Disaster looms as oil slick reaches US coast

[Nickatina]

I think it's rediculous to play the blame game at this point. BP doesn't want to lose money. Bush and Obama don't need this on their political records. People that use oil don't use it just because they want to. The fact of the matter is, this is a fuck-up of monumental proportions that no one stands to benefit from. Not a world leader, not a megacorporation, not a single person on the face of this earth. No one is to blame if not everyone is to blame. In any case, who is to blame is not important at this point, the only question we should ask is who is going to stop it? How can we stop this flow of oil now so we don't completely ruin our ocean's ecosystem? I don't give a shit about the dollar value of the damages, because you cannot put a dollar value on life as we know it.

 

[Mehm]

^^fuck that dude. The companies that owned, operated, constructed and made shit tons of money off the well are to blame for their neglegence. There are thousands of other wells around the world that aren't blowing up.

Placing blame is important because they are the ones who should be completely liquidated to pay for clean up and damages. Even after they have paid, it still won't be enough, because they have destroyed and ocean and there is no price on that.

But I do see your philisophical point in that we are all to blame. However, this should in no way relieve said companies of any liability.

 

[Shimmer.Fade]

I also agree that the blame lies with us all as a society, but I also feel that if these companies who owned, operated, and made a shit ton of money from the well had faced stricter regulations this would quite possibly not have happened. They should be made to pay for it, and this should (but most likely won't be) be a wake up call to the US that our gov't is more concerned with the welfare of corporations than the welfare of the people.

Take an example from an industry that is actually somewhat regulated. Look at the restaurant industry for example. What if we just let restaurants regulate themselves with regards to hygiene. Would you like some salmonella and cock roaches with that burger? It is pure idiocy in a capitalistic system to allow small businesses or corporations to self regulate. They do the bare minimum as displayed by this catastrophe.

Edit: The oil industry also has/had regulations. For instance, on land wells they are forced to compensate for damage done to property (compensation usually never truly compensates for damages, but that is another topic). However, even for these compensations the land owners must frequently go to court to have on paper exactly what the oil companies can do on the land, and exactly what they must cover as damages.

Moreover, these regulations have not always been in place.

In Oklahoma the oil industry left thousands of abandoned wells which were both poisonous and dangerous. Think of a large barren (Hmm, why is it barren years later?) patch of ground surrounding large, heavy, rusting, and falling apart oil derricks. They did absolutely nothing to clean these up until forced by regulations from the Oklahoma state government.

They used to be able to leave huge slag pits in the ground that contaminated the ground water for the surrounding areas. Finally the state of Oklahoma passed more regulations that disallowed this. The ground water in many areas is contaminated to this day from the negligence of these oil firms.

What I am trying to say here is that this shit has been going on forever. It is sad that the regulations come only after so much damage has been done. Our problems in Oklahoma were never on such a scale as this, so we received little attention from the national media for the fat, stinking pile of shit the oil companies took all over our land. So under the Bush admin, and continuing under the Obama admin, they thought it would be a good idea to let these morally and ethically empty entities regulate themselves. Bravo.

 

[Unbreakable]

Barack Obama plans to punish BP with tax hike as Gulf spill worsens.Oil companies face an immediate tax rise of 1 cent per barrel to help to pay for the clean-up in the Gulf of Mexico under proposed legislation rushed out by the White House yesterday.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7124502.ece

The global economy isn't exactly chugging along, but he thinks its a good idea to make fuel more expensive?

The reality is that this increase in tax will be passed on to refiners and retail gas stations who will in turn pass it on to the motorist. Everyone in the supply chain will then add a penny or two per gallon too boost falling profits. This will all increase the cost at the pump, it will increase transport costs, which will increase the retail cost of just about everything we buy including clothes and food as well as public transport.

The people who will suffer most of course will be those on low or fixed income and on benefits. Once again a Left Wing Politician whilst claiming to protect the disadvantaged of society manages to introduce a policy which superficially punishes the rich and powerful but in reality punishes and harms those they claim to be protecting. One thing is for certain inflation WILL increase tremendously in due time....Fuck you Congress and Fuck you Obama

 

[Pander Bear]

I think it's rediculous to play the blame game at this point. BP doesn't want to lose money. Bush and Obama don't need this on their political records. People that use oil don't use it just because they want to. The fact of the matter is, this is a fuck-up of monumental proportions that no one stands to benefit from. Not a world leader, not a megacorporation, not a single person on the face of this earth. No one is to blame if not everyone is to blame. In any case, who is to blame is not important at this point, the only question we should ask is who is going to stop it? How can we stop this flow of oil now so we don't completely ruin our ocean's ecosystem? I don't give a shit about the dollar value of the damages, because you cannot put a dollar value on life as we know it.

That's fucking retarded. When a drunk driver plows into a family killing them, we blame the drunk driver, and maybe the bartender who poured the drinks. We don't say "well, in this culture where we love our cars, and we love our alcohol, this is unavoidable, so everybody is to blame".

Aren't conservatives for accountability? BP is liable, and beyond that, the regulatory framework that allowed this to happen is at fault.

 

[Wyld 4 X]

so do we all agree that both bush and obama deserve some sort of punishment for the negligence?

I dont believe Bush's legacy can be bruised any more than it already has been. With much of that bruising still yet to be realized. For Obama, I dont know. On one hand I want to give him a break because of the mess he was handed. But on the other hand, how many more passes should he get? At some point you have to take ownership especially when you are the leader of the country. All he can do is make it mandatory that QA/safety is upheld at every part of a drilling situation. Progressives always want to move forward and this is a perfect example of it. Get this mess cleaned up and institute reform/regulation that will prevent (as much as possible) this from this ever happening again.

For now, its punishment enough that it happened on Obama's watch. How he resolves it is another matter altogether.

 

[beamers]

Bush had 8 years of destruction and you think that in 2 years everything that Bush touched should be fixed? Everyone knows that it takes greater effort to build something than to destroy it.

 

[Unbreakable]

Whistleblower Claims That BP Was Aware Of Cheating On Blowout Preventer Tests

As the federal and congressional probes continue into the causes of the Gulf oil rig explosion, new information is coming to light about the failure of a key device, the blowout preventer, to shut off the gushing well, which could have prevented the growing catastrophe.

And new questions are being raised about the testing of the preventers. At today's hearing before a House subcommittee, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., revealed that the blowout preventer had a leak in a crucial hydraulic system and had failed a negative pressure test just hours before the April 20 explosion. And at a hearing in Louisiana on Tuesday, the government engineer who gave oil giant BP the final approval to drill admitted that he never asked for proof that the preventer worked.

In addition, an oil industry whistleblower told Huffington Post that BP had been aware for years that tests of blowout prevention devices were being falsified in Alaska. The devices are different from the ones involved in the Deepwater Horizon explosion but are also intended to prevent dangerous blowouts at drilling operations.

Mike Mason, who worked on oil rigs in Alaska for 18 years, says that he observed cheating on blowout preventer tests at least 100 times, including on many wells owned by BP.

As he describes it, the test involves a chart that shows whether the device will hold a certain amount of pressure for five minutes on each valve. (The test involves increasing the pressure from 250 pounds per square-inch (psi) to 5,000 psi.) "Sometimes, they would put their finger on the chart and slide it ahead -- so that it only recorded the pressure for 30 seconds instead of 5 minutes," he tells HuffPost.

Mason claims that a BP representative was usually present while subcontractors performed the tests.

The 48-year-old veteran oil worker claims that in the oil industry, particularly at BP, "the culture is basically safety procedures are shoved down your throat and then they look the other way when it's convenient for them." He claims that oil operators often wouldn't report spills and that when he spilled chemical fluid in 2003, he was told by his superiors not to report it. Mason, who now runs a small operation hauling freight in the Alaskan bush and owns guest cabins, says he was fired by a drilling company in 2006 after he wrote a letter to the editor of the Anchorage Daily News to condemn the firm for incorporating overseas and thereby avoiding taxes.

Mason and another oil worker provided sworn statements in a 2003 lawsuit that rig supervisors "routinely falsified reports to show equipment designed to prevent blowouts was passing state-mandated performance tests," reported the Wall Street Journal in 2005.

Mason was interviewed by the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2005 during a probe into allegations that Nabors Drilling, a subcontractor to BP, falsified such tests, among other claims that BP failed to report blowouts at the massive Prudhoe Bay oil field. The probe was spurred by oil industry critic Charles Hamel, who forwarded his allegation to then-Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska.

Hamel claims that BP is at fault for the falsification because "Nabors had nothing to gain by shortening the time because they got paid, and BP rep was on rig at all times." He adds that BP was the beneficiary of a falsified test, claiming that the company rushes work and cuts corners to save money.

Hamel sent a letter to Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), the chairman of the House Oversight and Investigations subcommittee, in advance of Wednesday's hearing into the Gulf oil rig disaster, urging him to ask BP about the falsification claims:

"You and your fellow Committee members may wish to require BP to explain what action was ultimately instituted to cease the practice of falsifying BOP tests at BP Prudhoe drilling rigs. It was a cost saving but dangerous practice, again endangering the BP workforce, until I exposed it to Senator Ted Stevens, the EPA, and the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission."
After a four-month-long investigation, the commission in Alaska found that a single Nabors employee "violated rules regarding testing of blowout prevention equipment ("BOPE") on Rig 9ES by falsifying test results with a practice referred to as "chart spinning." The AOGCC proposed a $10,000 cost assessment on Nabors to reimburse it for the expenses incurred during the investigation.

As part of the probe, BP officials were interviewed, says AOGCC investigator Jim Regg, but the company was not assessed any costs or found to have committed any violations in its role as operator of the well. The commission did not find any evidence of the other allegations regarding BP. A spokesperson for BP did not return repeated calls for comment.

AOGCC commissioner Cathy Foerster explains that investigators didn't find widespread evidence of such falsification at oil drilling operations, calling it "an isolated incident" and adding, "It cost the state $50-60,000 and all that came of it was this poor kid got fired."

Foerster, who said that the commission is funded through a surcharge assessed on oil operators, dismissed industry critic Hamel's allegations regarding malfeasance in the oil industry: "It's a light breeze and he declares a Category 5 hurricane." She added that there is usually a "shred of truth" to his claims, before warning that reporters who misrepresent her comments could face "legal ramifications."

Hamel, who is on the board of the Project on Government Oversight and formerly worked as an oil trader, has a long history with BP -- the company was forced to pay more than $1 billion in safety-related improvements to the 800-mile Alaska pipeline as a results of investigations prompted by Hamel.

Alyeska Pipeline, he company, which operated the pipeline on behalf of BP, responded by hiring a private security firm, Wackenhut, to conduct surveillance on Hamel in the 1990s.

"They tapped my phone at my home in Alexandria, Virginia, had keys to my house -- I discovered that they went into my house twice," he says. And he claims that they sent a group to follow him up in Alaska, including a woman dressed provocatively who tried to get him into a hotel room with her.

A congressional hearing was called to examine the spying of Hamel and Wackenhut later settled a lawsuit filed by Hamel. And Alyeska apologized to him in full-page newspaper ads.

"These oil interests are very powerful -- they will stop at nothing to stop you."

source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/12/bp-whistleblower-claimed_n_573839.html



Oh you knew this was coming. There will be more. All they have to do is shake the cage a bit more...

 

[bit_pattern]

A gloomy thought, most of the oil is probably still under water and there is no way to track where it is going

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/13/wheres-the-oil-your-gover_n_575647.html

For more than three weeks now, crude oil has been erupting out of a pipe a mile underneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. A new analysis of seafloor video indicates that nearly 70,000 barrels are gushing out every day, NPR reports. That is at least 10 times the U.S. Coast Guard's original estimate of the flow, and "the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez tanker every four days."

And nobody really knows where it is, or where it's headed.

Federal officials are carefully tracking the trajectory of the oil that's made it to the water's surface and, increasingly, on shore. They even put out a daily map.

But there's never been an oil spill this big and this deep before. Nor have authorities ever used chemical dispersants so widely.

As a result, some scientists suspect that a lot, if not most, of the oil is lurking below the surface rather than on it, in a gigantic underwater plume the size and trajectory of which remain largely a mystery.

Oil on the surface can be fairly easily spotted by helicopter and satellite. But tracking an underwater plume is a much more complicated task, which thus far appears confined to one lonely improvising research vessel whose crew had been planning to hunt shipwrecks.

Rick Steiner, a University of Alaska marine conservationist who recently spent more than a week on the Gulf Coast, said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA] risks wildly underestimating the damage caused by the massive spill.
Story continues below

"If you don't look, you won't find, and they're not looking in the right places," Steiner told the Huffington Post.

Most major oil spills occur right at the surface, he explained. This one is entirely different.

With a spill this deep, the oil starts off extremely dense and under pressure. Some of it breaks up or dissolves into the water on the way up, and some of it makes it all the way to the surface. But some will "stabilize in the water column" maybe as low as 200 to 300 meters off the seabed, Steiner said. "Then it starts drifting with the current."

"I'm virtually certain that a lot of this oil hasn't even surfaced yet," he said. "What we don't know is the trajectory and direction of this subsurface toxic plume."

That's critically important information, both in order to assess what sorts of habitats the oil may be wiping out, and because "this stuff can pop up in surprising places, weeks if not months from now," he said.

 

[Nickatina]

That's fucking retarded. When a drunk driver plows into a family killing them, we blame the drunk driver, and maybe the bartender who poured the drinks. We don't say "well, in this culture where we love our cars, and we love our alcohol, this is unavoidable, so everybody is to blame".

Aren't conservatives for accountability? BP is liable, and beyond that, the regulatory framework that allowed this to happen is at fault.

That's a fucking retarded anology. Accidents happen. No system is fail proof. We like to think that with every advance in technology that things like this can't happen. You don't think BP had something to lose in this situation? Instead of profiting they are going to be paying out of the ass. They didn't want this to happen, but of course they are liable financially because they are the ones who fucked up. What I am trying to say is that shit happens, so you can blame any end of the chain but the fact of the matter is that you can't just place blame on people who didn't prevent it. There's things that could have been done from so many sides, sure, but you can't just blame one of the sides, because we are getting into such a huge amount of people that potentially dropped the ball. You just can't account for every single potential disaster. And more important to my point, is that it doesn't fucking matter who is to blame other than BP. It doesn't help anything, right here and right now. Place the blame wherever you want, but it doesn't get this cleaned up quicker.

 

[SA]

The liability argument is wasted breath at this point. Liability limit is a mere $75 million. The Senate just kaiboshed the proposal to raise that to $10 billion. Why raise oil company liability when you can get the citizens to pay that sh1t off, right? Seems to work with everything else.

If the immediate damage stops at $1 trillion, consider that corner of the world lucky.

Challenger Investigation Got $175 Million. Columbia $152 Million. Lewinsky $30 Million. 9/11 $15 Million. Financial Crisis Gets Only $8 Million

The government spent $175 million investigating the Challenger space shuttle disaster.
It spent $152 million on the the Columbia disaster investigation.

It spent $30 million investigating the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

The government only authorized $15 million for the 9/11 Commission.

And how much has the government authorized for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission? You know, the commission charged with getting to the bottom of what caused the financial crisis?

Just $8 million.

These figures don't account for inflation. For example, the Challenger investigation cost over $300 million in today's dollars.

You can tell alot about the questions which the government is truly interested in finding answers to by the amount of money it authorizes for the various investigations.

- Washington's Blog

 

[Unbreakable]

They also want to add 1 cent tax to oil... which will be pushed down the the consumer

 

[Unbreakable]

Gulf oil spill: firms ignored warning signs before blast, inquiry hearsDocuments suggest BP, Transocean and Halliburton ignored tests indicating faulty safety equipment, says committee

BP was aware of equipment problems aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig hours before the explosion pumped millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, a congressional hearing was told yesterday .

In a second day of hearings, the House of Representatives's energy and commerce committee said documents and company briefings suggested that BP, which owned the well; Transocean, which owned the rig; and Halliburton, which made the cement casing for the well, ignored tests in the hours before the 20 April explosion that indicated faulty safety equipment.

"Yet it appears the companies did not suspend operations, and now 11 workers are dead and the gulf faces an environmental catastrophe," Henry Waxman, the chair of the energy and commerce committee, said, demanding to know why work was not stopped.

The committee heard testimony from oil executives suggesting multiple failures of safety systems that should have given advance warning of a blowout, or should have promptly cut off the flow of oil.

The failures included a dead battery in the blowout preventer, suggestions of a breach in the well casing, and failure in the shear ram, a device of last resort that was supposed to cut through and seal the drill pipe in the event of a blowout.

"Already we have uncovered at least four significant problems with the blowout preventer used on the Deepwater Horizon drill rig," said Bart Stupak, a Democrat from Michigan who chairs the oversight subcommittee.

Source:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/12/deepwater-gulf-oil-spill-hearing

 

[qwe]

^ arent they supposed to have safety sys after safety sys???

What I am trying to say is that shit happens, so you can blame any end of the chain but the fact of the matter is that you can't just place blame on people who didn't prevent it

while you are correct, it is important to note that certain individuals deliverately cheated on safety tests to cost money, that the business itself deliberately voided safety measures by way of politics and other means, etc, thereby showing negligence. if corporations were human, this would be negligence

 

[Unbreakable]

Lisa Murkowski BLOCKS Bill To Raise Oil Spill Liability Cap

A bill to increase the liability cap for oil spills from $75 million to $10 billion was defeated Thursday by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

Bill S.3305, the "Big Oil Bailout Prevention Liability Act" would cap BP's liability at $10 billion, even if damages from the gulf oil spill surpass that figure. The company already estimates that spill will cost $450 million to clean up.

Murkowski, a drilling supporter, has received almost $300,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry.

Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/13/lisa-murkowski-blocks-bil_n_575918.html

and the story gets even more intresting.....Yes, I see a dumbness trend here.
Then Lisa Murkowski moron should pay the balance of the damage clean up.
Here lies the problem. As long as those in power as being fed money from the oil and gas industry, nothing will change.
Murkowski has been bought and paid for.


Billionaire Mukesh Ambani, who runs the world’s largest refining complex, said the petroleum industry must be ready for oil prices to rebound to $100 a barrel or more on growing consumption in Asia.

“We have to again be actively prepared to see a three- digit oil price” amid sluggish refining growth and higher marginal cost of production at new fields, Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd., said in a speech at a conference in Mumbai today, adding, “$80 to $100 is the norm.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aPQRi6XwG7q4&pos=7

 

[marsmellow]

Unbreakable, the tax is only 1 cent per barrel. Barrels are 55 gallons, last time I checked. It's virtually nothing and I'll happily pay it if it prevents the Gulf Coast from being ruined.

You would rather let it get ruined than pay a half cent more for a tank of gasoline? That's pretty selfish.

A bill to increase the liability cap for oil spills from $75 million to $10 billion was defeated Thursday by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

Bill S.3305, the "Big Oil Bailout Prevention Liability Act" would cap BP's liability at $10 billion, even if damages from the gulf oil spill surpass that figure. The company already estimates that spill will cost $450 million to clean up.

Murkowski, a drilling supporter, has received almost $300,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry.

Fucking pathetic.

Campaign contributions are nothing but legalized bribes. Anyone who can't see that by now is blind.

 

[Unbreakable]

here is Paul Noel's site with links to the article...and others.
http://www.pureenergysystems.com/about/personnel/PaulNoel/

In the case of the BP underwater hole, the slick is not being poured on top of the water. It is coming up from the ocean bottom that is 1 mile deep at that point. That fact raises stunning questions on how big the well releases are.

Rising through 5000 feet of water, the oil is going through a process that the oil men call Fractionating. Literally the tremendous pressure and temperature issue are the equivalent of taking the oil and boiling it in a cracking tower 5000 feet high. The oil and Natural Gas change on their way up. The very light, easy-to-evaporate parts are all that is rising to the surface.

The heavy oil isn’t even getting to the top. That oil is losing its volatile fractions and is being dragged along with the rising column into the surface water where it is probably distributing as tar balls that are not being skimmed up or burned or otherwise dispersed.

In fact the chemicals added at the well head to disburse the oil, speed this process up. This oil is mixed into the water for the top 250 feet or so. Salinity and temperature issues probably keep this oil from ever reaching the very top of the water. The exact behavior here will not be known until studies are published some years from now. This is the first time humans have encountered a deep ocean leak of this magnitude. We're in uncharted territory here. Volume per volume, it is highly probable that due to this fractioning, this oil blowing into the ocean from a mile down is causing far more ecological trouble than a surface spill of similar size.

It is also certain that the slick volume on the surface is substantially lower than the rising column of oil. This is a key point to bear in mind. Because of this fractioning, what you see from the air on the surface of the water represents maybe just 20% of the volume of the various types of oil in that area. And we're talking an area the size of Maryland (10,000+ square miles) that is on the surface. The remaining 80% is under the surface; and all of it is highly toxic to the living organisms encountered.

All of this brings into serious question the volumes of oil rising. Every factor suggests massively higher numbers than what has been commonly reported.

 

[moonyham]

How can there be ANY fucking argument about whos to blame? There is 1 company to blame. BP.

You are saying 'BP didnt want this' and 'no one stands to gain from this'.

Thats true, yes, BP didnt want this, no one stands to gain - however, BP allowed it to happen. They ignored safety procedures, they did a shotty job, and then it backfired. They didnt think it would, they didnt hope it would, but it DID. Just like a mechanic doing a dodgey fix on a car doesnt WANT that car to break down because of his neglegance and cost-cutting, he wants it to work fine so that the customer is happy and he makes more money! HOWEVER, if that car breaks down because of that dodgey fix - THE MECHANIC IS TO BLAME.

BP can go FUCK THEM SELVES. I fucking cant believe these cunts, and the american government is doing NOTHING about it. 75 million? Oh yeah, that should cover.. i dont know, about 2 days of costs for operating all those 10's of thousands of troops and govt vehicles?

 

[rowland2110]

I hope this is the final wake up call that Americans need to realize they need to stop using oil and convert to alternative energy.

If not, there are much worse things coming. Oil spills are very bad. Climate change is even worse than spills. Extreme shortages aren't fun either. It's predicted that those will begin to happen within the next 20 years or so. There's only so much oil in the ground, and we've burned most of it up, which is why we are digging under the ocean for it.

Maybe this is a sign that we need to stop using so much oil?

Their is a move towards green energy in America. The problem is alternative energies are just not viable enough to replace oil. At least not right now and not any time soon. Its going to be slow, long process.. decades maybe even a century.

Oh and rest assured.. its going to be these evil oil companies that control all the viable alternative energy sources. They are saving up their billions and trillions. Anything can be bought.

 

[bit_pattern]

They've found the underwater plumes

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/us/16oil.html?hp

Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.

“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”

The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.

Dr. Joye said the oxygen had already dropped 30 percent near some of the plumes in the month that the broken oil well had been flowing. “If you keep those kinds of rates up, you could draw the oxygen down to very low levels that are dangerous to animals in a couple of months,” she said Saturday. “That is alarming.”

The plumes were discovered by scientists from several universities working aboard the research vessel Pelican, which sailed from Cocodrie, La., on May 3 and has gathered extensive samples and information about the disaster in the gulf.