board by BP halfway through the crisis with senior partner Patrick Handley hitting the phones in London, while Parker went Stateside. No doubt both were busy executing "whichever communications strategy is required to mitigate the impact of the crisis on our clients and help them move forward," as the company’s website states. (I wonder it that includes cleaning sea-birds?) Anyway, BP shut down the leaking well, Parker shut down the flow of news, and we all shut up about the oil disaster.
Good work. What do you get paid for pouring oil, or detergent perhaps, on those troubled waters? £10m is one figure doing the rounds, others go as high as £30m. Cleaning reputations is almost as expensive as cleaning oil spills.
That's $47,049,000.26, for those of you without your international currency converters handy.
*****
And isn't it time for some GOOD NEWS? Grand Isle's Louisiana state lab filled six boats with 35 turtles rescued from the BP Gulf spill and some very excited people, and headed fifty miles due south into the Gulf waters. "[...S]cientists working on the front lines say environmental healing has begun, but the process is going to take nature's own time."
The scope of the turtle rescue is believed to be the most extensive of its kind. It has not come cheaply. Audubon has spent more than $750,000 to house, feed and nurse some 200 young turtles. One NOAA veterinarian estimated that the federal labor cost alone amounted to about $50,000 per turtle.
No one here regrets the cost. The sight of the ancient species in open water for the first time in months was its own reward for the scientist and volunteers who gathered before dawn on a cool and humid morning for the turtles' trek home.
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The first turtle, a Kemp's, pinwheeled its flippers as it was removed from a crate and lowered to the water. Its ID number — a barely legible 64 painted on its carapace with White-Out — disappeared beneath the surface. To the relief of scientists, the turtle swam away vigorously.
"That's a happy turtle," cried Michele Kelley, beaming.
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PLEASE visit Pam LaPier's diary to find out how you can help the Gulf now and in the future. We don't have to be idle! And thanks to Crashing Vor and Pam LaPier for working on this!
==== ROV Feeds =====
20876/21507 - Development Driller II's ROV 1
32900/49178 - Development Driller II's ROV 2
39168/39169 - Chouest Holiday's ROV 1
40492/40493 - Chouest Holiday's ROV 2
58406/21750- HOS Iron Horse
The Development Driller III moved off from Relief Well #1's Wellhead area at about 1:00 AM Saturday.
==Multiple stream feeds (hard on browser/bandwidth)==
BP videos All the available directly feeds from BP.
Bobo's lightweight ROV Multi-feed: is the only additional up to date multiple feed site.
Akamai BP Oil Spill Live Stream - still photo links, reloading every minute: no stress on your browser.
See this thread for more info on using video feeds and on linking to video feeds.
Previous Gulf Watcher diaries:
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #412 - gchaucer2
Gulf Watchers Wednesday Edition - 6 Months of Gulf Sorrow - BP Catastrophe AUV #411 - peraspera
Gulf Watchers Monday Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #410 - shanesnana
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #409 - Lorinda Pike
Gulf Watchers Monday Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #408 - peraspera
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #407 - shanesnana
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #406 - Sunday Wrap - Lorinda Pike
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #405 - bleeding heart
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #404 - peraspera
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #403 - Darryl House
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #402 - Yasuragi
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #401 - Lorinda Pike
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #400 - Yasuragi
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #399 - Gulf Watchers/peraspera/story/
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #398 - Gulf Watchers/peraspera/story/
Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #397 - Gulf Watchers/peraspera
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers Morning Edition - BP Catastrophe AUV #396 - Gulf Watchers/peraspera
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #395 - Condition: transition - BP's Gulf Castastrophe - David PA
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #394 - Transitions - BP's Gulf Castastrophe - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #393 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #392 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - When Can we Share a Soda? - khowell
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #391 - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Talking about Change - khowell
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #390 - Drips Redux - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #389 - Night of the Living Drips - Lorinda Pike
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #388 - Sittin' Up With the Dead - khowell
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #387 - Time for a Wake? - khowell
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #386 - The Coroner Won't Pronounce - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Yasuragi
Daily Kos Gulf Watchers ROV #385 - Is it Dead? - BP's Gulf Catastrophe - Lorinda Pike
The last Mothership has links to reference material.
Previous motherships and ROV's from this extensive live blog effort may be found here.
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