With BP Spill Behind Him, Thad Allen Finally Retires

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen announced Friday that he is stepping down from his role as the Obama administration’s point man on the effort to control the BP oil spill.

Allen said in a statement that although the “National Incident Command is disestablished…our commitment to this response and the people of the Gulf of Mexico remains.” Allen will join RAND next week, conducting research for the think tank’s Center on Homeland Security.

A decorated veteran of the Coast Guard, Allen served for 39 years before announcing his retirement at the outset of this year. However, days after the Deepwater Horizon Macando well exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20th, killing 11 workers, Allen was called on by Obama to lead the effort to plug the blown-out well.

Allen worked tirelessly throughout the summer with BP and other federal officials to cap the well, which leaked a total of nearly 4 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf. After weeks of failure, engineers were able to cement the well in August. On September 19, BP announced that it had completed a relief well, effectively ending the potential for any more oil to leak out.

In a statement Friday, Obama thanked Allen for putting off his retirement to deal with the spill.

“At a time when he could have enjoyed a well-deserved retirement from the United States Coast Guard, Admiral Allen stepped up to the plate and served his country when his skills and experience were urgently needed,” the president said. “This unprecedented response effort simply could not have succeeded without Admiral Allen at the helm, and the nation owes him a debt of gratitude.”

Because of its large and prolonged impact, the spill is considered to be the worst environmental disaster ever to occur in the U.S., and served as a catalyst to cripple the Gulf region’s economy, destroy fish and other wildlife and create a cloud of anger and frustration that blanketed the nation all summer long.

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.

Admiral Allen Directs BP To Complete Relief Well

by Miles Wolf Tamboli - The Talk Radio News Service

On Friday National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen issued a directive to BP’s incoming Chief Executive Officer, Bob Dudley, authorizing the corporation to move ahead with efforts to complete the relief well that shows promise of putting a final close on the failed deepwater Macondo well, which was responsible for the months-long oil leak that has put petroleum conglomerate BP in the hot seat since the drilling rig exploded in April.

In the directive, Admiral Allen outlined a number of steps to be executed on the well:

1) Evaluate the status of the well’s casing hammer,

2) Secure the hammer with a locking room, assuming the hangar is in nominal position,

3) Commence completion of drilling by Development Driller III to intercept the Macondo well,

4) Conduct any “supporting activities … that are consistent with the relief well intercept,”

5) Develop and implement procedures that will allow for injection of mud and cement into the well’s annulus (space between the well casing and the earth),

6) Consult the Government Scientific Technical Team if the casing hangar is not in a position allowing for installation of a locking ring.

Although only negligible amounts of oil have leaked into the Gulf since a capping stack was installed on top of the crippled blowout preventer in mid July, Allen has repeatedly stated that, “the relief well remains the ultimate step in stopping the BP oil leak for good.”

BP Shrugs Responsibility For Explosion

by Miles Wolf Tamboli - The Talk Radio News Service

In remarks Wednesday after the release of a BP-led investigation into the cause of the Deepwater Horizon explosion in April, BP’s incoming chief executive Bob Dudley said, “the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon was a shared responsibility among many entities.”

These claims come in harsh opposition to BP America Chairman and President Lamar McKay’s earlier statements - “Liability, blame, fault, put it over here … we are the responsible party.”

According to the investigation - which BP funded, led, and published - the ultimate explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig was the result of a chain of blunders - eight incidents in all. 

First, the cement barrier meant to isolate oil from the annulus (the space between the casing pipe and the surrounding rock) failed to isolate the oil. Then, another measure - called “shoe track barriers” - failed to isolate the oil. 

Negative-pressure testing was somehow accepted, and crews failed to recognize the influx of oil into the wellbore. Safety mechanisms should have then closed the blowout preventer, but instead the oil-mud mixture was diverted into the mud-gas separator, where the gas was vented directly onto the rig. Although a safety mechanism was designed to then prevent ignition, the fire and gas system failed.

All in all, the blowout preventer was ineffective although three separate methods of launching emergency mode were initiated.