Groups sue BP for harm to endangered Gulf wildlife

U.S. environmental groups filed a suit on Wednesday against British-based oil giant BP Plc saying the world's worst offshore spill inflicted "ongoing unlawful" harm on endangered wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico.

The suit is one of thousands of damages cases to stem from the spill from BP's blown-out undersea Macondo well, which between April and July dumped millions of gallons of oil into the sea, fouling coastlines in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. The well was capped in mid-July.

But while the bulk of the cases have been brought by affected individuals, like fishermen, hoteliers and companies, this one brought by conservation groups focuses on endangered sea turtles, whales, birds and Florida manatees.

The case was filed in federal court in Louisiana six months after the DeepWater Horizon rig explosion that triggered the spill. It says that these species were harmed by the leaked oil but also that oil in the ocean continues to do them harm.

"The harmful effects of the BP oil well blowout on endangered and threatened wildlife will continue for many years," said Gregory Buppert, attorney for Defenders of Wildlife, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

"We ask the court to compel BP to provide the resources necessary to ensure (that) imperiled species in the Gulf recover from this disaster," said Buppert, whose organization filed the suit along with the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), the Gulf Restoration Network and the Save the Manatee Club.

Since harm to the species cannot immediately be remedied, the plaintiffs would like BP to set up a fund to help Gulf wildlife as a whole, said SELC lawyer Catherine Wannamaker.

The suit did not estimate a total value for the fund.

But some environmental experts say proving continuing and ongoing harm -- as opposed to simply past harm -- will not be easy for the specific species described in the suit, paving the way for a legal battle.

BP has consistently said it will consider all legitimate claims for damages related to the spill.

The disaster spawned a plethora of lawsuits against BP and partner companies involved in drilling the Macondo well.

Gulf Coast fishermen, hoteliers and others who sustained economic losses through the spill have filed suits because their losses stemmed from environmental damage. One remedy for this group is the $20 billion compensation facility set up by BP and administered by Kenneth Feinberg but victims can also sue BP and many of those cases are consolidated into a multi-district litigation suit in New Orleans.

The Gulf Coast Claims Facility administered by Feinberg has paid $1.45 billion in claims since it took over the claims process from the company on August 23.

A second group of suits was filed by states and the federal government over harm to their natural resources. Louisiana sustained the most damage and could eventually receive billions of dollars in compensation, according to one environmental lawyer.

Lawyers have also filed suits over the terms under which the government has issued permits to oil companies, including six cases filed in federal court by the environmental group Earthjustice, said David Guest, a lawyer with the group.

The suits challenge permits issued by the government's former Minerals Management Service bureau that waived requirements of oil companies to disclose plans in the event of a worst case scenario or a requirement to say how they would deal with the failure of a blowout preventer. This preventer mechanism is designed to avert catastrophic blowouts of wells.

Since the spill, the bureau has been renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. (right)

The effect of the Earthjustice suit and others will be to sharpen scrutiny on government handling of drilling permits, said Adam Babich, director of the environmental law clinic at Tulane University.

Before the spill, "the environmental community was not paying as much attention as they should have. If there are no challenges to government action ... the government gets lazy," he said. The case is Defenders of Wildlife et al v. BP P.L.C. et al, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana as case no. 2:10-CV-03879. The suit lists John Timothy Suttles of the Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina as the attorney for the three animal defense organizations.

Source:
Reuters, "Groups sue BP for harm to endangered Gulf wildlife", accessed October 21, 2010

From the Inbox: Help Sea Turtles TODAY!

		Sea Turtles in the Frying Pan Oiled sea turtles like just this one may have been burned alive last week during attempts to contain the current Gulf oil disaster. Send an email. Tell U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and officials in the Obama administration that you oppose their 5-year offshore leasing plan that would encourage even MORE dangerous drilling off our coasts. Dear Friend, It’s a horrifying story: Last week, a Gulf ship captain reported seeing sea turtles burned alive in an attempt to keep oil off the Gulf coast. [2] BP – the company responsible for the Deepwater Horizon blowout and subsequent Gulf oil disaster – was trying to contain and prevent the oil from reaching coastal beaches and marshes by burning it at sea. Sadly, no one told the sea turtles – and it now appears that the lives of some threatened and endangered sea turtles (already hurt by the oil) may have been lost. Areas of oiled ocean are now being surveyed for sea turtles before burning, but that is only a stopgap measure. Help prevent the next drilling disaster. Tell the Obama administration that you oppose their 5-year offshore leasing proposal – a proposal that would encourage more dangerous drilling off the coasts of Florida, Alaska, North Carolina and other Gulf and Atlantic coastal states. The deadline for public comments is today (June 30th), soplease take action right now. So far, at least 429 threatened and endangered sea turtles have been confirmed dead since oil first began spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout. . However, many more sea turtles have likely been lost from the oil spill but not found… and many more would certainly die when baby turtles begin to hatch in the coming weeks. That is why agencies are collecting the eggs from the nests they know of for transfer to Atlantic Florida beaches that are free from oil. Sea turtles will die from ingesting too much oil. And like us, they can drown. Sea turtles need to surface to breathe, which is hard to do when the ocean’s surface is coated with toxic oil. The survival of sea turtles is precarious, and the human-caused loss of even one turtle is too much. We need to act now to help protect the beaches of North Carolina (another important nesting ground for sea turtles) and other states where dolphins, whales and birds rely on healthy coastal ecosystems to survive. Send your message now, and let the Obama administration know that you oppose dangerous new offshore drilling. But preventing new offshore drilling isn’t just about protecting threatened and endangered sea turtles. As the Gulf oil disaster clearly demonstrates, entire economies are at risk. Clean-up workers can become sick. And an entire marine and coastal wildlife system is at risk of being lost to Big Oil’s hubris. To send a loud, clear message to the Obama administration, we need just 800 more people from Alabama to take action before tomorrow, so please send your message right away, and then forward this message and/or share this action on Facebook and Twitter. For the Wild Ones, Jamie Rappaport ClarkExecutive Vice President Defenders of Wildlife P.S. As a former head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a career biologist and a mother, I can’t stress enough how important it is that we prevent more dangerous drilling off our coasts and that you send your message today.

BP's Spill Plan: What they knew and when they knew it

Karen Dalton Beninato, writing for City Voices in New Orleans, obtained a copy of the BP Regional Oil Spill Response Plan for the Gulf of Mexico from 2009. This article closely follows Ms. Beninato's original article and conclusions. A digital copy of the response plan exists online for download. It is 29MB so e sure you have the room to download. The download link is:

http://www.neworleans.com/images/media/BP_Regional_OSRP_Redactedv2.pdf

While the name of the well has been redacted in the file, it is assumed that this is for Deepwater Horizon. The document was in an MMS Deepwater folder, but from the maps shown the field could also be the Thunder Horse field run by BP and Exxon. Whichever field it is, the document is its' response plan. Either way the plan is inadequate and makes various revealing statements about environmental and community impact.

In the worst case discharge scenario (on chart below), an oil leak was expected to come ashore with the highest probability in Plaquemines Parish within 30 days (see map above from the Advance Response Plan). BP could have stored adequate boom there before a rig failure like the Deepwater Horizon, and workers could have been mobilized to apply the boom in the 30 days that the response plan predicted oil would hit the Plaquemines Parish wetlands.
Spokespersons were advised never to assure the public that an ecosystem would be back to normal after the worst case scenario, which is the scenario we have.

"No statements shall be made concerning any of the following: promises that property, ecology, or anything else will be restored to normal."

Even in BP CEO Tony Hayward's new television commercial his assurance is an ambiguous, "We will make this right," without ever specifically addressing the preservation or restoration of America's Gulf Wetlands.
Corexit oil dispersant toxicity has not been tested on ecosystems, according to the Oil Spill Response Plan. "Ecotoxilogical effects: No toxicity studies have been conducted on this product." * Environmental Defense Fund scientist Richard Denison points out that dispersant maker Nalco's statement in the 2009 Plan is from 2005, and some ecotoxicity data can now be found on other response documents.

The Plan's question and answer section discusses the choice of a dispersant with: "Have environmental trade-offs of dispersant use indicated that use should be considered? Note: This is one of the more difficult questions" and "Has the overflight to assure that endangered species are not in the application area been conducted?" Brown pelicans and sea turtles would have been the answer to the latter.

When it comes to Corexit, it is allowed in the Green Zone, not in the Red Zone without a waiver, and the Yellow Zone is a maybe. Yellow "includes any waters designated as marine reserves, National Marine Sanctuaries, National or State Wildlife Refugees or proposed or designated critical habitats; the waters are within three miles of a shoreline and/or fall under state jurisdiction; the waters are less than ten meters deep; and the waters are in mangrove or coastal wetland ecosystems or directly over coral reefs which are less than ten meters of water. Coastal wetlands include submerged algal and sea grass beds."
In summary the findings are:

• BP knew in all probability where a Gulf of Mexico oil leak would go;
  
• BP knows it is pouring millions of gallons of chemicals untested for ecotoxicity near endangered wetlands; and
  
• BP knew it could not assure us that our environment will ever be back to normal.

America deserves an immediate, comprehensive response funded by BP and administered by the government to clean, protect and restore our environment because it will be under chemical assault for months, if not years.

Source:
City Voices, "BP's Spill Plan: What they knew and when they knew it", Written by Karen Dalton Beninato for City Voices, accessed June 15, 2010

From the Inbox: Your Gulf Coast Story

Dear Friend, By now, all of America has seen the horrifying news footage and the oil spill photographs coming out of the Gulf Coast. While the coverage of the spill demonstrates the environmental devastation, what the media can't capture is the more personal story -- the enormous impact that the Deepwater Horizon tragedy has on the lives of Gulf Coast residents like you. It's a story I'm sure you've been living with every single day for the past month. The effects on the Gulf Coast's economy and environment have already been profound, and this is only the beginning. Your fellow Americans need to hear these stories to understand the true impact of America's addiction to oil. As difficult as this time must be for many of you, we're hoping you will take a few minutes to share your thoughts and perspective on how the oil spill is affecting you, your family, and your community. Will you share your story from the Gulf Coast? In order to respond to this catastrophe, we as a country need an honest assessment of the damage -- and there are many questions that need to be answered. That's why we're calling for full transparency from BP, including providing independent experts with access to their data. But stories about the impact this spill has on families, communities, small businesses, and more are stories we can only get from you. Your story can help America get a fuller picture -- more than just numbers and figures -- of what the Deepwater Horizon explosion has meant for families like yours living on the Gulf Coast. Please take a minute and share your story with us. Together, we can and must end our addiction to dangerous fossil fuels -- not only to stop future catastrophes like this one, but also to create millions of clean energy jobs, to make our country more secure, and to solve the climate crisis. I am so grateful for your continued commitment to clean energy during this difficult time. Our team at Repower America would like to extend our deepest sympathies for everything you must be going through right now. Sincerely, Maggie L. Fox Chief Executive Officer The Climate Protection Action Fund's Repower America campaign