Not The Real Thing

Did you watch Top Kill this Thursday? I bet you didn’t.

That great entertainer, BP, decided that the government didn’t mean what it said when they said to make the video available. They decided you didn’t need or deserve to see what was really going on.

While people were watching the entertaining video of Top Kill, it turns out that there was no Top Kill. BP had shut it down for 16 hours. While President Obama was telling everyone that the government was in charge, Top Kill was not actually operating. The video was but Top Kill wasn’t.

There is a special treat for those reading through this post.

BP has yet to learn that the Gulf is not their bathtub. It is a significant part of our world, our ecological foundation.

After all of the media were so kind as to make the video available to us almost 24/7, it was just a BP public relations gimmick. They were afraid something would blow apart and we might see how incompetent they really are. Another gimmick was to bring in busloads of cleanup crews just before Obama’s arrival and bus them back out after he left.

They were right to worry that Top Kill might embarrass them. It turns out that most of what came out was the mud they were forcing into the leak. As soon as they stopped the mud, the oil continued to leak as before. That wasn’t as bad as they had feared. They were concerned that the extra pressure they were providing would cause several more leaks.

Meanwhile, there was a new discovery. They found a plume of oil. Isn’t that a pleasant-sounding word? A plume.

This plume is 22 miles long, 6 miles wide and goes from just beneath the surface to a depth of 3,300 feet. The heaviest concentration was at 1,300 feet. I have difficulty holding my breath at that depth. They have more than enough difficulty dealing with the oil that is staying on the surface.

If that isn’t enough to impress you, just think, it likely isn’t the only one. Also, it is headed towards Florida’s Panhandle. Along the way is a deep trench that plays a vital role in the food chain for aquatic life in the area.

Back up on the surface, we were told Thursday morning that the spill covered an area the size of South Carolina. Please don’t get confused. This is not near the Appalachian Trail. It does have the advantage, from my personal perspective, of not being near Ft. Jackson.

Here in the US we think of this spill and the Exxon Valdez. Few Americans could recall any more major leaks. This leads us to accept BP’s characterization of the spill as an accident. If you are constantly having ‘accidents,’ it might be that another description would be more apt. I could suggest total incompetence. Another would be that they just don’t care, as long as the money keeps rolling in. They call it, “the cost of doing business.”

Do you recall the ‘accident’ at Galicia, in the Bay of Biscay, or Lebanon, or South Korea, or San Francisco, or South Africa, or, just about anywhere there is sea water.

For those with shorter memories than I (translation: young), Rachel Maddow had a special treat the other night. This is just another treat; not the one I promised above. Even with a long, but spotty, memory I had failed to realize how similar an experience we had 31 years ago. Enjoy this break from my scare tactics (aka facts).

There was a fairly recent spill in the Persian Gulf. John Hofmeister is the founder and CEO of the nonprofit Citizens for Affordable Energy. He is also the former CEO of Shell and the author of the book, Why We Hate the Oil Companies. In an interview he noted the way that spill was handled.

They gathered several supertankers and had them suck up the oil and water. They went to port and unloaded their cargoes. The oil and water were easily separated. They then went back for more. It only recovered the oil from the surface, but that was very useful and more than is being done in our Gulf.

The President could easily tell the ship owners that, if they wished to be allowed in American ports, they would have to provide ships to be used as they were in the Persian Gulf. I think they might cooperate.

When you recall the Exxon Valdez, you think of Exxon, naturally enough. You should think of BP. That oil came from the Alaska Pipeline. The lead company in the consortium operating that pipeline was BP. So, the cleanup operation fell to the ‘leadership’ of BP. The subsequent inquiry found that BP screwed up. Surprise. They could have easily taken steps to contain the spill within a few acres. Instead, their performance led to a spill that contaminated thousands of square miles and that area is still feeling the effects.

BP and the others brag about their advanced technologies and techniques. That may have some relevance as to the drilling. However, they are operating on and beyond the outer edges of those technologies.

Meanwhile, there has not been a single attempt to manage this leak that uses technology or techniques newer than three decades old. There have been no suggestions of future attempts using newer technologies, because there are none.

Canada and other countries require that an offshore operation simultaneously drill at least one relief hole, just in case something like this were to happen. It could, you know? BP’s refusal to follow such a common sense course is the reason we have to wait for 3 months while they drill a relief hole. This procedure is considered the almost surefire method for stopping the leak.

BP originally stood for British Petroleum (although their headquarters is in Houston). They now say it stands for Beyond Petroleum. I have heard and read many suggestions that are not printable. My own persuasion is that it simply stands for the ultimate in incompetence.

Someone questioned why we don’t stop government purchases from BP. Well, it seems that they are the primary supplier of petroleum products to our military. There are security considerations that would require a detailed study by the National Security Council in order to change suppliers. This may be another case of a corporation that is too big for our own good.

And Now For The Treat

This is not germane to the topic of the post but one I wanted to share.

Hank Jones died recently at the age of 91. He was one of the greats of jazz. To the end he was still touring, having recently returned from Japan. Hank was the longtime accompanist for Ella Fitzgerald. He also played with Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Coleman Hawkins. This clip is from a concert at Carnegie Hall when he was only 75 years old. The song is Willow Weeps For Me. Enjoy.

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