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There's more to the Louisiana soap opera about St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Jack Stephens' large profits from leasing space at his marina to BP.
A company partially owned by St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Jack Stephens has been leasing marina space to BP and its oil spill contractors for $1.1 million a month since May, according to BP, but lease records show the sheriff's company is only paying a fraction of that - about $2,000 per month - to the parish's primary nonprofit organization, which owns the waterfront marina property at the eastern end of the parish.
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The sheriff's company, Amigo Enterprises Inc., has a long-term lease for the land in Hopedale, which is owned by the Arlene and Joseph Meraux Charitable Foundation - a nonprofit group that pays for scholarships for Chalmette High School seniors and has donated land for a parish hospital. Stephens also sits on the foundation's board.
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Rita Gue, the president of the Meraux Foundation and Arlene Meraux's niece, said Amigo has not paid the 10 percent portion to the foundation since she has been on the board, in 2003, and that no money from Amigo's BP lease has been paid from this summer. But she said attorneys for both Amigo and the foundation are working on the issue, and she said she is optimistic that the matter will be resolved.
Stephens could not be reached for comment. He owns a third interest in the company, along with his cousin and former chief deputy, Tony Fernandez Jr., and another associate, John Despeaux.
One boondoggle berm catches some tarballs so Louisiana officials declare the berms a success. It will be interesting to see if any intrepid girl or boy reporters are inclined to follow the $360 million that BP gave to Louisiana to construct the berms.
But scientists and federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, have said the berms have not done much to block the oil and that they may actually be damaging the environment by interrupting tidal flows.
Graves says over 350 million cubic feet of sand -- enough to dig up 665 miles of four-lane interstate -- had been dredged to construct the berms.
Joint hearings reveal chaos aboard the Deepwater Horizon and chide Transocean for being uncooperative.
This is the latest set of hearings by the U.S. Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, which have been investigating the April 20 blowout that killed 11 people. The marine board will write a report and make recommendations for improved safety and regulations. For the lawyers, this is all material for the trials and lawsuits yet to come.
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"It could go on for 10 years," said Kyle Schonekas, attorney for the sunken rig's captain, Curt Kuchta of Transocean.
Schonekas provided the day's highlight-reel performance. The co-chairman of the investigative panel, Coast Guard Capt. Hung Nguyen, had been asking many witnesses about Kuchta's actions immediately after the explosion, focusing on whether Kuchta was fully in command of the situation. Finally, Schonekas leapt to his feet and loudly declared, "This is nothing more than an effort, continually by Captain Nguyen, to character assassinate my client."
He then made a motion to have Nguyen recuse himself because of his "bias."
Nguyen did not respond. The board member running the proceeding, retired federal judge Wayne Andersen, quickly denied the motion.
There were other squalls in the windowless Magnolia Room on this unseasonably cool day in New Orleans. At one point in the morning, Nguyen chided Transocean, the rig's owner, for what he said was a persistent unwillingness to produce witnesses and documents. Nguyen directed a Coast Guard aide to place five enlarged documents on an easel at the front of the room. Nguyen said the documents indicated that senior Transocean executives knew that some company rigs had questionable safety records.
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Yancy Keplinger, a Transocean dynamic positioning officer who worked on the rig's bridge and survived the explosion, testified about the frantic minutes after the Macondo well blew out and two explosions rocked the Deepwater Horizon.
"It was just chaos," Keplinger said. He said that when it came time to abandon ship, he was standing behind the captain, Curt Kuchta, when Kuchta told the people on a life raft to lower the raft to the water and not worry about him.
Keplinger then spoke up: "What about us?"
The captain, seeing him for the first time, said, "I don't know about you, but I'm going to jump."
The captain jumped about 80 feet to the water, and Keplinger followed moments later. Both swam to the raft.
No alarms gave the Deepwater Horizon crew warning of the impending explosion. The system that was supposed to draw oxygen away from possible ignition sources didn't work either.
The rig crew member in charge of monitoring danger alarms on the Deepwater Horizon testified Tuesday that the rig's general alarm didn't sound until after the first explosion rocked the rig April 20.
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Yancy Keplinger, who controlled the Transocean rig's computer-based navigation system, said he saw mud spraying out of a line over the edge of the rig before any gas detectors went off. He was testifying before the Deepwater Horizon joint investigation into the explosion that killed 11 crew members and spilled hundreds of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
Asked whether he would have expected an alarm to sound when the mud shot out, Keplinger said,
"Yes ... because the only thing that could come up from the hole is either gas or oil." He also said that gas detectors should have signaled before the explosion, but didn't. Those detectors are designed to trigger an emergency shut-down system to suck oxygen away from ignition sources, which also didn't happen.
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Keplinger flashed some anger at Capt. Curt Kuchta, captain of the Deepwater Horizon rig, during his testimony. He noted that a fellow rig worker, Chris Pleasant, had to ask Kuchta three times whether to disconnect the rig from the wellhead before he got the go-ahead.
Contractor complains about BP interference during Deepwater Horizon fire. BP wouldn't put a mothership in the water during the fire so an ROV could try to close the rams. BP said it was because they didn't know if it would be too hot for the mothership. Oddly, BP tried to determine this by calculations without critical temperature data.
"When they wanted to calculate the heat load on the boat, I said, 'How do you know how hot the fire is?' " Martin told the joint U.S. Coast Guard-Bureau of Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement investigative panel.
Feinberg triples claim payouts to Pensacola residents in the last ten days.
On Sept. 25, Feinberg announced a policy change that he promised would streamline payments by lumping together common types of claims — a change that appears to be working.
On Sept. 23, one month after Feinberg took over the BP claims, about $24.6 million in damages were paid to 2,396 individuals and businesses in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties.
On Monday, 10 days later, the total had more than tripled, totaling $87.9 million in payments to 5,631 local claimants, according to statistics released by the facility.
“Last week there were finally some things that broke. Some very substantial claims were paid and we were glad to hear that,” said Grover Robinson IV, county commissioner for District 4, which includes Pensacola Beach.
Feinberg's claims process is improving in Alabama. Let's hope for the victims' sake that areas other than Pensacola and Alabama are seeing similar improvement.
He's already well known in our part of the gulf coast. "I really feel like he is a good guy and I think he wants to do the fair thing and the right thing." But Orange Beach mayor Tony Kennon is still cautious. "It is getting better around here there are still claims that haven't been paid that I'm concerned about but we're following up on them and keep pushing so they get paid."
Alabama Governor Bob Riley has seen the improvement. "It's a lot better. Two weeks ago I couldn't have said that."
He says Feinberg has listened and responded. "At least from what I've heard the last few days it's better now that it has ever been and if that's true for most people out there kudos Mr. Feinberg for doing it."
BP pulled out of a decontamination site which now leaves work for a local company. Sadly typical of BP's sensitivities to local people in the Gulf.
After spending millions of dollars for boat decontamination sites in Baldwin County, BP has now torn down and removed those facilities. That's good news for an Orange Beach business that finally gets back what BP had taken away.
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The local company just down the street from where the boat wash was is now getting to do the business they believe should have been theirs all along. "We've been doing this for a week and a half." John Fitzgerald is president of Saunders Yachtworks. "We are working with BP and what's left of the VOO management and they have a list of about 30 boats to be de-conned and we've been approved to work 7 days a week at this site."
Coast Guard official says the Deepwater Horizon evacuation went "fairly well". That's a peculiar statement considering the concern the joint Coast Guard and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management committee has shown over the confusion over the chain of command and getting everyone in the life boats.
A U.S. Coast Guard official says the fact that more than 100 people escaped the Gulf of Mexico rig explosion alive is a sign that the evacuation effort went fairly well.
Capt. James Hanzalik, chief of incident response for the Coast Guard's 8th District, told a federal investigative panel there was nothing more his agency could have done to prevent the Deepwater Horizon from sinking.
President Obama issues an Executive Order establishing a Gulf recovery task force.
President Barack Obama today issued an executive order establishing a task force on Gulf Coast recovery.
Task force members would be drawn from cabinet departments, the affected states and other agencies.
Melancon runs sharp attack ad against Vitter on the BP oil calamity. The ad also attacks President Obama for the offshore drilling ban.
Trying to make a difficult comeback against incumbent Republican David Vitter in Louisiana's Senate race, Democratic Rep. Charlie Melancon plans to launch a new television ad elevating the politics of the BP oil spill to sharper, more partisan heights.
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Melancon's latest spot charges Vitter with going easy on BP in terms of the company's liability for the disastrous, months-long spill. It concludes with a bit of intra-party fireworks, attacking President Barack Obama for placing a moratorium on deepwater drilling while noting that Melancon helped pass legislation through the House reversing that decision -- an unpopular one on the Gulf Coast.
Art exhibit, Mired in the Bayou, will be opening in NYC on October 15th at 99% Gallery
Tom Friedman fires on big oil over California propositions to gut California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.
Alternet exposes the evil tradeoffs being made for extracting natural gas and oil from shale.
==== ROV Feeds =====
20876/21507 - Development Driller II's ROV 1
32900/49178 - Development Driller II's ROV 2
41434/41436 - Olympic Challenger's ROV 1
40788/40789 - Olympic Challenger's ROV 2
39168/39169 - Chouest Holiday's ROV 1
40492/40493 - Chouest Holiday's ROV 2
47146/47147 - Development Driller III's ROV 1
43698/43699 - Development Driller III's ROV 2
==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.
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 #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.
Again, to keep bandwidth down, please do not post images or videos.