Re: Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster- Update on BP's attempt to stop the oil leaks
Re: Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster- Update on BP's attempt to stop the oil leaks
DATE: September 15, 2010 5:53:07 PM CDT
Transcript ? Press Briefing and Teleconference by National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen and NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco
Below is a transcript from Wednesday's press briefing and teleconference by Admiral Thad Allen, National Incident Commander for the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill and Dr. Jane Lubchenco, NOAA Administrator
A downloadable audio file of the conference is available here.
Graphics used during the press briefing are available here and here.
Photos of subsurface equipment are available here, here, and here.
September 15, 2010
Admiral Allen: Thank you. Good morning from <?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = ST1 /><ST1
LACE w:st="on"><ST1:CITY w:st="on">Kenner</ST1:CITY>, <ST1:STATE w:st="on">Louisiana</ST1:STATE></ST1
LACE>. I'm delighted to be here today with representatives of the seafood industry and the restaurant industry together with the (inaudible) representative of academia and Dr. Jane Lubchenco the NOAA administrator.
I want to hit a couple of things this morning, give you an update and then Dr. Lubchenco is going to come up and we're going to talk about subsea oil monitoring and our intentions and (inaudible) on that.
But first of all I'd like to point out a few folks that are here with me behind me today that are joining us here at <ST1:CITY w:st="on"><ST1
LACE w:st="on">Kenner</ST1
LACE></ST1:CITY>. First one is Harlon Pearce
who is chair of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion Board. We also have the executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion Board, Ewell Smith. Ewell, thank you for being here and Jim Funk the executive director of the Louisiana Restaurant Association.
As you know the issue of seafood safety has loomed large in the media and elsewhere. I'm here to tell you this is my third day in the Gulf and
I've had seafood every day I've been here. This is the most tested and safest seafood in the world right now. This seafood is ready for the rest of the world and the world needs to know that. And I'm here with the members of the community involved with preparing that seafood to get it out to you to let you know that the Gulf is ready and you should have no qualms about getting seafood that has been tested from the Gulf.
If I could real quick we started this morning the final drilling process to close in on the bottom of the Macondo Well. As you know we've had several segments of activity that have taken place. It started with the static kill to fill the well with cement. We've ended a number of tests.
We concluded (inaudible) to remove the blowout preventer.
That has been done. As you know that equipment has all been shipped to the Coast Guard base at the NASA (inaudible) in <ST1
LACE w:st="on"><ST1:CITY w:st="on">New Orleans</ST1:CITY></ST1
LACE> where it remains under supervision of the joint investigation team and the Department of Justice.
We are demobilizing what?s not needed at the well site right now. And as we speak, earlier this morning, Development Driller III began the last drilling (inaudible) into the annulus of the drill pipe and we would expect some time in the next 24 hours to actually intercept the well.
The steps after the well intercept will be to ascertain the condition of the annulus. As you know we do not know what the condition of the annulus is whether or not there are hydrocarbons in it, communication with the reservoir and so forth. Today will give us a lot of information especially when we get close and finally conduct the intercept looking at the changes in pressure of the drilling mud that's going in and out.
That will be something that we're monitoring very closely. And we will give you update throughout the day. I have been notifying and updating the senior leadership in <ST1
LACE w:st="on"><ST1:STATE w:st="on">Washington</ST1:STATE></ST1
LACE> as we move forward.
What I would like to do now is just shift to the next part of the opening statements and then we'll be glad to take some questions from you. From the start we have known that this has been the largest oil spill in <ST1:COUNTRY-REGION w:st="on"><ST1
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LACE></ST1:COUNTRY-REGION> history. We know that the impacts of this spill have been far reaching.
We have been defending the coastline from <ST1:ADDRESS w:st="on"><ST1:STREET w:st="on">Port St.</ST1:STREET> <ST1:CITY w:st="on">Joe</ST1:CITY>, <ST1:STATE w:st="on">Florida</ST1:STATE></ST1:ADDRESS> over to tar balls that have come to shore in <ST1:STATE w:st="on"><ST1
LACE w:st="on">Texas</ST1
LACE></ST1:STATE>. And there are concerns about how much oil is in the water and the amount of hydrocarbons, how that's affecting the Gulf. We work very close with the Unified Area Command here in New Orleans under the leadership of Admiral Zukunft who will continue to direct our operations when the National Incident Command is redeployed here shortly.
And we have worked with NOAA, our federal counterparts and academia to take a look at the (inaudible) possible for subsea monitoring for hydrocarbons. A lot of unanswered questions, we've never had a spill of this magnitude. The public wants to know what?s going on and quite frankly we all do too.
There has been a massive effort to conduct sampling from the start of this event. We're going to give you a little bit more detail this morning about how we've been moving forward and how we intend to move forward in the future to try and get as much information as we can, to make that information transparent and talk about the implications of the data that's in relation to the future of the Gulf.
So with that I'd like to now introduce Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of NOAA who is going to make some opening remarks about a subsea oil sampling. And she has some distinguished members of the federal government and academia with her. Jane?
Jane Lubchenco: Thanks, Admiral Allen. Hello everyone thank you for joining us. I echo Admiral Allen's thanks for Harlan Pearce and his colleagues for hosting us here today. When NOAA first became involved at the very earliest hours in responding to the deep water horizon spill we pledged to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with fishermen of the region.
And our continued interactions and partnership with them are a signal of how committed we are jointly to restoring the health of the Gulf and bringing us back to a very healthy state so that everyone cal feel completely comfortable with the quality of the seafood and the safety of the seafood from this region.
I'd like to introduce a few folks to you today. Some of the senior scientists at NOAA who are working on monitoring efforts that we're going to b talking about today and some individuals from the academic communities and independent research institutions that we've been partnering closely with.
As I introduce each of you guys if you'll just raise your hands so folks will know who you are. Okay, Sam Walker, Steve Layman and Steve Murawski, all NOAA senior scientists who are individuals that bring deep knowledge about oil, oil response and the science in the Gulf to this task.
A number of individuals from our academic and private research institution partners, Dr. Michael Carron of the Northern Gulf Institute, Dr. V.J. John and Dr. Gary McPherson of Tulane University, Dr. Richard Shaw from
Louisiana State University, Dr. William Hogarth and Dr. Ernst Peebles from the University of South Florida, Dr. Chris Reddy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Dr. Richard Gregg of Florida A&M, and we're also joined by Jacqueline Patterson of the NAACP.
I welcome all of them and thank them for their efforts. They have been involved in the number of research missions out on the water to try to understand this event. And they have been very helpful in organizing meetings with academic and independent research institutions, folks from the Gulf and elsewhere to help us understand what's actually playing out, what's happening on the water, beneath the water, at the edges of the shore and to help us craft the kind of quality research studies that will enable us to better understand what's happening and what we might see in the future.
As an academic more than 35 years I can attest to the importance of what academic institutions and independent research institutions bring to an effort like this. We really do need the best scientists in the country focusing on understanding that has already happened, what the impact is and how to guide our actions bring the Gulf back to health.
Although I'm the administrator of NOAA here today I can also say that the entire federal family is deeply committed to understanding the impact of this spill on the health of the Gulf and the millions of people who depend on it for their lives and livelihood.
It's been 62 days now since oil has stopped flowing into the Gulf but our federal response remains vigilant in its effort to recover oil, to clean up beaches and marshes and to rehabilitate wildlife.
We continue to monitor the movements and the (inaudible) of oil especially beneath the surface. And we are doing so in collaboration with our academic and research institution partners. We are indeed seeing a number of encouraging signs, a reflection of this is that we have re-opened almost 40,000 square miles of the Gulf to fishing.
As you will recall at the heights about 37 percent of the Gulf was closed to fishing in federal waters. We have been nibbling around the edges opening up more and more area. The area that remains closed today is at 16.5 percent.
So we're making good progress and sampling very, very carefully making sure that areas that we are opening is, in fact, safe to reopen and that the seafood is free of contaminants. We're also releasing rehabilitated sea turtles back into the Gulf, individuals that were recovered some of which have been rehabilitated in the lab and are now able to released into a Gulf.
To date we have released 284 turtles back into the Gulf and that is, in fact, good news indeed. And yet we are mindful of the need to understand how much oil remains, where it is and in what concentrations and how rapidly it's being naturally degraded. Today we are gathered together with the folks behind me to take stock of what we have learned to date, tell you what yet needs to be done.
We are in the midst of a comprehensive collaborative effort to monitor the fate of the oil and the disbursement sub surface.
And it's in the subsurface that our efforts are focused squarely. Its subsea monitoring program conducted under the direction of the federal on scene coordinator includes extensive monitoring and sampling done to date, more than 30,000 samples so far.
And we'll continue where needed to allow us to answer the question what is the fate of the oil and the disbursements in the subsurface? So this monitoring effort is an aggressive one to be conducted as an integrated strategic plan working closely with states, academic, and private research institution partners.
We have and will continue to monitor, sample and study the oil and disbursements from the near shore to the open ocean, from the surface to the seafloor. This ongoing monitoring effort has three primary goals.
One is to monitor and assess the distribution, concentration, and degradation of any oils that remain in the water or on the seafloor. Two, to look for disbursements or break down products of disbursements remaining in the water, and three, to identify any additional response actions needed to address any recoverable oil.
We have already tested extensively. In the near shore and the offshore and will continue to do so. Near shore data continues to be generated on a daily basis building upon the approximately 5,000 near shore water and sediment samples that were collected as of September 11.
These samples are in addition to a number of observational techniques employed in the near shore to help responders find oil. Turning to the offshore the water column has been extensively sampled within 75 kilometers of the well head using fluorometry, particle analyzers, oxygen probes, and hydrocarbon analysis as well as standard connectivity, temperature, and depth for CTG sensor cap.
The federal government working with our academic partners is committed to doing everything it takes for as long as it takes to respond to this oil, to assess the damage, and to restore the habitat and sustain the quality of life in the Gulf.
What has all of this sampling revealed? We have a fair amount of information about what's happening along the coast. Much of that oil, some of which still remains, continues to be cleaned up. There continues to be a very small amount of residual oil in the near shore.
And that is both being degraded naturally as well as being recovered. In the water column there continues to be some amount of oil in the subsurface especially in this layer that is between about 3,000 and 4,300 feet, very, very (inaudible), very microscopic droplets of oil and the parts from millions to parts per billion, (inaudible) and disbursed does not necessarily mean benign.
We continue to actively sample and characterize where that is and the rate at which it is being degraded. The indications are that that degradation is proceeding and we intend to get more definitive information upon that in the not too distant future.
There is oil that is being observed on the sediment, in the sediments on the seafloor surface. Much of the ongoing monitoring is designed to understand better where that is, what impact it may be having and we look forward to reporting on that also in due time.
So ultimately people in the region and across the country really want to do is Gulf seafood safe to eat? Are the waters safe to swim in? Where can we fish with our families and friends? In short, folks want to know if it's OK to eat, swim and fish and that kind of information that we committed to identifying those questions, answers to those questions when we can reassure folks that in fact, when and if it is OK to eat, swim and fish.
This monitoring lays the foundation for additional research into the long-term impact of the spill on the health of the Gulf and it will go a long way toward restoring the Gulf and restoring public confidence in this unique and very valuable ecosystem. So with that we're happy to take questions and I'll invite Admiral Allen to join me in that.
Admiral Allen: Let me ? let me make one quick statement. I'm not sure I'll have an opportunity to do a public press event with Jane Lubchenco before we transition this organization. Jane and I met over a year ago we made a trip to the <ST1
LACE w:st="on">Arctic</ST1
LACE> together.
This has been a professional and a personal collaboration that?s been wonderful for me and I just want to thank her as a friend and colleague for the help she's given me, first as a (inaudible) on the Coast Guard and National Incident Commander, so thank you Jane.
Jane Lubchenco: Thanks Admiral, I appreciate that.
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http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/doc/2931/898775/
