Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Louisiana Oil Rig Fire / Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

roachboy · 07-23-2010, 07:07 AM

meanwhile:

Quote:

BP denies 'buying silence' of oil spill scientists

Oil giant says it is just keeping company data confidential, as it faces 200 federal civil lawsuits over spill

BP has rejected accusations of muzzling the scientists and academics it has hired to help fight hundreds of lawsuits relating to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The American Association of University Professors claims the oil giant is seeking to "buy the silence" of the scientific community in its fight against litigation.

But BP says it is only protecting confidential information and is not trying to prevent the discussion of scientific data.

A copy of the contract issued by BP to scientists, obtained by the BBC, says they cannot publish the research they conduct for BP or speak about the data for at least three years, or until the government gives the final approval to the company's restoration plan for the gulf.

It also states that scientists may perform research for other agencies only so long as it does not conflict with the work they are doing for BP, and that they must take instructions from lawyers offering the contracts and other in-house counsel at the oil company.

Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors, criticised the contract. He told the BBC: "This is really one huge corporation trying to buy faculty silence in a comprehensive way."

Bob Shipp, head of marine sciences at the University of South Alabama and one of the scientists approached by BP's lawyers, said the company wanted to hire his whole department.

"They contacted me and said we would like to have your department interact to develop the best restoration plan possible after this oil spill," he said. "We laid the ground rules – that any research we did, we would have to take total control of the data, transparency and the freedom to make those data available to other scientists and subject to peer review. They left and we never heard back from them."

BP said that it had hired a number of experts to help with the lawsuits, as well as a number of national and local scientists with expertise in the resources of the gulf of Mexico to help in restoration work.

"These scientists are helping us collect and understand data about the impacts of the oil spill on the natural resources and to plan for restoration of those resources," BP said.

"As is customary, we have asked these experts (more than a dozen) to treat information from BP counsel as confidential. However, BP does not take the position that environmental data are confidential.

"Moreover, BP does not place restrictions on academics speaking about scientific data."

Seven federal judges next week will meet attorneys in Boise, Idaho, to try and decide whether or how to consolidate more than 200 federal civil lawsuits filed by a range of claimants, from fishermen to injured rig workers, oil-rig owner Transocean and other contractors tied to the spill.

The judges will consider two key questions: where the cases will be heard and who will preside over them.

The lawsuits range from civil racketeering and personal-injury suits to claims from out-of-work shrimpers and owners of now-vacant hotels on the gulf shore.

The cost of the spill to BP has already exceeded $3.1bn (£2bn), and the company has pledged some of its assets as security to the US government while it builds up a promised $20bn compensation fund. Analysts at Goldman Sachs estimate the final bill for the disaster caused by the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11 workers, could run to $70bn.

BP denies 'buying silence' of oil spill scientists | Environment | guardian.co.uk

so here we are: a direct confrontation between notions of proprietary information and the public's right to be informed in the context of a disaster.

the bbc article:
BBC News - BP accused of 'buying academic silence'

the contract bp is offering:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/h...p_contract.pdf

i find this kinda startling---that more than surprising really.

it does pose an underlying question for the neo-liberal set: on what planet is private information more symmetrical with an illusion of democracy than public information?
it's obvious: privately controlled information is subject to far more controls, particularly on the part of corporate actors. it is a commodity. as such, it is controlled by the highest bidder. in conservative-world, that is apparently how it should be. if you want democratic responsiveness, you buy it.

american conservatives seem to want a corporate oligarchy, but they want it by confusing it with some version of democracy. the only thing i can conclude is that the incoherence of american conservative political philosophy is total.

meanwhile, in the domain of things that suck even more:

Quote:

Tropical Storm in Gulf Halts Oil Spill Response Efforts
By HENRY FOUNTAIN

A tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico has forced the evacuation of response vessels at the site of BP’s blown-out oil well, further stalling efforts to permanently seal the well.

Tropical Storm Bonnie, with winds of 40 miles an hour, was about 80 miles south-southeast of Miami and moving west-northwest at 19 miles an hour, the United States National Hurricane Center said Friday morning. The agency projected that the storm would approach the northern Gulf coast late Saturday or early Sunday.

Among the vessels forced to flee the well site, 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, was a drill rig that was working on a relief well, which is considered the ultimate way to seal the well. Thad W. Allen, the retired Coast Guard admiral who leads the federal response effort, said late Thursday evening that it was beginning the process of disconnecting a riser pipe from the rig to the seabed and pulling it up, a process expected to take up to 12 hours.

“While this is not a hurricane, it’s a storm that will have some significant impacts,” Admiral Allen said.

Kent Wells, a senior vice president of BP, said in a conference call with reporters in Houston on Thursday that the storm would delay operations 10 to 12 days, depending on its severity and how close it passed by the site. That would push back completion of a relief well to the middle of August, he said.

Despite the evacuation of the ships involved in the response, the government said Thursday that the well would be left closed off and unattended.

The decision to leave the well capped, which was made at the recommendation of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, means that scientists with the government and with BP think that the well is undamaged and that there is little risk it would deteriorate if kept under pressure, as it has been since valves on a new cap were closed a week ago. Reopening the valves would mean that oil, which has not flowed since they were closed, would once again pour into the gulf.

“We have enough confidence to leave the well shut in,” Kent Wells, a senior vice president of BP, said in a conference call with reporters in Houston.

The drill rig that was working on the relief well was most likely to be among the first to leave because it travels very slowly. Other ships that are better able to handle higher seas and travel faster would leave later, Admiral Allen said. Support ships for submersibles that have been monitoring the well would be among the last to leave, so the well would probably be unattended for only a few days, he said.

The relief well has been temporarily plugged because of the weather worries, Admiral Allen said. Once the decision was made that the rig evacuate, he said, it would take 8 to 12 hours to detach a riser pipe from the seafloor and pull it back up so the rig could move.

Once the storm has passed, officials can resume their work on drilling the relief wells.

And when the rig is back in place and operating, about two days of work are needed to install and cement a last section of steel casing pipe in the relief well. After that, BP plans to first try another well-sealing procedure, called a static kill, in which heavy drilling mud would be pumped into the well in an effort to permanently stop the flow of oil and gas.

If the static kill is successful, the only need for the relief well may be to confirm that the well is permanently sealed. If the results from the static kill are ambiguous, though, it would then take at least several days, and perhaps several weeks, to permanently shut the flow from the bad well by pumping mud down the relief well.

On Thursday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency, telling reporters that some low-lying coastal communities might need to be evacuated. But did not order a mandatory state evacuation.

By Thursday afternoon, though, BP and the Coast Guard had already started moving some surplus materials and equipment from low-lying areas into secure staging areas in Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, the federal on-scene coordinator, said at a news conference in New Orleans on Thursday.

Admiral Zukunft said that officials were “re-positioning and re-anchoring” the protective boom in some areas. Only the boom that was staged and waiting to be used would be moved to higher ground, he said.

But this actions prompted heated debate in some of Louisiana’s coastal parishes.

Kevin Davis, the president of St. Tammany Parish, was upset that the Coast Guard told him it was planning to move inland barges that had blocked oil from entering Lake Pontchartrain. He issued an executive order saying that anybody who would move such equipment could be arrested.

In St. Bernard Parish, officials worried about whether the protective boom would be moved too far away to be re-deployed quickly after the storm passes. Admiral Zukunft said that moving supplies and equipment was necessary to protect resources so they can quickly be re-deployed after the storm. “We don’t want to lose this material,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/us...ef=global-home