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Archive for May 28th, 2010
More than 80 beaches fail standards for clean water
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 28th, 2010
Telegraph: The Marine Conservation Society said one in seven -- a total of 83 -- of Britain's beaches fail the European Commission's mandatory minimum water quality standard. This means the water is polluted with sewage or litter and could cause stomach upsets or ear infections for swimmers. The annual Good Beach Guide produced by the charity rated more than half of the UK's 769 bathing beaches as "excellent" for water quality according to their own tests. The number of sites failing the MCS's ...
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BP CEO: Chance of “top kill” success 60-70 percent
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 28th, 2010
Reuters: BP Plc's chances of succeeding in its "top kill" effort to plug a blown-out oil well beneath the Gulf of Mexico remains at 60 to 70 percent, CEO Tony Hayward told Reuters on Friday. "We have wrestled it to the ground, but we haven't put a bullet in its head yet," Hayward said while aboard a helicopter inspecting the spill site over the Gulf. Hayward said BP will know in the next 48 hours if the procedure has worked. "Top kill," BP's best short-term option for choking off the ...
BP’s Top Kill to Quell Oil Spill Begins in Gulf
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 28th, 2010
Time Magazine: The spiraling disaster that is the BP oil spill has at least one more day to run. That was the word from BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles at a press conference on Thursday, May 27, more than 25 hours after the company's much awaited top-kill procedure got under way. Following a day of encouraging news - and a false report from the Los Angeles Times that the leak had actually been stopped - a weary-looking Suttles had one message: Not so fast. Part of the reason for the caution ...
Land management chief to take over drilling agency
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 28th, 2010
Associated Press: The chief of the Interior Department's land management bureau has stepped in to run the much-criticized agency that oversees offshore oil drilling after its director resigned under pressure. Bob Abbey took over Friday as acting director of the Minerals Management Service and will also keep his post at the Bureau of Land Management. He replaces Elizabeth Birnbaum, who left Thursday after 10 months as director of the agency that oversees drilling on federal land and water. It has been ...
Obama and BP CEO visit Gulf as spill remains unsolved
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 28th, 2010
Reuters: BP said on Friday it may need two more days to know if its complex maneuver to plug a gushing Gulf of Mexico oil well has worked, while President Barack Obama warned there was no "silver bullet" solution to the biggest oil spill in U.S. history. Trying to assert leadership in the face of growing criticism over his handling of the spill, Obama toured the Louisiana Gulf coast, where oil has seeped into delicate marshlands and shut down much of the lucrative fishing trade. BP CEO ...
3 million feet of boom in Gulf, but does it help?
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 28th, 2010
Associated Press: Globs of sticky brownish ooze soil miles of sensitive shoreline and marsh from Alabama to Louisiana. Pelican rookeries are awash in oil. Oyster beds and shrimp nurseries face certain death. All the while, long, slender barriers intended to protect the shoreline float twisted, tangled or sometimes just broken apart, unable to stop the creeping crude. Since last month's rig explosion and spill of millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico -- now the largest spill in U.S. ...
BP’s spill costs hit $930 million
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 28th, 2010
Reuters: BP Plc still does not know whether its "top kill" operation designed to plug the biggest oil spill in United States history will be successful and puts the cost of tackling the disaster so far at $930 million. "The top kill procedure has never before been attempted at these depths and its ultimate success is uncertain," the British oil giant said in a statement on Friday. President Barack Obama is set to visit the Louisiana coast as BP battles deep on the sea floor to stem a ...
UK’s first ‘conservation credit’ scheme launched
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 28th, 2010
Guardian: The first UK project allowing builders to buy "credits" in conservation schemes, to offset the damage they are doing elsewhere, has been launched. Conservation credit – or biobanking – schemes have been trialled in the US, Australia and South Africa and experts believe the industry could become worth billions of pounds in Britain. The initial step is the sale of shares in a £100m project to restore and reconnect fragmented wetlands, woodlands and grasslands around the ...
BP oil spill: grassroots anger over ‘lack of clean-up plan’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 28th, 2010
Guardian: In a small, wood-panelled courtroom in the back streets of Belle Chase on the banks of the Mississippi, a trial of sorts is taking place. Chief witness for the prosecution is a large rotund man with a breeze-reddened face who is addressing the legal benches and the packed public area with growing passion. "Where is the plan?" he says, speaking into a microphone. "We have been waiting and waiting for a plan, and still there isn't one. There is no plan." In the dock the absentee ...
Tar balls and promises: Obama visits Gulf Coast
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 28th, 2010
Associated Press: Kneeling to pick up tar balls on an oil-fouled beach and listening to "heartbreaking stories" of loss, President Barack Obama personally confronted the spreading damage wrought by the crude gushing into the Gulf of Mexico -- and the bitter anger that's rising onshore. "What can he really do?" said Billy Ward, a developer who comes to his beach house here every weekend and, like many other locals, had little positive to say about Obama's trip to the beleaguered region on Friday. "If he ...