Louisiana Oil Rig Fire / Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill - Page 6 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

ring · 05-26-2010, 10:05 AM

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.

Cimarron29414 · 05-26-2010, 12:03 PM

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.

roachboy · 05-26-2010, 12:32 PM

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.

Cimarron29414 · 05-26-2010, 12:43 PM

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.

ring · 05-26-2010, 12:49 PM

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.

roachboy · 05-26-2010, 01:05 PM

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.

Cimarron29414 · 05-26-2010, 01:07 PM

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...

roachboy · 05-26-2010, 02:29 PM

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

YouTube - Top Kill Animation

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

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

Ourcrazymodern? · 05-26-2010, 03:35 PM

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.

roachboy · 05-27-2010, 05:58 AM

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.

Quote:

BP Used Riskier Method to Seal Oil Well Before Blast
By IAN URBINA

WASHINGTON — Several days before the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, BP officials chose, partly for financial reasons, to use a type of casing for the well that the company knew was the riskier of two options, according to a BP document.

The concern with the method BP chose, the document said, was that if the cement around the casing pipe did not seal properly, gases could leak all the way to the wellhead, where only a single seal would serve as a barrier.

Using a different type of casing would have provided two barriers, according to the document, which was provided to The New York Times by a Congressional investigator.

Workers from the rig and company officials have said that hours before the explosion, gases were leaking through the cement, which had been set in place by the oil services contractor, Halliburton. Investigators have said these leaks were the likely cause of the explosion.

The approach taken by the company was described as the “best economic case” in the BP document. However, it also carried risks beyond the potential gas leaks, including the possibility that more work would be needed or that there would be delays, the document said.

BP’s decision was “without a doubt a riskier way to go,” said Greg McCormack, director of the Petroleum Extension Service at the University of Texas at Austin. Several other engineers agreed with Mr. McCormack’s assessment of the BP document.

Andrew Gowers, a spokesman for BP, said that there was no industry standard for the casing to be used in deepwater wells and that the approach by the Deepwater Horizon had not been unusual. “BP engineers evaluate various factors for each well to determine the most appropriate casing strategy,” he said.

The role of financial and time pressures in the rig blast is one focus of a series of hearings by the Coast Guard and the Minerals Management Service that began Wednesday in Kenner, just outside New Orleans.

Douglas H. Brown, the chief mechanic for the Deepwater Horizon, testified Wednesday that he witnessed a “skirmish” on the rig between a BP well site leader and crew members employed by Transocean, the rig’s owner, the morning of the blast.

Mr. Brown said the disagreement followed BP’s decision to replace heavy drilling fluid with lighter saltwater before the well was sealed with a final cement plug.

“Well, this is how it’s going to be,” the BP official said, according to Mr. Brown.

Mr. Gowers declined to answer questions about workers’ accusations or about whether cost may have factored into the company’s decision to use the casing system it chose for the Deepwater Horizon.

BP executives will probably face tough questioning about cost-cutting measures on Thursday when they testify before the House Committee on Natural Resources. As more details come to light about the events that led to the explosion, investigators are trying to determine which decisions and incidents — or combination of them — may have led to the accident, which killed 11 workers.

For example, Representative Nick J. Rahall II, Democrat of West Virginia and the chairman of the committee, said BP executives would face questions about why they let workers from Schlumberger, a drilling-services contractor, leave the morning of the accident without conducting a special test on the quality of the cement work.

Engineers have described these tests, called cement bond logs, as an important tool for ensuring cement integrity.

The decision about the casings will also come up during the hearings.

Professor McCormack said that while the type of casing that BP chose to use was more expensive in the short term, it was ultimately the more cost-effective and versatile alternative because it would have allowed the company to more easily drill deeper in the same hole if they decide to do so later.

But, the BP records explain, the casing chosen by the company may also cause problems if drilling mud or cement is lost or pushed away from the well into porous rocks as it is pumped.

Federal and company records indicate that that is just what happened, on more than one occasion. The rig lost all of its drilling mud in an incident in March, and in the days immediately before the explosion, records show. The well experienced several other instances of minor losses of drilling fluid and gas kicks, according to interviews with workers from the rig.

The April 20 disagreement between the BP well site leader and Transocean officials is also a growing focus of the investigation.

At a briefing in Washington on Wednesday, investigators laid out a chain of events, beginning with an operational error, that appear to have led to the accident.

The findings are preliminary, and come from BP, which owns the lease on the well and has pointed fingers at other companies for the problems on the rig, including Transocean.

The BP officials said that rig workers apparently had not pumped in enough water to fully replace the buffer liquid between the water and the mud, which stayed in the blowout preventer, the stack of safety valves at the wellhead.

This thick liquid, which is about one-third solid material, may have clogged the pipe that was used for crucial “negative pressure” tests to determine whether the well was properly sealed. The result was a pressure reading of zero (because the pipe was plugged, not because there was no pressure in the well) and the workers apparently misinterpreted that result as indicating a successful test.

Rig workers declared they were “satisfied” with the tests and started to replace drilling mud in the pipe to the seabed with water. About two hours later, the blowout and explosion occurred.

Evidence began emerging Wednesday that BP officials may have had an incentive to proceed quickly.

A member of the federal panel investigating the cause of the blast said that before the explosion, the company had hoped to use the Deepwater Horizon to drill another well by early March, but was behind schedule.

BP applied to use the Deepwater rig to drill in another oil field by March 8, said Jason Mathews, a petroleum engineer for the Minerals Management Service.

Based on an estimate of $500,000 per day to drill on the site, the delay of 43 days had cost BP more than $21 million by the day of the explosion on April 20, Mr. Mathews estimated.

A Transocean official — Adrian Rose, the company’s health, safety and environmental manager — confirmed that BP leased the rig for $533,000 per day. He could not confirm where the Deepwater Horizon was planning to go next, but he said it was going to undertake another drill, probably for BP.

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.

ring · 05-27-2010, 06:49 AM

AP sources: Minerals Management Service head fired

roachboy · 05-27-2010, 06:59 AM

from the guardian blog/feed:

Quote:

Marcia McNutt, director of US Geological Survey (and scientific adviser to interior sec Ken Salazar), has been giving figures suggesting flow of oil from the leak has been much higher than BP estimated.

According to three different scientific measurement methods, the leak has been flowing at minimum of 12,000 barrels per day, and it could be as much as 19,000 barrels. That's way above BP's estimate of 5,000 barrels.

As of May 17, a Nasa imaging plane found 130,000 to 270,000 barrels of oil on the surface of Gulf. Roughly the same volume again had already been burned, skimmed, dispersed or evaporated.

"This is obviously a very, very significant environmental disaster," McNutt said.

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

posted @ 3:23 pm

Baraka_Guru · 05-27-2010, 07:06 AM

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.

The_Jazz · 05-27-2010, 07:21 AM

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.

Baraka_Guru · 05-27-2010, 07:32 AM

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

roachboy · 05-27-2010, 07:34 AM

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? )

aceventura3 · 05-27-2010, 07:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

ace---stop it. either do the research and get a working understanding of the general framework that's in place here or stop blathering as if you know. it's obvious you don't. the absurdity of that last analogy removes any doubt.

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.

roachboy · 05-27-2010, 07:38 AM

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.

aceventura3 · 05-27-2010, 08:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

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:"?

roachboy · 05-27-2010, 08:10 AM

note the date.

Quote:

September 11, 2008
Sex, Drug Use and Graft Cited in Interior Department
By CHARLIE SAVAGE

WASHINGTON — As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal — including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.

In three reports delivered to Congress on Wednesday, the department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, found wrongdoing by a dozen current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects about $10 billion in royalties annually and is one of the government’s largest sources of revenue other than taxes.

“A culture of ethical failure” pervades the agency, Mr. Devaney wrote in a cover memo.

The reports portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch.

The highest-ranking official criticized in the reports is Lucy Q. Denett, the former associate director of minerals revenue management, who retired earlier this year as the inquiry was progressing.

The investigations are the latest installment in a series of scathing inquiries into the program’s management and competence in recent years. While previous reports have focused on problems the agency had in collecting millions of dollars owed to the Treasury, and hinted at personal misconduct, the new reports go far beyond any previous study in revealing serious concerns with the integrity and behavior of the agency’s officials.

In one of the new reports, investigators concluded that Ms. Denett worked with two aides to steer a lucrative consulting contract to one of the aides after he retired, violating competitive procurement rules.

Two other reports focus on “a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity” in the service’s royalty-in-kind program. That part of the agency collects about $4 billion a year in oil and gas rather than cash royalties.

Based in suburban Denver and modeled to operate like a private sector energy company, the decade-old royalty-in-kind program sells oil and gas on the open market. Its employees are subject to government ethics rules, such as restrictions on taking gifts from people and companies with whom they conduct official business.

One of the reports says that the officials viewed themselves as exempt from those limits, indulging themselves in the expense-account-fueled world of oil and gas executives.

The reports provoked immediate outrage in Congress. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who is chairman of the Public Lands and Forests Subcommittee, accused the Minerals Management Service on the Senate floor Wednesday of “a pattern of abuses and mismanagement” that is costing taxpayers billions.

And Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, suggested that Congress should not lift its ban on offshore drilling — a hot-button issue in his state — because of the problems identified.

The report says that eight officials in the royalty program accepted gifts from energy companies whose value exceeded limits set by ethics rules — including golf, ski and paintball outings; meals and drinks; and tickets to a Toby Keith concert, a Houston Texans football game and a Colorado Rockies baseball game.

The investigation also concluded that several of the officials “frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.”

The investigation separately found that the program’s manager mixed official and personal business. In sometimes lurid detail, the report also accuses him of having intimate relations with two subordinates, one of whom regularly sold him cocaine.

The culture of the organization “appeared to be devoid of both the ethical standards and internal controls sufficient to protect the integrity of this vital revenue-producing program,” one report said.

The director of the Minerals Management Service, Randall Luthi, said in a conference call with reporters that the officials implicated in the reports had violated the public’s trust.

“When you come to work for the federal government, the American people expect the best of you,” he said, adding, “I am not going to leave this post in January without addressing this problem.” Mr. Luthi, who became the service director in July 2007, said that the agency had requested the investigation after receiving whistle-blower complaints in the spring of 2006, and that it had already made several changes. A spokesman for Mr. Devaney declined to comment.

A former official named in the report, Jimmy W. Mayberry, pleaded guilty to a felony conflict-of-interest charge in August and faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

In late 2002, when he was about to retire, Mr. Mayberry drafted a “statement of work” for a consulting contract to perform essentially identical functions to his own. He then retired, started a company, and in June 2003 won the contract with the help of Ms. Denett and Milton Dial, another friend at the agency.

Danny Onorato, the lawyer representing Mr. Mayberry, said his client had a sentencing date in November, but added that “we are not interested in having Mr. Mayberry speak.”

The inspector general also urged the administration to take action against several of the officials in the royalty-in-kind program who accepted gifts from the oil companies, by firing them or banning them for life from certain positions. Several have already been transferred out of the program but remain on the government payroll, the report said.

But two of the highest-ranking officials who were subjects of the investigations will apparently escape penalty. Both retired during the investigation, rendering them safe from any administrative punishment, and the Justice Department has declined to prosecute them on the charges suggested by the inspector general.

One of them is Ms. Denett, who oversaw the Denver-based royalty-in-kind program from Washington. The report contends that she manipulated the contracting process to steer the consulting work to Mr. Mayberry, her friend and former special assistant.

Six other companies submitted bids for the contract, spending more than $90,000 on their proposals. The report said an Interior Department procurement lawyer described the arrangement as one in which “the fix is in throughout — this is tainted from the beginning, that is totally improper.”

Ms. Denett did not return a message left at her home on Wednesday with her husband, Paul A. Denett, who was the top procurement official in the White House Office of Management and Budget until he resigned this month. He declined to comment.

But the report quotes Ms. Denett repeatedly telling investigators that in retrospect she had made a “very poor” decision. She also told them that “she had been preoccupied with a very stressful personal issue at the time,” which the report did not describe.

The other high-ranking official the Justice Department has declined to prosecute is Gregory W. Smith, the former program director of the royalty-in-kind program. Mr. Smith worked in Colorado and reported to Ms. Denett. He retired in 2007.

The report said that Mr. Smith improperly used his position with the royalty program to get an outside consulting job helping a technical services firm seek deals with oil and gas companies with which he was also conducting official business.

The report accused Mr. Smith of improperly accepting gifts from the oil and gas industry, of engaging in sex with two subordinates and of using cocaine that he purchased from his secretary or her boyfriend several times a year between 2002 and 2005. He sometimes asked for the drugs and received them in his office during work hours, the report said.

The report also said that Mr. Smith lied to investigators about these and other incidents, and that he urged the two women subordinates to mislead the investigators as well.

In discussions with investigators, the report said, Mr. Smith acknowledged buying cocaine from his secretary and having a sexual encounter with her at her home, but he denied discussing drugs at work. He also denied telling anyone to lie, saying that he only told people that “no one has a right to know what I do on my personal time.”

The report omits any response from Mr. Smith about allegations of sexual misconduct with another female subordinate.

Mr. Smith on Wednesday referred questions to his lawyer, Steve Peters, who said he had not yet seen the report. But he lauded Mr. Smith’s work with the royalty-in-kind program.

“Greg Smith was a loyal, dedicated employee of the federal government for more than 28 years, and notwithstanding the unfair and in many respects inaccurate allegations in today’s report, Greg is very proud of what he accomplished — and he should be,” Mr. Peters said. A Justice Department spokeswoman, Laura Sweeney, declined to explain why prosecutors chose not to bring charges against Ms. Denett or Mr. Smith, citing departmental policy.

The report also detailed cozy relationships between energy companies and other officials in the royalty-in-kind program office. Some 19 officials — a third of the staff — took gifts from oil and gas executives, some with “prodigious frequency,” it said.

On one occasion in 2002, the report said, two of the officials who marketed taxpayers’ oil got so drunk at a daytime golfing event sponsored by Shell that they could not drive to their hotels and were put up in Shell-provided lodging. Two female employees “engaged in brief sexual relationships with industry contacts,” the reports’ cover memo said, adding that “sexual relationships with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms’ length.”

On one occasion, the report said, the royalty-in-kind program allowed a Chevron representative who had won a bid to purchase some of the government’s oil to pay taxpayers a lower amount than his winning offer because he said he had made a mistake in his calculations. A report from Mr. Devaney’s office earlier this year found that the program had frequently allowed companies that purchased the oil and gas to revise their bids downward after they won contracts. It documented 118 such occasions that cost taxpayers about $4.4 million in all.

On another occasion, the new report said, one of the officials shared information about the confidential price a pipeline company was charging the government.

The report said that the officials told investigators that the gifts and socializing did not affect how they treated the companies in their official duties.

They also said they did not view socializing with oil company representatives and taking gifts as inappropriate because they said they needed to be part of the marketing culture in order to market the program’s oil and gas. Several of the lower-ranking program officials have been transferred out of their old jobs, the report said. It recommended stronger supervision and a series of changes to make clearer the limits of acceptable behavior, some of which Mr. Luthi said have already been implemented.

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.

aceventura3 · 05-27-2010, 10:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

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.

roachboy · 05-27-2010, 10:14 AM

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

silent_jay · 05-27-2010, 10:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

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.

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.

But please, carry on with the e-penis contest....

aceventura3 · 05-27-2010, 10:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

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

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 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by silent_jay

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.

But please, carry on with the e-penis contest....

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?

silent_jay · 05-27-2010, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

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?

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.

Quote:

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?

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.

The_Jazz · 05-27-2010, 10:44 AM

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.

aceventura3 · 05-27-2010, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Jazz

Ace - it is quite simple. BP quite obviously had no plan in place to deal with this set of circumstances. It is blindingly obvious.

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 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by silent_jay

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.

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.

silent_jay · 05-27-2010, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

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.

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.

Quote:

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.

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

Cimarron29414 · 05-27-2010, 11:22 AM

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.

roachboy · 05-27-2010, 11:31 AM

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.

ring · 05-27-2010, 11:49 AM

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

The_Jazz · 05-27-2010, 12:14 PM

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.

aceventura3 · 05-27-2010, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cimarron29414

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.

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

Quote:

insisted last night that its contingency plan had worked, despite coming under fire in Congress for minimising the risks of offshore drilling and trying to shirk blame for the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

With an estimated 4m gallons of oil polluting the gulf from the ruptured well, Lamar McKay, the chief executive of BP America, said the company had adequately anticipated the potential scale of any spill and that its clean-up operation had gone according to plan.

"We had a very specific plan," he told the Senate. "It has actually worked." But he acknowledged the spill could grow to nearly 19m US gallons by the time a relief well – the only sure method of stopping the leak – is drilled. BP's defence came at the end of a testy day of hearings before two committees which saw the three oil titans connected to the disaster repeatedly accused of trying to slough off their financial and legal obligations.

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.

Quote:

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.

So, why not answer simple questions?

Quote:

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 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 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by silent_jay

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.

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.

Quote:

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

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

ring · 05-27-2010, 01:19 PM

"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?

aceventura3 · 05-27-2010, 01:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Jazz

Ace, you're bordering on willful ignorance.

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?

ring · 05-27-2010, 01:38 PM

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.

aceventura3 · 05-27-2010, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ring

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.

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.

Quote:

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.

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

ring · 05-27-2010, 02:42 PM

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."

Idyllic · 05-27-2010, 03:44 PM

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.

ring · 05-27-2010, 03:52 PM

A handkerchief, for miss Idyllic:

Yes, I also, have had tears today.

05-26-2010, 12:03 PM	#202 (permalink)
Cimarron29414 Still Free Location: comfortably perched at the top of the bell curve!	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. __________________ Gives a man a halo, does mead. "Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly." Last edited by Cimarron29414; 05-26-2010 at 01:02 PM..

05-26-2010, 12:32 PM	#203 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	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. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

05-26-2010, 12:43 PM	#204 (permalink)
Cimarron29414 Still Free Location: comfortably perched at the top of the bell curve!	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. __________________ Gives a man a halo, does mead. "Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

05-26-2010, 12:49 PM	#205 (permalink)
ring ░ Location: ❤	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. Last edited by ring; 05-26-2010 at 12:52 PM..

05-26-2010, 01:05 PM	#206 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	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. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

05-26-2010, 10:05 AM	#201 (permalink)
ring ░ Location: ❤	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.

05-26-2010, 01:07 PM	#207 (permalink)
Cimarron29414 Still Free Location: comfortably perched at the top of the bell curve!	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... __________________ Gives a man a halo, does mead. "Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly." Last edited by Cimarron29414; 05-26-2010 at 01:16 PM..

05-26-2010, 03:35 PM	#209 (permalink)
Ourcrazymodern? still, wondering. Location: South Minneapolis, somewhere near the gorgeous gorge	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. __________________ BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

05-27-2010, 06:49 AM	#211 (permalink)
ring ░ Location: ❤	AP sources: Minerals Management Service head fired

05-27-2010, 07:06 AM	#213 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	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. __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

05-27-2010, 07:21 AM	#214 (permalink)
The_Jazz Asshole Administrator Location: Chicago	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. __________________ "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

05-27-2010, 07:32 AM	#215 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	The comparison is purely for issues of scale. The numbers might otherwise get lost when you see those ,000s. __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

05-27-2010, 07:34 AM	#216 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	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? ) __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

05-27-2010, 07:38 AM	#218 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	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. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 05-27-2010 at 07:41 AM..

05-27-2010, 10:14 AM	#222 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	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 __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 05-27-2010 at 10:18 AM..

05-27-2010, 10:44 AM	#226 (permalink)
The_Jazz Asshole Administrator Location: Chicago	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. __________________ "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

05-27-2010, 11:22 AM	#229 (permalink)
Cimarron29414 Still Free Location: comfortably perched at the top of the bell curve!	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. __________________ Gives a man a halo, does mead. "Here lies The_Jazz: Killed by an ambitious, sparkly, pink butterfly."

05-27-2010, 11:31 AM	#230 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	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. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 05-27-2010 at 11:41 AM..

05-27-2010, 11:49 AM	#231 (permalink)
ring ░ Location: ❤	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

05-27-2010, 12:14 PM	#232 (permalink)
The_Jazz Asshole Administrator Location: Chicago	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. __________________ "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

05-27-2010, 01:19 PM	#234 (permalink)
ring ░ Location: ❤	"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? Last edited by ring; 05-27-2010 at 01:24 PM..

05-27-2010, 01:38 PM	#236 (permalink)
ring ░ Location: ❤	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.

05-27-2010, 02:42 PM	#238 (permalink)
ring ░ Location: ❤	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."

05-27-2010, 03:44 PM	#239 (permalink)
Idyllic Psycho Location: My House	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. __________________ you can tell them all you want but it won't matter until they think it does p.s. I contradict my contradictions, with or without intention, sometimes.

05-27-2010, 03:52 PM	#240 (permalink)
ring ░ Location: ❤	A handkerchief, for miss Idyllic: Yes, I also, have had tears today.