What BP has done, and failed to do
June 15, 2010, 9:27 am
Posted by Mollie Wilson O'Reilly
“The Deepwater Horizon disaster will probably be remembered as the most severe environmental disaster of the early twenty-first century—a man-made disaster that would have been as easy to prevent as it is now difficult to clean up.”
That’s the verdict of Tom Speight, an environmental scientist and hazardous materials manager, in a web-exclusive article for Commonweal. He explains how BP cut corners and why cleaning up the resulting mess is so complicated. Read his take: “Shoddy Work, Shabby Excuses.”
I asked my ecologist brother how long he thought it would take the coast to heal. He said that isn’t his field of expertise but that his best guess was it could take over a hundred years. He said that the NOAA will probably be the organization that will supply the crucial data.
:-(
Articles today in the Times and WashPost certainly confirm BP’s casual attitude toward following the rules before the blow-out and after. BP will be lucky to get out of this alive.
On the other hand….I find the demagoguery of the politicans of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama hilarious if it weren’t pitiful. (We oppose big government until we want big government to bail us out, to punish BP, and to tighten up deep-water regulations until we don’t want them that tight any more!) I can see why BP and its bevy of lawyers and consultants are leery of the escrow fund; with this crowd it will become a cash cow. BP may as well file for bankruptcy right now.
Wasn’t the Obama administration considering BP for a safety award?
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/30/in-ironic-twist-bp-finalist-for-pollution-prevention-award/
And didn’t Obama receive campaign money from BP?
This will wind up in court, obviously. There are more recent articles that detail BP’s cost cutting and short cuts – this list and explanation is very preliminary and not exhaustive, at all. In fact, it is very rudimentary and shows a lack of knowledge about drilling, etc. in the deep gulf.
Examples:
- Halliburton will testify and document that in the final week as they poured concrete into the well-casing, they recommended that BP place the “standard” 33 pressure cut-offs for a well of this depth. BP only approved using 6 pressure cut offs
- Transocean will testify and document that months before the well had run into drilling issues and they replaced the drill unit with the DeepWater Horizon at the cost of $.5 mil per day. This transition and delay/replacement cost BP millions and was one of the issues driving them at the end to increase and move to production by cutting corners
- the actual well casing uses sub-standard materials because it is cheaper and could be put into place more quickly. It is very possible that this well casing has been ruptured and has failed in numerous spots hundreds, if not thousands, of feet below the seabed. Two weeks ago when BP was trying to ram mud down into the drill hole to stop the oil/gas expulsions, they had to carefully watch the pressure knowing that if they pushed too hard, they would run the risk of rupturing the well casings even more. This meant that they could not increase the mud pressure to equalize or offset the force of the oil/gas that is escaping. Some experts are suggesting that we will yet see oil/gas escaping from numerous holes/gaps in the ocean bed when the oil/gas had worked itself through the rock formations.
These are only some of the arguments and documentation that will be coming out.
A devastating assessment. Thank you, Commonweal.
From the closing paragraph: “Offshore drilling is safe only when there are consistent, legally enforced measures to manage the risks involved.” A simple sentence that incorporates a balanced perspective: support for off-shore drilling, a call for safety measures on the part of the driller, and a call for effective regulation on the part of the government. A recipe for an effective regime going forward.
The same balanced recipe could work for financial markets, istm.
I have just returned from a 10-day trip to Europe (Italy to be exact). The people with whom I discussed this disaster were singularly critical of the US government’s rather laissez-faire take on what is happening. I talke with some English, Italians and Germans and to a person they were amazed that the administration didn’t step in immediately and take total control of what is/isn’t happening. Of course, Mr. O will assuage our angers and fears with his words tonight.
BTW, I supported strongly and voted for Obama. Now I’m starting to have my doubts about his political competency.
Just watched the speech… Uh oh! don’t think it turned the tide.
Margaret, no, I don’t think it did. When you’re setting up comissions to study a disaster as it is happening, while Bobby Jindal and shrimpers with hazmat suits and shop vacs are trying to suck up oil out of wetlands, things are lookin’ pretty grim.
Kevin “Waterworld” Kostner seems to be our best hope this morning,
Lord help us.
Some perspective in terms of the executive branch:
- George Walker Bush never even traveled to Alaska during the Exxon Valdez incident
- no president reacted to the Union Oil Santa Barbara spill – Congress did react by passing regulations
- comparing Katrina and BP is like oranges to apples…….Katrina’s damage was amplified by failures of the federal government esp. building the MRO without adequate levees or surge protection; not updating or improving NO levees esp. neighborhood canals or approving/auditing levees that were outdated, poorly maintained or built using outdated engineering; allowing local politics to overrule federal regulations, etc.
- BP – yes, federal government is responsible for MMS and its complicity with oversight of drilling. But, the federal government does not drill unlike levees that are built by the federal or state governments
- the federal government, military, etc. have neither the competence nor equipment to deal with deepwater gulf explorations. They have no choice but to work with BP and other BIG OIL
- clean up efforts……each state and in Louisiana, each parish is mobilizing creative responses to this damage e.g. sinking 100+ barges to block the five passes into Barataria Bay; using sand shifters to collect tar balls on the beaches; building sand berms that may or may not help, etc.
- fact: no big oil company has the resources or knowledge to fix an oil spill in the gulf – nor does the federal government at this time. You can put down 1 million miles of booms – they are unproven and ineffective. Skimmers – fact that there are very few available and none that can handle a spill of this magnitude.
- president, therefore, is addressing the BP Chairman; authorizing national guard (this is interesting but appears to be more hype than help); setting up claims escrow account or having federal agency handle claims (this is actually helpful – Exxon avoided billions in claims payments and many Alaskans died before ever seeing any type of settlement). Steps to save or re-energize marsh lands, estuaries, wetlands, etc. – technically unknown at this time.
- president has suspended active drilling for six months (but not production in the 300+ active wells in the gulf). Why doesn’t he make BP pay the salaries of those drilling workers whose livelihoods are suspended right now?
- new committee to do white paper on causes, who is responsible, etc. – how long will this take? will congress support their recommendations?
- new committee to enforce current regulations – about time! but feels like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped.
- note Ms. Steinfels comments about the gulf state governors – hate big government until a hurricane or man made disaster….geez, give me a break.
Kenneth Feinberg who masterminded the 9/11 payments to families of the dead and to the injured appears to have another job on his hand. Seems like an eminently great choice.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/us/politics/17obama.html?hp
And here’s a map of pipelines in the U.S.; note how protective LA has been of its coast!
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/06/the_fossil_fuel_reality.php#more?ref=fpblg
Re: the President’s speech: judging by the television guide listings on my cable package, the only major network carrying the speech was … Fox. What’s up with that? Do Jimmy Kimmel’s ratings exceed that of the President?
(FWIW – we watched the White Sox and, between innings, “Avatar: the Last Airbender” [the latter being a terrific animated series aired by Nickelodeon that bears no relation whatsover to the James Cameron film]).
You know Jim, that oil could come right up the Mississippi into the Illinois river and the Chicago river and ruin those pristine beaches! You need to pay attention!
Margaret: I’m embarrassed to say: I didn’t realize he was on until the last half-hour or so of his speech. Doesn’t it seem it started kinda early? We were still eating our dinner.
An encroachment of Gulf oil would probably represent an environmental improvement to the Chicago River!
“On the other hand….I find the demagoguery of the politicans of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama hilarious if it weren’t pitiful. (We oppose big government until we want big government to bail us out…”
I am somewhat familiar with the politicians from those states but I am not familiar with any politicians from those states who support paying federal income taxes for services they are not able to avail them selves of. Who specifically said the federal government should confiscate taxes from their state and transfer the goods and services those taxes finance to other states?
MAT, if you are saying that the politicians of those states don’t think that the Federal Government should “confiscate taxes from THEIR state and transfer the goods and services those taxes finance to OTHER states” I would have to agree. But if you are saying that any politicians in any of these states are opposed in principle to having taxes confiscated from OTHER states and transferred to THEIR states, I would have to disagree.
Here is the ratio of Federal taxes paid to Federal taxes received for the three small government Valhallas that you mentioned. (These are 2005 numbers.)
Alabama $9,265 : $5,436
Mississippi $9,027 : $4,287
Louisiana $8,815 : $4,574
http://www.nemw.org/images/taxburdrank.pdf