Oil remaining in the gulf: Federal Report 26%, new Scientists Report 79%

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Federal Science Report Details Fate of Oil from BP Spill

August 4, 2010



The vast majority of the oil from the BP oil spill has either evaporated or been burned, skimmed, recovered from the wellhead or dispersed much of which is in the process of being degraded. A significant amount of this is the direct result of the robust federal response efforts.
A third (33 percent) of the total amount of oil released in the Deepwater Horizon/BP spill was captured or mitigated by the Unified Command recovery operations, including burning, skimming, chemical dispersion and direct recovery from the wellhead, according to a federal science report released today.

An additional 25 percent of the total oil naturally evaporated or dissolved, and 16 percent was dispersed naturally into microscopic droplets. The residual amount, just over one quarter (26 percent), is either on or just below the surface as residue and weathered tarballs, has washed ashore or been collected from the shore, or is buried in sand and sediments. Dispersed and residual oil remain in the system until they degrade through a number of natural processes. Early indications are that the oil is degrading quickly.

These estimates were derived by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of the Interior (DOI), who jointly developed whats known as an Oil Budget Calculator, to provide
measurements and best estimates of what happened to the spilled oil.

The calculator is based on 4.9 million barrels of oil released into the Gulf, the governments Flow Rate Technical Group estimate from Monday.
More than 25 of the best government and independent scientists contributed to or reviewed the calculator and its calculation methods.

Deepwater Horizon Oil Budget

Teams of scientists and experts have been carefully tracking the oil since day one of this spill, and based on the data from those efforts and their collective expertise, they have been able to provide these useful and educated estimates about the fate of the oil, says Jane Lubchenco, under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. Less oil on the surface does not mean that there isnt oil still in the water column or that our beaches and marshes arent still at risk. Knowing generally what happened to the oil helps us better understand areas of risk and likely impacts.

The estimates do not make conclusions about the long-term impacts of oil on the Gulf. Fully understanding the damages and impacts of the spill on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem is something that will take time and continued monitoring and research.

Dispersion increases the likelihood that the oil will be biodegraded, both in the water column and at the surface. While there is more analysis to be done to quantify the rate of biodegradation in the Gulf, early observations and preliminary research results from a number of scientists show that the oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon spill is biodegrading quickly. Scientists from NOAA, EPA, DOE, and academic scientists are working to calculate more precise estimates of this rate.

It is well known that bacteria that break down the dispersed and weathered surface oil are abundant in the Gulf of Mexico in large part because of the warm water, the favorable nutrient and oxygen levels, and the fact that oil enters the Gulf of Mexico through natural seeps regularly.
Residual oil is also degraded and weathered by a number of physical and biological processes. Microbes consume the oil, and wave action, sun, currents and continued evaporation and dissolution continue to break down the residual oil in the water and on shorelines.

The oil budget calculations are based on direct measurements wherever possible and the best available scientific estimates where measurements were not possible. The numbers for direct recovery and burns were measured directly and reported in daily operational reports. The skimming numbers were also based on daily reported estimates. The rest of the numbers were based on previous scientific analyses, best available information and a broad range of scientific expertise. These estimates will continue to be refined as additional information becomes available.

Full Inter-Agency Report Describing the Oil Budget Calculator.
Further information on the calculation methods is available in the

Deepwater Horizon Gulf Incident Budget Tool Report from Aug 1, 2010.
NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Visit us on Facebook.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100804_oil.html

[Pathfinder]

Re: Federal Science Report Details Fate of Oil from BP Spill

Oil Spill Estimates May Be Too Optimistic

About three quarters of nearly 5 million barrels of oil has been accounted for, according to a federal report. Is the worst really over?


By Eric Niiler
Wed Aug 4, 2010 06:45 PM ET

Excerpt:

"McDonald questions the methodology used by NOAA and the U.S. Geological Survey in the new report.

"Most of the numbers there are extrapolations based on theories rather than direct measurements," McDonald told Discovery News. "That residual oil -- that 26 percent -- there's no way in the world that they've measured that."

McDonald also pointed out that NOAA officials denied the existence of underwater plumes of oil for weeks, until a university research vessel discovered them 75 miles from the spill site. Now, NOAA officials say that 49 percent of the oil has been dispersed into the water.

"That's an about-face which is not commented on at all," McDonald said."


Full article:

http://news.discovery.com/earth/oil-spill-estimates-report.html

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Re: Federal Science Report Details Fate of Oil from BP Spill

Posted on Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Scientists cast doubt on claims BP spill's no threat to Gulf

By Erika Bolstad, Renee Schoof and Margaret Talev | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Many scientists say they're skeptical of a widely publicized government report Wednesday that concludes much of the oil that gushed from BP's leaking well is gone and poses little threat to the Gulf of Mexico.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the "vast majority" of the 4.9 million barrels released into the Gulf has either evaporated "or been burned, skimmed, and recovered from the wellhead, or dispersed."

"I'm suspect if that's accurate or not," said Ronald Kendall, the director of the Institute of Environmental and Human Health at Texas Tech University and one of the scientists who testified Wednesday at a congressional hearing about the need for more research into the composition and use of chemical dispersants to break up the oil in the Gulf.

...

Much more:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/0...#ixzz0vggh32UG

[Pathfinder]

Re: Federal Science Report Details Fate of Oil from BP Spill

Fox News VIDEO:

Shepard Smith interviews scientist Ian Macdonald

August 5, 2010
How Much Oil Is Really Left in Gulf?

Experts challenge White House claims about amount of crude still contaminating water

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/shepard-smith/index.html#/v/4303393/how-much-oil-is-really-left-in-gulf/?playlist_id=158152

[Pathfinder]

Oil remaining in the gulf: Federal Report 26%, new Scientists Report, 79%

<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=arttext height=129 vAlign=top>UGA NEWS Service

News Release
Last Updated: Aug 16th, 2010 - 16:57:45

Report concludes that nearly 80 percent of oil from Gulf spill remains

Media briefing featuring Samantha Joye, Charles Hopkinson scheduled for 11 a.m., Aug. 17

Writer: Sam Fahmy, 706/542-5361, sfahmy@uga.edu
Contact: Jill Gambill, 305/542-8975, jgambill@uga.edu
Aug 16, 2010, 16:56

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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Athens, Ga. ? A report released today by the Georgia Sea Grant and the University of Georgia concludes that up to 79 percent of the oil released into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon well has not been recovered and remains a threat to the ecosystem.

The report, authored by five prominent marine scientists, strongly contradicts media reports that suggest that only 25 percent of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill remains.

?One major misconception is that oil that has dissolved into water is gone and, therefore, harmless,? said Charles Hopkinson, director of Georgia Sea Grant and professor of marine sciences in the University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. ?The oil is still out there, and it will likely take years to completely degrade. We are still far from a complete understanding of what its impacts are.?

Co-authors on the paper include Jay Brandes, associate professor, Skidaway Institute of Oceanography; Samantha Joye, professor of marine sciences, UGA; Richard Lee, professor emeritus, Skidaway; and Ming-yi Sun, professor of marine sciences UGA.

Hopkinson and Joye will discuss the report and the fate of gas released into the Gulf of Mexico at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 17. The briefing will be held in Room 261 of the Marine Sciences building on the UGA campus. Reporters can join the briefing via teleconference by dialing toll-free 888-204-5987 and entering access code 2560397.

The group analyzed data from the Aug. 2 National Incident Command Report, which calculated an ?oil budget? that was widely interpreted to suggest that only 25 percent of the oil from the spill remained.

Hopkinson notes that the reports arrive at different conclusions largely because the Sea Grant and UGA scientists estimate that the vast majority of the oil classified as dispersed, dissolved or residual is still present, whereas the NIC report has been interpreted to suggest that only the ?residual? form of oil is still present.

Hopkinson said that his group also estimated how much of the oil could have evaporated, degraded or weathered as of the date of the report. Using a range of reasonable evaporation and degradation estimates, the group calculated that 70-79 percent of oil spilled into the Gulf still remains. The group showed that it was impossible for all the dissolved oil to have evaporated because only oil at the surface of the ocean can evaporate into the atmosphere and large plumes of oil are trapped in deep water.

Another difference is that the NIC report estimates that 4.9 million barrels of oil were released from the wellhead, while the Sea Grant report uses a figure of 4.1 million barrels since .8 million barrels were piped directly from the well to surface ships and, therefore, never entered Gulf waters.

On a positive note, the group noted that natural processes continue to transform, dilute, degrade and evaporate the oil. They add that circular current known as the Franklin Eddy is preventing the Loop Current from bringing oil-contaminated water from the Gulf to the Atlantic, which bodes well for the East Coast.

Joye said that both the NIC report and the Sea Grant report are best estimates and emphasizes the need for a sustained and coordinated research effort to better understand the impacts of what has become the world?s worst maritime oil spill. She warned that neither report accounted for hydrocarbon gasses such as methane in their oil budgets.

?That?s a gaping hole,? Joye said, ?because hydrocarbon gasses are a huge portion of what was ejected from the well.?

##

Note to editors:


The complete Georgia Sea Grant/University of Georgia Oil Spill report is available online at

http://uga.edu/aboutUGA/joye_pkit/GeorgiaSeaGrant_OilSpillReport8-16.pdf.


Figures from the report are available at

http://uga.edu/aboutUGA/joye_pkit/GeorgiaSeaGrant_OilChart.pdf.

http://www.uga.edu/news/artman/publish/100816_Sea_Grant.shtml

[Pathfinder]

Re: Oil remaining in the gulf: Federal Report 26%, new Scientists Report 79%

Oil found on Gulf floor, scientists say

by Cain Burdeau and Seth Borenstein / Associated Press
wwltv.com
Posted on September 13, 2010 at 5:19 PM

NEW ORLEANS -- Far beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, deeper than divers can go, scientists say they are finding oil from the busted BP well on the sea's muddy and mysterious bottom.

Oil at least two inches thick was found Sunday night and Monday morning about a mile beneath the surface. Under it was a layer of dead shrimp and other small animals, said University of Georgia researcher Samantha Joye, speaking from the helm of a research vessel in the Gulf.

The latest findings show that while the federal government initially proclaimed much of the spilled oil gone, now it's not so clear.

At these depths, the ocean is a cold and dark world. Yet scientists say that even though it may be out of sight, oil found there could do significant harm to the strange creatures that dwell in the depths -- tube worms, tiny crustaceans and mollusks, single-cell organisms and Halloween-scary fish with bulging eyes and skeletal frames.

"I expected to find oil on the sea floor," Joye said Monday morning in a ship-to-shore telephone interview. "I did not expect to find this much. I didn't expect to find layers two inches thick. It's weird the stuff we found last night. Some of it was really dense and thick."

Joye said 10 of her 14 samples showed visible oil, including all the ones taken north of the busted well. She found oil on the sea floor as far as 80 miles away from the site of the spill.

"It's kind of like having a blizzard where the snow comes in and covers everything," Joye said.

And the look of the oil, its state of degradation, the way it settled on freshly dead animals all made it unlikely that the crude was from the millions of gallons of oil that naturally seep into the Gulf from the sea bottom each year, she said. Later this week, the oil will be tested for the chemical fingerprints that would conclusively link it to the BP spill.

"It has to be a recent event," Joye said. "There's still pieces of warm bodies there."

Since the well was capped on July 15 after some 200 million gallons flowed into the Gulf, there have been signs of resilience on the surface and the shore. Sheens have disappeared, while some marshlands have shoots of green. This seeming recovery is likely a result of massive amounts of chemical dispersants, warm waters and a Gulf that is used to degrading massive amounts of oil, scientists say.

Animal deaths also are far short of worst-case scenarios. But at the same time, a massive invisible plume of oil has been found under the surface, shifting scientists' concerns from what can be easily seen to what can't be.

For Ian MacDonald, a Florida State University biological oceanographer who wasn't part of Joye's team, the latest findings confirm that government assessments about how much oil remains -- especially a report on the subject by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in August -- were too optimistic.

The oil "did not disappear," he said. "It sank."
.../

http://www.wwltv.com/news/Oil-found-on-Gulf-floor-scientists-say-102814384.html

[Pathfinder]

Re: Oil remaining in the gulf: Federal Report 26%, new Scientists Report 79%

Storms will spread subsurface oil, LSU researcher claims

<!-- /HEADLINE --><!-- MAIN PHOTO --><!-- /MAIN PHOTO --><!-- BYLINE -->
By Nikki Buskey
Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 11:19 a.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 12:21 p.m.

HOUMA ? Challenging government and BP claims, an LSU scientist says oil lurks beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, and ocean currents and tropical storms may bring it ashore in waves.

Gregory Stone, director of LSU's Coastal Studies Institute, recently took a three-hour flyover of oiled waters along the Gulf Coast, where he said subsurface oil was easily visible from overhead.

He said he disagrees with published estimates from government scientists, cited repeatedly by BP, that more than 75 percent of the oil spilled after the Deepwater Horizon disaster oil rig exploded April 20 has disappeared.

?We got in the helicopter and flew the coast that had been heavily oiled,? Stone said. ?We were happy to see that the oil on the surface had disappeared, but we could see what was going on under the water. We could see the clouds of oil under the surface.?

Samantha Joye, a professor with the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Georgia, has revealed her discovery of a layer of oil resting on the sea bottom. Inside that residue, scientists found dead shrimp, zooplankton, worms and other invertebrates.

?MOST DEFINITELY THERE'

?It's most definitely there,? Stone said. ?It's just a matter of time before it makes itself known again.?

.../
Much more:

http://www.houmatoday.com/article/20...earcher-claims-