Thursday, July 29, 2010

The Gulf Oil Investigation, cleaning up the wetlands and capping the well before the first major hurricane.




Environmental groups propose framework for merging oil spill response, coastal restoration  (click title to entry - thank you)



Published: Thursday, July 29, 2010, 6:00 AM
 
,,,The Environmental Defense Fund, the National Audubon Society and the National Wildlife Federation proposed a plan aimed at merging the long-term oil spill restoration process with already-existing, yet unfunded, plans to rebuild Louisiana's tattered coastal wetlands - and doing it quickly.
Share In addition to the $5 billion escrow account, the groups are asking Congress to direct the proceeds from BP's Clean Water Act violations - potentially up to $4,300 per barrel spilled - toward funding restoration in Louisiana and along the Gulf coast. And they are asking Congress to appropriate an additional $500 million from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to begin funding a suite of coastal restoration projects that were authorized in 2007, but have barely gotten off the ground....


Well May Be Capped Permanently By Next Week, BP's Incoming CEO Tells NPR
07:20 am
July 28, 2010
by David Gura
Robert Dudley, the executive BP's board picked to replace outgoing CEO Tony Hayward, said the company hopes to have a permanent seal on its blown-out well by next week.
"After tropical storm Bonnie, we are now beginning the process of putting in place manifolds to do this 'Top Kill' as early as Monday, and then we can follow with the relief well," he told NPR's Renee Montagne.
According to Dudley, whose tenure as CEO is scheduled to begin on Oct. 1, the Macondo well could be completely capped by Monday or Tuesday.
"I do believe we're seeing the end of the oil flowing into the gulf," he said....


http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/07/28/128816147/bp-ceo-robert-dudley


...Attorneys hoping to lead the legal fight against BP are set to descend on Boise, Idaho, to address a special judicial panel considering how to bring order to the hundreds of civil lawsuits spawned by the spill after a rig explosion on April 20.
"There will be more lawyers in that courtroom than exist in the entire city of Boise put together," Mark Lanier, a Houston-based lawyer who plans to attend the hearing, joked this week. "It's going to be a circus." [ID:nN27268402]
Seven U.S. federal judges will convene more than 2,000 miles from the Gulf's oil-smudged shores to consider which U.S. court, or courts, should oversee hundreds of spill-related suits by injured rig workers, fishermen, investors and property owners....


http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE66S1AJ20100729