With the BP well apparently capped and not leaking, at least for now, I went back to a few of the Louisianans – our “voices from the spill’’ – some of whom I’ve known for years, other for many months.
I was curious if the capping had washed a big wave of relief over the Gulf States … or if they were expecting some kind of tsunami to follow on the heels of what most are regarding with cautious optimism as a positive sign.
Paul Templet recently retired as a professor of environmental science at LSU; for four years he was head of the state’s Department of Environmental Quality. His experience over the years, in a state long run by the oil industry, has made him a slightly cynical realist.
He answers my question – Why did it take BP so long? – with several of his own.
“Why didn’t they have one of these caps sitting in a warehouse somewhere and put it to use three months ago. Why did they use so much dispersant, which makes the oil harder to recover. Injecting dispersants directly into the plume at the ocean floor means that the oil was distributed throughout the water column and will be difficult, if not impossible, to recover. Otherwise the oil would have risen to the surface and could then have been scooped or skimmed off the surface. But then it would have been visible and that’s why I suspect they were injecting dispersants. The booms and other stuff out there are basically useless.
“Only time will take care of the oil, but I suspect we’ll see it come ashore for years whenever we have a storm in the Gulf.”
Marylee Orr runs the state’s most effective environmental group, the 23-year-old Louisiana Environmental Action Network (L.E.A.N.). Like Templet, she skeptical if hopeful. “It seems to have worked but let’s not forget this is not a permanent fix. The relief well will still have to permanently plug the well bore so we still have a ways to go … and meanwhile we still have the crude oil slick and the dispersed oil plume coming onto shore.
Why did it take so long? She is convinced that no one ever really planned for a “worst-case scenario.”
“I almost fell out of my chair when I heard the Unified Command Center (in Houma) say there was no (plan to clean up a) worst case scenario because they didn’t believe it could ever happen.
“Also, when it comes to the clean-up, we are still using technology from 20 years ago, the exact same as when the Exxon Valdez spilled. I personally asked the EPA why there have been no advances in twenty years. And, for example, what is its plan for bio-remediation, because of all the marshes in Louisiana opposed to the beaches in the other Gulf States? We’re still not getting good answers.
One thing LEAN has noticed is an increase in suicide, substance abuse and domestic violence. “Plaquemine Parish has already seen domestic violence increase 100% since the disaster,” says Orr.
Ivor van Heerden is a coastal restoration expert. He oversaw the commission that investigated the levee failures during Hurricane Katrina and was then let go from his university research position at LSU when his report rubbed some the wrong way (by blaming the Army Corps of Engineers).
He began flyovers of the spill-impacted ocean within hours after the accident, and has been consulting with BP on how to clean up the mess.
In response to why the fix took so long, his take is that it required extremely difficult engineering, taking place a mile below the surface. “They had to fully research the problem; the integrity of the remaining riser; the structural integrity of the ocean bottom above the oil deposit; and then design a structure that would be multifaceted and allow complete closure but also the ability to bleed off oil if needed.”
His reaction to the capping is that “it is a real plus.” He also thinks the oiling of the Louisiana coastline would have been far worse already if they hadn’t somewhat successfully been managing the outflow of fresh water from the Mississippi River to combat it. “But the river is now down and the potential for serious oiling over a larger area exists. So far we have 63 miles of coastline impacted by heavy oiling.
Some locals are not as positive about the capping. “It’s like putting a Band-Aid on a dead man in my opinion,” crabber Jeff Ussury told the New York Times. He doubted the news of the capping was even true. “I started out kind of believing in them,” he said, “but I don’t believe in them at all anymore.”
“What’s to celebrate?” asked Kindra Arnesen is the wife of a shrimper from Plaquemines Parish, La., who I wrote about last week for having witnessed what BP called it’s “balloon and ponies” show.
“My way of life’s over, they’ve destroyed everything I know and love,” she said, before going on to explain, in detail, why she believes the pressure tests are likely to fail.
The most simple and direct response I got to my question (First reaction to the spill apparently being capped?) was from Dean Wilson, who lives on the edge of the Atchafalaya Swamp and is its caretaker. Dean is from Spain but has called the swamp home for the past 25 years. His two-word reply?
“Thanks God.”
If you are a sushi lover with a preference for bluefin tuna, my advice is to eat up during the next couple years because the ocean’s most iconic fish is destined for extinction. (The World Wildlife Fund predicts all bluefin will be gone by 2012; currently we – mostly the Japanese – take 1 million of the big fish each year, out of a total population of 3.75 million, impossible numbers for the fish to adequately reproduce.)
The morning auction of bluefin tuna at Tokyo's Tsukiji market
There had been hope this week at a U.N. meeting of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) that bluefin might be added to the endangered species list, slowing its commercial viability. But today, with the EU opting out of voting (scared to put its tuna fishermen out of business, even after France had intimated it would vote for the ban) and the Japanese pressuring hard, the listing was voted down 68-20. (View a clip from our film-in-progress, “In Pursuit of the Last Bluefin.”)
David Jolly’s report in the NYT: Efforts to ban international trade in bluefin tuna and polar bears were rejected Thursday by a United Nations conference on endangered species, as delegates in Doha, Qatar refused to back the U.S.-backed measures.
A proposal by Monaco to extend the highest level of U.N. protection to the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin, a fish prized by sushi lovers for its fatty belly flesh, failed by a lopsided vote of 20-68, with 30 abstentions, Juan Carlos Vasquez, a spokesman for the U.N. organization, said.
“It wasn’t a very good day for conservation,” Mr. Vasquez said. “It shows the governments are not ready to adopt trade bans as a way to protect species.”
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora counts 175 member governments, though far fewer were represented for the votes in Doha. European Union nations, whose fleets are most responsible for the overfishing of the bluefin, abstained from voting.
The rejection was a defeat for environmentalists and a clear victory for the Japanese government, which had vowed to go all out to stop the measure. Japan, which consumes more than three-quarters of the Mediterranean bluefin catch, argued that the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, or Iccat, an intergovernmental organization, should be responsible for regulating the stock, not the United Nations.
While there is near-universal agreement that bluefin stocks are in danger, Japan’s argument resonated with other fishing nations, which were uneasy about what would have marked the first intrusion by the convention into a major commercial fishery.
But an independent review commissioned by Iccat shows that its own record on managing the fish“ is widely regarded as an international disgrace.” The agency has presided over more than two-thirds decline in the stock since 1970 — with much of that drop coming in just the last decade with the onset of huge industrial fishing operations and tuna “ranching.” And while the organization, which has no effective enforcement mechanism, has the authority to set quotas, year after year it has set the catch above the level that its own scientists say is safe to ensure the health of the species.
Susan Lieberman, director of international policy for the Pew Environment Group, said Thursday’s vote was “ an unfortunate step backwards.” She added: “This deeply disappointing and irresponsible vote signals a bleak future for this iconic fish.”
This is the second time Japan has defeated a proposal at the conference to protect the bluefin. A similar proposal by Sweden failed at 1992 UN convention in Kyoto. While the bluefin vote was held by secret ballot, Japanese officials said this week that China and South Korea also opposed the measure, and Canada openly opposed it.
In a joint statement, Janez Potocnik, the European environment commissioner and Maria Damanaki, the commissioner for maritime affairs and fisheries, said they were “disappointed” with the outcome, and called for Iccat to “take its responsibility to ensure that stocks are managed in a sustainable way.” If no action is taken, they warned, “there is a very serious danger that the bluefin tuna will no longer exist.”
For a scary look into the near-future of Chile (and all earthquake-prone locales worldwide), have a look at www.earthquakes.usgs.gov, which is tracking and posting an hour-by-hour count on continued tremors in Chile. Fifty minutes ago a 5.5 magnitude quake was registered at Libertador General Bernardo O’Higgins; six hours ago a 5.8 magnitude quake rolled under the Bio-Bio region; two days ago it was 6.6. just offshore Bio-Bio. These strong aftershocks are keeping hundreds of thousands of people both frightened and unwilling to sleep inside.
Last November I had Andy Revkin of the Times on the phone minutes after he had stepped off a plane in New York from Istanbul, one of the most quake-threatened cities in the world. He’d gone to Turkey to research a story about the future of man and earthquakes, since the disasters seemed inevitable. It was a smart reporting move, coming just a couple months before sizable quakes rocked both Haiti and Chile. His story, published ten days ago, suggests that if an earthquake similar in strength to what hit Port au Prince hit Istanbul, a million people could die. And the Chile quake was many times more powerful than the one that struck Haiti.
Andy reports that the World Bank has loaned Turkey $800 million to help bolster schools, hospitals and public buildings against the most severe earthquake shock, but that will hardly be enough.
On a more personal note, I heard last week from old friend Daniel Gonzalez, one of Chile’s most switched-on environmentalists (he’s worked off and on over the years helping Doug Tompkins assemble his million-plus acre national park and is now working to help keep southern Patagonia free of even more hydropower dams). Daniel and his entire family are friends; they are from Concepcion, Chile’s second-largest city, situated near the epi-center of Chile’s initial quake. Currently living in Colorado, he’s headed home in a few days and his big concern is that while summer is just winding down, the cold months of winter are not far off and it’s unlikely that the one-million-plus people left homeless by the quake will have adequate places to live. He’s encouraging everyone – especially those of us with strong connections in the outdoor consumer goods world – to think about donating and sending tents, sleeping bags, fleece, boots and headlamps down south.
The newly-elected president of Chile, Sebastian Pinera, is to be inaugurated in a few days. On one hand these next months will be an incredible trial by fire for he and his new administration, testing its ability to both rebuild the country and simultaneously keep the populace safe and optimistic. On the other, the rebuilding will funnel all kinds of international aid money and loans into Chile, which – if spent prudently – will allow the government to properly fix a lot of infrastructure that needed to be fixed.
While earthquakes are currently natural disaster number one, for obvious reasons, they are just one threat that will grow as man’s booming numbers continue to crowd the natural world. Stay-tuned as the ocean continues to rise at record pace ….
I spent part of this early Antarctic morning on the back deck of the ship reading a summary of the past eleven day’s events in Copenhagen, a long story downloaded at very slow rate from the New York Times. Between readings I looked up, to remind myself where I was, surrounded in a narrow bay by miles of glaciers running down to the ocean’s edge; icebergs calved off the glaciers littered the blue-black sea. It is this very calving and melting of the glaciers which should have been on the mind of everyone who participated in the climate talks in Denmark, because if they continue to dissipate at the current rate due to warming air and sea temperatures along the Peninsula, it will help raise sea levels around the world by ten feet or so.
A now typical summer day in Antarctica: Melting ice + Rain
Rather than being filled with optimism after this long-trumpeted confab, without much reading between the lines it’s clear that not a lot was accomplished in Copenhagen other than the expulsion of a lot more hot air. Some highlights from the Times summary:
· “A grudging agreement to ‘take note’ … not a blinding pledge ….”
· “A compromise seen to represent a flawed but essential step forward many of the delegates of the 193 countries that had gathered here left Copenhagen in a sour mood, disappointed that the pact lacked so many elements they considered crucial …”
· “President Obama called it a ‘modest step.’
· “… The chaos and contentiousness of the talks may signal the end of reliance on a process that for almost two decades had been viewed as the best approach to tackling global warming.”
· “… Virtually impossible to forge consensus among disparate blocs of countries fighting over environmental guilt, future costs and who should referee the results.”
· “… Even if countries live up to their commitments on emissions, a stark gap remains between nations’ combined pledges and what would be required to reliably avert the risks of disruptive change in rainfall and drought, ecosystems and polar ice cover from global warming …”
· “The Copenhagen accord … hardly moved the treaty process from where it was in 2007.”
· “Speaker after speaker from the developing world denounced the deal as a sham process fashioned behind closed doors …”
· “As his motorcade idled in front of the conference center, Mr. Obama took to a rostrum …”
(Per an earlier promise, I tried to search out some figures on the carbon footprint of the event, but found few specific numbers, though I did find others, i.e 1,200 limousines, 140 private jets, 15,000 delegates, 10,000 environmental activists and lobbyists, over 100 world leaders and 5,000 journalists. According to summit organizers the 11-day conference, including the participants’ travel, created a total of 41,000 tons of “carbon dioxide equivalent,” equal to the amount produced over the same period by a U.S. city, population 225,000. Next time, perhaps, try tele-conferencing?)
It’s interesting to ponder all this debate, which seems very far away from where I sit, from a place that is pretty successfully governed by international treaty. The Antarctic Treaty, signed in 1959 by 49 nations, was and is clearly less complex than any international climate change agreement. But, amended in 1991 to exclude any exploitation of oil or minerals until 2041, the Antarctic Treaty is proof that countries can come together to try and protect a place. Whether or not they’ll ever do that regarding climate change also seems a long way off.
In my travels along the world’s coastlines I’ve seen thousands of miles of beaches nearly buried beneath plastic waste – bottles, beer crates, flip-flops, fishing cord, etc. – washed up from … well, that’s always an interesting question. Where exactly does all that plastic originate? A lot of it comes from boats (fishing, commercial, cruise, sport), some from landfills built too close the sea and some simply from lazy citizens who still toss garbage of all kind onto the beach or directly into the ocean.The Times has a great piece today about a novel program, being monitored by M.I.T.’s Senseable City Laboratory, which has put tracking devices on three thousand pieces of garbage collected from individuals and businesses from Seattle to New York. The results of their trackings will be displayed in real time online and in exhibitions at the Architectural League on Thursday and the Seattle Public Library on Saturday.
Trash-to-be-tracked, Photo by Kevin P. Casey
What caught my eye was the comment by the lab’s director Carlo Ratti on how the project might impact people to pick up after themselves. “If you see where a plastic bottle ends up, a few miles down the road in a dump, you may want to get tap water or some other container for the water,” Mr. Ratti told the Times.
I’m going to call M.I.T. and encourage them to expand the program, to attach tracking devices specifically to a wide-range of plastic used near a coastline or on an international container ship and see just how much of it ends up in the ocean … and then what path it takes once there. I wonder if those tracking devices are waterproof?
Reading the Times today I got very nostalgic. A trio of stories took me back to places I’ve traveled over the years and characters I’ve met, ironically while reporting for the Times.
I’m just back recently from the Maldives so read with great interest the Magazine’s profile of the country’s new president Mohamed Nasheed and his struggles with preparing his low-lying country for inevitable sea level rise. Or at least it seems inevitable; there are a couple voices in the story that suggest rising seas may not be an assured thing. I first visited the Maldives in 2005, on assignment for the Times, just weeks after tsunami waves killed eight hundred of its residents.
The Maldives
Jeffrey Gettleman’s profile of a Somali pirate leader, set on land rather than sea, is eye opening, especially on the heels of the series we ran last week about a passenger ship making its way up the coast, dodging pirates. The story paints a picture of battling forces within Somalia, debating the propriety of rebels wreaking havoc on the open seas. While pirate leaders continue to argue that over fishing by international fleets and the complete lack of government in Somalia has lead to the need for piracy, they’re having a hard time selling the argument even at home. The best part of the story was that its “hero” had already burned through several hundred thousand dollars in ransom he’d personally collected, claiming, “It’s not like three people split a million bucks. It’s more like 300.”
Closer to home there’s a fun profile of the coming 40th anniversary of Woodstock in the Style section … which prompted me to search and reread the story I wrote for the Times Magazine about Woodstock on its 25th anniversary. What hasn’t changed in the past fifteen years? The original organizers still don’t get along (though one of the original foursome – John Roberts – passed away in 2001). Will they be able to get their collective shit together and host some kind of 40th bash?
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