Weekend News Roundup - Updated 8/16

As expected, now that the oil has stopped flowing into the Gulf, the news organizations are pointing their cameras and pens elsewhere. President Obama brought his family for a fleeting frolic off the Florida coast, but the attention to the problem will not last.

It doesn't take a lot of digging to find stories in the press and they tend to fall into a few categories.

1. The final capping of the well
2. The drilling moratorium
3. Suing BP
4. Some fishing bans lifted

Capping the Well
Sealing the well is a fairly straightforward deal, assuming everything goes right and should be completed this coming week, but there is a wild card in the mix. That tropical depression that fell apart late last week after is crossed the Florida peninsula is making moves like it wants to strengthen. At this writing, it's reversed course back over the Gulf and could be fortified by the warm water there. It's too early to tell what will happen, but if it does get some of its mojo back, they could shut down activity at the spill sight again. Everyone will have to wait and see over the next few days.

The Drilling Moratorium
Several sources within the Obama administration are now wondering if the current six-month drilling ban is the right move. According to an Associated Press story covered on both Fox News and MSNBC, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar does not want to permit deep water drilling until companies demonstrate that they can respond much more effectively to spills at depth than BP did. Major questions exist around what that might mean, so for now it would seem that the ban will remain through November barring legal challenges to it. It's noteworthy that William K. Reilly, a former EPA administrator who co-chairs Obama's commission on the spill is wondering to the press why those rigs that have passed inspections cannot go back to work. It seems that few understand why six months is the "right" number of months to wait before drilling resumes.

Suing BP
It's clear that the big winners in this oil spill are going to be the lawyers. While some argue both sides of the drilling moratorium and others litigate claims against BP (for big chunks of any awards they win), the single biggest suit was lodged by the state of Alabama against BP and other companies associated with the failed rig because they did not act responsibly.

If history serves as a guide, it's likely that there will be an ever growing queue of legal action that will largely go unnoticed in the press. An MSNBC story says that it could be five years before any trials begin and it could be as long as 2028 before they are all resolved. The report states that there are at least 300 suits pending now and before it is all done the awards could outstrip the $20 billion set aside by BP. I have not seen any reports limiting the percentage of awards that lawyers can take. So assuming the lawyers take their customary 40% contingency fee, that means that they could extract up to $8 billion out of the BP fund leaving $12 billion for those actually harmed by the spill.

The MSNBC story states:

"The plaintiffs in the myriad of civl lawsuits make up the entire mosaic of the Gulf Coast: shrimpers and oystermen, charter boat captains, beach resort and condo owners, restaurants and bars, seafood suppliers, bait and tackle shops, even tourist attractions like Key West's Ripley's Believe It or Not museum.

Most of the parties claim severe economic losses from the oil spill, ranging from the fish they can no longer catch to tourists who never arrived to rent rooms."

What has not surfaced in the press is that the entity accepting claim applications (and I'm not clear on who that is exactly) has been, on occasion, reticent to take any for anyone other than the fishermen. The Kenny DiNero story confirms that they did not want to do anything about the damage to his bait and tackle shop or his fuel business. I have heard similar, unconfirmed, anecdotes from others. Those Gulf residents who went through the claims process after Katrina have seen this before, and few are surprised about what is going on now.

Fishing Bans Eased
Reports surfaced last week, like this one from CNN, that fishing bans are ending across the Gulf. Anyone who thinks that lifting the bans will solve the fishing communities' problems lives in a world where the sky is a color other than blue. Is anyone willing to eat any Gulf fish when the scientific community cannot quantify what the oil and dispersants have done to the aquaculture? Those working the boats know the answer and they cannot justify running their boats when they know the markets for their fish have disappeared. Sure, the government claims to have tested Gulf fish and that no oil was present but there is no way to know if their tested samples are representative of the all the fish in the Gulf. Then there's the dispersants. If there are any reports of fish being tested for them, I have not seen them. As Dr. Mark LaSalle of the Pascagoula Audubon Center indicated, it will take some time before the full effects of this spill are known. Until then, those who fish for their livelihoods will continue to suffer. They are not the only ones.

CNN, as part of their larger BP spill coverage, posted a story to their Web site on August 9th that beats the same drum that's been thumped on for months. Those "in charge" keep saying progress is being made and that things are slowly returning to normal. The story reported that White House environmental adviser Carol Browner said, "she said scientists are examining marine life in the Gulf, 'and right now nobody is seeing anything of concern'."

It's what cannot be seen that keeps Gulf residents worried.

UPDATE: The Associated Press published a story, carried by Fox News and MSNBC on the increased testing regimen being used on fish in the Gulf. It doesn't answer all the questions people have down here, but it does make some progress.