Tony Hayword looked haggard, hesitant & horrified today.

All the scientists, have been up all night trying to figure this out.

My cynical mind is screaming:
Are they still using most of their brain power & time
hoping to emerge from this fiasco with their Integrity & Profits intact?

Perhaps they are trying to use flabby, unused 'long term planning' muscles,
and they are sore about it.

If their attempts do make the situation worse, maybe the small nuke idea,
is back on the table again.

Speculations.

Gah.

Good linking, rb. Thanks for the info.

There's a lot of emotion wrapped up in this thread, so I'm reluctant to ask for an objective reaction to something I heard.

I heard an argument on NPR that the primary challenge in solving this leak is the depth. The reason we are at this depth was the political pressure to keeping such rigs/risks offshore as far as possible. That does make sense, as long as one can plug a leak offshore - which clearly they can't. The alternative would be drilling close to shore in shallow depths where measures such as the funnel idea which failed 3 weeks ago has been proven to work. The risk there is that the oil from a leak would arrive on shore much faster, giving people inadequate time to create a preventative barrier. Of course, the counter to that is they had 30 days to put up barriers here and couldn't stop it from coming ashore, so what difference does it make?

In short, if we decide we HAVE to pursue oil from the sea, doesn't it seem much less risky to do it at shallow depths rather than deep? I recognize that this forces one to assume we "have" to pursue oil from the sea, just work with me here. What other factors, that I may be missing, make the close-to-shore drilling so undesirable?

BTW, I know this is all moot - this is the 3-mile-island of ocean oil exploration. There will be no more drilling for 30 years.

Plugging the Gulf oil spill: 'top kill' live | Richard Adams | World news | guardian.co.uk

the guardian's started a blog to track the top kill undertaking. these are sometimes pretty good to track, so here's a link.

cimmaron: in a way i think you're right that the underlying problem is the depth---but it's the kind of problem that it is because of the regulatory laxness in part, which resulted in the contingency plans not being in place and because of that technologies required to address the contingencies were not developed. they didn't have to be because this situation was deemed "unlikely". which i suppose it was until it wasn't (there are something like 4000 rigs in the gulf of mexico. these things don't happen every day.)

as for why the barriers dont seem to be doing much, i can't say, but one problem appears to be the dispersants that bp was spraying on the oil out of the leak turned out to not only be toxic and problematic for that reason, but worse they were causing the oil to clump up with the dispersant (somehow---pressure maybe?) which made it heavier than it otherwise would have been---so there was basically an oil slick 1500 feet below the surface. that's one explanation anyway. can't say how complete it is.


btw here's a link to bp's live feed.

Live video link from the ROV monitoring the damaged riser

for some reason as i write this, they've decided its really important to show the damaged riser. i don't get it.

I completely agree that there should have been no attempt to drill at this depth without a working plan to solve even the unlikely problems. My occupation requires us to draw up disaster recovery plans all the time, and they always include every foreseeable scenario, regardless of probability. It's what we are paid to do.

I guess I'm curious more about the shallow drilling. If we can stop those leaks, then why not there (other than what I have already considered)? Honestly, I've never really heard all of the objections/risks enumerated. BTW, this isn't a trap. I'm just trying to learn something.

It's like waiting for a possible Aneurysm, perhaps.

Thinner, weaker areas, that might not withstand the pressure.

I dunno.

Yikes.


Shallow drilling upset the tourism industry, (among others)

It's been an aesthetic issue, partly. No one wanted their view spoiled by a massive platform.

yeah i'm not really sure how the availability of parcels gets determined, whether there are hearing processes or some inter-agency thing that happens or what, but there'd (logically anyway) have to be some process that managed to balance stakeholder interests. so fishing areas would be out, obviously. i know there's alot of shellfish activity in the gulf, so that'd require pushing heavy industrial uses out to sea.
and tourism, like ring said.
i suspect there are other factors.

but once parcels are up for lease, they enter into the wonderful world of minerals management, which sounds like a farce. check out the IG report i linked earlier...it's pretty amazing stuff. i'm reasonably sure that had this not happened, that report would have had no attention and no publicity and woulda been more a snapshot of an ongoing relationship between petroleum and it's "inspectors" that involves all kinds of gift and job exchanges and sometimes a little crank...but i digress.

Hmm, that's true. Also, it becomes a security risk. I don't understand the sense of space we are dealing with, perhaps this is a non-issue: Once you move the rigs closer to shore, they will encounter heavier boat traffic. So, terrorism would be easier, and more difficult to detect. To counter it, there may be an attempt to place buffer space around the rigs, which would definitely screw up tourism. Then again, the difference between shallow drilling and deep drilling, as compared to the gulf's continental shelf slope/distance from shore...all that is a mystery to me. Perhaps to get "shallow" drilling, one is still 20-30 miles off shore? Regardless, I'd say the industry has quite a bit of convincing to do before I could support anything.

I live in a coastal state. This weekend, we cancelled our vacation plans. We decided to save the time so that, when the oil gets here, we can use that time to volunteer for beach clean-up. Sadly, it's only a matter of time...

top kill: a 30 second silent animation from the folk who are doing this showing what's supposed to happen:


===========================

yeah, i live next to a salt marsh. i spend way too much of my time taking it in. i think that's one reason why this is so deeply upsetting. i'm sure it is to alot of people for lots of reasons, but i haven't really had a sense of a salt marsh before i moved here and the idea of this combination of misfortunate negligence greed stupidity and corruption resulting in at the least contamination and at worst destruction of miles of fragile coastal ecosystems...i dunno...kinda makes me want to take the faces of alot of those drill baby drill people and rub them in tar balls. or maybe worse just make them look, take it in. like this but live:

Check Out Our BP Gulf Oil Spill Slideshow - ProPublica

I can't talk or annotate, but didn't somebody blame nature for this? Heh. The cap was intact before we poked a hole in it. I use that term "we" because of "IJUHP", but Our Mother had no malice in hiding what we consider treasures. BP's greed caused this, & I hope the fallout vanquishes them & their ilk, & allows us to think harder as we drive home.

so far so good on the top kill front:

Thad Allen says effort to stop Gulf of Mexico oil spill going according to plan | NOLA.com

o and here's some more infotainment about those fine fellows at bp and the extent to which they really have been willing to compromise environmental integrity and the safety of workers in the interest of profit maximization.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/us...ef=global-home


a side note...if i could influence things in the gulf i would say:

pay attention to cleaning the oil that's already in the fucking water too.
protect the coastline.
do something.
the game is not whether bp can stop the leaking---that's part of the game.

from the guardian blog/feed:

BP oil spill: 'top kill' live coverage | Environment | guardian.co.uk

posted @ 3:23 pm

So, at least 12,000 barrels per day, and as high as 19,000. Plus we have 130,000 to 270,000 barrels on the surface, and this is even after all the attempts thus far to control, remove, and destroy the spill.

Just to keep the usual benchmark here, the Exxon Valdez spill was 250,000 barrels. So if even if we use the conservative estimates, we get an Exxon Valdez spill every 20 days, while half of an Exxon Valdez spill still rests on the surface despite cleanup efforts that have been going on for over a month.

And still no certainty that short-term or long-term plans to stop the flow will even work.

Yes, a "very, very significant environmental disaster" indeed.

There's a big difference between Valdez and the Gulf spill - distance. The Valdez went aground relatively close to shore, which meant that the majority of the oil got to shore. There's a significant amount of the Gulf oil evaporating and the distance allows it to spread out more. That means a greater area of shoreline is effected but in lesser concentrations.

Comparing the two spills is a bit of apples and oranges in terms of sheer logistics.

The comparison is purely for issues of scale. The numbers might otherwise get lost when you see those ,000s.

well, at this point it's hard to know simply because i don't think anyone does know what the points of comparison and distinction are between the two. distance of course you're right. but balanced against that are, for example, the effects of the dispersants that were being used which, reports have it, has been causing quite significant plumes of oil to form at considerable depths (2-3 thousand feet down) which are not evaporating (obviously)...but it's not at all clear yet what's happening with that stuff. any more than it's clear yet what the eco-system effects are exactly---but the eco-systems that are being impacted are quite different. in terms of plant and animal life a far more considerable range is in danger in the gulf than was the case off alaska.

another difference is that alot of the coastal areas that are already being impacted are marshes. grass holds the mud in place in a salt marsh, not the other way around. you kill the grasses you also endanger the coastline itself. this is very very very bad. i am astonished that there is not more effort---any from some reports---to protect the marshlands from this immense wave of gunk.

so i dunno....quantity-wise this is worse. proximity-wise the valdez was much easier to deal with....damage-wise it's still speculative, but this is a whole lot worse in many ways from here, just looking, without the information to know much for sure.

at least so far the top kill effort seems to be holding.
apparently there are pressure tests happening now to see if the mud's been pushed far enough down the well to hold. it is looking ok, but we are not collectively out of the woods. and there's still an unbelievable amount of that shit floating about the gulf.


(btw are plumes of oil at 1-2 thousand feet aren't to turn up on overhead surveillance? )

You seem to take the position there was no plan, that is absurd and pure idiocy. I can accept a discussion of the adequacy of the plan or the judgments used in developing the plan along with how they justified expected benefits compared to costs, but your position is untenable and I engage it just because your reactions are entertaining.:thumbsup:

if you want to know the position i've come to read the thread and the information about mms, the permit they issued bp for the parcel, what the regulatory framework was for disaster planning, what actually happened so far as it is known in the days prior to this disaster, it's all in the thread.


but really, ace, at this point you just bore me.
so i'm just going to continue assembling information and you can think whatever you like about whatever amuses you.

In post #193 these were not your words: "there was no fucking plan:"?

note the date.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/wa...alty.html?_r=1

i am not interested in debating anything with you ace.
go play somewhere else.

It is not a debate, I just asked you a question. You won't answer the question because the position you take is idiocy.

a map of louisiana show where the oil's made landfall so far. wildlife sanctuaries are marked. this is beyond.

Where Oil Has Made Landfall - Map - NYTimes.com

Had there been a plan or an actual workable plan aside from this taking stabs in the dark with a big ass top hat to try and syphon the oil into another ship, or this newest one of a top kill which has never been attempted at these depths, they would have mandatory relief wells as I've stated before, that is the only plan that could have at least relieved pressure from the blown well, not starting to drill the relief well after the fact when it's going to take 2-3 months to finish, it really isn't that hard to understand, all these 'plans' everyone is speaking of are just that, stabs in the dark in hopes somehthing may work.

http://rovicky.files.wordpress.com/2...ief-well-2.jpg
But please, carry on with the e-penis contest....

It is easy enough for anyone wanting to read general information about the spill to do so, what is the point of what you are doing?

What do you want people to take from these links you provide? And, why not state how your views relate to the information in these links?

---------- Post added at 06:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:30 PM ----------

Today the President stated that BP had contracts in place in the event of an oil spill. Doesn't that suggest that they had a plan? I can agree, that we may not like the plan, but do we really need to discuss if there was a plan - I am still not clear on the position you and others are taking on this question. Why won't anyone clarify this for me?

It's a one stop link shop for info on the leak, I quite like the idea, saves me looking for the info, I can just come to this thread, I assume that is the point of what rb is doing, seems pretty obvious, to me at least.
I'm saying the only sure plan would have been to have relief wells mandatory with drilling, do you understand the concept of a relief well?

What plan did they have? We're on what plan 3 now, two top hats to syphon the oil failed, this top kill may or may not work, what next the junk shot? That isn't a plan ace, that's taking a stab in the dark and hoping for the best.

Ace - it is quite simple. BP quite obviously had no plan in place to deal with this set of circumstances. It is blindingly obvious. They may (and probably did) have had plans to deal with other things, but they didn't ever address what has happened. And THAT'S why so many of us are angry at BP and the regulators who let them get away with that lack of planning.

Your continued assertion that there WAS a plan for this flies in the face of all evidence and testimony and makes continued discussion impossible.

The plan was/is to drill a relief well and clean up the spill. It seems everyone in industry and government knows that it will take about 90 days to drill the relief well. I understand not liking this plan ( and of course I am not fleshing it out fully), but to say there is no plan??? Even a perfect plan would have resulted in damage and would have taken time - so I don't understand what you are saying or what you would have wanted from BP. Sure, our preference would have been not to have a spill, but drilling that deep is risky.

---------- Post added at 07:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:00 PM ----------

He clearly has an agenda, you don't assume what he selects has a bias? And I think the problem I have is that he won't say what his agenda is, and when I ask about it he gets his underwear all in a bunch.

Drilling a relief well after the fact isn't a plan ace, that's common sense, the relief well should have been drilled alongside the current well, that is the point of a relief well, to relieve pressure from a well in case of a blow out, it's not a hard concept to understand.
If rb clearly has an agenda then what is it? If it's so clear to you, should be an easy answer. I think you're problem is with anything rb posts, and no matter what he posts it's going to get your knickers in a twist

Ace, I need to respectfully disagree with you on both points.

Even if we concede that your description does constitute a "plan", it is so grossly inadequate as to be rendered meaningless. So, whether it's called a plan or not doesn't change the incompetance.

Secondly, Based on the links rb has submitted, I have concluded that he has provided ample evidence that the federal government did not meet the people's expectations either. I think his links have covered both sides (if there even are sides to this) as to how the corporate and public sector have colluded to weaken the necessary systems, programs, and plans necessary to safeguard the environment during drilling.

I'm appreciative of his research because it has allowed me to have several informed conversations with people who were desperately trying to make this a right/left issue. I wish you'd settle down on this one. I've tried to see your points, and I just can't reconcile them to other information. The sky is blue.

i've been trying to assemble a context that can get used to interpret or explain some of what happened and also what's going on in real time. the center of that context is a functional--but still a bit hazy---image of the regulatory arrangements that hedge round drilling operations in the gulf.

personally, i see that arrangement as the condition of possibility for bp' s "business model" of cut corners now and pay fines later...and both of these elements---the regulatory system and bp's scummy way of playing that system---have blown up along with the deepwater horizon.

that same regulatory system explains the modalities of response and non-response to this catastrophe.

i'm just trying to figure this stuff out.
it's kinda depressing.


===================


by way of the guardian, here's a blog that's providing running commentary on the top kill operation.
it's pretty helpful for interpreting the real-time streams.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6515#more

it's interesting because it seems to involve alot of people who have more direct/technical knowledge than is the case in alot of other sources.
all bloggy caveats in place of course.

I keep hearing that possibly, only 20% of the oil is reaching the surface.
It still isn't clear how the oil dispersents have factored into the equation..

It's a difficult and tedious task to map these deep sea plumes of oil,
but they are certainly there.


NASA - NASA Imagery of Oil Spill

Ace, you're bordering on willful ignorance. You've got people from the right, left and center pointing out the obvious flaws in your logic. Let me add yet another one.

BP's worst case scenario (from a legal perspective down the road) is if it ever comes to light that their plan for this eventuality was "we'll drill a relief well" rather than having no plan at all. At least with no plan at all, they could argue that there was no known way to stop the well under this circumstances and everything that they tried was admittedly experimental.

If the plan was to drill a relief well, then there's a huge question of why they weren't already drilling when the blowout happened or why it took them weeks (3? 4?) to start. If that is what comes out during discovery, then they're fucked, completely and utterly. It means that they knowingly and intentionally did something dangerous enough to cause billions in property damage and business interuption. It's like they drove coast to coast in a big rig leaking asphalt-eating toxins that disrupted interstate travel in their wake.

Ace, the stockholders of BP had better hope that you're not right. Because if you are, they could easily be looking at Chapter 11 or a complete dismantling by the company by their competitors.

In Roach's post #107 there is a quote from BP executive's in their testimony to Congress:

We had a contingency plan for Louisiana spill, and it's working, BP chief tells angry senators | Environment | The Guardian

In Roach's post #182 he gave a link to a IEP (PDF), starting in section 7.0 you find the reference Oil Spill Response Plan by BP (MMS company number 21591 and 02481) which was inaccordance to 30 CFR 254 approved 11/14/08.

My position has been clear, this was an accident (not done on purpose, subject to judgment error), BP followed the rules (doing what was required by regulators short of what may turn out to be poor judgment calls), including having a OSRP, and that BP had/has no incentive for the spill and to not resolve the matter as soon as possible. If BP acted inadequately, including the inadequacy of a "plan", they share the blame but "we" have to take our share also.

So, why not answer simple questions?

I appreciate his research also, but he comes across as if he knows all the answers and whatever he presents is the only proper conclusion. When other possibilities are presented he goes into an uncontrollable tizzy. The more he refuses to address simple questions the more I persist. This issue about a "plan" could have easily been put to rest, and I am still not clear on his position. He presents evidence that there was a plan and then says there "was no fucking plan:", and I am the one who has the problem. I do have problems, but attempting to clearly communicate my view is not one.

---------- Post added at 09:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:08 PM ----------

The only way I can think to respond here is with an extreme example. A local Fire Department has plans in place to protect life and property. A house burns down and there is loss of life - then after the fact you come along and say there was no plan because they did not have a station next door to the house that burned. And, even if there was a station next door with "fool-proof" monitors, sprinklers, etc, the house could still burn and their could still be loss of life. So to me it seems you want things to be risk free, this risk free world is fantasy.

I will let him state his agenda if he chooses to do so. I have read enough from him on various topics to know.

"The Macondo Prospect,
is an oil and gas prospect in the Gulf of Mexico which was the site of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion in April 2010 which led to a major oil spill in the region.

The name Macondo, is in reference to the fictitious town in the novel,
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Colombian nobel-prize winning writer
Gabriel Garcia Marquez."


The marshes are dead & dying, along with the life underwater, we can't see.

Some memorial weekend holiday, eh?

At this point I am fully engaged with willful ignorance because I am still trying not to believe that some here are taking a position (not hyperbole) that I think is pure idiocy, and I am not trying to be insulting. To think a project of this scale and the potential consequence there would be no plan??? And that our government is that incompetent that they would let it happen??? Is that what you really believe? Again, I agree that the plan may be inadequate and/or we may not like how they prioritized things or the execution - but that is not what I am hearing - or is it?

Ace, it's difficult for all of us to wrap our heads around the fact
that our cavalier-full-steam-ahead-risks-be-damned-determination to poke
giant holes in our earth's crust, to satisfy our addictions, is lunacy.

Try to think of BP as a king-pin drug dealer, that's a lot of power.

Have you seen the videos from the Russian natural gas hole they poked
back in...'69 I believe?

The oil wells they are drilling into in the gulf are deep.
They have drilled down, 35,000 feet.

I think your point here is important, but perhaps not in the manner you intended. In order to properly address problems we have to understand their root causes. Sure at time we we be cavalier, but at some point we have to get seriuous and really understand what is going on. Is regulation the problem? Is lack of planning the problem? Is profit motive the problem? Is enforcement the problem? Is it a combination? Personally, I think we need to drill for oil, there are risks, there will always be risks, and that it may be an illusion that increased regulation (short of saying no to drilling) or an illusion that a "plan" will solve the problem of risk. To pin those down making superficial comments on this subject is important and is getting increasingly important. We can't just - not drill. We can't think that thousands of pages of new regulation, or new regulators, or shouting they did not have a plan when they did is going to help prevent accidents or reduce real risk.

Given our need for oil. Our government should not treat the industry like criminals. Perhaps that is one problem also.

The nuggets of truth are in your statement.
The motive is profit. The rest of the crew: regulations,planning, enforcement etc,
are the bugaboo speed bumps that stand in the way of greed.

Ace, your agenda is as transparent as a jellyfish, nice try.

You know full well roachboy's stance on these issues as well.

I will borrow his earlier statement. I hope he doesn't mind.

"i wouldn't mind informed debate with you---but it never happens because you don't do the research, you construct weak arguments and when you're called on it you pretend not to understand. this is the stuff fifth grades do. i'm tired of it."

All that logic, how bout’ some emotion…I tried to go and look at the pictures of this and I just can’t, I physically burst into tears, I have been in these bayous, I’ve been down SR23, I am broken by these events, I cannot even watch this on TV, my husband and I fight over this, because I am depressed by it so. It’s sad.

Not from me, Ace.... One would think had bp had a real plan they would not have waited to implement it, would not have been so insecure about their plans to begin with, and would have moved faster to reduce the ire of the American public, as well as their own immense losses, and the losses yet to come.

It is hard to type through tears, I cannot express to you what these bayous mean to me, all the Gulf and bay locations along our coast, I am disgusted with bp and our government right now, just disgusted, and I will happily remove the words “british petroleum” from my mind, I feel like I've "B"een "P"hucked by them while the "Big Boys" in D.C. watched to see if I really cared, well, I fucking care....what to do, what to do NOW. It just seems not many others “seriously” care (fucking finger pointers, “I didn’t do it, It’s not my job, it was an accident”) unless it encroaches upon them personally, shame; they will never truly understand what they have done to the shorelines, to the flora and fauna, and especially to people who live there and make their livings on that water, in that water, that water is all they know, fishing and shrimping and crabbing and crawfish and oysters and more and more, this is all they know.

Tell me why bp isn’t in masses in the marsh NOW; tell me why bp hasn’t been back “full court” to start cleaning or why our tax paid for government isn’t, “contracts or guard” already out there in mass yet either……. WHY?? Somebody answer those questions, why have they waited so damn long to start doing something more about what is already in the delta. Enough fucking talk, and bickering, fucking DO SOMETHING bp, DO SOMETHING NOW! Logic says the only way to stop the flow is to drill another well, we all know this must be done, why haven’t they even started this….. bp planned alright, they planned a cost vs. loss ratio, how much will it cost us to prevent this “accident” as opposed to how much it will cost to fix it, well, they planned wrong. They have not been honest with us, but neither has our own government in tasking this offensively for our citizens, the ball has been dropped by many people in this disaster, the sad thing, this was never a game to make such careless bets, we are all losing here.

Sure, we need oil, we always will, for something or anther we always need oil, the real question is, don’t we need more responsible people in charge of it, people who don’t put a price on the environment, people who cannot be bought to betray there own conscience, Good Luck…… the reality is this is the worse kind of learning experience, the ones that we remember forever, and next time be better prepared for, God forbid there is ever a next time.

top hat, top kill, still spewing oil….. they never had any form of intelligent plan, it is obvious, they had no “real” plan, AT ALL, they still don’t, what a giant clusterfuck. I need another tissue, dammit, dammit, dammit, it's just so sad.

A handkerchief, for miss Idyllic:

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/h...f_21104_md.gif

Yes, I also, have had tears today.

Thank you, ring, :icare: I'm sure I will need a lot more before this is all over. I find it really difficult to even read this thread, I'm no ostrich, but I really wish I could just bury my head in the sand and pretend this never even happened, I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way, it's a damn shame it is.

idyllic: alot of my empathy and sadness---more than that---over this follows from the fact that when i look out my window i see a salt marsh. i am endless fascinated by it, by this type of environment, and i find it unbelievable and entirely unacceptable that this catastrophe has happened, that it continues, that so little has been done to protect the wetlands, so little co-ordination so little concern for any co-ordinated anything-----except on the part of bp's media crisis team. i'm also disgusted with the federal and state governments, but more shocked by the regulatory set-up that's been in place, which made something like this inevitable, from accident to inability to deal with it---even as this particular case remains an accident. so yeah, i feel this even as i live in new england. these places that are being destroyed are special. it's beyond tragic because its entirely unnecessary.


================



ace, i've made my positions clear.

what you call a "tizzy" is nothing more than exasperation at the fact i find myself bothering to engage with someone who simply refuses to do the work required to be taken seriously. it bothers me that against my better judgment i waste my time interacting with you.

as for your pissy ridiculous "questions"....i've already answered them.

to summarize:

i have made it clear what the directions are that the research has taken in this thread.

i have tried to integrate these directions of research through interpretations that in some details have changed as the information i have at hand changes. but the overall line has been clear.

the condition of possibility for this accident was the regulatory regime itself.
i've posted alot of information about how that regime operated.
i've posted information about minerals management. i posted a copy of the lease for the fucking site the deepwater horizon was on that allow anyone who looks, including you if you bothered, to see exactly what bp was exempted from providing.
there's plenty of information--more than enough----to render you're claims in defense of bp meaningless.


moreover, there's material in this thread about bp's history of cutting corners on safety and environmental considerations in the gulf in particular.

and there's ALOT of information about bp not following their own procedures in this particular situation. there's ALOT of information about negligence. and it's all public record. if you bothered to read, you'd see it.

that an accident reflects long-term problems and is ringed round with general and specific problems on bp's part, on halliburtons part and transocean's part does **not** mean that what happened wasn't an accident.
no-one outside of the straw-man machine you seem to have in your brain has said anything other than that.

where the problems of regulatory scheme and bp converge for real is in the 37 days that's passed since the accident. what's happened follows in a straight line from what conditioned or enabled it.

you're stuck on some idiotic claim that bp "had a plan"---that idiotic claim has been demolished over and over by me, by jazz, by jay, by others. there was no plan functionally to deal with problems that could arise with deepwater drilling like this in significant measure because mms did not require bp to generate the scenarios that would have been the basis for developing the technologies and contingency plans that should, obviously, have been in place. period. there is nothing you can say that changes this. the documentation is in the thread.


my politics are clear. i make no secret of them.

i don't have anything else to say.

Disillusionment is difficult.

Perhaps that's the explanation for the masquerade.

Ace, I've worked in the mining industry before, I know this risk free world doesn't exist, but you don't seem to grasp the concept of relief wells being drilled at the same time as the producing well. To drill the relief well after the fact does nothing, the damage is done, the oil is already in the water at that point, the point of them is to relieve pressure in case of a blow out, hence the name relief well, not relief after the fact wells. Drilling one after the fact isn't a plan, a plan would have been to have one drilled alonside the producing well in the first place, to relieve pressure in case of a blowout.

Comparing it to having a fire station next door is well to use your own term, complete idiocy.

rb, av, I'm beginning to believe your both beating the same dead horse, just opposite ends, and neither one wants to admit they got the ass, funny thing, it's a two-assed horse, no brain in site regarding bp and this travesty to the environment or it's people, with the government bringing up a sloppy second rear.

i think i have a pretty good bead on how this disaster was possible.

and to tell the truth, alot of it is at the feet of the free marketeers, the neo-liberal set who put regulation in a position of introducing distortions into the otherwise fabulously efficient world dominated by the private sector and profit motives...all a crock of shit really...particularly when the "resource" or "raw material" of a capitalist production process involves myriad stakeholders--and this because the myopic logic of capitalism, with its abstractions and separations, makes it almost impossible for any given firm or sector to deal rationally with the commons absent some regulatory apparatus---which has to be proactive and aggressive as over against the conservative preference of reactive and passive.

i lay alot of the blame for the general conditions that enabled this disaster on the right's doorstep, from their contempt for environmental issues (drill baby drill) to their surreal, ridiculous economic ideology (see above) to the upside-down conception of regulation which is of a piece with it.

and i am beyond sick of conservative obsessing on news cycles as if dominating the next cycle is all that matters and the constant tweaking of the nitwit talking point of the moment around dominating the next news cycle---whence the pathetic, stupid calls for the federal government to swoop in and save everyone even though the entire regulatory apparatus puts the government in the position of having to wait until oil corporations take the initiative---which they never have to do if those corporations provide tickets to peach bowls and access to parties and promises of lucrative jobs in the future to the hopelessly corrupt and ineffectual people who occupy positions within the regulatory system, who are put there by conservatives who see regulation as ineffectual and corrupt anyway...so this is what you get when things go south.

so dont give me this nonsense that ace and i have anything to do with each other. people who think the way he does are responsible for the general conditions that enabled this fiasco in the first place--and now they have the gall to act all outraged because stuff the logic of the system **THEY SET UP** precludes from happening what they're calling for. it'd be hypocritical were most of these people not so fucking stupid.

meanwhile marshes are killed off and ecosystems wiped out and its all boo hoo....which is fine so long as the folk whose politics are responsible for the worst aspects of this disaster dont use the boo hoo to evade the fact of the matter, which is that its **your** way of seeing things that set this up and what you're seeing is the consequence of it, **your** way of seeing things...it's expression, it's result, what it leads to, what it is.

& also, for the record, Idyllic:

Ace has admitted to posting just to get a rise out of people for his own entertainment.

There is absolutely no comparison.

Thank you rb, I knew you had it in you.... where did you say you lived. I happen to like our way of life, sucky as it can be at times, it's still the U.S.A. the greatest place to live, of course I am bias, as most of the 300 million plus would seem to agree with me and the myriad more that continuously move here, they must be bias too, alas who am I in a sea of patriots, imho.

So the "accident" is our own fault, nice.... and our whining is useless because we voted in the people who are the system we cry about, nice.... why didn't you just say so to begin with, I am sure none of us realized this, as blinded by our self centered, corrupt, capitalism we must be, hummm? You know, I was doing well I thought, in understanding how you appeared to feel, but now I wonder if your whole content wasn’t more of a "I told you so". thumbing your nose at our government.

It is true, I am desperately angry at what I feel is a bunch of bureaucracy and plan old bs too, but I sure as hell don’t want to alter the free market of this nation just to “attempt” to insure the prevention of disasters like this, for in truth, to lose our way of democracy and laissez faire, to me, that would be the greatest travesty of all.

And I am not stupid to believe in my government or the people I elect into it, I would be stupid if I stopped believing in the system that has created my nation, that doesn’t change that they have really let me down here, but we will rally. This “accident” is another painful learning experience, but from it we will grow, together, stronger, because it is what we do in this country, we may fight like siblings, but we all still love this country, at least I do, and I still believe in the American people and the American way of life. Your right, we created it, damn, I never thought I would have to defend an oil spill in the process of defending my country, how did this go here, how can one blame an entire country of people who fundamentally believe in basic freedoms for every individual on earth, and suggest that that freedom alone is our own true corrupter? I must be confused, I'm sure I must be confused, right?

you miss my point i think.

i am tremendously bothered by the way in which the federal government and oil corporations came to interact with each other across the regulatory system. the more i find out about that system the more appalling i find it to be. like i've said, this is the central thing i've found out about for myself in across this thread and it is the main factor that's shaped the situation in general---it is the condition of possibility for some kind of disaster for reasons i've already spelled out---and the regulatory regime has shaped the responses to the disaster from the start. people on the right are blaming the federal government for being trapped in the information flows that were set up in law through this system. and that system is a neoliberal product for the most part, a shining brilliant example of just how bad an idea it is to assume that the private sector knows and the state/regulation introduces distortion, just how bad an idea it is to allow the private sector and profit motives to determine uses within the commons, just how bad an idea conservative economic ideology is.

it's lunacy that deepwater drilling was allowed without a detailed disaster plan and the technologies required to implement it in an ecosystem as valuable (in every sense) as the gulf of mexico. it is lunacy. but it happened. blame minerals management. blame the epa. but mostly blame bp. and for bp blame our collective addiction to oil.

in that respect no-one is terribly righteous since petroleum and its derivatives are everywhere.

the paradox in that is that given the regulatory apparatus, you can't say we were let down. the apparatus ran as it was set up to run. it was legal for minerals management to exempt bp from planning for a disaster. it was legal to exempt bp from the drain on profits that designing the required technologies. it was legal because the regulatory system put oil corporation profits first. and the oil industry paid ALOT of money to get things set up that way. they bought ALOT of political influence.

the oil industry is heavily knit into the economies in louisiana in particular, but along the whole coastal region. they're a big player. so long as the money was rolling in people didnt care so much, did they? it happens everywhere. here's no exception, where i live. it just turns out that this area doesn't have some 4 thousand oil rigs offshore.

an industry goes long enough without a major meltdown and has a political structure bought and paid for and a population ok with whatever to a point so long as they get paid and a regulatory apparatus that's in the interests of the corporations and a kind of routinized corruption in the oversight agencies and maybe it makes sense somehow to start seeing environmental protection as an unnecessary drain on profits or an annoyance so you get mms to exempt you because hell what could happen?

what could happen?

its not good. none of this is good.
but because of the way the game was set up, you aren't in a position to say you are being let down by the way the leak itself has been handled.

on the other hand, and this is different and i've not talked about this because i stupidly thought that clean-up efforts were real and happening in reality---but they're not in the main----this lack of action on cleaning up the spill itself, particularly given its magnitude is unbelievable. tragic. stupid. unnecessary. **that** seems to me a breakdown at **every** level of government in the co-ordination of resources and putting technologies and people into place to protect the coast, protect ecosystems to the greatest possible extent. and that i have no explanation for.

patriotic stuff doesn't work for me, btw. never has, never will.
i don't see this in those terms at all.
i see this as following from routine venal corruption that leans on a petroleum-based model of capitalism that is not sustainable. i think everyone knows its now sustainable but avoids making any hard choices because the money flows, or did, and things seem to operate, or did, and when things get difficult you can always run away into flag waving and abstract statements about freedom and pretend that capitalism isn't at the center of all things american. it's the rigid commitment to the neoliberal version of capitalism that's speeding the plow of fading empire. but that's another story.

=======

btw it appears that there are problems with the pressures in the well...it's apparently not clear that the mud is all the way down because oil and other stuff is leaking into it. so it was suspended overnight. these leaks were called yesterday afternoon by some of the folk who have been following this on the oil drum...which for understanding better than tv will get you to what you're looking at with the live feeds, so what's happening and what's at stake in the process at its various stages, it's a good resource.

on the present state of things:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...kill-oil-spill

again, putting aside thinking about how this was possible and the many problems that have surfaced since, we should all hope this procedure works because if it doesn't we are fucked. the gulf of mexico is already seriously affected, but this could be nothing if the top kill doesn't work. this could go on until august.

august.


unbelievable.


so if you pray this is a time to do it. the next 48 hours.

there are apparently some quite considerable problems with this top kill operation.
but assessing the situation is a problem because it's now obvious that bp has a...um....transparency issue let's say.

this thread on the oil drum is about the most current i've seen:

The Oil Drum | Deepwater Oil Spill - Top Kill Update, Restarting the Mud, and Comment Thread

and is interesting consistently, even as for a layman (and i am one) separating wheat from chaff when everyone is writing in that particular mode of self-assurance that engineers seem to drop into when they're discussing engineering problems. the upside is that there's at least some oil engineers posting. you know, people who've actually worked on rigs and understand the set-up.

there's also a diagram of the blow-out preventer thing that shows where the live feed is originating.

a link to the bp feed, for convenience:

Live video link from the ROV monitoring the damaged riser

All you are saying is that you think there was a better plan. After an accident there is always a better plan. It is far to easy for people to say they had no plan or we simply need more regulation, my point is that regardless of the plan, regardless of the level of regulation, bad things can/will happen in a environment were there is risk. Wrongly identifying what we think is the cause will lead to ineffective solutions. So I persist in trying to get people to be specific and clear on this issue.

---------- Post added at 03:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:38 PM ----------

I don't defend BP, this illustrates you don't comprehend what is written. My point with BP is that they had a plan, a plan that was approved. BP is at fault here and I would have "fired" them from the very beginning.

Your thoughts on regulation are not clear. Are you suggesting that a different regulatory structure is required, if so what? Are you suggesting inadequate regulation, if so what type of regulation eliminates the possibility of a major oil spill? There are other questions, but I doubt you will respond. In my view what you present would do nothing to prevent or minimize the next disaster, because I don't think you understand the root cause of this one.


What does "cutting corners" really mean to you. There is always going to be a point where a "corner" gets cut! The nature of cost/benefit analysis quantifies these trade-offs all the time in all types of markets and in all types of government. Your superficial comments on this subject is problematic to anyone taking the issue seriously.

Humans make judgment calls. In most systems, including oil drilling, the exposure to human judgment error never goes to zero. The real issue is how do we minimize this exposure, and what did BP do in this regard. What did regulators do?

What about industry standards. These companies have been generally supported by the industry and experts regarding their general operational activities. Investigations will reveal what really went wrong, but this could have happened to other companies in the industry.

Documents show they had a plan. Their response shows they had a plan. Contracts put in place before the accident shows they had a plan. the President said they had a plan and that every action they have taken in executing their plan was approved by his administration. Sorry if I don't accept you Jazz and Jay saying something different.

---------- Post added at 04:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:56 PM ----------

If you think there is no substance in what I present, the answer is simple - ignore what I write. I admit that I should be better and not respond to silliness with silliness, but I am flawed.

I don't think there was a better plan ace, I know there was a better plan, if you could grasp the concept of relief wells you'd see this too, but this is pointless, you'll just complain for the sake of complaining as I've said before, you're either blind and can't see a relief well after the fact isn't a plan, or you're just trying to entertain yourself, but this is useless and a waste of my time.

ace...all this is about is your childish attempt to force onto me and onto a non-cooperative reality your ridiculous way of framing the questions you ask and/or the issues you pretend to raise.

i've already answered the "point" you "make" about planning multiple times above.
the regulatory arrangement that frames drilling in the ocean needs to fundamentally change. the old conservative-style joke of an arrangement has been shown inadequate in the most basic ways.
there may well have been a file on someone's desk at bp with the title THE PLAN on it, but it was obviously not adapted to deepwater conditions. this has been amply demonstrated through events, documents and testimony, so there's no point in continuing to humor you as if your "point" is serious. it isn't. find something else to obsess about.

would a different regulatory regime prevent accidents? no. but they'd go a whole lot further than this one has in assuring that if there is an accident that there is a plan fitted to the situation. we are 37 days in already, ace. there was functionally speaking no plan to deal with an accident on the deepwater horizon.

=========

meanwhile back in the world of consequence, it appears that something bad happened this morning. maybe. it's hard to know with all the conflicting information, much of which seems geared around stumbling through the day without the story falling apart so that americans can go to sleep on reality for a few days.

frame by frame here:
pas au-delà

intepretive questions on the oil drum.

there's lots and lots of conflicting information flying around. it's a bit of a farce.

I saved those images.

That did not look good at all.

a clip of the explosion.
it's really hard to say what's going on in it. except that something blew up. one narrative is that this was the mud getting blown back because something let go in the concrete casing---another is that this was a junk shot. so much dis/conflicting information.

all that's sure is the claims the uscg are making about the oil having stopped are false. even bp is saying as much, and they're hardly a model of transparency.

Ah, the forces of nature mixed with the meddling of humans....

Edit: Went to your link and saw the frame by frame. Looks like something bad happened. So, things really can get worse...

yeah, but it's a bit maddening to see that as a clip, then again frame by frame, to read mutually exclusive interpretations on the oil drum (explosion? junk shot?) and see nothing about anything in the press-machinery. this even though the stream is an aspect of alot of press coverage.

i'm left thinking deep things like: "um....what was that?"

like i keep saying, though, we should all hope this works.
the alternatives are really bad.

Yeah, terms like "The Second Dead Sea" are starting to fill my head. Chilling to the bone.

22-mile oil plume under Gulf nears rich waters | New Orleans News, Local News, Breaking News, Weather | wwltv.com | Gulf Oil Spill

3 million feet of boom in Gulf, but does it help? | New Orleans News, Local News, Breaking News, Weather | wwltv.com | Gulf Oil Spill

You make incredible statements. I simply try to understand them. There is a "old conservative-style" of regulation and a ... what... style of regulation? How are they different? How would this other style of regulation better reduce the risk of catastrophe? How would regulators under this other style be proactive rather than reactive or ahead of technology or experts within the industry being regulated?

Or, was your comment above just a throw-away-statement not to be take seriously?

i've already explained this a dozen times, ace. no more.

I was going to post this in the "post a random image" thread, but it just seemed more appropriate here:

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l3...4vjio1_500.jpg

The lack of any coordinated clean up efforts is infuriating.

This climate of fear, greed, & secrecy is stultifying,
and the forecast isn't going to change anytime soon.

The empire isn't wearing any clothing.

Apparently we'll know by Monday whether the mud-pumped junkshot worked.

Then give me the post number, so I can read it.

What is the problem with elaborating on the points you make, answering questions, clarifying statements, I in particular, find amazing? For someone who is serious and dismissive of others for a lack of seriousness, should we expect more from you? Everyone makes statements blowing off steam etc, but that is not what you are doing is it?

You have made attacks and charges against me as an individual, at this point I won't relent until you take them back, give up, or justify your position relative to mine.

If attacks have been made against you, as I said in another thread, report the bloody thing, don't piss and moan about them over and over and play the victim, it gets old quickly, that's what we have a 'report post button' for.

Seems funny though, someone complaining about being 'attacked repeatedly', yet they themselves have admitted to 'posting certain things for the entertainment value', what's the word for someone who does that again?

i'm not sure if this is the same plume that was referenced above (260) or yet another one...but more deepwater oil, in apparently very large amounts:

washingtonpost.com

My choice is to respond directly. The vast majority of my responses have been questions, asking for clarification.

I am guilty of using humor, am I the only one? Perhaps, you should report me.

folk on the oil drum over the last half hour have been arguing that the explosion this morning wasn't an explosion at all, but rather the remote operating vehicle moving away from the riser, with the debris being kicked up by the thrusters.

it's really hard to say, isn't it?

a little lesson in the opacity of surfaces maybe, the non-transparency of images, that they may "put you there" but they are not necessarily any good at letting you know where "there" is or what's happening....

Respond directly? You mean by pissing and moaning in multiple threads? Humour and posting things for your own entertainment are two different things ace, but this is just silly, you'll keep complaining about anything and everything, it seems to be what you like to do, you'll ignore facts for your own opinions, it's all just pointless and well, ruining what was otherwise a decent thread about a dreadful situation, actually two threads, as you have the same act going in both.

As for reporting you, I could care less, I'm not the one pissing and moaning in multiple threads about how I was attacked, shall we draw you a picture of how the 'report post' button works? I'm only asking because it seems to be another concept you are unable to grasp, or you just like to complain for complainings sake as I've stated before.

I guess I can see that. Scale, distance, and velocity are completely distorted in the BP liveasset video. I've been watching it all day. The only thing I've learned is that it is possible to become a bit seasick simply from watching an underwater sub video.

Haha, I know what you mean Cimarron, have to take a break from the feed every now and again.

this isn't good.

BP?s Effort to Plug Oil Leak Suspended a Second Time - NYTimes.com

in part because when they release pressure on the well all the mud that's been injected gets blown back out again, so it's back to square one. it's possible that something has happened on the riser area as well, but i'm not going to pretend that my speculations concerning what the bp feed is showing are accurate in any way. nor am i going to try to sort through the various interpretations from the oil drum people about it.

what's emerging as a consensus there, and in a couple other places, is that the best and safest bet at this point is probably the relief wells. but that's really really not good. really not good at all.

the feed link again:
Live video link from the ROV monitoring the damaged riser

the oil drum thread that's about today's installment of the top kill show:

The Oil Drum | Deepwater Oil Spill - Top Kill Update, Restarting the Mud, and Comment Thread

yikes.

this is grim business and i think sometimes the scale of it gets to me.
i am constituted as a meat-space person to try to understand things that bother me once avoidance, which is always my first instinct, doesn't work. and it rarely works. though i keep trying it out for short periods of time. anyway, this is reaching a point of being a grind for me. i think i'm taking the evening off. maybe the morning too. no more feed watching for a bit.

What are you doing in this post?

Why do you find it o.k. for you to do what you are doing but wrong if someone else does it?

Good idea, roach.

I'm going to refill the the bird feeders in the back yard.

What am I doing ace? You going to say I'm 'attacking' you? Show me this percieved attack, should be good for a chuckle. This is pointless, you'll just play the victim card over and over and over again, it's like a broken record, have fun ace, I'm done conversing with you, it's pointless, maybe I'll go watch the grass grow instead.

If enough people say it's pointless discussing/debating, they tend not to be talking about the topic at all. Admittedly, talking about the leak doesn't fix it. That our current president won't be able to start a war over this might make it seem less...wrong...than 9/11, but I don't think it is, in the long run. Economists? Politicians? Bacteria. I haven't volunteered anything useful. I think it's sad we let sharing information come between us in these ways.

operations are ongoing it seems. the speculation from the oil drum is that bp is trying junk shots and mud injections then backing off to see how things worked out, which allows the oil to push the mud and other stuff back out again.

here's the commentary thread at the oil drum, which is still very good:

The Oil Drum | Deepwater Oil Spill - Deciphering The New Activity (Top Kill, Junk Shot, Etc.), Watching the Flows, and a Live Comment Thread

and this post from the comments to this thread written by someone whose screen name is rockman helped me feel like my grip on the top kill process is a little better

it seems that people are watching the feed and posting to this site as thing happen, trading information and interpretations. it's still the best source i've found for both.

apparently bp has stopped drilling one of the relief wells. this without particular explanation.

meanwhile, the rhetorical conflict over the clean-up, such as it is at this point, continues to happen much more quickly than does any actual cleaning up:

Gulf oil spill is public health risk, environmental scientists warn | Environment | The Guardian

you probably know already that the top kill failed.

washingtonpost.com

and this from the ny times is a kind of analysis i suppose but one of those that talks about things which are said to float about in some american mind. i dont know what that mind is, but i read about it from time to time when i allow judgment to lapse. this time, what's being affected is an american belief in technology, in the idea that it is a kind of deus ex machina

Our Fix-It Faith and the Oil Spill - NYTimes.com

ugh.
the top kill failure is terrible news.
one can only hope that the containment/cleaning up is taken WAY more seriously than it currently appears to be.
my heart goes out to the people along the gulf.

Mine, too, roachboy. Demonizing the well to distract from our mistake will probably work, but I think Byron King should have analyzed his speech a little better. Hell, our President might have, as well. Natural processes will clean up the mess, in due course. Compensating our fellows will probably be impossible.

"How do you hurt a man who's lost everything? Give him back something broken."

Seems it's the next part of this 'plan' the Lower Marine Riser Package, that still isn't going to stop anything, but will contain 'most' of the oil. The relief wells are still their big hope, but they won't be done until some time in August, I still have no idea how some can call this a plan, all these seem to me are stabs in the dark, and they're just hoping one actually does something, sure seems like drilling relief wells while drilling the producing well makes sense, but I guess after the fact is the best 'plan'.
BP Oil Spill: Top Kill Is Killed, Lower Marine Riser Package Next

If only there were already a relief well and/or an acoustic switch on the blowout preventer.

Hindsight is 20/20, as it were, but foresight is still undervalued, unless you're Norway and Brazil.

A relief well already being drilled isn't really hindsight, to me at least, it's more common sense when drilling at depths such as that, I mean they obviously knew if anything went wrong, it would be a chore to seal the leak as any method attempted wouldn't have been tried at that depth before, and that any fix they tried would be more of a hail mary pass than an actual 'plan'. You are right though foresight is still undervalued, or it gets blinded by dollar signs.

Edit: Not sure if this has been posted before, just noticed it on another site:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/us...pagewanted=all

nice. what seems clear is that the relief wells are the best hope of actually stopping the geyser of oil. that's been clear from the start to some folks who seem to know things about oil wells and drilling and this sort of problem on the surface of the earth.

from the oil drum an interesting speculative narrative of how the explosion happened:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6531

the relief well is apparently not a panacea.
they won't necessarily do what they're being drilled to do.
but they're certainly the best hope for stopping the flow of new oil.


it's quite alarming, the information that's surfacing about the extent of the oil.
the use of dispersants to weight it down is curous. problematic.
this before anything like a coherent view on the damage that's being done is assembled.
more plumage:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/0..._n_591994.html

So the question: If all of this happened before (and we seem to have forgotten about it) why haven't our preparations for preventing and/or stopping this sort of disaster changed? Especially when it's the exact same company. Especially when the drilling is happening at even greater depths.

here's a widget that tracks the extent of oil:

Gulf Oil Spill Tracker

roachboy, thanks for all your good info on this tragedy for us all. The oil drum site is a great resource.

I have been using these sites to track the spill each day:

Map and Estimates of Oil Spilled in the Gulf of Mexico - Interactive Map - NYTimes.com

See how the oil spill grows in the Gulf of Mexico - USATODAY.com

here's an infographic that makes the extent of the oil spill and potentials for damage really quite plain:

CRUDE AWAKENING


edit: best that can be determined bp's suspended most meaningful operations to stop the flow of new oil.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6541#comments_top

it appears that an attempt that's detailed far better at the link above than i could hope to do here failed.
the consensus on the oil drum is that the next phase will be the relief wells.

what's curious about the viewpoints on that site is that while there's considerable engineering and oil experience, there's also a tendency to dismiss ecological considerations...well maybe to minimize them is more accurate a statement. it's peculiar. but it's also an indication of the scenario we're all in at the moment in terms of information. there's not a whole lot of data yet. there are persistent reports that bp and the coast guard have been obstructing attempts to get access to affected areas (see the infographic for alot about all this) & the bp has been trying to minimize the sense of amount of oil that's already out and the rate at which it is flowing because they're trying to minimize the fines they're apt to get whacked with, which are determined on a per/barrel basis.

when you hear about plumes of oil, as the people on the oil drum point out, there's no consistency in terms of what that means. they will write again and again that a plume can contain levels of oil in the parts per billion range or a saturation. there's no agreement about toxicities amongst these people, nor is there any agreement about the implications of the dispersants.

autonomous information sources appear to be working at a lag. it's less simple to say things about ecological damage than it is to estimate the number of gallons of oil blowing through a cracked pipe or 3 a mile below the surface of the ocean. and there are fewer visuals.

it's hard to get other information really. and it's difficult to know what to make of some of what information there is available.

maybe this is a significant dimension of how consent for the petroleum-economy is maintained--ignorance plus cheap gas. so the walmart way.

It begs the question who actually was or is in charge of this?

Oil spill burn plan in place, but fire booms weren't

US had burn-off plan for oil spills but the equipment wasn’t there - Times Online

Gulf oil spill: BP could face ban as US launches criminal investigation | Environment | The Guardian

the financial times version:
FT.com / US / Politics & Foreign policy - US orders criminal probe into BP oil spill

so let's think about this for a second.
first, it's obvious that no-one buys attempts to shift responsibility onto the state. reality is in the way.
the question of which particular laws were broken is a technical matter that i'm not competent to comment on too much. but criminal negligence...that's clear from what we know of the period leading up to the explosion.

the irony is that there's probably no prosecution that can happen around what's among the worst combinations behind this disaster: mms decision to accept bp's claim an accident was "unlikely" enough that planning for disaster contingencies fitted to the specific conditions of drilling a mile below the surface were deemed an unnecessary bother. profit and fees uber alles. besides bidness knows best.
so the best we can hope for there is a wholesale reworking on the rules of the game that moves away from this illusion that profit seeking=a generalizable rationality.

what i'm curious about is: can officers of a corporation be brought up on criminal charges over this?

what happens if bp loses its ability to operate in the united states? that would effectively put them out of business if i understand the situation correctly. if bp goes out of business, who will pay the damages caused by the massive leak and disaster that their negligence--enabled by a conservative-oriented regulatory set up---have visited upon the gulf?

who will pay for the clean up?
where will the technologies required come from?

it seems to me that liability limitations are a real problem in a situation like this. why would it not make sense for bp already to be planning for it's own bankruptcy as a way to avoid the consequences of their action?

will any of these assholes do jail time?
will putting them in jail clean up the gulf? will it restore the marshlands or regenerate the food chain?

at the same time i am absolutely in favor of prosecuting all the people who operated or even hold shares in any of the three main corporate persons at the center of this nightmare.
but at the same time...it seems like this is a self-evident limit to any notion of corporate responsibility social or otherwise that it is a person until it encounters consequences for its own actions that are too big to bear at which point it becomes an abstract concern again and disappears.

but i am not a lawyer.
i rather hope i don't understand basic things about how this sort of prosecution would work.

Burning the oil doesn't sound like the best plan. Regulations would have had a good chance of preventing something like this. As well as getting Americans to change the way they use oil.

Yet I doubt even this event will change the minds of people in that region to stop using oil/gas and become greener.

The taxpayers of the United States.

The taxpayers of the United States.


Answers both your questions.

BP will probably declare bankruptcy in order to be able to simply walk away.

Will their fat-cats do time? Maybe. But it will take years and years to get them and a lot of money.

From your neighborhood capitalist.
 

I have an agenda, which is to increase domestic oil production to feed business growth and expansion in this country as we transition to increased use of non-fossil fuels. What I post supports my agenda.

From IBD editorial pages today:

Environmentalists Also To Blame For Exxon Valdez And Gulf Spills - IBD - Investors.com

There are consequences to actions taken - environmentalists should reflect on their strategy considering the current disaster.

not much time at the moment to respond to the inverted world post above.

more activity at the leak site, another problem:

washingtonpost.com

informed almost play-by-play from the oil drum here:

The Oil Drum | BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - The Saw is Stuck, Working on the Riser, and an Open Thread

meanwhile, bp's share values are vaporizing:
BP oil spill: Shares fall further | Business | guardian.co.uk

so hayward comes clean about bp's lack of adequate planning and technology and then talks about the need for a "rethink"

FT.com / World - Hayward urges oil industry rethink

this is some of the stuff that's happening in the reality that people know about who read things that aren't the ibd editorial page.
but feel free to post more "relevant" materials.

Actions have consequences.
 

Our current administration often responds in ways that appears to lack much forethought, here is another example as it relates to this spill.

Oil Industry Starts To Halt Gulf Drilling, Raises Concerns - WSJ.com

Obama thinks he is hitting the major oil companies, but he is actually hurting the local Gulf states economies, the people who work in the industry and those who work to support the industry. So they get hit with an inadequate response by the government and now a knee-jerk reaction by the government.

edit [[i deleted an earlier post. i thought better of it and replaced it with this]]

here's a nice compact-ish history of conservative and industry attempts to take over the category "environmentalist" and use it to discredit an entire set of concerns:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m.../ai_n29440361/

in ace's infotainment above, we aren't really talking about anything in particular when the word "environmentalist" comes up--it's just another conservative boogeyman, another evil faction of the liberal elite which sucks the blood of right-thinking americans and the corporate practices for which they stand. we're dealing with straight-up conservative ideology then that's being fobbed off as viable information.

i have an agenda in this thread. my agenda is trying to understand what the fuck is happening at the site of the deepwater horizon disaster. i am interested in its political and by extension regulation-based conditions of possibility. i am interested in the specific history of bp in the gulf and the ways in which these converge on the disaster itself, as explanations of it. i am interested in the politics that have taken shape around the attempts to stop the massive flow of oil into the waters of the gulf of mexico. i'm interested in the conflicts that are taking shape between the federal and state governments and bp around the clean-up, to the extent that there is one. i am interested in assessments of damage and proposals for remedies. i'm interested to see what, if anything, happens to the corporate persons involved with this mess. i'm interested to see what, if any, role other stakeholders in the gulf area are allowed to take in shaping what happens with the oil.

i'm interested in the appalling brand triage that bp's been running and that its starting to fall apart.
and i'm interested in the longer run to see how this disaster changes the regulatory framework first and more generally the politics of petroleum.

the information i gather and post here is shaped by this range of interests, but since the thread is a real-time research project, it's not shaped by the interests.


i say this to demonstrate why i consider what you are now doing, ace darling, to be a threadjack.

rb-

As this thing drags on, I'm starting to think that the expense of the leak and the clean up are, in the near term, going to serve as a deterent against reckless behavior on the oil companys' part. I think that the bean counters are going to change their tune regarding "reasonable" preventative measures on future sites. I'll bet reasonable includes quite a bit more than it used to.

I still believe there needs to be complete reform in the process at the corporate/government levels, for the long run.

Here's another thing that I don't understand. Keep in mind, I don't know crap about drilling: So, why does a relief well have to be drilled 20,000 or so feet deep? Why can't you drill a hole at an angle to a merge depth of 1000 feet and plunge into the current hole with a sort of diverter. Then, the new hole serves as the syphon/relief. Is there some technical reason this can't be done? Perhaps the casing of the current well is too tough to crack?

cimmaron: the relief well question is answered a couple times on the oil drum site, but i haven't time at the moment to find it. i suspect you can search it up if you have a moment. if you do, please post it as i think this is one of the questions that will puzzle other drilling dilletantes. i'm another.

I have concerns about the environment, I want to preserve it and I want to protect it. I am also a capitalist and a conservative - seems to me that some take the position that what I describe is in conflict. It is not. "Environmentalists" are those who do believe what I describe is in conflict. It is not uncommon in normal discord for terms to be defined, it increases understanding.

Is a threadjack a posting that does not support your point of view?

BP failed, regulation failed. More or different regulation will not prevent regulation from failing. If you want to understand what happened you have to understand, why certain risks are being taken. If you are interested in a new regulatory frame work you have to understand the folly in emotion based knee-jerk reaction. Both are very relevant to the issue at hand.

Threadjack indeed! You want me silenced, you don't want your view-point challenged!