Gulf oil spill: BP gets most blame in government report

BP, Transocean and Halliburton all violated federal safety regulations leading up to last year's Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a federal investigation concluded, in findings that could be crucial for the Justice Department investigation and numerous lawsuits surrounding the disaster.

“The loss of life at the Macondo site on April 20, 2010, and the subsequent pollution of the Gulf of Mexico through the summer of 2010 were the result of poor risk management, last‐minute changes to plans, failure to observe and respond to critical indicators, inadequate well control response, and insufficient emergency bridge response training by companies and individuals responsible for drilling at the Macondo well and for the operation of the Deepwater Horizon,” the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management concluded.

Photos: BP gulf oil spill in 2010

The report, released Wednesday, was the result of a joint investigation conducted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Coast Guard into the causes behind the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig the night of April 20, which killed 11 men and resulted in a leak that spewed nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico over several months. Each entity did a separate report that the agencies issued jointly Wednesday, but the Ocean Energy Management report delves into the decisions made in the weeks leading up to the disaster and those made that evening that converged to touch off the well blowout and rig explosion.

Photos: Gulf oil spill, a year later

The report’s conclusions about a global failure to observe the best safety practices and to communicate effectively in such a dangerous undertaking as drilling a deepwater well echoed findings released earlier in the year by a presidential commission investigating the disaster.

Rising sea levels could take financial toll on California beaches

Beach communities in California will suffer huge economic losses in tourism and tax revenues as rising sea levels eat away at the California coastline over the next century, according to a state-commissioned study released Tuesday.

As climate change warms the ocean, causing it to swell, storm damage and erosion will narrow the state's beaches and diminish their appeal to tourists, recreational visitors and wildlife, economists at San Francisco State predict.

Venice Beach could lose up to $440 million in tourism and tax revenue if the Pacific Ocean rises 55 inches by 2100 as scientists predict, according the study commissioned by the California Department of Boating and Waterways.

A drop in visitors to an eroded Zuma Beach and Broad Beach in Malibu would cost nearly $500 million in revenue, the study found.

At San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, the increasingly erosive power of storm surges could cause $540 million in damage to land, buildings and infrastructure by century’s end, researchers project.

The study also examined Torrey Pines in San Diego County and Carpinteria in Santa Barbara County. Read the full story on L.A. Now.

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Court approves endangered species settlement

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Shark fin soup one step closer to being banned in California

-- Tony Barboza

Photo: Waves slam into homes in Malibu. Credit: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

Shark fin soup one step closer to being banned in California

 
The days of being able to order shark fin soup at California restaurants appear to be numbered.

The state Senate on Tuesday voted 25-9 to ban the sale, trade and possession of shark fin, a key ingredient in the traditional Chinese soup, sending the bill on to the desk of Gov. Jerry Brown.

The measure, championed by conservation groups as a way to curb the shark fin harvest, a practice that has contributed to the sharp decline of shark numbers worldwide, has divided California's Chinese American community.

For centuries the gelatinous soup prepared with dried shark fins has been served as a pricey Chinese delicacy, and opponents of the bill say banning the ingredient would discriminate against a cultural tradition.

Chinese American restaurateurs and traders have lobbied against the bill and are being backed by several Chinese American lawmakers.

Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) has called it "an unfair attack on Asian culture and cuisine." But other Chinese American legislators, chefs and celebrities, including basketball star Yao Ming, have backed conservationists.

Lawmakers on Tuesday also approved a second bill adding several key provisions. Among them: creating an exemption allowing taxidermists to possess shark fins, allowing licensed fishermen to donate shark fins to research institutions and giving restaurants longer to use up their stocks of the ingredient.

“Today is a landmark day for shark conservation around the globe as we are one step away from a sweeping West Coast ban on the trade of shark fins,” said Susan Murray, senior pacific director for the conservation group Oceana.

Similar legislation has been signed in Washington, Oregon and Hawaii. President Obama signed federal legislation tightening a ban on shark finning in U.S. waters this year.

Gov. Jerry Brown has not indicated publicly whether he intends to sign the bill.

The state Assembly passed the bill in May on a 65-8 vote, but it ran into Senate opposition, including proposed amendments to allow the sale of fins from some shark species that can be legally caught in California.

But none of those amendments, which conservation groups worried would make the law ineffective and difficult to enforce, were approved.

Tens of millions of sharks are killed each year for their fins, and scientists say the fin trade threatens to disrupt ocean ecosystems. Fishermen cut the fins off live sharks, which they dump back in the water to die.

Assemblyman Paul Fong (D-Sunnyvale), a sponsor of the bill, was born in China and grew up eating shark fin soup but turned against it several years ago after watching a film about how the fin trade was wiping out shark populations.

“At this rate they're going to be extinct in our lifetime,” Fong said last month. “And without the top predator, our ocean's ecosystem goes into a huge imbalance and falls like a house of cards.”

“I'm proud of my Chinese roots, and our culture will live and survive without shark's fin,” he added. If signed by the governor, the California law would go into effect by mid-2013.

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California shark fin ban advances

Oregon joins fight against shark finning

Marine sanctuaries delayed in Southern California

-- Tony Barboza

Photo: A boy passes a sign showing Chinese basketball star Yao Ming, who supports the ban. Credit: Frederic J. Brown AFP/Getty Images.

Marine sanctuaries delayed in Southern California

 
Hundreds of square miles of marine sanctuaries that were scheduled to take effect Oct. 1 in Southern California will be delayed for at least several months for administrative reasons, state wildlife officials said Thursday.

The California Department of Fish and Game said the state Office of Administrative Law has had questions about the complicated package of regulations and informed the agency it would not be able to implement them by the planned start date.

In December the California Fish and Game Commission adopted protections for about 15% of state waters from Point Conception to the U.S.-Mexico border. Under the California Marine Life Protection Act, fishing will be banned or restricted in 49 marine protected areas to protect sea life and replenish depleted fish populations.

Though it's unclear how long the delay will be, "we're looking at months rather than years, or even a year," said Jordan Traverso, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Fish and Game.

The delay is unrelated to lawsuits fishing groups have filed against the regulations, Traverso said. The commission will discuss a new start date at a meeting next month in Redding.

Southern California's marine reserves are the latest segment in a chain of sanctuaries Fish and Game officials are charged with establishing up and down the coast. They came about after years of contentious negotiations between conservation groups seeking sweeping protections for marine habitat and commercial and recreational fishing groups trying to hold onto access to key fishing areas.

Newly protected waters will include a kelp forest off Point Dume in Malibu, Naples Reef in Santa Barbara County, a stretch of the Laguna Beach coastline and waters off south La Jolla.

The region sees the most fishing activity in the state because of its dense population and many harbors.

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California shark fin ban advances

City Council not commenting on Laguna Beach access issue

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--Tony Barboza

Photo: A lengthy stretch of the Laguna Beach coastline will be one of the state's new marine sanctuaries. Credit: Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times

California shark fin ban advances

This post has been corrected. See note below for details.

A push to outlaw shark fins, the main ingredient in a traditional Chinese soup, cleared a key obstacle Thursday when it passed a state Senate committee.

The bill, which would ban the sale, trade and possession of shark fins in the state, has been championed by conservation groups as a way to curb their harvest, a practice that has contributed to the sharp decline of shark populations worldwide.

But the measure has divided California’s Chinese American community. For centuries the gelatinous soup prepared with dried shark fins has been served as a pricey Chinese delicacy, and opponents say banning it would discriminate against a cultural tradition.

The bill passed the Senate Appropriations Committee on a 5-2 vote and now moves to the Senate floor, where a vote is expected within the next few weeks.

The California State Assembly passed the ban in May, 65 to 8, but it ran into obstacles in the upper house.

Chinese American restaurateurs and traders have lobbied against the ban and are being backed by several Chinese American lawmakers, including Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), who voted against the measure Thursday. Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) has called it "an unfair attack on Asian culture and cuisine."

On the other side are conservationists, who are supported by some Chinese American lawmakers, chefs and celebrities, including basketball star Yao Ming. Tens of millions of sharks are killed each year for their fins and scientists say the fin trade threatens to disrupt ocean ecosystems. To harvest the fins, fishermen cut them off live sharks and dump them back in the water to die.

Assemblyman Paul Fong (D-Sunnyvale), a sponsor of the bill, was born in China and grew up eating shark fin soup but turned against it several years ago after watching a film about how the fin trade was wiping out shark populations.

“At this rate they're going to be extinct in our lifetime,” Fong said in an interview. “And without the top predator, our ocean's ecosystem goes into a huge imbalance and falls like a house of cards.”

“I'm proud of my Chinese roots, and our culture will live and survive without shark's fin,” he added.

Similar legislation has been signed in Washington, Oregon and Hawaii. President Obama signed federal legislation tightening a ban on shark finning in U.S. waters this year.

If approved by the Senate and signed by the governor, the California law would go into effect in 2013.

For the record, 2:45 p.m. Aug. 25: A previous version of this post misattributed a quote to Sen. Ted Lieu. It is Sen. Leland Yee who has called the ban "an unfair attack on Asian culture and cuisine."

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--Tony Barboza

Photo: Shark fins drying on a boat in Micronesia. The California Senate has moved forward to ban sale, trade and possession of the culinary delicacy. Credit: Associated Press

City Council not commenting on Laguna Beach access issue

The Laguna Beach City Council accepted petitions that supported public beach access through private property at Rockledge in Laguna Beach, but refrained from making any comments on the emotionally charged issue.

City Manager John Pietig advised the council to button its lips because of a lawsuit filed by a Rockledge resident against his neighboring property owner, Mark Towfiq, and the city. He argues those who go through the property are trespassing.

"This property has always been protected by a gate at the ocean and an iron gate in front of the property," Towfiq said. "If you are the public, you have been trespassing if you are going to use this property to get to the ocean. There is no other way around it."

The issue of public access through Towfiq's property was raised at the July 12 meeting, according to the Coastline Pilot.

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--Barbara Diamond, Times Community News

Interior department to hold big gulf oil lease sale

The Obama administration announced Friday that it will hold its first oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico since the deadly Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill.

“This sale is an important step toward a secure energy future that includes safe, environmentally sound development of our domestic energy resources,” said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. “Since Deepwater Horizon, we have strengthened oversight at every stage of the oil and gas development process, including deepwater drilling safety, subsea blowout containment, and spill response capability."

The Department of Interior plans in December to offer more than 20 million acres in the western gulf for energy leasing -- despite a recent Interior report that found companies are not exploring or producing oil and gas on roughly two-thirds of the 34 million acres they already lease in the gulf.

The administration came under sharp criticism from the oil industry and gulf state politicians for imposing a deep-water drilling moratorium in the wake of last year's Deepwater explosion -- and then when the ban was lifted -- for not approving new drilling quickly enough.

“This lease sale is an important and encouraging step toward getting the Gulf of Mexico and its hardworking people back to work. Unfortunately, the slow pace of new permits in the gulf places lingering uncertainty over this critical industry," Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, said in a statement.

The conservation group Oceana condemned the move as premature. “Rushing this lease sale in the western gulf puts animals like turtles, dolphins and bluefin tuna at risk," said senior campaign director Jacqueline Savitz. "The Obama administration still hasn’t addressed significant shortcomings in spill response and cleanup capabilities."

The Environmental Defense Fund was more positive. “This announcement proves that the Obama administration is serious about allowing oil companies to return to deep-water drilling in the gulf, as long as they follow essential new rules ... to  protect the environment, workers and the economy," said Elgie Holstein, the group's senior planning director and former chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Energy. 

The new lease areas are located from nine to about 250 miles offshore in shallow and deep water, and could, the Interior said, produce 222 million to 423 million barrels of oil and as much as 2.65 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Acknowledging that many existing leases are sitting idle, the agency said it intends to increase the minimum bid amount for deep-water blocks to $100 per acre from $37.50 to "discourage companies from purchasing leases they are unlikely to explore in the near term." 

The sale will include environmental safeguards for marine life and, "when conditions warrant," monitoring by trained observers to ensure compliance, the department said.

An Interior analysis released this spring found that gulf lease auctions before the BP spill drew little interest. Of nearly 53 million acres offered in 2009 in the central and western gulf, only 2.7 million acres were leased. Last year, only 2.4 million acres were leased out of roughly 37 million acres offered.

-- Bettina Boxall

Photo: An oil worker in the Gulf of Mexico. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

Mysterious orange goo in Alaskan Arctic identified as tiny eggs

The mysterious orange goo that washed ashore at the northern Alaska village of Kivalina has made headlines around the world, seeming to vaguely portend some new sign of climate disaster or industrial mayhem.

Not so, though. Scientists for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at Auke Bay in Juneau took samples of the weird orange material that was found floating in the harbor in Kivalina, 625 miles northwest of Anchorage -- and also on beaches, in rainwater and in a river 150 miles away. They concluded it was no man-made nightmare at all.

Rather, it's a large mass of microscopic eggs, researchers concluded, quieting the international alarm.

"We now think these are some sort of small crustacean egg or embryo, with a lipid oil droplet in the middle causing the orange color," said Jeep Rice, a lead scientist at the lab. "So this is natural. It is not chemical pollution; it is not a man-made substance."

Rice said scientists were quickly able to identify a cell structure within the material once they put it under a microscope, meaning they could "identify this as animal."

What kind of animal? Not sure yet, nor can researchers rule out the possibility that the eggs might be toxic -- samples have been sent to a NOAA lab on the East Coast for further testing.

-- Kim Murphy

Photo: The weird orange substance that washed ashore near the northwestern Alaskan village of Kivalina and other areas isn't man-made. Credit: Mida Swan / via Associated Press

Arctic oil spill could prove tough to clean

 

Shell Exploration's plan for exploratory oil and gas drilling in the Beaufort Sea won conditional approval from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. One of the big questions now is what happens if there's an oil spill.

Agency officials are expected as early as next week to act on Shell's oil spill response plan, which conservationists say falls short of the mark for responding to an accident in icy waters, often shrouded in darkness, hundreds of miles from the nearest deep-water port.

Earlier this month, Canada looked at the same issue: How hard would it be to clean up an oil spill in the Beaufort Sea, which straddles the border between the two countries. The answer? Really hard.

Even in the "summer" season between July and October, when Arctic drilling normally occurs, true open water without ice occurs only 54% to 88% of the time, even close to shore, according to the report, prepared for the National Energy Board by S.L. Ross Environmental Research Ltd. of Ottawa.

Conditions can be so bad that no ice cleanup measures are even possible about 20% of the time in June, 40% of the time in August and 65% of the time in October, said the report, which measured typical temperatures, wave heights and ice patterns and how they might prevent the use of such responses as in-situ burning, containment  and application of dispersants.

After October, any active response would almost certainly deferred until the following melt season, the report said.

Oregon joins fight against shark finning

Oregon is joining a national effort to end the shark fin trade.

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber signed bill HB 2838 Thursday, banning the sale, trade and possession of shark fins. The fins are often cut from a live shark, which is then tossed back in the ocean to bleed to death, drown or be attacked by other predators.

Oregon’s bill joins similar legislation in Hawaii and Washington. A California measure passed the Assembly in June, but has yet to clear the Senate. President Obama signed federal legislation tightening a ban on shark finning in U.S. waters earlier this year.

“With the global trade in shark fins pushing sharks toward extinction, it will take strong actions such as this to prevent us from making irreversible changes to our ocean ecosystems,” said Whit Sheard, senior advisor for Oceana, a maritime conservation organization. “The bipartisan support for this bill once again demonstrates that support for healthy oceans is a non-partisan issue.”

Finning is illegal in the waters of the United States, the European Union, Canada, Australia and several other countries, although it is still common in international waters. It is illegal for U.S. fishing boats to dock with shark fins on board unless they are attached to the carcass, but fins are imported to the U.S. from countries with less stringent protections.