Louisiana deep oil drilling disaster

[Magda Hassan]

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/kevin-c...d=10689928

Even an actor can organise better than BP management and Obama.

[Ed Jewett]

QUOTE
http://www.thenation.com/blog/bp-and-us-go...-hazing-scandal

BP and US Government 'Command Center' Guarded by Company From Afghan Embassy Hazing Scandal

Jeremy Scahill
May 28, 2010

I just got off the phone with my friends Naomi Klein, author of "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," and her husband Avi Lewis, host of al Jazeera English's popular program Fault Lines. They are traveling around the devastated US Gulf reporting on the horrific disaster caused by BP's massive oil spill. They described to me a run in that they just had with the private security company Wackenhut, which apparently has been hired to do the perimeter security for the "Deepwater Horizon Unified Command." The "Unified Command" is run jointly by BP and several US government agencies including the US Coast Guard, the Department of Defense, the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security.

Wackenhut, of course, is the notorious private security company that operates in the US and around the globe. It recently became part of the huge British mercenary network G4S. Most recently, Wackenhut gained global infamy for the conduct of guards from its subsidiary Armor Group after it was revealed by whistleblowers that the company created a "Lord of the Flies environment" at the embassy "in which guards and supervisors are 'peeing on people, eating potato chips out of [buttock] cracks, vodka shots out of [buttock] cracks... [drunken] brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity." According to the Project on Government Oversight, "Multiple guards say this deviant hazing has created a climate of fear and coercion, with those who declined to participate often ridiculed, humiliated, demoted, or even fired. The result is an environment that is dangerous and volatile. Some guards have reported barricading themselves in their rooms for fear that those carrying out the hazing will harm them physically."

In other words, Wackenhut is the perfect choice to "guard" the joint BP-US government-US military operation in the Gulf.

Lewis told me that for two weeks his crew has attempted to interview officials from the Unified Command's Joint Information Center. "We had been shut down or dodged for 2 weeks of official requests," he said. Finally, Lewis and Klein, who is on assignment for The Guardian, decided to go to the information center in person "to try to nail something down."

When they pulled up to the front gate, they were greeted by a private security guard working for Wackenhut, the massive security company. "We said we were media and he said, 'No no no. You're going to have to turn around and go back," recalls Lewis. Klein added, "The Wackenhut guard said we couldn't come in without permission, but wouldn't tell us who we needed permission from. When we didn't leave, he radioed for back up and a Wackenhut truck arrived to escort us off the grounds." Here's a photo of the Wackenhut guard stopping them:

h Reduced: 26% of original size [ 1920 x 1080 ] - Click to view full image
ttp://www.thenation.com/sites/default/files/user/164567/wackenhut.jpg

Klein, who spent extensive time in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina documenting the widespread disaster profiteering and privatization that endures to this day said the fact that Wackenhut is guarding a joint operation of the US government and BP is not surprising given what is happening in the Gulf right now. "The whole Gulf Coast is a corporate oil state," she told me. "It's like BP broke it, so now they own the entire Gulf Coast." She added: "We might accept the premise that BP is best positionioned to know how to fix the blow up at 5,000 feet, but that also seems to mean they think they should control media access and the entire clean up of a massive national emergency. BP is in charge of everything. We were on the water in open seas the day before the Wackenhut incident and a boat pulls up next to us and asked if we worked for BP and we said, "No," and they said, 'You can't be here.'" It is completely sci-fi. It's a corporate state."

.


Link from: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...ress=103x538925

[Magda Hassan]

What a classic photo Ed! Looks like a Sieg Heil coming though one one side of the Wackenhut bot and his inner queen struggling to get out and express herself on the other. Fascists in a nutshell.

[Ed Jewett]

Magda, I'm guessing he was gesturing to the driver to turn around and go away when he spotted the camera and tried to prevent his face from being photographed. I don't recognize him; the last photo I remember seeing about this particular group featured a potato chip sticking in between two naked male butt cheeks.

Now, we return you to your more normal coverage of a truly intense, bizarre and deeply troublesome event.

Two from Mike Ruppert coming up...

[Ed Jewett]

A Big Question

Can anyone help me? -- As I have watched all the stories about the Gulf, it's pretty clear that there are at least two and now likely three large plumes coming from the seabed. Simmons and others place one miles away from the well head and the new one is described as being miles in the opposite direction. What I have not seen explained is how these leaks/blowouts are mechanically connected to the Deepwater Horizon event. The rig was in a mile of water. So if the riser fell over, these other leaks should be no more than a mile away. That's how long the riser pipe was. I just can't figure that out. Anybody? How could these blowouts be miles away then and still be mechanically caused as a result of the explosion?

MCR
Posted by Jenna Orkin at 6:31 PM

http://mikeruppert.blogspot.com/2010/05/...stion.html

Comments linked to the above:

Blogger Dave Z said...

It sounds like they are caused by chemical dispersants (generalized from comments on theoildrum.com) and are drifting slowly with currents.

7:13 PM


Blogger Phil said...

MCR;

Not sure if related; i read a commentary between a rig worker who was on the rig during the explosion. I 'll be damned if i can find it now, but will keep looking. Anyhow, while i am not technically savy on oil drilling, i get the jist of what was being said. He correctly identified the gas plume that blew the top off the hole. But; he stated there was supposed to be a "valve" on the top of the hole or holes once drilled. They were mandatory in the past, but recently, lobbyists were successful in lifting that. This person stated that this was why the top blew off the drilled hole. Apparently, this valve was 1/2 million dollars to install on the cap of the drill holes in any underwater high pressure sites ??

I just thought of this, i seen this commentary about 5 days after the event broke the news, but cant locate it... i will keep looking if it is even related.

I am wondering if this has anything to do with what you are asking?

J

7:14 PM


Blogger "e Brutto" said...

Yes, it has me wondering.
So I have been digging.
Posted this on theoildrum:
'
'As per the plan, the rig was supposed to be drilling the second of the two wells planned. But it faced oil spills over two fronts: one at the well head and another at the surface offshore. The wells are located in lease G-32306 over the prospect.'
http://www.offshore-technology.com/proje...oprospect/

~ 'Well A last year and Well B this year are part of the plan.'
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/PI/PDFImages/PLANS/29/29977.pdf

Well A was abandoned due to a hurricane, was it completed / sealed properly.

Leaks always get worse...
Perhaps no one will notice if BP keeps us watching the small leak, LOL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4whiKQgnp4w


http://www.zerohedge.com/article/matt-simm...p-kill-just-dis

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com....html''

I came across some scuttle buck that BP had been granted some leeway in emissions related to previous drilling, well A perhaps.

Another explanation could be that Mr S has lost focus momentarily, I detected a bit of off baseness in another statement a while back.

7:24 PM


Blogger PseudoPhil said...

Mr. Ruppert -

If the well casing was cracked by the blowout, or has been eroded by the flow of material, it could be breached somewhere between the top of rock layer overlaying the oil and the surface of the mud at the bottom of the gulf. If that were the case, the oil could be escaping up through several miles of mud before reaching the water. This could conceivably cause a leak to appear miles away from the bore itself.

7:32 PM


Blogger tray said...

Simmons is wrong.

7:33 PM


Blogger Saoirsí said...

Some possibilities:

1. Simmons is primarily referring to the physical presence of a separate, larger plume, and inferring from that that they are in the wrong place, regardless of how it got there;

2. In the excitement of a live interview he has misspoken, or is not expressing himself clearly, or forgot a detail/confused a hypothesis, as to how that can be;

3. This other plume is the result of a pressure fissure or fracture opening up in the salt canopy/mud layers through which they were drilling (not "hard rock" as such);
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/prominent...#comment-378469

4. This is the result of an earlier well head reopening? such as one that they abandoned before after equipment fell into it it and they had to sever the line?
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/prominent...#comment-377966
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/05/16/...in6490197.shtml

I frankly have no idea. Also found that interview confusing.

7:43 PM


Blogger Jenna Orkin said...

an email came in from someone who didn't give a 'handle":

My impression from the multiple plumes was...

From Matt Simmons ....the other 5-6 mi away leak was a PREVIOUS "expletive deleted"ed up drill job by BP in the same field, they lost some drill tools, tried to rush the job, cost 25 million in the "expletive deleted"up, moved over 5-6 miles, drillled again

But maybe they did not do a good job of sealing that old bore hole/well off., and hey PRESSURE

Headed to NOLA manana to prevent people from killimng themselves with aircraft trying to save pelicans...what a job...

All of the above may be old news..always a day late...

no1hears

8:26 PM


Jenna Orkin said...

"Simmons thinks the bigger leak could have been caused by the destruction of the well casing when the BP oil rig exploded. Or it could be caused by a natural oil seep, although the odds of a seep of that size occurring right around the time of the Deep Horizon disaster is nearly zero."

http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/201...l-leak-in-gulf/

8:50 PM

[Ed Jewett]

IT’S TIME TO PRAY
May 29, 2010, 2100 PDT –

I haven’t been able to sleep well because of the obvious chicanery, stupidity and deception being practiced by BP, the mainstream media and the United States government. I have not been able figure out how giant plumes could be originating five miles in either direction of the well that is leaking. I wrote to Matt Simmons and this reply just came in. I’m doing what Matt asked, as quickly as I can. Dinner can wait.

…“In my opinion, what most likely happened when one of the largest surges of oil as gas blew out the BOP and within seconds, began melting down one of the world’s most technically advanced deepwater rigs ever built is that just the BOP and wellhead got tossed far away from the well bore but the riser which was attached to the rig floor was separated from the wellhead/BOP.

“What all the black crap coming out to create these plumes are is the oil from the reservoir and it is staying so deep under the ocean surface that only the recent tests by NOAA research vessels finally saw these giant plumes rapidly spreading across the sea floor of the Gulf of Mexico.

“BP is in total denial that this could be real.

“It is time for the government to ask BP to step aside and bring the military into to managing this colossal failure of judgment by BP.

“Spread this news as we all need to better understand what is really happening.

“Very tragic story.

“Matt”

Let me add my thoughts. -- The obvious collusion between the USG and the mainstream media leads me to believe that the USG has known that a nuke would be the only option within a week of the explosion. About two weeks ago we posted on this blog a link to a story from (I think it was) The Telegraph saying that President Obama had dispatched a team of nuclear scientists to study the situation and evaluate the possibility of using a nuke. One was a co-inventor of the H-bomb. It was a credible story that no press outlet followed up on. Why not?

I believe that the leaks are devastating for all life in the Gulf and that large portions of the Gulf will be dead zones from seabed to surface within maybe six months. I believe that an announcement of a pending nuclear detonation will come within a week to ten days. I predict that US Continuity of Government provisions will be activated and that FEMA will, before end of summer, be placed in complete control of the Southeast United States… limited martial law.

I believe that mankind will have a very rude awakening when the nuclear announcement is made. We will be lucky if North Korea doesn’t seize the moment... or somebody else.

The U.S. government must intervene without hesitation. I completely agree with Matt Simmons. The battle now is to save all life in and around the Gulf of Mexico.

It is time to pray.

MCR [Michael C. Ruppert]
Posted by Jenna Orkin at 9:16 PM

http://mikeruppert.blogspot.com/2010/05/it...me-to-pray.html

One comment:
Blogger eyeballs said...

Go nuclear?

Technocrats always want to throw another technology at a problem. The idea that technology can clean up the environment by making electric cars is one example. Nuking the seabed to stop an environmental disaster is yet another.

It's been hubris among technocrats that has brought us deep-water drilling "to protect our way of life". The horrific failure of technology sits at the core of this problem. Add nuclear radiation to an existing environmental catastrophe?

Gimme a break.

Will blowing up the seabed actually result in patching the leak? Seems to me that ripping up the natural contours of the Earth's crust is what brought on this trouble. But if geologists are convinced that more damage is necessary to stop the existing damage, certainly there must be powerful explosives that do not emit huge amounts of practically eternally radioactive poison.

To me, this BP fiasco highlights the thorough overshoot of technology, beyond its mandate to make human life easier. The bees are dying, the people are coming up with cancer, the forests and fish are almost gone. It's time we pulled back from our whole industrial fantasy and decided to live with much less of it -- especially since it'll be going away anyway.

No nukes!

10:00 PM

[Ed Jewett]

Matt Simmons Tells Bloomberg Only Way To Contain Oil Leak Is With Small Nuclear Bombs, "Top Kill" Is Just A Distraction

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/29/2010 11:40 -0500


In his May 28th interview with Bloomberg's Mark Crumpton and Lori Rothman, Matt Simmons of energy investment bank Simmons & Company, provides some stunning revelations on what is really occurring in the Gulf of Mexico, and proposes that the only effective way to contain the leak is to relieve BP, bring in the military, and do what the Russians have done on comparable occasions, namely explode nuclear weapons within the wellbore. Simmons knows what he is talking about. As Jim Bianco points out: "Matt Simmons gained fame with his book 2005 Twilight in the Desert where he claimed that the Saudis were overstating their oil output because they hit “peak oil.” Right or wrong Simmons claimed the price of oil was going to skyrocket and three years after the book’s release the crude oil hit $147/Barrel. In January 2009 the WSJ called Simmons one of the five most important voices in the oil industry. Simmons has been wrong in the past and his views are non-conventional and often correct. Simmons is also highly connected within the oil industry so he knows who to talk to verify his claims." In addition to his radical solution, Simmons also points out that "Top Kill" is a sideshow and the real problem is 5 to 7 miles away, where a second fissure is "releasing a plume the size of Delaware and Maryland combined." If Simmons is indeed right, and the only recourse left to Obama is to nuke the seabed, the repercussions for his already shaky political situation will be tremendous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4whiKQgnp4w...player_embedded

[Peter Lemkin]

Good Question you ask...and the only people who would know {BP} ain't talkin'!They've been showing us photos of the least of all the leak plumes, while certainly knowing about all the others. The pipe from the bottom of the Gulf [where the water meets the mud] was 21" around and 20" interior diameter and about a mile long. It crumpled to the sea floor when the rig collapsed. I can't answer your question - only can make guesses. Perhaps they had more than one well hole [with the technology now available one can drill at angles and even sideways once in the rock or sediment]. Perhaps what we have seen is a mile long, 20" pipe emptying itself and what it used to connect to is going like a geyser somewhere a few miles away. There are other possibilities of the falling rig punching a new hole if the oil reservoir is not deep below the surface. We don't know. BP knows - but is keeping its mouth shut and the info 'proprietary'. So, we have seen how a [in BP's words] 60-70% chance of success came to zero [I'd given it 5% or less - but that was before I know of the second source - or third and fourth]. I'm sure they'll kick-around placing a bomb [even an atomic one] near the well-head. You ain't seen nothin' yet....it is going to get a whole lot worse....as things always do in a corporatocracy.

[Ed Jewett]

Friday, May 28, 2010

Third Giant Underwater Oil Plume Discovered



The New York Times reported on May 15th:

Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.

“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”
The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.

AP reported on May 27th that scientists had found a second giant plume deep under the water. The plume is 22 miles long and 6 miles wide.

Today, the Washington Post is reporting that a third giant underwater plume has been discovered:

A Louisiana scientist said his crew had located another vast plume of oily globs, miles in the opposite direction. James H. Cowan Jr., a professor at Louisiana State University, said his crew on Wednesday found a plume of oil in a section of the gulf 75 miles west of the source of the leak.
Cowan said that his crew sent a remotely controlled submarine into the water, and found it full of oily globules, from the size of a thumbnail to the size of a golf ball.... Cowan said the oil at this site was so thick that it covered the lights on the submarine.
"It almost looks like big wet snowflakes, but they're brown and black and oily," Cowan said. The submarine returned to the surface entirely black, he said.
Cowan said that the submarine traveled about 400 feet down, close to the sea floor, and found oil all the way down. Trying to find the edges of the plume, he said the submarine traveled miles from side to side.
"We really never found either end of it," he said. He said he did not know how wide the plume actually was, or how far it stretched away to the west.

As I have previously pointed out, the use of dispersants by BP may be making matters worse. The Washington post article notes:

Cowan's finding underscores concerns about oil moving under the surface, perhaps because of dispersant chemicals that have broken it up into smaller globules. BP officials have played down the possibility of undersea oil plumes.
This discovery seems to confirm the fears of some scientists that -- because of the depth of the leak and the heavy use of chemical "dispersants" -- this spill was behaving differently than others. Instead of floating on top of the water, it may be moving beneath it.
That would be troubling because it could mean the oil would slip past coastal defenses such as "containment booms" designed to stop it on the surface. Already, scientists and officials in Louisiana have reported finding thick oil washing ashore despite the presence of floating booms.
It would also be a problem for hidden ecosystems deep under the gulf. There, scientists say, the oil could be absorbed by tiny animals and enter a food chain that builds to large, beloved sport-fish like red snapper. It might also glom on to deep-water coral formations, and cover the small animals that make up each piece of coral.

"You're almost like a deer in the headlights when you're watching this. You don't know what to say," Cowan said. He said the oil's threat to undersea ecosystems "is really starting to scare us."



One of three comments:


oryzen said... I don't know why this comes as a surprise. Within the first week of the Deepwater Horizon blow out BP and main stream media where stating this fact. Whats next? Workers on the oil rig heard 3 explosion several hours before the rig burst in to flames! that was also main line news 3 weeks ago.

Wake up people
May 28, 2010 3:00 PM

[Ed Jewett]

Wackenhut

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wackenhut

Their work and web site for Oak Ridge, TN:
http://www.wackenhut-oakridge.com/


##



Some excerpts: :

Wackenhut has been tied to the US goverment since inception. The early board members included Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, Gen. Mark Clark and Ralph E. Davis, a leader of the John Birch Society. Other members include former FBI director Clarence Kelley, former Defense secretary and CIA deputy director Frank Carlucci, former Defense Intelligence Agency director Gen. Joseph Carroll, former Secret Service director James J. Rowley, former Marine commandant P.X. Kelley, former CIA deputy director Adm. Bobby Ray Inman, and previous to becoming CIA director, William J. Casey as outside legal counsel. [5]

In the same above mentioned SPY Magazine article, 18 year terrorism expert and CIA analyst, William Corbett, stated "For years, Wackenhut has been involved with the CIA and other intelligence organizations, including the Drug Enforcement Agency. Wackenhut would allow the CIA to occupy positions within the company [in order to carry out] clandistine operations." He went on to say Wackenhut provided the intelligence agencies with information and was paid in return "in a quid pro quo arrangement". This would explain in part the huge number of contracts awarded to Wackenhut in delicate areas of the national security, such as embassies and nuclear plants, and the $150 million increase in work under the Reagan Administration.
Wackenhut was also involved in illegal US operations in Central America in the 1980s. By exploiting the Cabazon Indian reservation as a sovereign nation, they intended to produce and export explosives to the Contras, evading Congressional law to the contrary.[7][8]
The director of international operations at the time, Ernesto Bermudez, admitted to having 1,500 men in El Salvador doing "[t]hings you wouldn't want your mother to know about."
According to Edward Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan in The Terrorism Industry (ISBN 0679725598), "Wackenhut quickly got involved with right-wing terrorists who were themselves linked to state security agents" in Belgium. They left in the early 1980s after some of their guards were accused of luring immigrant children into basements and beating them.
Strike breakers

Wackenhut is known for providing muscle and force against organized labor and protesters. They provided strike breakers at the Pittston mine in Kentucky. Their armed guards have beaten protesters at nuclear sites for the Department of Energy. [9]
Among nuclear weapons lab employees, Wackenhut was better known for “wacking” radiation whistleblowers like Karen Silkwood and attempting to run Dr. Rosalie Bertell off the road. [10]
Wackenhut is a joint venture partner along with MPRI, Kellogg Brown and Root and AGS in the civilian police training company Civilian Police International, LLC which is under a State Department contract for $1.6 billion to work with the Civilian Police and Rule of Law office in coordination with the United Nations training emerging police forces around the world. [18]

Wackenhut, through contracts with the Department of Energy provides security services for the following sites:

• Arkansas Nuclear One
  
• Braidwood Nuclear Power Station
  
• Byron Nuclear Power Station
  
• Callaway Plant
  
• Clinton Power Station
  
• Dresden Nuclear Power Station
  
• Ginna Nuclear Power Plant
  
• Grand Gulf Nuclear Station
  
• Kewaunee Nuclear Power Plant
  
• LaSalle County Nuclear Power Station
  
• Limerick Generating Station
  
• Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant
  
• Oyster Creek
  
• Palisades Nuclear Plant
  
• Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station
  
• Pilgrim Nuclear Station
  
• River Bend Nuclear Station
  
• Point Beach Nuclear Plant
  
• Prairie Island Nuclear Plant
  
• Quad Cities Nuclear Power Station
  
• Salem/Hope Creek Generating Station
  
• Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant
  
• South Texas
  
• St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant
  
• Three Mile Island (TMI) Unit 1
  
• Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant
  
• V.C. Summer Nuclear Station
  
• Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station
  
• Waterford
  
• Zion Nuclear Power Station
  

Wackenhut has since lost contracts with many of these stations after guards at various nuclear sites were found asleep. Some were recorded by an insider who later sent the video to CBS news resulting in several firings and Exelon to form Exelon Nuclear Security to relieve Wackenhut from their contracts.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Wackenhut


###


And see my own previous collection; the following link comes from a "search" here at DPF using the word "Wackenhut" which subsequently should show up in red every time it occurs:


http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...=Wackenhut