BP and this disaster

[strokerlmt]

I have a very good friend in New Orleans and another in Alabama/Mobile. All my adult life I have been a scuba diver, free diver, waterman/fisherman, sailor and boater. I relate and bond with the ocean/water especially The Caribbean. A good friend with a boat some friends and some dive equipment went half way to where the BP well is is......they were in shit oil....they dropped a rope with an anchor to 100 feet...suited up and went down. The layers of oil and shit is staggering. The boat was a mess as was the gear and their bodies. Oil everywhere.....The dolphins caught between the disaster and the shore are heading up delta/rivers.....what will they eat. This thing just makes me sick to my stomach. Whole families, businesses, life styles, wetlands, ..........most important people.............will be fucked for decades over this shit. 11 good people lost there lives, families and friends are devastated.....100's were put in harms way on this rig.
I have no time for big corporations.....sorry to rant.....
LMT

 

[07black&red]

Amen. We citizens wouldn't think of living in a society without police. The same should be true for our corporate citizens and the only body capable of policing these behemoths is an effective government (which we do not currently have). The agencies tasked with monitoring the behavior of "big oil", "big banking" were asleep at the wheel largely because they were staffed with former corporate insiders who let them get away with murder until it was too late. I'm all for the free market but you can always count on humans (or human-run corporations) to do the wrong thing when massive profit is on the line and they think no one is looking. Rise up people! Take our government back! We the People. Not we the too-big-to-fail-but-not-to-big-to-fuck-you-in-the-ass United Corporations of America.

 

[Gretsch]

I'm not sure I blame all big corporations but I sure as hell blame BP. I'd also like to know how the hell the rig that caused this won a safety award from or government. Seems like there's plenty of blame to go around. Success has a thousand fathers but failure is always an orphan.

 

[koifarm]

There is no doubt this spill will be the most devastating accident to happen in this world.
The ripple effect of damage will destroy millions of fisheries, spawning areas and growing estuaries on out to the open ocean and the fish in it.
Millions of people will be affected both economically and physically as the damage spreads for the next 100 years.
BP, in my opinion, will go under in a dramatic way paying for the screwup and damage leaving many uncompensated for their losses.
The sad thing, or one of the sad things is that BP is issuing 'supplemental' checks to those who applied for loss mitigation of $5,000. Listening on NPR this morning, that amount, for most of those who got it, barely covers monthly payments and leaves nothing for the people to live on. One processor was granted that much with over $20k in monthly nut and was getting only one oysterman per day when 40 or more was the norm.
It sickens most of us no doubt and will not get any better. My heart is sad for these folks who's entire life and generations before has been in the fisheries and who now see the end of that life coming soon.
Not to mention the entire food chain from ocean to plate which will be affected by this disaster.
We can play coulda/woulda/shoulda all we want but it's too late to do more than feel the sad loss for so many good hard working men and women out there who now must find a new life.
One can only awaken each and every day to see what new horror has resulted from careless operation by BP and will continue to happen for years to come.
There may be no way to pin the blame on one or more individuals but the overriding facts are that it is what it is, a catastrophe beyond the scope of even the best of thinkers.
BP is 'over the barrel" (no pun) and will likely exhaust all their funds in correcting this fiasco and eventually go under as they well should. Hopefully this disaster will result in more stringent measures to prevent another one like it. If not voluntary to the oil industry, it should be made mandatory by congressional law.
Just some random thoughts...

 

[strokerlmt]

Koifarm......right on....great post....the currents of this world affect each other....this mess is nothing what it will be in 30-60-90 days from now OR 1-3-5-10-15 years from now......this is a shit storm. IMHO BP will circle the wagons soon, move billions of dollars to safe havens, eventually stop paying, re structure and disappear leaving Florida, Ala, LA and Mexico to deal with the shit.
Press on....
LMT

 

[Sal Paradise]

I gotta say, I just dove on the reefs in the keys over Christmas, went fishing on the reefs too. I wouldn't throw a foam cup or a piece of fishing line overboard in that beautiful water. I am just sick to my stomach about this. The reef life, the dolpins, the birds.... they are uprotected. I read that about the dolphins, its a fucking tragedy. How is it possible that they built this thing with foolproof no way to shut if off? Who allowed that? Other countries require the reliefe well to be drilled before the exploratory well but not the U.S.

 

[strokerlmt]

Sal.....IFFFFF BP and the USA reg system had done their jobs and followed the protocol of the North Sea drilling this may have not happened. IMHO because it is a private company using a public/federal drill site everyone turns a blind eye for the almighty $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
LMT

 

[KingBear]

Plenty of blame to go around, including BP and their subcontractors, the President and his minions, and the Environmentalists themselves.

 

[Nick Morey]

Plenty of blame to go around, including BP and their subcontractors, the President and his minions, and the Environmentalists themselves.

Let's not leave out those who allowed deep well drilling without proper safeguards in the first place (as Sal alluded to). I wonder who was in office then? How about all those congressmen who get fat catering to oil lobbyists? Do you think they are squeaky clean? How far should the blame go? Hell, I feel a little guilty myself because I'm a consumer. I doubt much will be done about it, seems they trickle out the bad news day by day so it minimizes any shock value. BP will probably survive too, in some form, they're just too BIG and there's all those British pension funds to consider. The almighty buck trumps everything and every living thing on this planet. The whole thing makes me sick.

 

[KingBear]

Here's something interesting to read... How Oil Breaks Down in Water.

 

[Sal Paradise]

I have read 3 or 4 times where some "BP official " made the drilling crew stop using drilling mud and just use water, even though there was gas coming up the pipe.... .Just hang the sumbitch who did this and those who allowed it to happen and those who should have known better..No disresepct to those who were killed, I am talking about higherups... Hangem as an example for the next greedy bastard.

By the way, has anyone noticed Geopiilot is nowhere around? He might be working on it...

 

[07black&red]

Politicians are put into office by those interests with the deepest pockets. Party affiliation is meaningless when those elected feel a debt not to "the American people" but to those who got them elected. Until this changes our government will work only for the benefit of the super-wealthy.
I would love to be enlightened as to how the "no-spin" crowd is spinning blame for BP's failure onto the environmentalists.
Further, I was unaware that the ocean was magic. Cool. Just like that durn liberal media to keep that little gem from us. Why are they even bothering to try to stop the gusher?

 

[KingBear]

Environmentalists have pushed oil exploration as far offshore as possible, forcing it into deeper waters where these things are more likely to happen and almost impossible to deal with. This wouldn't have happened in ANWR. I'm not pointing fingers, I'm just saying there were a lot of contributing factors. No, I leave that to the Finger-Pointer-In-Chief. Today he told Prime Minister David Cameron that his frustration isn't an attack on Britain, but just yesterday he was lashing out at Republicans and Tea-Partiers for not being supportive enough of his failed efforts. So basically he gave Britain a pass and blamed his political rivals.

Now if you REALLY want an interesting story, check out this one that the mainstream media managed to miss...

Experts Say White House 'Misrepresented' Views to Justify Drilling Moratorium

The seven experts who advised President Obama on how to deal with offshore drilling safety after the Deepwater Horizon explosion are accusing his administration of misrepresenting their views to make it appear that they supported a six-month drilling moratorium -- something they actually oppose.

The experts, recommended by the National Academy of Engineering, say Interior Secretary Ken Salazar modified their report last month, after they signed it, to include two paragraphs calling for the moratorium on existing drilling and new permits.

Salazar's report to Obama said a panel of seven experts "peer reviewed" his recommendations, which included a six-month moratorium on permits for new wells being drilled using floating rigs and an immediate halt to drilling operations.

"None of us actually reviewed the memorandum as it is in the report," oil expert Ken Arnold told Fox News. "What was in the report at the time it was reviewed was quite a bit different in its impact to what there is now. So we wanted to distance ourselves from that recommendation."

Salazar apologized to those experts Thursday.

"The experts who are involved in crafting the report gave us their recommendation and their input and I very much appreciate those recommendations," he said. "It was not their decision on the moratorium. It was my decision and the president's decision to move forward."

In a letter the experts sent to Salazar, they said his primary recommendation "misrepresents" their position and that halting the drilling is actually a bad idea.

The oil rig explosion occurred while the well was being shut down – a move that is much more dangerous than continuing ongoing drilling, they said.

They also said that because the floating rigs are scarce and in high demand worldwide, they will not simply sit in the Gulf idle for six months. The rigs will go to the North Sea and West Africa, possibly preventing the U.S. from being able to resume drilling for years.

They also said the best and most advanced rigs will be the first to go, leaving the U.S. with the older and potentially less safe rights operating in the nation's coastal waters.

 

[Gretsch]

Further, I was unaware that the ocean was magic. Cool. Just like that durn liberal media to keep that little gem from us. Why are they even bothering to try to stop the gusher?

Are you referring to the article in Popular Mechanics?

 

[Kirkus51]

This whole BP thing shows me just how disasters start with a simple thing gone wrong and can mushroom into what it is today. There's tons of blame to go around from the guys working the rig, may they rest in peace, to the corporate Big Whigs who are back pedaling as fast as they can.

It's the human equaision at it's finest. It's been with mankind since there was a mankind.

 

[Tomintoul]

I have read 3 or 4 times where some "BP official " made the drilling crew stop using drilling mud and just use water, even though there was gas coming up the pipe....

And so the rumour mill begins. Sounds like utter shite to me. No doubt the BP official is a friend of a friend, and almost certainly English. And as for the Xenophobic crap that's currently spilling out of the States, it's frankly pathetic. Let me just point out that BP is nothing to do with the British Government, it is a publicly listed company. What about the company that leased out and ran the rig - American, I believe. Who licensed the drilling? Sure as hell wasn't the British. I can't help but think that had this happened to an Exxon rig, there wouldn't be half the fuss that there is at the minute.

 

[strokerlmt]

I have to disagree......no matter who had the well the fuss would be the same because millions of lives and livelyhoods are being destroyed and affected by this. The human tragedy will over power the well owner no matter who it is in this case. Not just a little spill being contained this will wipe out things we haven't even thought of yet.......
LMT

 

[Tomintoul]

Tad overdramatic, isn't it? Human tragedy? Millions of lives? It's a big, nasty, god-awful mess and BP should completely pay for the clean-up and compensation to those affected, which they've said they'll do.

 

[NewOldSchool]

This whole mess was not caused by a single mistake. This was a chain of bad events that led to a horrifying outcome for all. BP is screwed... one way or another. Their rigs are going to be picked apart by whatever country and government they will want to go into for this point on. Along with the fines and money it will cost to clean-up (well as much as they can). This is crap... the whole mess is a joke. Everyone is an expert after the fact. But I know that there is not one single job that I have been on where there were not short-cuts, "better ways" then sops and etc. I such a competitive field like drilling and oil-field work, time is money and you dont want to be the one that causes that money to stop. In such an environment, mistakes will happen. The BOP (Blow-Out-Preventer) which is not any cheap thing, failed. That is not normal, and engineering that went into them was not a rush thing. I know guys that spent years working on rigs down there. For the most part they are extremely safe, but shit will happen. Hey the titanic sunk too. I think before we castrate BP, we should help them fix it. Media just wants a story so they will push their "breakin stories" on you for you to watch. BP along with other companies ARE THE ONLY ones that can fix this. Maybe NASA.

Sorry, I'm just bitter that I almost have to run over the hippies outside the BP station near my house. They all show up in BMWs and have on designer clothes, and sit in there plastic lawn chairs with umbrellas... which all are made with the products they are trying to stop. AND THEY ARE IN MY WAY!!!!!!!!!!

Mondo

 

[strokerlmt]

Tom....nope not being over dramatic. I have friends in Alaska who are still feeling the financial effects of the Exxon Valdez. Don't know if you have visited the Gulf Coast of Florida, Alabama and Louisiana ......just about every family is touched by something that the Gulf produced whether the oil biz, fishing and related biz's, water transport and shipping, trucking, equipment manufacturing...everything is touched by The Gulf. A lot of people screwed up here from local to state to federal government and big business. The trend with our Government and media is to go with what's in front of them....now they are finding out it wasn't 5000 b's...gee it was 10,000 no maybe 25,000 ...oh shit we really don't know. With all due respect to you and your opinion this will devastate millions of people and the effects of this will still be with us in 10 to 20 years +++ from now.
Wish it wasn't sooooo.
LMT