Massive Gulf Coast Oil Spill

[The Irish Doggy]

Is it time to get out of cash and into BP stock?

[Kid Cid]

Is it time to get out of cash and into BP stock?

And this means that you and any that would invest in BP and other oil companies are as much to blame for what happens. The driving factor in business is money and for companies that means stakeholders. As long as people keep investing just to chase a dollar then these companies see it as acceptance of their methods of doing business. So by investing in BP you have voted with your money. You've just told them that you don't care that they have destroyed the Gulf, just keep on rocking what they're doing because you've made $500. Good job.

[SEC=UGA]

This just doesn't seem right

 

 

 

I have no issue with BP footing the bill for the cleanup, but this to me seems like the govt. is pushing it way too far.

 

Concur.

 

Where would they draw the line on how long BP pays the people "laid off" due tot he government mandated moratorium? If the platforms pull up anchor and leave for, say, 5 years, does BP have to pay the people for 5 years? Further, say the platforms do stay and start operating again and certain individuals who were laid off are not hored back on, do they continue to get a alary from BP until they find another place to hire on?

[tbimm]

I have been trying for weeks to get on a volunteer crew for clean up.

 

For the most part it seems they don't want a guy like me who only has Friday Saturday and Sunday to offer!

 

Rather frustrating.

[Perchoutofwater]

Experts Say White House 'Misrepresented' Views to Justify Drilling Moratorium

 

Published June 11, 2010

 

Reuters

 

May 26: Greenpeace protesters hold up a banner as Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar testifies before the House.

 

The seven experts who advised President Obama

on how to deal with offshore drilling safety after the Deepwater Horizon explosion are accusing his administration of misrepresenting their views to make it appear that they supported a six-month drilling moratorium -- something they actually oppose.

 

The experts, recommended by the National Academy of Engineering, say Interior Secretary Ken Salazar modified their report last month, after they signed it, to include two paragraphs calling for the moratorium on existing drilling and new permits.

 

Salazar's report to Obama said a panel of seven experts "peer reviewed" his recommendations, which included a six-month moratorium on permits for new wells being drilled using floating rigs and an immediate halt to drilling operations

.

 

"None of us actually reviewed the memorandum as it is in the report," oil expert Ken Arnold told Fox News. "What was in the report at the time it was reviewed was quite a bit different in its impact to what there is now. So we wanted to distance ourselves from that recommendation."

 

Salazar apologized to those experts Thursday.

 

"The experts who are involved in crafting the report gave us their recommendation and their input and I very much appreciate those recommendations," he said. "It was not their decision on the moratorium. It was my decision and the president's decision to move forward."

 

In a letter the experts sent to Salazar, they said his primary recommendation "misrepresents" their position and that halting the drilling is actually a bad idea.

 

The oil rig

explosion occurred while the well was being shut down – a move that is much more dangerous than continuing ongoing drilling, they said.

 

They also said that because the floating rigs are scarce and in high demand worldwide, they will not simply sit in the Gulf idle for six months. The rigs will go to the North Sea and West Africa, possibly preventing the U.S. from being able to resume drilling for years.

 

They also said the best and most advanced rigs will be the first to go, leaving the U.S. with the older and potentially less safe rights operating in the nation's coastal waters.

 

More fun and games.

[TimC]

I have been trying for weeks to get on a volunteer crew for clean up.

 

For the most part it seems they don't want a guy like me who only has Friday Saturday and Sunday to offer!

 

Rather frustrating.

 

They don't want to get the lawsuits later of the people that got sick handling the oil. You bet yer ass BP has paid more legal fees retaining lawyers so far than clean-up fees. Or equal.

[Azazello1313]

The seven experts who advised President Obama on how to deal with offshore drilling safety after the Deepwater Horizon explosion are accusing his administration of misrepresenting their views to make it appear that they supported a six-month drilling moratorium -- something they actually oppose.

 

The experts, recommended by the National Academy of Engineering, say Interior Secretary Ken Salazar modified their report last month, after they signed it, to include two paragraphs calling for the moratorium on existing drilling and new permits.

 

thank god we finally got science back.

[SeductiveNun]

I have been trying for weeks to get on a volunteer crew for clean up.

 

For the most part it seems they don't want a guy like me who only has Friday Saturday and Sunday to offer!

 

Rather frustrating.

I agree with you on how frustrating this is. Here's some more to make you feel even better.

 

I work for an environmental consulting company. BP is one of our clients. When the spill happened, we scrambled to get a list of over 200 trained remediation professionals who were available to go down to the gulf and we had a list of what everyone's specialty was. Mine happens to be wetlands and aquatic ecology, but I can still turn a shovel on a beach if that's what I'm needed for. At any rate, every one on our list would be coming from an office were we could supply our own PPE (personal protective equipment) which includes the "HazMat suit" (likey just a simple Tyvek suit), a personal respirator - in this case most likely needed a simple air purifying respirator with organic vapor cartridges - very common, and hardhats, gloves, boots, safety glasses, etc. Essentially full level "C" protective equipment - which is probably what is used in 98% of the situations there on land.

 

That was back in early May. We have sent 1 person down since that time, and he was just a temporary replacement for another BP individual. The rumor we've heard is that BP is being told they have to hire local help to assist with the cleanup. Now I have no problem with that at first, but you have at your disposal a company of fully trained people ready and willing to come down and work the cleanup but you can't or won't use them? Seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face there if you ask me.

 

Some quotes from the article you linked.

 

BP has said it will use only trained workers and professionals to clean up the oil and wash oiled wildlife, adding to the deepening frustration over the government and BP's response. The workers also need special safety equipment, said BP spokesman Mark Proegler.

Maybe so, but like I said, we haven't been asked to go down there and we're plenty qualified and equipped to step right in and do something positive.

 

While foremen must take a full 40-hour hazardous materials course, most workers only need an abbreviated four-hour course, Kraft said. However, the need for such training — which so far hasn't been opened to the public by BP — may be overstated.

 

"All the Hazmat training does is basically tell people commonsense things, like don't eat it," said Edward B. Overton of the Louisiana State School of Coast and Environment. "The whole issue of training and bio-suits has lawyer written all over it. I'm sure it's more a question of liability than anything else."

I disagree with the first paragraph entirely. If I have a major release, the cleanup crew better have 40 hour training and the supervisors better have an 8-hour supervisor training course or your asking for a world of hurt in liability issues down the road - just what you need to pile on to an already terrible situation.

 

The second paragraph is a very loose description of the training. I'd wager the person who stated that hasn't really worked in the field much. He may be a great academic, but that doesn't mean he has a wealth of field experience in these matters. I believe that to be one of the more ignorant statements one could make about the training. Much of what they teach is common sense - that is true. However, there is additional information included - like setting up exclusion zones, decontamination of PPE, what do if you you're exposed during the cleanup procedure etc. that just isn't necessarily intuitive.

 

Overall, again I agree it's a very frustrating thing to watch and read about. It looks like there is absolutely no consistent communication from anyone as to what is needed/required for this spill.

[tbimm]

I agree with you on how frustrating this is. Here's some more to make you feel even better.

 

I work for an environmental consulting company. BP is one of our clients. When the spill happened, we scrambled to get a list of over 200 trained remediation professionals who were available to go down to the gulf and we had a list of what everyone's specialty was. Mine happens to be wetlands and aquatic ecology, but I can still turn a shovel on a beach if that's what I'm needed for. At any rate, every one on our list would be coming from an office were we could supply our own PPE (personal protective equipment) which includes the "HazMat suit" (likey just a simple Tyvek suit), a personal respirator - in this case most likely needed a simple air purifying respirator with organic vapor cartridges - very common, and hardhats, gloves, boots, safety glasses, etc. Essentially full level "C" protective equipment - which is probably what is used in 98% of the situations there on land.

 

That was back in early May. We have sent 1 person down since that time, and he was just a temporary replacement for another BP individual. The rumor we've heard is that BP is being told they have to hire local help to assist with the cleanup. Now I have no problem with that at first, but you have at your disposal a company of fully trained people ready and willing to come down and work the cleanup but you can't or won't use them? Seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face there if you ask me.

 

Some quotes from the article you linked.

 

 

Maybe so, but like I said, we haven't been asked to go down there and we're plenty qualified and equipped to step right in and do something positive.

 

 

I disagree with the first paragraph entirely. If I have a major release, the cleanup crew better have 40 hour training and the supervisors better have an 8-hour supervisor training course or your asking for a world of hurt in liability issues down the road - just what you need to pile on to an already terrible situation.

 

The second paragraph is a very loose description of the training. I'd wager the person who stated that hasn't really worked in the field much. He may be a great academic, but that doesn't mean he has a wealth of field experience in these matters. I believe that to be one of the more ignorant statements one could make about the training. Much of what they teach is common sense - that is true. However, there is additional information included - like setting up exclusion zones, decontamination of PPE, what do if you you're exposed during the cleanup procedure etc. that just isn't necessarily intuitive.

 

Overall, again I agree it's a very frustrating thing to watch and read about. It looks like there is absolutely no consistent communication from anyone as to what is needed/required for this spill.

Worst part for me is that I am local. I am 40 mins away from the nearest clean up site and they don't want me unless I can leave my job to work for them.

[rajncajn]

Worst part for me is that I am local. I am 40 mins away from the nearest clean up site and they don't want me unless I can leave my job to work for them.

As much as any of us here want to help they're just not going to let you do it unless you have the proper training & equipment. The health hazards are just too great.

[The Irish Doggy]

And this means that you and any that would invest in BP and other oil companies are as much to blame for what happens. The driving factor in business is money and for companies that means stakeholders. As long as people keep investing just to chase a dollar then these companies see it as acceptance of their methods of doing business. So by investing in BP you have voted with your money. You've just told them that you don't care that they have destroyed the Gulf, just keep on rocking what they're doing because you've made $500. Good job.

 

[Kid Cid]

Not exactly certain what is so funny with that statement I made. Investors do have a say in how a company is run, they do so by the act of an investment. Investing in a company signals to that company that you believe in what they are doing and their methods on giving you a return on your investment. A company that continues to make a profit and therefore attract investors will continue to use the methods that got them there until they fail to return a profit. By investing with BP you are signaling to them that you find their methods of returning profit to you acceptable. Therefore, the message you are sending with your money is that you don't care at all about the Gulf or the environment, just that you make a dollar.

[SeductiveNun]

Not trying to belittle anything that is happening as a result of the spill, just found this article interesting and hopefully a source for optimism eventually - long term down the road maybe - but optimism none the less.

 

Gulf of Campeche provides lessons of environment's resilience after oil spill

After similar spill, Gulf of Campeche proves environment's resilience

By Glenn Garvin

McClatchy Newspapers

Updated: 06/13/2010 09:46:20 PM CDT

 

 

MALAQUITE BEACH, Texas — The oil was everywhere, long black sheets of it, 15 inches thick in some places. Even if you stepped in what looked like a clean patch of sand, it quickly and gooily puddled around your feet. And Wes Tunnell, as he surveyed the mess, had only one bleak thought: "Oh, my God, this is horrible! It's all gonna die!"

 

But it didn't. Thirty-one years since the worst oil spill in North American history blanketed 150 miles of Texas beach, tourists noisily splash in the surf and turtles drag themselves into the dunes to lay eggs.

 

"You look around and it's like the spill never happened," Tunnell, a marine biologist, said shrugging. "There's a lot of perplexity in it for many of us."

 

For Tunnell and others involved in the fight to contain the June 3, 1979, spill from Mexico's Ixtoc 1 offshore well in the Gulf of Campeche, the BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico conjures an eerie sense of deja vu.

 

Like the BP spill, the Ixtoc disaster began with a burst of gas followed by an explosion and fire, followed by a relentless gush of oil that resisted all attempts to block it. Plugs of mud and debris, chemical dispersants, booms skimming the surface of the water: Mexico's Pemex oil company tried them all, but still the spill inexorably crept ashore, first in southeast Mexico, later in Texas.

 

But if the BP spill seems to be repeating one truth already demonstrated in the Ixtoc spill — that human technology is no match for a high-pressure

 

 

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undersea oil blowout — scientists are hoping that it may eventually confirm another: that the environment has a stunning capacity to heal itself from manmade insults.

"The environment is amazingly resilient, more so than most people understand," said Luis A. Soto, a deep-sea biologist who teaches at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

 

"To be honest, considering the magnitude of the spill, we thought the Ixtoc spill was going to have catastrophic effects for decades. ... But within a couple of years, almost everything was close to 100 percent normal again."

 

That kind of optimism was unthinkable at the time of the spill, which took nearly 10 months to cap. The 30,000 barrels of oil a day it spewed into the ocean obliterated practically every living thing in its path. As it washed ashore, marine life was reduced by 50 percent in some zones; in others, 80 percent. The female population of an already-endangered species of sea turtles known as Kemp's Ridley shrank to 300, perilously close to extinction.

 

What survived wasn't much better off. Soto, surveying fish and shrimp in the Mexican coastal waters near the spill, found them infested with tumors.

 

The sizable fishing industry in the area was practically shut down — not that the boats were able to make their way through the massive tar balls bobbing through the Gulf of Campeche anyway.

 

In Texas, tourism curdled. Oil was so unavoidable on the popular beaches of Padre Island, just south of Corpus Christi, that hotels installed special mats outside along with signs pleading with guests to clean their feet rather than track tar into their rooms.

 

And scientists feared a less visible but more insidious effect of the spill: that it had killed off small organisms living at the tide line, a crucial part of the marine food chain.

 

"These are things that most people never notice, some small segmented worms called amphipods, some little shrimp-like crustaceans," says Tunnell, associate director of the Harte Research Institute at Texas AM University-Corpus Christi. "They were practically wiped out. And if they didn't recover, it would have drastically affected the food chain, from small fish and crabs up to shorebirds and beyond."

 

But after three months in which nothing went right, Texas had some good luck — or, to put it in a glass-half-empty way, Alabama and Mississippi had some bad luck.

 

Hurricane Frederic plowed into those two states, sending tides of two-foot waves reeling into the Texas shoreline. Overnight, half the 3,900 tons of oil piled up on Texas beaches disappeared. And clean-up efforts began putting a dent in the rest.

 

Even in Mexico, which had neither the resources nor the hurricanes of the United States, the oil began disappearing under a ferocious counterattack by nature. In the water, much of it evaporated; on beaches, the combined forces of pounding waves, ultraviolet light and petroleum-eating microbes broke it down.

 

"The environment in the Gulf of Mexico is used to coping with petroleum," said Tunnell. "The seabed is crisscrossed with petroleum reservoirs, and the equivalent of one to two supertankers full of oil leaks into the Gulf every year. The outcome of that is a huge population of bacteria that feed on oil and live along the shoreline."

 

The bacteria and other marine life forms along the shoreline got a boost from a strategy employed by both the United States and Mexico: to more or less give up on stopping the oil spill from reaching beaches while concentrating on keeping it out of estuaries and wetlands.

 

By keeping oil out of rivers and lagoons, authorities ensured a steady stream of nutrients back into the coastal areas. And as the spill diminished, marine life had a baby boom.

 

Soto, who followed the fish and shrimp population off Mexico closely, found to his surprise that for most species the numbers had returned to normal within two years.

 

"The catastrophic effects that everybody's looking for, those are mostly limited to the first months," he said.

 

Even the physical evidence of the spill quickly began disappearing. Tunnell has been visiting Mexico regularly for 30 years, mapping the spilled Ixtoc oil on the country's beaches and coral reefs.

 

"In 1979, the islands around Veracruz looked like black doughnuts, there was so much oil clustered around them," he remembers. "It was 12 to 15 inches thick in some places. But as I came back over the years, it got harder and harder to find. After five to seven years, it was hard to see the outline, and by 2002, an unsuspecting person would have thought it was a rock ledge — it was covered with algae and shells and just looked like a normal part of the environment."

 

While the Ixtoc and BP spills are in many respects startlingly similar, they also have important differences — particularly the depth at which they occurred. The Ixtoc well was in relatively shallow waters, about 160 feet deep. Nobody knows what happens to oil at 30 times that depth.

 

"Do I think the environment has an amazing resilience? Yes, I see it every day as we patrol the shoreline," says Travis Clapp, a National Park Service resource manager who works at the Padre Island National Seashore. "But I'd be cautious about saying how quick the recovery from this spill is going to be. We're in a whole new ballgame here."

[i_am_the_swammi]

And this means that you and any that would invest in BP and other oil companies are as much to blame for what happens. The driving factor in business is money and for companies that means stakeholders. As long as people keep investing just to chase a dollar then these companies see it as acceptance of their methods of doing business. So by investing in BP you have voted with your money. You've just told them that you don't care that they have destroyed the Gulf, just keep on rocking what they're doing because you've made $500. Good job.

 

you do realize that BP has 80,000+ employees worldwide, most of whom's retirement is tied, in part, to stock and stock-options in their employer?

 

Is it your contention that everyone should boycott their products, and sell their stock, so that we can punish the .0000001% of the company that had anything to do with the spill while crushing the retiremnet dreams of the other 79,500 employees?

[The Irish Doggy]

Not exactly certain what is so funny with that statement I made. Investors do have a say in how a company is run, they do so by the act of an investment. Investing in a company signals to that company that you believe in what they are doing and their methods on giving you a return on your investment. A company that continues to make a profit and therefore attract investors will continue to use the methods that got them there until they fail to return a profit. By investing with BP you are signaling to them that you find their methods of returning profit to you acceptable. Therefore, the message you are sending with your money is that you don't care at all about the Gulf or the environment, just that you make a dollar.

 

 

You are taking my initial comment way too seriously. I should have added an irish wink.

 

In general, I agree with your comments.

[Kid Cid]

you do realize that BP has 80,000+ employees worldwide, most of whom's retirement is tied, in part, to stock and stock-options in their employer?

 

Is it your contention that everyone should boycott their products, and sell their stock, so that we can punish the .0000001% of the company that had anything to do with the spill while crushing the retiremnet dreams of the other 79,500 employees?

This is a free market is it not? Investing ethically as well as with an eye towards profit would send a message to all companies (not just those in the oil industry) that in order to attract investors a company should also use ethically sound practices to generate profit for the investors. The jobs and/or retirements of those individuals you are touting would be picked up by those companies that are willing to play by the rules that the investors set forth. That's the way the markets are supposed to work.

 

You know, there's probably a good dollar to be made by a firm that started an ethically sound investment fund.

[SEC=UGA]

This is a free market is it not? Investing ethically as well as with an eye towards profit would send a message to all companies (not just those in the oil industry) that in order to attract investors a company should also use ethically sound practices to generate profit for the investors. The jobs and/or retirements of those individuals you are touting would be picked up by those companies that are willing to play by the rules that the investors set forth. That's the way the markets are supposed to work.

 

You know, there's probably a good dollar to be made by a firm that started an ethically sound investment fund.

 

We don't even vote for ethical politicians, you expect us to invest in ethical corporations?

[Kid Cid]

We don't even vote for ethical politicians, you expect us to invest in ethical corporations?

No, I don't, I expect people to chase a dollar every chance they get and the question of ethics is only valid if they get caught doing something unethical. The fact that money is more important than ethics is just another aspect of the human condition that is completely messed up. However, I would be remiss if I did not at least raise the point.

[Azazello1313]

You know, there's probably a good dollar to be made by a firm that started an ethically sound investment fund.

 

there are a lot of those, actually. "christian" ones on the right, environmental or "socially conscious" ones on the left. the idea actually seems kind of silly to me, because it rewards pandering to those "ethics" in order to boost the bottom line, which taken to its logical conclusion becomes a sort of disingenuous discrimination. it's like a christian only hiring a guy with a jesus fish on his business card. the idea just bugs me a little, I doubt I would ever participate. but hey, YMMV.

[i_am_the_swammi]

This is a free market is it not? Investing ethically as well as with an eye towards profit would send a message to all companies (not just those in the oil industry) that in order to attract investors a company should also use ethically sound practices to generate profit for the investors. The jobs and/or retirements of those individuals you are touting would be picked up by those companies that are willing to play by the rules that the investors set forth. That's the way the markets are supposed to work.

 

You know, there's probably a good dollar to be made by a firm that started an ethically sound investment fund.

 

What practice did BP implement that was unethical? Following the standards that every other oil drilling company does?

 

And I doubt, in today's economy, there could be apples-to-apples absorbtion of 80,000.

 

This was an accident of global proportions, Lets not make it worse by punishing the blue-collar workers of the company that it happened to. Maybe we cna focus our intentions instead on cleaning the mess up

[Azazello1313]

The fact that money is more important than ethics is just another aspect of the human condition that is completely messed up.

 

who says it is more important? it certainly is for some people, but not for others. people choose where their personal allegiance lies.

[Kid Cid]

What practice did BP implement that was unethical? Following the standards that every other oil drilling company does?

 

And I doubt, in today's economy, there could be apples-to-apples absorbtion of 80,000.

 

This was an accident of global proportions, Lets not make it worse by punishing the blue-collar workers of the company that it happened to. Maybe we cna focus our intentions instead on cleaning the mess up

BP won't let us. I'm sure they are still trying to figure out how to turn a profit out of this charlie foxtrot.

 

Sacrificing safety features and inspection and buying off the depart of the government responsible for oversight of the safety of these drilling platforms all so that they could save a few dollars. But hey, since every other oil company is doing the same thing, it's OK.

 

One thing I do know is that jobs don't mean squat. We've watched as millions of jobs have leaked out of this country and suddenly you're worried about the jobs located in this one area of the country in this one industry? Where were you when the steel workers and the auto workers lost their jobs to Japan? Where were you when the technology companies upped and moved to Japan and Korea and Taiwan? How come you're not complaining about outsourcing of human capital requirements to India and China? It strikes me that you are complaining about only those jobs that have a direct impact on you personally.

[Kid Cid]

who says it is more important? it certainly is for some people, but not for others. people choose where their personal allegiance lies.

True enough, that was perhaps a bit more of a blanket statement than I intended. On the other side of that coin, many people will invest in companies and the only research they will do is calculate a P/E Ratio. They don't care how their profit is generated as long as there is profit.

[bpwallace49]

you expect us to invest in ethical corporations?

 

I am starting one called "Holy Shirts and Pants". We employ homeless people to make clothes. I got the idea from a venture capitalist . . .

Claire Cleary: So is it just about the money?

John Beckwith: No no, it's about, uh, investing in companies that are ethically and morally defensible.

Sack Lodge: Well, like what? Give me an example.

John Beckwith: Like what? Well, there's the company that we have where we're taking the, the fur or the wool from sheep and we turn it into thread for homeless people to sew. And then they make it into cloth, which they in turn sew, then um... make little shirts and pants for other homeless people to sell. It's a pretty good deal.

Jeremy Grey: [fumbling his words because Gloria is giving him a hand job under the dinner table] People - People helping people.

Claire Cleary: That's - that's very admirable.

John Beckwith: Thank you. Although, don't make me out to be a saint just yet. We do turn a small profit. After all, someone has to pay for the, uh,

[motions to Jeremy]

John Beckwith: Lap dancers for the big guy here.

Jeremy Grey: [laughing pleasurably] Oh, ha ha ha, he's joking around. It feels so good when he jokes.

[rajncajn]

Some friends of ours found an oiled pelican on the beach by our house today.