Page 24: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (June 2, 2010)

On April 20th, our maritime world changed. No matter how you slice it, everyone in the maritime industry feels the effects of the tragedy; the loss of 11 lives and injury to 17 others, the exten- sive environmental impact, the economic fallout and ongoing costs, the exposure of weaknesses in the response system, and the regulatory changes that will re- sult from this. The details of the event are well known: the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, also called the BP Oil Spill/the

Gulf of Mexico oil spill, is now consid- ered the largest offshore spill in U.S. his- tory. It has surpassed in volume the 1989

Exxon Valdez oil spill as the largest ever in U.S. territorial waters; however, it is still outranked in the greater Gulf of

Mexico by the 1979 Ixtoc I oil spill. The spill emanates from a sea floor oil gusher 5,000 miles below the surface that started with an oil well blowout. The blowout caused a catastrophic explosion on the

Deepwater Horizon offshore oil drilling platform that was situated about 40 miles southeast of the Louisiana coast.

Current estimates of the amount of oil being discharged range from 12,000– 100,000 barrels per day, although as of this writing, the preliminary best estimate that was released on May 27 by the semi- official Flow Rate Technical Group put the volume of oil flowing from the blown-out well at “only” 12,000 to 19,000 barrels per day, which had amounted to between 440,000 and 700,000 barrels as of the date of the blowout. Obviously, as further data is collected and evaluated, the estimates will get more reliable.

In a response plan BP submitted to the

U.S. Minerals Management Service (the regulatory body covering offshore drilling) as it’s “worst case scenario”, BP asserted that it could handle up to 162,000 barrels per day release, and that the chance of oil reaching the shoreline within 30 days was estimated at 3 percent or less for most coastal areas, except

Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish, which the company said had a 21 percent chance of seeing oil onshore within 30 days. Clearly, this plan has proven to be optimistic rather than realistic.

The impact on the environment remains unclear, as the daily reports of oil land- ings, death or rehabilitation of affected fish and wildlife continues, not to men- tion the impact on the fisheries. While some estimates say that it will take 10 years for the event’s impact to be “flushed out”, others point to the historic

Ixtoc I release and the Gulf’s survival from that event. Dr. Quenton Dokken,

Executive Director for the Gulf of Mex- ico Foundation summarizes it as follows: “Oil in the Gulf of Mexico is not new – it has been entering the Gulf of Mexico for as long as the Gulf has existed: 1. Natural seepage (1-2 super- tankers/year or ~1,090,910 barrels/yr) 2. Marine shipping disasters (just since 1990 145,234 barrels and during

WWII 56 ships were sunk in the GOM) 3. Shipping os (bilge cleaning) 4. O&G production (IXTOC I in 1979 3.2m barrels over a 10-month period) 5. Chronic spills in recreational and commercial marinas (significant) 6. Storm water runoff within the wa- tershed of the Mississippi River and all other river systems feeding into the Gulf of Mexico and from coastal communities (perhaps largest source of all) 7. Spills from hurricane impact (159,091 barrels during Katrina) 8. Other (refinery spill 71,000 barrels)

Why is this important to know? Based on scientific measurement and history - hydrocarbons in the system have always been adequately dealt with by nature. It is not likely that the oil flowing into Gulf today will still be there a year from now.

That being said, although oil and gas in the Gulf is not new, it is imperative that we reduce and eliminate human inputs where possible. Science does not have a clue as to the total capacity of the Gulf of

Mexico to absorb pollutants that we dump into it. We do not know which straw “will break the camel’s back.”

Without question these human inputs can be stopped if we humans are willing to make the commitment to do so.”

While the environmental impacts are still unknown, the financial ones are eas- ier to quantify. Since the event of April 20th, BP has lost $67 billion of its market value. Further, as of this writing, the cost for cleanup to BP totals nearly $1 billion, an average of $22 million a day. It is im- possible to put a price tag on the reputa- tional cost to BP, but between the cost of the cleanup, the pending litigation, and the drop in share price has made them vulnerable to a takeover. The fishing in- dustry is estimated to lose $2.5 billion and the Florida tourism $3 billion.

What are truly revealed by this tragic event are the weaknesses in responding to a subsea disaster. It seems our tech- nologies are advanced in exploration and extraction, but these advances are not matched by corresponding advances in response and remediation technologies.

While our capabilities to reach new depths to reach oil and gas reserves in waters over 10,000 feet deep, this event has put a spotlight on how our response to crisis is inadequate to the task of deal- ing in such depths. Dr. Dokken attributes that to the lack of funding for such tech- nologies outside of military or research use. Finally, there is Congress who must act to demonstrate their leadership in the wake of this event. The writing is on the wall that OPA 90 will be rewritten, but it is hoped that Congress will take a surgi- cal approach, rather than treat shipping and offshore as the same entity, espe- cially when it comes to lifting the cap on liability. As many have said, removing the cap entirely will make it impossible to insure risk. And that is the lesson we must learn: managing risk. Perhaps it is the wrath of Poseidon that we are re- minded that our environment needs our care and protection. Perhaps in our world of advanced technologies and communi- cations we need to better evaluate our risk management procedures. As George

McBundy said: “There is no safety in un- limited technological hubris.” 24 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News

COLUMN OIL SPILL UPDATE

Deepwater Horizon

Further proof that oil and water don’t mix

About the Author

Carleen Lyden-Kluss is the

Co-Founder and Executive

Director of NAMEPA (North

American Marine Environ- ment Protection Associa- tion). She holds a USCG 100-ton Captain’s license.