Property Insurance Coverage Law Blog : Florida Insurance Lawyer & Attorney : Merlin Law Group Law Firm : Tampa, Houston, Coral Gables, Gulfport

Here is the gist of the article:

Federal fisheries experts have told the Federal Emergency Management Agency that -- by underwriting thousands of flood insurance policies in Puget Sound -- it encourages construction in floodplains in ways that harm federally protected species.

In response, FEMA is now drafting new building rules for about 122 communities in Puget Sound to minimize the harm to salmon and endangered whales that feed on them.

"We're going to see less damages caused by flooding and less lives lost due to flooding and good riparian stewardship," said John Graves, a floodplain specialist with the National Flood Insurance Program.

What FEMA is doing in Washington state is being closely watched elsewhere.

Conservation groups across the country have challenged FEMA's flood program for harming endangered sea turtles in Florida, pallid sturgeon in Missouri, jaguars in Arizona, salmon in Oregon, and the Southwestern willow flycatcher in New Mexico.

FEMA has "a national responsibility to comply with the Endangered Species Act and not harm imperiled species by allowing and even subsidizing development in floodplain habitat areas," said Dan Siemann, senior environmental policy specialist for the National Wildlife Federation.

Conservation groups say FEMA's program allows building to occur in areas where it otherwise would not, since most private insurers won't safeguard homes in such flood-prone areas. They say the agency sets minimum building standards, but those don't consider impacts of development on wildlife and their habitat.

I imagine that environmental groups could use the same logic and tactic to force federally funded or guaranteed mortgages to be written with new environmental building rules. And, maybe that is the way it should be. Construction and building codes can potentially harm or have significant impact on the environment and our fellow creatures living on earth.

There are significant federalism and public policy issues in those topics. Certainly, building codes should allow for affordable housing and there should be codes written with the environment in mind…but shouldn’t those be written and decided by the governing authorities charged with the responsibilities associated with those issues? Shouldn't mitigation be the primary concern in the National Flood Program Building Codes? 

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill could be leaking at a rate of 25,000 barrels a day, five times the government's current estimate, industry experts say.

Basing their calculations on government data and standard industry measurement tools, the experts said the Gulf spill may already rival the historic 1969 Santa Barbara, Calif., and 1989 Exxon Valdez disasters.

Ian MacDonald, professor of oceanography at Florida State University who specializes in tracking ocean oil seeps from satellite imagery, said there may already be more than 9 million gallons of oil floating in the Gulf now, based on his estimate of a 25,000 barrel-a-day leak rate. That's compared to 12 million gallons spilled in the Valdez accident.

Interior Department officials said it may take 90 days to cap the leaking well. If the 25,000 barrels a day is accurate and it leaks for 90 days, that's 2.25 million barrels or 94.5 million gallons.

Mr. MacDonald and his colleagues at the Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science Department have worked jointly with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the past on oil spill tracking, and have shared their estimates with NOAA scientists. He said the NOAA scientists didn't dispute the calculations.

A NOAA spokeswoman said the government estimate of 5,000 barrels a day leaking from the BP PLC deep sea well was based on collaborative assessments produced by BP, NOAA and the U.S. Coast Guard. NOAA scientists weren't immediately available to comment.

The 5,000-barrel figure was first announced late Wednesday and marked a five-fold increase from the previous estimate. News of the higher estimate ratcheted up the pressure on officials to take more-aggressive steps to contain the spill and heightened concerns about potential environmental damage and disruption to the Gulf Coast economy.

Climate Now called this an Oilpocalypse Now! That blog provides a detailed report on the serious issues confronting Gulf Coast states.

In Safety Device Questioned in '04, the Wall Street Journal also noted that safety devices could have been better:

Some newer rigs have blowout preventers with two separate pairs of shear rams—providing an added safeguard in case one shear malfunctions or hits an obstruction in the pipe. The Deepwater Horizon had a single pair of shear rams.

The Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, which regulates offshore drilling, questioned whether shear rams were strong enough to shear through a pipe.

In two offshore incidents in 2001, the rams didn't work as expected. The agency issued new rules in 2003 instructing the oil industry to make sure the rams would work reliably.

In 2004, a study commissioned by the MMS raised significant questions about the ability of rams to cut through the stronger pipes used in deep-water drilling. Those thicker pipes—as well as the shear rams—must withstand the enormous pressures found at 5,000 feet below sea level.

The study noted there was no agreement on how to determine if the sheer rams would work properly in deep-water conditions. Only three of 14 newly build rigs had blowout preventers that were able to squeeze off and cut the pipe at the water pressure likely to be experienced at the equipment's maximum water depth, the study noted. (emphasis added)

I will be flying over the Gulf of Mexico to Galveston on Hurricane Ike litigation matters as many are reading this post. I am certain that the spill will be even more unbelievable to see than this past Thursday when I last flew over the disaster. The Gulf Coast needs a reprieve from these heartbreaks. The recent post in Slabbed, “We interrupt this interruption of our regularly scheduled disaster blogging to report that levees have failed above Memphis” – said the Editilla this soggy Sunday morning, is sadly accurate of what we have been experiencing lately.

Yesterday, Time Magazine reported in an article, Gulf Oil Spill Swiftly Balloons, Could Move East, that:

The Coast Guard conceded Saturday that it's nearly impossible to know how much oil has gushed since the April 20 rig explosion, after saying earlier it was at least 1.6 million gallons....Even at that rate, the spill should eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident as the worst U.S. oil disaster in history within about a week. But a growing number of experts warned that the situation may already be much worse.

The oil slick over the water's surface appeared to triple in size over the past two days, which could indicate an increase in the rate that oil is spewing from the well, according to one analysis of images collected from satellites and reviewed by the University of Miami. While it's hard to judge the volume of oil by satellite because of depth, it does show an indication of change in growth, experts said.

"The spill and the spreading is getting so much faster and expanding much quicker than they estimated," said Hans Graber, executive director of the university's Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing. "Clearly, in the last couple of days, there was a big change in the size." Florida State University oceanography professor Ian R. MacDonald said his examination of Coast Guard charts and satellite images indicated that 8 million to 9 million gallons had already spilled by April 28.

Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer for exploration and production, said it was impossible to know just how much oil was gushing from the well, but said the company and federal officials were preparing for the worst-case scenario. Oil industry experts and officials are reluctant to describe what, exactly, a worst-case scenario would look like — but if the oil gets into the Gulf Stream and carries it to the beaches of Florida, it stands to be an environmental and economic disaster of epic proportions.

The Deepwater Horizon well is at the end of one branch of the Gulf Stream, the famed warm-water current that flows from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Atlantic. Several experts said that if the oil enters the stream, it would flow around the southern tip of Florida and up the eastern seaboard.

"It will be on the East Coast of Florida in almost no time," Graber said. "I don't think we can prevent that. It's more of a question of when rather than if."

Our firm will file our first BP Oil spill lawsuit tomorrow morning. We will do so with our long term co-counsel in the panhandle of Florida, Keefe, Anchors, Gordon & Moyle, P.A. Michelle Anchors is proudly a fervent environmentalist, and she wrote the following in her Blog:

Those of us who grew up on the Emerald Coast have been around the block a few times watching the Weather Channel and waiting to see where the hurricane would land. Most of us have never watched an oil slick to see whether and when it would land. Waiting for a hurricane seemed to be a lot more fun. Maybe we would get out of school. Maybe the electricity would go out. Maybe the wind would bring good waves for the surfers. And now that I represent clients who have to fight their insurance companies after a hurricane, maybe I would even get some business. But waiting for the oil spill of the Deepwater Horizon to reach our coast is gut wrenching. I don’t want the business.

During the last few days, I have received calls from some of my clients asking if we can help them prepare for this potential disaster. Not to be unnecessarily alarmist, but the potential consequences are grave. Emotionally, environmentally, and economically, Northwest Florida has everything to lose. So we have mustered our troops and our resources and we are going to fight BP, who could have and should have taken more actions to prevent this devastating event. This is not like a hurricane that the forces of Mother Nature unleashes without any human or corporate control. This is an oil company that apparently did not take the precautions necessary to protect us all – this is an underwater Chernobyl.

With oil coming ashore, there will be massive income and loss of use claims. Those have already started and will only increase as the oil permeates a community. As a result, Merlin Law Group hired an environmental attorney who has extensive experience with pollution litigation. We also retained a consultant who managed claims from the oil industry's side following the Exxon Valdez disaster. We also hired Trial Exhibits, which photographed and documented damage for a oil transport company following a 1993 oil spill off St. Petersburg and Clearwater. We will do our best to help and serve our clients. I look forward to working with Michelle Anchors and others as we work through this unprecedented catastrophe.