I simply can not take any more of this:
In 2007, South Korea suffered a major oil spill off of it’s shores. It was much smaller in comparison with this one, but it is worth investigating the response of the South Korean government in the first 30 days of their disaster as compared to our governments response.
While there were certainly differences in the spill in that the Korean spill was from a ship, and not an on-going situation, the government activated hundreds of thousands of military/government personell, and nearly 1,000,000 civilians were rallied to participate in working to clear oil off of the shore lines, and environmentally fragile areas (all within the first 33 days!).
It is nonsense of incredible proportions to say that our government is doing even a mediocre job in responding to this spill.
Gee. Let’s look at some of what have been described as “differences.” First, the Korean oil spill was just that, a spill. It was a tanker that dumped about 1/3 of the Exxon Valdez. It wasn’t an open gushing hole in the sea floor a mile below the surface. Large amounts of resources didn’t have to be focused on STOPPING the damned continued gushing of oil. Additionally, it directly affected a much smaller portion of theoast that has a highly dense population. It wasn’t rolling all over the gulf coast, all over the place, affecting wetlands and regions that are exceedingly difficult to get to.
On 9 December it was reported that the oil slick was already 33 km (21 mi) long and 10 m (33 ft) wide and 10 cm (4 in) thick in some areas.[5][7][9] It was also reported that at least 30 beaches have been affected and over half of the region’s sea farms are believed to have lost their stocks due to the spill. Sinduri Dune, a South Korean natural treasure, is reported to have been saturated by the spill.[9]
Let’s compare that to the current disaster in the Gulf:
The gusher originates from a deepwater oil well 5,000 feet (1,500 m) below the ocean surface. Estimates of the amount of oil being discharged range from BP’s current estimate of over 5,000 barrels (210,000 US gallons; 790,000 litres) to as much as 100,000 barrels (4,200,000 US gallons; 16,000,000 litres) of crude oil per day. The exact spill flow rate is uncertain – in part because BP has refused to allow independent scientists to perform accurate measurements – and is a matter of ongoing debate.[9] In addition, the proportion of natural gas in the mixture is not known. The resulting oil slick covers a surface area of at least 2,500 square miles (6,500 km2), with the exact size and location of the slick fluctuating from day to day depending on weather conditions.[10] Scientists have also discovered immense underwater plumes of oil not visible from the surface.
Oh hey. Other than both involving oil, there is no comparison. Please, people. Just stfu. There is no comparison to anything else that has happened before, no one knows how to stop this mess, NO GOVERNMENT OR PRIVATE ENTITY ON THE PLANET is designed to handle this mess, and sitting around wanking about how if Obama would just get stern with BP and put on a sad face at a press conference for Maureen Dowd it would fix the mess is going to drive me insane.
And if you think a million god damned people indefinitely tromping around the wetlands is a solid idea, you need your head examined. The porta potties and food deliveries to support these billions of volunteers fatfooting all over the marshes would in itself be an ecological god damned nightmare. Remember, the Korea mess was a finite quantity of oil.
I’m all for constructive criticism, but flailing around over things that no one can control is just driving me nuts. Why hasn’t Obama done more to stop the leak? I dunno. Why didn’t Obama do more to save John Murtha and Dennis Hopper! Why won’t he wave his magic fucking wand and bring world peace! Why is unemployment at 10%? Why are we all going to die one day!
Because sometimes things don’t have solutions or answers, you losers. Try acting like you are a little older than five for a change.
And James Carville and Donna Brazille can get off their fat ases, head to their beloved home, and start volunteering to clean up the mess rather than running their damned mouths on CNN 24/7. You both have two hands. Use it for something other than holding a liquor bottle and a microphone, you jackasses. I’m sure your Louisiana friends would love to see you more often than your annual trip to Mardi Gras, and we could all use a break from listening to your bullshit.
John +3
Tom65
Who posted the bullshit first quote?
KDP
Thank you! My sentiments exactly.
Kobie
And boom goes the dynamite.
Well, put John. Obama is many things, but he’s not a fucking miracle worker.
henqiguai
Got nothing but this — dude, the stupid; step back before it raises blisters…
Mike G
I was just reading this from the WSJ about the stellar intelligent and responsive leadership onboard Deepwater Horizon when it blew —
I hereby award Capt. Kuchta the Sir Cloudesley Shovell memorial Arrogant-Asshole-in-Charge award for 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudesley_Shovell
Libby
This is why I love you so, John Cole. I’m sitting here not wanting to get all angry and ruin the good vibes from a great family day, and then you post the perfect rant that exactly expresses what’s pissing me off. Now I don’t have to write anything. I’ll just link to you. Thanks.
Warren Terra
Oh, no, John Cole hates me. And hates everyone else, but probably me especially.
Oh well, at least I’m still Time’s Man Of The Year for 2006 or whatever year it was they did that silly mirror cover.
4tehlulz
Obama’s refusal to launch a nuclear strike on the well shows his weakness.
South of I-10
I’ve now talked to a drilling engineer, a safety guy for a major offshore company and a friend’s Dad who has worked offshore in varying capacities for forty years, and they all agree: there is nothing that can be done until the relief well is drilled, hopefully by August. Probably later though, accounting for work stoppages for hurricanes. There is not a damn thing Obama can do about it. The time for govt intervention is passed, that was before the blowout. That horse has already left the barn. It’s going to be a long, oily summer.
kay
Three Democratic senators point finger back at Jindal
Governor holding on to BP grants, they say
Sunday, May 30, 2010
By Bruce Alpert
Staff writer
Three Democratic state senators blasted Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal on Saturday for not quickly distributing $40 million in grants from BP at the same time he has been criticizing the company and the Obama administration for taking too long to provide needed resources to combat the Gulf oil spill.
Jindal has “been out there talking to the people impacted by the disaster and the media and got his life jacket on and is out in the water, but I want him to use his executive power to get resources out there instead of standing on the bully pulpit and pointing fingers,” said state Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, D-New Orleans.
Peterson said that at a meeting Thursday with BP officials, coastal Louisiana legislators and representatives of the Jindal administration, it was disclosed that the state has spent only about $3 million of a $25 million BP grant for spill-related expenses, and that it has not yet issued a contract for BP’s $15 million grant to promote tourism attractions threatened by the spill.
It also was revealed that the state has called up only 1,100 of the 6,000 National Guard members authorized for the spill clean-up efforts, Peterson said.
Jindal spokeswoman Melissa Sellers said the governor talked to BP officials on Saturday, and they agreed to contact parish officials to address any additional financial needs.
“As Louisiana now has more than 100 miles of shoreline impacted by this oil spill, parishes are working directly with BP to ensure that the company is 100 percent responsible for all coastal protection and clean-up efforts related to this spill,” Sellers said.
I think I get why he’s doing it. He’d rather have BP hire and pay contractors daily than pay the costs with the grant, which he has in hand, and wants to keep, and that makes sense. Better to get them to pay now than bill them later, and hang onto the grant.
But he’s still full of it. He’s got resources.
Damien
I guess maybe I’m a little naive, but can someone explain to me why it is that we can’t essentially crush the pipe at a location earlier than the leak? I’ve been wondering this for a while, and I haven’t really heard a good answer.
I completely agree with John here that the bitching and moaning and useless suggestions that are flowing like the mighty leak are going to put me in the ground, but this is something I’m just legitimately curious about.
Anyone know? Thanks.
salvage
>essentially crush the pipe at a location
My guesses:
You can’t get a piece of machinery down there to do the job
The pressure is too great for crushing to do anything
The pipe would just sheer off rather than act as any sort of seal
Hunter Gathers
But Bush would have pounded the table and nuked the damn thing shut, and Clinton would have plugged the well with his crocodile tears.
We want Daddy. Why won’t Daddy come and make everything better?
Obama isn’t Daddy. He’s too cerebral and uppity to be a true father figure.
Palin would have cried or gotten angry.
Screw President Spock. We need President Mama Grizzly. Real America says so.
burnspbesq
The one obvious takeaway from this situation, for me, is that the industry and government collectively know fuck-all about how to stop leaks that far below the surface.
If that’s correct, then it seems obvious to me that there can be no further drilling in water that deep until we know something more than fuck-all about how to deal with the accidents that are inevitably going to happen from time to time.
M. Bouffant
Headline of the future:
YELLOWSTONE CALDERA ERUPTS, OBAMA REFUSES TO TELL IT TO STOP!
John Cole
Correctomundo.
Polish the Guillotines
Sorry. Wrong-o.
On day 0.5, President Hillary would’ve gone straight to the secret naval base on the Patuxent river, taken the captured Red October out of mothballs, single-handedly driven it to Louisiana, loaded the torpedo tubes with BP, Transocean, and Halliburton executives and fired one massive CEO junk-shot into the well head, Luke Skywalker-style. Problem solved, mission accomplished.
Belafon (fomerly anonevent)
Ixtoc l is the closest comparison, and it took 10 months to shut off, requiring relief wells.
Martin
On a day-to-day basis South Koreans want their government to do stuff. Americans do not.
Sorry, but you can’t come screaming once the shit hits the fan and start claiming that we’ve always been a left-of-center, big government favoring nation – *particularly* those who live in the south and are most impacted by big oil.
We got the response we paid and voted for. That needs to be said every time someone complains.
South of I-10
@Polish the Guillotines: All while wearing a fetching pantsuit.
John Cole
@Polish the Guillotines: Bullshit. She would have had it done at 3 am.
President McCain would have taken several days, because his initial response would have been to nuke the Persian Gulf. After the confusion wore off, he’d be right on it, though, while the Wasilla Wingnut held speeches accusing the marsh birds of palling around with terrorists.
kommrade reproductive vigor
I still say the comparisons to Katrina are dumber. But this comes close. Mighty close.
Litlebritdifrnt
This is why I love you John, when you rant, your rants are righteous. This is what I have been saying for days, to deaf ears of course. But as far as everyone else is concerned Obama should ride down there on his Magical Unity Pony and seal the well, with the sheer force of his will. What the fuck. Have another one, I am +3 and have the rest of the bottle to finish.
By the way the BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN.
Clicky on the linky dinky on the handle, I have caterpillars!
scav
Hairy Haploid deity, here’s what The Oil Drum has about the freaking structures involved in this catastrophuk. Because some basic situational awareness might clarify why which “leak”, which “pipe” and which “under” are all valid issues and caused my hair to combust. Do you know what a BoP is designed to do, its relationship to the the floor of the ocean and its relationship to not only the leak you can see but the leak that(s) that are probably the real problem? Sorry, this combined with an earlier comment wondering why oil soaked hair sinking to the bottom of the ocean was a problem because that’s where the oil came from is making driving me to near Hitchen’s level of alcohol consumption. That combined with the burning hair is going to make for one hell of night.
Elisabeth
And this is scaring the shit out of people. I think in the back of their minds a lot of folks along the coast and those working on this disaster know it’s going to be months before the leaks are stopped and then years, if not decades, before the full extent of the environmental damage is known. Some of them, like Carville who is hyperbole personified during the best of times, take it out on whatever public face they can. Obama is the easier target.
Amazingly, dumbasses like Landrieu are still calling for more drilling when it is painfully obvious that the remaining oil is going to be difficult to get and we do not yet know how to fix something when things go terribly wrong getting it.
BettyPageisaBlonde
This is EXACTLY why this is my favorite blog amongst the eleventy-billion I read.
You rock, Cole.
Polish the Guillotines
In all seriousness, according to the BP cam, they’re deploying “mud mats.” I have no idea what that means, but watching the ROVs at work is really other-worldly.
At one point, they were maneuvering the ROV around unstrapping one of these mats from a big frame. The skill of the ROV operators is amazing. It’s just a damn shame they’re having to put on a show over something this terrible.
magurakurin
@Damien
How would it be done? The pipe is in a well hole, boring down 18,000 feet through the Earth’s crust to the oil reservoir. The leaking riser pipe,which is already well and truly “crushed,” is just above the huge Blowout Preventer valve sitting on top of the well. I don’t know anymore than you, but to me it is hard to imagine how it would be possible to crush the pipe in the well hole. And it doesn’t seem like it would work anyway. If I pinch a garden hose, most of the water stops, but not all. And the pressure remains, so eventually my hand gets tired and lets go. I would imagine any sort of crush or crimp in a pipe would also eventually yeild to the pressure of the well.
The entire well hole needs to be sealed up with concrete, but to do that the pressure and the flowing oil needs to be controlled. Filling the well hole with drilling mud was an attempt to reverse that pressure artificially downward to give the engineers a chance to fill the hole with concrete. But the pressure of the oil from a huge oil deposit is simply too great. The relief wells are the only real hope to remove this pressure. In a way, I think the engineers are trying to crush the pipe, it’s just much much harder than any of us can imagine. South of I-10 really says it succinctly . The time for action passed when the government allowed the drilling of such deep wells without safety measures, such as relief well, being in place.
I would like to see such a requirement come about. Realistically and politically it isn’t possible to just order the shut down of all the wells offshore. But they(the current Administration) just might be able to demand that relief wells be drilled as a safeguard on all existing and future wells.(if allowed to continue, in an ideal world no new wells would be allowed) If this were too expensive, then companies would begin the process of shutting down the older less profitable wells. This is a problem that has been decades in the making. And in spite of the fact that this accident looks to be the result of criminal negligence on BP’s part, it just as well could have been caused by an earthquake. In which case we would still be in the same place…with no solution other than to wait for the relief wells to be drilled.
The solution to this has always been known. The first and most obvious to me is require relief wells from the start. The better solution is to not drill offshore.
TuiMel
@South of I-10:
This post and the “Luke Skywalker-style” comment to which it replies…
Both made me chuckle about a castastrophe that has had me pretty down. I have been too busy with work to experience the full depth of idiocy that the MSM is peddling about Obama and his “inability” to handle this terrible situation. Just as I was feeling wiped out by my workload, I think perhaps it has been a lucky diversion.
maye
Why can’t something big and heavy made of concrete and lead be lowered on top of it? Like the way you stop something from bleeding? (only bigger and heavier).
Ailuridae
@burnspbesq:
With enough sci-fi dorks here I am hesitant to say this as its not terribly copernican but there is a very real possibility that its just not possible to create a viable means of stopping something like this at that depth with anything except another well.
South of I-10
@Polish the Guillotines: It is pretty amazing what the ROV’s can do. A friend of mine works for Oceaneering, I told him the BP live feed was basically a big ad for them.
Richard Fox
The crushing pressures of the deep ocean– the difficulty and danger of the work– all become obvious when surveying this epic tragedy.
The hubris of the oil companies– that is what astounds me most of all.
BP really thought all emergency contingencies were in place.
So much so they became impatient; time is money, after all. As if on cue they pushed the technology, they did it on the cheap, and it naturally blew up in their faces. (While holding a celebration for their safety record, of course.) What lying scum.
Martin
@maye: Because the sea floor is soft – it’s organic outflow from the Mississippi. You could push it down, but there’s not enough rigid material under the pipe to crush it. It’s soft muck for about 1000′.
TuiMel
Uh huh.
John Cole
@M. Bouffant: I stole that and tweeted it.
4tehlulz
@maye: That was tried a couple of weeks ago with “top hat.” The problem was that methyl hydrate ice formed and made the hat float.
Martin
@Ailuridae: First rule of engineering – don’t voluntarily initiate a process you can’t stop. Without an actual demonstration of stopping a completely open well, permission to drill never should have been given.
SIA
Even my low-info (but liberal) SO has noticed this stupid fucking meme that the press is pushing. Everything you said is just what I’ve been feeling for the past week. I’m fed up with it.
I’m sending Brazile and Carville an email with a quote of that last paragraph. Carville especially is acting like a juvenile lunatic.
ETA: I expect the constant carping from the GOP but I am really sick of the wimpy-assed dems undermining the best leader the country has had in a long time. Yes I am an Obot, but we don’t deserve him. We’ve sunk too far to the lowest common denominator. I’m grouchy about this.
maye
If this goes on until August, then you can get used to the black jimmy carter moniker, because the proletariat doesn’t like their presidents to look impotent in a long drawn-out disaster (see Iranian hostage crisis). And the MSM will gladly keep the flame fanned for the next three months.
Platinum Member
You should read your own blog sometime, one word: Ixtoc.
Did not stop President Spock from handing out drilling rights.
It is a good thing this did not happen under Bush, you would have all been unbearable.
Epicurus
I know they had been discussing a “junk shot” using shredded golf balls, etc. I would propose better filler would be the shredded heads of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, the head of BP, George Bush…you get the picture. Surely all that rubbish would stuff up bigger holes than this one.
JoyceH
Rather than target the broken line, why don’t they just bury it? It’s low tech, but I don’t see why just pasting the entire region with hundreds of tons of mud and/or cement wouldn’t do the trick. If the problem is that we drilled through the ocean floor, just raise the ocean floor. Don’t know how much it would take, but eventually, that oil would stop flowing.
Nemo_N
Is BP’s liability cap still at $75 million?
Polish the Guillotines
@South of I-10: It’s an ironic reminder to me of how nimble we can be with technology, yet also how easily we’re willing to over-reach.
Sloegin
Clearly we need to jam a couple MUPs down the pipe. Problem solved.
maye
@Nemo_N: No more than medical malpractice damages are limited to the the thing you signed before the surgery. The damages BP will have to pay for years to come will finish the company.
NobodySpecial
The cry of the valiant centrist warrior – ‘Nothing can be done’.
Of course, when it comes to the leak, that’s true. But then the realists say that there’s no way you can do anything politically related to what happened. Which I think is false, and shows a lack of political courage.
MoZeu
Ah . . . sanity. I can sleep well.
NobodySpecial
@JoyceH: Because you’ll need to put several hundred feet of mud/solid matter on top of it and there’s still no guarantee it won’t just cause the oil to stop flowing – it might just change where it comes out at. Plus by the time you actually get all that mud/solid matter dropped down there, you’ll already have the relief well.
maye
Poisoning the ocean — not the apocalypse we were expecting, but just as deadly.
magurakurin
@40 you may be right, and if you are it will be every bit as a missed opportunity as it was when America laughed away the sage suggestions of President Carter. He asked Congress to go on a war-like footing to end all imports of oil and have America achieve energy independence. They laughed at him. Everyone laughed at Jimmy Carter. When he wore a cardigan sweater to try to get people to turn down their heat to 68, they laughed.
I remember. I was in high school and what Carter was saying sounded sensible to me. But when I saw everyone laughing I decided to drop out. I became a pot head, grew my hair out and wandered about for a decade. I’ve long since left behind the pot and long hair(20+ years clean and sober) but I eventually just left America altogether. I’ve been an ex-pat for over a decade now.
Their are many great people in the States, some of whom are close friends. But the vast majority of Americans are dumb as rocks. And that’s too bad.
burnspbesq
@Ailuridae:
IANAPE, but I don’t think you needed to hesitate before saying that. It’s occurred to me as well.
Leanne
Awesome rant, John. I’m so sick of all this misdirected outrage that I’ve pretty much quit reading blogs where it’s become a staple of the discourse. Anyone who has an innovative and workable idea for stopping the leak, please step forward. Everyone else, STFU with the whiny outrage, please. I have a headache.
cat48
Gov Jindal should use the fuckn resources provided or keep the fuck off TV………so pissed………
maye
@magurakurin: Congrats on 20+ years. Where did you move to?
Jamie
This is one problem that probably doesn’t have a solution.
Nancy
My gawd, did I ever need to read this. I just got done with the M. Dowd garbage from today.
You know, I can handle the folks who want Obama to use his superpowers to stop the leak better than I can those who need a daddy emoter-in-chief. WTF is that about?
Nellcote
@Platinum Member:
Bush sold them the lease.
Ailuridae
@Martin:
First rule of engineering – don’t voluntarily initiate a process you can’t stop. Without an actual demonstration of stopping a completely open well, permission to drill never should have been given.
I sound like a broken record on this but this is the well-reasoned argument against off-shore drilling many of us have made. That argument which is totally correct, btw was roundly and completely dismissed by essentially everyone. And now all of those wrong-headed ass holes rather than owning up to their shit are displacing their guilt about being wrong about drilling onto the fact that there is no way to stop the well from gushing. And there was simply, absolutely never any reason to believe they could stop such a leak.
LGRooney
Ummm…. Amen… simply, amen.
Perfect Tommy
The shortcoming of the graphics being distributed to explain BP’s attempts at controlling the well is that they do not properly convey the scale of the problem.
Here is a comparison between the original “top hat” image and one that I scaled to display the depth of the Gulf correctly.
Original LMRP Image as released by BP
Scaled LMRP Image
Uloborus
@Nellcote:
And created the regulations. And fucked up the regulating body so bad that it STILL hasn’t been fixed, largely with his wonderful plan of planting every last crazy neocon he could in every high level government job he could find that you’re not allowed to fire people from.
Personally, I feel that the actual complaint in the original post has not been answered. After all, these are incredible things Obama has not done. So let me answer this complaint: They would be useless things that wouldn’t help. We’ve long since hit the point of diminishing returns. The numbers described here (as someone else pointed out), are in the ‘you’re causing way more harm than good’ range.
Allison W.
@Platinum Member:
Sorry, this idea that if this administration hadn’t given over the drilling rights is nothing but hindsight. And I would say the same thing if this were President McCain. Whether MMS did their jobs or not, BP would have still gotten their drilling rights.
SIA
@magurakurin: If you don’t mind me asking, what country are you in and how are the meetings (if you go to them)?
scav
@magurakurin: it’s not as though we’ve suddenly started funding our decaying transportation infrastructure after the MN bridge collapse either. Country’s got a habit of running about screaming loudly when there are vivid disaster images on the telly and then immediately segue into a bad case of amnesia when it comes to spending $$ later on. Maintenance and prevention are so dull and there are no movies about them, whereas last minute instanta-fixes by plucky unknowns with simple yet overlooked ideas make for great summer blockbusters and media narratives.
patrick II
he exact spill flow rate is uncertain – in part because BP has refused to allow independent scientists to perform accurate measurements – and is a matter of ongoing debate.[9] In addition, the proportion of natural gas in the mixture is not known.
If your quote about how outrageous it is to question the effort includes the fact that we haven’t even known what we’re dealing with because BP can tell everyone else to go fuck off, then I think the exact opposite of what you are saying is true.
I am getting pretty tired of reading reports of BP saying no to the environmental protection, having local police under their control, and evidently the feds, stopping reporters from taking pictures and reporting, and a CEO who thinks the Gulf of Mexico is a big ocean that can handle it, survivors held at sea until BP could get its story straight, and people going to the hospital because BP refuses to let them wear masks.
Whatever steps to remediate this may or may not be possible, I wish I felt the people actually in control of much of what’s going had the country’s best interest as their primary goal and not the profitability of their corporation.
jwb
@maye: If it wasn’t this, it would just be something else.
John Cole
The WTF is your point?
jwb
@Ailuridae: Same response as Iraq.
jwb
@Perfect Tommy: Nice!
John Cole
I’m dealing with a deeply stupid person on twitter who claims nothing has been done regarding clean-up and the admin has reacted cavalierly. At this point, I’ve just resorted to linking this:
SIA
@Nancy:
Ms. Dowd has had these “issues” for years. I stopped reading her years ago when all her columns seemed to just be venting her daddy-anger. I read the one this morning and regretted it immediately. Ugh.
tim
Hmmm…another drunken, righteous, above it all rant from a former George W Bush (The Big Oil President) and Iraq War cheerleader.
Three things missing here: a sense of shame, a sense of humility, and a stint in rehab, stat.
PeakVT
@Damien: From looking at this diagram, my guess is that the pressure from below would force open the riser pipe.
ETA: I see a report of reservoir pressure as being 12000 psi. I think a crushed pipe would tear.
Allison W.
@NobodySpecial:
Who’s saying nothing can be done politically? Can you explain what you are talking about? Political courage? What’s so courageous about false outrage? ’cause I don’t see how doing something politically is going to stop the leak. Nothing can ease the minds of the people of LA until that oil stops leaking.. And until the leak is stopped the administration, Jindal, and bp has to make sure that the people of LA are being helped and listened to – real help, real action not meaningless gestures to save their political careers. We need organization and follow-up not this talk of political courage.
DarrenG
@tim:
Really?
Have you read a damn thing on this blog prior to this post?
Uloborus
@tim:
See, your comment is funny. This whole damn blog is those three things. Like, they’re the point. Have you really never witnessed one of Cole’s ‘What the FUCK was wrong with me?!’ moments? I find them kind of adorable.
Max Power
Damn, this was good:
“You both have two hands. Use it for something other than holding a liquor bottle and a microphone, you jackasses.”
Couldn’t have been stated better.
Nancy
@SIA: If it was just Dowd, I’d simply ignore her like I usually do. But we seem to have a country full of folks with daddy-anger issues. At least that’s how its been feeling to me lately as I hear people expressing the need for an emoter-in-chief.
B
@Polish the Guillotines: No idea what they are either but I was mesmerized for about a 1/2-hour. Decided to Google and found mention of “mud mats” here – http://www.oceanologyinternational.com/files/Caspian_Pin_Pile_Wizards__W_Jardine_BP.pdf
asiangrrlMN
@Nancy: I think it’s partly because how out of control everything is. It’s one reason some people look to god–comforting father figure in a time of crisis. However, I watched part of Obama’s press conference about the spill, and I have to agree with Mnemosyne: Obama is pissed. He is struggling not to let it show, though. It is, indeed, a Midwestern thing. And, let’s not forget that if he does blow a gasket, then he’ll be seen as an angry black man. If he cries? Weak-willed Democrat. He really cannot win no matter what he does.
SIA
@Nancy: You’re right – it’s definitely not just Dodd. It’s Carville, Charles BLOWS, Keith Olbermann, Tweety, Frank Rich, etc etc. That’s what’s so stunning to me, that the majority of the press and other minions are all chirping the same meme, after previously cheering the ones who soiled the nest. I think Obama must be the most under-appreciated elected official of our time. I’m truly sick of it.
/Grumpy Obot
Silver Owl
We could all just pull the solution out of the asses of today’s conservatives since they seem to think their chit is the bomb diggity of all things.
Martin
@Polish the Guillotines:
The mud mats act like cushions for when they lower something over the BOP, it doesn’t go too far down and sink into the seafloor.
I’m not sure why they’re being deployed here – they were used with the big dome thing, but I don’t think anything they’re planning to do now is going to get near the seafloor.
Taylormattd
Omg, I love you. The end.
SIA
@Martin: My (minute) understanding is they’re planning to try the dome thing again, but first filling the area with warmer sea water so the ice crystals don’t form from the natural gas. Or something.
tavella
I know that it’s SOP to claim that anyone criticizing Obama’s response is demanding that he personally stop the leak. And I agree: nothing is going to stop this leak until the relief wells, and there’s not much point in the US taking control of the leak operations when it would just be ownership of failure.
But that doesn’t excuse allowing BP control of the cleanup (the claim that the US can’t legally interfere is bullshit, btw), which they are dragging their feet and cheapskating on except for PR purposes, it doesn’t excuse allowing BP to threaten and endanger workers, and it *damn* well doesn’t excuse allowing BP to shut down media access with the full backing of the US government.
I can guess the reason for the last; if Obama hadn’t in a case of epically bad timing thrown in with the drill baby drill crowd, he’d have reason to allow media access. But having thrown in, the administration shares BP’s desperate desire to shut down coverage of the destroyed environment.
DarrenG
@Martin:
They’re trying something similar to Top Hat called LMRP next, apparently:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/30/oil-spill-what-happens-next
:
jwb
@SIA: The one I can’t figure out is Rich. He’s usually smart enough not to get suckered this way.
gwangung
Comment deleted due to reading comprehension failure.
maye
WaPo has printed a few of the 8,000 suggestions sent into BP:
PLUG IT UP WITH COTTON
A Fort Myers, Fla. newscast interviewed a local man who proposed firing cotton bales into the hole, believing they would soak up the oil, expand, and plug the leak. He said he had tried out the concept with a lawn-sprinkler pipe.
USE A NUCLEAR WEAPON
The Russian television channel RT described how Soviet authorities used underground nuclear explosions to seal off leaking gas pipes. The idea is that the explosion shears the leak closed for good. “That’s not something we’re considering. It would be far too risky,” said BP’s MacEwen.
COVER THE LEAK WITH A HUGE TUBE
After Google asked for suggestions, the most popular idea for stopping the spill (as opposed to sopping up the oil) was a flexible tube, which would fit over the leaking machinery and contain the oil as it leaked to the surface. Google’s readers, however, may not always be highly trained engineers. In the top 20: “someone get Chuck Norris on the phone.”
USE A NEW KIND OF CONCRETE
A Baltimore County company, Chesapeake Specialty Products, makes an epoxy three times as dense as regular concrete. According to a local TV segment, the company wants BP to shoot this material into the hole, believing it will quickly shut out the oil.
INFLATE SOMETHING INSIDE THE LEAK
A PBS call for suggestions brought in one incarnation of a common idea — put something inside the leak, then inflate it to seal the pipe shut. This one, the suggester said, is modeled on the technology used by doctors to temporarily shut off arteries.
POKE MORE HOLES IN THE PIPE
A Leesburg engineer told Washington’s WUSA-TV that he had a plan to create more holes in the leaking pipe, to lessen the force of oil coming out the end. Then, the TV channel said, his idea is to seal shut the end of the pipe, and inject a material that would harden inside and stop the leak entirely.
Polish the Guillotines
@B:
and
@Martin:
Thanks for the info.
jrosen
A quick trick on the calculator and remembering that sea water weighs 64lb.s/ cubic foot gives that there are 1.1 tons of pressure on every square inch at 5000 feet of depth. Ordinary concepts of how things and materials behave under such conditions are completely useless, so even the most well-meaning suggestions from the likes of us that have no experience with such conditions are just so much gum-flapping.
I second those who hail John as a master-ranter. His points would apply to many other matters as well…the American public at large behaves like an alcoholic in major denial with all the usual responses: whining, blaming, raging, alibi-ing and resisting change even at the price of chaos and death. Watching this (as an alcoholic now 21 years sober and having passed through the process) I can only hope that the “bottom” which most need to wake up (and grow up!) is not so catastrophic as to prevent recovery, which in any case is a long slow process. I’m not optimistic.
In the meantime…John, enjoy your cats and your garden. Worrying about something out of your control does nothing, as do the pious displays of outrage that might satisfy stunted souls like Modo and the Ragin’ Cajun.
pattonbt
Until the leak is stopped, whether right or not, Obama will pay the price politically. I’m with the rant above, but it just doesn’t matter. Sure, the covering of the story will ebb and flow over the next couple of months (I’m sure a pretty white girl will go missing soon enough to capture the media’s attention) but until the oil is stopped, Obama pays.
Of course, history will quickly and quietly exonerate Obama (I mean the facts are already there for any unbiased viewer to consider), but today’s media simply can not do straight news or deal with complex ongoing issues without falling back on the easy take on things.
Americans want everything now, everything cheaply, everything without interference, everything without complications and (most importantly) everything without consequences. It is the greatest country on earth after all.
gwangung
Which is why “drill, baby, drill” will find its way back into the political lexicon. Americans have no stomach for the self discipline and price for energy independence (or to even find out if it’s possible).
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I was a little surprised when I clicked the link and it wasn’t some op-ed in the NYT or WP but apparently a comment on your own blog. Don’t you think you’re giving this individual a little too much credit with a bazillion word response? I mean, an endorsement of Kim Jong-Il’s governing style might merit a response, but a brief one. Have another mojito.
Uloborus
@tavella:
Um… I just read the second article. First, the government is saying the accusation that BP is blocking access is one guy’s slip of the tongue. Second, the accusation here seems to be ‘we can’t go anywhere we feel like, unrestricted, in a giant environmental disaster and recovery zone’.
…I’d be mildly surprised if there weren’t areas the government was blocking off. I’m sorry, but this reads to me like manufactured journalistic whining. BP is a huge, easy target for scandal right now, since they’ve been caught with their hands in one cookie jar already.
The first story isn’t quite as manufactured. It sounds kind of suspicious, but it doesn’t address one essential point: BP’s not in charge of the cleanup. Rather, they’re in charge of the dozens of contracts they signed with cleanup companies in case something like this happened. That’s in that whole oil spill act thingy. And it ONLY sounds suspicious. The time when cleanup went into high gear on one spot was one week before a presidential appearance. That sounds bad, but does it mean anything? If this was somehow anything but coincidence, who are they trying to fool? The president? The press? They’re not depending on this visit to a beach to know how the cleanup’s going. It would be a vaguely seedy act to make themselves look the tiniest bit better, not evidence of a huge coverup or anything.
George J.
I see we are in the defensive mode……..and with good and ever growing reason I would say.
This is going to be a very,very big political problem (all the creative defenses and excuse aside) and guess who’s neck it is going to be hung around.
John Cole
I’m reacting entirely to the people who are making false comparisons and who are basing their judgments on how emotional the President is. Of course the administration is making missteps- this is an unprecedented disaster, and you are right that their timing in showing support for drilling makes them look horrible.
But screaming that Obama has not shut down the well, or that other countries handled “the same thing” better, or bitching because he isn’t feeling our pain enough are what is maddening.
gwangung
Why? Solid reason, please.
SIA
@jwb: Someone on an earlier thread described Rich as (paraphrase) a subtle concern-troll. I’m with that. This president is taking it from all sides, and it’s pissing me off. I mean, I know the Dems are all independent and diverse and stuff, but can’t we stick by our guy, especially since there doesn’t seem to be much more he could have done, if anything. OK, improve the speed/focus of the messaging. That’s about it.
pattonbt
@George J.:
You might be unfortunately correct, but I’d prefer to live in a world where reason trumps emotion/idiocy. Anyone who can come up with concrete actions items the administration should have performed (outside of “be more emo”) I am all ears. When that happens I’ll dogpile on Obama easily. Until then I think a fair bit of STFU to the WATB’s is fair.
scav
@George J.: keep believing that sweetheart.
Max Power
@George J.:
I don’t know, the ones responsible for the disaster? BP maybe? Remember them? Oh, that’s right. Obama was on the rig hours before it blew up.
Martin
@SIA: The new plan is a rather small cap that will seal onto the top of the BOP. Into that they’ll inject methane and use hot water to keep the pipe from freezing up.
The whole thing shouldn’t get within 40 feet of the seafloor.
Uloborus
@Max Power:
Awww, I think he’s just saying that whether or not we like it, the public at large is going to blame Obama for not being superman. I’m not sure that’s true, but it might be. Very different from HIM saying Obama’s to blame.
eemom
@SIA:
that was me, and as I said there, it was Somerby — bless his poor, deranged, stuck in 2000 heart — who clued me in to that about Rich.
As for MoDo, as I’ve said many times and never tire of repeating, her problem ain’t “Daddy” issues. It’s horny old twat who hasn’t gotten laid in 20 years issues.
jwb
@SIA: Yes, he’s definitely been concern trolling the past couple of weeks. But that’s actually not his usual mode (reviewing the grand theater of conservative stupidity), and it makes me wonder what’s going on.
tavella
It isn’t a ‘disaster zone’. There’s no injured people that reporters might get in the way of ambulances rescuing. There’s no collapsed buildings that media-herding might take away rescue time from. There’s nothing that keeping them above 3000 feet does for recovery operations; the only thing it does is block pictures. There is zero. zero. zero. reason for the media shutdown. They have *less* access than they did on the ground after the Haitian earthquake.
The only purpose is to keep those ugly pictures from being taken.
TuiMel
@maye:
Don’t forget the Jackie Chan chaser.
scav
@Max Power: Bill Ayers was underneath, sawing bits off. o! the document dumps we have in store. MMS and BP are only the most obvious next partners to the dance macabre. We’ll be target-heavy. The socio-political solution to this is going to be as slow and messy and full of unexpected underwater toxic plumes coming to light as the oil-based one.
LarsThorwald
I am reading all the “why don’t they just…” comments in this thread (and, frankly, elsewhere), and just wanted to step in and say that it wouldn’t even begin to cross my mind to offer a “why don’t they just…” comment on a political blog about an extraordinarily complex engineering issue. Because I don’t fucking know anything, and anything I could think up was thought up.
And that goes for you, too.
denali
We are all in a really bad mood because it is so hard to face the truth. We have unleashed Pandora’s box; irony is so suffocating when we drown in oil.
eemom
well, my husband, who is not a whiner or an Obama-basher and does know something about engineering, wants to know why they don’t use manned, rather than robotic, deep sea submarines with manipulator arms, and he says that the Russians and French have such that they would surely lend in this disaster. Anyone know anything about that?
scav
@LarsThorwald: I’ve come to the conclusion they’re not actually meant to real contributions. They’re some sort of self-involved therapy and an attempt to feel “involved”. Either that, or the next big reality TV show is going to involve cardiac surgery done by robots guided on the basis of votes placed on twitter.
SIA
@eemom: Yes, I remember now. You articulated exactly what I started noticing but hadn’t put into words for the last year or so about Rich. AND re Modo. I think the daddy issues and not getting laid are somehow connected. Her man-rants caused Mr Screaming to stop reading her years ago.
Uloborus
@tavella:
Here’s a reason. You’re trying to move around hundreds of small aircraft and watercraft of every size while performing a very difficult and risky operation. Water traffic is unthinkable. There are booms that could be shredded, you’ll be spreading the oil all over the place. Air traffic is also a no go, because there’s already way more than you’d ever expect, and if you let the place get flooded with news planes your odds of a small craft accident go from the usual ‘tiny’ to ‘quite likely’, with potential possibilities for falling on something like a huge flammible piece of oil that’s *not* safe to burn yet. As for on-the-ground, that’s not what they’re talking about, but I’d say there’s no shortage of places the government wants sealed off while they try something delicate to keep a wetland from getting inundated or some such.
There you go. A reason that has nothing to do with a coverup. Sheesh, what CAN you cover up by forbidding airplanes with camera crews in them? A bunch of pictures of a spill we know exists already and don’t need those planes to map the size of?
More to the point, I just gave you a reason you don’t seem to have considered. You know what? There are reasons *I* haven’t considered. That’s the way life is. This restriction could easily be perfectly legitimate. If it can be perfectly legitimate, you have to have some good reason to claim it’s not or you’re just being paranoid.
EDIT – Whether or not it’s officially ‘a disaster zone’ is immaterial. It’s been declared some kind of zone under the oil protection act, and do you think for a second that doesn’t come with fifty million rules?
kay
@tavella:
tavella, which federal officials do you want handling this?
You don’t trust the Coast Guard. You don’t trust the EPA. The US Coast Guard and the EPA limited air space access. They didn’t want the photographer below 3,000 feet, because they’re working in there.
Those are the two federal agencies with jurisdiction.
Again: they are the feds.
So who? Would you trust the military? The National Guard are already in there. What federal agent or actor do you feel is trustworthy enough? Who should we send in to oversee this?
I just find it pretty amazing that the US Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency are now portrayed as corporate stooges, and people continue to insist we need a federal response.
They are the feds.
Pick an agency. Pick an entity. Because you have all three in there. Who else do we send in?
What is the actual thinking or theory behind this? That both the EPA and the Coast Guard are completely captured, and are NOT following that elaborate plan in the Oil Pollution Act?
micah616
@George J.: The Media/GOP (or do I repeat myself) couldn’t make Rev Wright stick. Or Farrakhan. Or Rezko. Or Bill Ayers. Or Typical White People. Or Clinging to Guns and Religion.
I don’t bring these up as comparisons to the Deepwater catastrophe. They’re not. But that’s how the media is treating it. That’s how a lot of anonymous, random, know nothing commenters (myself included) are treating it.
IMO, most Americans don’t really give two fucks about the oil, except as sort of a hot topic right now, but shit, Gary Coleman just died, and Jesse James is “very sorry.” As soon as that hole is closed, most Americans will forget that it even happened, even though there will still be millions of gallons of oil floating around. Sure, there will be a small part of the populace who will never forget, and most of those people will only even bring it up so they can use it like a cudgel. God forbid they actually do anything to actually help.
If you don’t believe me, see the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than most people don’t give a shit about. Or the fact that there are still refugees from Katrina going from state to state, as there is still a bunch of rebuilding not being done.
Even better, in New York, there is still a huge hole in the ground where the World Trade Centers used to be.
SIA
@jrosen:
Awesome. We’re collecting a nice little coterie of ex-drunks and druggies around here. (I had 30 in January).
Slowbama
I see the denial continues apace over here. Good God, what you will sound like around Labor Day when this thing has gushed for another three months….
scav
@eemom: well, as best I can tell, the ROVs aren’t at all the problem. They’ve done rather spectacularly and I can’t see what having a person inside would change for the better. Also, put a person inside and they’d probably have to be a lot more slow ascending and descending. (admit I’m extrapolating from diving knowledge for that latter, but I can’t see why it would change even for pressurized environments).
tavella
Again, bullshit. The amount of air traffic is nothing above normal; only a few dispersant planes are out there. There are zero booms on beaches, which BP has been keeping reporters off; follow the Mother Jones’ reporter on the scene’s tweets if you think they haven’t.
Because nothing exists to the American public unless it’s on TV or in pictures. That’s why the story was so quiet until the pictures of dead birds and blackened beaches turned up.
DarrenG
@tavella:
What color is the sky in your world?
This story has been all over the media since the day the rig blew up out here consensus reality…
kay
@tavella:
So, the theory is that the EPA and the Coast Guard are colluding with BP to deny access.
Although the Coast Guard denies the arrest rumor, and no one was actually arrested, and the photographer wanted to fly in restricted air space.
This stuff has about as much validity as the people who were breathlessly quoting the plaintiff’s lawyer who said BP held the injured and wouldn’t let them seek treatment. Which wasn’t true.
He’s a fucking plaintiff’s lawyer. That’s his job.
The photographers job is to get a photograph. That he determined there wasn’t enough air traffic to deny him his special access just isn’t enough to prove a vast conspiracy.
tavella
Um, did you miss the part of my comment where I pointed out that the media shutdown was with the full support of the federal government? It doesn’t matter which agencies are involved, because they are getting their orders from the top.
BP and the administration may disagree on some things, but they are of one mind on this: keep the media out as much as possible. Keep those pictures from being taken.
kay
You have to love James Carville.
Two weeks of screaming that Jindal didn’t have enough resources and we find out today Jindal has 40 million dollars he hasn’t allocated, and 5,000 National Guard he hasn’t placed, because he’s too busy tooling around in a boat with James Carville and Anderson Cooper to get his job done.
The fishermen should sue Carville for damages.
magurakurin
@maye 56. thanks. Japan.
@scav 66. Japan and the few meetings I have gone to were long, boring, and totally unproductive. So, same as back home I guess.
@scav 66. good point about the bridge. frickin sad the short attention span of much of the American public. Not to mention the fact pointed out by Rachael Maddow that this very same accident(offshore well blowout) happened in very nearly the same place(Ixta Mexico GOM) 30 years ago. Yet, nothing has been done to improve safety since then.
@jrosen 94. congrats to you as well on the sobriety. And your comparison to the US public and an alcoholic is spot on. The notion of an “addiction” to oil is not merely metaphor.
@micah616 121. Indeed. That hole in NYC is a stinging indictment of just how far the country has fallen in its ability to get anything done. Sad.
Polish the Guillotines
@eemom: From what I’ve see just googling around, crush depth for a submarine is maybe somewhere between a half mile to three-quarters of a mile. I say maybe because we’re talking military hardware and it’s difficult to get accurate information.
The Trieste, a two-man bathyscape, has been as deep as 6.7 miles and no other manned vehicle has done this since.
In other words, it’s not very practical and considerably less safe than using robots for just about the same working environment. You’re not going to increase visibility, maneuverability, or dexterity just by having two people crammed inside a vehicle that’s probably heavier and larger than the ROVs.
Ailuridae
@Slowbama:
I imagine those of us in TRBC will continue to point out the folly of off-shore drilling as again there is nothing that can be done short of drilling a relief well.
And you’ll probably continue to drool on your keyboard
Slowbama
Attacking the media seems a particularly impotent frame in this situation. I’m reminded of the flailing Bushies during Katrina, blaming the liberal media for not holding Ray Nagin responsible for everything. That’s one Katrina comparison that seems apt in this case.
kay
@tavella:
The White House is in on it too.
Okay.
You forgot to post the part where another person said the permitting orders came from the command post in Louisiana, but that contradicts the theory, so maybe you didn’t see it.
I’m still not sure who you want to take over, if this conspiracy stretches to the White House, because you’re telling me the entire federal government is involved in a vast conspiracy to hide the damage from the public.
Maybe Anderson Cooper and Bobby Jindal and James Carville can hop on the speedboat and take some pictures. In between interviews.
Maybe we can ask Jindal why he hasn’t spent the 40 million dollars he received two weeks ago, or why he hasn’t placed the 5000 National Guard he was given.
Or we can take pictures.
Steeplejack
@eemom:
I looked at this Wikipedia article on deep-sea subs, and it appears that there are vessels that are capable of operating at the mile depth (1,600 meters) of the problem.
The issue, I think, is what are they supposed to do once they’re there? Just because a vehicle has “manipulator arms,” what is it supposed to actually do? Even assuming it has the right kind of manipulator arms. I’m guessing these are not fully functional, all-purpose arms like we see in sci-fi robot movies.
kay
@Slowbama:
Like 40% of the posts here attack the media.
It’s DougJ’s special focus. He may be obsessed.
I see where you’re going with that theme, and by all means have at it, but attacking the media is really Job One around here, so that’s a dead end, on the “Katrina Theme” you’re pursuing.
Gravenstone
@eemom:
This is just a guess, but I imagine they don’t want manned submersibles there in the event something catastrophic occurs, because then you simply compound the loss of life.
eemom
@Polish the Guillotines:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIR_%28submersible%29
Husband says the MIRS have better maneuverability, more powerful manipulator arms, and better lights than the robotics. They can go down 3 miles and this thing is only one mile down.
I have no idea, just putting it out there because he’s not one to just flap his gums about shit.
tavella
Your attempt to frame it as some exotic conspiracy theory when it’s simple basic fucking politics is moronic. Obama threw in with the drill baby drill crowd; he did it for political reasons that I’m sure seemed fruitful for him at the time. However, having wedded himself to offshore drilling as a good thing, he can’t get away from it now. Oil spills are an inevitable result of offshore drilling, so he and BP share a desperate desire to minimize as much as possible.
If he had kept his old stance, of course, he could have used it as a wonderful club to explain why drill here drill now is dumb. But his political timing in this case sucked, and thus the shotgun wedding of BP and the administration.
kay
@tavella:
Tavella, I’m going, but I can guarantee you this.
If the Obama Administration “push BP out of the way” and don’t adhere to the Oil Pollution Act, and that action allows BP to evade responsibility for damages and financial responsibility for the largest oil spill in history, they’re going to have a lot of angry taxpayers 12 months from now.
Because hysteria aside, the feds can’t really “seize all the assets” and just take the money. There are laws that govern this mess. BP will go to court and a court will hear them. And they are going to do everything in their power to evade financial responsibility. They’re a part of this plan that Congress drafted called the “Oil Pollution Act”. They’re the Responsible Party. If we don’t hold up our end, they’re going to use that.
The Oil Pollution Act was drafted after the Valdez.
Where we got screwed.
cay
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell
cay + 5
eemom
@Steeplejack:
He says that’s a good question, but that it appears the problem they’ve been having with the robotic ones is they’re having difficulty positioning the various containment devices they’ve tried, and that would be easier to do with an actual person there steering it.
Polish the Guillotines
@eemom: Wow. Thanks for the link. Looks like the technology is there. I still have to figure they’re going to be touchy about risking even a couple more lives on this. Talk about optics.
It would be a good question for the task force, though.
kay
@tavella:
It’s not “simple politics”.
You’re telling me he’s ordering 20,000 federal agents from three entities to act on behalf of BP, and against the interests of the US.
How the EPA became anti-environmental, I do not know, but I guess that’s now “truth”.
That’s huge. That you’re still putting this forth as “spin” is amazing to me. He’s doing all this because he changed his position on off-shore drilling? This is a political act?
Wow. He’s a goddamn monster. He’s a very poor politician, too. His position on offshore drilling isn’t going to matter much when people find out he’s been colluding with BP to damage the US.
Lavocat
I gotta hand it to Obama. You’ve got to fuck up in the biggest of ways to make James Carville sound like the voice of reason.
Health Care Reform may not have been Obama’s Waterloo, but this sure as hell will be.
Every day that all that oil keeps gushing into the Gulf is yet another day when Obama screams to the world that he simply can not lead.
Do not be surprised when the Republicans storm the House on November and start pushing the impeahcment meme.
It’s coming, baby.
Hoocoodanode, indeed!
tavella
Wow, nice twisting. Did you read the article, where a government official flat out said that the orders about media were coming from the top?
‘
As for letting BP cheapskate their way through — an entirely different aspect of my post — it’s in fact perfectly possible that it is based in the belief (reasonable) that BP will laugh and throw away the bill when it comes due, and that the Supreme Court will back them up, given it will be even further right than when the Exxon decision came down . I just don’t happen to think that allowing the coast to be destroyed in fear of the Evil Deficit is either a moral or a politically wise decision. The three-plus months of dying Gulf Coast is going weigh more strongly in the public mind than some number in the deficit; no one actually gives a shit about the deficit, they just pretend they do when they want to stop someone else from spending money.
And there is No. Fucking. Excuse. for letting BP endanger workers, and per at least one person on the ground, threaten them with firing if they are seen with a respirator on.
Martin
@eemom: Manned subs have minimal operating time on station. It takes 30 minutes to down a mile, another to go up. The sub needs air and CO2 scrubbers, interior lights, all that jazz. How long can you keep a team down there without bathrooms and such? 6 hours? The ROVs stay down there for DAYS. And for the cost of one manned submarine, you can deploy a fleet of ROVs.
And if all that wasn’t enough reason, no risk to the ROVs if one gets squashed. How much better would the PR on this adventure be if a bunch of submarine engineers got tangled up down there requiring us to either mount a rescue operation, or broadcast the guys suffocating to death on BP channel 4?
moops
not to disparage a group of wise bloggers, but I’m a Department of Energy engineering scientist, and I haven’t been asked to help.
just a small data point. An anecdote. Combined with a small collection of similar data points from my colleagues.
It has led me to suspect that Dr. Chu isn’t really doing everything he could do. He is doing a lot, I think. Perhaps too many helpers is also a bad thing, or maybe not. Is this like Apollo 13, where a nimble team of geniuses is the right answer, or is this something that could have better been hit with a full Manhattan Project response ? Perhaps having us drop everything for a few weeks and burn our considerable budget to throw all our brains and equipment at the problem could have come up with something better than the Top Kill or Junk Shot. We do have at our disposal the most powerful computer modeling capabilities on the planet in our organization, and the best modelers as well. To my knowledge nobody is working on this. I know for a fact that our DOE capabilities in these areas FAR exceeds BP’s. In some aspects of this disaster BP is not the only or even best organization for the job.
I specifically know several oil reservoir experts in the DOE that have not been contacted. The submerged oil plumes are being discovered and tracked by a ragtag team of university scientists with 3 crappy boats. We do have a pretty big navy that could map these plumes with minor equipment upgrades, particularly the largest fleet of submarines on Earth. We have had enough weeks to have brought in dozens of military vessels by now.
What has FEMA done ? as far as I can tell, they haven’t been activated. I think this event qualifies as a federal emergency. I’d love to hear otherwise, but I can’t see any mention of them. Isn’t Obama supposed to give the order to marshal this resource ? set up housing for clean-up crews ? back up the Coast Guard with supplies ? help coastal communities ? get in place before the oil hits most of the coasts ? educate the locals about the dangers of beach oil ? I’ve seen pictures of tourists still on beaches with oil, and fishermen getting sick from dispersant exposure.
I don’t think we have deployed the governments full strength here.
I understand it is hard to hear people whining that Obama isn’t doing enough. I could care less about his playing the outraged Daddy role. I do think that his critics do have a point though. The government doesn’t seem to be doing very much. Our federal response has amounted to a few thousand people. You want him to shut his critics up by standing in front of a big poster with those names up behind him. I honestly think that you have far too tiny an expectation of what could have been accomplished with his leadership here.
I guess expecting more makes me a raving inconsolable firebagger.
trollhattan
Here’s a rundown of BP’s next scheme. No way I’m predicting whether this one works, but even if it does it seems to be a holding action awaiting completion of a relief well (months hence).
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6533
There are some very helpful graphics showing the well construction, subgrade.
NeoOstrakon
HaHaHaHa! Classic, the Carvelle-Brazille bit has me rollin. Sometimes you gotta just sit back and think, Jesus, were all just a bunch of children.
OK+a couple of Ninkasi Total Domination IPA, simply the best, and a couple of Glasses of Fine Oregon PN. Cheers.
Go Mountaineers!
Ailuridae
@NeoOstrakon:
If Oregon Pinots are your thing check out Bethel Heights at some point. Its great wine made by even better people.
NeoOstrakon
@Ailuridae: Good people, good wine. Got to love Orygun.
Mnemosyne
@tavella:
There is zero. zero. zero. reason for the media shutdown.
Sorry, what was that you said again about there being zero reason for restricting media access to the leak area? You really don’t think that doubling the number of flights in a small area — and that’s just the ones being allowed by the FAA — could be potentially dangerous?
Every idiot with a video camera or a cameraphone is trying to fly over the rig right now to get the big scoop, and you see no reason why the FAA would put flight restrictions on the area? Really?
And I have to take up kay’s question — if absolutely no one in this situation is trustworthy, who are you expecting to close up the leak? Are you planning to call in teams from Russia to take over since the federal government and BP can’t be trusted to do it?
Mnemosyne
Oh, and if anyone is wondering how this will all turn out, here’s a headline from NOLA.com:
Offshore drilling ban could be a blow to Louisiana economy
Tell me again that the media is so horrified by this spill that they’re going to be willing to support politicians who want to change the way business is done right now. Puh-leeze. They’re already making excuses for Big Oil and planning their defense of them when the big, bad gubbmint tries to put restrictions on offshore drilling.
We can’t trust the media any more than we can trust BP.
tavella
Wow, you managed to not read at all! Good on you.
I said in the very first paragraph of the very first post that the leak isn’t going to be stopped by anything but relief wells. Just like Ixtoc I and most other undersea blowouts. And that there wasn’t any point in the government taking control of the leak-blocking, because it’s almost certain to be nothing but failure after failure no matter who is doing it.
The fuckups and failures I noted was in the cleanup and prevention of damage from the flow, in the protection of workers, and in the shutdown of media access, all things entirely within the government’s capability to improve.
And frankly, no I’m not impressed by an increase in traffic of a third, or even a doubling; I bet the local traffic varies that much depending on whether it’s vacation season. And I can just imagine how you’d have reacted if Bush had only allowed access to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast by carefully controlled tours, seeing only what the government chose to show them.
Whining about the amount of emotion shown by Obama is, in fact, stupid. Pointing out his administrations very real failures in this spill is not.
DPirate
Also, SK tends to shoot it’s government protesters. Just saying…
However, all I have heard from Obama regarding this is that it’s BP’s show (problem). That is not leadership. Allowing them to ignore orders from their employment pool (EPA, etc) is also quite disheartening.
Face it. Our job here is to scour life from the planet. It’s what we are good at, and apparently what we enjoy best, second only to violence. The sooner we get it done, the sooner we can all rest.
Mnemosyne
@tavella:
You mean like he did after the Galveston hurricane, for which we still don’t have anything vaguely resembling a death toll? You’ve gotta admit, Bush learned his lesson from New Orleans.
It’s also fascinating that you don’t seem to understand the difference between “continuing disaster” and “aftermath.” Until the leak is plugged, this is not New Orleans after the hurricane hit, when journalists could easily travel the city without endangering themselves or anyone else. This is New Orleans in the middle of the hurricane. Operations are going on right now to try to end the leak. Looky-loos from the media are interfering with ongoing operations.
You’re insisting that the media should be allowed to run into a burning building along with firefighters to document everything they do and critique every decision they make in real time. We’re pointing out that maybe, possibly, it’s counterproductive to let the media interfere in ongoing operations.
tavella
And you fail to understand the difference between a hurricane and an oil spill. Reporters taking pictures of the beach aren’t ‘interfering with ongoing operations’; shovelling can continue just fine. What they are (at least when they aren’t thrown off at BP’s orders) is documenting the disaster. You know, sharing what is happening with the rest of the country. Not allowing thing to be concealed. _Like the media is supposed to do._ Suddenly it’s Obama and you are a big damn fan of keeping everything tucked out of sight.
Failed metaphor. Not a fire. No one dying. No firefighters. An oil spill. Shovelling can continue just fine. Skimming can continue just fine. Booming and all the rest. It’s the equivalent of a town that’s a Superfund site, not a house on fire.
Mnemosyne
@tavella:
Silly me, here I thought it was kind of urgent that we stop the oil from continuing to leak into the Gulf. Now that I know it’s not a big deal and all we have to do is clean it up as we go along, I wonder why BP has even been bothering trying to plug it up. Why not let it keep going until it runs out since no one is dying and the only issue is cleaning up after it?
ETA:
I’m just going to let that hang there. Because of course it’s never disruptive to have the media show up when you’re trying to work.
tavella
Jesus fucking Christ. I don’t know if it’s dishonesty or brain damage in your case.
One more time: leak will not be fixed until relief wells are successful. There is nothing the government can do about that. BP is probably doing it about as fast as it can be done, as they have triple motive for doing so: every barrel leaked is one they don’t get to sell, plus they get fined for whatever percentage of it they can’t conceal, and every day delay is another day they can’t start another well in the Macondo site. I don’t blame the Obama administration for the delay in stopping the leak, as they can make little difference.
What I do blame them for is poor management of abatement. What I do blame them for is letting BP fuck up and fuck over workers. What I do blame them is suppressing media access. These are things they *can* improve, and they do not. BP has no motive to do a good job on cleanup. They have already racked up more than their $75 million damage cap, so any additional funds they spend on cleanup are just a waste, except for PR; they know that any attempt by the government to charge them can be tied up in court and killed. Not surprisingly, their efforts have been indifferent, except for when they bus in extra workers to provide backdrops for shots with the president. The government can do something about that, and they choose not to.
And by the way, you do not know how _pathetic_ you sound when blah blah blahing about how it’s necessary to keep the media out, how it’s all about security, how they’d just be a distraction, and how controlled tours are the proper way to do it. You sound like those sad little 28 percenters talking about Bush’s various attempts to hide his disasters. I’m a little different; I may think that Bush was a vile criminal and that Obama is a decent president (if far too conservative), but I judge them by the same rules.
NobodySpecial
Because nothing’s going to be very successful until the relief well is done, so we’re going to have a fuckload of more oil coming onto the beaches. But the work of sealing the pipe is a mile down where no reporter is going to go. The Gulf is not currently filled with so many ships that a small boat with photogs couldn’t possibly be there – there’s no cruise ships or pleasure craft out there right now, for sure.
Once again, plugging the leak != documenting what happens when the oil hits the surface, and using one to deny the other is shitty, shortsighted, and wrong.
But Nothing Can Be Done, right?
Mnemosyne
@tavella:
Actually, no. The damage cap is not related to the cleanup — by law they are 100 percent on the hook for the cleanup cost. The damage cap is for economic damages, ie the state of Louisiana suing them for economic losses. The laws were changed after the Exxon Valdez to avoid the same shenanigans that got Exxon off the hook.
You don’t know these basic things that we’ve been talking about for days and I’m supposed to think that you know jack shit about how the cleanup effort works or how dangerous it would be to have unlimited flyovers of the rig by anyone who can charter a plane?
Sorry, I don’t have the great respect for the media that you do. I’ve actually seen how they’ve acted in the last 10 years and I definitely don’t trust them to report what’s going on. As I linked to above, they’re already trying to present the shutdown of current rigs as a horrible economic blow to the region and not, you know, a safety measure to try and make sure this doesn’t happen again. The goddamn leak hasn’t even been stopped yet and the media is already making excuses for the oil companies.
Mnemosyne
@NobodySpecial:
No, just ships working on the cleanup. But tavella has already reassured us that there’s no possible way that reporters could interfere with cleanup efforts, so I guess we should just let them charter boats and go right into the middle of the slick as they please. It’s not like any workers were hospitalized after being in the middle of the slick on cleanup or anything — it’s perfectly safe! The only possible reason to keep reporters out of there is a government cover-up.
tavella
Oh, I know what the Oil Pollution Act says; I’m just confident that after 20 years of appeals, the amount the government bills them for cleanup will be whittled down to nothing. And at very worst, all they’d be charged for would be the amount they’d have paid out if they did a proper job of cleanup themselves. They can’t end up worse, and they could end up getting off free of charge.
Now if they had some fear of being held financially responsible for the destroyed livelihoods and dead beaches, they’d have a motive to do a good job and early to prevent as much of that as possible, but we’ve given them a get out free card on that (and for a corporation that makes billions a quarter, $75 million is free.)
BP is acting perfectly logically — if you are the natural sociopath that is a corporation.
Billy K
Late to this thread, but I heart you, John Cole.
Thank you.
tavella
Oh, so it’s for their own good. Wouldn’t want them to document the conditions those workers are working under. After all, no good journalism has ever been done by people who risked themselves. They never go into warzones or dangerous factories or anything. The really important thing is to keep reporters tucked up safe.
Like I said. Pa. thet.ic.
Mnemosyne
@tavella:
Too late for that — BP is paying for all of the current cleanup efforts, not the feds. Unless you think they’ll manage to successfully get a refund from the government 20 years from now, that money is gone.
You can argue that they’re trying to do the cleanup on the cheap (and I would have to argue that we have no way of knowing yet since the gusher is still going) but they’ve already paid out at least $100 million on the cleanup in addition to their efforts to cap the well, so already they haven’t gotten off free of charge.
Which is why the law was changed to put the financial responsibility for the cleanup on the oil company and not the federal government: it’s better to make them pay the bills upfront than have the feds pay for it and try to get the money back later.
Mnemosyne
@tavella:
At least you’re now acknowledging that there is danger involved. Before you were claiming that reporters could just stroll in and report at their leisure because there was no possible danger to them and if the government said there was any danger, it was because they were trying to cover things up.
If reporters want to risk themselves, that’s great, but I don’t know why you think they should have the full cooperation of the people they’re investigating. Do the combatants in a war zone stop shooting when the reporter shows up and give full interviews? Does the owner of the factory greet the reporter at the door and offer to give him/her a tour along with photocopies of the documents that prove the factory is unsafe?
Mnemosyne
Shorter me: if reporters want to investigate the cleanup efforts, they need to go do it and stop whining that they’re helpless because BP and the government isn’t letting them do it.
Raf
@Mnemosyne: well that’s awfully convenient for you. If they’re kept from doing it by BP or the government, and say so, then they’re whining. And if they’re not doing it, it’s because there’s nothing to see there, not that BP or the government is keeping them from doing so.
IOW: tails I win, heads you lose.
I’m as big an Obama supporter as you’ll find, but this is just recycled Bush-apologist pap. C’mon, we’re better than this.
Raf
@Mnemosyne: also, I get that you think the EmEssEm sucks balls, and I agree that they could do a lot better job.
But if reporters are complaining that they’re being kept from covering a story, that should be a pretty large red flag. What worries me is that I see plenty of folks on my side of the fence defending actions that they wouldn’t have hesitated to flame the previous administration for perpetrating.
Again, we’re better than this.
bob h
In Louisiana you have talked the talk about States’ rights and devolution of authority to the States for a long time, and you have had the threat of oil spills staring you in the face for a long time, too. Why didn’t you have better disaster preparation-booms in place, command and control plans, etc?
For the same reason you didn’t give a rusty about fixing your levees before Katrina? Rather talk about gay marriage?
kay
@tavella:
That’s why I don’t think the information coming out about this is credible. This is a major error, and it gets repeated as gospel constantly.
The 75 million refers to “strict liability”. No one has to prove anything. That’s what strict liability means. They pay 75 million immediately, with no burden for the state to prove anything. It’s in the nature of a fee.
There is no cap on 1. damages brought by states, or 2. damages brought under common law.
The Oil Pollution Act (which you claim you read) specifically allows damages under those two scenarios.
How can I believe the rest of the claims if this continues to be repeated over and over again, yet has no basis in reality?
Further, the reason BP are hiring contractors (instead of the federal government) IS THE MONEY. They don’t want to bill BP, and sue for compensation later. They want BP to pay now, today, rather than seeking compensation later, and getting in line with all the other claimants.
Which makes a lot of sense. In 12 months when the question gets asked, “who paid for this” they want to answer “BP”. Not, “we’re waiting for a settlement”.
kay
@tavella:
I’m just asking for a straight analysis. I was reading about dispersants and the actual lit on them describes them as a trade-off: there’s a reason they are used. But I wasn’t reading that, anywhere. I was reading over and over that BP applied dispersants to hide the size of the spill.
But that isn’t what the Fish and Wildlife Service say:
A: A fair amount of research has been done, but not exhaustive. They’ve gone through standard toxicological tests that EPA [the Environmental Protection Agency] has required to determine that they are safe enough. However, it’s disingenuous not to acknowledge that response to a spill is a function of trade-offs. Whether you use dispersants, in situ burning, skimmers, boom, or don’t do anything — those all have consequences. In this situation where the spill occurred 40 miles offshore, the use of dispersants had been preapproved by the federal government.
Are BP using them here to hide the size of the spill? I don’t know. I do know it is not the whole story to continue to claim that that’s the only reason they’re used.
That makes me doubt the rest of the story.
LA
Preach!!! This diary is 100% the truth. Another truth is President Obama could have stopped this leak ten days after it happened, and Carville, the media, and Daily Kos bloggers would stay say he didn’t plug it fast enough.
What part of 5,000 feet below the surface doesn’t anyone understand? Gesh America has turned into an ignorant society.
I guess having a black President does that to a country.
kay
@tavella:
Contrary to claims all day Friday, they were ramping up workers, and this reporter seems to have gotten in without much effort:
PORT FOURCHON, La. — By dawn, the beach here looks like the staging area for a B-movie invasion.
As semi rigs unload equipment and dozens of all-terrain vehicles buzz up and down the sand, young men in blinding white protective suits listlessly shovel globs of rust-colored oil in the heat.
Operations here are just the forward tip of a growing army of cleanup workers, already thousands strong, that is advancing along hundreds of miles of Louisiana shoreline to combat the oily sludge that began washing up heavily here about two weeks ago.
Yet the cleanup effort is drawing some criticism as it unfolds on the beaches, in the bayous and in the marshes.
Environmentalists accuse workers of running roughshod over wildlife and delicate grasses. Conversely, state and local officials are worried that the crews are not doing enough, fast enough. And most agree that the effort has been wildly uneven.
If I were reading this on any number of liberal blogs, the spin would be: “BP Workers Destroy Habitat”.
Which, to me, is just as untrue as: “BP Rushes to Protect Wildlife”
Max Power
@Lavocat:
Republicans storming the House in November?
That ship sailed a few weeks ago.
Gryph
Ya took the breath and words right outta the mouths and minds of thousands, John. Thanks for the vocal, dude.
Gryph
Dr. Psycho
I love all these people saying, “just nuke it”, about a situation at such depths and temperatures that a GREAT BIG CONCRETE BOWL did not function according to expectations.
Melvis
John,
I have been reading you for a numbmer of years and always find you honest and refreshing. This post really hit a nerve, especuially as regards Zcarville and Brazille. That is why I’ll be throwing you some change. Please keep up all the great work. And cheers to Tunch and Lily.
JenJen
Late to the party, but can’t let it pass without saying that is one righteous rant, and one I wholeheartedly cheer.
tapeats
“The argument that the White House didn’t and doesn’t have the expertise to intervene in issues such as Deepwater Horizon is ludicrous. If Obama would have, as he should have, declared it a national emergency on April 20, all the best resources, the best people, the best material, on the whole wide planet, would have been available right from the get-go, not just the resources of BP, which has always had a vested interest into downplaying every single aspect of this boondoggle. Unfortunately for every party involved, with the possible exception of BP, governments consciously and deliberately choose and chose to be asleep on both sides on the Atlantic.” TAE
This catastrophe called for leadership and inititative…both sadly lacking in the current and previous admins…so quit trying to defend the indefensible…