Congress Passes Gulf RESTORE Act

More than two years into the worst oil disaster in U.S. history, Congress passed the RESTORE Act today, which ensures that money from BP’s oil spill fines will be dedicated to Gulf Coast restoration.

This is a HUGE win for brown pelicans, dolphins and sea turtles that are still being impacted by the oil spill disaster that began in April 2010.

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Why was this bill so important? Under the Clean Water Act, BP could face as much as $20 billion in fines for its responsibility in the oil disaster.

National Wildlife Federation and our members and supporters have been fighting for two years to make sure the Gulf gets the help it deserves. Thank you so much to everyone who helped make this a reality!

Keystone XL Provision Rejected

The icing on the cake is that the legislation passed today does NOT include language that would have forced approval of the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. This was a very real threat and would have put endangered whooping cranes and swift foxes at risk of toxic oil spills, while also driving a rapid expansion of habitat-destroying tar sands operations that could put the lives of thousands of Canada’s wolves and caribou at risk.

This tremendous victory for wildlife is a testament to how Americans can hold our elected officials accountable to protecting America’s wildlife.

Let’s go celebrate!

Their job: to take on the seemingly impossible task of restoring some of the marshes and beaches that became so damaged by the BP oil disaster of 2010.   Over the course of the day, a group of 50 volunteers planted 1,600 black mangroves along the marshy shoreline of Grand Isle State Park and another 500 plugs of bitter panicum, a native grass, along beach areas.

The park, edging on Barataria Bay, was one of many places considered “ground zero” when the toxic BP oil came ashore. Moreover, the community of Grand Isle had double trouble when Hurricane Katrina surged over the island smashing many or its homes, businesses and camp areas.  More of Louisiana’s valuable wetlands were lost to the storm then in any other recorded time.  Undaunted, the community’s leaders are moving forward and even smaller efforts such as wetland and beach restorations are making a difference.

To bring out volunteers for several such restoration efforts, the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana (CRCL) and National Wildlife Federation (NWF) formed a partnership to directly engage people in improving oil-impacted mangrove habitats across areas of coastal Louisiana.  The partnership’s main goal is to engage volunteers in restoring three areas that were heavily impacted by the BP Deepwater Horizon spill.

The group gathered at the park early Saturday and, after being briefed on how to effectively plant the mangroves and panicum, they were deployed in smaller groups spread along the shoreline.  The volunteers worked hard most of the day, in the June heat, laying in new vegetation along critical places that the oil had harmed. Others worked on plantings that would stabilize and rebuild marshes and beach areas suffering from erosion.   It is the kind of work that is physically challenging but highly rewarding.  Importantly, the volunteers formed a common sense of purpose and took great joy in seeing their progress and results.

These wonderful folks remind all of us to recognize that the Gulf oil disaster is far from over and it will take many years to repair the damage, if it ever can be repaired.   But they also remind us of the deep human need to have hope for a better future for the people, wildlife and nature of Grand Isle and for all of us.

Volunteers in Action: Find out about other volunteer efforts to restore damaged wetlands on the Gulf Coast.

During last week’s hearings on the causes of the Gulf disaster, several Congressmen reamed the Oil Spill Commission for failing to explain the BOP’s precise malfunction.  Their message gained a bit of steam in the blogosphere and seems to have eclipsed, in some circles, the numerous other achievements of the Commission.

Don’t be fooled.  If we knew the ultimate defect of the BOP, would it change the situation we find ourselves in now?  Would it render the Commission’s other findings irrelevant?  On both counts the answer is no.

The attack is disingenuous for the simple reason that the report dedicates pages and pages to examining the technical causes of the disaster, and the BOP was only one element of the breakdown. Yet there are members of Congress, like Rep. Don Young of Alaska, who would have you believe that “we still don’t know what caused the explosion.”

The blowout preventer from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig (US Coast Guard photo)

This is a classic example of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” (or maybe even “any port in a storm”).  Rep. Young, Rep. Doc Hastings and others who stridently demanded answers about the BOP have made their living as deregulation advocates.  But forensic analysis of the mechanism is sure to result in stricter regulation of BOPs, and I’m willing to bet these same folks will be up in arms then about “job killing red tape.”

Isn’t the real issue how to prevent another disaster? It’s clear that deepwater oil and gas exploration has outstripped our capacity to respond to spills.  Test results from the BOP examination will help us understand the details, but their absence doesn’t invalidate the Commission’s other findings–that our regulatory system and industry oversight is inadequate to the task at hand.

As Commission co-chair Bob Graham urged Congress, “Don’t use the fact that there is always more to learn as an excuse to do nothing.”

There are loud voices railing against “political” solutions to the oil spill problem.  But this disaster showed just how foolhardy it is to rely too much on technology.  The system failed on multiple levels: technological, regulatory, and cultural (as in, the half-baked approach to safety taken by BP and its subcontractors).  Any solution needs to address all of these failures, not just one.

Photo credit: Patrick Kelley, US Coast Guard

Let me pose a hypothetical situation:  Three corporations cause one of the biggest environmental disasters in recorded history, and an investigation shows it could have avoided it if they’d been focused on safety. Not only that, but the government could have prevented the disaster if only they hadn’t rubber-stamped the project in the first place.

So, what would the next logical step be?

If you’re like me you probably thought, “Well, obviously we need to get better rules in place and make sure they’re followed.”

This is, of course, what’s going on with the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which will continue to impact the Gulf of Mexico for years to come.

BP, Transocean, and Halliburton were found grossly negligent by the federal Oil Spill Commission, which also criticized regulators for failing in their duty to the American public.  But it wasn’t all about pointing fingers: the commission’s report included some common sense recommendations.  Now they face the unenviable task of convincing Congress to act…and this can be like talking to a small child who happens to control your bank account and car keys.

William Reilly (Bush Sr.’s EPA chief) and former Senator Bob Graham are the Oil Spill Commission’s co-chairs, and they trekked up to Capitol Hill last week to make the case for stronger rules and safety first.  Drilling is an important part of our economy, they both said, but we need to do it responsibly, and the system failed us.

I won’t bore you with the details (there’s a reason they show these things on C-SPAN and not EPSN) but suffice to say: One group of Congressmen protested that “regulation” is just code for “job-killing” and generally accused Reilly and Graham of bias and skullduggery.  The other group said better safe than sorry, and vowed to learn the lessons of this disaster.

At one point, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) took issue with the word “systemic,” which was how the commission described problems in the drilling industry.  Are they really systemic, she asked, and not just the fault of a couple of rogue companies?  Also, she added mockingly, are we supposed to believe that good luck was the only thing that prevented a big spill before now?  Reilly paused a moment and then responded. 

“Senator,” he said, “I would answer that question with just one word: Yes.”  We’ve had a lot of near misses, he explained, and it’s “inconceivable” that the problems are confined to one rig or one company.

This from a former Republican cabinet member.

Last year, a pretty good spill response bill was passed by the House but stalled in the Senate.  The elections created big challenges for environmental causes, and oil drilling was no different – BP and the other inmates are still running the asylum and the guards are working double shifts just to save the whole operation from total catastrophe.

“We’ve done what we can do,” Reilly said to the assembled Congressmen and women, “but now it’s over to you.”

Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) has introduced legislation that would accomplish many of the goals set by the Commission.  It’s going to take a lot of work to make sure that these reforms are instituted, but you can make a difference by sending an email to your members of Congress, telling them not to buy into the false choice between jobs and safety.  After all, it’s your Gulf, too.

Pensacola Beach sample showing oil below clean surface. Photo Credit: Markus Huettel

Many of the oil-fouled beaches along the Gulf coast and barrier islands have been scoured, scraped, raked and filtered clean. Tourist beaches and beaches in front of high-rise condominiums along the Florida panhandle and eastern shores of Alabama are spectacularly white again.

But dig two feet below the pristine surface and a tarry, brown surprise awaits you — you’ve struck oil.

“Oil was coming ashore and was transported down into the sand by natural hydrodynamic processes, then trapped in the sand,” said Dr. Joel Kostka an environmental microbiologist and microbial ecologist at Florida State University (FSU).

Kostka, along with principal investigator Dr. Markus Huettel, also of FSU, has been investigating how quickly oil that flowed onto Gulf beaches is being degraded (“eaten” in the common vernacular) by the microbial communities that live naturally in the sand. They’re also trying to discover if the so called “oil-eating” bacteria and microalgae that normally lived in the Gulf’s water column and got washed ashore with oil helped or hindered the process.

Crude oil and, perhaps worse, dispersed oil (crude mixed with Corexit dispersant) was washed onto the sand by wave action. Then, as more and more sand was deposited on top of the oil, a horizontal layer of oil resulted about two to three feet below the beach surface.

Dr. Joel Kostka explains microbial activity on oil. Photo Credit: Belinda Serata

So the restoration process is not just a matter of having clean, white sand beaches. Buried oil can contaminate ground water. Chemicals can infiltrate fresh water aquifers. Toxic compounds can be flushed back to the Gulf, killing fish and crustacean larvae. Lingering oil is a threat to wildlife and ecosystems because it can plug water flow that cleanses and enriches shoreline communities.

Kostka explained that crude oil is really a mix of thousands of organic (i.e., carbon-based) compounds. Over eons a variety of microbes — bacteria, microalgae and fungi — have evolved to metabolize specific compounds. Which is to say, different microbes in different places eat different parts of crude oil. Some microorganisms eat a variety of compounds but none eat all of them. Almost all stay away from asphaltenes — hydrocarbons that linger for years as asphalt-like tar.

Many oil-degrading microorganisms need oxygen and nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorous) to metabolize their preferred food.

Trench shows layering of oil below cleaned surface at Pensacola Beach - Photo Credit: Markus Huettel

“We can measure really high oxygen consumption rates in the sand where the oil layers are [a key indicator of microbial activity]. And we can also identify the oil-degrading microbes that are there,” Kostka said. “So from the oxygen consumption data and from the type of bacteria that we see there, there’s a thriving oil-degrading microbial community,” he added.

In June, Huettel, Kostka and a small contingent of grad students collected core samples of beach sands from around the Gulf. They braved the mosquitoes and no-see-ums on St. George Island, Fla. to collect control samples from a pristine beach. On Elmer’s Island, La., samples were collected from the opposite extreme: heavily oiled, extremely contaminated sands.

At Pensacola, Fla., the primary research site, they dug trenches and collected core samples.

What emerged was a listing of 14 microbes that metabolize specific compounds in oil. “People often think of these sands as dead. But they’re really not. They’re just covered with microbes. There are nearly as many microorganisms per gram of beach sand as there are in mud,” said Kostka.

Kostka and Huettel have hypothesized that these tiny organisms can be used as indicators of oil contamination in subsurface beach sand. So instead of sending an army of grad students out to the beaches with shovels and energy drinks to dig long, deep trenches in search of buried oil, smaller samples of beach sand could be collected and analyzed to identify microbes that are present in unusually large quantities.

Once an area of contamination has been located, the presence and activity of key microbial groups might provide an indication of what’s under there in terms of the remaining oil compounds and what needs to be done (or can be done) to clean the contamination or protect threatened wildlife.

We were honored Thursday by a visit from one such 10-year-old named Grace, who lives close enough to the National Wildlife Federation’s headquarters to stop by with a special delivery.

Grace had raised more than $1,400 this past Saturday by setting up a lemonade stand in her driveway.

After feeling helpless watching news reports and reading the stories about the wildlife in the Gulf, Grace enlisted her parents in setting up a stand to give away lemonade, apple juice, coffee, doughnuts, cookies, or snacks to anyone who made a minimum $5 donation to National Wildlife Federation.

With some outreach through her neighborhood and school listservs, as well as her mom’s Twitter and Facebook accounts, Grace’s little lemonade stand attracted people from all over the area. In addition to those who biked and walked over to deliver their donations, Grace’s classmates brought their piggybanks and personal savings to donate. Even the principal from Grace’s school and his family came to donate.

Grace delivered the donations in a shoebox decorated with photos of Gulf wildlife, including a picture of a sea turtle hatchling she had the chance to help out in person (watch the video below for the story).

We showed her around NWF Headquarters and introduced her to the editors of Ranger Rick magazine, as well as Eliza Russell, Kevin Coyle and Susan Kaderka, three people who are helping lead the deployment of the National Wildlife Federation’s Gulf Coast Volunteer Surveillance Teams, an effort that Grace’s lemonade stand donations will go directly to supporting.

We hope she had a good time. Likely she’ll be running the place someday!

• Little Hands, Big Hearts – Kids Help Wildlife Impacted by the Oil Spill
• Information about NWF’s Gulf Oil Spill Restoration Fund and How to Donate

Click here to view the embedded video.

Many of my friends’ lives were dramatically impacted by the Exxon Valdez oil spill more than 20 years ago. They went from fishermen to conservationists who happened to fish.

Why?

They saw the devastation the Exxon Valdez oil spill caused to the environment, and ultimately to their community. And they realized that in a world where enormous companies have a profit motive and the means to spend a great deal of money lobbying our government, someone needs to pay attention, to be the squeaky wheel that ensures our coastlines are not oiled.
Mostly what I hear from these folks is sorrow and anger. They remember the oiled coastline of Prince William Sound, and the wildlife that died. And they remember the cost to the fishing town when the herring didn’t come back. Twenty years later, the herring still haven’t come back.

And you know, they also remember being told that nothing could go wrong with the oil tankers, and that the Sound was safe. And they feel sorry and angry for the folks on the Gulf Coast who heard the same thing about the oil rigs.

From Anger to Action

After the Exxon Valdez oil spill, my friends and people around the country used their anger to change things to make oil shipping safer. They changed the rules to require double hulled tankers. Even more importantly, they changed the rules so that in Prince William Sound, a citizen oversight committee was created to watch over oil tankers, to do their own studies of tanker safety, to do their own inspections of oil facilities to make sure the rules were being followed.

We need to take that concept and make it happen all across this country for all oil and gas development. But first, we need to pass an energy bill that moves us into a prosperous future and out of a past where we convince ourselves over and over again that we have to accept the enormous price oil and gas development can exact on wildlife, people and our communities.

Tell your Senators we need to stop pursuing unsafe energy options and pass clean energy legislation now.

“The Day the Water Died”

In fall of the year after the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, the National Wildlife Federation sponsored a series of hearings where more than 120 Alaskans impacted by the oil spill testified before a commission about their views and concerns, illustrating the grave impacts of the spill on Alaska’s wildlife and citizens.

Their stories, thoughts and emotions were then brought together by the National Wildlife Federation in a publication titled, The Day the Water Died.

For more personal stories behind the tragedy of Exxon Valdez, read these excerpts from the testimonies.

By Jim Adams, NWF Regional Executive Director, Alaska Regional Center and Western Regional Center

Help ensure NWF has the funding needed to be on the front lines helping wildlife >>
 

For all the latest news on how the oil spill is impacting the Gulf Coast’s wildlife & to learn how you can help, visit www.nwf.org/OilSpill.

The following is an account from commercial fisherman Michael Roberts of the devastation in the Gulf region in the wake of the BP Oil Spill.

THE BOAT RIDE OUT from Lafitte, Louisiana, Sunday, May 23, 2010, to our fishing grounds was not unlike any other I have taken in my life, as a commercial fisherman from this area. I have made the trip thousands of times in my 35-plus years shrimping and crabbing. A warm breeze in my face, it is a typical Louisiana summer day.

Three people were with me, my wife Tracy, Ian Wren, and our grandson, Scottie. I was soon to find out, how untypical this day would become for me, not unlike a death in the family. This was going to be a very bad day for me.

As we neared Barataria Bay, the smell of crude oil in the air was getting thicker and thicker. An event that always brought joy to me all of my life, the approach of the fishing grounds, was slowly turning into a nightmare.

As we entered Grand Lake, the name we fishermen call Barataria Bay, I started to see a weird, glassy look to the water and soon it became evident to me, there was oil sheen as far as I could see. Soon, we were running past patches of red oil floating on top of the water. As we headed farther south, we saw at least a dozen boats, in the distance, which appeared to be shrimping. We soon realized that shrimping was not what they were doing at all, but instead they were towing oil booms in a desperate attempt to corral oil that was pouring into our fishing grounds.

We stopped to talk to one of the fishermen, towing a boom, a young fisherman from Lafitte. What he told me floored me. He said, “What we are seeing in the lake, the oil, was but a drop in the bucket of what was to come.” He had just come out of the Gulf of Mexico and he said, “It was unbelievable, the oil runs for miles and miles and was headed for shore and into our fishing grounds”. I thought, what I had already seen in the lake was enough for a lifetime.

We talked a little while longer, gave the fisherman some protective respirators and were soon on our way. As we left the small fleet of boats, working feverishly, trying to corral the oil, I became overwhelmed with what I just saw.

I am not real emotional and consider myself a pretty tough guy. You have to be to survive as a fisherman. As I left that scene, tears flowed down my face and I cried. Something I have not done in a long time, but would do several more times that day.

I tried not to let my grandson, Scottie, see me crying. I didn’t think he would understand, I was crying for his stolen future. None of this will be the same, for decades to come. The damage is going to be immense and I do not think our lives here in South Louisiana will ever be the same. He is too young to understand. He has an intense love for our way of life here. He wants to be a fisherman and a fishing guide when he gets older. It is what he is, it is in his soul, and it is his culture. How can I tell him that this may never come to pass now, now that everything he loves in the outdoors may soon be destroyed by this massive oil spill? How do we tell this to a generation of young people, in south Louisiana who live and breathe this bayou life that they love so much, could soon be gone? How do we tell them? All this raced through my mind and I wept.

We continued farther south towards Grand Terre Island. We approached Bird Island. The real name is Queen Bess Island, but we call it Bird Island, because it is always full of birds. It is a rookery, a nesting island for thousands of birds, pelicans, terns, gulls etc.

 As we got closer, we saw that protective boom had been placed around about two thirds of the island.

It was obvious to me, that oil had gone under the boom and was fouling the shore and had undoubtedly oiled some birds. My God. We would see this scene again at Cat Island and other unnamed islands that day.

We continued on to the east past Coup Abel Pass and more shrimp boats trying to contain some of the oil on the surface. We arrived at 4 Bayou Pass to see more boats working on the same thing. We beached the boat and decided to look at the beach between the passes.

The scene was one of horror to me. There was thick red oil on the entire stretch of beach, with oil continuing to wash ashore. The water looked to be infused with red oil, with billions of, what appeared to be, red pebbles of oil washing up on the beach with every wave. The red oil pebbles, at the high tide mark on the beach were melting into pools of red goo in the hot Louisiana sun. The damage was overwhelming. There was nobody there to clean it up. It would take an army to do it. Like so much of coastal Louisiana, it was accessible only by boat. Will it ever be cleaned up? I don’t know. Tears again. We soon left that beach and started to head home.

We took a little different route home, staying a little farther to the east side of Barataria Bay. As we approached the northern end of the bay, we ran into another raft of oil that appeared to be covering many square miles. It was only a mile from the interior bayous on the north side of Barataria Bay. My God. No boats were towing boom in this area. I do not think anyone even knew it was there.

A little bit farther north, we saw some shrimp boats with boom, on anchor, waiting to try and protect Bayou St. Dennis from the oil. I alerted them of the approaching oil. I hope they were able to control it before it reached the bayou. We left them and started to head in.

My heart never felt so heavy, as on that ride in. I thought to myself, this is the most I’ve cried since I was a baby. In fact I am sure it was. This will be a summer of tears for a lot of us in south Louisiana.
 

By Michael Roberts, Louisiana Bayoukeeper, Inc

Help ensure NWF has the funding needed to be on the front lines helping wildlife >>
 

For all the latest news on how the oil spill is impacting the Gulf Coast’s wildlife & to learn how you can help, visit www.nwf.org/OilSpill.