Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Climate Change and Environmental Issues BP Oil Spill

Devils advocate here--It is sickening on many levels what is happening to the Gulf but what could the president do even if he wanted to? It would be nice if this could all be fixed and the damage mitigated but does the US government have the technology to deal with this? Or the military?

If they do I would love to hear some possible actions Obama could take to fix this catastrophe.

No, the government and the military do NOT have the technology.
This is already well known.
The government CAN pursue the AUTHORITY by seizing control of BP's assets and using the military to direct the response on a national emergency footing USING BP's staff and technology.

Cut the "red tape," because of the imminent and present danger, and let the states take the measures required to mitigate this disaster. Those booms should have been deployed long ago as well as the dredging to protect Louisiana's marshes and wetlands. BP is using a dispersant that's illegal in their own country, yet they're using it in the GOM? Why is this allowed?

He could start by firing Salazar and most all of the criminal (and I do mean criminal) management at the MMS. It all happened under Salazar's watch. Salazar was supposed to clean up the rat's nest. A year's time would have been time to make a good headway in doing so. Salazar didn't.

The government agreement that BP signed to permit them to drill was absolute shìte. BP had an abysmal safety record going into the agreement and MMS did nothing to make certain that BP, already found guilty of a felony where lives we lost in Prudhoe Bay, would not cut corners again. They did. MMS did nothing about it. In BP's application, the one MMS accepted, BP agreed to be responsible for the loss of life of "walruses and sea lions and seals". I've been to the Gulf Coast a bazillion times in my life all the way from New Orleans to the Keys, every state. I lived in Ft. Walton for a year. I've never seen a walrus or a sea lion or a seal in the semi-tropical waters of the Gulf. BP in their application had to address how it would handle an oil spill at the proposed site. At one point BP said it would check all local resources for assistance by going to a web site and they provided the site. Turns out the url provided is for a Japanese shopping network.

You get the picture. On and on and on. One thing that has very, very much surprised me about Obama is his practice of leaving so many Bush players on the payroll. The Minerals Management Service became so mobbed up during the Bush years that it was nothing more than government wing of Big Energy. That's no secret. President Bush made certain that agency got whatever Big Energy needed. It was/is so hosed up that President Obama made cleaning that agency up one of Salazar's first priorities. Problem is one of Salazar's first priorities has always been "drill baby drill". If off shore drilling has a friend in Washington - and it has many - Salazar ranks right up there with the best of them.

Did Salazar lower the boom on MMS? You tell me. He fired one guy. Then it was pretty much business as usual and business wanted little or no regulation.

If Obama wants to kick ass he should start by kicking Brownie's Salazar's ass. He hasn't.

Along the Gulf Coast highway This will effect you.

The government does not have the technology to fix the hole. They do, however, have the technology (or can get it, and stop refusing help) to deal with the stuff in the water. What they obviously do not have is a serious will to get on with the job and quit playing the bureaucratic game of turf wars.

As far as MMS is concerned I watched an MMS whistle blower. He said that the breaking up is not a bad idea but until they fire everybody, and the re-hire the ones that were not on the take, they will fix nothing (as long as the same people are doing the same things). I tend to agree.

ditto

Good question and that is one that has many scientists concerned. This is what they are using--or have used in the past:

Corexit

Makes me sick. That is a beautiful way a life we may not see again there in our lifetimes. I am very sorry for that.

Some thoughts on the BP oil spill:

This all gets quite confusing... especially when it seems that the media is about 10 days behind in the reporting of the details that seem to be ignored in the rush to get pictures of Pelicans and Turtles into the lead.

Some things we should be able to understand, by just using logic:

Oil booms are all but useless. On the second day of the spill, when about miles of booms were supposed to have been deployed, it was obvious that they do little or no good. The wave action allows the oil to go over or under the booms, and the booms tend to break or fold back on themselves. In a placid pool, and given a lighter grade of oil that would float on the surface, booms might work. Diverting millions of gallons of mud laden oil is simply not a logical path for controlling the oil. that has now been proved, but it is naive to think that the people who were doing the "booming" didn't know.

Cleaning the marshes... About three days in, the pictures of laborers working in hazmat whites, were shown using towels or cloths to wipe oil off the marsh grass. These pictures are still being repeated. The strain to credulity is just too much. Why repeat this nonsense?

Plumes... They (experts) knew on the first day that the oil, mixed with gas, at extreme pressures, and totally unlike the oil from the Exxon Valdez, would not simply float on the surface. That no one seemed to understand why the oil slick was appearing in separate locations, with clear water in between, begs the thought that the oil was simply popping up, here and there. When the explanation of how the oil was dissolved (dispersed) by the detergents, it took nearly four weeks before anyone in the media bothered to question what was happening. Why the government "experts" didn't come out with explanations weeks earlier is a puzzle.

Now, as pointed out in one of the links here, it seems that the main drill hole had been breached below the seabed. It seems to still be a question as to whether the "topkill" caused the breach (breaches), but it seems that the leakage is not confined to the 6 or 8 inch pipe. If the oil and gas is really coming up from other places apart from the well, the the idea of intercepting and diverting the pipe below the surface would be futile.

The over simplified pictures of the surface drill platform, the one mile of water and the next five miles of earth's crust (or mud or sand or other material) would lead one to think that there is just a single hollow tube piercing the sea bed, and that all of the oil and gas is spewing from a big underwater lake of oil. If the mysterious "Disks" were corrupted, or the "tube" broken under the crust, there may be no way to stop the flow, short of the unthinkable nuclear option.

The skimming option is a puzzle (at least to me)... My own best guess is that this would be an exercise in futility, much in the way that weed harvesters for lakes are mostly ineffectual. Kind of like cleaning Lake Erie of a billion ping pong balls with a dip net. Perhaps the reason is that the underwater "plumes" of oil are so far apart that it would be impossible to scoop up the floating oil.

I saw a news report tonight, that said the second well is more than two thirds of the way to the planned intercept point. If so, it would seen that the August date was wrong.

Something is wrong with the entire operation. The differences in the stories is really wrong.

It's time for the responsible government departments to come together with experts, and to map out a strategy, even if it is to shut down the entire coast of all ocean related businesses, and to plan for relocation and and support of tens of thousands of persons suddenly deprived of their livelihood. It's time to face the fact that the populations of many species may become extinct. It;s time to plan for the loss of up to 25% (and maybe more) of the fishing industry, and to plan for changes in the food supply chain.

Estimates of the Value of BP... $72 Billion? So far, the greatest estimate that I've seen for the spill is about $5 Billion. This strikes me a ludicrous. Perhaps $50 Billion, and that, just for the near term (maybe a year or so).



If the recovery extends for 50 years, as some environmentalists predict, the eventual cost could be in the trillions.

Can we expect BP to pay for the spill? Not in a million years. The value of BP is really the equity of the shareholders. There is absolutely no way that the government would allow these losses. The cost will eventually extend to taxpayers and future generations.

It's time to develop a national understanding of the breadth of the calamity. Somewhere along the way, this has to be faced with honest and realistic projections for the future, so that we can get on with the rest of the nation's problems.

At the very least, it's time for a major consolidation of information from "experts". If in fact, the oil continues for years, and goes up the east coast and ends up in the Northern Atlantic, then we should know now. As it stands today, Government is kicking the can down the road.