Since the BP oil blowout began the Minerals and Management Service (MMS) has given oil and gas companies at least 27 environmental impact study waivers for offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, oil streaming from the wrecked well is moving west into the most environmentally sensitive areas of the delta.
The exemptions, known as "categorical exclusions," were granted by the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) and included waiving detailed environmental studies for a BP exploration plan to be conducted at a depth of more than 4,000 feet and an Anadarko Petroleum Corp. exploration plan at more 9,000 feet.
It's business as usual at the Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS). Nothing has changed at the MMS since the spill began. President Obama's moratorium on drilling has not affected the MMS in any way.
"Is there a moratorium on off shore drilling or not?" asked Peter Galvin, conservation director with the Center for Biological Diversity, the environmental group that discovered the administration’s continued approval of the exemptions. "Possibly the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history has occurred and nothing appears to have changed."
MMS officials said the exemptions are continuing to be issued because they do not represent final drilling approval.
The MMS has changed no policies despite the exceptional difficulty of responding to a blow out in water over 1000 feet deep. At the MMS it's like the BP spill never happened.
Heads must roll at the MMS. They still act like they are working for Dick Cheney.
East and southeast winds are blowing the oil into the most environmentally sensitive areas in the Gulf west of the Mississippi river. Watermen are out of work. Some of the Gulf's most sensitive and productive environments are in trouble.
NOAA's latest forecast trajectory map indicates light oil stretching just off Louisiana's coastline to Atchafalaya Bay by Tuesday, with heavier concentrations just west the river's mouth. The forecast shows the potential for oil along Southwest Pass on the lower Mississippi River and on the beaches of Port Fourchon and the Timbalier Islands, though it still shows no oil on Grand Isle.
......
Oil has been found in Little Pass, which is between East Timbalier and Timbalier islands, just west of Port Fourchon in Terrebonne Parish, said Garret Graves, coastal adviser to Gov. Bobby Jindal.
"If you look at that area, from Cocodrie east, you see an intricate area of fragmented coastal marshes," Graves said. "That's probably the worst area of the state where this stuff could get, in terms of our ability to protect the wetlands or get oil out."
But the MMS hasn't learned a thing from the disaster.
MMS spokesman David Smith said his agency conducts a thorough review before it determines whether to grant such exemptions.
"It’s not a rubber stamp," he said.