Some oil spill events from Wednesday, June 9, 2010

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Some oil spill events from Wednesday, June 9, 2010

A summary of events on Wednesday, June 9, Day 50 of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that began with the April 20 explosion and fire on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, owned by Transocean Ltd. and leased by BP PLC, which is in charge of cleanup and containment. The blast killed 11 workers. Since then, oil has been pouring into the Gulf from a blown-out undersea well.

OVERVIEW

Gulf Coast fishermen, businesses and property owners who have filed damage claims with BP over the oil spill are angrily complaining of delays, excessive paperwork and skimpy payments that have put them on the verge of going under as the financial and environmental toll of the disaster grows by the day. Out in the Gulf of Mexico, BP captured an ever larger-share of the crude gushing from the bottom of the sea and made plans to bring in more heavy equipment to handle it.

DAMAGE CLAIMS

Shrimpers, oystermen, seafood businesses, out-of-work drilling crews and the tourism industry all are lining up to get paid back the billions of dollars washed away by the disaster, and tempers have flared as locals direct outrage at BP over what they see as a tangle of red tape.

COLLECTING OIL

The containment cap on the ruptured well is capturing 630,000 gallons a day and pumping it to a ship at the surface, and the amount could nearly double by next week to roughly 1.17 million gallons, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said. A second vessel that will arrive within days is expected to boost capacity greatly. BP also plans to bring in a tanker from the North Sea to help transport oil and an incinerator to burn off some of the crude.

WILDLIFE

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported that a wildlife rescue center at Fort Jackson, La., received more than five times as many oily birds in the past few days than in the previous six weeks combined. It got a little more than 400 birds since the BP well blew out, and more than 350 of those have been reported since Thursday.

HEALTH CONCERNS

Crews working to contain the hundreds of thousands of gallons still spewing from the sea floor toiled under oppressive conditions as the heat index soared to 110 degrees and toxic vapors emanated from the site of the disaster. Fire ships were on hand to pour water on the surface to mitigate the fumes.

SKETCHY PLANS

BP’s spill plans for the Gulf and the Deepwater Horizon rig are riddled with omissions and glaring errors, according to an Associated Press analysis that details how BP officials have pretty much been making it up as they go along. The lengthy plans approved by the federal government last year before BP drilled its ill-fated well vastly understate the dangers posed by an uncontrolled leak and vastly overstate the company’s preparedness to deal with one.

MORATORIUM

The government’s ban on deepwater petroleum drilling in the Gulf of Mexico was challenged by Hornbeck Offshore Services Inc., a Louisiana petroleum service company that filed a federal lawsuit in New Orleans claiming there is no legal justification for the six-month moratorium. Hornbeck’s vessel fleet hauls people and supplies to offshore drilling rigs and production platforms.

WASHINGTON

Interior Department officials at a Senate hearing expressed confidence that more precise numbers on the flow rate from the broken well will soon be available from a special task force of scientists, which said it may release a new estimate as early as Thursday or Friday. President Barack Obama is visiting the Gulf Coast again next week, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi set a strict deadline for new oil spill legislation.

PROTEST

In a grass-roots movement inspired by the 1980s Hands Across America human chain effort, beachgoers in 30 states and nearly a dozen countries plan to join hands this month to form symbolic barriers to protect the shoreline from oil spills. The Hands Across The Sand movement started in Florida in February, before the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster off Louisiana created America’s worst oil spill.