The original Deepwater Horizon fire (Photo: Flickr/Deepwater Horizon Response)

A new report issued by The National Academy of Engineering, a government-created nonprofit, concludes that the lack of regulation and ineffective safety-management practices that led to BP’s catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have not been fully remedied — leaving communities in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana potentially vulnerable to another oil spill.

The blowout and explosion of BP’s Macondo well killed 11 workers and led to the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

According to National Academy’s Deepwater Horizon Committee, “companies involved in offshore drilling should take a ‘system safety’ approach to anticipating and managing possible dangers at every level of operation — from ensuring the integrity of wells to designing blowout preventers that function ‘under all foreseeable conditions.’”  In addition, according to the report, “an enhanced regulatory approach should combine strong industry safety goals with mandatory oversight at critical points during drilling operations.”

Some of the report recommendations:

• Expanding the formal education and training of personnel engaged in offshore drilling to ensure that they can properly implement system safety.
• Establishing guidelines so that well designs incorporate protection against the various credible risks associated with the drilling and abandonment process.
• Testing cemented and mechanical barriers designed to contain the flow of hydrocarbons in wells, to ensure that they are effective (and subjecting those tests to independent reviews).

The study, which was sponsored the U.S. Department of Interior, also recommends the formation of a single government agency that would be responsible for integrating system safety for all offshore drilling activities. Current offshore drilling operations are governed by a number of agencies, often with overlapping authorities.

In a press release sent out yesterday, Earthjustice attorney David Guest said that “lax oversight by government” hasn’t changed, putting jobs in tourism, recreation and fishing at risk.

“It’s back to business as usual as if the BP disaster never happened,” Guest said. “The National Academy of Engineering tells us that deep water drilling still has a high risk of disaster, that the culture of corner-cutting in the industry and lax oversight by government haven’t changed. That means that the fishing communities and all the jobs in tourism and recreation in the Gulf region are at risk.”

Earthjustice filed suit against the federal government in June for conducting what it says is “a flawed environmental risk assessment” of Shell’s plan to drill in the gulf. According to Earthjustice, federal regulators have conducted “an irrationally optimistic risk assessment for  Shell Oil Company’s plan to drill for oil in deep Gulf waters near the site of BP’s devastating spill.”

As a flyer advertising the event suggests, the briefing will “explore perspectives from science, economics, business, and industry on restoring the flow of ecosystem services that support the economic vitality of the Gulf of Mexico.”

In addition to economists, oceanographers and scientists, panelists will include Timothy Reilly, a managing partner of CatVest Petroleum. According to its weebsite, CatVest “offers pre-disaster risk financing to manage and transfer the risks of large-scale oil, gas and chemical spill risks from industry to the capital markets using instruments such as catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities.”

A reception held after the briefing will feature remarks from legislators, including Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa. A Senate lunch briefing will be held in the early afternoon, and a House briefing is scheduled for that evening.

The briefing is sponsored by the Consortium for Ocean Leadership, Compass Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea and the National Research Council of the National Academies. The Consortium for Ocean Leadership recently hosted a roundtable discussion on its comprehensive preliminary strategy for long-term restoration. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., attended the discussion, which featured a panel with reps from NOAA, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium and the Harte Research Institute.

According to recent reports, BP (the company responsible for last year’s tragic oil spill) will soon begin winding down its cleanup of the Gulf of Mexico, and instead focus on restoring some of the most hard-hit areas.

A representative of the National Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told CNN that the dolphins could be dying because the bacteria has become more lethal, or it could simply “be more severe, because the dolphins are more susceptible to infection.” In either scenario, the root cause seems to be severe environmental stress, which could have been brought on by the BP oil spill.

Teri Rowles, coordinator of the National Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program, told the St. Petersburg Times’ Craig Pittman that the oil “could have impaired the dolphins’ ability to respond to the bacterial infection.”

Investigators, however, still haven’t officially pinpointed the cause.

The deaths have been labeled an “unusual mortality event,” which is defined under the Marine Mammal Protection Act as “a stranding that is unexpected; involves a significant die-off of any marine mammal population; and demands immediate response.”

Between February 2010 and October 2011, there have been at least 580 “strandings” of dolphins and whales in the gulf. Most of them have been bottlenose dolphins. According to a chart on NOAA’s website, 114 were stranded prior to the oil spill response, 122 were either stranded or reported dead offshore during the initial response phase and 344 were stranded after the initial response phase had ended. The worst month for dolphin and whale strandings were March 2010 and March 2011 — which saw 62 and 73 strandings, respectively. (By comparison, the March average between 2002 and 2009 was 17.9.)

BP’s Deepwater Horizon exploded on April 20, 2010, leading to the worst oil spill the country has ever seen. The well was capped on July 15, 2010, but oil has been spotted in the gulf as recently as last monh.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, humans can be infected in one of three ways: “eating or drinking something that is contaminated with Brucella, breathing in the organism (inhalation), or having the bacteria enter the body through skin wounds.” Researchers have recommended that humans and their pets stay away from any stranded marine life.

Just last week, the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonpartisan environmental advocacy group, filed a petition with the FDA, demanding that the agency “recognize the hazards posed by PAHs in seafood and set a health protective standard.” PAHs, or Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, are pollutants that have been shown to cause cancer in both animals and humans. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they usually don’t dissolve easily in water and have been shown to cause higher rates of birth defects and lower body weights in mice.

According to the NRDC, the problem isn’t that the seafood isn’t being tested, but rather that the FDA isn’t testing it well enough. As blogged by the NRDC’s Miriam Rotkin-Ellman and Dr. Gina Solomon, the FDA has failed to properly assess levels of PAHs in gulf seafood in six major ways. According to Rotkin-Ellman, the FDA:

• assumed everyone weighs 176 pounds,
• underestimated the amount of seafood consumed by Gulf Coast residents,
• ignored the cancer risk from naphthalene,
• failed to address the increased vulnerability of pregnant women and children,
• allowed for a high cancer risk,
• and assumed that the contamination will only last five years.

Consumer confidence in gulf seafood has remained low since last year’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, which led to nearly 5 million gallons of crude oil seeping into waters off the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Alabama and Florida. Gov. Rick Scott aimed to change the public’s perception of gulf seafood during an appearance in the Florida panhandle last year.

“We know that it is safe,” Scott said in April. “The bigger concern would be if it wasn’t. Our job is to make everyone in the world know that not only does it taste good but it’s safe.”

In addition to undergoing tests by the FDA, some Florida seafood has also been tested by the state Department of Agriculture’s Division of Food Safety, and Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam has repeatedly said that gulf seafood is safe. Just last month, the department launched an online training program for Florida restaurant workers to learn to answer common questions about the safety of gulf seafood.

The Department of Agriculture did not return calls for comment on the NRDC’s petition.

According to a press release, the roundtable discussion will address specific scientific and economic issues regarding effective restoration in the Gulf of Mexico, including “What role can science play in identifying what the linked ecological and economic goals of ecosystem recovery are in the Gulf?”

“Restoring economic vitality to the Gulf will depend on a foundation of sustained coastal health,” reads a press release for the event. “A discussion about an integrated, science-based approach to ecosystem restoration, and the knowledge gained from experiences in large-scale restoration efforts around the country, can help ensure that recovery efforts follow a path toward vibrant coasts and coastal communities.”

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., has been invited to attend the discussion, which will feature a panel with reps from NOAA, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium and the Harte Research Institute.

The damage from last year’s Deepwater Horizon disaster continues to this day, as fears of tainted seafood linger. The state’s Department of Agriculture recently unveiled a training program for restaurant workers in an effort to combat consumer fears. But concerns over a new oil sheen (possibly coming from the sunken Transocean rig) continue to plague gulf fishermen and residents; LSU researchers only recently determined that the oil has even impacted certain species of marsh fish.

According to a press release, the strategy “builds upon on-going efforts underway in the Gulf Coast states includes specific steps for on-the-ground action and represents the Task Force’s commitment to putting Gulf coastal restoration on an equal footing with other national priorities.”

“Even before last year’s oil spill, the Gulf of Mexico endured decades of decline that threatened the environmental and economic health of this region. This strategy is designed to prepare the region for transitioning from a response to the spill into a long-term recovery that supports the vital ecosystem and the people who depend on it,” said EPA Administrator Lis Jackson, who chairs the task force. “The health of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem starts and ends with its people and its communities. The individuals and families who visit the Gulf, who work in the region, who depend on its resources, and especially those who call it home, know its needs and challenges best. They will be integral to creating and executing this long-term strategy.”

Among the major initiatives put forth in the strategy are stopping the loss of wetlands, reducing the flow of nutrients into the gulf and enhancing resilience among coastal communities.

“Today’s release of this important report is the culmination of more than a year’s worth of collaboration and hard work to identify priorities and a strategy to improve, restore and protect the fragile and vital Gulf ecosystem,” said Mimi Drew, Florida’s representative on the task force. “The Gulf of Mexico provides huge environmental and economic benefits to Florida and we look forward to input from the public to refine this plan.”

The explosion of BP’s Transocean rig brought about the worst oil spill in the history of the country, with an estimated 53,000 barrels per day flowing into the gulf for three months in 2010. Though the well was capped in July 2010, the damage continues today. A newly documented oil slick in the area, which some estimate is more than 10 miles long, might be the result of the sunken rig, according to information released by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Sightings of a very large sheen of oil in the Gulf of Mexico have had coastal residents and fishermen worried for over a month. But in a statement issued yesterday, the Coast Guard says the sheen is not from BP’s now-capped Macondo well, which caused harm to both Florida’s environment and economy last year.

Though the Coast Guard said video footage of BP’s Macondo well shows no new leakage, the company hasn’t been ruled out as a source of the sheen. In its statement, the Coast Guard floats the possibility that oil may be emanating from a riser pipe of the Transocean rig, whose explosion led to last year’s disaster. (That rig now sits on the ocean floor.)

As previously reported by The Florida Independent, chemists with Louisiana State University have said that recent samples of the oil bear a striking similarity to the chemical footprint of last year’s oil.

A spokesman for Transocean told the Wall Street Journal that the Coast Guard had notified the company, and that it is “committed” to investigate the reports.

“If a volume of oil has remained in the riser, there is no question that it is oil from BP’s Macondo well,” Transocean spokesman Brian Kennedy told the Journal. “As owner and operator, BP is the responsible party for all fluids that emanated from the Macondo well head, and BP has repeatedly acknowledged that responsibility.”

The explosion of BP’s Transocean rig led to the worst oil spill in U.S. history — killing 11 oil rig workers and releasing massive amounts of oil into the gulf and onto the shores of Florida, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

Via the Associated Press:

 Tests show the wave of tar balls that hit Alabama’s beaches after Tropical Storm Lee was from last year’s BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a coastal mayor said Tuesday.

Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon said the connection was found in preliminary tests performed by Auburn University, and additional tests will be conducted.

“We want to find out exactly what we are dealing with,” Kennon said.

While many officials believe that the recently washed-up tar balls are merely remnants of last year’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, recent flyovers suggest that oil might be currently leaking from BP’s Maconda well. BP has denied those claims.

BP has sent crews to clean up the tar balls, some of which are reportedly as large as baseballs.

Since Tropical Storm Lee recently made landfall in the Gulf Coast region, tar balls have started washing up on the shores of Louisiana all the way to Florida. Dramatic videos published last week on the site Black Oil, Red Blood shows that oil is indeed still a problem. Whether that is the result of a new leak or a remnant of last year’s Deepwater Horizon spill remains a mystery. (Photos of a dolphin skeleton that washed up in Biloxi, Miss., are also shown.)

According to the site, these images were taken “during the past few weeks and months, at a time when BP has engaged in an aggressive, multi-million dollar advertising campaign which proclaims to the country that Gulf beaches are clean, safe, and open for business.”

BP has sent cleanup crews to gather many of the washed-up tarballs, and reports indicate the oil is merely the remains of last year’s disaster and not indicative of a new spill. (Aerial video taken in August reveals what many say is a new slick, but BP has stated that there is no new leak.) According to The Miami Herald, the erosion brought on by Tropical Storm Lee also uncovered “PVC pipes used to secure boom and snares used to absorb oil.”

As recently as April 2011 (a year after the Deepwater Horizon disaster), several dead dolphins, covered in oil, were found along the Gulf Coast. At that time, there had been at least 153 dolphin deaths in recent months, 65 of them newly born or stillborn calves, according to NOAA officials. There is no word on the number of dolphin deaths due to the most recent slick of oil.

Earlier today, a federal panel found that BP was at fault for 21 of the 35 factors that lead to last year’s spill, the largest in the history of the country.

Though the theories are un-comfirmed by BP, many worry that the oil might be the result of yet another BP spill. Several samples collected by the Mobile Press-Register in late August bore the same chemical footprint of the Deepwater Horizon oil, according to chemists with Louisiana State University. But BP executives have reported finding no leaks in the seal on the Deepwater Horizon well or the relief well, after a survey by a submersible robot.

A concentrated oil burn in the Gulf of Mexico, conducted in May 2010 (Pic by Deepwater Horizon Response, via Flickr) 

On April 20, 2010, BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded — killing 11 oil workers and injuring 17 others. The resulting spill, which took almost three months to be capped, caused severe damage to the environment and economies of coastal communities in the five Gulf Coast states.

Progress Florida’s SpillBabySpill.com — a site initially set up after last year’s disaster — has been reporting extensively on the new oil.

Progress Florida Executive Director Mark Ferrulo says the denials by BP are “eerily reminiscent of the early stages of the first BP oil gusher disaster.”

“The problem is that, if BP is our only source of factual information, then we’re in trouble,” says Ferrulo. “Because they have a history — not only with the Deepwater Horizon Disaster, but with other disasters — of not being honest to the general public.”

The oil was first spotted during an August flyover by the nonprofit group On Wings of Care. The group was conducting a survey of whale sharks — but instead turned up the enormous oil slick. In an Aug. 26 press release, BP maintained that there was “no release of oil from the Macondo well.” (Other rumors have circulated that BP has hired a fleet of 40 shrimping boats to skim oil from the area. BP has denied those rumors.)

Interestingly, the pilot who conducted the initial flyover notified both NOAA and the U.S. Coast Guard, and was told that NOAA was currently sampling the oil for BP.

During On Wings of Care’s most recent flyover, which occurred on Sept. 10, the oil slick was still clearly visible and was spotted in the same general area as the initial flyover. But following its own recent flyover, the Coast Guard said it didn’t spot any oil.

“It’s been really strange and discomforting,” says Progress Florida’s Mark Ferrulo. “These [On Wings of Care] pilots were literally fling over a 10-mile long mile slick, and yet the Coast Guard said they couldn’t find it. Their video goes for nine minutes — without any repeats. And BP says it isn’t there, but there is a BP research ship in the vicinity.”

SkyTruth, a group that analyzes NOAA and NASA satellite imagery, has published its own reports alleging that there is indeed some sort of ongoing potential leak in the area.

“The only real conclusive, without-any-doubt thing could be some time of video imagery,” says Ferrulo. “Until we get that, the speculation will remain.”

In a related story, fresh tar balls have recently begun washing up on the shores of Alabama, following rough waters brought on by Tropical Storm Lee. Though BP has not yet said whether the tar balls are the result of a recent spill (or even last year’s spill), contractors for the company are removing them anyway.