Oil spill in the gulf of Mexico
05-12-2010, 04:13 PM
#262
Really sucks we already have a town home locked in for the August Poker Run. The owner of the town home told us when we were there in 08 that the water gets pumped in from a few miles offshore, that is why it was always so clear. I don't think you could just shut the pump down, other wise it would dry up back there......sad
05-12-2010, 04:35 PM
#263
VIP Member
That was funny and horrible at the same time.
Speaking of dead wildlife.
This is the kind of stuff that really pisses me off about our so-called 'media' these days.
***
the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 obviously got an enormous amount of coverage, but it's striking that even incidents like the 1978 Amoco Cadiz accident off the coast of France got far more media attention than the current BP spill. (Brulle focused on nightly network coverage because, he points out, that's still the biggest driver of public opinion in the country—after all, only a very small subset of people read the Times.)
So what accounts for the difference? Imagery, for one. After the Exxon Valdez disaster, you had scores of images of ducks and otters slathered in crude. There were pictures of dead whales washed up against gleaming black rocky beaches. It was lurid—and impossible to ignore. By contrast, Brulle points out, not nearly as much oil from the BP accident has reached the shores of the Gulf Coast yet. Even groups like Greenpeace have only been able to rustle up a few pictures of a handful of ducks covered with oil. That's not the sort of thing that drives TV coverage. And it may mean that the current spill makes far less of a dent in public opinion than past disasters have.
Part of the explanation here is that BP has been quite deft at managing appearances. For one, they've poured more than 300,000 gallons of chemical dispersants to break up the oil before it can reach the beaches, causing it to sink down to the sea floor. In some cases, these dispersants may be more harmful, ecologically speaking, then letting the oil wash ashore. We don't know what is in these chemicals and there's a very high potential that they could do a lot of damage to the food chain in the Gulf. That's precisely why Exxon was constrained from using dispersants in Prince William Sound back in 1989. But, from BP's perspective (and the Obama administration's), avoiding the sort of graphic imagery that Exxon had to deal with in Alaska has an undeniable appeal.
Speaking of dead wildlife.
This is the kind of stuff that really pisses me off about our so-called 'media' these days.
***
the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 obviously got an enormous amount of coverage, but it's striking that even incidents like the 1978 Amoco Cadiz accident off the coast of France got far more media attention than the current BP spill. (Brulle focused on nightly network coverage because, he points out, that's still the biggest driver of public opinion in the country—after all, only a very small subset of people read the Times.)
So what accounts for the difference? Imagery, for one. After the Exxon Valdez disaster, you had scores of images of ducks and otters slathered in crude. There were pictures of dead whales washed up against gleaming black rocky beaches. It was lurid—and impossible to ignore. By contrast, Brulle points out, not nearly as much oil from the BP accident has reached the shores of the Gulf Coast yet. Even groups like Greenpeace have only been able to rustle up a few pictures of a handful of ducks covered with oil. That's not the sort of thing that drives TV coverage. And it may mean that the current spill makes far less of a dent in public opinion than past disasters have.
Part of the explanation here is that BP has been quite deft at managing appearances. For one, they've poured more than 300,000 gallons of chemical dispersants to break up the oil before it can reach the beaches, causing it to sink down to the sea floor. In some cases, these dispersants may be more harmful, ecologically speaking, then letting the oil wash ashore. We don't know what is in these chemicals and there's a very high potential that they could do a lot of damage to the food chain in the Gulf. That's precisely why Exxon was constrained from using dispersants in Prince William Sound back in 1989. But, from BP's perspective (and the Obama administration's), avoiding the sort of graphic imagery that Exxon had to deal with in Alaska has an undeniable appeal.
05-12-2010, 06:17 PM
#264
Banned
For one, they've poured more than 300,000 gallons of chemical dispersants to break up the oil before it can reach the beaches, causing it to sink down to the sea floor. In some cases, these dispersants may be more harmful, ecologically speaking, then letting the oil wash ashore. We don't know what is in these chemicals and there's a very high potential that they could do a lot of damage to the food chain in the Gulf. That's precisely why Exxon was constrained from using dispersants in Prince William Sound back in 1989.
The oil and the dispersants will be washed right down the west coast of Florida and into the Florida Straits where all that wildlife and coral reefs will be at risk.
The oil and the dispersants will be washed right down the west coast of Florida and into the Florida Straits where all that wildlife and coral reefs will be at risk.
05-12-2010, 06:21 PM
#265
Gold Member
Pretty lengthy, so just the link
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/What-w...&asset=&ccode=
Confidential BP documents released. Haven't seen the underwater video yet.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/What-w...&asset=&ccode=
Confidential BP documents released. Haven't seen the underwater video yet.
05-12-2010, 07:23 PM
#268
Banned
MMS has conflict of interest with oil companies
May 11 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. agency overseeing offshore drilling safety is also the government’s second-largest money maker, a dual role being probed in hearings on last month’s deadly oil-rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Minerals Management Service generates about $13 billion a year for the U.S. Treasury by partnering with companies such as BP Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp. to develop oil and natural gas, trailing only the Internal Revenue Service in revenue.
At the same time, the agency and its 1,700 employees enforce safety rules, suggesting “inherent internal conflicts of interest,” Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, said in an e-mail. Menendez and his colleagues on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held the first congressional hearing on the incident today.
Scrutiny of the Interior Department agency intensified following the explosion that killed 11 workers, sank a $365 million drilling rig operated by BP, and triggered an oil spill that threatens Gulf Coast states from Louisiana to Florida.
President Barack Obama’s administration today announced plans to split MMS into one unit to inspect rigs and enforce safety rules and a second to oversee drilling leases and royalty collections.
The division of duties will let “the American people know they have a strong and independent organization holding energy companies accountable,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement.
Trend Internationally
“That tends to be the trend internationally, to separate the resource-management agency from the safety and pollution- prevention agency,” Elmer Danenberger, who retired in January after 38 years in offshore regulation at the Interior Department, told the Senate committee today. Splitting the MMS “is something that is probably going to be looked at.”
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, told reporters today that he supports splitting MMS’s revenue and enforcement duties.
The MMS failed to mandate certain safety devices required on offshore rigs in other countries and allowed BP to drill in 5,000 feet of water without requiring a detailed environmental analysis, said Kevin Book, a Washington-based managing director for ClearView Energy Partners LLC, a policy research firm.
“The oil spill is the cost of having a relationship with industry like the one MMS has,” Book said. “MMS by charter is in the business of doing business with industry.”
Lamar McKay, chairman of BP America Inc., testified today along with Steven L. Newman, chief executive officer of rig owner Transocean Ltd., and Tim Probert, president of global business lines at Halliburton Co., which was in charge of cementing the well.
Pointing Fingers
The companies pointed fingers at each other in their testimony.
“Transocean’s blowout preventer failed to operate,” McKay said. The Transocean and Halliburton executives said BP had the lead decision-making role in the project. The executives pledged to cooperate to find the cause.
At least five congressional panels plan hearings on the incident that began April 20. The Energy and Natural Resources hearing was to be followed by a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee session today.
Danenberger recommended an independent commission to review “all aspects” of offshore energy regulation. He defended MMS regulators as “100 percent committed to their safety and pollution prevention mission.”
Sex, Gifts
It’s not the first time the agency’s relationship with the industry it regulates has come under fire. In 2008, Interior Department Inspector General Earl Devaney found that MMS employees in the division that gathers fees had sex with and accepted gifts from industry contacts while failing to collect almost $200 million due from energy companies.
The allegations led Salazar in September to scrap a program that accepted payment of drilling fees in oil and gas instead of cash, calling it “a blemish” on the department.
The 2008 allegations followed revelations by Devaney in 2006 that MMS failed to include terms in offshore drilling leases that could have generated $10 billion in additional revenue for the government.
The MMS, created in 1982, is “too cozy” with the companies it regulates, said U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican. The relationship discouraged the agency in 2003 from demanding better systems to prevent well blowouts like the one spewing an estimated 5,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico, Issa said.
Issa has introduced legislation to separate the MMS from the Interior Department and make it an independent agency like the IRS.
Blowout Preventer
The explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig about 130 miles (209 kilometers) southeast of New Orleans opened leaks 5,000 feet underwater.
BP’s McKay in his testimony pointed to the blowout preventer, a device intended to stanch the well, which failed in the initial phases of the accident. Backup systems such as a dead man’s switch that is supposed to respond when its signal is lost, and remote-controlled underwater robots, have failed to activate the device.
“We were working on the belief that the failsafe, if everything else didn’t hold the pressures, that blowout preventer would close,” David Nagel, executive vice president of BP America, said yesterday in a briefing with reporters.
Exclusion Given
The MMS gave BP a “categorical exclusion” from the National Environmental Policy Act in 2009, which released the company from preparing a detailed environmental assessment for the well. BP’s exploration plan called the prospect of an oil spill “unlikely.”
In a 2000 safety alert, the MMS warned that backup systems to activate blowout preventers were “an essential component” of deepwater drilling. Three years later, a consultant for the MMS said an acoustic system mandated by Norway and Brazil that can be triggered by encoded signals sent through the water, was too costly and untested in the presence of a mud of gas plume.
“It’s not a clear case that they should have mandated the acoustic sensor,” said Kenneth Arnold, an offshore energy consultant based in Houston who helped write a 1990 report on the MMS offshore inspection program.
Federal Lands
If research showed that systems to activate a blowout preventer weren’t foolproof, the MMS should have demanded that the industry spend “hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of dollars” to develop something better in return for access “to these very profitable federal lands,” Issa said.
Even industry allies such as Representative Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, say stricter regulation may be necessary.
“I’m not satisfied with the answers,” he said after meeting BP executives May 4. “Those of us that support offshore drilling have to be open to the possibility that we have to toughen up a bit.”
http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...-update4-.html
The Minerals Management Service generates about $13 billion a year for the U.S. Treasury by partnering with companies such as BP Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp. to develop oil and natural gas, trailing only the Internal Revenue Service in revenue.
At the same time, the agency and its 1,700 employees enforce safety rules, suggesting “inherent internal conflicts of interest,” Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, said in an e-mail. Menendez and his colleagues on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held the first congressional hearing on the incident today.
Scrutiny of the Interior Department agency intensified following the explosion that killed 11 workers, sank a $365 million drilling rig operated by BP, and triggered an oil spill that threatens Gulf Coast states from Louisiana to Florida.
President Barack Obama’s administration today announced plans to split MMS into one unit to inspect rigs and enforce safety rules and a second to oversee drilling leases and royalty collections.
The division of duties will let “the American people know they have a strong and independent organization holding energy companies accountable,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement.
Trend Internationally
“That tends to be the trend internationally, to separate the resource-management agency from the safety and pollution- prevention agency,” Elmer Danenberger, who retired in January after 38 years in offshore regulation at the Interior Department, told the Senate committee today. Splitting the MMS “is something that is probably going to be looked at.”
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, told reporters today that he supports splitting MMS’s revenue and enforcement duties.
The MMS failed to mandate certain safety devices required on offshore rigs in other countries and allowed BP to drill in 5,000 feet of water without requiring a detailed environmental analysis, said Kevin Book, a Washington-based managing director for ClearView Energy Partners LLC, a policy research firm.
“The oil spill is the cost of having a relationship with industry like the one MMS has,” Book said. “MMS by charter is in the business of doing business with industry.”
Lamar McKay, chairman of BP America Inc., testified today along with Steven L. Newman, chief executive officer of rig owner Transocean Ltd., and Tim Probert, president of global business lines at Halliburton Co., which was in charge of cementing the well.
Pointing Fingers
The companies pointed fingers at each other in their testimony.
“Transocean’s blowout preventer failed to operate,” McKay said. The Transocean and Halliburton executives said BP had the lead decision-making role in the project. The executives pledged to cooperate to find the cause.
At least five congressional panels plan hearings on the incident that began April 20. The Energy and Natural Resources hearing was to be followed by a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee session today.
Danenberger recommended an independent commission to review “all aspects” of offshore energy regulation. He defended MMS regulators as “100 percent committed to their safety and pollution prevention mission.”
Sex, Gifts
It’s not the first time the agency’s relationship with the industry it regulates has come under fire. In 2008, Interior Department Inspector General Earl Devaney found that MMS employees in the division that gathers fees had sex with and accepted gifts from industry contacts while failing to collect almost $200 million due from energy companies.
The allegations led Salazar in September to scrap a program that accepted payment of drilling fees in oil and gas instead of cash, calling it “a blemish” on the department.
The 2008 allegations followed revelations by Devaney in 2006 that MMS failed to include terms in offshore drilling leases that could have generated $10 billion in additional revenue for the government.
The MMS, created in 1982, is “too cozy” with the companies it regulates, said U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican. The relationship discouraged the agency in 2003 from demanding better systems to prevent well blowouts like the one spewing an estimated 5,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico, Issa said.
Issa has introduced legislation to separate the MMS from the Interior Department and make it an independent agency like the IRS.
Blowout Preventer
The explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig about 130 miles (209 kilometers) southeast of New Orleans opened leaks 5,000 feet underwater.
BP’s McKay in his testimony pointed to the blowout preventer, a device intended to stanch the well, which failed in the initial phases of the accident. Backup systems such as a dead man’s switch that is supposed to respond when its signal is lost, and remote-controlled underwater robots, have failed to activate the device.
“We were working on the belief that the failsafe, if everything else didn’t hold the pressures, that blowout preventer would close,” David Nagel, executive vice president of BP America, said yesterday in a briefing with reporters.
Exclusion Given
The MMS gave BP a “categorical exclusion” from the National Environmental Policy Act in 2009, which released the company from preparing a detailed environmental assessment for the well. BP’s exploration plan called the prospect of an oil spill “unlikely.”
In a 2000 safety alert, the MMS warned that backup systems to activate blowout preventers were “an essential component” of deepwater drilling. Three years later, a consultant for the MMS said an acoustic system mandated by Norway and Brazil that can be triggered by encoded signals sent through the water, was too costly and untested in the presence of a mud of gas plume.
“It’s not a clear case that they should have mandated the acoustic sensor,” said Kenneth Arnold, an offshore energy consultant based in Houston who helped write a 1990 report on the MMS offshore inspection program.
Federal Lands
If research showed that systems to activate a blowout preventer weren’t foolproof, the MMS should have demanded that the industry spend “hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of dollars” to develop something better in return for access “to these very profitable federal lands,” Issa said.
Even industry allies such as Representative Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, say stricter regulation may be necessary.
“I’m not satisfied with the answers,” he said after meeting BP executives May 4. “Those of us that support offshore drilling have to be open to the possibility that we have to toughen up a bit.”
http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...-update4-.html
05-12-2010, 07:52 PM
#270
[QUOTE=jayboat;3109020]That was funny and horrible at the same time.
Speaking of dead wildlife.
This is the kind of stuff that really pisses me off about our so-called 'media' these days.
***
Oil is all natural, therefore it is good.
Quite an amazing contrast in coverage indeed. Contrast the coverage and public "debate" in the aftermath of Katrina, as compared to the aftermath and public "lack of debate" after Ike. FEMA is being trashed down there for not providing enough information on federal grants and the like. Many people still live in government-paid hotels and trailers, like Katrina victims. But very little discussion. Odd for a $40 billion disaster like that one.
Speaking of dead wildlife.
This is the kind of stuff that really pisses me off about our so-called 'media' these days.
***
Oil is all natural, therefore it is good.
Quite an amazing contrast in coverage indeed. Contrast the coverage and public "debate" in the aftermath of Katrina, as compared to the aftermath and public "lack of debate" after Ike. FEMA is being trashed down there for not providing enough information on federal grants and the like. Many people still live in government-paid hotels and trailers, like Katrina victims. But very little discussion. Odd for a $40 billion disaster like that one.
