Federal Government Witholds Data From Scientists Citing Litigation With BP, Yet Gives BP Data Immediately
Posted by Alexander Higgins - July 14, 2010 at 4:17 am - Permalink - Source via Alexander Higgins Blog|
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An investigative report on the Huffington Post revealed that the Federal Government’s claims that it can not release data to the public and scientists studying the impact of the the BP Gulf Oil Spill due to litigation with BP just don’t add up.
The Huffington Post has revealed that the critical data the Government says it can’t release to the public due to the litigation is actually being turned over to BP as soon as it is collected, catching the Government in an outright lie.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is hoarding vast amounts of raw data that independent marine researchers say could help both the public and scientists better understand the extent of the damage being caused by the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
In most cases, NOAA insists on putting the data through a ponderous, many-weeks-long vetting process before making it public.
In other cases, NOAA actually intended to keep the data secret indefinitely. But officials told the Huffington Post on Tuesday that they have now decided to release it — though when remains unclear.
BP, incidentally, gets to see all this data right away.
At issue are test results from a series of research missions conducted by NOAA or NOAA-sponsored ships exploring the extent and effect of oil beneath the surface of the Gulf. Due to the leak’s depth and the unprecedented use of dispersants, much of the oil is thought to have spread in gigantic undersea plumes, potentially adding a huge, so-far mostly invisible toll to the devastation so obviously manifesting itself along the nation’s Gulf shore.
Despite early urgent warnings from independent scientists that oil suspended in the water column is likely killing wide swaths of sea life in the short run — and possibly endangering marine animals and coastlines for decades to come — NOAA was slow to send out research vessels to probe the extent of the problem, and even slower to confirm it.
NOAA eventually sent out a half dozen ships packed with scientists, on back-to-back research missions. But the only detailed results so far made public were collected during a single mission that ended in late May — almost two months ago. And some data — including from the very first research vessel to take underwater tests, the Jack Fitz — wasn’t slated to be released at all, because it’s part of what NOAA calls its Natural Resources Damage Assessment (NRDA).
NRDA data is traditionally kept close to the vest until potentially adversarial legal wranglings are over. But in this case, the obvious lead defendant, BP, is part of the Joint Incident Command, to whom all the raw data is being turned over immediately.
After the Huffington Post launched it’s inquiry into the matter the Federal Government has back pedaled on its previous statements that it was keeping information confidential because of litigation and will now release it to the public, but would not give any time frames on when.
NOAA officials told the Huffington Post on Tuesday that, in a turnaround, they will now be making NRDA data public — but they offered no timeline for that process.
In a statement to the Huffington Post, NOAA officials insisted that they are working as hard as they can to get the public accurate data, as fast as possible. “We understand the public’s need for answers and consider it our responsibility to help provide those answers,” NOAA spokesman Justin Kenney wrote in an e-mail. “Our commitment is to do what it takes to provide the right answers. Doing so requires upholding the highest standards of data quality and analysis to ensure our conclusions are correct. This process does take time, but we are doing everything we can to make quality data available in a timely fashion, to responders, our scientific partners, and to the public.”
It is not just the public that is fed up with the run around and the constant stream of lies from the Government but the scientists trying to research and monitor the impact of the spill are now getting frustrated as well.
But when it comes to data about what’s going on under the surface, some marine researchers are fed up with NOAA’s slow-walk policy.
“It’s not about science, it’s about what their responsibility is to the public,” said Vernon Asper, a professor of marine science at the University of Southern Mississippi.
“We want to find out what the impact is going to be. In order to do that, we need to find out as much as possible about what’s happening to the oil, and make as many measurements as we possibly can.”
Asper was part of a team of scientists aboard the Pelican, one of the first research vessels to test for oil under the surface — and, it should be noted, to report the existence of underwater plumes.
“What I’d like to see is the data released as soon as possible, with the proper qualifications, in the interest of openness and especially in the interest of allowing scientists like myself to plan our work. To plan our sampling, we need to know what they’ve found,” Asper told the Huffington Post.
So don’t be surprised the next time we have a massive oil spill and the Government doesn’t have any answers to give besides “We don’t know”.
On of the major issues that the Government is withholding data about is test results of oxygen depletion in the waters.
Oxygen depletion in the Gulf from the BP Gulf Oil Spill is now confirmed to have caused a massive dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico where no life can survive.
Scientists know that the existing dead zone will only grow larger as more oil continues to spew into the Gulf of Mexico and other dead zones are likely to appear in more places.
The scientists are frustrated that the Government is stifling research efforts with the refusal to release important data about such a critical issue.
Scientists are primarily searching for signs of oil in the water and the consequent depletion of oxygen. Calibrating oxygen measurements is apparently a consistent challenge, and researchers typically don’t release data until they’ve accounted for any inconsistencies.
Asper gets that. But, he said, “even if their results are off by 10 or 20 percent because of calibration or something, that still helps me. That’s the kind of information that’s required.” In this case, he said, “my view on that would be: Go ahead and release the data but say: ‘These don’t agree. We haven’t figured this out, but here they are anyway.’ It’s still totally useful information.”
And Asper expressed frustration about one issue in particular: “If BP can see the data,” he asked, “why can’t the taxpayers see it?”
…
There are two main goals when it comes to sub-surface testing. One is to get a better sense of how much oil has spilled; another is to get a better sense of what it’s doing to sea life. When it comes to the latter, the key indicator involves oxygen levels, and the fear is that the oil will turn regions of the Gulf hypoxic, when means the water would have insufficient dissolved oxygen levels to sustain living aquatic organisms.
As it happens, the Northern Gulf already develops a large, hypoxic “dead zone” every summer, on account of all the nitrogen from sewage or fertilizer flowing down the Mississippi River.
Scientists testing for subsea oil have found depleted levels of oxygen, but the good news is that so far, none of them have come close to hypoxia, according to Wanninkhof — who, unlike the rest of us, is seeing the raw data.
He warns that those levels could still go down, however, as microbes start to eat the oil in earnest, and in doing so deplete oxygen.
And Asper, the marine scientist from Southern Mississippi, warns that, at the depths where the plumes are mostly being found, even a slight reduction in oxygen could have serious and very long-lasting consequences.
“The water at great depths hasn’t been on the surface in a long time,” he said. “It’s old water” that rose to the surface in Antarctica, perhaps hundreds of years ago, got chilled, and spread out along the ocean floor. Just as it hasn’t seen the surface in a long time, Asper said, “this water that’s down there won’t get back to the surface of the ocean for probably hundreds of years longer.”
So to the extent that oxygen levels there are depleted, he said, “it’s quite likely that oxygen will stay low for a long time.”
Some what ironically the only people who have a real idea of the critical data that scientists need are lawyers who have forced the data to be released during the discovery process of the lawyer’s lawsuits against BP.
By contrast, right now that duty is being taken up by other, more self-interested parties. “The best way to find out, ironically, what all the research is that’s going on,” Leifer said, are lists being compiled by law firms — by plaintiffs’ attorneys preparing to sue BP for damages in civil suit.
“There are some legal teams that have created extensive, detailed lists of exactly who’s doing everything,” Leifer said. “It’s not possible from my knowledge to find that information from government sources in any easy fashion.”
Scientists are also telling the Huffington Post that it is not just NOAA that is withholding the data from the public, but the information blackout is coming from all branches of the Government involved in the oil spill.
Meanwhile, the government is working alongside BP, which, as Leifer put it, “may want areas of non-knowledge.”
Indeed, BP, which faces a potentially enormous per-barrel fine, has no incentive to measure the amount of oil leaked with any precision whatsoever. Nor does it have any desire for the public to become too acutely aware of the vast amounts of oil it has been able to keep largely hidden beneath the surface, in part due to its controversial use of dispersants.
Rick Steiner, a marine conservationist who studied the effect of the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, sees NOAA’s behavior as part of a larger trend. “It’s my sense that all federal agencies are withholding information at this point on this spill, and this includes Coast Guard, EPA, Department of Interior, and certainly NOAA,” he told the Huffington Post.
“And there’s an overwhelming public interest that the public knows everything that the government knows about this at this point. So we need a new paradigm for how to handle public information in these sorts of disasters, and there’s no better place to start than right here right now.”
There has also been specific outcry from scientists complaining about a NOAA issued gag order that is muzzling them from warning the public and the press about the dangers discovered during the course of their research.
Another factor at play when it comes to the dissemination of data is the apparent lack of clarity about the circumstances under which NOAA scientists are allowed to speak to the media.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a whisteblowers group, on Monday demanded that NOAA lift its “gag order muzzling NOAA scientists.”
And some scientists contacted by HuffPost over the past few weeks have said they were explicitly told they could not talk to reporters without permission from NOAA’s public affairs office. “That’s what I’ve been told, that I’m supposed to direct any media contacts to the media,” one scientist said on Monday.
But NOAA officials say that this is a misunderstanding of the actual rules. Although the wording of those rules — which dates back to the Bush administration — is ambiguous in places, Kenney, the NOAA spokesman, insisted that the policy “clearly states that NOAA’s scientists are free to speak to the media.”
NOAA Director Jane Lubchenco “has discussed the importance of open communication to employees on many occasions, including whenever she travels to our labs and science centers,” Kenney wrote in an e-mail. “[T]his is central to who she is as a scientist and NOAA administrator.”
Kenney did not indicate, however, that NOAA officials were planning to take any action to clear up was is evidently some continued confusion in the ranks. Wrote Kenney: “Could our media policy be communicated better? Sure, that is always possible. Could it be clearer? No.”
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Isac , hope all is well. I checked your bllog after reading this entry from Alex. would also not that Tickerforum ( check oil spew thread ) , also commented about rumors of the failure of perhaps the bop or problems at the seabed. Of course , you have the very sudden shutdown of not only the well integrity test but also drilling for the relief well one – relief well two was shutdown a couple of days ago. One can surmise that either the seismic testing or perhaps other testing revealed what you theorized above – that the casing / seabed is in far worse shape than BP / USCG surmised .
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Hey Alex, I saw your questions on my blog, here’s what I think.
Lighting underwater plays a crucial part in what colors we see, you know this, it’s why if we cut ourselves underwater, the blood looks green. I’m not certain, but I believe that salt is the major factor, in terms of how light is scattered in water, …CV Raman could probably explain it better than me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CV_Raman
…yes, they have definitely been playing around with the light down there, filters and such..I’m sure you have watched the flow and seen flashes of light…I have to quote this yahoo poster I met.., he is brilliant, a little skewed…but brilliant nonetheless.Pun intended.
” anyone want to speculate. If they turn out the lights and put a photomultiplier on the camera, will there be emission from the flow?
Thermoluminescence is one possibility as is luminescence from collapsing bubbles. High pressure transients can drive chemical reactions that create light. ”
” I thought it may be luminescence but probably reflection as most light mechanisms couldn’t compete with their lights. You could calculate the energy into the area and get some idea what is available but visible conversion efficiency wold be quite low except for certain situations. ”
” wiki claims quartz abrasion generates perceptible light, what do you think happens at 100kpsi sand blasting on pipes ? ”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribolumine...
” this can be diagnostic, if you have ever noticed the color of emissions from polishing wheels or other high energy frictional things ( grinding wheels may count but IIRc that is black-body and you would hope for something near the bond breaking energy of whatever your are wearing.)”
here is the OG thread for the above..
http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Business_%26_Finance/Investments/Stocks_%28A_to_Z%29/Stocks_B/threadview?bn=26496&tid=354616&mid=355023
———————
As far as the sand and erosion. I’ll throw this up….there’s a lot of industry professionals on the Yahoo investors board….when I am on there…I know exactly who I am talking to….that’s easy….blog server>links>IP packet route trace>geo-IP satellite photo>etc, etc, etc.
…..anyway, the information that was added to my post was very informative, and I do believe that it should answer some questions.
————
The cause of runaway erosion in the sub-floor
23-Jun-10 09:06 pm isaacnd200
Most of the posters here already have put 2+2 together to understand the events taking place under the ocean floor.
If you have not, I would like to offer a simple explanation
Gases dissolved in a liquid will expand as they rise, as pressure is decreased, volume is increased. Charle’s law of volumetric expansion is a good place to start if you are interested..
In the fields of engineering and fluid hydrodynamics, the study of the effects of cavitation reveal that it occurs when pressure suddenly drops in a fluid column. It is what destroys boat propellers and the interior of pumps . The destructive ( and potentially creative …bubble fusion ) power of cavitation is incredible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavitation
One of the things revealed in the course of observations, has been that when the flow of fluid encounters a path that is anything but straight, it causes minute waves of pressure that travel backward through the fluid. This what compresses the gasses dissolved.
Large parts of the cement casing lining the wellbore has been destroyed. This has been revealed in the news..
When the fluid meets the porous rock ,
( estimated to be around 10-30% by the geological studies of this area I’ve read )
It starts the process of erosion. As it erodes the cavity it invades, it creates a randomly shaped chamber, which creates random fluctuations and backward pressure waves in the fluid column. The pressure waves cause the cavitation, which in turn excavates the other the spaces along the fluid column . Think about what happens when you put your thumb over the end of a garden hose. The total sum of the power expressed in the action is covered to kinetic energy. The force you apply to the hose..is transferred to the fluid.
While throughout much of a flow-field the effect of viscosity may be very small, a number of factors make the assumption of negligible viscosity invalid in many cases. Viscosity cannot be neglected near fluid boundaries because of the presence of a boundary layer which enhances the effect of even a small amount of viscosity. Turbulence is also observed in some high-Reynolds-number flows, and is a process through which energy is transferred to increasingly small scales of motion until it is dissipated by viscosity.
Reynolds transport theorem (also known as the Leibniz-Reynolds transport theorem), or in short Reynolds theorem, is a three-dimensional generalization of the Leibniz integral rule. This theorem is used to compute derivatives of integrated quantities.
We can apply the Reynolds transport theorem it can be simply stated as – What was already there plus what goes in minus what comes out is equal to what is there
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_tr...
If I may, I would like to add a little more to your explanation.
It only takes something like 32 pipe diameters before we achieve fully developed flow (I’m going from memory here, and gas dynamics was a long time ago for me). With a pipe some 18,000 feet long, the flow has a fully developed turbulent profile. It is a high energy flow.
One point we seem to be missing in this discussion is that the flow is almost certainly mass-flow-rate limited. Assuming down well pressures that are in the range of what is being talked about seriously (40,000-100,000 psi), a normal shock wave may well be forming in the pipe, or will at some point; by “normal” I mean at 90 degrees to the flow.
The long pipe run helps contain this because the boundary layer friction losses show up in the flow as a reduction in pressure and the pressure difference is what allows the formation of the shock wave, which is what limits the flow rate. As the total pressure (static plus dynamic) at the well head exceeds 5,100 psi, we can expect to see a shock wave form in the pipe.
As the pipe run is eaten away below the seafloor, and a plenum of sorts is created by eating away the rock around where the pipe used to be, the situation is created for a sonic flow through the pipe. I.e., the oil is flowing through the pipe at Mach 1 (as determined by the temperature and kinematic viscosity of the oil).
I’m not an oil guy and have never had need to figure out the kinematic viscosity of Hi-E crude, nor do I know the temperature at which it is exiting the well. Worse, this is a mixture of high pressure methane gas intermixed in the column with slugs of liquid crude, so it may not make much sense to determine what the mass flow rate limit of the crude would be through the well head without also figuring the mass flow rate limit for the methane, to say nothing of the harmonic oscillations of the pressures within the pipe as the liquid slugs “bounce” on springs of compressed methane which could easily result in local pressures as high as 200Kpsi, exacerbating the cavitation problems.
————–
as far as sand, you read the analysis of the reservoir on my blog….60% sand/water/particulates.
This comes down to predicting turbidity events between binary fluids and Bingham plastic fluids(Non-Newtonian ) in a random space/s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_fluids
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bingham_plastic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyapunov_function
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cahn%E2%80%93Hilliard_equation
…they cannot predict..they can only hope for the best, maybe some natural bridging…..same effect that pouring sandy water through a strainer will produce….hopefully, when they start to do the shut-in test of the new cap…
..sand will pack into the equipment once they close the first valve. This oil does have a very high sand/particulate content. It only makes sense that any fluid contained will seek any holes in the lower part BOP stack or well riser/surrounding area., if any, ….probably. Why they chose NOT to cut the whole stack away, and work direct from the well riser is…interesting…..we’ll see how big any cracks/holes are…..of course by now, we all know where the sand is coming from…maybe any eroded pockets in the seafloor can bridge with the sediment/sand…
————-
….and as far as the chemistry about polymer precursors, please do not let my ignorance of the subject through you off. Polymer precursors are naturally found, I didn’t know that until a few days ago. If you want to write about something, write about the molar weight of one “mole” of the proprietary ionic salt they are using…
I don’t think they so much lied about what they are spraying, but how it’s made. For instance, Exxon’s pdf’s from Jim Clark, say that 9500/9500A is for droplet application at the surface…1-2 days to start to break down, supposedly..so yeah….what the hell are they applying at the wellhead ? Normally those surfactants micro-encapsulate oil…kind of actually like a scratch-n-sniff sticker….micelles….but how long are they lasting before releasing their contents…..? That’s what I think they are lying about….. mainly..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micelle
….the testing from the Dry Tortugas concerning microbial counts was “different” than normal..they would not send me a copy, but instead I received an email with some slight details….I went through why this is happening in my blogpost ” Who will get to Feast ” to explain what happens when you introduce a large amount of food into a cyclical feeding community.
Hopefully, this has answered some of your questions.
Good luck.Godspeed.360º vision.
-Isaac
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The only conformable well pressure is 12k max. How does that effect your calculations for a “shockwave” and/or a sonic blast of oil.
While not as transparent as it claims, there is information about pressures and temperatures here. http://www.energy.gov/open/oilspilldata.htm
Temperature at the well bore is 262º F and drops down to 40º F
http://www.energy.gov/open/documents/3.1_Item_2_Macondo_Well_07_Jun_1900.pdf
Is there still the possibility for a “shockwave” using these numbers?
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[...] [...]
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Rep. Marjey’s followup
letter yesterday to BP requesting information about the integrity of the well bore and casing, etc.
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Rep. Markey’s followup
letter yesterday to BP requesting information about the integrity of the well bore and casing, etc.
That would be Rep. Markey…The link is the word “letter”, though it doesn’t show up too well. Let me try it again without the a href coding.
http://globalwarming.house.gov/files/LTTR/2010-06-13_BPWellIntegrityFollowup.pdf
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jar Head. Jar Head said: RT @Sami_Shamieh: Obama Withholds #Oilspill Data From Scientists Citing Litigation With BP, Yet Gives BP Data Immediately http://bit.ly/9OnyY2 #tcot #p2 [...]
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They better get Darcy’s law calculations right….determining rock porosity..allows you to know how much of any shockwave created will be absorbed by any rock it meets..another problem is that although you can get an average of rock formation mixes where the bore passes through, and I’m sure they kept physical specimens from the original drilling of the bore….they were probably stored on the on the Horizon platform….they should probably heat the mud up at the seafloor somehow before it goes into the annulus and down into the relief well……cold mud + hot oil in a closed random space is not good idea …just my opinoin. binary fluids can get very dense in literally miliseconds in localized pockets of the fluid.and cause all sorts of very unpredictable shock-wave patterns…different gases are suspended differently in the fluid, they are not all evenly dissolved, this also plays greatly in how things flow, and what their frictional rates are. It’s all so fcking random….a tragic experiment……Carnot could have been right after all….when he made his postulates….he was making them based on what was known at the time…new physics always come along, it’s inevitable..
specifically what mud formulation they end up trying is going to make all the initial difference when they open the box….muds go all the way up to 28ppg, lead, but theres polymer based muds, nano-particles, the fluid in them can be an emulsion..or not….etc, etc.
I still think they can use soundwaves/Faraday waves to alter the fluid densities, it’s proven already.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokes%27_law_%28sound_attenuation%29
they can kick or knock this flow over to the relief wells, but they have a very small window to work in…..we’ll see how big any sub-floor channels are when they complete the shut-it….I already saw some gas vent from the base of the BOP stack when they first secured the new cap…the ROV operator saw it too and panned down….but I didn’t have my screencap tool open…I was too mesmerized…then they shut the cam down temporary..so I missed the boat there.
Most sub-sea structures are tied it to the floor with cable. It’s a 4 way tie-down , 4 directions, from one point at the top and goes to 3 points at the seafloor, so at the sea-floor, it’s actually 12 cable anchors….operating at least 15 ROV’s around this must be incredible difficult.
with the explosion and sinking of “the Horizon” this would have most likely caused unseen damage to the casing, cement job, and o-rings in this pipe…. But basically, any imperfections in the pipe would create issues, major issues as time goes by.
The well riser that connects to the bottom of the structure everybody calls the Blow out preventer, is actually a series of different mechanical systems stacked on top of each other. …a series of valves and gates.
Adding 75k’ short tons (2k) to the top of an already damaged structure makes about as much sense as building a house on a lop-sided foundation.
shear stresses in metal travel differently through the material when the force is applied unevenly….pressure downwards and slight twisting can cause a rupture in a pipe without the whole thing coming apart….that’s what I think happened at the base of the stack, or a little ways down the wellbore when the event happened. Rig and 5k’ of metal attached to the stack…
Why they chose NOT to cut the whole stack away, and work direct from the well riser is….Idk….just …seems…like not the best idea…?
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What about information about all those 15,000+ ideas that were submitted to BP at the request of the government. None of these have been released to the public or other scientists either.
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[...] we get some experts on this perhaps?The Experts are busy cover ing bp's ass:http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2010/0 … mediately/The Huffington Post has revealed that the critical data the Government says it can’t release to [...]
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[...] At the same time the Government is not sharing their data with independent scientists or the public but they immediat…. [...]
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