What are the chances that British Petroleum and Transocean will pay us back for the staggering costs of cleaning up the mess from their exploded oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico? The Washington Post reports that the oil is already washing ashore:
An oil spill that threatened to eclipse even the Exxon Valdez disaster spread out of control with a faint sheen washing ashore along the Gulf Coast Thursday night as fishermen rushed to scoop up shrimp and crews spread floating barriers around marshes.
The spill was bigger than imagined – five times more than first estimated – and closer. Faint fingers of oily sheen were reaching the Mississippi River delta, lapping the Louisiana shoreline in long, thin lines.
You are going to love this next part (emphasis mine):
Government officials said the blown-out well 40 miles offshore is spewing five times as much oil into the water as originally estimated – about 5,000 barrels, or 200,000 gallons, a day.
At that rate, the spill could eclipse the worst oil spill in U.S. history – the 11 million gallons that leaked from the grounded tanker Exxon Valdez in Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989 – in the three months it could take to drill a relief well and plug the gushing well 5,000 feet underwater on the sea floor.
Ultimately, the spill could grow much larger than the Valdez because Gulf of Mexico wells tap deposits that hold many times more oil than a single tanker.
Okay, so it is gushing 200,000 gallons of crude oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico and it will take three months to plug it up. And it’s already washing up onto the Louisiana coast. I think it’s safe to say that this is an ecological apocalypse and it’s going to destroy the fishing industry on the Gulf Coast and cost billions (perhaps a trillion) to clean up as best we can. It can’t be completely cleaned up, and you can’t fix species extinction.
I hope the American taxpayer isn’t left holding the bill.
At least we know how bought Mary Landrieu is .. she’s still chanting “Drill, Baby, Drill!!!!!”
is not chanting?
If I recall correctly, he’s a supporter of offshore drilling.
not anymore. they just rebanned offshore drilling.
to know which way the wind blows”.
is getting some radio attention, if I understand this page correctly.
I gotta talk to her and get her to give the credit to Steve. I hate when his work gets attributed to me. He doesn’t get enough credit for what he does.
That`s nice of you, & you are right, he does not get as much credit he so much deserves.
I also understand that it`s not your fault.
I corrected it for you- just emailed you too since it took me forever to find my password.
Keep the email addy in case you need anything else like that again- Gotta’s west coast so it’s easier to get ahold of me first thing.
thanks, paddy. We appreciate it.
No worries about the credit since driving traffic to BT is the goal. I’m not trying to become famous off blogging, believe me.
But thanks.
Can we kick oil cold turkey? No. We can have a reasonable expectation that the industry act in a manner that maximizes the safety of their employees, the public and the environment.
And if Obama wasn’t so willing to give away the store so early, he would have his enemy right here: big oil. He could be using this disaster, what will be way worse than Exxon Valdez from what I’m hearing, as ammo against oil drilling.
Instead, now he’s stuck defending this horrid energy policy. In the end I think he’s right, once again he’s the president that I want in my theoretical world. This isn’t seabe theoretical world where appeal to logic trumps all, though. If that were the case he wouldn’t need to support offshore drilling in the first place; however it’s not the worst thing in the world with the correct protections in place.
I’m just so pissed off. Climate change is so important to address, and this energy bill is such shit. Americans want to drill for oil offshore without realizing how gd expensive it is. That’s without the possibility of something like this happening. I hope to god Virginia takes this to heart and does not open up our shores to exploration. It’s not worth it.
I don’t see how Obama or anybody else will be able to allow offshore drilling for a long time after the devastation of this ecological assault is fully perceived.
I think it’s unfair to say Obama gave away the store. He had nothing to do with this, so let’s not get carried away with the liberal appetite for self-flagellation. However, Obama has an absolute duty to explain exactly where he got the idea that offshore drilling was acceptable. He has to name names, admit that he bought the wrong “expertise”. He has to tell us exactly what he’s willing to have us sacrifice in the name of the God of Growth. And we have to make him do it.
.
NEW ORLEANS (Times Picayune) – Oily odor reported in New Orleans
Residents throughout the New Orleans area reported an oily odor apparently coming from the spill, which was more than 90 miles from the Crescent City.
State health and environmental officials requested continuous air quality testing and monitoring by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Health officials said people sensitive to reduced air quality may experience nausea, vomiting or headaches. Anyone with these symptoms should consider staying indoors, ventilating their homes with air conditioning and avoiding strenuous outdoor activity, the officials said.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano declared that the oil spill is of “national significance,” allowing the federal government to devote more people and resources to clean-up efforts.
Jindal asked the Defense Department to pay for 6,000 members of the Louisiana National Guard to assist with the cleanup for at least 90 days.
Commercial fishers pitched in by placing containment booms to help protect their livelihoods as the spill threatened one of the nation’s most productive fisheries, supplying 50 percent of the wild shrimp crop.
Federal ‘lackadaisical response’ worrisome
State lawmakers expressed growing concern about whether the federal government and corporate officials are reacting with the speed and resources required to avert an environmental and fishing industry disaster.
Citing memories of the faltering federal response to Hurricane Katrina nearly five years ago, Rep. Sam Jones, D-Franklin, told the House chamber that he was “in deep concern about the lackadaisical response we have gotten on the oil spill containment.”
After participating in a conference call with officials from the state and BP, Jones said he was distressed about what appeared to be a lack of plans and preparation for containment to prevent the oil from coming ashore. He said the officials have a clean-up policy, but not a prevention policy.
“I would ask the president to send all he can now,” said Jones, who was an aide to Gov. Kathleen Blanco during the Katrina response. “We need the facts, we need the A-team here.”
Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer, said the response is the largest oil spill containment operation in history, with more than 1,000 workers and 76 vessels.
BP’s responsibility for 15 deaths in Texas refinery explosion
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
(SMSLegal) – Cameron International Corporation the second-largest United States maker of oilfield equipment, provided the blowout preventer for the Transocean Ltd. rig in the Gulf of Mexico that caught fire and sank last week.
Cameron’s gear has been used on the Deepwater Horizon rig, which was built in 2001 to operate in seas as deep as 8,000 feet, since the vessel was commissioned.
Cameron, Halliburton, BP
Cameron dropped $5.77, or 13 percent, to $38.70 as of the 4 p.m. close of the New York Stock Exchange and traded as low as $34.65. The Houston-based company said yesterday that it provided so-called blowout preventers for Transocean Ltd.’s Deepwater Horizon rig, which caught fire and sank after an explosion last week.
Halliburton fell $1.75, or 5.3 percent, to $31.60, and Transocean dropped $6.32, or 7.5 percent, to $78.51. BP fell 6.5 percent to 584.2 pence in London.
What is a Blowout Preventer and Did it Cause the Transocean Explosion?
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."If BP and TransOcean want to operate in the US market they will have to pay (unless corrupt Congressmen let them off the hook).
The act passed after the Exxon Valdez disaster makes it clear that the federal government has no responsibility for clean-up.
What this means is that property owners along the Gulf will be suing BP and Transocean and any other companies that might be involved for cleanup costs. To avoid this liability, BP must clean this spill up at sea before it hits the beaches. The federal government has clearly said that this is their responsibility. There are private cleanup firms available to hire. No doubt there is enough cleanup capacity available to handle it, but because the federal government has not invested extensively in oil spill cleanup equipment the federal government cannot provide material assistance.
It’s all on BP and its contractors. And Congress will be in deep doo-doo if they allow these companies to weasel out of their responsibilities.
But look for the price of oil to spike as a result of this manmade disaster.
Limbaugh’s claiming it was “enviromentalist whackos” who blew up the oil rig. Seriously:
BBC News – Oil spill sparks new drilling ban
Damage control, whiplash edition. Too bad about the Louisiana coast, but maybe we can still save Virginia Beach…
The question of ‘what would Red Adair do comes to mind. I always loved John Wayne’s Hellfighters and was fascinated by the Red Adair Company’s work in Kuwait to put the fires out. He died in ’04 and company had been sold to Global Industries based out of Louisana so there may be some reporting with them.
Surely someone will think to go into the shorelines immediately to harvest & rescue species before the crude hits. From oysters to manatees they’ll need another Noah’s Ark effort.
One of the things that I find most infuriating about Obama is how he relishes aggrandizing himself at the expense of progressives. Just last month he was so above the fray and so much more intelligent than the “old tired debates.” :-/ Now he just looks like a pseudo-know-it-all jackass. So, he can now stand arm-in-arm chanting “Drill baby drill,” with Sarah Palin while he “reviews” the obvious.
will folks now admit that the President’s change of stance on drilling was a wrong move?
Booman, we’re already holding the bill. It doesn’t matter if BP pays 50 billion or 500 billion to “clean” it up. There is no way to undo something like this. We all pay.
I’m fantasizing of course, and wingnut heads would go supernova, but we should just nationalize the oil industry in America. We should nationalize all extraction industries. The alternative is senators on the payroll of predatory polluters and relentless deregulators paying us a pittance for the right to reap huge profits from mineral assets that, almost entirely, belong to all of us if they belong to any of us. Kind of like the entire financial system really (another “industry” which should be largely nationalized).
Ew, no. Absolutely not. Nationalizing the oil industry is a horrible idea.
I don’t know what the answer is, but a system where multinationals get to make grotesque profits from publicly held resources and then pay a mere pittance in relation to the permanent and irreversible damage they have done seems a little, uh, unfair to me. I’m a little upset about it right now…
What would you suggest?
Why is that?
Nationalizing the oil companies socializes their losses; it’s a bailout in disguise.
The more effective solution is to move as rapidly as possible toward an alternative and sustainable energy economy.
But that will require breaking the strategic interest “Iron Triangle” between the oil industry, the neoconservative lobby, and the Department of Defense. Oil is in our strategic interest because our military runs on oil. Our military must be used to protect its sources of oil or we cannot have a global presence. We need a global presence in order to keep the sea lanes open for the shipment of oil.
The taxpayers are the least of it. Nothing will make this anything less than a disaster of historic proportions. Hundreds or thousands of species will be lost, the economy of the Gulf Coast will be devastated, and a unique, irreparable, and irreplaceable world treasure will be diminished or lost for lifetimes. Listen to this report for a taste of the full horror of what’s happened.
The wetlands in question produce 40% of US commercial fisheries and serve as nursery grounds for 95% of Gulf of Mexico fisheries. The spill comes at prime nesting time for local and migratory birds, which will probably lose a generation of reproduction. Every part of the unique wetlands ecosystem, from plants to plankton to oyster beds to birds and reptiles to mammals is now a candidate for extinction. Some will survive and some won’t, but it is almost unthinkable that the web of life there will mend anytime soon.
No number of dollars can come close to “paying” for this catastrophe. Our hemisphere is losing a treasure beyond price in exchange for a few more months or years of not having to face the reality that the Age of Oil is finished. In the end it’s not really about economics or energy or “the American way of life”. It’s the inevitable consequence of our deepest values and priorities as a nation. They have yet again proven to be profoundly deficient. May the gods have mercy upon us.
To the extent that the politics of the Gulf Coast created this disaster, I am having as much sympathy as I would for the people in California who cannot get their fiscal house in order. The very Congressional characters who limited the regulation of the extraction industry in the Bush years and have hampered the increased oversight of the Obama administration represent the districts most hurt by this manmade disaster.
Likewise, in California there should not be the likelihood of a Republican winning the governorship again after what Schwarzenegger has done.
California’s problems may affect the national/world economy. That recovers in time. The Gulf Disaster is one more event in a chain that somewhere along the line will break irreparably and make this planet either uninhabitable for humans or not worth the bother of trying.
California’s mess can be pretty much directly attributed to their own political/ideological idiocy. The Gulf’s disaster grows out of psychosis that infests the entire country. They were not alone in choosing to deny realities that have been obvious for at least half a century. As you may have noticed, I have little empathy with the South in general. In this case they are no more to blame than the rest of us. That, along with the sympathy, belongs to all of us.