BP Fund Shells Out $5.5 Billion To Gulf Coast Claimants

By Adrianna McGinley

Administrator of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) Kenneth Feinberg announced Thursday before the House Committee on Natural Resources that nearly $5.5 billion has been distrubuted to more than 200,000 claimants. 

The committee heard testimony to gain perspective on the status of the $20 billion fund designated to provide relief to those affected by the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Feinberg said he should be held solely responsible for any complaints or concerns regarding the fund and that these filings not be directed towards the Obama administration.

“Any praise about this program or any criticism about this program really should be directed at me and me alone,” Feinberg said. “The administration has largely taken a complete hands off attitude…BP has in no way interfered with my processing of these claims. I am out there on a limb and if it works thank you and if it fails, I bear the brunt of that criticism.”

He added that he believes the relief fund has been largely successful in processing the hundreds of thousands of claims filed thus far.

“People unhappy with my decisions, either as to eligibility or damage, have gone to the United States Coast Guard under the Oil Pollution Control Act and asked the Coast Guard to review my claim and make an independent determination,” he said. “In every single case, every one, the Coast Guard has agreed with my determination. So I think we’re doing something right.”

Feinberg addressed concerns that only 39 percent of claims have been paid, pointing out that many claimants’ files were regarded as ineligible due to a lack of documentation and location. A number of claimants filed complaints because the business in question fell outside of the funds jurisdiction. Feinberg said that 95 percent of claims have already been processed.

Despite Feinberg’s reassurance, activists from the region are unhappy with the work the relief fund has credited itself with.

Faye Williams, an activist from Operation People for Peace and Michelle Roberts from Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, told reporters many Gulf Coast residents are unhappy with the lack of compensation for those whose health was impacted by the spill and argued that the documentation needed to receive medical compensation were near impossible to meet.

“It’s time now for them to get to the individuals who don’t have CEOs to come in here and represent them,” Williams said.

BP Will Give Lousiana $218 Million

The oil giant responsible for the largest spill in U.S. history has announced that it will give the state of Louisiana millions to be used for clean-up efforts.

Louisiana Congressman Joseph Cao (R) said on Monday night that BP has agreed to give various state agencies a total of $218 million. According to Cao, the state’s Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism will get $30 million, while $48 will go to seafood safety and promotion programs. The remaining $140 will fund the future construction of barrier islands and other coastal restoration programs.

Cao called the announcement by BP a “step in the right direction.”

“Having pushed BP for months to expedite recovery of the oil spill, I am delighted that BP will help with rebuilding efforts here at home, especially in regards to travel and tourism in Louisiana…BP’s allocation of funds is a step in the right direction.”

The news follows a report that BP earned a $1.7 billion profit in the third quarter of this year. BP officials recently divulged that the spill’s cost to the company has already exceeded $40 billion.

BP To Share Well Containment Technology

by Miles Wolf Tamboli - The Talk Radio News Service

In a press release issued by British gas giant BP Monday, the corporation announced its plans to share information and equipment used in the containment of the Macondo deepwater well with the Marine Well Containment Company, or MWCC, so that it may be shared with all oil and gas companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico. 

“We are pleased to announce our plans to join the Marine Well Containment Company and provide the experience and specialized equipment needed to respond to a deepwater well control incident,” said Richard Morrison, BP vice president for Gulf of Mexico operations. “We believe the addition of our recently gained deepwater intervention experience and specialized equipment will be important to the marine well containment system.”

Having just successfully plugged the mile-deep well responsible for leaking almost 5 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf over the summer, BP has developed a number of new technologies that may aid in containing deepwater wells in the future.

The oil industry and it’s federal regulators - the now-dissolved Minerals Management Service in particular - have become the subject of scrutiny recently, as many in the media have questioned the industry’s ability to safely drill at depths currently being explored.

ExxonMobil, the operators of the MWCC, plan to improve on BP’s newly developed technologies to make deepwater drilling safer, according to the report.

The Leak Is Over: BP, USCG Declare Macondo Well Permanently Sealed

by Miles Wolf Tamboli - The Talk Radio News Service

After five months, the BP Deepwater Macondo Well has finally been permanently sealed.  

“We can now state, definitively, that the Macondo well poses no continuing threat to the Gulf of Mexico,” said National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen in a statement released by the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command on Sunday.

Pressure testing was completed early Sunday morning, assuring crews that the well is in fact completely sealed, and that the cement has set.

“This is a significant milestone in the response to the Deepwater Horizon tragedy and is the final step in a complex and unprecedented subsea operation - finally confirming that this well no longer presents a threat to the Gulf of Mexico,” said Tony Hayward, petroleum mogul BP’s group chief executive, in a press release issued Sunday by BP. 

The final plugging of the well was enabled by the drilling of a relief well, which the administration has been touting as the only final answer to the months long leak since the beginning, despite having essentially capped the well with a customized stacking cap in mid July.  The relief well intercepted the Macondo’s annulus last wednesday, and began pumping a cement mixture into the open space on Friday.

The deepwater Macondo well, owned and operated by an amalgam of international corporations - including Britain’s BP and Halliburton, and the Swiss company Transocean - spewed millions of barrels of Sweet Louisiana Crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico after the rig exploded in a string of mishaps that took the lives of 11 workers aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig, and crippled the Gulf Coast’s economy, which relies heavily upon the triumvirate of fishing, tourism, and oil industries.

As of Friday, 39,885 square miles of Gulf of Mexico federal waters remain closed to fishing in response to public health and safety concerns, and approximately 600 miles of coastline are still experiencing some oil impacts, primarily in Louisiana, according to the Deepwater Horizon Joint Incident Command. 

BP America Chairman and President Lamar McKay said Sunday; “BP remains committed to remedying the harm that the spill caused to the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf Coast environment, and to the livelihoods of the people across the region.” 

Researchers Discover Thick Layers Of Oil On Ocean Floor

by Miles Wolf Tamboli - The Talk Radio News Service

University of Georgia professor Dr. Samantha Joye, who is conducting research on the ocean vessel Oceanus to determine impacts of the BP-Deepwater Horizon oil spill, wrote in her blog recently that she and her colleagues have encountered thick layers of oil on the seabed between the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and the Louisiana coast.

Federal reports on the fate of oil leaked from the Deepwater Horizon wellhead have asserted that the majority of the leaked oil has dissipated naturally. There is evidence in Dr. Joye’s research that shows the reports could be inaccurate, but the researcher declined to report that the oil found can be directly attributed to the BP spill until further testing has been conducted.

There is a consensus among researchers that oil does seep from the ocean floor naturally, but Joye describes that the composition of the oil on top of the soil is from a different source.

“At the site we visited today, the oil obviously came from the top (down from the water column) not the bottom (up from a deep reservoir),” said Joye. “What we found today is not a natural seep.”

In addition to the massive amounts of oil found at a number of sites, remains were discovered of shrimp, worms, zooplankton, and other invertebrates that were determined to have been recently killed. In addition, “the normal invertebrate fauna you’d expect to see in these sediments are not [present].”

Researchers debate the long-term ecological effects of the oil spill and of the methods used to contain it, including the release of large amounts of chemical dispersants into the Gulf, and many wonder about the hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil unaccounted for in federal reports on the oil’s fate.