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Louisiana deep oil drilling disaster
Ed Jewett Wrote:Also, the incident seems to lend a new dimension to the term "deep politics". What is evident is massive long-term "winking" or collusion between government and business to the extreme detriment of sentient life forms. As someone who has studied and was qualified in NIMS incident command and exercise design, I am horrified by the ineptitude of the government's response to this "incident".

It's not ineptitude, it's policies and priorities that forsake everything but profit. Notice that the corporate gov't is utterly competent and efficient when they decide that a big brokerage firm must be bailed out. The apparatus that got Obama elected was a well-oiled machine. Then he suddenly can't govern; alluva sudden his administration is all thumbs? Bullshit. He/they merely have an agenda different from ours. Disaster capitalism.
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There are some indications that the floor of the Gulf of Mexico sits astride tectonic plates and that the drilling and subsequent events may have opened a vented into a volcano. There is further follow-up here: [URL="http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=119857"]http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=119857
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"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
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Myra Bronstein Wrote:
Ed Jewett Wrote:Also, the incident seems to lend a new dimension to the term "deep politics". What is evident is massive long-term "winking" or collusion between government and business to the extreme detriment of sentient life forms. As someone who has studied and was qualified in NIMS incident command and exercise design, I am horrified by the ineptitude of the government's response to this "incident".

It's not ineptitude, it's policies and priorities that forsake everything but profit. Notice that the corporate gov't is utterly competent and efficient when they decide that a big brokerage firm must be bailed out. The apparatus that got Obama elected was a well-oiled machine. Then he suddenly can't govern; alluva sudden his administration is all thumbs? Bullshit. He/they merely have an agenda different from ours. Disaster capitalism.


Maybe I was being too kind or careful in my wording... but what we are talking about here, whether or not it is disaster capitalism, is gross dereliction of duty, extreme failure of leadership, scientific ignorance and hubris, failure to appreciate the nature and severity of the situation and to take appropriate action, an impeachable offense, and eco-treason.
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
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Ed Jewett Wrote:
Myra Bronstein Wrote:
Ed Jewett Wrote:Also, the incident seems to lend a new dimension to the term "deep politics". What is evident is massive long-term "winking" or collusion between government and business to the extreme detriment of sentient life forms. As someone who has studied and was qualified in NIMS incident command and exercise design, I am horrified by the ineptitude of the government's response to this "incident".

It's not ineptitude, it's policies and priorities that forsake everything but profit. Notice that the corporate gov't is utterly competent and efficient when they decide that a big brokerage firm must be bailed out. The apparatus that got Obama elected was a well-oiled machine. Then he suddenly can't govern; alluva sudden his administration is all thumbs? Bullshit. He/they merely have an agenda different from ours. Disaster capitalism.


Maybe I was being too kind or careful in my wording... but what we are talking about here, whether or not it is disaster capitalism, is gross dereliction of duty, extreme failure of leadership, scientific ignorance and hubris, failure to appreciate the nature and severity of the situation and to take appropriate action, an impeachable offense, and eco-treason.

I understand Ed. From the perspective of us not in the ruling elite (I'm making assumptions about you) a sane and humane and responsible agenda is the exact opposite of what they're doing. From the perspective of the corporate owned ruling elite--the only demographic that matters--their agenda is being carried out wonderfully, and the puppets they installed are performing brilliantly.

Police and the coast guard patrol the Louisiana shore to prevent reporters from taking pictures of the horrifying suffering of the dying animals. Halliburton will probably be paid millions of our tax dollars to fix the problem that they were paid millions of tax dollars to create. New offshore drilling permits are being granted in the midst of the off shore drilling "moratorium. Gulf drilling regulators will continue to let oil companies fill out their own inspection reports.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/24...87346.html
http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/...isle-beach

But Obama went there promptly for his photo op so at least they threw the proles a crumb.
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"Today, I believe that we will not learn to live responsibly on this planet without basic changes in the way we organize human relationships, particularly inside the family, for family life provides the metaphors with which we think about broader ethical relations. We need to sustain creativity with a new and richer sense of complementarity and interdependence, and we need to draw on images of collaborative caring by both men and women as a model of responsibility. We must free these images from the connotations of servitude by making and keeping them truly elective."


"What we need today is [to] transform our attitude toward all productive work and toward the planet into expressions of homemaking, where we create and sustain the possibility of life. It may take another word to express the single responsibility that unites the homemaker, male or female, with the men and women who mine and plant and create industries and work for effective forms of exchange and for a peaceful world. Such a new term might be ecopoesis, using the Greek root for making that gives us the word poetry. Still, the making of words and rhymes is insufficient; the problem is with our understanding of the materialities that make life possible: the forests and the cooking pots, the necessary recuperation time of fields and workers, the private spaces of our lives where the spirit flourishes, and the woodlands that are still wild."

If it is true that the unit of survival is the organism plus its environment, a sensitivity to the environment is the highest of survival skills and not a dangerous distraction. We must live in a wider space and a longer stretch of time. In thinking about survival, we must think of sustaining life across generations rather than accepting the short-term purposes of politicians and accountants.

The fundamental problem of our society and our species today is to discover a way to flourish that will not be at the expense of some other community or of the biosphere, to replace competition with creative interdependence. At present, we are steadily depleting the planet of resources and biological diversity; the developed world thrives on the poverty of the South. We are in need of another standing of global relationships that will not only be sustainable but also enriching; it must come to us as a positive challenge, a vision worth fulfilling, not a demand for retrenchment and austerity. This is, of course, what we do day by day when we refuse to accept the idea that we must reject one part of life to enhance another. Projecting a new vision is artistic; it's a task each of us pursues in composing our lives. One can write songs about sharing; it is hard to write songs about limits.

The visions we construct will not be classic pioneer visions of struggle and self-reliance. Rather, they will involve an intricate elaboration of themes of complementarity -- forms of mutual completion and enhancement and themes of recognition achieved through loving attention. All the forms of life we encounter -- not only colleagues and neighbors, but other species, other cultures, the planet itself -- are similar to us and severely in need of nurture, but there is also a larger whole to which we all belong. The health of that larger whole is essential to the health of the parts. Many women raised in male-dominated cultures have to struggle against the impulse to sacrifice their health for the health of the whole, to maintain complementarity without dependency. But many men raised in the same traditions have to struggle against pervasive imageries in which their own health or growth is a victory achieved at the expense of the other. We have perhaps a few years in which to combine these….. We must celebrate the mysterious sacredness of that which is still to be born."

Selected excerpts from Composing a Life, by Mary Catherine Bateson, Plume/Penguin, NY 1990.
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
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"Officials have now admitted that BP’s unstoppable oil leak may be pouring up to 2.5 million gallons a day into Gulf of Mexico." Hmmm.....It began on April 20...that makes about 36 days x 2.5 million gallons = about 90 million gallons - and they don't expect the relief well will be drilled before the end of the year....which would be about another 525 million gallons - for a total [if the leak doesn't increase, as many experts expect] = a total 'spill' of about 615.000.000 gallons [give or take a few]....nice move BP, Halliburton, USG, et al.... These figures I take as conservative - as they are probably still lying about the amount and it IS expected that the leaking oil will break the pipe further and increase its rate of flow....so I'd guessimate a billion gallons [4 billion liters]. :joyman: Add to that that BP has bought up and used about half of the world's supply of dispersant [which are as harmful / toxic - if not more so than the oil itself!]. Not much chance of the Gulf surviving as much more than a sewer for years to come. :dancing2:
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
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http://monkeyfister.blogspot.com/2010/05...below.html

I am sure there are people here who can evaluate this. It appears that the ocean bed has blown.
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Susan Grant Wrote:http://monkeyfister.blogspot.com/2010/05...below.html

I am sure there are people here who can evaluate this. It appears that the ocean bed has blown.

So, as expected by environmental scientists and oil engineers [with enough courage to speak the truth!] IT has already happened! The broken pipe is rupturing in a new location and will now be spewing out more oil per unit time. This will continue for a while and multiple times, no doubt. So, take my one billion gallons and double it for now.

If you have a fishtank in your home and would like to perform a test, at the risk of you pet fish: take just one drop of unrefined oil and drop it into your tank [no matter how large] and watch the results....and extrapolate that to the Gulf of Mexico, and to a growing extent along the conveyor known as the Gulf Stream.....:aetsch:
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
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BP'S Shocking Memo

by Rick Outzen

A document obtained by The Daily Beast shows that BP, in a previous fatal disaster, increased worker risk to save money. Are there parallels with the Gulf explosion?
This is a story about the Three Little Pigs. A lot of dead oil workers. And British Petroleum.
From the minute the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig exploded, BP has hewed to a party line: it did everything it could to prevent the April 20 accident that killed 11 men and has been spewing millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico ever since. Some critics have questioned the veracity of that position.
Now The Daily Beast has obtained a document—displayed below—that goes to the heart of BP procedures, demonstrating that before the company’s previous major disaster—at a moment when the oil giant could choose between cost-savings and greater safety—it selected cost-savings. And BP chose to illustrate that choice, without irony, by invoking the classic Three Little Pigs fairy tale.
EXCLUSIVE: This internal BP document shows how the company took deadly risks to save money by opting to build cheaper facilities for workers. The company estimated the value of a worker's life at $10 million.
[Image: img-three-little-pigs---outzen_123605708890.jpg]
A BP spokesman tells The Daily Beast that the company has “fundamentally changed the culture of BP” since the previous disaster, an explosion at a Texas refinery five years ago. But given that a $500,000 valve might have prevented the massive spill that is now threatening to devastate the Gulf of Mexico, one has to wonder.
Some context. In March 2005, BP’s Texas City Refinery caught fire. The explosion killed 15 workers, injured 170 plant employees and residents of nearby neighborhoods, and rocked buildings 10 miles away. Most of those who died were in trailers next to the isomerization unit, which boosts octane in gasoline, when it blew up.
Attorney Brent Coon represented families of the workers killed, and discovered internal BP documents that showed the oil giant had chosen to use trailers to house workers during the day, rather than blast-resistant structures, in order save money at the refinery.
Throughout his work on the case, Coon used a Three Little Pigs analogy to illustrate the cost/benefit analysis that he believed BP used to choose the less expensive buildings, with the trailers representing straw or sticks, versus stronger material the lawyer said should have been used. But whenever Coon brought up the fairy tale, he says that BP’s attorneys objected.
Then Coon received a set of documents through discovery.
“Right there we found a presentation on the decision to buy the trailers that showed BP using “The Three Little Pigs” to describe the costs associated with the four [refinery housing] options.” Says Coon: “I thought you’ve got to be f------ kidding me. They even had drawings of three pigs on the report.”
The two-page document, prepared by BP’s risk managers in October 2002 as part of a larger risk preparedness presentation, and titled “Cost benefit analysis of three little pigs,” is harrowing:
“Frequency—the big bad wolf blows with a frequency of once per lifetime.”
“Consequence—if the wolf blows down the house then the piggy is gobbled.”
“Maximum justifiable spend (MJS)—a piggy considers it’s worth $1000 to save its bacon.”
“Which type of house,” the report asks, “should the piggy build?”
It then answers its own question: a hand-written note, “optimal,” is marked next to an option that offers solid protection, but not the “blast resistant” trailer, typically all-welded steel structures, that cost 10 times as much.
At Texas City, all of the fatalities and many of the serious injuries occurred in or around the nine contractor trailers near the isom unit, which contained large quantities of flammable hydrocarbons and had a history of releases, fires, and other safety incidents. A number of trailers as far away as two football fields were heavily damaged.
Coon says that during the discovery process, he found another email from the BP Risk Management department that showed BP put a value on each worker when making its Three Little Pigs calculation: $10 million per life. One of Coon’s associates, Eric Newell, told me that the email came from Robert Mancini, a chemical engineer in risk management, during a period when BP was buying rival Amoco and was used to compare the two companies’ policies. This email, and the related Three Little Pigs memo, which has never before been publicly viewed, attracted almost no press attention.
The BP spokesman, Scott Dean, tells The Daily Beast: “Those documents are several years old,” and that since then, “we have invested $1 billion into upgrading that refinery and continue to improve our safety worldwide.” BP’s current chief executive, Tony Hayward, has consistently tried to distance himself from the track record of his predecessor, Lord John Browne, who resigned abruptly in 2007, after the company’s safety record and his private life both came under scrutiny.
The refinery explosion resulted in more than 3,000 lawsuits, including Coon’s, and out-of-court settlements totaling $1.6 billion. BP was also convicted of a felony violation of the Clean Air Act, fined $50 million and sentenced to three years probation. Last year, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration levied the largest monetary penalty in its history, $87 million, for "failing to correct safety problems identified after a 2005 explosion that killed 15 workers at its Texas City, Texas refinery."
So has BP changed since Lord Browne left? Does BP’s Three Little Pigs decision matrix apply to the Deepwater Horizon tragedy?
We know that the Deepwater well lacked the remote-control, acoustical valve that experts believe would have shut off the well when the blowout protector failed. The acoustic trigger costs about $500,000. How would that stand up to a similar “Maximum Justifiable Spend” analysis (especially when BP’s liability is officially capped at $75 million by federal law)?
Meanwhile, officials along the Gulf Coast continue to question whether BP has tried to cut corners on the containment of the oil gushing from the well. Just yesterday, Pensacola City Councilman Larry Johnson grilled BP’s Civic Affairs Director Liz Castro about why her company has failed to use supertankers, used to successfully clean similar sized spills in the Arabian Gulf in the 1990s, to assist with oil recovery.
“These tankers saved the environment and recovered approximately 85 percent of the crude oil,” Johnson lectured. “I think BP didn’t bring the tankers in here because it was more profitable to use them to transport oil.”
When Castro couldn’t answer technical questions, Johnson and his fellow council members banished Castro until she came back with people who could.
And while BP has repeatedly stated that it will pay all necessary and appropriate clean-up costs and verifiable claims for other loss and damage caused by the spill, the Florida Congressional delegation has repeatedly asked BP to place $1 billion in an escrow account to reimburse states and counties—instead the states have received $25 million block grants, plus $70 million to help with advertising campaigns.
While BP did announce a $500 million research project yesterday, to study the impact of the oil disaster on marine life over 10 years, that’s cold comfort to those worried about their livelihood. For all of BP’s pledges that it’s delivering a figurative brick house, a solid plan, to stop the leak, contain the spill and clean up the shore, too many people on the Gulf feel like they’re living in a house of straw.
Rick Outzen is publisher and editor of Independent News, the alternative newsweekly for Northwest Florida.
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
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IG Report: Methamphetamine Use by Interior Department Staff

May 25th, 2010 Via: AP:
Staff members at an agency that oversees offshore drilling accepted tickets to sports events, lunches and other gifts from oil and gas companies and used government computers to view pornography, according to an Interior Department report alleging a culture of cronyism between regulators and the industry.
In at least one case, an inspector for the Minerals Management Service admitted using crystal methamphetamine and said he might have been under the influence of the drug the next day at work, according to the report by the acting inspector general of the Interior Department.
The report cites a variety of violations of federal regulations and ethics rules at the agency’s Louisiana office. Previous inspector general investigations have focused on inappropriate behavior by the royalty-collection staff in the agency’s Denver office.
The report adds to the climate of frustration and criticism facing the Obama administration in the monthlong oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, although it covers actions before the spill. Millions of gallons of oil are gushing into the Gulf, endangering wildlife and the livelihoods of fishermen, as scrutiny intensifies on a lax regulatory climate.
The report began as a routine investigation, the acting inspector general, Mary Kendall, said in a cover letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, whose department includes the agency.
“Unfortunately, given the events of April 20 of this year, this report had become anything but routine, and I feel compelled to release it now,” she wrote.
Her biggest concern is the ease with which minerals agency employees move between industry and government, Kendall said. While no specifics were included in the report, “we discovered that the individuals involved in the fraternizing and gift exchange — both government and industry — have often known one another since childhood,” Kendall said.
Their relationships took precedence over their jobs, Kendall said.
The report follows a 2007 investigation that revealed what then-Inspector General Earl Devaney called a “culture of ethical failure” and conflicts of interest at the minerals agency.
"Where is the intersection between the world's deep hunger and your deep gladness?"
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