BP’s Well Almost Dead, But Oil Lives On

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BP and federal spill responders announced last night that the first relief well has successfully intercepted the leaking well that gushed from the bottom of the Gulf for nearly three months. BP’s main well has been contained with a cap since July, but the relief well was billed as the only way to finally and completely close the well and bring an end to a disaster that released 4.1 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen announced late Thursday night that the relief well had tapped into the leaking well, which will now allow drillers to cement the well and complete the so-called bottom-kill operation. That operation is expected to be completed on Saturday, BP said. The first well was expected to be completed in mid-July, but between weather delays and other setbacks, it took much longer.

But as the nightmare well meets its end, new research is indicating that much of the oil is remains in the Gulf. Research published this week in Science indicates that there may be four separate plumes of hydrocarbons under the water. David Valentine, a professor of microbial geochemistry in the Department of Earth Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara estimated that there’s “about a million barrels of oil” contained in these plumes (approximately a quarter of the total amount of oil spilled in the Gulf). And there’s about two times as much gas in the plumes, said the researchers. (I reported more on the additional problems that all that gas creates in the Gulf in this July piece. Valentin also makes an appearance in Julia Whitty’s cover story this month on the BP spill.)

The research also suggests that bacteria in the Gulf are consuming the propane and ethane released from the well faster than they’re consuming more complex hydrocarbons like methane and oil. Propane and ethane were the “primary drivers of microbial respiration,” the research team found, accounting for up to 70 percent of the oxygen depletion in the undersea plumes. (As the microbes feast on the hydrocarbons, they must use oxygen in the water, which is why the oxygen depletion levels are used to gauge their activity.)  This puts a bit of a damper on reports released a few weeks ago claiming that Gulf microbes were eating oil at record rates.

This also comes after reports earlier this week that scientists have found oil accumulating on the Gulf floor and that new waves of oil have washed ashore in Louisiana—still more evidence that more of the oil is lurking below the surface than rosy reports last month had indicated.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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