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NEWS ABOUT: BP oil spill

Could Dr. Seuss Goop Have Plugged BP's Oil Well?

Professor thinks cornstarch, water would have done the trick

(Newser) - From a month-old copy of Physical Review Letters, NPR stumbled on an article bearing the somewhat impenetrable title, " Viscoelastic Suppression of Gravity-Driven Counterflow Instability ." Behind the mouthful was an interesting premise: That the calamitous BP well could have been plugged using oobleck. The combination of two parts cornstarch... More »

Baby Dolphin Die-Off in Gulf Grows

Officials say it's too soon to blame the oil spill

(Newser) - More and more young bottlenose dolphins are turning up dead in the Gulf, and scientists aren’t entirely sure why. The number of dead dolphins has swelled to 80, according to National Geographic , with about half of them being calves. Speculation is running rampant that the deaths are connected to... More »

Workers on BP Rig Could Have Averted Disaster

No one asked visiting engineers about problematic test results

(Newser) - Experts on the BP Deepwater Horizon rig could have prevented last year’s huge oil spill—but no one checked with them, said the White House commission investigating the matter. A knowledgeable BP engineer was visiting the rig, but when a key pressure test returned odd results, workers didn’t... More »

BP Official Quit Over Safety Months Before Spill

Kevin Lacy didn't think company was committed to safety: lawsuit

(Newser) - An engineer who had been recruited to join BP in 2007 to improve its drilling policies and protocols resigned over safety disagreements a few months before the Deepwater Horizon exploded, according to a lawsuit related to the spill. Kevin Lacy, BP's senior vice president for drilling operations in the Gulf... More »

Judge: BP Spill Claims Czar Not Independent

Ken Feinberg must start disclosing that he works on behalf of BP

(Newser) - When Ken Feinberg doled out compensation to victims of the BP oil spill, he argued they should trust his decisions because he’s an independent party—but considering he’s getting paid by BP, that’s not entirely true, a judge ruled yesterday. Feinberg, who administrates the $20 billion compensation... More »

BP Issues Final Payment to Just One of 91K Spill Victims

$10M final settlement payment went to undisclosed firm

(AP) - BP's compensation fund for Gulf oil spill victims has issued a final settlement payment—to just one of the roughly 91,000 people and businesses waiting for checks, records show. And that $10 million payout went to a company after the oil giant intervened on its behalf. BP won't identify... More »

Transocean Disses Feds' Subpoenas

Deepwater Horizon owner claims safety board has no jurisdiction

(AP) - The Deepwater Horizon's owner is refusing to honor subpoenas from a federal board that has challenged the company's involvement in monitoring the testing of the blowout preventer, which failed to stop the oil spill disaster. Transocean says the US Chemical Safety Board does not have jurisdiction in the probe, so... More »

NYT's Deepwater 'Scoop' Was Regurgitated: AP Reporter

No new info in supposedly unprecedented reconstruction

(Newser) - The New York Times ' sweeping account of the Deepwater Horizon's final hours may be compelling storytelling, but it is not news, claims AP oil spill reporter Harry Weber . Though the Times story claims to be an account built from new disclosures that "make it possible to finally piece... More »

Deepwater Crew Swallowed by Fire When All Safeties Failed

Deepwater Horizon should have been able to contain blowout, says NYT report

(Newser) - Workers on the exploding Deepwater Horizon were cut down by shrapnel, slammed into walls, and swallowed by fireballs, according to a hellish account of the last minutes of the doomed oil rig in the New York Times today. "Dazed and battered survivors, half-naked and dripping in highly combustible gas,... More »

What the World Watched as 2010 Unfolded

Snooki to Spillcam, here's what we gawked at

(Newser) - We stared in horror as oil gushed unchecked from BP's ruptured well for months, we might have raised a beer as Steven Slater took his epic slide down a JetBlue ramp, and we feverishly refreshed Facebook as Mark Zuckerberg took Time's Person of the Year Honors. but mostly, writes Ted... More »

$220M Sand Berms Captured .02% of Gulf Oil

They cost $220 million and caught a 'minuscule' amount of oil

(Newser) - Louisiana spent $220 million of BP's money to build sand berms along its coast to catch oil from the big spill—and they didn't catch very much at all, says a scathing government report. It found the berms collected maybe 1,000 barrels of the estimated 5 million spilled. By... More »

Before Gulf, BP Had Azerbaijan Spill: WikiLeaks

Cables say PM accused firm of stealing billions

(Newser) - Eighteen months before the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the company experienced a similar huge leak in Azerbaijan, WikiLeaks cables reveal. The firm was tight-lipped about the incident, angering its partners, the cables note, adding that BP was fortunate in getting its 212 workers to safety, the... More »

US Sues BP, 8 Others Over Gulf Oil Spill

Feds want to recover billions of dollars in damages

(AP) - The Justice Department today sued BP and eight other companies in the Gulf oil spill disaster in an effort to recover billions of dollars from the largest offshore spill in US history. The Obama administration's lawsuit asks that the companies be held liable without limitation under the Oil Pollution Act... More »

BP to Gulf Residents: Here's a Bonus ... Now Don't Sue Us!

Feinberg offering $5K to individuals who agree not to sue

(Newser) - The administrator of BP's $20 billion compensation fund is offering Gulf residents cash bonuses to speed up the process, reports the New York Times. But there's a catch: Anyone who takes the money ($5,000 for individuals, $25,000 for businesses) has to agree not to sue BP or any... More »

Post-Overhaul, Oil Rig Inspection Still Lacking

Investigation: Oversight remains outdated, underfunded

(Newser) - Following the BP oil spill, the government agency tasked with supervising offshore drilling is trying to turn itself around—but the Wall Street Journal finds those efforts lacking. Though it has renamed itself—the Minerals Management Service is now the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement—and gotten... More »

News Tops Celebs in 2010 Web Searches

BP, World Cup lead Yahoo! list

(Newser) - For the first time since Yahoo began releasing its annual “most-searched” list, news drew more queries than did celebrities, Reuters reports. The BP oil spill and the World Cup were the most searched items. Why? The spill “became an issue about so many things, such as the environment,... More »

BP's Hayward: If Only I Had an Acting Degree

And so what if I went sailing, he harrumphs in first in-depth interview

(Newser) - Tony Hayward's lips are flapping again, which usually doesn't bode well for Tony Hayward. In his first in-depth interview since his departure from the company's helm, BP's vilified ex-CEO is unrepentant about wanting his life back and going sailing as the Macondo well gushed, and generally feels like he "... More »

Investigators: BP Didn't Cut Corners After All

No one consciously chose money over safety, Bartlit says

(Newser) - The presidential panel investigating the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has come to a startling conclusion: BP didn’t cut corners on safety to save money. “We have not seen a single instance where a human being made a conscious decision to favor dollars over safety,” Fred Bartlit, the... More »

Dead Gulf Coral Points to BP Spill

'We'll never be able to see everything that happened down there'

(Newser) - Damaged coral reefs several miles from BP's blown-out Macondo well suggests the spill inflicted far more damage on the Gulf of Mexico's ecosystem than previously thought, reports the AP. "What we have at this point is the smoking gun," says a government biologist who led a recent expedition.... More »

Cement Tests Showed Trouble Before BP Blast

Macondo well went ahead, despite Halliburton data

(AP) - Tests performed before the deadly blowout of BP's oil well in the Gulf should have raised doubts about the cement used to seal the well, but the company and its cementing contractor used it anyway, investigators with the president's oil spill commission said today. The finding appears to conflict with... More »

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