Oil Spill

Like city boosters competing to host the Olympics, hundreds of lawyers representing gulf oil spill victims converged on this mountain town Thursday, promoting their Southern cities as the best equipped and the most convenient venue to handle about 300 lawsuits tied to the disaster. Their arguments before seven federal judges — who will make the decision on where the lawsuits will be heard and who will preside over them — is the critical first step in what is expected to be a long and complicated legal battle over damages caused by the nation's worst oil spill.

It would be perfectly proper for BP, the giant British oil company, to feel a sense of corporate remorse. After all, the firm was responsible for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and well blowout that took 11 lives and created "immense environmental damage" in and around the gulf. (Those words were uttered by a Department of Justice official just over a year ago, when BP pleaded guilty to a dozen felony charges and agreed to pay $4 billion in penalties and fines.)

Horrific though the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has been, its output is still short of what occurred a century ago in scrubby brush about 110 miles north of Los Angeles — site of the Lakeview gusher. While some experts believe the well off Louisiana has spewed upwards of 60 million gallons of oil into the gulf, the Lakeview well rained about 378 million gallons over an area between the towns of Taft and Maricopa. The spill following the April 20 oil rig explosion in the gulf is, of course, a much bigger environmental and economic disaster.

About 400,000 gallons of crude oil spilled from 18 rail cars after after a Dec. 30 derailment near Casselton, N.D., the National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary investigation report Monday. An ensuing explosion sent a massive mushroom cloud of fire above the prairie and forced the evacuation of 1,400 residents. Damage was estimated at $6.1 million, the NTSB said. The accident occurred when a BNSF Railway grain train derailed on the  westbound tracks, obstructing the eastbound tracks less than a minute before the 106-car oil train arrived.

Each news update from the BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico tightens a hard knot in my stomach. Alaskans who lived through the Exxon Valdez oil spill feel dark memories resurfacing. We talk about our sadness for the people in the way, people who don't know what's about to hit them. "They still seem to think they'll be able to contain this and stop it, and they just can't," said Rick Steiner, a former University of Alaska fisheries extension agent whose life was irrevocably upset by the Exxon Valdez, which spilled at least 11 million gallons of oil in Prince William Sound 21 years ago. "Not much oil is going to be recovered; they're not going to save much wildlife; they're not going to be able to restore damaged ecosystems."

After spending around half a billion dollars, scientists paid by the government to study the Exxon Valdez oil spill over the last two decades still cannot answer some of the most important questions about the damage it caused or about whether Prince William Sound will fully recover. We're in danger of ending up just as ignorant after the BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, as once again, our legal, political and economic systems hobble scientists and pervert the search for answers.

Federal authorities have approved an oil spill response plan that could allow drilling to commence this summer in the Beaufort Sea, the first major offshore drilling in the Arctic since the early 1990s. Though Shell Alaska still needs several final permits, the oil spill plan has been the most debated aspect of the upcoming drilling program , with fears that cleaning up an offshore blowout in the turbulent, often icy seas of the Arctic could be a formidable challenge.

With all the hand-wringing regarding Exxon and Valdez, hold on to these facts: Oil is biodegradable, and "this, too, shall pass!" LUCILLE GLASSMAN Westminster

The federal damage assessment of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill should take into account the broader economic and social impacts of the 2010 blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Research Council. The group recommended that the federal Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration program consider "ecosystem services" when it calculates the impact of the BP spill, a difficult-to-measure analysis of the services performed by an ecosystem.

WESTMINSTER, Colo. -- The warning from local health officials dealing with the flooding in Colorado is simple: Don't get in the water. Underscoring that message, state officials have reported a 5,250-gallon oil spill from a flood-damaged tank overtaken by the South Platte River in Weld County, a deluged area northeast of Denver. The tank's owner, Anadarko Petroleum Corp., responded by placing absorbent oil booms in the water. But it's not just oil in the floodwaters that is raising concerns.

A former engineer for BP was convicted of obstructing an investigation of the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico after the first criminal trial to come from the environmental disaster. Kurt Mix, a drilling engineer who formerly worked for the oil giant, was convicted on Wednesday of obstructing the investigation into the massive spill but acquitted of a second count of obstruction of justice, Justice Department officials announced. Mix, 52, of Katy, Texas, faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced on March 26. Mix is one of four current or former BP employees charged with crimes related to the spill, one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history.

HOUSTON - Two people were killed and at least 22 more were injured when gunfire erupted at a large house party outside the city late Saturday. Sheriff's investigators were seeking two suspects early Sunday in connection with the shooting. Harris County Sheriff's officials said they planned to release additional information at the scene in the 7300 block of Enchanted Creek Drive in Cypress, about 30 miles northwest of Houston. More than 100 people, mostly young adults, were at the party when the shooting began, officials said.

A train that derailed and exploded in rural Alabama was hauling 2.7 million gallons of crude oil, according to officials. The 90-car train was crossing a timber trestle above a wetland near Aliceville late Thursday night when approximately 25 rail cars and two locomotives derailed, spilling crude oil into the surrounding wetlands and igniting a fire that was still burning Saturday. Each of the 90 cars was carrying 30,000 gallons of oil, said Bill Jasper, president of the rail company Genesee & Wyoming at a press briefing Friday night.

A 90-car train derailed and exploded in rural Alabama early Friday morning, spilling its crude oil cargo into the surrounding wetlands and igniting a fire so intense that officials said it will take 24 hours to burn out. No one was injured. The train was crossing a timber trestle above a wetland near Aliceville late Thursday night when 20 railcars and two of three locomotives derailed. Earlier reports said fewer cars had derailed. On Friday morning, about 10 train cars were burning, according to a statement from train owner Genesee & Wyoming.

WASHINGTON - About sundown one Sunday in September, North Dakota farmer Steven Jensen noticed that his combine was running over wet, squishy earth in a wheat field he was harvesting. When he took a closer look, he saw that oil had coated the wheels and that it was bubbling up about 6 inches high in spots. That was Sept. 29; Jensen contacted authorities immediately. At least 20,600 barrels of oil leaked onto the Jensens' land from a pipeline owned by Tesoro Logistics, one of the largest land-based spills in recent history.

The second phase of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill trial begins Monday in New Orleans, restarting a legal juggernaut that could saddle the energy giant with the largest environmental penalty in U.S. history, determine the future health of the Gulf of Mexico and calculate, finally, the amount of crude oil that spewed from the crippled well. The case - which involves a phalanx of federal and state prosecutors, attorneys for several multinational companies, and highly complex engineering testimony - has been droning on with little fanfare since February.

We may well be living with the consequences of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill for the rest of the 21st century. But judging by past environmental disasters, the spill also has the potential to reinvigorate the environmental movement going forward. For more than a century, ecological crises have often strengthened environmental movements. Take the fight over preserving the scenic Hetch Hetchy Valley just outside Yosemite National Park. The biggest environmental battle of naturalist John Muir's life was one that he lost — the fight to keep the city of San Francisco from erecting a dam on the Tuolumne River and flooding Hetch Hetchy.

SEATTLE - Six months after federal officials chastised Shell Oil for its faulty offshore drilling operations in the Arctic, the company has yet to explain what safeguards it has put in place or when it plans to resume exploring for oil in the vulnerable region. Shell's 2012 return to offshore Arctic exploration after a generation away was marred by high-profile problems, including hefty fines for polluting the air and a drilling rig that ran aground. The company canceled its 2013 drilling season, and its 2014 operations are in question.