The Oil Spill

USCG is a gov't entity and has been on site since the beginning of this. The Navy is not a clean up crew because it it has been at war. EPA is a beauracracy making up shitty regulations, and is useless when it comes to mitigating environmental disasters.

Gov't doesn't have or need to have every resource on standby for something like this. BP and Transocean should have - they're in this business and should have equal contingency in response for every mishap that could happen.
If it were the case that regs, inspections, etc. were on hand to prevent disasters like, then we'd never see airplane crashes, sinking ships, fires, bridges collapsing.

This could have happened anywhere and taken the same, if not more, effort and time to control. Many seem to forget, especially the media, that this is a man-made operation, and anything man-made has the potential to fuck up, nothing can prevent that, not even big gov't, big oil, or Obama.

 

Merchant Marine Offers Governor Help with the Oil Spill
Here's an alternative to the Navy and good backup for the Coast Guard

Posted Tue, Jun 08, 2010 at 03:06 pm
By Bobbie O'Brien (Send E-Mail)
MARDEIRA BEACH, FL (2010-6-7) - A local commander with the U.S. Merchant Marine said it’s time the governor “call up” the civilian mariners to help keep the oil spill from reaching any more of Florida’s shore.

The governor met with boat captains, commercial fishermen and marine business leaders Monday at a Madeira Beach restaurant.

Remnants of weathered oil are already spoiling Pensacola Beach. Gov. Charlie Crist said he even cleaned up a few tar balls off the beach this weekend when viewing the scene with singer Jimmy Buffet.

But, it’s a scene Capt. Marti Heath doesn’t want repeated along Florida’s west coast. So, the district commander with the Merchant Marine presented the governor with a plan.

“Our proposal is this,” Heath said looking directly at the governor, “You request a (U.S.) Merchant Marine call up and as fleet commander we will go from county to county to county and train one merchant marine to institute this plan from Panama City down to the Florida Keys.”

Crist asked for the plan in writing, which Heath produced. She explained that the merchant marines are already professional sailors and just need training on handling toxic oil.

She told the governor that the civilian mariners have access to thousands of vessels and could gather the oil while it’s at sea before it comes ashore.

Crist promised to have his secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection, Michael Sole, review her plan and get back with her.

Merchant Marine Offers Governor Help with the Oil Spill | WUSF

My question is what is a District Commander of the Merchant Marine and were are the thousands of boats that we have access to? I ask b/c I've never heard of a district commander of the US merchant marine b/c there isnt one. And there arent thousands of ships. Maybe less than half that and they are all waiting in line to be scrapped.

 

Your last sentence is why there needs to be strict regulation over drilling. It's man-made, has $$$$$ involved along with corporate greed. Your other examples really don't compare. They only affect a small group of people at a time on rare occurrences. The oil spill is a rare occurrence but it affects millions in many different ways. Plus the environment heavily. So in a situation like this why can't the Navy assist along with others. Screw the rules and regulations forbidding anything like that now on a temporary basis to help to do what's needed. Not who's job it is. I think there could be an executive order to that, no?

Your absolutely right that BP, Transocean and all the others should have resources available/standby. Regulations could make sure of that. AND they should!

Thank You USCG.

 

For real!

You all must see the doumentary "Blackwave- The Legacy of the Exxon Valdiz" that just came out. It is a shame. After the Supreme Court overturned their massive fines, what they were left with was a fine of something like 4 days of profits. Many people working on the cleanup are sick/dead due to the toxic solvents used.
Just like Wall Street, Banks,Mortgage writers, Enron etc etc etc The Man is asleep at the wheel.

Two simple laws need to be passed:
1. If you want to drill oil, transport oil in supertankers, make nuclear power, speculate on the stock market etc etc and things go bad then you push the red abort button and everything is shut down and sealed and made safe within 24 hours. No one is given a licence/permit until it is possible to do this. If your shit only works in the lab, theory, 20 feet of water, on 1000 gals max then you may only work in those places.

2. The Man giving the permit, head of DOE, Secretary of the Interior, EPA head honcho or whoever and the Executives of the company get fined and go to jail and all assets are seized to pay for cleanup damage control.

In BP's case it will cost them far more to seal the well than what they are losing on a per barrel basis on the oil market and this shows in the urgency of their response.

 

You can't just "Screw the rules".

Its generally against either the rule of law, due process or both.

BZ

 

Before anyone goes off tangent on the Exxon Valdez, just note that ALCOHOL was not the reason why that ship grounded and spilled. Deepwater Horizon disaster is also not an alcohol related incident. In relation to each other, these 2 incidents occured for entirely separate reasons, the only thing in common is the environmental impact. If you choose to watch that blackwater documentary, the trailer starts off with false information, the actual documentary has its fare share of BS content as well. Exxon Valdez was not the North America's worst environmental disaster before DW Horizon.

 

How did we come to the point where the US Government is as clueless, elitist, inept, and useless as the UN?

 

If they were not clueless. Then why didn't they take steps to try and prevent oil from coming into the marshes/coast line weeks ago before it even got close. Now that it is in there , 20 miles in, they can't do much about it. They didn't even try from what I've seen so far. Even the gov of LA had to go rouge, a little late but still is trying. Seems more than what the federal government is doing. If they are not clueless what are they doing today to counter the oil from reaching shore or spreading to the other states? Are you guys telling me the government can't do anything because of rules and regulations? No emergency type action or legislation? That sounds like political and just plain old BS! When an emergency of this size arises they have no recourse? No ideas? No balls? WTF good are they then.

The bad thing is there is still oil flowing in to the Gulf and there may be more than one source now. Something about a back pressure crack about 40 miles away I've heard hints of. Plus this scenario was played out on paper back in 2000!! AND still nothing was done to prevent it or recover from it.

So you tell me do they have a clue?! If they do, what is it and what are they doing about it?? Easy questions to answer, unless ones clueless.

 

^^^^

You answered your question and exposed the reality of the situation. Yes Grey, they (i.e. Goverment, BP, experts) simply do not know and/ or are clueless.

The obvious is apparent.

BZ

p.s. I'm not being smart.

 

Grey,
Being in the big oil marine industry and having been involved in some minor marine incidents, here's what you should know:
1. US Coast Guard - inspectors, response teams and team leaders are not good listeners b/c of their bad habit of being "know-it-alls" and they don't like being challenged.
2. Oil Majors - VPs, Dept. Heads, again same as 1., are know-it-alls and dont like being challenged.
3. Operators (Transocean for example) - same dillemna as 1. & 2.

All this amounts to ineffective response & poor productivity. No party wants to be fully in charge b/c failure is not an option and it doesn't look good. People or Organizations typically don't like having fingers pointed at them for blame accusations.

My offer of advice was free and that was to set the oil soaked marshes on fire b/c hurricane season is now here and the next Katrina potent storm that comes will spread the crude further outside of the Gulf into the Carribean and possibly even as far as Panama.

 

Something about hindsite

Grey750 something like this has never happened before. You can plan for it, put it on paper, draw up models and "what if", this scenario to death. Everyone is clueless in this situation from BP to the government because of its enormity of this disaster. My huge disappointment is with BP and their lack of resopnse to this situation and their lack-a-daisical attitude. The CEO of BP should be shot for all the stupid and retarded remarks he has made. He (the CEO) has stated he "wants his life back". I know of 11 people that wish the same thing if they were alive. As far as more regulation...thats not the problem. The regualations are there, the problem is with the government personel who work for MMS. They were takeing "bribes" from big oil to turn the other cheek and let them get away with crap and it doesnt matter which administration was in office. They should have had balls to not accept the "gifts" and tell the oil companys "this is how it is and thats it." As far as this being BPs problem...They were the ones to contract Transoceanic to do their work. They more than likely had a BP company rep on board the rig. It was BPs plan to drill/establish this wellhead. Trans. cant change the plan without talking to the BP rep and BP cant change the plan once its been approved by MMS. (not entirely true because you can submit changes to the plans and get approval from the highers up. But that takes time. Time=money lost) There is just no way to physically prepare for something this huge.
What I also think is ironic is that the last huge oil refinery accident/exposion was also BP about 5 years ago in Texas city. Workers died in that one too. There seems to be a pattern here.

 

Back when I worked for big oil I used to think, holy cow, if these guys had to actually be competitive, that is they werent selling something everyone absolutely HAD to have, they would be in serious trouble. Problems with lack of enforcement of regulation (read MMS) go back years, in fact , it was just a little bit ago they were caught taking oil people to strip clubs or some kinda shit like that. These things go back many federal and various state administrations. I worked for the company that blew out the rig in the Santa Barbara channel, and I know we were deadly serious about that not happening ever again, but the fact is, if you drill you are going to have an accident every once in a great while, and we have to drill, plain and simple, and we should. Until we decide to either get off oil or nuke the Saudis, we will be doing this. Big companies many times do what they can but you cannot always prevent bad things happening, and thats just he companies that do it the right way, much less those that cut corners and featherbed the regulators.

Unfortunately for this administration, or maybe if you hate this iteration of the federal government you think fortunaltely, it happened on their watch. If they had spudded in the well two yrs ago, well, it would have been all someone else's fault. The sad thing about it is rather than get hard information and and real effort at both cleanup and future prevention, and then maybe real live movement to get us actually a tiny bit off the oil teat, we will just be treated to finger pointing a constant attempts to use the incident to grandstand, posture and prove some inane point.

I still dont want to give up my VFR

 

Diver, I remember BP Texas City, was a really bad scene.

Said this before somewhere - BP is the most poorly managed Oil Major.
Also I know this - Exxon is the most efficiently managed Oil Major - Hate them all you want for their record setting profit years and the Valdez incident but the conservative Chemical Engr types that serve as board members know their shit, unlike the Harvard MBA types who dont understand how a business model is supposed to be executed.

And to add to Divers comment about planning for 'what ifs' - The after effects of disasters like huricanes, earthquakes, floods, tanker spills, etc. have all been considered for potential risks and how to respond to them
Take Haiti for example. Can you blame Haiti's gov't (or the US) for not doing anything about having a proper emergency response in place? No! You know why? Human nature is disadvantaged by something called complacency.

Many are pissed at the Obama Administration b/c of health care reform, blah blah blah. So the easy thing to do is make a scapegoat out of him for "poor response" - that's the ignorant and easy way to point the blame finger.

 

I agree with most of what you guys have expressed.

Kobe I know what you are talking about. I've seen first hand dealings with the Army Corp Of Engineers here along Lake Erie over the years. Can't tell them a thing. But we ended up paying for it.

Yes you can plan something for a scenario like this, worst case. Yes if the regulators and the laws were doing their jobs, every company drilling in deep water should have some type of plan. Will it work? Who knows. If you have six companies drilling you would have six plans that most likely are different from each other. Then there would be at least several different things to try. In this case there wasn't even one! I believe the engineers can come up with something good if given the priority.

I guess one of my main gripes is I wanted the off shore drilling. It's had a good track record so far. With newer technology it could be even safer. Then comes along BP down grades the safety equipment to save money and this happens. Corporate greed! That's all this is.

Tony is from England right? Wasn't William Wallace a guest of the English once? I think Tony should get the same grand treatment Wallace got!

 

Comparing an oil spill to an oil spill is going off on a tangent?........right.
The film never claims the Valdiz as the worst environmental disaster, just the worst man made one in the USA.
I'll give ya the Dinosaur killing meteor.
I'm sure there is some BS in the film but it's still pretty scary about how the situation was handled and the mess that can NEVER be put right.

 

1. My point of going off on tangent was meant to be clear about the Exxon Valdez - whenever that incident is brought to attention, those who dont know automatically associate the cause to be a drunken skipper.
2. And neither is Exxon Valdez the worst man-made spill disaster. You're from the UK (saw the banner), maybe you were you born at the time or do you have folks who remember the Torrey Canyon grounding off the Scilly Islands, circa 1967? That was worst than the Valdez. Also 1974 was the Amoco Cadiz spill off the Brittany Coast of France, again worst than Valdez. And many many more worst than Valdez. Remember what Saddam Hussein did at the end of Gulf War 1? How about all the allied oil tankers sunk in the Atlantic and Pacific during WWII? DWH now tops the list.

March 24, 1989 was a slow day for the media. Then the news came out of the pristine white Prince Willy Sound smeared in crude oil. Then the oil covered birds and seals on TV followed in the weeks to come. Da Vinci couldnt draw a more perfect picture for the media to showcase.

 

Good find, Tink.

 

You are correct on many points, I agree with you and I do remember the Amoco Cadiz when it happenned. I think the film said worst in the USA not the world but I could be wrong and edited my post to show this. Anyways is the DWH now the worst in the USA/World?
Either way I hope they stop it soon and clean it up better than past spills have done.
And you are right about the media playing it up. If the spill occurred in Los Angeles harbour(?) or the Thames - no one would even notice!
In fact Exxon gave the contaminated water to the Frenchies for Perrier Water who sold it to us Brits to drink!!!