Investigators suspect lightning may have sparked an oil tank explosion in Denham Springs that led to the evacuation of about 30 homes late Thursday. Livingston Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Director Mark Harrell says the cause of the blast is still under investigation today by the state fire marshal's office. But he tells The Associated Press that residents of the neighborhood saw lightning just before the explosion late Thursday at a storage facility. No injuries were reported. Plano, Texas-based Denbury Resources Inc. owns the facility where the tanks are located.
As of this morning, no injuries have been reported following an overnight explosion of an oil tank in the Denham Springs area, The Associated Press reports. The occupants of about 30 to 35 homes in the area of the explosion were evacuated as emergency rescue responders worked to contain fire at the site. Livingston Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Director Mark Harrell tells The Times-Picayune that one of two oil holding tanks at the scene ruptured and caught fire. He says it wasn't known why the tank ruptured. The second oil tank had not exploded but was bulging from the heat. Harrell says the fire has been contained in a 200-square-foot area. He added that evacuated residents will be allowed to return to their homes once the fire is out.
Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, best known for his role in coordinating relief efforts along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, is taking his career in a new direction: speculative home building. The 65-year-old Honoré, who retired from the U.S. Army in 2008, has formed a new venture—Mid City Development—and will begin construction next month on four homes on a lot he bought in 2012 on College Drive near Jefferson Highway. Honoré says he did not intend to get into the residential construction business. For the past several years, most of his time has been spent giving speeches and doing consulting. However, he purchased the College Drive lot hoping to sell it, but after six months decided a better idea would be to redevelop the property—with the help of his brother-in-law, contractor David Darensbourg. "We decided the best way to do it is to put a concept design in for four houses, and if they complement each other they'll sell better," Honoré says. "I think the future...
Mayor Kip Holden is defending a contract that his chief administrative officer, William Daniel, signed with a Florida law firm to represent the city-parish in a claim against BP regarding the 2010 Gulf oil spill. Some Metro Council members are questioning the deal because the firm, Farrell and Patel of Coral Gables, Fla., will get 40% of any money it recovers from claims of lost revenues as a result of the spill. "We didn't go out hunting for this firm," Holden tells Daily Report. "They came to us and said, 'This money is out there. … Are you interested in trying to get it?' Our answer was yes." Some council members have suggested local law firms would charge much less on a contingency basis than 40%. But Holden says out-of-state firms are involved in a variety of class action suits in the state, including the multibillion-dollar tobacco litigation. What's more, he says, "If local law firms knew about the potential of recovering money from BP, why didn't they call us?"...
British oil giant BP says its first-quarter profit nearly tripled as it recorded a big gain from the sale of its 50% stake in a Russian joint venture. The company has reported its profit attributable to BP shareholders for the three months ended March 31 was $16.86 billion, compared to a profit of $5.77 billion a year earlier. Revenue in the quarter rose 10% to $107.21 billion, compared to $97.42 billion a year earlier. BP completed the sale of its interest in TNK-BP to Rosneft on March 21, for a total of $27.5 billion in cash and Rosneft shares. The gain on the sale was $15.5 billion for BP. As for its continuing liability from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, BP says its total cumulative charge for the disaster remained at $42.2 billion at the end of the January-March quarter. There persists significant uncertainty, however, about what its total financial exposure will be, BP says. The first phase of a civil trial in federal court in New Orleans ended earlier this month. The...
Anadarko Petroleum Corp., a partner in the BP well that was the source of the largest U.S. offshore oil spill, is set to ask a federal judge in Texas to throw out a lawsuit claiming the company misled investors about the project's risks before and after the blowout, Bloomberg reports. Investors accused Anadarko, which held a 25% interest in BP's Macondo well, of understating its role in the project and falsely claiming it faced minimal financial liability from the 2010 blowout off the Louisiana coast. The securities-fraud suit, filed as a class action, seeks recovery of billions of dollars of lost share value resulting from the spill. A nonjury trial over liability for the incident concluded last week in New Orleans. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier will determine fault for the incident and decide whether BP or its contractors were grossly negligent, which could trigger higher damages or fines. Barbier says he won't issue an immediate decision. Anadarko wasn't part of the liability...
At first glance, the marshy, muddy coastline of Bay Jimmy in southeast Louisiana appears healthy three years after the nation's worst offshore oil spill. Brown pelicans and seagulls cruise the shoreline, plucking fish and crabs from the water. Snails hold firm to tall blades of marsh grass. But underneath the surface, The Associated Press reports, environmentalists and scientists fear there may be trouble, from tiny organisms to dolphins. Yet the long-term environmental impact from the spill is still not fully known and will likely be debated for years to come. BP has spent billions of dollars on cleanup efforts since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and a well ruptured April 20, 2010, spilling 200 million gallons of crude. The oil fouled 1,110 miles of beaches and marsh along Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Fishing waters were closed and thousands of people who depend on the Gulf's deep blue waters wondered if the coast would ever be the same again. Crews continue to...
A former BP vice president testified in New Orleans this morning that safety was a top priority for the company and there was no discussion of cost-cutting pressures prior to the 2010 rig blast and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Patrick O'Bryan, who was BP's vice president of drilling and completions in the Gulf of Mexico at the time of the disaster, was called to testify by BP as part of its defense in a civil trial in New Orleans to accusations that it acted with gross negligence in causing the spill. "Everybody cared about safety," O'Bryan said. "They took pride in what they did. They wanted to deliver a well, but they wanted to deliver a safe well." O'Bryan, who visited the Deepwater Horizon rig the day of the explosion to assess its safety and the progress of the Macondo well project, which was over budget and taking longer than expected, said no one at rig owner Transocean told him that BP was rushing them to the complete the well. The British oil giant could rest its case in...
The Baton Rouge and New Orleans-area runners participating in today's Boston Marathon as part of the Varsity Sports Running Team are safe this afternoon and were not among those injured or killed in the two unexplained explosions that occurred in downtown Boston shortly before 3 p.m. near the finish line of the race. Jenny Peters, owner of Varsity Sports, says 18 men and women from Baton Rouge and the New Orleans area ran the marathon as part of the Varsity team. She says she has spoken to them and they are all together and doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances. "We were jubilant before the explosion because our men's team had finished second in the race," says Peters. "To have something like this happen now is a terrible tragedy. It is awful to mar something this historic and prestigious." It is unclear if other local runners unaffiliated with Varsity were running the marathon. Neither race officials nor public officials could immediately estimate the number or...
BP this morning called retired LSU petroleum engineering professor Adam "Ted" Bourgoyne Jr. as its first witness at a trial designed to determine causes and assign blame for its April 2010 well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. Bourgoyne, an expert in drilling operations, testified that crew members and BP supervisors on the rig followed "normal industry practices" before encountering problems as they tried to plug the well. Bourgoyne also said he disagrees with an expert witness for the federal government who testified earlier that BP deviated from industry standards and continued drilling despite clear signs of trouble. The witnesses for BP follow testimony presented by Halliburton, BP's cement contractor on the Deepwater Horizon drilling project. Halliburton rested its case Thursday at the end of the trial's sixth week. BP witness testimony is expected to last at least two weeks. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier is hearing testimony. Barring a settlement, he could decide how much...
The federal judge overseeing the civil trial over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill says he is “troubled” by Halliburton's “pattern” of conduct in not turning over documents, test results and other materials related to the cement that was used on the ill-fated well project. The Houston Chronicle reports U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier told Halliburton lawyer Don Godwin that he is not going to rule yet on BP's request for sanctions against the company in the ongoing trial, but noted he has serious concerns. Barbier disclosed that Halliburton turned over late Wednesday night evidence that it arguably should have turned over two years ago. “To say your client had no knowledge this evidence could have been relevant and should have been produced, I can't understand or accept that,” Barbier told Godwin. “I have to tell you, with no disrespect to you, I am very concerned.” Barbier says Halliburton's disclosure of documents has been a...
A federal judge has dismissed all remaining claims against the company that made a key safety device on the drilling rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, killing 11 workers and leading to the nation's worst offshore oil spill. Today's ruling by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier means Cameron International is no longer a defendant in an ongoing trial designed to identify causes of BP's well blowout and assign fault to the companies involved. BP, rig owner Transocean Ltd. and cement contractor Halliburton are the remaining defendants. According to a transcript of today's proceedings, Barbier says he hasn't heard any evidence to support negligence claims against Cameron, which manufactured the blowout preventer on the Deepwater Horizon rig. Barbier already had ruled out punitive damages against Cameron.
A man who worked for BP's cement contractor on the drilling rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 says he didn't believe the oil giant's employees were risking workers' safety when they didn't follow his recommendations. Halliburton employee Jesse Gagliano began testifying today at the trial in New Orleans to determine what caused the blowout of BP PLC's Macondo well and assign fault to the companies involved. Gagliano says his relationship with employees for London-based BP deteriorated amid disagreements about how to perform the cement job that ultimately failed to seal the well. But he says he said he never saw a reason to call a halt to the project before the blowout. Gagliano invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at his 2011 deposition but later agreed to testify at trial. Courtroom proceedings restarted today after a break for the holiday weekend. The trial is now in its sixth week and is expected to take as long as three months, barring a...
Lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy about how best to limit damage to buildings closely track those of Katrina, a federal engineer says. Elevating generators and pumps is a good idea, but enclosing elevated foundations that might be hit by waves or wave-borne debris can cause problems. John Ingargiola, a structural engineer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, says the final report on Sandy is scheduled in the fall. But FEMA is releasing seven advisories for rebuilding and minimizing future flood damage for new construction, plus a fact sheet about cleaning and drying buildings. Ingargiola's comments came during an early workshop Monday at the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans. Photographs he showed from Sandy's destruction looked very much like those after hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005: houses washed from their slabs or collapsed into their foundations, and critical equipment such as generators or switches flooded on ground floors or in basements. "I think,...
A federal judge has dismissed all claims against BP's drilling fluids contractor on the rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, killing 11 workers and triggering the nation's worst offshore oil spill. After plaintiffs rested their case today in the trial over the Gulf oil spill, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ruled there was no evidence that the contractor, M-I LLC, made any decision that led to the blowout of BP's well. Barbier also agreed to rule out punitive damages against Cameron International, the manufacturer of a blowout preventer on the ill-fated rig. The trial continues with more testimony by witnesses for rig owner Transocean Ltd., whose chief executive testified Tuesday. The energy giant BP and Halliburton also will call their own witnesses. The trial, which is taking place in New Orleans, is now in its fourth week. During the first phase of the trial—which is expected to last up to three months—U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier is hearing evidence...
Transocean employees should have done more to detect signs of trouble before the company's drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, killing 11 workers and triggering the nation's worst offshore oil spill, the company's chief executive testified in New Orleans today. But the Swiss-based drilling company's own investigation of the disaster didn't find any mistakes beyond the rig floor, Transocean Ltd. president and CEO Steven Newman maintained. His testimony came on the 14th day of a trial designed to determine the causes of BP's well blowout and to assign fault to the companies involved. Newman says Transocean didn't identify any "management failures" that led to the blowout. "I think we had a good system in place," he testified. Newman says Transocean agreed in January to plead guilty to a criminal charge of violating the Clean Water Act because its rig workers on the Deepwater Horizon played a role in botching a crucial safety test before the blowout. "Do you blame the...
The number of borrowers in Baton Rouge who owed more on their mortgages than their homes were worth in the final quarter of 2012 exceeded the number in that position in the third quarter, according to a new report from CoreLogic released this morning. Approximately 11,018 residential properties in Baton Rouge were "underwater" at the end of 2012—or about 13.9% of all residential properties with a mortgage—according to the report. That's up from 10,769 properties in the third quarter of last year, or about 13.7%. An additional 5% of homes with a mortgage in Baton Rouge, or 3,964 properties, were in "near negative equity" in the fourth quarter. That's also up from 4.7%, or 3,680, in the third quarter, according to the report. Nationwide, the percentage of borrowers with homes underwater fell to 21.5% in the fourth quarter, down from 22% in the third quarter. You can access the complete report
Gov. Bobby Jindal announced this morning plans to visit with some Bayou Corne residents affected by the sinkhole in Assumption Parish later today. Jindal says he will also meet with parish officials and brief the media this afternoon on the discussions. Today's visit comes as the sinkhole has grown to over 12 acres in size and residents begin the process of negotiating property buyouts with Houston-based Texas Brine. Scientists say the sinkhole formed after the collapse of an underground salt cavern operated by Texas Brine, which extracted brine and piped it to nearby petrochemical facilities. The cavern failure released oil and natural gas from formations along the salt dome face. A salt dome is a large, naturally occurring underground salt deposit. About 350 people living in the area have been under an evacuation order, and many of them have been displaced for more than seven months, with no end in sight. Texas Brine officials say they began to contact residents Monday to discuss...
Texas Brine, the company responsible for the sinkhole in Assumption Parish, will provide settlement offers to residents that have been forced to evacuate, Gov. Bobby Jindal announced March 13 along with local officials and legislators. "Texas Brine is responsible for the sinkhole, and we've remained committed to holding them accountable," Jindal says in a prepared statement. "After months of discussions, and after meeting with Texas Brine officials this afternoon, the company has agreed to start providing settlement offers, which include buyouts." Jindal says a "blue-ribbon commission" of experts will help Assumption Parish leaders address safety concerns. Jindal says parish officials and the state continue to wait for Texas Brine to reimburse the cost of sinkhole response efforts. Jindal says Assumption Parish government has billed Texas Brine for about $480,000 and has been reimbursed $265,000. The Assumption Parish Sheriff's office has billed Texas Brine for $340,000 and been...
A lawyer for the cement contractor on the Deepwater Horizon drilling project says the company has found cement samples possibly associated with BP's Macondo well that weren't turned over to the Justice Department for testing. But Halliburton lawyer Donald Godwin told U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier today that the company believes the material found this week at its lab in Lafayette has no bearing on the ongoing trial in New Orleans over the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A plaintiffs' attorney countered that the samples are cement a Halliburton employee used for testing of the well before a blowout triggered a deadly explosion. In an email to the court late Wednesday, Godwin says Halliburton is investigating whether the material should have been turned over as evidence in response to subpoenas.
A fire that ignited when a gas pipeline was hit by a tugboat pushing an oil barge burned into the morning hours today in a bayou south of New Orleans amid reports that oil had leaked into the water. There was still liquid petroleum gas in the 19-mile pipeline, and authorities were waiting for it to burn out, Coast Guard Petty Officer Alex Washington says. Coast Guard Ensign Tanner Stiehl says the collision happened Tuesday at about 6 p.m. on Bayou Perot, in a marshy area near where Lafourche and Jefferson parishes meet, about 30 miles south of New Orleans. The tugboat and barge were engulfed in flames and heavy smoke billowed from the scene. "All crew members were able to exit the tug; the captain reportedly suffered second- to third-degree degree burns," the Coast Guard says in a news release today. Stiehl says the barge was carrying oil and that "there have been reports of oil in the water." Washington says authorities later today will have a better idea of how much oil has leaked...
After meeting with Assumption Parish officials and area legislators today to discuss the state's ongoing response to the sinkhole that formed in the Bayou Corne community, Gov. Bobby Jindal released a statement calling for expedited property buyouts for those who have been displaced. The governor also laid out plans for a personal visit. Jindal has faced heavy criticism recently from some Bayou Corne residents and several media outlets for not visiting the community since the sinkhole formed last summer as a result of problems with a salt dome cavern mined by Texas Brine. Jindal says he plans to meet with Texas Brine on Wednesday to push for buyouts for those forced to evacuate because of the sinkhole. He says he'll visit the Bayou Corne community to review progress for himself next week. "We had a productive meeting today to discuss the state's ongoing response to the sinkhole and outline a contingency plan after concerns were raised about a second Texas Brine salt dome cavern,"...
A 57-year-old Transocean employee who survived the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion testified at the Gulf oil spill trial today that a subordinate killed in the blast was one of the workers who apparently missed signs the well was about to blow out. Randy Ezell, the first rig worker to testify in person at a trial designed to assign blame for the 2010 disaster, said that Jason Anderson was a "top-notch" toolpusher who would have done everything in his power to prevent the blowout. Anderson was one of 11 workers killed on the rig, which was owned by Transocean and leased by BP. Ezell, a senior toolpusher, said Anderson and others on the rig, including BP supervisors, misinterpreted the results of a crucial safety test. Ezell said Anderson told him during a telephone call less than an hour before the explosion that it was a "good test" and that there were no signs of trouble for 30 minutes after the test. Well data showed the first indication of a problem could have been spotted about...
BP deviated from its own policy on responding to accidents by not determining how management contributed to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a company safety expert who led an internal investigation of the disaster testified this morning. Mark Bly, who was promoted to an executive management position at BP after the report was issued, said he and former BP CEO Tony Hayward decided on the scope of the investigation days after the Macondo well blowout and Deepwater Horizon rig explosion off Louisiana's coast. Plaintiffs attorneys at a civil trial in federal court in New Orleans are trying to show BP's report was self-serving, incomplete, and designed to shield the company from billions of dollars in damages that are a subject of the trial. Bly told U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier that he could have gone further in the probe but that there were limitations in terms of availability of witnesses and information. Bly said that, among other things, the probe didn't analyze the potential...
A federal judge today approved Transocean Ltd.'s agreement with the Justice Department to pay $1 billion in civil penalties for its role in the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier says in his ruling that he found "no just reason for delay" in approving the civil settlement. Last week, a different judge approved Transocean's criminal settlement with the federal government. The Swiss-based company pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and will pay an additional $400 million in criminal penalties. Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which exploded and sank over BP's Macondo well in April 2010. The accident killed 11 rig workers and spawned the nation's worst offshore oil spill. A trial scheduled to start Feb. 25 is designed to identify the causes of BP's Macondo well blowout and assign percentages of fault to the companies involved. BP, which leased the rig from Transocean and owned the blown-out well, recently reached a...
A Coast Guard official says a disabled cruise ship—dubbed the "floating toilet"—off the coast of Alabama is again moving toward the shore after a broken towline delayed the vessel's slow journey back to port. Petty Officer William Colclough says a new tugboat has been secured and the Carnival Triumph is again making its way into Mobile. He says the ship will be further delayed because of the towline issue, though he did not give a new estimated arrival time. It had been expected to arrive Thursday night. An engine-room fire Sunday left the ship powerless. More than 4,000 people are on board the Triumph, and passengers face long bus rides or other travel hassles to get home once they arrive in Alabama. The Triumph was being pulled at 5 mph by four tugboats when the towline broke. Click here to read more.
A federal judge has approved Transocean Ltd.'s agreement with the Justice Department to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge and pay $400 million in criminal penalties for its role in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo accepted Transocean's plea and imposed the agreed-upon sentence during a hearing today. The Swiss-based drilling company could have withdrawn from the deal if she had rejected it. Milazzo said she had received no letters objecting to the settlement. Transocean agreed last month to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of violating the Clean Water Act. The company also agreed to pay $1 billion in civil penalties. A different judge will decide whether to accept that part of the settlement. Transocean owned the rig Deepwater Horizon, which exploded and sank over BP's Macondo well in April 2010. The accident killed 11 men and sparked the nation's worst offshore oil disaster. Much of the $1.4 billion Transocean agreed to pay will fund...
Now that a $4 billion plea deal approved Tuesday has resolved BP's criminal liability for the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster that occurred nearly three years ago, the company will turn its focus to a trial that could potentially cost it billions of dollars more in civil penalties. What the plea deal approved by U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance doesn't resolve is the federal government's civil claims against BP. A trial scheduled to start Feb. 25 is designed to identify the causes of BP's well blowout, which triggered the deadly rig explosion on April 20, 2010, and the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that ensued for months. The first phase of the trial also is designed to assign percentages of blame to BP and its partners in the ill-fated drilling project. BP and the Justice Department have engaged in settlement talks that could resolve the civil claims against BP by the federal government and Gulf Coast states before trial. Vance notes that the company already has...
A federal judge today approved an agreement for BP to plead guilty to manslaughter and other charges and pay a record $4 billion in criminal penalties for the company's role in the 2010 oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Before she ruled, U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance heard testimony from relatives of 11 workers who died when BP's blown-out Macondo well triggered an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and started the spill. BP agreed in November to plead guilty to charges involving the workers' deaths and for lying to Congress about the size of the spill from its broken well, which spewed more than 200 million gallons of oil. Much of it ended up in the Gulf and soiled the shorelines of several states. The company could have withdrawn from the agreement if Vance had rejected it. Neither the Justice Department nor BP presented arguments to the judge before her decision in New Orleans today. Vance says the plea deal was "just punishment" considering the risks of...
Throughout 2012, FEMA continued its steadfast refusal to pay for the post-Hurricane Gustav cleanup in Livingston Parish. Before the end of the year, the parish ended its appeals, but not before accusing some of FEMA's representatives of bungling incompetence and outright deception.
Even as contractors for the Army Corps of Engineers are putting finishing touches on the major upgrades to the New Orleans area levee system built to design standards adopted in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, The Times-Picayune reports a consulting engineer working for the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority–East says those standards are already outdated. Bob Jacobsen told the authority on Thursday that a review he led—which included experts from the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute—found that while the standards used to upgrade the levees were dramatic improvements when adopted seven years ago, engineering and science have sped forward, often spurred by research conducted in Katrina's aftermath. Jacobsen says the purpose of the review is not to question the ability of the new levee system to dramatically reduce the risk of property damage from flooding in New Orleans, or to...
Inspectors taking the first-ever inventory of flood control systems overseen by the federal government have found hundreds of structures at risk of failing and endangering people and property in 37 states. Levees deemed to be in unacceptable condition are in every region of the United States, in cities and towns big and small. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has yet to issue ratings for a little more than 40% of the 2,487 structures, which protect about 10 million people. Of those it has rated, however, 326 levees covering more than 2,000 miles were found in urgent need of repair. The problems are myriad: earthen walls weakened by trees, shrubs and burrowing animal holes; houses built dangerously close to or even on top of levees; decayed pipes and pumping stations. The Associated Press requested, under the Freedom of Information Act, details on why certain levees were judged unacceptable and how many people would be affected in a flood. The corps declined to answer with data on the...
Louisiana is paying $108 million to get out of a deal that helped rebuild and upgrade the Superdome in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina but later exploded in interest costs. The State Bond Commission received the final details today of the debt refinancing for the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District, which includes the termination payment to end the previous arrangement. The LSED is borrowing $361 million to restructure the bond deal from 2006 that became saddled with problems during the credit crunch and financial downturn two years after the deal was struck. The $108 million termination penalty will be rolled into the refinanced borrowing and paid off over decades with the rest of the debt. The arrangement also ends litigation with Merrill Lynch over the previous arrangement.
While drought conditions and low Mississippi River levels in states farther north are negatively impacting barge operators as far south as Louisiana, Port of Greater Baton Rouge Executive Director Jay Hardman says the local effects have been minimal thus far. "With the exception of a few of our tenants located along the barge canal, we have been pretty well isolated from it," Hardman says. "With our grain elevator closed for renovations, we've really dodged a bullet." The grain elevator has been closed since January 2012 as part of an approximately $130 million renovation being undertaken by Louis Dreyfus Commodities. Hardman says he is told the project is moving along as planned and is on target to reopen later this year. "They're trying very hard to capture the wheat harvest here in May, but whether they can do that or not is...
Visit Baton Rouge may have a chance at a share of an estimated $7.8 billion for damages from the 2010 BP oil spill. The tourism agency's board on Tuesday will consider finalizing a contract with New Orleans attorney Kurt Offner to pursue a claim tied to the Deepwater Horizon economic and property damage settlement agreement, which U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier approved last month. Visit Baton Rouge President/CEO Paul Arrigo says VBR has been notified by the state hotel/motel association that the tourism promotion board might be eligible to receive a slice of the funds. "We're doing due diligence and trying to get what might be out there so we can better market the city," Arrigo says. "I have no idea how much it could be." The settlement has no cap; BP reportedly has estimated it will pay $7.8 billion to resolve economic and medical claims from more than 100,000 businesses and individuals affected by the spill. Visit Baton Rouge already has been granted nearly $1 million in two...
The Justice Department reached a $1.4 billion settlement today with Transocean Ltd., the owner of the drilling rig that sank after an explosion killed 11 workers and spawned the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The proposed settlement resolves the department's civil and criminal probe of Transocean's role in the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster. It requires the Switzerland-based company to pay $1 billion in civil penalties and $400 million in criminal penalties and to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of violating the Clean Water Act, according to a court filing. The deal, which is subject to a federal judge's approval, also calls for Transocean to implement a series of operational safety and emergency response improvements on its rigs. Much of the $1.4 billion will fund environmental restoration projects and spill-prevention research and training. The company has two years to pay the $1 billion civil penalty. BP, which leased the rig from Transocean, already has agreed...
There's a move afoot by the Department of Public Works and the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority to fight blight, with a focus on abandoned houses and vacant lots. In his new column, Business Report Publisher Rolfe McCollister says he applauds the initiative because "as a taxpayer I am not interested in paying to take care of someone else's property." McCollister says those who own neglected homes and properties should have the option of doing one of four things: "sell it, maintain it, use it—or lose it." McCollister also suggests that the new, strict anti-blight program be expanded to local commercial property and businesses, specifically in regards to abandoned signage. "This is simply 'sight pollution,' and it is just as ugly and distasteful as trash in the street or abandoned homes in our neighborhoods," he says. "Someone is not taking care of their business, and there is no excuse. Where is their community pride?" You can check out a photo gallery of a few...
Authorities say it could take up to three weeks to finish storing military propellant at an explosives recycling company that caused the evacuation of a Louisiana town. The town of Doyline, located about 20 miles east of Shreveport, was evacuated earlier this month after authorities reported finding 6 million pounds of the material improperly stored at Explo Systems Inc. Explo contracts with the military to demilitarize explosives and other materials, and rents space at a National Guard base in north Louisiana. The material found improperly stored on the base is called M6 and is used as a propellant for artillery rounds. Louisiana State Police spokesman Matt Harris today announced that crews have moved 4.4 million pounds of product into proper storage sites. A criminal investigation into the company's handling of the explosives is ongoing.
A federal judge has postponed the trial of a former BP executive charged with obstruction of Congress stemming from statements he made about the amount of oil that was flowing from a blown-out well following the deadly 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster. The Houston Chronicle reports that U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt issued his order Monday at the request of lawyers for David Rainey of Houston; they argued that because of the complexity of the case they need more time to prepare and would not be ready for trial on Jan. 28. The judge did not set a new trial date. At a hearing slated for Jan. 17, Rainey's lawyers are expected to let the court know how much more time they need. Lawyers for two BP well-site leaders charged with manslaughter in connection with the Gulf disaster also are expected to seek delays of their trial, now set for Feb. 4. A former BP engineer charged with obstruction for allegedly deleting text messages related to the oil flow rate is set for trial Feb. 25.
The explosives recycling company that recently caused the evacuation of a northwestern Louisiana town has come under scrutiny for explosions and its handling of dangerous materials before—and it was so far behind on its rent that the Louisiana National Guard refused to lease it more space. Explo Systems Inc. was cited for safety violations by the federal government in 2007 for its use of old Army explosives in mining operations in West Virginia, where a blast with "outdated deteriorated military ordnance" injured one worker and exposed others to toxins. And the company had fallen hundreds of thousands of dollars behind on its rent at a Louisiana National Guard base even as it processed an Army contract to demilitarize hundreds of thousands of propelling charges used for artillery. The company's most recent problems began with an explosion in October at a Louisiana facility near the small town of Doyline. In late November Doyline's 800 residents were put under a voluntary...
Louisiana's two U.S. senators, Democrat Mary Landrieu and Republican David Vitter, are scheduled to join a delegation of senators from across the country surveying parts of New Jersey today that were damaged during Superstorm Sandy, which struck the Northeast in late October. New Jersey is seeking political support for an expensive repair bill from the storm. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has called the storm "New Jersey's Katrina," is seeking $36.9 billion in federal funds for his state. The tour comes days after President Barack Obama asked Congress for $60.4 billion in federal aid for New Jersey, New York and other states hit by Sandy. New Jersey elected officials are trying to drum up support for the state's funding request amid contentious negotiations between Democrats and Republicans over spending and taxes to avoid automatic cuts scheduled to take effect next year, the so-called fiscal cliff.
The U.S. government today banned BP temporarily from new federal contracts over its "lack of business integrity" regarding the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, a move that the British company has said could force it to rethink its entire U.S. operations. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says the suspension is "standard practice" following criminal actions. On Nov. 16, BP agreed to plead guilty to criminal misconduct in the Gulf of Mexico disaster, the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, and to pay record penalties of $4.5 billion. From its London headquarters, BP had no immediate comment on the suspension. BP and its affiliates are barred from new federal contracts until they demonstrate they can meet federal business standards, the EPA says. BP's existing U.S. government contracts are not affected. The EPA statement does not specify the length of the suspension. The Associated Press has the full story
About half the businesses and individuals who asked to be excluded from a proposed settlement over BP's 2010 oil spill submitted valid requests, the company and a team of plaintiffs' attorneys say in a court filing. A maximum of 13,123 potential claimants submitted valid opt-out requests by a Nov. 1 deadline, the filing says. A total of 25,866 asked to be excluded, but the architects of the deal say many failed to comply with the court's requirements for submitting requests. More than 9,000 were deemed invalid because an attorney, not the actual claimant, signed the request. "And most of these 'signatures' were not even done by counsel personally; instead, they were applied using what appears to be a rubber stamp of the lawyer's signature, which begs the question of whether even counsel—let alone the clients—executed these submissions with due consideration to each submission and each client's facts, circumstances, and interests," BP and plaintiffs' attorneys write.
A federal judge has scheduled a closed-door meeting on Thursday to discuss BP's agreement to plead guilty to criminal charges stemming from its deadly 2010 rig explosion and response to the massive Gulf oil spill. BP is expected to plead not guilty on Tuesday during its initial court appearance and then plead guilty at a later date. U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance plans to meet Thursday in her chambers with prosecutors and BP attorneys to discuss scheduling matters. Earlier this month, BP agreed to pay a record $4.5 billion in penalties and plead guilty to a raft of charges to resolve the Justice Department's criminal probe of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The deal, which is subject to Vance's approval, calls for BP to plead guilty to charges involving the deaths of 11 rig workers and for lying to Congress about how much oil was spewing from its blown-out well. Meanwhile, BP rig supervisors Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine and former BP executive David Rainey are scheduled to be...
BP is preparing to plead guilty to manslaughter and other crimes arising from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico rig explosion and oil spill but isn't expected to do that during an initial appearance Tuesday in New Orleans federal court. The Houston Chronicle reports that court appearances also are scheduled this week for three men who were working for the oil giant at the time of the disaster, and they already are mounting efforts to fight felony charges. Once BP enters its planned guilty plea, a judge probably will order a pre-sentence report, in which court officials would recommend the appropriate punishment. Assuming that determination meshes with BP's agreement with the Justice Department announced Nov. 15, which includes a multibillion-dollar fine, a federal judge would consider final approval of the plea deal. Tuesday's hearing is simply a first appearance for BP. At a status conference set for Thursday, the parties will discuss when BP will enter its plea, Justice Department...
Before last week's fatal fire on one of Black Elk Energy's oil production platforms, The Houston Chronicle reports, the five-year-old firm had racked up more than 300 documented mistakes and violations offshore. The report cites federal regulators who cracked down on the Houston-based firm Wednesday. The federal government ordered the company to immediately cease burning, welding and other activities that could ignite fires at all of its 98 oil and gas production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. Regulators also are insisting on a third-party audit of Black Elk's safety management systems and are barring the company from launching work at facilities that are currently offline. Moreover, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement is ordering Black Elk Energy to submit a performance improvement plan detailing the steps it will take to ensure compliance in its operations. The bureau has threatened that unless there is swift evidence of improved performance, the company...
Black Elk Energy has halted the search for a worker missing since Friday's fire aboard the company's oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. The missing crewman, Jerome Malagapo of the Philippines, was employed by Grand Isle Shipyard Inc., which had a contract with Black Elk to refurbish the platform. The company says in a statement released Tuesday night that it will focus on the victims and their families, including those injured in the incident. The body of 42-year-old Elroy Corporal was found over the weekend. Four workers who suffered burns during the platform fire are being treated at the Baton Rouge General Medical Center. The cause of the explosion and fire aboard the platform remains under investigation. The Houston Chronicle reports initial investigations of the lethal explosion are focusing on the possibility that a torch ignited flammable materials on the site. Such activities that involve burning, welding or other operations capable of starting fires or...
The embassy of the Philippines in Washington has released the identity of a worker killed in a fiery explosion on an oil platform off the coast of Louisiana on Friday. In a news release on the embassy website, he is identified as 42-year-old Elroy Corporal. Meanwhile, the embassy says it is holding out hope that another unidentified Filipino worker who has been missing since Friday's accident will be found alive. Houston-based platform owner Black Elk Energy says it planned to take a search-and-rescue dog aboard its fire-damaged offshore platform today as it continues to look for signs of the missing worker. In addition to the one dead and one missing worker, four Filipino contract workers are being treated in Baton Rouge for serious burns. One of them has been identified as 50-year-old Wilberto Ilagan, who was most...
Bob Dudley shrank BP to save it. The onetime Mississippian and current CEO sold more than $50 billion of assets to pay the costs of the worst U.S. oil spill in history, Bloomberg reports. Rescued from the brink of collapse, Europe's second-largest oil company is now seen as vulnerable to a takeover. BP is the cheapest of the world's five biggest non-state oil companies by market value relative to reserves, earnings and output. As a result it may become a target, according to people familiar with the strategic thinking of the London-based company and its potential acquirers. Dudley's boldest move as the first American in charge of the 103-year-old British company was last month's exit from a turbulent Russian venture in exchange for a 20% stake in state oil company OAO Rosneft and $12.3 billion in cash. The deal solved one of BP's two biggest challenges. The other, litigation in the U.S. over fines from the spill, came closer to a resolution last week with a $4.5 billion...
An explosion and fire ripped through a Gulf oil platform today as workers used a cutting torch, sending four people to a hospital with critical burns and leaving two missing in waters off Louisiana. Coast Guard Capt. Ed Cubanski says the well was not producing at the time and no oil was leaking. A relatively small amount of oil spilled from the rig when workers using a torch cut into a 75-foot-long, 3-inch-wide line on the platform. Cubanski says a sheen one-half mile long and 200 yards wide was reported in the area. The fire has since been extinguished, Coast Guard spokesman Drake Fore says, adding Coast Guard aircraft and boats were searching for two missing people. Nobody was believed killed in the fire, but Cubanski says 11 people were flown from the platform to area hospitals or for treatment on shore by emergency medical workers. Taslin Alfonzo, spokeswoman for West Jefferson Medical Center in suburban New Orleans, says four injured workers were brought to the hospital in...
Coast Guard officials say they are investigating a fire at an oil drilling platform off the coast of Louisiana. A parish official says the rig is not drilling at a deepwater site like the Macondo well that blew out in 2010. That blowout led to an explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts tells New Orleans TV station WWL-TV that the platform is a shallow water platform in the Gulf of Mexico. It is near West Cote Blanche Bay, south of New Iberia on the south-central Louisiana coast. The Coast Guard says it has activated a command center to investigate the fire. The size of the fire was not immediately clear, nor was it known if there were any injuries.
While BP has resolved a sweeping criminal probe of its role in the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, two company employees charged in the deaths of 11 rig workers claim the Justice Department is trying to make them scapegoats for the disaster. Attorneys for the highest-ranking BP employees aboard the Deepwater Horizon during the deadly explosion in April 2010 vowed to fight manslaughter charges against their clients. According to the indictment unsealed Thursday, Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine are accused of disregarding abnormal high-pressure readings that should have been glaring indications of trouble just before the blowout. Vidrine's attorney, Bob Habans, says in a statement that prosecutors showed "exceedingly poor judgment" in charging his 65-year-old client. "It is almost inconceivable that any fair-minded person would blame this hard-working and diligent man for one of the most catastrophic events in the history of the oil business," Habans' statement reads.
Oil giant BP says it has agreed to pay $4.5 billion in a wide-ranging settlement with the U.S. government over the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The London-based multinational company says in a statement issued today that it has agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges including 11 felony counts of misconduct related to the deaths of 11 men in the rig explosion that triggered the oil spill. It also agreed to plead guilty to one felony count of obstruction of Congress. The settlement total of $4.5 billion over five years includes nearly $1.3 billion in criminal fines—the largest such penalty ever—along with payments to several government agencies.The largest previous corporate criminal penalty assessed by the Department of Justice was a $1.2 billion fine imposed on drug maker Pfizer in 2009. London-based BP made a net profit of $5.5 billion in the third quarter, it reported last month. It announced earlier today it was in advanced talks with U.S. agencies, but...
Oil giant BP and the U.S. government portrayed in public a united front as a out-of-control well spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. But The Houston Chronicle is reporting that the two privately sought to withhold potentially critical information from each other, possibly slowing efforts to solve the crisis, citing new testimony in the case. Last month's closed-door testimony by Marcia McNutt, head of the U.S. Geological Survey, in the ongoing litigation over the disaster could complicate a Justice Department probe that has focused on whether BP and its partners obstructed justice by lying to investigators. "It could have impeded the investigation, and both sides may share some blame in that regard," says Blaine LeCesne, a law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans who has followed the case. Motivations aren't clear from transcripts the newspaper obtained of McNutt's two-day deposition in New Orleans, but BP's pocketbook and the government's ability to punish...
FEMA has approved nearly $116 million in individual aid for Louisiana homeowners and renters who experienced damage from Hurricane Isaac. Nearly 32,000 people have received housing assistance, which totals $95 million. Another $21 million has been provided for other types of individual assistance, according to FEMA. Ray Perez, a spokesman with the agency, provided the latest figures Tuesday. Isaac made landfall Aug. 28 and caused significant flooding in southeast Louisiana. Eight FEMA disaster recovery centers are still open, providing aid. Perez says $37.5 million has been approved for residents of St. John the Baptist and Plaquemines parishes, which experienced some of the most extensive flooding from the storm. Nearly $16 million has also been doled out to residents of Jefferson Parish.
A state inspector general's wide-ranging report on Louisiana Fire Marshal Butch Browning includes the finding that one of Browning's inspectors failed to detect mechanical problems with a carnival ride in Greensburg hours before two teenagers were injured on the ride in May 2011. Today's report says Browning publicly attributed the accident to operator error, even after learning of the possible inspection problem. Browning's office and Department of Public Safety officials dispute the findings in Inspector General Stephen Street's report, including the assertion that Browning was told of the possible inspection error before he made the public pronouncement. The inspector general's report tracks several allegations forwarded by a watchdog group, the New Orleans-based Metropolitan Crime Commission, before Browning's brief resignation from the job earlier this year. Browning quit in April but came back in May after state police investigated and reported he had made no attempt to defraud...
There's little doubt a federal judge will give final approval to a multibillion-dollar settlement between BP and victims of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill following a hearing this week. The bigger question, as The Houston Chronicle reports, is whether the deal survives on appeal. Class-action settlements in admiralty cases are relatively uncommon, and even more rare is to have one that involves so many types of claims and losses, legal experts say. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and, ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court could be asked to weigh in. That means U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier's expected signature sometime after Thursday's hearing in New Orleans on the fairness of the settlement is unlikely to be the last word. "It's pretty clear it's not going to be a done deal," says Martin Davies, a Tulane University law professor who specializes in maritime issues. The settlement, which BP worked out with a steering committee of lawyers representing plaintiffs, would...
Most decisions about the details of a huge class-action settlement of damage claims from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill will come from stately offices and a federal courtroom in New Orleans. But, as The Houston Chronicle reports, the consequences will reach farther south, where Louisianans—many of them subsistence fishermen—count on swampy bayous and gray Gulf waves for their livelihood, and are struggling to support themselves on catches they say have dwindled to a fifth of their pre-spill numbers. "It just ain't there anymore," says Maurice Phillips, a 58-year-old fisherman and trapper from Grand Bayou who traces his ancestry to the region's first Native American residents. Phillips is one of hundreds of fishermen who must decide by Thursday whether his share of a proposed $2.3 billion settlement fund will make up for the losses he has experienced since BP's Macondo well spilled millions of gallons of crude oil into the waters where he and his family have...
An abandoned piece of equipment that is believed to be the source of an oil sheen spotted near the site of the massive 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been capped and plugged, BP says. The London-based oil giant says it placed a 750-pound cap over an 86-ton steel container that the company had deployed in a failed effort to contain the spill. BP also inserted plugs on the top and sides of the container, which had been lowered over a leaking drill pipe in an effort to funnel oil to the surface. BP and the Coast Guard both say no oil has been seen leaking out of the container since it was capped and plugged. The operation started Tuesday and lasted roughly 26 hours. The sheen appeared on the Gulf's surface in September. BP plans to monitor the sheen by satellite for several more days. The Coast Guard says it has directed BP to submit a plan for either removing remaining oil from the container or removing the container itself after the oil is removed. Last week BP said a...
BP's multibillion-dollar settlement with individuals and businesses affected by the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill doesn't appear to be in jeopardy as more than 90% of those eligible are expected to accept the deal, the claims administrator says. Lafayette attorney Patrick Juneau, who took over the processing of victims' claims from Kenneth Feinberg in June, tells The Houston Chronicle that only about 100 to 200 claimants had opted out of the deal as of last week. The figure is important because BP's agreement with lawyers for plaintiffs allows the oil giant to withdraw from the deal if too many claimants opt out; BP has not said what that threshold is. Those who don't opt out by a Nov. 1 deadline are part of the class action settlement and cannot pursue separate lawsuits. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier of New Orleans, who tentatively approved the deal, has set a hearing to begin Nov. 8 in federal court in New Orleans to assess whether it is fair. Barbier then will decide...
As a federal judge considers whether to approve a huge civil settlement in the 2010 oil spill, thousands of Gulf Coast residents owe their day in court to a law that arose from the Exxon Valdez disaster 23 years ago. The litigation over the spill from BP's Macondo well is the biggest test so far of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, and economic victims of the Gulf spill likely will fare better than those who suffered from the 1989 tanker accident in Prince William Sound, Alaska. While some plaintiffs have expressed frustration that the settlement process has taken two years, legal experts tell the The Houston Chronicle that one of the biggest benefits of the oil pollution legislation has been how it has helped move along the resolution process, sidestepping much of the legal fighting that bogged down the Valdez negotiations. Under the act, liability for an oil spill falls to the operator of a project—BP—and co-owners of the Macondo well, in the case of the Gulf spill.
Two leading attorneys for plaintiffs in the BP oil spill case plan to recommend that their thousands of clients drop out of the class action settlement and try their luck in court, The Houston Chronicle reports. Tony Buzbee, a Houston-based attorney representing more than 12,000 individual plaintiffs, says he plans to advise these clients they can get a better deal than the proposed settlement negotiated by BP and the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, a group of attorneys appointed by the federal court to represent individual plaintiffs. New Orleans attorney Stuart Smith, who represents several thousand clients, says he is considering recommending that his clients decline the settlement. The settlement was negotiated for an estimated $7.8 billion to cover claims of individuals and businesses in the Gulf Coast region in the wake of the 2010 disaster. It still needs to be approved by a federal court after a fairness hearing scheduled for Nov. 8. Plaintiffs who want to opt out must...
As individual plaintiffs continue to object to a tentative settlement over the Deepwater Horizon disaster, debate continues on whether the presiding judge should allow more evidence to be collected, The Houston Chronicle reports. A hearing on the settlement's fairness is slated for Nov. 8. BP sent a letter to Federal District Judge Carl Barbier last week arguing that since the settlement was announced more than five months ago and a Sept. 7 deadline for additional evidence has now passed, requests by plaintiffs are simply an effort to delay the settlement proceedings. BP's response comes amid a continuous stream of filings on a proposed settlement that BP agreed to with individual plaintiffs represented by the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee for an estimated $7.8 billion. That deal was struck at the beginning of March as a way to resolve individual damages over the Deepwater Horizon accident in April 2010. In a Monday morning letter to the court, attorney Stuart Smith—who...
When Hurricane Gustav threatened the Capital Region in 2008, the memory of Katrina and Rita, two storms from the devastating 2005 hurricane season, still was fresh. Which may explain why everyone, from state government on down, seemed quicker and better organized than they had been three years prior.
Residents of East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana and West Feliciana parishes who suffered damages from Hurricane Isaac are now eligible for FEMA individual assistance, the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness announced this afternoon. Louisiana officials requested these parishes be added to the state's declaration on Aug. 31, and their addition brings the total number of parishes declared for the FEMA individual assistance program to 21. Ascension and Livingston parishes are also on the FEMA's list of eligible parishes. FEMA assistance is for those who sustained uninsured or underinsured Isaac-related damage to their homes, vehicles, personal property, business or its inventory beginning Aug. 26. You can apply for assistance online here, or by calling toll-free 800-621-3362. Two parishes—Pointe Coupee and West Baton Rouge—have yet to be approved for the individual assistance program,...
In his latest column, The Houston Chronicle's Loren Steffy talks with Keith Jones of Baton Rouge, whose son Gordon Jones was among the 11 men killed aboard the Deepwater Horizon when it exploded on April 20, 2010. But Jones is also a lawyer involved in the case. He has heard about the government's negotiations over criminal charges related to the disaster, and amid all the talk of multibillion-dollar fines he sees a glaring omission. "Nobody has done anything to prosecute the people who were directly responsible for these deaths," Jones says, adding that he's "somewhat mystified" that all the talk involving the government's criminal claims against BP, the rig's operator, and Transocean, its owner, have been about fines for pollution crimes. From the beginning, the sense of accountability for the lives lost has been supplanted by environmental liability, and Jones worries that the companies involved already are looking past the potential fines, eager to get on with business as...
The Water Institute of the Gulf, an independent applied research organization that began operations in Baton Rouge this year, has been tapped to investigate whether the new $14.6 billion levee protection system in the New Orleans area contributed to flooding in areas outside the system during and after Hurricane Isaac, says Garret Graves, Louisiana's top coastal official. He says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' pre-storm models showed that any additional flooding tied to the New Orleans system only would be a minimal addition to what those areas would have had anyway: for example, an extra one to three inches on the Northshore. The corps is going back and reviewing those models, Graves says, and the state has asked TWIG to "take an independent look." "The corps has some impressive capabilities," he says. "[But] we don't want them to look at themselves in the mirror and ask if they did a good job or not. We want to have some independent, third-party verification that their modeling...
A proposed settlement of claims relating to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill is insufficient for spill victims in Louisiana, especially in the fishing industry, the state says in a motion opposing court approval of the deal between BP and a committee representing plaintiffs. Attorney General Buddy Caldwell says the settlement imposes many conditions on spill plaintiffs that are unfair and, in some cases, against the law. His objection is outlined in documents filed with U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier of New Orleans, The Houston Chronicle reports. While Louisiana is not a party to the proposed settlement, Caldwell used the state's responsibility to protect its citizens as the impetus for the brief. "The outcome of the proposed settlement is of great interest to the state because of the inadequate relief offered to residents of Louisiana in exchange for the relinquishment of strong legal claims against BP," Caldwell writes. Barbier, who is overseeing a case combining hundreds...
Transocean Ltd. and the Justice Department have discussed a $1.5 billion settlement that would resolve federal civil and criminal claims against the company over its role in the deadly 2010 rig explosion that spawned the nation's worst offshore oil spill. But Switzerland-based Transocean Ltd. also says in a regulatory filing today that a "number of issues," including the possible time period for payment, must be resolved before a deal can be completed. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment to The Associated Press on the matter. Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, where 11 workers died in an April 2010 explosion triggered by a blowout of BP's Macondo well. Transocean also says it rejected settlement offers earlier this year from BP and a group of private attorneys for Gulf Coast residents and businesses.
Roughly $320 billion: That's where University of North Texas economist Bernard Weinstein put the economic cost from hurricanes Katrina and Rita in a 2006 report, The Times-Picayune reports. From tattered oil rigs offshore and devastated property along the Gulf Coast, the costs rippled out across the country, even denting monthly U.S. industrial production. No such figure has been estimated for Hurricane Isaac, whose economic toll probably will amount to just a fraction of what befell south Louisiana and the country seven years ago. But economists, experts from the insurance industry and government officials are bracing for costs in the billions of dollars, hoping that the construction work that follows the storm will help offset the economic setback in part. Officials with the Louisiana Department of Agriculture & Forestry fanned out in small planes Friday to map the effect on cotton and sugarcane crops. Rig operators returned to hundreds of offshore platforms that have been...
At least 13,000 homes in Louisiana were damaged by Hurricane Isaac, a state emergency official reports today, offering the first glimpse of the reach of the storm that made landfall a week ago. A spokeswoman for the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness says the preliminary figures are based on an initial review of communities with flooding and wind damage. "We do expect that this number could rise after FEMA completes house-by-house inspections as residents register for individual assistance," says Christina Stephens. If the number of people who have requested FEMA assistance offers a guide, the tally of damaged homes could end up being much higher than 13,000. Nearly 95,000 people have signed up for individual aid from FEMA, for grants to help repair homes and replace storm-wrecked belongings, according to data provided by Gov. Bobby Jindal's office. The assistance for homeowners, renters and businesses was available in the 10 hardest-hit parishes,...
The widespread power outages caused by Isaac have nearly all been repaired, but there are plenty of people in the New Orleans area who say their electricity was not restored fast enough. The Public Service Commission says nearly 41,000 homes and businesses remained without electricity as of this morning; that's about 2% of customers. The largest remaining outages were in the two parishes hardest hit by Isaac's flooding: Plaquemines and St. John the Baptist. At its worst, Isaac knocked out power to more than 900,000 utility customers, approaching half the state. As The Times-Picayune reports, the public's anger at Entergy for lengthy power outages following Isaac has reached a boiling point. "What burns my ass is there's no reason in the world it should have to be like this," says Melvin Odenwald, whose Algiers Point house was well above 100 degrees on Monday—after six days without power. Read the full story
South Louisiana residents may be dealing with swarms of mosquitoes due to the huge amounts of water left behind in the wake of Hurricane Isaac. And with Louisiana experiencing the highest rate of West Nile virus infections in several years, state officials are warning residents to take precautions against mosquitoes. Rain and flooding spawned by hurricanes can cause huge mosquito hatchings, says Jessie Boudreaux, owner of Cajun Mosquito Control, Terrebonne Parish's mosquito control contractor. The major hatching will likely occur in about a week, he says. "Everyone needs to be mindful that we are all still at risk of contracting West Nile virus," says state Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein. "This has been the most active West Nile virus season Louisiana has experienced since 2006, so it's critical that everyone takes the necessary precautions, particularly as residents return to their homes and begin cleanup efforts." West Nile is a rare but serious disease carried by...
Residents in nine Louisiana parishes affected by Hurricane Isaac, including Livingston and Ascension, are eligible to receive housing assistance from FEMA. State officials had applied to make residents in 23 parishes eligible, but FEMA did not authorize eligibility for all 23. FEMA's individual assistance program includes funding for home repair and replacement and for rental costs up to 18 months. Through another FEMA program, residents may apply to be placed temporarily in a hotel or motel while their homes are rehabilitated. Complete details and applications for these programs are available here. Meanwhile, The Times-Picayune reports FEMA housing inspectors have already begun visiting neighborhoods in the New Orleans area, checking for damage. More than 400 inspections have taken place since Hurricane Isaac made landfall in Louisiana last week, and more are scheduled as area residents report their uninsured or...
While Hurricane Isaac pushed water over a rural levee and flooded some Plaquemines Parish homes early today, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials say New Orleans' flood protection system is holding up so far, noting the rural levee is not a part of the $14.5 billion system built to protect New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina. Wind gusts reaching as high as 75 mph and sheets of rain pelted New Orleans, where people braced themselves for the storm behind levees that were strengthened after Category 3 Katrina hit seven years ago to the day. "The system is performing as intended, as we expected; we don't see any issues with the hurricane system at this point," says corps spokeswoman Rachel Rodi, adding that it will remain on "high alert" for the next 12 to 24 hours. Read the full story here.
Allstate Corp. stands to benefit from its decision to scale back homeowners' risk in Louisiana and cede market share to State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., as Hurricane Isaac threatens the U.S. Gulf Coast. Allstate's sales of residential policies in Louisiana fell to $209 million last year, 19% less than in 2006, according to A.M. Best data compiled by Bloomberg. State Farm, the only U.S. homeowners' carrier larger than Allstate, sold $466 million of the protection in the state in 2011, a 25% increase from five years earlier. Allstate, led by CEO Tom Wilson, has been raising prices for coverage, buying reinsurance, and shifting where it sells policies to improve homeowners' underwriting results nationally. "They've cut back on coastal exposure, in general," Paul Newsome, an analyst at Sandler O'Neill & Partners, says of Northbrook, Ill.-based Allstate. "It's been a major strategy for them." And it appears to be working; Allstate shares are up 37% since Dec. 31. State Farm is...
Local restaurants are already feeling the early effects of a U.S. drought that has caused corn and soybean prices to soar to record highs, and more dramatic price hikes from suppliers may be coming soon, according to several local restaurant owners. One of them, Cafe Phoenicia partner Johnny Mekari, says the biggest immediate price hikes are coming on meat, due to the abundance of corn and soy in livestock feed. "The biggest corn consumption we have, the most corn-using product, is chicken," Mekari says. "The price of a case of chicken has risen from about $65 to about $72." While that may be manageable for now, Mekari says his supplier told him to expect the price to reach $105 in "about a month or so." Besides facing the jump in chicken prices, what Café Phoenicia is paying for beef and wheat has also risen about 20%, while bread and rice prices are up 10%. "The producer is trying not to pass along the costs, but the margins are shrinking along the whole chain," he says. Thus far,...
Interstate 10 was reopened to both eastbound and westbound traffic this morning, and traffic is reportedly moving smoothly following Wednesday’s daylong interstate closures due to a multivehicle crash involving a tanker truck leaking flammable liquid. Crews performed a "vent and burn" technique late Wednesday night in order to stop the leak from a damaged tanker. State police say the coordinated explosion around 11:45 p.m. successfully burned off the isobutane leaking from the truck. Firefighters on the scene were able to get the flames under control around 1:30 this morning. Westbound lanes were reopened around 6 a.m.; eastbound lanes reopened shortly before 7 a.m. The accident happened when a car flipped on the interstate early Wednesday morning. A tanker truck stopped for the accident and was rear-ended by another 18-wheeler.
As one of the worst droughts in modern history continues to shrink the width and depth of the Mississippi River, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has more than a dozen dredging vessels working to keep the river open to commercial traffic this summer, The New York Times reports. Despite being fed by water flowing in from more than 40% of the United States, the river is relatively powerless against the ruinous drought affecting so much of the Midwest. Some stretches are nearing the record low-water marks experienced in 1988, when river traffic was suspended in several spots. That is unlikely this year, however, because of careful engineering work to keep the largest inland marine system in the world passable. Still, tow operators are dealing with the shallower channel by hauling fewer barges, loading them more lightly and running them more slowly, and as a consequence, raising their costs. Since May, about 60 vessels have run aground in the lower Mississippi. The volume of water...
Given the recent appearance of a massive sinkhole near his new Assumption Parish home, Greg Denton picked the wrong time to move. As The Times-Picayune reports, just weeks after Denton and his wife, Carmen, bought their new place on Sauce Piquante Lane, in late May, many of their neighbors started reporting feeling tremors and seeing gas bubbles rising up in nearby bayous. "I didn't know nothing about it at all when we first came down here. I didn't have a clue," says Denton, 56, about two months after he relocated from Missouri. "Every day is a new experience, I'm telling you." The same has been true for state and local officials, who have spent months investigating the puzzling activity toward the back swamps along the west bank of Bayou Lafourche. The tremors became more frequent, from a dozen a day to hundreds by mid-July, with some residents reporting minor property damage. Then, one day in early August, the shaking just stopped. It was soon followed the sinkhole, which...
Credited with making the LSU Fire and Emergency Training Institute the go-to agency for fire, medical and rescue training, Carrol Herring is now lending his name to the facility. On Monday, FETI renamed itself the Carrol L. Herring Fire and Emergency Training Institute in recognition of the leadership he brought to the facility until his second retirement in 2005. A Varnado native, Carrol Herring was hired as a coordinator to the newly formed LSU Firemen Training program on Oct. 1, 1963. Prior to accepting the position, Herring spent 15 years in the Baton Rouge Fire Department. Shortly after his hiring, Herring toured the state to determine fire service training needs and created a standard training class that was widely used and quickly adopted by the Louisiana fire service. In 1969, Herring became the director of LSU Firemen Training and began to mold the program into one of the nation's premier fire training organizations. "For most everybody here, the name Carol L. Herring has...
The Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry is monitoring low water levels, particularly at the Port of Lake Providence in East Carroll Parish, which is preventing shipments of grain, including corn and soybeans, from leaving the area. LDAF Commissioner Mike Strain is working with local and state officials on enlisting the help of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dredge the area. "This issue could become disastrous, and we need the corps to focus on this problem," Strain said today. "While Louisiana is not experiencing a drought, the rest of the country is. This is a problem for our farmers in the area and the economy. We're in harvest season; and if our farmers can't get their grain to market, it will impact their livelihood." Grain travels from the Port of Lake Providence to the Port of Greater Baton Rouge, where it is shipped to the rest of the world. A barge can carry up to 1,600 tons of grain. If shipments aren't made, Direct economic losses could potentially be up...
The worst U.S. drought in a half century is putting pressure on natural gas drillers to conserve the millions of gallons of water used in hydraulic fracturing to free trapped gas and oil from underground rock, Bloomberg reports. From Texas to Colorado to Pennsylvania, farmers, activists and opponents of the drilling technique, also known as fracking, are using the shortage of rain to push the industry to recycle water and reduce usage—efforts that could prove costly to the industry. One company, Devon Energy Corp.—which is leading drilling efforts in the Tuscaloosa Shale in the parishes just north of East Baton Rouge—estimates that recycling is as much as 75% costlier than pumping wastewater into deep wells. That disposal method, common in the industry, has also drawn complaints because it is linked to earthquakes. "We just would like the oil and gas companies to figure out better...
The Army Corps of Engineers has decided it is too expensive to build any of five alternative levee systems that would protect communities bordering the Barataria basin from hurricane storm surge, including Lafitte, Jean Lafitte and Crown Point in Jefferson Parish, and areas along U.S. 90 from Boutte to Raceland. According to a story in The Times-Picayune, the Donaldsonville-to-the-Gulf project became too expensive because of more stringent levee construction standards adopted in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that increased the cost of the alternatives to between $1.1 billion and $1.3 billion. A corps study concluded the average annual benefits, represented by avoided flooding, amounted to only $15 million to $22 million a year, while the cost of construction and long-term maintenance averaged between $67 million and $75 million a year. For the complete story, click
The National Parks Service has rejected an effort to have sites where levees breached during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 added to the National Register of Historic Places. The advocacy group Levees.Org has been pushing for almost two years to have the sites listed on the register, arguing that the flooding that resulted from the breaches was the worst civil engineering disaster in the nation's history. The Army Corps of Engineers was highly critical of the organization's nomination. A letter from the NPS expressed doubt about the nomination for various reasons: among them, its reliance on a limited number of studies about the causes of the breaches. The NPS says the organization can resubmit the nomination, and Levees.Org founder Sandy Rosenthal confirms today his group will do so.
Nearly seven years after floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina gushed over New Orleans, $14.5 billion worth of civil works designed to block such surges is now in place—a 133-mile chain of levees, flood walls, gates and pumps too vast to take in at once, except perhaps from space. As The New York Times reports, individual components of the system can be appreciated from a less celestial elevation. At the new Seabrook floodgate complex, climb up three steep ladders, open a trap door, and step out into the blazing sunlight atop a 54-foot tower that was not here just two years ago. From there one looks out over a $165 million barrier across the shipping canal linking Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. Two "lift gates," 50 feet across, can be lowered to block the waters of Lake Pontchartrain. A navigation gate 95 feet wide, whose curved sides weigh 220 tons apiece, can be swung gently but mightily into place. When open—which will...
Beginning today, anyone who suffered BP oil spill–related losses or injuries and hasn't already accepted a final settlement from BP through the former Gulf Coast Claims Facility will be able to apply under a new claims process, The Times-Picayune reports. More information about the terms of the settlement and how to file a claim of economic loss is available here. Details about medical claims can be found here. The new payment system was set up under the terms of a settlement reached this spring to avoid a trial on thousands of health and economic-damage claims by individuals and businesses harmed by the oil spill. The deal, preliminarily approved by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, was uncapped, meaning there's no limit on how much money is available to pay damages, though BP has estimated the cost at about $7.8 billion. The settlement was not...
As a 19-year-old in Beaumont, Texas, Kay Goodwyn took a clerical job with the local fire department and, in short order, decided she wanted to be a firefighter herself.
One person was injured, scores of people were evacuated and part of U.S. Highway 190 near Port Allen is closed by a fire at a plant that refills acetylene cylinders. Air Liquide spokesman George Smalley says a worker suffered a minor injury. He says the fire is in a yard where empty cylinders are kept at Air Liquide Specialty Gases. Acetylene, a chemical typically used in welding torches, is trucked to the plant. Smalley says he doesn't know how many cylinders caught fire. State police Capt. Doug Cain says residents and businesses within a mile of the plant were evacuated. He says about 60 people are at evacuation centers in Port Allen and Erwinville as of this afternoon. The fire broke out about 10:30 a.m. today at the plant in West Baton Rouge Parish and was still burning in early afternoon. Air Liquide is an international producer of gases used in industry and health care. The company's website says its products include oxygen, nitrogen, argon and rare gases. Its headquarters are...
Lightning possible culprit in oil tank explosion
Investigators suspect lightning may have sparked an oil tank explosion in Denham Springs that led to the evacuation of about 30 homes late Thursday. Livingston Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Director Mark Harrell says the cause of the blast is still under investigation today by the state fire marshal's office. But he tells The Associated Press that residents of the neighborhood saw lightning just before the explosion late Thursday at a storage facility. No injuries were reported. Plano, Texas-based Denbury Resources Inc. owns the facility where the tanks are located.
No injuries reported following overnight oil tank explosion
As of this morning, no injuries have been reported following an overnight explosion of an oil tank in the Denham Springs area, The Associated Press reports. The occupants of about 30 to 35 homes in the area of the explosion were evacuated as emergency rescue responders worked to contain fire at the site. Livingston Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Director Mark Harrell tells The Times-Picayune that one of two oil holding tanks at the scene ruptured and caught fire. He says it wasn't known why the tank ruptured. The second oil tank had not exploded but was bulging from the heat. Harrell says the fire has been contained in a 200-square-foot area. He added that evacuated residents will be allowed to return to their homes once the fire is out.
Katrina hero undertaking residential development in B.R.
Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré, best known for his role in coordinating relief efforts along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, is taking his career in a new direction: speculative home building. The 65-year-old Honoré, who retired from the U.S. Army in 2008, has formed a new venture—Mid City Development—and will begin construction next month on four homes on a lot he bought in 2012 on College Drive near Jefferson Highway. Honoré says he did not intend to get into the residential construction business. For the past several years, most of his time has been spent giving speeches and doing consulting. However, he purchased the College Drive lot hoping to sell it, but after six months decided a better idea would be to redevelop the property—with the help of his brother-in-law, contractor David Darensbourg. "We decided the best way to do it is to put a concept design in for four houses, and if they complement each other they'll sell better," Honoré says. "I think the future...
Holden defends hiring Florida firm in BP suit
Mayor Kip Holden is defending a contract that his chief administrative officer, William Daniel, signed with a Florida law firm to represent the city-parish in a claim against BP regarding the 2010 Gulf oil spill. Some Metro Council members are questioning the deal because the firm, Farrell and Patel of Coral Gables, Fla., will get 40% of any money it recovers from claims of lost revenues as a result of the spill. "We didn't go out hunting for this firm," Holden tells Daily Report. "They came to us and said, 'This money is out there. … Are you interested in trying to get it?' Our answer was yes." Some council members have suggested local law firms would charge much less on a contingency basis than 40%. But Holden says out-of-state firms are involved in a variety of class action suits in the state, including the multibillion-dollar tobacco litigation. What's more, he says, "If local law firms knew about the potential of recovering money from BP, why didn't they call us?"...
BP's profit triples in 1Q, but Gulf oil spill liabilities remain uncertain
British oil giant BP says its first-quarter profit nearly tripled as it recorded a big gain from the sale of its 50% stake in a Russian joint venture. The company has reported its profit attributable to BP shareholders for the three months ended March 31 was $16.86 billion, compared to a profit of $5.77 billion a year earlier. Revenue in the quarter rose 10% to $107.21 billion, compared to $97.42 billion a year earlier. BP completed the sale of its interest in TNK-BP to Rosneft on March 21, for a total of $27.5 billion in cash and Rosneft shares. The gain on the sale was $15.5 billion for BP. As for its continuing liability from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, BP says its total cumulative charge for the disaster remained at $42.2 billion at the end of the January-March quarter. There persists significant uncertainty, however, about what its total financial exposure will be, BP says. The first phase of a civil trial in federal court in New Orleans ended earlier this month. The...
Anadarko seeks dismissal of investor suit over Gulf spill
Anadarko Petroleum Corp., a partner in the BP well that was the source of the largest U.S. offshore oil spill, is set to ask a federal judge in Texas to throw out a lawsuit claiming the company misled investors about the project's risks before and after the blowout, Bloomberg reports. Investors accused Anadarko, which held a 25% interest in BP's Macondo well, of understating its role in the project and falsely claiming it faced minimal financial liability from the 2010 blowout off the Louisiana coast. The securities-fraud suit, filed as a class action, seeks recovery of billions of dollars of lost share value resulting from the spill. A nonjury trial over liability for the incident concluded last week in New Orleans. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier will determine fault for the incident and decide whether BP or its contractors were grossly negligent, which could trigger higher damages or fines. Barbier says he won't issue an immediate decision. Anadarko wasn't part of the liability...
Oil spill cleanup, study ongoing 3 years after explosion
At first glance, the marshy, muddy coastline of Bay Jimmy in southeast Louisiana appears healthy three years after the nation's worst offshore oil spill. Brown pelicans and seagulls cruise the shoreline, plucking fish and crabs from the water. Snails hold firm to tall blades of marsh grass. But underneath the surface, The Associated Press reports, environmentalists and scientists fear there may be trouble, from tiny organisms to dolphins. Yet the long-term environmental impact from the spill is still not fully known and will likely be debated for years to come. BP has spent billions of dollars on cleanup efforts since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and a well ruptured April 20, 2010, spilling 200 million gallons of crude. The oil fouled 1,110 miles of beaches and marsh along Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. Fishing waters were closed and thousands of people who depend on the Gulf's deep blue waters wondered if the coast would ever be the same again. Crews continue to...
First phase of Gulf oil spill trial nears conclusion
A former BP vice president testified in New Orleans this morning that safety was a top priority for the company and there was no discussion of cost-cutting pressures prior to the 2010 rig blast and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Patrick O'Bryan, who was BP's vice president of drilling and completions in the Gulf of Mexico at the time of the disaster, was called to testify by BP as part of its defense in a civil trial in New Orleans to accusations that it acted with gross negligence in causing the spill. "Everybody cared about safety," O'Bryan said. "They took pride in what they did. They wanted to deliver a well, but they wanted to deliver a safe well." O'Bryan, who visited the Deepwater Horizon rig the day of the explosion to assess its safety and the progress of the Macondo well project, which was over budget and taking longer than expected, said no one at rig owner Transocean told him that BP was rushing them to the complete the well. The British oil giant could rest its case in...
B.R. and N.O. teams safe following Boston Marathon explosions
The Baton Rouge and New Orleans-area runners participating in today's Boston Marathon as part of the Varsity Sports Running Team are safe this afternoon and were not among those injured or killed in the two unexplained explosions that occurred in downtown Boston shortly before 3 p.m. near the finish line of the race. Jenny Peters, owner of Varsity Sports, says 18 men and women from Baton Rouge and the New Orleans area ran the marathon as part of the Varsity team. She says she has spoken to them and they are all together and doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances. "We were jubilant before the explosion because our men's team had finished second in the race," says Peters. "To have something like this happen now is a terrible tragedy. It is awful to mar something this historic and prestigious." It is unclear if other local runners unaffiliated with Varsity were running the marathon. Neither race officials nor public officials could immediately estimate the number or...
BP gets its turn to call witnesses at oil spill trial
BP this morning called retired LSU petroleum engineering professor Adam "Ted" Bourgoyne Jr. as its first witness at a trial designed to determine causes and assign blame for its April 2010 well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico. Bourgoyne, an expert in drilling operations, testified that crew members and BP supervisors on the rig followed "normal industry practices" before encountering problems as they tried to plug the well. Bourgoyne also said he disagrees with an expert witness for the federal government who testified earlier that BP deviated from industry standards and continued drilling despite clear signs of trouble. The witnesses for BP follow testimony presented by Halliburton, BP's cement contractor on the Deepwater Horizon drilling project. Halliburton rested its case Thursday at the end of the trial's sixth week. BP witness testimony is expected to last at least two weeks. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier is hearing testimony. Barring a settlement, he could decide how much...
Judge concerned about Halliburton in oil spill trial
The federal judge overseeing the civil trial over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill says he is “troubled” by Halliburton's “pattern” of conduct in not turning over documents, test results and other materials related to the cement that was used on the ill-fated well project. The Houston Chronicle reports U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier told Halliburton lawyer Don Godwin that he is not going to rule yet on BP's request for sanctions against the company in the ongoing trial, but noted he has serious concerns. Barbier disclosed that Halliburton turned over late Wednesday night evidence that it arguably should have turned over two years ago. “To say your client had no knowledge this evidence could have been relevant and should have been produced, I can't understand or accept that,” Barbier told Godwin. “I have to tell you, with no disrespect to you, I am very concerned.” Barbier says Halliburton's disclosure of documents has been a...
Cameron dismissed from trial over Gulf oil spill
A federal judge has dismissed all remaining claims against the company that made a key safety device on the drilling rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, killing 11 workers and leading to the nation's worst offshore oil spill. Today's ruling by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier means Cameron International is no longer a defendant in an ongoing trial designed to identify causes of BP's well blowout and assign fault to the companies involved. BP, rig owner Transocean Ltd. and cement contractor Halliburton are the remaining defendants. According to a transcript of today's proceedings, Barbier says he hasn't heard any evidence to support negligence claims against Cameron, which manufactured the blowout preventer on the Deepwater Horizon rig. Barbier already had ruled out punitive damages against Cameron.
Despite concerns, worker did not seek halt to BP project
A man who worked for BP's cement contractor on the drilling rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 says he didn't believe the oil giant's employees were risking workers' safety when they didn't follow his recommendations. Halliburton employee Jesse Gagliano began testifying today at the trial in New Orleans to determine what caused the blowout of BP PLC's Macondo well and assign fault to the companies involved. Gagliano says his relationship with employees for London-based BP deteriorated amid disagreements about how to perform the cement job that ultimately failed to seal the well. But he says he said he never saw a reason to call a halt to the project before the blowout. Gagliano invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination at his 2011 deposition but later agreed to testify at trial. Courtroom proceedings restarted today after a break for the holiday weekend. The trial is now in its sixth week and is expected to take as long as three months, barring a...
Hurricanes offer similar lessons for builders
Lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy about how best to limit damage to buildings closely track those of Katrina, a federal engineer says. Elevating generators and pumps is a good idea, but enclosing elevated foundations that might be hit by waves or wave-borne debris can cause problems. John Ingargiola, a structural engineer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, says the final report on Sandy is scheduled in the fall. But FEMA is releasing seven advisories for rebuilding and minimizing future flood damage for new construction, plus a fact sheet about cleaning and drying buildings. Ingargiola's comments came during an early workshop Monday at the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans. Photographs he showed from Sandy's destruction looked very much like those after hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005: houses washed from their slabs or collapsed into their foundations, and critical equipment such as generators or switches flooded on ground floors or in basements. "I think,...
Claims against contractor dropped in spill trial
A federal judge has dismissed all claims against BP's drilling fluids contractor on the rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, killing 11 workers and triggering the nation's worst offshore oil spill. After plaintiffs rested their case today in the trial over the Gulf oil spill, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier ruled there was no evidence that the contractor, M-I LLC, made any decision that led to the blowout of BP's well. Barbier also agreed to rule out punitive damages against Cameron International, the manufacturer of a blowout preventer on the ill-fated rig. The trial continues with more testimony by witnesses for rig owner Transocean Ltd., whose chief executive testified Tuesday. The energy giant BP and Halliburton also will call their own witnesses. The trial, which is taking place in New Orleans, is now in its fourth week. During the first phase of the trial—which is expected to last up to three months—U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier is hearing evidence...
Transocean CEO says rig workers should have done more
Transocean employees should have done more to detect signs of trouble before the company's drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, killing 11 workers and triggering the nation's worst offshore oil spill, the company's chief executive testified in New Orleans today. But the Swiss-based drilling company's own investigation of the disaster didn't find any mistakes beyond the rig floor, Transocean Ltd. president and CEO Steven Newman maintained. His testimony came on the 14th day of a trial designed to determine the causes of BP's well blowout and to assign fault to the companies involved. Newman says Transocean didn't identify any "management failures" that led to the blowout. "I think we had a good system in place," he testified. Newman says Transocean agreed in January to plead guilty to a criminal charge of violating the Clean Water Act because its rig workers on the Deepwater Horizon played a role in botching a crucial safety test before the blowout. "Do you blame the...
Number of B.R. homes 'underwater' rose in 4Q of 2012
The number of borrowers in Baton Rouge who owed more on their mortgages than their homes were worth in the final quarter of 2012 exceeded the number in that position in the third quarter, according to a new report from CoreLogic released this morning. Approximately 11,018 residential properties in Baton Rouge were "underwater" at the end of 2012—or about 13.9% of all residential properties with a mortgage—according to the report. That's up from 10,769 properties in the third quarter of last year, or about 13.7%. An additional 5% of homes with a mortgage in Baton Rouge, or 3,964 properties, were in "near negative equity" in the fourth quarter. That's also up from 4.7%, or 3,680, in the third quarter, according to the report. Nationwide, the percentage of borrowers with homes underwater fell to 21.5% in the fourth quarter, down from 22% in the third quarter. You can access the complete report
Jindal to meet with sinkhole victims today
Gov. Bobby Jindal announced this morning plans to visit with some Bayou Corne residents affected by the sinkhole in Assumption Parish later today. Jindal says he will also meet with parish officials and brief the media this afternoon on the discussions. Today's visit comes as the sinkhole has grown to over 12 acres in size and residents begin the process of negotiating property buyouts with Houston-based Texas Brine. Scientists say the sinkhole formed after the collapse of an underground salt cavern operated by Texas Brine, which extracted brine and piped it to nearby petrochemical facilities. The cavern failure released oil and natural gas from formations along the salt dome face. A salt dome is a large, naturally occurring underground salt deposit. About 350 people living in the area have been under an evacuation order, and many of them have been displaced for more than seven months, with no end in sight. Texas Brine officials say they began to contact residents Monday to discuss...
Sinkhole settlement
Texas Brine, the company responsible for the sinkhole in Assumption Parish, will provide settlement offers to residents that have been forced to evacuate, Gov. Bobby Jindal announced March 13 along with local officials and legislators. "Texas Brine is responsible for the sinkhole, and we've remained committed to holding them accountable," Jindal says in a prepared statement. "After months of discussions, and after meeting with Texas Brine officials this afternoon, the company has agreed to start providing settlement offers, which include buyouts." Jindal says a "blue-ribbon commission" of experts will help Assumption Parish leaders address safety concerns. Jindal says parish officials and the state continue to wait for Texas Brine to reimburse the cost of sinkhole response efforts. Jindal says Assumption Parish government has billed Texas Brine for about $480,000 and has been reimbursed $265,000. The Assumption Parish Sheriff's office has billed Texas Brine for $340,000 and been...
BP contractor comes up with cement samples midtrial
A lawyer for the cement contractor on the Deepwater Horizon drilling project says the company has found cement samples possibly associated with BP's Macondo well that weren't turned over to the Justice Department for testing. But Halliburton lawyer Donald Godwin told U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier today that the company believes the material found this week at its lab in Lafayette has no bearing on the ongoing trial in New Orleans over the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A plaintiffs' attorney countered that the samples are cement a Halliburton employee used for testing of the well before a blowout triggered a deadly explosion. In an email to the court late Wednesday, Godwin says Halliburton is investigating whether the material should have been turned over as evidence in response to subpoenas.
Fire burns after tug, barge hit La. gas pipeline
A fire that ignited when a gas pipeline was hit by a tugboat pushing an oil barge burned into the morning hours today in a bayou south of New Orleans amid reports that oil had leaked into the water. There was still liquid petroleum gas in the 19-mile pipeline, and authorities were waiting for it to burn out, Coast Guard Petty Officer Alex Washington says. Coast Guard Ensign Tanner Stiehl says the collision happened Tuesday at about 6 p.m. on Bayou Perot, in a marshy area near where Lafourche and Jefferson parishes meet, about 30 miles south of New Orleans. The tugboat and barge were engulfed in flames and heavy smoke billowed from the scene. "All crew members were able to exit the tug; the captain reportedly suffered second- to third-degree degree burns," the Coast Guard says in a news release today. Stiehl says the barge was carrying oil and that "there have been reports of oil in the water." Washington says authorities later today will have a better idea of how much oil has leaked...
Jindal says he'll visit Bayou Corne community
After meeting with Assumption Parish officials and area legislators today to discuss the state's ongoing response to the sinkhole that formed in the Bayou Corne community, Gov. Bobby Jindal released a statement calling for expedited property buyouts for those who have been displaced. The governor also laid out plans for a personal visit. Jindal has faced heavy criticism recently from some Bayou Corne residents and several media outlets for not visiting the community since the sinkhole formed last summer as a result of problems with a salt dome cavern mined by Texas Brine. Jindal says he plans to meet with Texas Brine on Wednesday to push for buyouts for those forced to evacuate because of the sinkhole. He says he'll visit the Bayou Corne community to review progress for himself next week. "We had a productive meeting today to discuss the state's ongoing response to the sinkhole and outline a contingency plan after concerns were raised about a second Texas Brine salt dome cavern,"...
Oil spill judge hears from rig blast survivor
A 57-year-old Transocean employee who survived the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion testified at the Gulf oil spill trial today that a subordinate killed in the blast was one of the workers who apparently missed signs the well was about to blow out. Randy Ezell, the first rig worker to testify in person at a trial designed to assign blame for the 2010 disaster, said that Jason Anderson was a "top-notch" toolpusher who would have done everything in his power to prevent the blowout. Anderson was one of 11 workers killed on the rig, which was owned by Transocean and leased by BP. Ezell, a senior toolpusher, said Anderson and others on the rig, including BP supervisors, misinterpreted the results of a crucial safety test. Ezell said Anderson told him during a telephone call less than an hour before the explosion that it was a "good test" and that there were no signs of trouble for 30 minutes after the test. Well data showed the first indication of a problem could have been spotted about...
BP's spill probe ignored management failures, safety expert says
BP deviated from its own policy on responding to accidents by not determining how management contributed to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a company safety expert who led an internal investigation of the disaster testified this morning. Mark Bly, who was promoted to an executive management position at BP after the report was issued, said he and former BP CEO Tony Hayward decided on the scope of the investigation days after the Macondo well blowout and Deepwater Horizon rig explosion off Louisiana's coast. Plaintiffs attorneys at a civil trial in federal court in New Orleans are trying to show BP's report was self-serving, incomplete, and designed to shield the company from billions of dollars in damages that are a subject of the trial. Bly told U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier that he could have gone further in the probe but that there were limitations in terms of availability of witnesses and information. Bly said that, among other things, the probe didn't analyze the potential...
Judge approves Transocean's $1B spill settlement
A federal judge today approved Transocean Ltd.'s agreement with the Justice Department to pay $1 billion in civil penalties for its role in the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier says in his ruling that he found "no just reason for delay" in approving the civil settlement. Last week, a different judge approved Transocean's criminal settlement with the federal government. The Swiss-based company pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and will pay an additional $400 million in criminal penalties. Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which exploded and sank over BP's Macondo well in April 2010. The accident killed 11 rig workers and spawned the nation's worst offshore oil spill. A trial scheduled to start Feb. 25 is designed to identify the causes of BP's Macondo well blowout and assign percentages of fault to the companies involved. BP, which leased the rig from Transocean and owned the blown-out well, recently reached a...
Disabled cruise ship delayed for port by broken towline
A Coast Guard official says a disabled cruise ship—dubbed the "floating toilet"—off the coast of Alabama is again moving toward the shore after a broken towline delayed the vessel's slow journey back to port. Petty Officer William Colclough says a new tugboat has been secured and the Carnival Triumph is again making its way into Mobile. He says the ship will be further delayed because of the towline issue, though he did not give a new estimated arrival time. It had been expected to arrive Thursday night. An engine-room fire Sunday left the ship powerless. More than 4,000 people are on board the Triumph, and passengers face long bus rides or other travel hassles to get home once they arrive in Alabama. The Triumph was being pulled at 5 mph by four tugboats when the towline broke. Click here to read more.
Transocean pleads guilty in oil spill case
A federal judge has approved Transocean Ltd.'s agreement with the Justice Department to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge and pay $400 million in criminal penalties for its role in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo accepted Transocean's plea and imposed the agreed-upon sentence during a hearing today. The Swiss-based drilling company could have withdrawn from the deal if she had rejected it. Milazzo said she had received no letters objecting to the settlement. Transocean agreed last month to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of violating the Clean Water Act. The company also agreed to pay $1 billion in civil penalties. A different judge will decide whether to accept that part of the settlement. Transocean owned the rig Deepwater Horizon, which exploded and sank over BP's Macondo well in April 2010. The accident killed 11 men and sparked the nation's worst offshore oil disaster. Much of the $1.4 billion Transocean agreed to pay will fund...
BP turns to next chapter in Gulf oil spill saga
Now that a $4 billion plea deal approved Tuesday has resolved BP's criminal liability for the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster that occurred nearly three years ago, the company will turn its focus to a trial that could potentially cost it billions of dollars more in civil penalties. What the plea deal approved by U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance doesn't resolve is the federal government's civil claims against BP. A trial scheduled to start Feb. 25 is designed to identify the causes of BP's well blowout, which triggered the deadly rig explosion on April 20, 2010, and the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that ensued for months. The first phase of the trial also is designed to assign percentages of blame to BP and its partners in the ill-fated drilling project. BP and the Justice Department have engaged in settlement talks that could resolve the civil claims against BP by the federal government and Gulf Coast states before trial. Vance notes that the company already has...
BP will pay $4B in criminal penalties for role in 2010 Gulf disaster
A federal judge today approved an agreement for BP to plead guilty to manslaughter and other charges and pay a record $4 billion in criminal penalties for the company's role in the 2010 oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Before she ruled, U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance heard testimony from relatives of 11 workers who died when BP's blown-out Macondo well triggered an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and started the spill. BP agreed in November to plead guilty to charges involving the workers' deaths and for lying to Congress about the size of the spill from its broken well, which spewed more than 200 million gallons of oil. Much of it ended up in the Gulf and soiled the shorelines of several states. The company could have withdrawn from the agreement if Vance had rejected it. Neither the Justice Department nor BP presented arguments to the judge before her decision in New Orleans today. Vance says the plea deal was "just punishment" considering the risks of...
The $64 million question
Throughout 2012, FEMA continued its steadfast refusal to pay for the post-Hurricane Gustav cleanup in Livingston Parish. Before the end of the year, the parish ended its appeals, but not before accusing some of FEMA's representatives of bungling incompetence and outright deception.
N.O. area levee improvements already outdated, engineer says
Even as contractors for the Army Corps of Engineers are putting finishing touches on the major upgrades to the New Orleans area levee system built to design standards adopted in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, The Times-Picayune reports a consulting engineer working for the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority–East says those standards are already outdated. Bob Jacobsen told the authority on Thursday that a review he led—which included experts from the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute—found that while the standards used to upgrade the levees were dramatic improvements when adopted seven years ago, engineering and science have sped forward, often spurred by research conducted in Katrina's aftermath. Jacobsen says the purpose of the review is not to question the ability of the new levee system to dramatically reduce the risk of property damage from flooding in New Orleans, or to...
Deficient levees found across America
Inspectors taking the first-ever inventory of flood control systems overseen by the federal government have found hundreds of structures at risk of failing and endangering people and property in 37 states. Levees deemed to be in unacceptable condition are in every region of the United States, in cities and towns big and small. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has yet to issue ratings for a little more than 40% of the 2,487 structures, which protect about 10 million people. Of those it has rated, however, 326 levees covering more than 2,000 miles were found in urgent need of repair. The problems are myriad: earthen walls weakened by trees, shrubs and burrowing animal holes; houses built dangerously close to or even on top of levees; decayed pipes and pumping stations. The Associated Press requested, under the Freedom of Information Act, details on why certain levees were judged unacceptable and how many people would be affected in a flood. The corps declined to answer with data on the...
Louisiana to pay $108M to end Superdome bond deal
Louisiana is paying $108 million to get out of a deal that helped rebuild and upgrade the Superdome in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina but later exploded in interest costs. The State Bond Commission received the final details today of the debt refinancing for the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District, which includes the termination payment to end the previous arrangement. The LSED is borrowing $361 million to restructure the bond deal from 2006 that became saddled with problems during the credit crunch and financial downturn two years after the deal was struck. The $108 million termination penalty will be rolled into the refinanced borrowing and paid off over decades with the rest of the debt. The arrangement also ends litigation with Merrill Lynch over the previous arrangement.
With elevator closed, B.R. port not seeing major impact from low river levels up north
While drought conditions and low Mississippi River levels in states farther north are negatively impacting barge operators as far south as Louisiana, Port of Greater Baton Rouge Executive Director Jay Hardman says the local effects have been minimal thus far. "With the exception of a few of our tenants located along the barge canal, we have been pretty well isolated from it," Hardman says. "With our grain elevator closed for renovations, we've really dodged a bullet." The grain elevator has been closed since January 2012 as part of an approximately $130 million renovation being undertaken by Louis Dreyfus Commodities. Hardman says he is told the project is moving along as planned and is on target to reopen later this year. "They're trying very hard to capture the wheat harvest here in May, but whether they can do that or not is...
Visit Baton Rouge looks into getting more BP oil spill money
Visit Baton Rouge may have a chance at a share of an estimated $7.8 billion for damages from the 2010 BP oil spill. The tourism agency's board on Tuesday will consider finalizing a contract with New Orleans attorney Kurt Offner to pursue a claim tied to the Deepwater Horizon economic and property damage settlement agreement, which U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier approved last month. Visit Baton Rouge President/CEO Paul Arrigo says VBR has been notified by the state hotel/motel association that the tourism promotion board might be eligible to receive a slice of the funds. "We're doing due diligence and trying to get what might be out there so we can better market the city," Arrigo says. "I have no idea how much it could be." The settlement has no cap; BP reportedly has estimated it will pay $7.8 billion to resolve economic and medical claims from more than 100,000 businesses and individuals affected by the spill. Visit Baton Rouge already has been granted nearly $1 million in two...
Transocean agrees to pay $1.4B fine for Gulf oil spill
The Justice Department reached a $1.4 billion settlement today with Transocean Ltd., the owner of the drilling rig that sank after an explosion killed 11 workers and spawned the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The proposed settlement resolves the department's civil and criminal probe of Transocean's role in the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster. It requires the Switzerland-based company to pay $1 billion in civil penalties and $400 million in criminal penalties and to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of violating the Clean Water Act, according to a court filing. The deal, which is subject to a federal judge's approval, also calls for Transocean to implement a series of operational safety and emergency response improvements on its rigs. Much of the $1.4 billion will fund environmental restoration projects and spill-prevention research and training. The company has two years to pay the $1 billion civil penalty. BP, which leased the rig from Transocean, already has agreed...
Publisher: Let's clean up our act and image in 2013
There's a move afoot by the Department of Public Works and the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority to fight blight, with a focus on abandoned houses and vacant lots. In his new column, Business Report Publisher Rolfe McCollister says he applauds the initiative because "as a taxpayer I am not interested in paying to take care of someone else's property." McCollister says those who own neglected homes and properties should have the option of doing one of four things: "sell it, maintain it, use it—or lose it." McCollister also suggests that the new, strict anti-blight program be expanded to local commercial property and businesses, specifically in regards to abandoned signage. "This is simply 'sight pollution,' and it is just as ugly and distasteful as trash in the street or abandoned homes in our neighborhoods," he says. "Someone is not taking care of their business, and there is no excuse. Where is their community pride?" You can check out a photo gallery of a few...
Cleanup continues at La. explosives recycling company
Authorities say it could take up to three weeks to finish storing military propellant at an explosives recycling company that caused the evacuation of a Louisiana town. The town of Doyline, located about 20 miles east of Shreveport, was evacuated earlier this month after authorities reported finding 6 million pounds of the material improperly stored at Explo Systems Inc. Explo contracts with the military to demilitarize explosives and other materials, and rents space at a National Guard base in north Louisiana. The material found improperly stored on the base is called M6 and is used as a propellant for artillery rounds. Louisiana State Police spokesman Matt Harris today announced that crews have moved 4.4 million pounds of product into proper storage sites. A criminal investigation into the company's handling of the explosives is ongoing.
Judge delays trial for former BP exec charged in Gulf oil spill case
A federal judge has postponed the trial of a former BP executive charged with obstruction of Congress stemming from statements he made about the amount of oil that was flowing from a blown-out well following the deadly 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster. The Houston Chronicle reports that U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt issued his order Monday at the request of lawyers for David Rainey of Houston; they argued that because of the complexity of the case they need more time to prepare and would not be ready for trial on Jan. 28. The judge did not set a new trial date. At a hearing slated for Jan. 17, Rainey's lawyers are expected to let the court know how much more time they need. Lawyers for two BP well-site leaders charged with manslaughter in connection with the Gulf disaster also are expected to seek delays of their trial, now set for Feb. 4. A former BP engineer charged with obstruction for allegedly deleting text messages related to the oil flow rate is set for trial Feb. 25.
Explo Systems faced scrutiny before evacuation in northwest La.
The explosives recycling company that recently caused the evacuation of a northwestern Louisiana town has come under scrutiny for explosions and its handling of dangerous materials before—and it was so far behind on its rent that the Louisiana National Guard refused to lease it more space. Explo Systems Inc. was cited for safety violations by the federal government in 2007 for its use of old Army explosives in mining operations in West Virginia, where a blast with "outdated deteriorated military ordnance" injured one worker and exposed others to toxins. And the company had fallen hundreds of thousands of dollars behind on its rent at a Louisiana National Guard base even as it processed an Army contract to demilitarize hundreds of thousands of propelling charges used for artillery. The company's most recent problems began with an explosion in October at a Louisiana facility near the small town of Doyline. In late November Doyline's 800 residents were put under a voluntary...
Landrieu, Vitter among U.S. senators touring Sandy damage today
Louisiana's two U.S. senators, Democrat Mary Landrieu and Republican David Vitter, are scheduled to join a delegation of senators from across the country surveying parts of New Jersey today that were damaged during Superstorm Sandy, which struck the Northeast in late October. New Jersey is seeking political support for an expensive repair bill from the storm. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has called the storm "New Jersey's Katrina," is seeking $36.9 billion in federal funds for his state. The tour comes days after President Barack Obama asked Congress for $60.4 billion in federal aid for New Jersey, New York and other states hit by Sandy. New Jersey elected officials are trying to drum up support for the state's funding request amid contentious negotiations between Democrats and Republicans over spending and taxes to avoid automatic cuts scheduled to take effect next year, the so-called fiscal cliff.
U.S. bans BP from new government contracts after oil spill deal
The U.S. government today banned BP temporarily from new federal contracts over its "lack of business integrity" regarding the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, a move that the British company has said could force it to rethink its entire U.S. operations. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says the suspension is "standard practice" following criminal actions. On Nov. 16, BP agreed to plead guilty to criminal misconduct in the Gulf of Mexico disaster, the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history, and to pay record penalties of $4.5 billion. From its London headquarters, BP had no immediate comment on the suspension. BP and its affiliates are barred from new federal contracts until they demonstrate they can meet federal business standards, the EPA says. BP's existing U.S. government contracts are not affected. The EPA statement does not specify the length of the suspension. The Associated Press has the full story
BP: Many settlement opt-out requests aren't valid
About half the businesses and individuals who asked to be excluded from a proposed settlement over BP's 2010 oil spill submitted valid requests, the company and a team of plaintiffs' attorneys say in a court filing. A maximum of 13,123 potential claimants submitted valid opt-out requests by a Nov. 1 deadline, the filing says. A total of 25,866 asked to be excluded, but the architects of the deal say many failed to comply with the court's requirements for submitting requests. More than 9,000 were deemed invalid because an attorney, not the actual claimant, signed the request. "And most of these 'signatures' were not even done by counsel personally; instead, they were applied using what appears to be a rubber stamp of the lawyer's signature, which begs the question of whether even counsel—let alone the clients—executed these submissions with due consideration to each submission and each client's facts, circumstances, and interests," BP and plaintiffs' attorneys write.
Judge sets Thursday meeting to discuss BP plea deal
A federal judge has scheduled a closed-door meeting on Thursday to discuss BP's agreement to plead guilty to criminal charges stemming from its deadly 2010 rig explosion and response to the massive Gulf oil spill. BP is expected to plead not guilty on Tuesday during its initial court appearance and then plead guilty at a later date. U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance plans to meet Thursday in her chambers with prosecutors and BP attorneys to discuss scheduling matters. Earlier this month, BP agreed to pay a record $4.5 billion in penalties and plead guilty to a raft of charges to resolve the Justice Department's criminal probe of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The deal, which is subject to Vance's approval, calls for BP to plead guilty to charges involving the deaths of 11 rig workers and for lying to Congress about how much oil was spewing from its blown-out well. Meanwhile, BP rig supervisors Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine and former BP executive David Rainey are scheduled to be...
BP, workers head to court this week over criminal charges in Gulf disaster
BP is preparing to plead guilty to manslaughter and other crimes arising from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico rig explosion and oil spill but isn't expected to do that during an initial appearance Tuesday in New Orleans federal court. The Houston Chronicle reports that court appearances also are scheduled this week for three men who were working for the oil giant at the time of the disaster, and they already are mounting efforts to fight felony charges. Once BP enters its planned guilty plea, a judge probably will order a pre-sentence report, in which court officials would recommend the appropriate punishment. Assuming that determination meshes with BP's agreement with the Justice Department announced Nov. 15, which includes a multibillion-dollar fine, a federal judge would consider final approval of the plea deal. Tuesday's hearing is simply a first appearance for BP. At a status conference set for Thursday, the parties will discuss when BP will enter its plea, Justice Department...
Black Elk Energy had history of violations before fatal fire
Before last week's fatal fire on one of Black Elk Energy's oil production platforms, The Houston Chronicle reports, the five-year-old firm had racked up more than 300 documented mistakes and violations offshore. The report cites federal regulators who cracked down on the Houston-based firm Wednesday. The federal government ordered the company to immediately cease burning, welding and other activities that could ignite fires at all of its 98 oil and gas production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. Regulators also are insisting on a third-party audit of Black Elk's safety management systems and are barring the company from launching work at facilities that are currently offline. Moreover, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement is ordering Black Elk Energy to submit a performance improvement plan detailing the steps it will take to ensure compliance in its operations. The bureau has threatened that unless there is swift evidence of improved performance, the company...
Search for missing oil platform worker ends
Black Elk Energy has halted the search for a worker missing since Friday's fire aboard the company's oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. The missing crewman, Jerome Malagapo of the Philippines, was employed by Grand Isle Shipyard Inc., which had a contract with Black Elk to refurbish the platform. The company says in a statement released Tuesday night that it will focus on the victims and their families, including those injured in the incident. The body of 42-year-old Elroy Corporal was found over the weekend. Four workers who suffered burns during the platform fire are being treated at the Baton Rouge General Medical Center. The cause of the explosion and fire aboard the platform remains under investigation. The Houston Chronicle reports initial investigations of the lethal explosion are focusing on the possibility that a torch ignited flammable materials on the site. Such activities that involve burning, welding or other operations capable of starting fires or...
Filipino worker killed in offshore fire identified
The embassy of the Philippines in Washington has released the identity of a worker killed in a fiery explosion on an oil platform off the coast of Louisiana on Friday. In a news release on the embassy website, he is identified as 42-year-old Elroy Corporal. Meanwhile, the embassy says it is holding out hope that another unidentified Filipino worker who has been missing since Friday's accident will be found alive. Houston-based platform owner Black Elk Energy says it planned to take a search-and-rescue dog aboard its fire-damaged offshore platform today as it continues to look for signs of the missing worker. In addition to the one dead and one missing worker, four Filipino contract workers are being treated in Baton Rouge for serious burns. One of them has been identified as 50-year-old Wilberto Ilagan, who was most...
BP seen as takeover target after spill settlement
Bob Dudley shrank BP to save it. The onetime Mississippian and current CEO sold more than $50 billion of assets to pay the costs of the worst U.S. oil spill in history, Bloomberg reports. Rescued from the brink of collapse, Europe's second-largest oil company is now seen as vulnerable to a takeover. BP is the cheapest of the world's five biggest non-state oil companies by market value relative to reserves, earnings and output. As a result it may become a target, according to people familiar with the strategic thinking of the London-based company and its potential acquirers. Dudley's boldest move as the first American in charge of the 103-year-old British company was last month's exit from a turbulent Russian venture in exchange for a 20% stake in state oil company OAO Rosneft and $12.3 billion in cash. The deal solved one of BP's two biggest challenges. The other, litigation in the U.S. over fines from the spill, came closer to a resolution last week with a $4.5 billion...
Gulf rig fire leaves 4 workers with severe burns, 2 missing
An explosion and fire ripped through a Gulf oil platform today as workers used a cutting torch, sending four people to a hospital with critical burns and leaving two missing in waters off Louisiana. Coast Guard Capt. Ed Cubanski says the well was not producing at the time and no oil was leaking. A relatively small amount of oil spilled from the rig when workers using a torch cut into a 75-foot-long, 3-inch-wide line on the platform. Cubanski says a sheen one-half mile long and 200 yards wide was reported in the area. The fire has since been extinguished, Coast Guard spokesman Drake Fore says, adding Coast Guard aircraft and boats were searching for two missing people. Nobody was believed killed in the fire, but Cubanski says 11 people were flown from the platform to area hospitals or for treatment on shore by emergency medical workers. Taslin Alfonzo, spokeswoman for West Jefferson Medical Center in suburban New Orleans, says four injured workers were brought to the hospital in...
News alert: Coast Guard investigating oil rig fire off La. coast
Coast Guard officials say they are investigating a fire at an oil drilling platform off the coast of Louisiana. A parish official says the rig is not drilling at a deepwater site like the Macondo well that blew out in 2010. That blowout led to an explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts tells New Orleans TV station WWL-TV that the platform is a shallow water platform in the Gulf of Mexico. It is near West Cote Blanche Bay, south of New Iberia on the south-central Louisiana coast. The Coast Guard says it has activated a command center to investigate the fire. The size of the fire was not immediately clear, nor was it known if there were any injuries.
Defense lawyers say charged BP rig workers are scapegoats
While BP has resolved a sweeping criminal probe of its role in the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, two company employees charged in the deaths of 11 rig workers claim the Justice Department is trying to make them scapegoats for the disaster. Attorneys for the highest-ranking BP employees aboard the Deepwater Horizon during the deadly explosion in April 2010 vowed to fight manslaughter charges against their clients. According to the indictment unsealed Thursday, Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine are accused of disregarding abnormal high-pressure readings that should have been glaring indications of trouble just before the blowout. Vidrine's attorney, Bob Habans, says in a statement that prosecutors showed "exceedingly poor judgment" in charging his 65-year-old client. "It is almost inconceivable that any fair-minded person would blame this hard-working and diligent man for one of the most catastrophic events in the history of the oil business," Habans' statement reads.
BP to pay U.S. $4.5 billion for Gulf oil spill in largest criminal settlement in history
Oil giant BP says it has agreed to pay $4.5 billion in a wide-ranging settlement with the U.S. government over the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The London-based multinational company says in a statement issued today that it has agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges including 11 felony counts of misconduct related to the deaths of 11 men in the rig explosion that triggered the oil spill. It also agreed to plead guilty to one felony count of obstruction of Congress. The settlement total of $4.5 billion over five years includes nearly $1.3 billion in criminal fines—the largest such penalty ever—along with payments to several government agencies.The largest previous corporate criminal penalty assessed by the Department of Justice was a $1.2 billion fine imposed on drug maker Pfizer in 2009. London-based BP made a net profit of $5.5 billion in the third quarter, it reported last month. It announced earlier today it was in advanced talks with U.S. agencies, but...
After BP spill, information trickled as oil gushed
Oil giant BP and the U.S. government portrayed in public a united front as a out-of-control well spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. But The Houston Chronicle is reporting that the two privately sought to withhold potentially critical information from each other, possibly slowing efforts to solve the crisis, citing new testimony in the case. Last month's closed-door testimony by Marcia McNutt, head of the U.S. Geological Survey, in the ongoing litigation over the disaster could complicate a Justice Department probe that has focused on whether BP and its partners obstructed justice by lying to investigators. "It could have impeded the investigation, and both sides may share some blame in that regard," says Blaine LeCesne, a law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans who has followed the case. Motivations aren't clear from transcripts the newspaper obtained of McNutt's two-day deposition in New Orleans, but BP's pocketbook and the government's ability to punish...
Isaac-related FEMA aid for Louisianans nears $116 million
FEMA has approved nearly $116 million in individual aid for Louisiana homeowners and renters who experienced damage from Hurricane Isaac. Nearly 32,000 people have received housing assistance, which totals $95 million. Another $21 million has been provided for other types of individual assistance, according to FEMA. Ray Perez, a spokesman with the agency, provided the latest figures Tuesday. Isaac made landfall Aug. 28 and caused significant flooding in southeast Louisiana. Eight FEMA disaster recovery centers are still open, providing aid. Perez says $37.5 million has been approved for residents of St. John the Baptist and Plaquemines parishes, which experienced some of the most extensive flooding from the storm. Nearly $16 million has also been doled out to residents of Jefferson Parish.
IG report critical of Louisiana fire marshal
A state inspector general's wide-ranging report on Louisiana Fire Marshal Butch Browning includes the finding that one of Browning's inspectors failed to detect mechanical problems with a carnival ride in Greensburg hours before two teenagers were injured on the ride in May 2011. Today's report says Browning publicly attributed the accident to operator error, even after learning of the possible inspection problem. Browning's office and Department of Public Safety officials dispute the findings in Inspector General Stephen Street's report, including the assertion that Browning was told of the possible inspection error before he made the public pronouncement. The inspector general's report tracks several allegations forwarded by a watchdog group, the New Orleans-based Metropolitan Crime Commission, before Browning's brief resignation from the job earlier this year. Browning quit in April but came back in May after state police investigated and reported he had made no attempt to defraud...
BP settlement, if approved, likely destined for appeal
There's little doubt a federal judge will give final approval to a multibillion-dollar settlement between BP and victims of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill following a hearing this week. The bigger question, as The Houston Chronicle reports, is whether the deal survives on appeal. Class-action settlements in admiralty cases are relatively uncommon, and even more rare is to have one that involves so many types of claims and losses, legal experts say. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and, ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court could be asked to weigh in. That means U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier's expected signature sometime after Thursday's hearing in New Orleans on the fairness of the settlement is unlikely to be the last word. "It's pretty clear it's not going to be a done deal," says Martin Davies, a Tulane University law professor who specializes in maritime issues. The settlement, which BP worked out with a steering committee of lawyers representing plaintiffs, would...
Louisiana's fishermen confront BP spill deadline
Most decisions about the details of a huge class-action settlement of damage claims from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill will come from stately offices and a federal courtroom in New Orleans. But, as The Houston Chronicle reports, the consequences will reach farther south, where Louisianans—many of them subsistence fishermen—count on swampy bayous and gray Gulf waves for their livelihood, and are struggling to support themselves on catches they say have dwindled to a fifth of their pre-spill numbers. "It just ain't there anymore," says Maurice Phillips, a 58-year-old fisherman and trapper from Grand Bayou who traces his ancestry to the region's first Native American residents. Phillips is one of hundreds of fishermen who must decide by Thursday whether his share of a proposed $2.3 billion settlement fund will make up for the losses he has experienced since BP's Macondo well spilled millions of gallons of crude oil into the waters where he and his family have...
BP caps the dome believed to be source of oil sheen
An abandoned piece of equipment that is believed to be the source of an oil sheen spotted near the site of the massive 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been capped and plugged, BP says. The London-based oil giant says it placed a 750-pound cap over an 86-ton steel container that the company had deployed in a failed effort to contain the spill. BP also inserted plugs on the top and sides of the container, which had been lowered over a leaking drill pipe in an effort to funnel oil to the surface. BP and the Coast Guard both say no oil has been seen leaking out of the container since it was capped and plugged. The operation started Tuesday and lasted roughly 26 hours. The sheen appeared on the Gulf's surface in September. BP plans to monitor the sheen by satellite for several more days. The Coast Guard says it has directed BP to submit a plan for either removing remaining oil from the container or removing the container itself after the oil is removed. Last week BP said a...
Most eligible parties will accept BP spill deal, claims head says
BP's multibillion-dollar settlement with individuals and businesses affected by the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill doesn't appear to be in jeopardy as more than 90% of those eligible are expected to accept the deal, the claims administrator says. Lafayette attorney Patrick Juneau, who took over the processing of victims' claims from Kenneth Feinberg in June, tells The Houston Chronicle that only about 100 to 200 claimants had opted out of the deal as of last week. The figure is important because BP's agreement with lawyers for plaintiffs allows the oil giant to withdraw from the deal if too many claimants opt out; BP has not said what that threshold is. Those who don't opt out by a Nov. 1 deadline are part of the class action settlement and cannot pursue separate lawsuits. U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier of New Orleans, who tentatively approved the deal, has set a hearing to begin Nov. 8 in federal court in New Orleans to assess whether it is fair. Barbier then will decide...
Alaskans' pain set stage for Gulf spill victims' gain
As a federal judge considers whether to approve a huge civil settlement in the 2010 oil spill, thousands of Gulf Coast residents owe their day in court to a law that arose from the Exxon Valdez disaster 23 years ago. The litigation over the spill from BP's Macondo well is the biggest test so far of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, and economic victims of the Gulf spill likely will fare better than those who suffered from the 1989 tanker accident in Prince William Sound, Alaska. While some plaintiffs have expressed frustration that the settlement process has taken two years, legal experts tell the The Houston Chronicle that one of the biggest benefits of the oil pollution legislation has been how it has helped move along the resolution process, sidestepping much of the legal fighting that bogged down the Valdez negotiations. Under the act, liability for an oil spill falls to the operator of a project—BP—and co-owners of the Macondo well, in the case of the Gulf spill.
Rain on the budget
These days, Louisiana's budget is shaping up to be one of those good news-bad news scenarios.
Spill attorneys encourage clients to opt out of class action suit
Two leading attorneys for plaintiffs in the BP oil spill case plan to recommend that their thousands of clients drop out of the class action settlement and try their luck in court, The Houston Chronicle reports. Tony Buzbee, a Houston-based attorney representing more than 12,000 individual plaintiffs, says he plans to advise these clients they can get a better deal than the proposed settlement negotiated by BP and the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, a group of attorneys appointed by the federal court to represent individual plaintiffs. New Orleans attorney Stuart Smith, who represents several thousand clients, says he is considering recommending that his clients decline the settlement. The settlement was negotiated for an estimated $7.8 billion to cover claims of individuals and businesses in the Gulf Coast region in the wake of the 2010 disaster. It still needs to be approved by a federal court after a fairness hearing scheduled for Nov. 8. Plaintiffs who want to opt out must...
Debate ongoing over evidence in spill litigation
As individual plaintiffs continue to object to a tentative settlement over the Deepwater Horizon disaster, debate continues on whether the presiding judge should allow more evidence to be collected, The Houston Chronicle reports. A hearing on the settlement's fairness is slated for Nov. 8. BP sent a letter to Federal District Judge Carl Barbier last week arguing that since the settlement was announced more than five months ago and a Sept. 7 deadline for additional evidence has now passed, requests by plaintiffs are simply an effort to delay the settlement proceedings. BP's response comes amid a continuous stream of filings on a proposed settlement that BP agreed to with individual plaintiffs represented by the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee for an estimated $7.8 billion. That deal was struck at the beginning of March as a way to resolve individual damages over the Deepwater Horizon accident in April 2010. In a Monday morning letter to the court, attorney Stuart Smith—who...
Katrina's legacy
While New Orleans was drowning, Baton Rouge was freaking out.
The wrath of Gustav
When Hurricane Gustav threatened the Capital Region in 2008, the memory of Katrina and Rita, two storms from the devastating 2005 hurricane season, still was fresh. Which may explain why everyone, from state government on down, seemed quicker and better organized than they had been three years prior.
EBR and the Felicianas made eligible for FEMA individual assistance
Residents of East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana and West Feliciana parishes who suffered damages from Hurricane Isaac are now eligible for FEMA individual assistance, the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness announced this afternoon. Louisiana officials requested these parishes be added to the state's declaration on Aug. 31, and their addition brings the total number of parishes declared for the FEMA individual assistance program to 21. Ascension and Livingston parishes are also on the FEMA's list of eligible parishes. FEMA assistance is for those who sustained uninsured or underinsured Isaac-related damage to their homes, vehicles, personal property, business or its inventory beginning Aug. 26. You can apply for assistance online here, or by calling toll-free 800-621-3362. Two parishes—Pointe Coupee and West Baton Rouge—have yet to be approved for the individual assistance program,...
B.R. father of Deepwater Horizon victim sees big omission in BP talks
In his latest column, The Houston Chronicle's Loren Steffy talks with Keith Jones of Baton Rouge, whose son Gordon Jones was among the 11 men killed aboard the Deepwater Horizon when it exploded on April 20, 2010. But Jones is also a lawyer involved in the case. He has heard about the government's negotiations over criminal charges related to the disaster, and amid all the talk of multibillion-dollar fines he sees a glaring omission. "Nobody has done anything to prosecute the people who were directly responsible for these deaths," Jones says, adding that he's "somewhat mystified" that all the talk involving the government's criminal claims against BP, the rig's operator, and Transocean, its owner, have been about fines for pollution crimes. From the beginning, the sense of accountability for the lives lost has been supplanted by environmental liability, and Jones worries that the companies involved already are looking past the potential fines, eager to get on with business as...
Water Institute to probe Isaac flooding
The Water Institute of the Gulf, an independent applied research organization that began operations in Baton Rouge this year, has been tapped to investigate whether the new $14.6 billion levee protection system in the New Orleans area contributed to flooding in areas outside the system during and after Hurricane Isaac, says Garret Graves, Louisiana's top coastal official. He says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' pre-storm models showed that any additional flooding tied to the New Orleans system only would be a minimal addition to what those areas would have had anyway: for example, an extra one to three inches on the Northshore. The corps is going back and reviewing those models, Graves says, and the state has asked TWIG to "take an independent look." "The corps has some impressive capabilities," he says. "[But] we don't want them to look at themselves in the mirror and ask if they did a good job or not. We want to have some independent, third-party verification that their modeling...
Louisiana AG objects to proposed spill deal
A proposed settlement of claims relating to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill is insufficient for spill victims in Louisiana, especially in the fishing industry, the state says in a motion opposing court approval of the deal between BP and a committee representing plaintiffs. Attorney General Buddy Caldwell says the settlement imposes many conditions on spill plaintiffs that are unfair and, in some cases, against the law. His objection is outlined in documents filed with U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier of New Orleans, The Houston Chronicle reports. While Louisiana is not a party to the proposed settlement, Caldwell used the state's responsibility to protect its citizens as the impetus for the brief. "The outcome of the proposed settlement is of great interest to the state because of the inadequate relief offered to residents of Louisiana in exchange for the relinquishment of strong legal claims against BP," Caldwell writes. Barbier, who is overseeing a case combining hundreds...
Transocean, feds considered $1.5B settlement
Transocean Ltd. and the Justice Department have discussed a $1.5 billion settlement that would resolve federal civil and criminal claims against the company over its role in the deadly 2010 rig explosion that spawned the nation's worst offshore oil spill. But Switzerland-based Transocean Ltd. also says in a regulatory filing today that a "number of issues," including the possible time period for payment, must be resolved before a deal can be completed. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment to The Associated Press on the matter. Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, where 11 workers died in an April 2010 explosion triggered by a blowout of BP's Macondo well. Transocean also says it rejected settlement offers earlier this year from BP and a group of private attorneys for Gulf Coast residents and businesses.
Hurricane Isaac damage estimates could reach into the billions
Roughly $320 billion: That's where University of North Texas economist Bernard Weinstein put the economic cost from hurricanes Katrina and Rita in a 2006 report, The Times-Picayune reports. From tattered oil rigs offshore and devastated property along the Gulf Coast, the costs rippled out across the country, even denting monthly U.S. industrial production. No such figure has been estimated for Hurricane Isaac, whose economic toll probably will amount to just a fraction of what befell south Louisiana and the country seven years ago. But economists, experts from the insurance industry and government officials are bracing for costs in the billions of dollars, hoping that the construction work that follows the storm will help offset the economic setback in part. Officials with the Louisiana Department of Agriculture & Forestry fanned out in small planes Friday to map the effect on cotton and sugarcane crops. Rig operators returned to hundreds of offshore platforms that have been...
Isaac damaged at least 13,000 Louisiana homes
At least 13,000 homes in Louisiana were damaged by Hurricane Isaac, a state emergency official reports today, offering the first glimpse of the reach of the storm that made landfall a week ago. A spokeswoman for the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness says the preliminary figures are based on an initial review of communities with flooding and wind damage. "We do expect that this number could rise after FEMA completes house-by-house inspections as residents register for individual assistance," says Christina Stephens. If the number of people who have requested FEMA assistance offers a guide, the tally of damaged homes could end up being much higher than 13,000. Nearly 95,000 people have signed up for individual aid from FEMA, for grants to help repair homes and replace storm-wrecked belongings, according to data provided by Gov. Bobby Jindal's office. The assistance for homeowners, renters and businesses was available in the 10 hardest-hit parishes,...
Entergy takes tongue lashing from hot N.O. customers
The widespread power outages caused by Isaac have nearly all been repaired, but there are plenty of people in the New Orleans area who say their electricity was not restored fast enough. The Public Service Commission says nearly 41,000 homes and businesses remained without electricity as of this morning; that's about 2% of customers. The largest remaining outages were in the two parishes hardest hit by Isaac's flooding: Plaquemines and St. John the Baptist. At its worst, Isaac knocked out power to more than 900,000 utility customers, approaching half the state. As The Times-Picayune reports, the public's anger at Entergy for lengthy power outages following Isaac has reached a boiling point. "What burns my ass is there's no reason in the world it should have to be like this," says Melvin Odenwald, whose Algiers Point house was well above 100 degrees on Monday—after six days without power. Read the full story
Isaac may spark swarms of mosquitoes
South Louisiana residents may be dealing with swarms of mosquitoes due to the huge amounts of water left behind in the wake of Hurricane Isaac. And with Louisiana experiencing the highest rate of West Nile virus infections in several years, state officials are warning residents to take precautions against mosquitoes. Rain and flooding spawned by hurricanes can cause huge mosquito hatchings, says Jessie Boudreaux, owner of Cajun Mosquito Control, Terrebonne Parish's mosquito control contractor. The major hatching will likely occur in about a week, he says. "Everyone needs to be mindful that we are all still at risk of contracting West Nile virus," says state Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein. "This has been the most active West Nile virus season Louisiana has experienced since 2006, so it's critical that everyone takes the necessary precautions, particularly as residents return to their homes and begin cleanup efforts." West Nile is a rare but serious disease carried by...
Livingston, Ascension residents with Isaac damage can apply for relief
Residents in nine Louisiana parishes affected by Hurricane Isaac, including Livingston and Ascension, are eligible to receive housing assistance from FEMA. State officials had applied to make residents in 23 parishes eligible, but FEMA did not authorize eligibility for all 23. FEMA's individual assistance program includes funding for home repair and replacement and for rental costs up to 18 months. Through another FEMA program, residents may apply to be placed temporarily in a hotel or motel while their homes are rehabilitated. Complete details and applications for these programs are available here. Meanwhile, The Times-Picayune reports FEMA housing inspectors have already begun visiting neighborhoods in the New Orleans area, checking for damage. More than 400 inspections have taken place since Hurricane Isaac made landfall in Louisiana last week, and more are scheduled as area residents report their uninsured or...
Army Corps of Engineers: N.O. levees holding up
While Hurricane Isaac pushed water over a rural levee and flooded some Plaquemines Parish homes early today, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials say New Orleans' flood protection system is holding up so far, noting the rural levee is not a part of the $14.5 billion system built to protect New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina. Wind gusts reaching as high as 75 mph and sheets of rain pelted New Orleans, where people braced themselves for the storm behind levees that were strengthened after Category 3 Katrina hit seven years ago to the day. "The system is performing as intended, as we expected; we don't see any issues with the hurricane system at this point," says corps spokeswoman Rachel Rodi, adding that it will remain on "high alert" for the next 12 to 24 hours. Read the full story here.
'Real Estate Weekly': Allstate likely to benefit from reducing La. coastal coverage
Allstate Corp. stands to benefit from its decision to scale back homeowners' risk in Louisiana and cede market share to State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., as Hurricane Isaac threatens the U.S. Gulf Coast. Allstate's sales of residential policies in Louisiana fell to $209 million last year, 19% less than in 2006, according to A.M. Best data compiled by Bloomberg. State Farm, the only U.S. homeowners' carrier larger than Allstate, sold $466 million of the protection in the state in 2011, a 25% increase from five years earlier. Allstate, led by CEO Tom Wilson, has been raising prices for coverage, buying reinsurance, and shifting where it sells policies to improve homeowners' underwriting results nationally. "They've cut back on coastal exposure, in general," Paul Newsome, an analyst at Sandler O'Neill & Partners, says of Northbrook, Ill.-based Allstate. "It's been a major strategy for them." And it appears to be working; Allstate shares are up 37% since Dec. 31. State Farm is...
Drought increasing costs for B.R. restaurateurs
Local restaurants are already feeling the early effects of a U.S. drought that has caused corn and soybean prices to soar to record highs, and more dramatic price hikes from suppliers may be coming soon, according to several local restaurant owners. One of them, Cafe Phoenicia partner Johnny Mekari, says the biggest immediate price hikes are coming on meat, due to the abundance of corn and soy in livestock feed. "The biggest corn consumption we have, the most corn-using product, is chicken," Mekari says. "The price of a case of chicken has risen from about $65 to about $72." While that may be manageable for now, Mekari says his supplier told him to expect the price to reach $105 in "about a month or so." Besides facing the jump in chicken prices, what Café Phoenicia is paying for beef and wheat has also risen about 20%, while bread and rice prices are up 10%. "The producer is trying not to pass along the costs, but the margins are shrinking along the whole chain," he says. Thus far,...
I-10 reopens in both directions; traffic moving again
Interstate 10 was reopened to both eastbound and westbound traffic this morning, and traffic is reportedly moving smoothly following Wednesday’s daylong interstate closures due to a multivehicle crash involving a tanker truck leaking flammable liquid. Crews performed a "vent and burn" technique late Wednesday night in order to stop the leak from a damaged tanker. State police say the coordinated explosion around 11:45 p.m. successfully burned off the isobutane leaking from the truck. Firefighters on the scene were able to get the flames under control around 1:30 this morning. Westbound lanes were reopened around 6 a.m.; eastbound lanes reopened shortly before 7 a.m. The accident happened when a car flipped on the interstate early Wednesday morning. A tanker truck stopped for the accident and was rear-ended by another 18-wheeler.
Corps strives to keep Mississippi River open during drought
As one of the worst droughts in modern history continues to shrink the width and depth of the Mississippi River, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has more than a dozen dredging vessels working to keep the river open to commercial traffic this summer, The New York Times reports. Despite being fed by water flowing in from more than 40% of the United States, the river is relatively powerless against the ruinous drought affecting so much of the Midwest. Some stretches are nearing the record low-water marks experienced in 1988, when river traffic was suspended in several spots. That is unlikely this year, however, because of careful engineering work to keep the largest inland marine system in the world passable. Still, tow operators are dealing with the shallower channel by hauling fewer barges, loading them more lightly and running them more slowly, and as a consequence, raising their costs. Since May, about 60 vessels have run aground in the lower Mississippi. The volume of water...
Return timeframe in question for those near sinkhole
Given the recent appearance of a massive sinkhole near his new Assumption Parish home, Greg Denton picked the wrong time to move. As The Times-Picayune reports, just weeks after Denton and his wife, Carmen, bought their new place on Sauce Piquante Lane, in late May, many of their neighbors started reporting feeling tremors and seeing gas bubbles rising up in nearby bayous. "I didn't know nothing about it at all when we first came down here. I didn't have a clue," says Denton, 56, about two months after he relocated from Missouri. "Every day is a new experience, I'm telling you." The same has been true for state and local officials, who have spent months investigating the puzzling activity toward the back swamps along the west bank of Bayou Lafourche. The tremors became more frequent, from a dozen a day to hundreds by mid-July, with some residents reporting minor property damage. Then, one day in early August, the shaking just stopped. It was soon followed the sinkhole, which...
LSU fire training facility renamed after pioneer
Credited with making the LSU Fire and Emergency Training Institute the go-to agency for fire, medical and rescue training, Carrol Herring is now lending his name to the facility. On Monday, FETI renamed itself the Carrol L. Herring Fire and Emergency Training Institute in recognition of the leadership he brought to the facility until his second retirement in 2005. A Varnado native, Carrol Herring was hired as a coordinator to the newly formed LSU Firemen Training program on Oct. 1, 1963. Prior to accepting the position, Herring spent 15 years in the Baton Rouge Fire Department. Shortly after his hiring, Herring toured the state to determine fire service training needs and created a standard training class that was widely used and quickly adopted by the Louisiana fire service. In 1969, Herring became the director of LSU Firemen Training and began to mold the program into one of the nation's premier fire training organizations. "For most everybody here, the name Carol L. Herring has...
Northern drought affects grain shipments in state
The Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry is monitoring low water levels, particularly at the Port of Lake Providence in East Carroll Parish, which is preventing shipments of grain, including corn and soybeans, from leaving the area. LDAF Commissioner Mike Strain is working with local and state officials on enlisting the help of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dredge the area. "This issue could become disastrous, and we need the corps to focus on this problem," Strain said today. "While Louisiana is not experiencing a drought, the rest of the country is. This is a problem for our farmers in the area and the economy. We're in harvest season; and if our farmers can't get their grain to market, it will impact their livelihood." Grain travels from the Port of Lake Providence to the Port of Greater Baton Rouge, where it is shipped to the rest of the world. A barge can carry up to 1,600 tons of grain. If shipments aren't made, Direct economic losses could potentially be up...
Drought helps fracking foes push for recycling
The worst U.S. drought in a half century is putting pressure on natural gas drillers to conserve the millions of gallons of water used in hydraulic fracturing to free trapped gas and oil from underground rock, Bloomberg reports. From Texas to Colorado to Pennsylvania, farmers, activists and opponents of the drilling technique, also known as fracking, are using the shortage of rain to push the industry to recycle water and reduce usage—efforts that could prove costly to the industry. One company, Devon Energy Corp.—which is leading drilling efforts in the Tuscaloosa Shale in the parishes just north of East Baton Rouge—estimates that recycling is as much as 75% costlier than pumping wastewater into deep wells. That disposal method, common in the industry, has also drawn complaints because it is linked to earthquakes. "We just would like the oil and gas companies to figure out better...
Corps cans Donaldsonville-to-the-Gulf levee project
The Army Corps of Engineers has decided it is too expensive to build any of five alternative levee systems that would protect communities bordering the Barataria basin from hurricane storm surge, including Lafitte, Jean Lafitte and Crown Point in Jefferson Parish, and areas along U.S. 90 from Boutte to Raceland. According to a story in The Times-Picayune, the Donaldsonville-to-the-Gulf project became too expensive because of more stringent levee construction standards adopted in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that increased the cost of the alternatives to between $1.1 billion and $1.3 billion. A corps study concluded the average annual benefits, represented by avoided flooding, amounted to only $15 million to $22 million a year, while the cost of construction and long-term maintenance averaged between $67 million and $75 million a year. For the complete story, click
N.O. levee breach sites rejected for national register
The National Parks Service has rejected an effort to have sites where levees breached during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 added to the National Register of Historic Places. The advocacy group Levees.Org has been pushing for almost two years to have the sites listed on the register, arguing that the flooding that resulted from the breaches was the worst civil engineering disaster in the nation's history. The Army Corps of Engineers was highly critical of the organization's nomination. A letter from the NPS expressed doubt about the nomination for various reasons: among them, its reliance on a limited number of studies about the causes of the breaches. The NPS says the organization can resubmit the nomination, and Levees.Org founder Sandy Rosenthal confirms today his group will do so.
New Orleans flood protection system finally in place
Nearly seven years after floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina gushed over New Orleans, $14.5 billion worth of civil works designed to block such surges is now in place—a 133-mile chain of levees, flood walls, gates and pumps too vast to take in at once, except perhaps from space. As The New York Times reports, individual components of the system can be appreciated from a less celestial elevation. At the new Seabrook floodgate complex, climb up three steep ladders, open a trap door, and step out into the blazing sunlight atop a 54-foot tower that was not here just two years ago. From there one looks out over a $165 million barrier across the shipping canal linking Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. Two "lift gates," 50 feet across, can be lowered to block the waters of Lake Pontchartrain. A navigation gate 95 feet wide, whose curved sides weigh 220 tons apiece, can be swung gently but mightily into place. When open—which will...
New oil spill claims process opens
Beginning today, anyone who suffered BP oil spill–related losses or injuries and hasn't already accepted a final settlement from BP through the former Gulf Coast Claims Facility will be able to apply under a new claims process, The Times-Picayune reports. More information about the terms of the settlement and how to file a claim of economic loss is available here. Details about medical claims can be found here. The new payment system was set up under the terms of a settlement reached this spring to avoid a trial on thousands of health and economic-damage claims by individuals and businesses harmed by the oil spill. The deal, preliminarily approved by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier, was uncapped, meaning there's no limit on how much money is available to pay damages, though BP has estimated the cost at about $7.8 billion. The settlement was not...
Kay Goodwyn
As a 19-year-old in Beaumont, Texas, Kay Goodwyn took a clerical job with the local fire department and, in short order, decided she wanted to be a firefighter herself.
Chemical plant fire injures 1, causes evacuation and highway closure
One person was injured, scores of people were evacuated and part of U.S. Highway 190 near Port Allen is closed by a fire at a plant that refills acetylene cylinders. Air Liquide spokesman George Smalley says a worker suffered a minor injury. He says the fire is in a yard where empty cylinders are kept at Air Liquide Specialty Gases. Acetylene, a chemical typically used in welding torches, is trucked to the plant. Smalley says he doesn't know how many cylinders caught fire. State police Capt. Doug Cain says residents and businesses within a mile of the plant were evacuated. He says about 60 people are at evacuation centers in Port Allen and Erwinville as of this afternoon. The fire broke out about 10:30 a.m. today at the plant in West Baton Rouge Parish and was still burning in early afternoon. Air Liquide is an international producer of gases used in industry and health care. The company's website says its products include oxygen, nitrogen, argon and rare gases. Its headquarters are...