After a month of spill & 6 MILLION gallons of oil in the Gulf, has Obama trusted in BP too much?

Live flow of oil rushing into the Gulf (availability based on BP) - http://video.ap.org/?pid=R9msqOsYZ2TmkWttgWjBgV72_tYSs_Oh&f=advoh


April 20, 2010 - Transocean Ltd's drilling rig, "Deepwater Horizon" explodes and catches fire in the Gulf. The rig was drilling in BP's Macondo project 42 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana, beneath 5,000 feet of water and 13,000 feet under the seabed. A blowout preventer, intended to prevent release of crude oil, failed to activate causing the largest oil disaster the world has ever seen.



April 22 - Rig sinks; five mile long oil slick is seen.

April 25 - The Coast Guard says 1,000 barrels of crude oil per day are being leaked into the Gulf. The agency calls the leak a "very serious spill" that threatens ecosystems along the Gulf Coast. Efforts to activate the blowout preventer fail.

April 28 - The Coast Guard says the flow of oil is now estimated at 5,000 barrels a day. A controlled burn is held on the giant oil slick.



April 29 - A week after the initial incident, with hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil already in the Gulf, President Obama pledges "every single available resource," including the U.S. military, to contain the spreading spill, which Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says is of "national significance." Obama also says BP is responsible for the cleanup. Louisiana declares state of emergency due to the threat to the state's natural resources.

April 30 - An Obama aide says no new drilling will be allowed until a cause is established for the spill.



May 2 - Obama visits the Gulf Coast to see cleanup efforts. BP starts drilling a relief well to block off the existing well's flow - a process that could take 2-3 months.

May 5 - A barge begins towing a 98-ton containment chamber to the site of the leak. BP says one of the three leaks was capped, but that it doesn't effect the flow rate. Officials conduct controlled burns, the 1st in a week.



May 6 - Oil washes ashore the Breton National Wildlife Refuge in LA., an important nesting and breeding areas for many bird species.



May 8 - BP's containment dome fails when crystallized gas forces engineers to postpone efforts to place the giant chamber over the site. "Tar balls" wash up along Dauphin Island, Alabama.



May 10 - BP announces plans to place a small containment dome, known as a "top hat," over the blown out well to funnel oil to the surface.



May 20 - LA. Senator Vitter pressures as to why the Army Corp of Engineers have not been prompted to undertake a massive dredging project to protect the lowlands of Lousiana. "I've been pushing the administration and the Corps daily in meetings, conference calls and hearings for the approval of this barrier island plan for almost two weeks," said Vitter.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/21/1640972/florida-prepares-for-oil-spill.html#ixzz0ohTtEP7J

May 21 - On Friday morning, BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles, told the CBS that in the worst case scenario, the gusher could continue until early August, when one of two new relief wells would be completed to cap the flow permanently. Suttles said,
"I'm optimistic, I'm very optimistic that the Gulf will fully recover", stating it's a large body of water and has withstood spills before.




May 22 - Nearly one month from the explosion, Obama establishes a panel to review the cause so that this type of disaster does not happen again.

May 23 - BP thumbs its nose at the EPA, and continues using toxic mix of dispersants, Corexit, despite warnings to discontinue use of the current formula. Mobile-area scientists warned BP officials and Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen a week ago that the use of dispersants both on the surface and underwater at the Deepwater Horizon well could have grave consequences for the Gulf ecosystem. Dr Robert Shipp, head of Alabama's Marine Sciences at the U. of AL said that BP's Peter Carragher argued with him about his findings. Shipp said, "He was lecturing me on my lack of knowledge about the marine environment. I told him we were most concerned about the oil getting in the food web if they sink it with dispersants," Shipp said. "When we started talking about the sediments and the food web, they turned off. They were all about chemical reactions and that sort of thing. They just kept saying, 'EPA approved it.'"


Huge streaks of oil mar the Gulf waters in the NASA photo below



View a google map of the spill
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=108821684574389522691.000485751dac00cf5cb8b&ll=28.72913,-84.243164&spn=9.625992,14.501953&z=6&source=embed

A disheartening, yet brief 20 second video, showing the oil starting to come ashore at Grand Isle, LA. This is but a prelude to come of the other tens of millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf that will have to be dealt with over time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AygrXQXpRcc


Regardless of BP's confidence in containing the massive flow a week after it happened, should the White House have even granted them any trust based on past disasters and corporations inherit need to downplay the facts, or outright hide them? A million gallons of oil rushed out into the Gulf before the administration swung into higher gear, as many have stated (including the NYT). Why did the White House trust BP is an intriguing question, as many of us here would not have given them an inch because their greed is what led to the disaster. It has been shown that Transocean attempted to prevent what they thought would lead to an explosion but BP decisions stopped that action. I would hope they would be rounded up for their brazen disregard for safety after the volcano of oil is stopped - whenever that is going to happen months from now - and lest we forget - Alaskans can still go easily show you oil from the Valdez accident of 1989.

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Rep. Ed Markey says BP is lying --- http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view/20100522rep_ed_markey_bps_lying_accuses_oil_company_of_lowballing_amount_of_oil_spill/

Scientists say BP is lying --- http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/05/20/bp-lies-disaster/

Video of Scientist Wereley stating flow is 70-115,000 barrels a day into Gulf http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COQN2rpk31Q

Write your Congressional Representative about your concern over trusting BP.
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

what is your suggestion?

By that logic we should let a Nuclear company pontificate around a meldown where 10s of thousands die. This is an ecological disaster of equal signfificance.

Yes! A well run government can handle this! They will still have BP working and would be directing multiple firms and have a small army of scientists as well as the Military involved.

What exactly do you think Democracy means? Seriously? Do you really believe Government should be so incompetent and impotent? If so and the public believes this too then the Republicans have *won*. Because we will have changed our belief system in democratic government to their model.

we have no deep source subs.. human beings cannot work at that rate.. and hate it we all do..but BP has the expertise in deep rig drilling.

We have to keep them in the mix.

That is just a sad fact..

Get the government out of the way and let private enterprise do whatever they want, since the free markets know best..

:eyes:

such irony as you pointed out....zillion OPs condemning RP, yet endorsing laissez faire policy toward BP

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It is extremely difficult to stop a leak over 1 mile below the ocean.
Now the clean up could be taken over by the govt. but the leak is what is causing the mess to begin with. BP should have just admitted that the relief well was the best solution. But no one wanted to there because it means waiting two more months. The "kill down" approach make work, but it is all a guess. Our military actually has less experience in this then oil company engineers do. Two things caused the leak being as big as it is: the depth of where the well is, and the lack of regulations for oil companies put in place when Cheney was VP. Once the leak happened, we were truly screwed. 5000 feet down and all the technology used before is a whole new adventure. It is anyone's guess as to how it goes. Which makes me want deep sea drilling to stop forever. No amount of regulations would make me feel better.

Also, Ixtoc I in Mexico in 1979 took 9 MONTHS to stop. 9 months.

I think it was unwise to trust in BP to be of help because they didn't even have a 'what if' scenario in place, have had numerous problems in Alaska that have been documented before this happened where leaks were ignored, and they didn't follow best-practices to prevent the explosion/spill, and have dodged efforts by the scientists to get information so non-corporate experts could be of help in preventing this. Back when this all happened someone mentioned Obama going to the UN and asking for the best experts in the world to come together to help stop BP's major catastrophe from hurting the world's oceans, and I sorta laughed about the need of going to the UN, but now, a month later - I realize that my growing disgust over BP being allowed to try and solve the mess they made seemed ridiculous! You wouldn't want a doctor that left a scalpel in your back to be the one to go back in and take it out, would you? You wouldn't want an ill-prepared mountain guide who let hikers die to save himself, go back up to rescue your son who also turned out to be missing? There's plenty of world experts that have voiced a desire to help, but BP/US Govt have kept this in BP's hands primarily - and we see the mess they've caused.

Why let the incompetent oil corporation that didn't listen to Transocean to begin with, have such a huge hand in this so-far failed catastrophe?

My friend was saying watch for the president to come out swinging on Monday, we'll see... There had to be someone out there that could have stopped this


CONGRESSMAN WARNED ABOUT BP BEFORE EXPLOSION ---

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/05/congressman-bp-safety-oil-spill

But the reason BP did not have a "what if" in place is that there really is no knowledge about how to stop a leak that far down. All the technology tried here, with the dome and now the mud with the top kill approach have been tried before just not 5000 feet down. That is the real problem here and no amount of experts can tell what will happen. They are all guessing, which is scarier then incompetence. Now, Ixtoc 1 was shallower and it took 9 months to stop. Because of better technology today, it most likely will be stopped in two months with a relief well or if the top kill approach works then by next week (we can only hope).
The anger at BP is correct, they really have damaged the Gulf beyond what anyone could ever imagine. But to say that this can be easily fixed is, in my opinion, not correct.

to stop that made me go 'oh please no', and like you, I thought, well, we're decades ahead of that, but as you pointed out, there's never been anything done to this degree before.

I sure hope the admin's review of this takes more than just the routine "going forward", and actually holds BP accountable for negligence where it is at fault. It sounds like they really blew it, figuratively and literally.

We had a woman accidentally cause a forest fire by burning a letter, and she got jail time. We didn't put her on a pedestal and ask her to direct the firefighting efforts.

And don't even think of telling me BP is the only company that knows about drilling. They cannot even direct the appropropriate boom response.

do you have any idea how toxic Corexit is?

or how weak and ineffective this makes our gov't look? that an extra-national corp can diss our EPA?

Obama should declare a state of emergency, which this is, and seize BP

then, allow in independent scientists; stop Corexit, etc.....

What's changed?

All I have seen so far is their trying to keep access to the oil and control it rather than doing what it takes to stop the leakage.

except some Russians who say they've used nukes before. Assuming Obama doesn't want to call out the nukes, and doesn't have a better plan (since it doesn't exist), then leaving BP in charge is the right thing to do. They will not be able to say "we would have had it fixed but Obama wouldn't let us". As it is, they can't dispute the blame up to the time it's fixed or they are relieved of control.

there is likely nothing that can be done to stop this spill.

Trusting BP isn't wasting time. It's similar to a cancer patient being advised to try experimental treatments. It's not going to work, but at this point, what the hell?

who puts out this talking point that there is nothing anyone can do anyway? Where are people hearing that.

think of that might account for the wait is that before starting the mud and cement insertion, it might be necessary to have a very large amount of the materials since there is no way to know how much will be required. If they were to run out of mud/cement too soon, the shutdown could fail requiring a restart of the entire process with a new supply of mud/cement. Just a guess.

ROBERT, La. It will be at least Tuesday before engineers can shoot mud into a blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, BP said Friday. It was yet another delay in the month-long effort to stop the oil that is now washing into wetlands and onto at least one public beach.

A "top kill" has been tried on land but never 5,000 feet underwater, so scientists and engineers have spent the past week preparing and taking measurements to make sure it will stop the oil that has been spewing into the sea for a month. They originally hoped to try it as early as this weekend.

BP spokesman Tom Mueller said there was no snag in the preparations, but that the company must get equipment in place and finish tests before the procedure can begin. BP already has three deepwater rigs and other equipment near the blown-out well.

"It's taking time to get everything set up," he said. "They're taking their time. It's never been done before. We've got to make sure everything is right."

Crews will shoot heavy mud into a crippled piece of equipment atop the well, which started spewing after the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20 off the coast of Louisiana, killing 11 workers. Then engineers will direct cement at the well to permanently stop the oil.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/05/22/1451104/bp-delays-effort-to-plug-well.html#ixzz0ohucGjCS

They are saying that they can. I believe that they hope that they can, there is a difference.

"who puts out this talking point that there is nothing anyone can do anyway?"

Engineers. Except it ain't a talking point. It's an observation. Spills at this depth are rare, if not unheard of. And the best strategy for dealing with this kind of spill is drilling a "relief well", which takes months.

As an example, consider the former record holder for accidental oil well blowouts.

The Ixtoc 1 oil spill took *9 months* to cap. In 50 meters of water.

BP is guessing because the engineers are guessing. No one really knows...

.

has the horrible record BP does up in Alaska? It's akin to letting someone who repeatedly dropped your most valued crystal glassware along walkway of your yard four or five times, go back up to the house and bring back your 2 week old baby. They should not have been trusted - they had no plan for something like this happening, cut corners, and have shown themselves to be untrustworthy. Just saying... I'd rather have scientists, who have been rebuffed, from the nation's top institutes and gov't experts - and heck, even another oil company who wasn't trying to cover their own ass - take over. People who are lifelong experts are repeatedly saying BP is lying to the gov't and them. This is an unmitigated disaster for the USA, #1, and secondly, turning into a disaster for the admin.

Why? What are they going to do? Obama is talking tough about holding BP accountable. He's not sitting back and saying they're doin' a heck of a job. He's telling them they're going to have to pay for this. But what else can he do? It's not a matter of trust. The govt. doesn't HAVE the equipment BP has. All they can do is watch in horror while having experts give ADVICE and have meetings to discuss how this won't happen again-more regulations, etc. What would YOU have them do?

This disaster just further shows the control that the oil giants have over this country, because up to now, it's been BP who's in charge here - and that's like letting the surgeon that has left the scalpel in the spine of 4 or 5 other patients, go back in to your central nervous system to remove the scalpel they forgot - they shouldn't be used. They didn't even have a contingency plan in case of this happening, they ignored Transocean's warnings, and they clearly don't give a rats ass about America's food safety, wildlife, and only are concerned for their profit.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/05/congressman-bp-safety-oil-spill


What should be done now? It's a bit late for that, as over a month has passed. The president let BP lead the response to a national disaster that the corporation was behind (along with plenty of help from Halliburton/deregulation/Cheney), and if this messes up the Florida beaches, keys, etc. - he will be so unpopular in this state regardless if he says he pressured BP to get it stopped - it doesn't matter, he's the president and the buck stops with him.

Some things he should do -

1 - Have the EPA/Army Corps of Engineers and top scientists who would be more than willing to help, take over this recovery, instead of letting BP take months to dig a relief well, and continue being so involved when their failures have been widely discussed.

2 - Use giant oil tankers as skimmers, as an ex-oil CEO has suggested worked in the past, but he said no one has returned his calls from BP.

3 - Start dredging the most fragile ecosystems and low-lying areas such as in Lousiana and at-risk areas of the Keys, in a preventative step to dig a zone of protection.

There are other things that can be done, but these are several that I have read about over the past month that haven't occurred yet.

Again, the buck stops with the president, and the facts are clear, as stated in the NYT article I read a few days ago, BP has been in far too much control over this, and why in the world would they be trusted with the horrible record they have?

govt. experts and why the leak has been so hard to stop. The govt. does not have the experts on this sort of thing anymore, they all left to private industry 25 to 30 years ago.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8394460&mesg_id=8394460

And I hope the leak stops soon. The worry is keeping a lot of us up at night. I am learning a lot about deep sea drilling but I wish I didn't have to.

than I care to, either! LOL

But, if it continues to go unabated for months, one thing it will do is make offshore drilling highly unlikely for a long enough period that perhaps, just perhaps - renewable energy can take over!

Do you really believe that? One thing that is coming through to me is that our government is becoming powerless against corporate interests and each time we have had a crisis brought on by bad actors in the corporate community not even have they been brought to justice but they have been able to reap windfalls and continue on as usual afterwards.

Do you really believe that deep exploration will be stopped or reduced? I am afraid that we just don't have that capability anymore. We will throw out a few "regulations" that are inadequate, say we solved the problem, and want to "move on".

things get done - B*sh did it to us in '08, and got what he wanted for his gestapo gang, to the tune of, what, $700 billion? Maybe the president just needs to orchestrate with the right gov't officials he's placed and state without changing the system, we're going to collapse within 60 days, but if it's changed things will be fine. I never thought B*sh would get all those billions, but then again, I never thought he'd get re-elected... nothing is certain in govt/politics. And yes, it seems the perps that do all this stuff to our country get away with their stolen treasure - and nothing happens but slaps on the wrist for their companies.

idea that government is impotent. It is weak because we make it so. Because people are afraid to step out and do what they should.

Government can reach out and put together a serious group of resources. They don't have to "own" them all, they just need to "marshall" them. I guarantee that if they put out the call experts would interrupt their lives and respond. This is a choice that is being made, either because they just don't take this as seriously as they should, because things are so fucked up in Washington that they are afraid to elevate it, or because the government has become so incompetent it can't put forth the effort.

One thing we should learn from this. If we cannot stop something like this quickly we simply should not be drilling. It is pure stupidity.

Deep sea drilling in the United States is terribly risky because the lack of regulations. Norway has state owned oil production and better safety. But to me, it still seems way too risky even with regulations in place.

and put in the hands of other "experts".

BP ain't about shit. If they were such experts this would not have happened and if it did they'd have the knowledge and tools ready to tackle the situation.