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The Gulf of Mexico spill is releasing twice as much oil as initially estimated, it was disclosed today, as David Cameron refused to bow to City demands to defend BP.
By Robert Winnett and James Kirkup
Published: 7:30AM BST 11 Jun 2010
Latest estimates indicated that the oil’s flow could exceed 40,000 barrels a day – some 1.68 million gallons.
Experts accused BP of making a "fatal miscalculation" in failing to realise the extent of the leak earlier on, saying that inaccurate calculations had prevented them from getting to grips with the problem.
The news threatens to further destabilise BP's share price, which has dived in response to Barack Obama's "aggressive" rhetoric against the company.
BP's chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg has been called to the White House for an emergency meeting next week, as the transatlantic row sparked by the spill continues to escalate.
Earlier this week the US president threatened to hold a “boot to the throat” of BP, wiping billions of pounds off its value.
The firm's share price has collapsed more than 40 per cent since the Deepwater Horizon rig sank on April 22. The company is responsible for almost one in every seven pounds of dividends paid to British pension pots.
The US Attorney General has refused to rule out taking an injunction to stop BP giving shareholders a £10 billion dividend next month.
But when asked about the impact on the pensions of millions of people yesterday, Mr Cameron backed the president, saying he understood his “frustration”.
Ian MacDonald, professor of oceanography at Florida State University, told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that BP had undermined the recovery effort by underestimating the oil flow.
He said: "BP said they were relying on calculations that had been done by the government and that no further attempts to estimate the flow rate would contribute anything to the response effort, because they said that they were responding with full capability and that no further information would spur them on.
"We see that this was perhaps a fatal miscalculation, or at least a very serious miscalculation, with the result that this crisis has continued for much longer with much greater release of oil than would have been necessary had they made much more accurate flow rates at the very start."
Boris Johnson, the London mayor, became the most high-profile figure to demand a halt to the “beating up” of one of Britain’s biggest firms following a “catastrophic accident”.
He said that “anti-British rhetoric” levelled at the company was a matter of “national concern” and that the oil firm was paying “a very, very heavy price” for what had been an accident. “I would like to see a bit of cool heads rather than endlessly buck-passing and name-calling,” he said.
“When you consider the huge exposure of British pension funds to BP, it starts to become a matter of national concern if a great British company is being continually beaten up on the airwaves.”
Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to Washington, called for Downing Street to intervene with the White House.
“The Government must put down a marker with the US administration that the survival and long term prosperity of BP is a vital British interest,” he said.
JP Morgan, the American investment bank, issued a report calling on Britain to raise a “diplomatic red flag” on BP’s behalf.
The Institute of Directors said that aggressive US political rhetoric was “inappropriate” and John Napier, the head of the insurers RSA, wrote an open letter to Mr Obama saying he appeared “prejudicial and personal” in his approach.
In Parliament, senior Labour MPs also intervened. Tom Watson, the former Cabinet Office minister, said: “This is now a serious crisis facing millions of pensioners in the UK and we need to say to our US allies that yes, it was a British company that made this mistake but if they were subject to a regulatory regime, they wouldn’t have been able to do that.
“The world’s insatiable appetite for oil was the cause of this – not British pensioners.” Amid the growing backlash over Mr Cameron’s failure to intervene, the Government issued a statement last night disclosing that George Osborne, the Chancellor, had spoken to Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive.
Mr Osborne said: “The Prime Minister is clear that we need constructive solutions and that we remember the economic value BP brings to people in Britain and America.”
Mr Cameron had earlier said: “I completely understand the US government’s frustration because it’s catastrophic for the environment. BP needs to do everything it can to clear up the situation.
“The most important thing is to mitigate the effects and get to the root of the problem.” He added: “Of course it’s something I’ll discuss with the American president when we next speak.”
However, it also emerged last night that, until yesterday, no senior Cabinet member had been talking to BP and that the task had been left to Charles Hendry, a junior energy minister.
“He [Mr Cameron] has the confidence that the energy minister is the right person to be having those conversations with an energy company,” the Prime Minister’s spokesman said. The Department for Energy and Climate Change said that representatives of BP had met Mr Hendry on June 3 and officials had been in conversation with the company since. Jeremy Heywood, the permanent secretary to No 10, has also had talks with Mr Hayward on behalf of Mr Cameron.
President Obama, who had been criticised for a lacklustre approach to the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, has made increasingly outspoken attacks on BP.
He has insisted that the company pay all clean-up costs, which could run to £20 billion. With BP under intense pressure, it also emerged that:
* The White House believes BP may be held liable for the wages of all US oil workers unable to work after deepwater drilling was halted in the wake of the disaster, possibly hundreds of millions of dollars a month.
* One US investment analyst suggested BP may have to seek protection from bankruptcy and an investment bank mooted a takeover by a Chinese firm.
* Mr Hayward may be summoned to face-to-face talks with Mr Obama, who has said he should be sacked, next week.
BP was aware of cracks appearing in the Macondo well as far back as February, right around the time Goldman Sachs and BP Chairman Tony Hayward were busy dumping their stocks in the compan BP Aware Of Cracks In Oil Well Two Months Before Explosion
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, June 17, 2010
BP was aware of cracks appearing in the Macondo well as
far back as February, right around the time Goldman Sachs
and BP Chairman Tony Hayward were busy dumping their
stocks in the company on the eve of the explosion that led
to the oil spill, according to information uncovered by
congressional investigators.
The Mining and Mineral Services agency released docu-
ments to Bloomberg indicating that BP “was trying to
seal cracks in the well about 40 miles (64 kilometers)
off the Louisiana coast,” according to the report.
The fissures, which BP began to attempt to fix on February
13, could have played a role in the disaster, though this is a question still being explored by investigators. Improperly sealed, the cracks cause explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.
“The company attempted a “cement squeeze,” which involves pumping cement to seal the fissures, according to a well activity report. Over the following week the company made repeated attempts to plug cracks that were draining expensive drilling fluid, known as “mud,” into the surrounding rocks,” states the report.
As we previously highlighted, eyewitness evidence indicates that Deepwater Horizon managers knew that the BP oil rig had major problems before its explosion on April 20. A crew member who rescued burning workers on the rig told Houston attorney Tony Buzbee of a conversation between Deepwater Horizon installation manager Jimmy Harrell and someone in Houston. According to the witness, Harrell was screaming, “Are you fucking happy? Are you fucking happy? The rig’s on fire! I told you this was gonna happen.”
The fact that BP managers were aware of problems with the rig and were seemingly unconcerned about fixing them only lends more weight to the already startling indications of some having foreknowledge of the disaster.
As we highlighted last week, on page 37 of British Petroleum’s own investigative report into the oil spill, it is stated that the Hydraulic Control System on equipment designed to automatically seal the well in an emergency was modified without BP’s knowledge sometime before the explosion.
Highly suspicious stock and share trades by people connected to BP before the explosion indicate some extent of foreknowledge.
Goldman Sachs dumped 44% of its shares in BP Oil during the first quarter of 2010 – shares that subsequently lost 36 percent of their value, equating to $96 million. The current chairman of Goldman Sachs is Bilderberg luminary Peter Sutherland, who is also the former chairman of British Petroleum.
Furthermore, as reported by the London Telegraph on June 5th, Tony Hayward, the current BP CEO sold £1.4 million of his shares in the fuel giant weeks before the spill.
On April 12th, just over one week before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, Halliburton, the world’s second largest oilfield services corporation, surprised some by acquiring Boots & Coots, a relatively small but vastly experienced oil well control company.
Halliburton is named in the majority of some two dozen lawsuits filed since the explosion by Gulf Coast people and businesses who claim that the company is to blame for the disaster.
Halliburton was forced to admit in testimony at a congressional hearing last month that it carried out a cementing operation 20 hours before the Gulf of Mexico rig went up in flames. The lawsuits claim that four Halliburton workers stationed on the rig improperly capped the well.e of the explosion that led to the oil spill, according to information uncovered by congressional investigators.
The Mining and Mineral Services agency released documents to Bloomberg indicating that BP “was trying to seal cracks in the well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast,” according to the report.
The fissures, which BP began to attempt to fix on February 13, could have played a role in the disaster, though this is a question still being explored by investigators. Improperly sealed, the cracks cause explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.
“The company attempted a “cement squeeze,” which involves pumping cement to seal the fissures, according to a well activity report. Over the following week the company made repeated attempts to plug cracks that were draining expensive drilling fluid, known as “mud,” into the surrounding rocks,” states the report.
As we previously highlighted, eyewitness evidence indicates that Deepwater Horizon managers knew that the BP oil rig had major problems before its explosion on April 20. A crew member who rescued burning workers on the rig told Houston attorney Tony Buzbee of a conversation between Deepwater Horizon installation manager Jimmy Harrell and someone in Houston. According to the witness, Harrell was screaming, “Are you fucking happy? Are you fucking happy? The rig’s on fire! I told you this was gonna happen.”
The fact that BP managers were aware of problems with the rig and were seemingly unconcerned about fixing them only lends more weight to the already startling indications of some having foreknowledge of the disaster.
As we highlighted last week, on page 37 of British Petroleum’s own investigative report into the oil spill, it is stated that the Hydraulic Control System on equipment designed to automatically seal the well in an emergency was modified without BP’s knowledge sometime before the explosion.
Highly suspicious stock and share trades by people connected to BP before the explosion indicate some extent of foreknowledge.
Goldman Sachs dumped 44% of its shares in BP Oil during the first quarter of 2010 – shares that subsequently lost 36 percent of their value, equating to $96 million. The current chairman of Goldman Sachs is Bilderberg luminary Peter Sutherland, who is also the former chairman of British Petroleum.
Furthermore, as reported by the London Telegraph on June 5th, Tony Hayward, the current BP CEO sold £1.4 million of his shares in the fuel giant weeks before the spill.
On April 12th, just over one week before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, Halliburton, the world’s second largest oilfield services corporation, surprised some by acquiring Boots & Coots, a relatively small but vastly experienced oil well control company.
Halliburton is named in the majority of some two dozen lawsuits filed since the explosion by Gulf Coast people and businesses who claim that the company is to blame for the disaster.
Halliburton was forced to admit in testimony at a congressional hearing last month that it carried out a cementing operation 20 hours before the Gulf of Mexico rig went up in flames. The lawsuits claim that four Halliburton workers stationed on the rig improperly capped the well.
Corporate media does it’s best to keep you uninformed
Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Friday, Jun 18th, 2010
The mainstream media is running a 24 hour news cycle focusing purely on the BP oil spill, a disaster, as we have shown, that is being intentionally hyped in order to sell cap and trade legislation and moves to nationalize big business.
In the wake of this, big important news stories are being overlooked. Here are just some of the stories, in no particular order, that you should be hearing on the nightly news, but of course, are not.
1. Israeli nuclear submarines positioned close to Iran:
Three German-built Israeli submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles are to be deployed in the Gulf near the Iranian coastline.
The first has been sent in response to Israeli fears that ballistic missiles developed by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, a political and military organisation in Lebanon, could hit sites in Israel, including air bases and missile launchers.
The submarines of Flotilla 7 — Dolphin, Tekuma and Leviathan — have visited the Gulf before. But the decision has now been taken to ensure a permanent presence of at least one of the vessels.
**
2. Iran war propaganda:
US intelligence has shown Iran could launch an attack against Europe with “scores or hundreds” of missiles, prompting major changes to US missile defenses, Pentagon chief Robert Gates said on Thursday.
The anti-Iran rhetoric has amplified following the revelation that many Bilderberg members, including Zbigniew Brzezinski, are now in favor of U.S. air strikes on Iran and are “leaning towards war,”.
“Some of them in Europe are saying no we shouldn’t do it but most of them are in favor of American air strikes on Iran,” Bilderberg sluth Jim Tucker relayed from the recent meeting in Spain. “They’re tilting heavily towards green lighting a U.S. attack on Iran.”
**
3. The continuing economic slide:
The greatest bankster heist in history and the looming greatest depression rumbles on.
Gold has hit record highs as the dollar slumps and the Euro continues to face complete collapse. Unemployment figures in the U.S. are through the roof and U.S. consumer prices posted their largest fall in nearly 1-1/2 years in May.
Rumours in Europe persist regarding an impending bailout for spain, while Russia says it is ready to found a “new economic world order“.
**
4. FCC ready to restrict the Internet:
The federal government would have “absolute power” to shut down the Internet under the terms of a new US Senate bill being pushed by Joe Lieberman, legislation which would hand President Obama a figurative “kill switch” to seize control of the world wide web in response to a Homeland Security directive.
Lieberman has been pushing for government regulation of the Internet for years under the guise of cybersecurity, but this new bill goes even further in handing emergency powers over to the feds which could be used to silence free speech under the pretext of a national emergency.
5. Obama/Blagojevich story
As the Blagojevich trial continues and important details emerge, linking Obama to possible political corruption, Federal prosecutors are seeking a gag order to keep the ex-Governor and his lawyers from making public comments.
**
6. UN small arms treaty
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently announced that the Obama Administration would be working hand in glove with the U.N. to pass a new “Small Arms Treaty.”
Congressman Paul Broun warns that, “With willing one-world accomplices in Washington, D.C., gun-grabbers around the globe believe they have it made.” Broun characterizes the U.N.’s Small Arms Treaty as “nothing more than a massive, GLOBAL gun control scheme.”
The treaty would force national governments to acquiesce to a global gun registry, while strengthening licensing procedures so as to make it almost impossible for a citizen to legally purchase a gun. It would also ban the private sale of semi-automatic weapons and ultimately lead to the confiscation and destruction of all “unauthorized” firearms owned by citizens.
By encapsulating the gun grab within a treaty, the Obama administration could claim that no Senate approval is needed to authorize any such move against the right to bear arms – although whether a treaty trumps the Constitution is a very murky area of debate.
**
7. Mexicans riot in LA/Land given over to Mexico
Violent scenes following the LA Lakers’ championship-clinching win over the Boston Celtics in the NBA finals saw angry mobs smashing their way through the streets waving Mexican flags as they went.
Meanwhile, a massive stretch of Arizona has become effectively off limits to Americans, Prompting questions over whether the Obama administration is giving a major strip of the south-west back to Mexico.
**
8. Obama Plans To Sneak Through Carbon Tax By Stealth
President Obama is planning to sneak through his job-killing, economy wrecking carbon tax by stealth according to the Washington Post, by passing a weakened bill and then adding in cap and trade provisions after the heat is off following the November elections.
Described as the “lame duck climate strategy,” Obama is planning to secure enough votes in the Senate to pass a weakened energy bill and then drag out the conference long enough to ensure the stronger provisions contained in the original House version are added “after lawmakers have faced voters in November, thereby cushioning the vote’s political impact.”
**
9. Afghanistan Mineral Riches Story Is War Propaganda
News that the U.S. has suddenly discovered $1 trillion-worth of mineral deposits in Afghanistan, and descriptions of the bounty as a “game changer” by the corporate media, represent nothing more than crude war propaganda designed to reinvigorate public support for a failing and ever more pointless occupation.
The “newly discovered” riches have been known about since the 1970s and further revelations indicate that the Pentagon report cited by the New York Times as their source for the story did not even mention the untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan.
**
10. Free Speech Gag Bill Moving in House
H.R. 5175, The so-called DISCLOSE Act would severely limit the ability of political groups to communicate to their members and the general public.
Politico reports that , the NRA bargained for an exemption for itself and other large, established groups while trampling the rights of private citizens, new political groups, like Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty, and other small organizations.
As John Bresnahan reports, “The proposal would exempt organizations that have more than 1 million members, have been in existence for more than 10 years, have members in all 50 states and raise 15 percent or less of their funds from corporations… The NRA, with 4 million members, will not actively oppose the DISCLOSE Act, according to Democratic sources.”
As the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues to dominate headlines around the world, public outrage is being focused more
intensely upon BP and its gaffe-prone CEO Tony Hayward. But amidst this crisis, the public should not forget the atrocities
committed by other massive oil companies. For example, Royal Dutch Shell's drilling operations have been spilling oil into the
Niger Delta in Nigeria since 1958. Because Nigeria is an impoverished nation and oil revenues fund a majority of government
operations, Shell and other companies have been able to drill and pollute without serious oversight for all these years. It is
estimated that 13 million barrels of oil have spilled into the delta, making life even more difficult for the region's destitute
residents. Shell blames the constant spills on attacks from "rebels," who are in fact minority ethnic groups who feel they have
been exploited and displaced by foreign oil companies. But Shell would never consider pulling out of the region or finding
ways to avoid ethnic strife. Instead, Shell has proceeded with business as usual, and spilled a record 14,000 tons of crude oil
into the delta last year. Read the rest of this item her
How about the horrifying possibility of leaks in the pipe below the sea floor—leaks that could open up a "gusher... directly into the oil deposit"?
A comment from well-regarded energy policy website The Oil Drum has been making the rounds, outlining a scenario as terrifying as it is bleak: That the Deepwater Horizon rig's problems extend below the sea floor, where one or more leaks are currently weakening the seabed foundation in a way that could cause an inextinguishable "wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more."
The lengthy, extensively sourced and cited post, by commenter "dougr" (who isn't officially affiliated with The Oil Drum), is located here. It's the scariest thing you'll read today. Presenting himself as a "fairly knowledgeable" person, dougr works from BP's efforts to stem the leak to make a case for, essentially, a coverup of the well's true problems, perpetrated by BP and the government. Collecting quotations from BP officials and descriptions of their actions, which he says "make no sense," he comes to "one inescapabale conclusion... The well pipes below the sea floor are broken and leaking."
If that's true, what would it mean? For starters, that a "cap" won't work, as it will transfer pressure to the "down hole" (i.e., below the sea floor) leaks. But even worse, writes dougr,
This down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. It also weakens the only thing holding up the massive Blow Out Preventer's immense bulk of 450 tons....
When enough is eroded away the casings will buckle and the BOP [blowout preventer] will collapse the well. If and when you begin to see oil and gas coming up around the well area from under the BOP? or the area around the well head connection and casing sinking more and more rapidly? ...it won't be too long after that the entire system fails...
All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit...after that, it goes into the realm of "the worst things you can think of"... [...] the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more
It's a race now...a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it's last gasp in a horrific crescendo.
Not pleasant, huh? Of course, this all comes with a massive caveat: "dougr" is just a guy on a message board (and one who may have connections to far-out conspiracy sites, at that). For all his citations and sources, there's no indication he knows what he's talking about (and just because it makes sense to the layperson doesn't make it true). Sharon Astyk of Science Blogs makes the case for taking it "a little seriously":
For those who think it is strange that I be highlighting a comment in a thread, I should note that TOD attracts many, many petroleum geologists and other professionals, and while sometimes the comments are the same "pulled it out of my ass" as on every other website, often, the technical knowledge on offer is pretty astounding. This one passes my smell test, which is usually pretty good - that doesn't mean I claim commenter Doug R is right - it means I think his information is interesting enough to be worth exposing to a wider audience for clarification or correction.
Let's hope we get some correction.
that began with the April 20 explosion and fire on the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, owned by Transocean Ltd. and leased by BP PLC, which is in charge of cleanup and containment. The blast killed 11 workers. Since then, oil has been pouring into the Gulf from a blown-out undersea well.
BP CEO
BP chief executive Tony Hayward was the target of fresh outrage among many in the Gulf Coast who learned that the executive took a day off Saturday to see his 52-foot yacht "Bob" compete in a glitzy race off England's shore. BP spokespeople rushed to defend Hayward, who has drawn withering criticism as the public face of BP PLC's halting efforts to stop the spill. Company spokesman Robert Wine said the break is the first for Hayward since the Deepwater Horizon rig BP was leasing exploded. It was not clear whether Hayward actually took part in Saturday's J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race or attended as a spectator. Meanwhile, some critics were also upset that President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden played a round of golf Saturday near Washington, something they've done on other weekends since the spill.
FLORIDA BEACHES
Tar balls washed up on Destin, Fort Walton and Panama City Beach, the farthest east the oil has been reported in the Sunshine State. From Pensacola in the west to Panama City Beach in the east — spanning some 100 miles of coast famous for sugar white sand beaches — the aftermath of the spill continued its march. On Saturday evening, hundreds of clumps of tar mixed with sand littered the high tide line at Fort Walton Beach as people strolled, played in the sand and swam. Unfavorable onshore winds were pushing the oil closer, and more tar balls were expected to wash up in the next few days. A large plume of oil was about 30 miles offshore, officials said, and it would land on the Panama City-area beaches in the coming weeks unless the winds change for good.
States Need To Launch Criminal Investigation Into BP, Federal Government’s Role In Oil Spill
Mounting evidence shows disaster was deliberately contrived either through conscious negligence or outright sabotage and is being allowed to worsen
States Need To Launch Criminal Investigation Into BP, Federal Governments Role In Oil Spill 200610top
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
Prison Planet.com
Sunday, June 20, 2010
There can now be no doubt whatsoever that the BP oil spill was purposefully contrived, either through deliberate negligence or outright sabotage, and is now being used to further the Obama administration’s political agenda. Criminal investigations into the government and BP’s role in the disaster need to be launched by state authorities in Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi immediately, while local authorities also need to call emergency legislative sessions in order to take over emergency response efforts from the feds before the crisis gets much worse.
While BP CEO Tony Hayward is busy watching yacht races, Barack Obama, who took two vacations immediately after the oil spill, spends his time playing golf. If this disaster is on a par 9/11 as Obama claims then why is he fiddling while Rome burns? Every effort to find a solution to this crisis while cleaning up the mess has been lackluster and half-hearted. The federal government’s hyped rhetoric about how bad the consequences of this spill will be has not been matched with the appropriate action to combat the problem.
In hindsight, it’s becoming clear that the government has deliberately botched the response and prevented local authorities from doing their jobs, just as FEMA deliberately sabotaged the state response to Hurricane Katrina in order to make the crisis worse and create the pretext for a police state response, gun confiscation and ultimately more federal power.
Numerous reports have surfaced of locals and state authorities being prevented by BP contractors and the U.S. Coast Guard from helping to address the devastation the spill has created in the region.
“(Louisiana) Governor Bobby Jindal had ordered the state’s fleet of sixteen vacuum barges to clean up oil in the Louisiana marshes. On Wednesday, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted the barges and ordered them to stop the cleanup. Ostensibly, the Coast Guard wanted to “inspect” the barges — but then it didn’t inspect them. It just ordered them back to dock and then did nothing,” reports Fort Liberty.
Just as happened with Katrina, BP in alliance with the feds have erected an ‘information blockade’ around the oil spill. Reporters have been harassed, threatened with arrest and prevented from accessing the affected areas. Oil spill clean up workers have been gagged from talking about their experiences. Foreign ships have been prevented from helping in the clean up process. Every effort has been made to stop the truth about the oil spill from being uncovered – almost everything we learn about the situation comes directly from BP or the federal government. This strictly enforced cover-up shows that authorities are more concerned about protecting their information lock down than actually cleaning up the spill.
Campaign For Liberty
June 22, 2010
Sadly, the disaster in the Gulf continues this week as BP’s
efforts at containment keep hitting snags and residents
along the coast scramble to clean up and defend their
shores and wildl ife. Many have criticized the federal
government in the past weeks for not doing enough.
The reality is there is only so much government can
do to help, yet a lot they can do to prolong the problem
and misdirect the pain. For example, in the interest of
“doing something” the administration has enacted
a unilateral ban on offshore drilling. This is counterproductive. I am proud to cosponsor legislation to lift that ban. Why punish other oil companies and their hard-working employees who had nothing to do with this disaster, and who have better safety records?
And, as usually happens after disasters, countless people — even officials in local and state government — have come forward who know what needs to be done and are willing to help, but have been stymied by federal bureaucratic red tape as the oil continues to gush. The real problem is not so much a lack of government assistance, but government getting in the way of those who have solutions. We witnessed the same phenomenon during hurricanes Katrina and Ike. It seems government’s main role in these situations is to find excuses to stall relief, hold meetings and press conferences, waste money, punish the wrong people, and over-regulate.
Yet even after many examples of past incompetence, people still look to government to solve problems in the wake of disasters. A government that tries to be all things to all people might engender a lot of learned dependence, but ultimately it only harms the very people it is supposed to serve as they wait helplessly for salvation from Washington.
Government could help by holding the appropriate parties fully liable for damages and clean-up costs. I am hopeful that efforts to do this are genuine and BP is indeed held responsible for all damages, not shielded by liability caps or reimbursed under the table by taxpayers. Unfortunately, a large sum of taxpayer money has been slipped into the upcoming supplemental bill for Gulf cleanup costs that should fall on BP. Taxpayers should not have to bail out a major oil company that has caused this horrible damage to our shores.
Too Much Government in the Gulf 100210banner1
It should be noted that BP is not exactly a bastion of free market capitalism. Rather, they are very vested in acquiring government subsidies, favorably slanted policies, and competition-hobbling regulation. BP has even been a major lobbying proponent of cap-and-trade because of certain provisions in the legislation it could profit from. Considering who lobbies for them and what they lobby for, my concern is that attempts to hold them strictly and fully accountable could end up being nothing more than a shell game, with taxpayers ultimately holding the bag.
If the government’s idea of action in crisis is to punish the innocent, bail out the guilty, and raise prices at the pump on everybody, we should want them to do less, not more. Recent polls show sharply waning support for offshore drilling. We still need oil, and a lot of good jobs depend on oil production. It is crucial to the functioning of our economy. But if accidents continue to be handled this way, it is easy to understand why so many see more cost than benefit to off-shore drilling, and that is also a tragedy.
By Patrick Martin
28 June 2010
The first tropical storm of the 2010 Atlantic/Gulf hurricane
season formed Saturday in the western Caribbean. It
crossed Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula Sunday and entered
the Gulf of Mexico, where it could grow to hurricane size
rapidly.
According to the US National Hurricane Center, tropical
storm Alex is tracking west northwest towards Mexico’s
Caribbean coast or the Texas-Mexico border, although
there remains a possibility that it could shift eastward
towards Louisiana.
The storm’s arrival has produced mounting concern that
tropical storms and hurricanes could disrupt operations
at the BP drilling site, including both containment of the
oil spilling out of the well, and efforts to drill two relief
wells nearby.
June 1 marked the official start of the hurricane season, but there seems to have been little advance preparation by BP or the Obama administration. BP and Coast Guard officials “are preparing contingency plans that would suspend the oil collection operation and delay the drilling of relief wells until the storm passes, steps that would allow even more oil to gush into the gulf,” the New York Times reported.
Disaster site commander Admiral Thad Allen told a press briefing that containment and drilling operations would have to be shut down five days before winds of gale force—about 45 miles per hour—are forecast. The long lead-time is required because of the huge scale of the activities related to the Deepwater Horizon site, with some 30,000 workers and 6,000 vessels of all kinds involved. “At some point we’re going to have to break production and get those production units to a safer locale,” Allen said. “There are a lot of people on those rigs out there.”
Another factor is the likelihood that a storm of gale force could increase to hurricane strength quite rapidly as it travels over the open waters of the Gulf. Given the problematic character of hurricane forecasts, five-day advance warnings are unlikely to be very precise, raising the prospect of frequent shutdowns, whenever a significant storm is within hundreds of miles of the disaster site.
Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, issued an appeal Friday for Navy vessels to be pre-positioned to help skim oil after the passage of a major storm. “Figure several days downtime as the storm approaches, a few more days as the storm passes, and a couple more days to get things back into place—and you’re facing up to 10 days or more of the well gushing some 60,000 barrels a day unchecked,” he wrote. “That’s 600,000 barrels we'd then have to collect quickly after a storm passed, and before it could hit parts of the Gulf Coast.”
These figures, which likely underestimate the disruptive effect of a major storm, would mean the equivalent of two or three Exxon Valdez-size oil spills just during the period that containment operations are shut down.
A tropical storm can create a coastal surge as high as 12 feet, while Hurricane Katrina generated a storm surge estimated at 30 feet high. In such a situation, storm-driven water, befouled with oil, would hit a coastline, much of which has a shallow and gently sloping sea bottom. The worst-case scenario, particularly in the Louisiana bayou region, would be oil-laced water pushed many miles inland.
A BP spokesman told the Associated Press that the company was working to shorten the time needed to secure or move all of its equipment from five days to two, by developing a containment system that would be easier to disconnect and hook back up.
This only underscores the completely makeshift and haphazard character of the BP response to the Gulf disaster. BP is only now setting up a corporate division specifically tasked with containing the spill and shutting down the blowout.
BP executive Robert Dudley—designated to head the Gulf disaster operation in place of CEO Tony Hayward—admitted to the press that disaster recovery “is not a core competency with us.” He said the company was negotiating for the services of James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the Clinton administration, who now runs a private consulting company.
Such comments only underscore the irrationality of allowing BP to control the entire containment and well-capping operation, which is inevitably subordinated to the giant oil corporation’s profit incentives, rather than the needs of the people of the Gulf coast.
Dudley’s remark came as the first large patches of oil began washing ashore on the Mississippi Gulf coast, hitting tourist beaches at Ocean Springs, east of Biloxi, and other locations. Oil had previously hit offshore barrier islands, but not the Mississippi mainland.
There has been no containment or cleanup effort as yet, state officials said, because no BP contractors were on site to do the work. A spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality told the Associated Press, “We cannot clean up or catch the oil until BP gets here. They have all of our people.”
Meanwhile, the chairman of a House panel investigating the causes of the Gulf oil disaster said Friday that BP would not let several of its employees testify. Rep. Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat, said BP had cited its own internal investigation as the reason for denying access to a half-dozen employees that the committee wants to question.
News Archives
Former Oil Spill Worker Says He Had No Protective Gear
POSTED: 1:57 pm CDT July 21, 2010
UPDATED: 10:44 pm CDT July 21, 2010
GULF OF MEXICO, La. -- The work to cleanup the millions of gallons
of oil in the Gulf can be hazardous, and one spill worker told WDSU
that he has witnessed illness, injury and unsafe working conditions.
Jarred Bourgeois is the engineer on a crew ship that carries
personnel and supplies to workers out in the Gulf, a far different
job than he had when the spill first started.
"I was working for another company. I just started over here. I was
working on the oil spill, pulling the booms. Very tedious. Very boring.
Not the best job in the world, but it pays the bills," Bourgeois said.
Bourgeois was assigned to a boat with three others, working directly
with oil removal. He said they were on the water for weeks.
"We were out there about 40-something days," he said.
At the time, he worked near the Deepwater Horizon site where the crude oil was the thickest and the freshest. He said conditions on the water were particularly hazardous then.
"It's a lot thicker then you see on TV. It's a lot worse. It's everywhere. The smell is outrageous. People (were) getting sick all the time. They don't really tell you what it is, why people are getting sick, but they were MedEvac-ing people left and right," Bourgeois said. "I have personally dealt with headaches and feeling bad. It's a lot different then what you see sitting at the house."
When asked whether it was fumes from the oil or the dispersants that were making people sick, Bourgeois said he couldn't be sure.
"I wasn't too much around the dispersants to tell the difference, but it could have been one or the other," he said.
From late April to mid-July, the federal government reports 571 incidents of illness and 757 injuries related to oil spill containment and cleanup work. The most common problems, according to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, were minor accidents or heat-related illnesses.
But the official log of medical events includes numerous reports of dizziness, faintings and concerns about exposure to chemical vapors, with dozens of workers taken to the hospital for evaluation or treatment.
"I don't know what the oil can do to you and all. I know we worked out there for 30-something days before they even let us know that we had to have protective equipment," Bourgeois said. "And when they did let us know, it was pretty extensive equipment, respirators, and we worked 30-something days with nothing."
Bourgeois said there were a lot of unknowns when it comes to working directly with the oil. He called conditions at his old job unsettling, as the company scrambled to deal with an unprecedented spill.
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