NOAA Declines to Probe Vast Underestimate of BP Spill

[unhappycamper]

http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17730-noaa-declines-to-probe-vast-underestimate-of-bp-spill

NOAA Declines to Probe Vast Underestimate of BP Spill
Friday, 04 January 2013 17:26

Washington, DC - The federal agency responsible for presenting dramatic underestimates for the 2010 BP Gulf oil spill, the biggest environmental disaster in the nation’s history, will not investigate the errors, according to documents posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) documenting the official response to its scientific integrity complaint on the subject. Spill rate numbers presented to the public and decision-makers at the height of the crisis were less than half the true flow. The President’s National Commission found that the inaccurate low-ball numbers hampered numerous attempts to cap the run-away well and slowed clean-up efforts.

Shortly after the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout, it became evident that the company was presenting absurdly low numbers for the size of the gushing spill. In May 2010, the federal government created a team of experts, the Plume Team of the Flow Rate Technical Group, to develop the first accurate estimates of the oil leak rate. On July 30, 2010, key decision makers convened to hear the Plume Team’s estimates but the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) presentation omitted the two highest (and ultimately accurate) estimates of the oil leak rate from the Plume Team, namely, 61,000 and 62,500 bpd (barrels per day) and misled decision makers to believe that much lower estimates were endorsed by all members of the Plume Team.

Nearly one year ago, on January 27, 2012, PEER lodged a complaint on the matter with NOAA under then-newly adopted scientific integrity policies. In response to PEER’s complaint, NOAA appointed a three member review panel to determine if the matter needed to be investigated. In an initial decision dated November 8th, a three-member NOAA panel declined to investigate. The majority of them believed that inadvertent “cut and paste” errors accounted for the deletion of the correct flow rates from key reports and top officials charged with responding to the spill. In the initial decision, two NOAA administrators overruled the lone practicing NOAA scientist on the panel who found –

* Official explanation was “difficult to believe”;
* There appeared to be a deliberate attempt “to hamper the communication of higher flow rate estimates to key decision makers and to the public”; and
* “Further investigation would be necessary” to sort out the discrepancies.

[Angry Dragon]

1. The American people should sue

because the flow-rate determines how much oil bp lost and owes the American people for every barrel ......
there is money involved

[SDjack]

2. Amazing. The most important piece of information -- the flowrate --

was reported in error, and that value was adopted for the attack of the problem. The response to control and cleanup was underwhelming. And, that was not worthy of an investigation. I presume that when BP's penalty was calculated, the correct flowrate and total volume of crude were used. Maybe PEER should look at that also.