BP's Oil Booming Failure

[Vekseid]

BP Fails Booming School 101 Gulf Oil Spill (MIRROR)

Strong language here, but short, to the point, and educational.

[Sabby]

Disgusting...

[Paladin]

Sounds to me like mechanical failure. If the safty devices designede to cap the wells failed as the video says then its not human error. Its the one in a billion freak chance that every saftey failed. Now its gotta be cleaned up. If its not fixed soon then I'll start getting bitchy, but we are the ones that are dependant on oil. So you can't just blame BP, you have to blame everyone. If you use oil or an oil byproduect in any way, you are at fault. We all are... even me.

[Vekseid]

Paladin, this is discussing booming and oil recapture procedures. Did you even bother to watch the video? Please stay on topic.

[Paladin]

Paladin, this is discussing booming and oil recapture procedures. Did you even bother to watch the video? Please stay on topic.

yes i did watch the video, and i feel that remnarking on the fact that even the tape mentions mechsnical failure is apropriate

[Vekseid]

Given the ballooning evidence that BP, Haliburton and Transocean cut corners, your statement is specious at best and if findings of fact indicate that corners were in fact cut, and measures were in fact ignored, your statement would be demonstrably false.

[Paladin]

Given the ballooning evidence that BP, Haliburton and Transocean cut corners, your statement is specious at best and if findings of fact indicate that corners were in fact cut, and measures were in fact ignored, your statement would be demonstrably false.

Umm I'm going by what it says in the very video you posted man. This will be my last post in this thread cause I know I will get jumped by everyone else.

[Aiden]

That video is pretty rage worthy, I did not know anything about booming until the video.

[Brandon]

Interesting thought: A lot of people are complaining about this, for all those that are and live in the area how many of them will go out and help with the situation?

[Trieste]

I have family in the area helping the cleanup. My uncle is retired Coast Guard who went back out on a boat to help.

Please don't even go there.

[Brandon]

Then Ill applaud them for that. The question in my mind is, are they a few people of many that could make a difference but dont (and complain about it) or are most of the people who complain about it also going out there? I tend to think its the former

For the record, I would be out there too if I lived remotely close to the Gulf

[Oniya]

There are hair salons all over the place that are donating hair-cuttings to help soak up the oil (apparently hair does a good job of that).

[Will]

I have to question how many Gulf residents have proper booming equipment.  And besides, they didn't make the mess; BP did.  BP should clean it up.

[Brandon]

Booming permits and equipment are not required to help the situation. Does a person need a permit to get some hot soap/water ready and scrub off a few animals or the rocks that oil has washed up on?

Its yet to be seen if BP was really at fault. As paladin mentioned earlier, its possible (unlikely but possible) that it could have been a one in a million freak accident where every safety failed. Its up to the courts and inspectors to decide whos at fault. For now, whats more important is to clean the oil up before it does further damage but I tend to think most people will just play the blame game when they could help the situation

Oniya: That made me laugh. I would have never thought of that but it shows the ingenuity of people

[Oniya]

Oniya: That made me laugh. I would have never thought of that but it shows the ingenuity of people

It's both funny and heart-warming, as it shows that people are taking the time and energy to bundle up something they usually discard to help make a difference.

[Will]

Booming permits and equipment are not required to help the situation. Does a person need a permit to get some hot soap/water ready and scrub off a few animals or the rocks that oil has washed up on?

Its yet to be seen if BP was really at fault. As paladin mentioned earlier, its possible (unlikely but possible) that it could have been a one in a million freak accident where every safety failed. Its up to the courts and inspectors to decide whos at fault. For now, whats more important is to clean the oil up before it does further damage but I tend to think most people will just play the blame game when they could help the situation

Oniya: That made me laugh. I would have never thought of that but it shows the ingenuity of people

Uh... it's their equipment.  Who else is going to be at fault?  Even if it was %100 accidental, with no negligence involved, it's still BP's responsibility to clean it up.  It looks like BP might not even have the means or know-how to get that done, and I don't see how that can be painted as anything less than awful.

[Brandon]

You're right, I should have said "Its yet to be seen if BP was really negligible". However as I said the blame game can be played after the oil spill has been cleaned up.

It is absolutely their responsibility to clean it up, I didnt mean to imply otherwise. However that doesnt mean that residents around the Gulf cant help in their own way (and some of them are).

[Trieste]

Booming permits and equipment are not required to help the situation. Does a person need a permit to get some hot soap/water ready and scrub off a few animals or the rocks that oil has washed up on?

... *winces at the thought of untrained personnel chasing wild animals with a bottle of undiluted Dawn, oh god*

[Ket]

Booming permits and equipment are not required to help the situation. Does a person need a permit to get some hot soap/water ready and scrub off a few animals or the rocks that oil has washed up on?

The thing is, when oil makes it to a shoreline, the devastation moves from catastrophic to beyond catastrophic. It's not just birds and mammal who live above the water who are affected. It's the plants, the soil, the larva of small animals, the tiny crustaceans and fish...and then on up the food chain. My local paper put a great visual chart out today, which I will scan after dinner and post.

You don't want oil hitting the shore. At all.  It won't just affect the coastline for a day, a week or a month. More like years. Possibly even decades. The more oil you can keep from hitting the shoreline, the better of the habitat is. Which is where the booming and collecting comes in.

[Vekseid]

Uh... it's their equipment.  Who else is going to be at fault?  Even if it was %100 accidental, with no negligence involved, it's still BP's responsibility to clean it up.  It looks like BP might not even have the means or know-how to get that done, and I don't see how that can be painted as anything less than awful.

Transocean and Halliburton will also share some liability, along with potentially a few others. It's quite possible that we will see BP utterly destroyed as a result of this. Transocean, being responsible for far more than its share of Gulf drilling accidents, would also be nice to see dismantled.

[Zakharra]

 Give it a few years and there will likely be very little sign of any disaster. Look at the Prince William Sound in Alaska. That is clean. Despite all of the uproar, oil is a natural thing. It's not an artificial creation, but a completely 100%  natural product. Nature has ways to clean up after it and will do so.

[Trieste]

Sure. Let's try an experiment. Let's coat you in oil - that you can't wipe off. In fact, the only way you can clean it off is by licking yourself clean. Perhaps you could try preening, like a duck. Go ahead, do it. Don't worry, it's perfectly natural and you'll probably be okay in about twenty years. :)

[Zakharra]

Sure. Let's try an experiment. Let's coat you in oil - that you can't wipe off. In fact, the only way you can clean it off is by licking yourself clean. Perhaps you could try preening, like a duck. Go ahead, do it. Don't worry, it's perfectly natural and you'll probably be okay in about twenty years. :)

Try a year. I've left oil outside when I have changed the oil on the tractors. The only thing that got in the oil was rain water. What happened to it? It turned into a grey organic sludge that is easily wiped off. It smells like.. rotting vegetation. Which it is effectively. Nature has ways to get rid of oil, a natural product of the planet and it will have most of the effects of this oilspill cleaned up in a few years even if we did nothing. Bacteria and microbes eat the stuff because it is organic. It never lasts as a slick oily mess for decades. That's stupid thinking.

Look at Prince William Sound. The Exxon Valdez(sp) disaster was the worst on record for the US at the time and the Sound is healthy and full of life.

Will the oil coat things? Yes. For a short time before it starts to break down and disssolve. But it will go away on it's own. Within a few years. Certainly not 10 or 20 years.

[Oniya]

And what happens to the wildlife and plants that are coated with it for a year?

[Vekseid]

Did you seriously just compare a few gallons of dirty, refined oil that you left in your back yard to several million gallons of chemically laden crude washing into an erosion prone marshland?

No one's doubting that nature will 'recover', and to make claims like that is completely dodging the point that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of livelihoods will be destroyed for the next three-ten years because of this, and in the case of the marshlands, the increased die-off in vegetation will lead to an increase in erosion. The marsh serves an incredibly important purpose - it weakens hurricanes - and funding for rebuilding them has not been provided.

To say nothing of the chemical dispersants, whose effect we are not currently aware of.

Nashville was flooded. North Korea torpedoed a South Korean vessel. We've only begun to recover from a recession only to face deflationary pressures once again. A few days ago, it reached 95 degrees Fahrenheit in Minnesota, can you imagine what this summer is going to look like for the United States?

There is so much crap going on right now, and in the case of Louisiana in particular - it's still recovering from Katrina. And, because of BP's mess, the next hurricane is going to hit it that much harder.

[Ket]

Exxon Valdez happened in 1989. 21 years ago, that's two decades.

...and a study conducted by NOAA determined that as of early 2007 more than 26 thousand U.S. gallons (22,000 imp gal; 98,000 L) of oil remain in the sandy soil of the contaminated shoreline, declining at a rate of less than 4% per year.

Source - http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/feb/02/oil.pollution

Another good article to read is here, and Wikipedia has a plethora of links to read about how long of an impact an oil spill has on the ocean and coastline.

It's not just a month or a year or five years.

Decades. Multiple decades. 

[Trieste]

I'm also incredibly skeptical of BP's party line of "We're going to ignore the cap you placed on our liability because we want to Do the Right Thing"... given that Exxon took their fight up to the goddamn Supreme Court and were rewarded by having their damages reduced by, what, $5.5 billion? I don't really trust that one.

Although, given that the Supreme Court is poised to be tilted a little more liberal, it might not be in their best interests to litigate after all. Hm.

Transocean still seems to be turning heads with their idiocy and their attempts to limit their own liability. Point + laugh. :P

[Valerian]

I found this Time magazine article that discusses the abysmal results from all of BP's plans thus far, and also found a telling statistic.  This is the breakdown of safety citations various oil companies received from OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) from June 2007 to February 2010:

Sunoco - 8
Conoco-Phillips - 8
Citgo - 2
Exxon - 1


During that same period, BP received 862 such citations, of which 760 were labelled "egregious and willful".

Maybe it would be possible to dismantle the whole horrible mess of a company right now, and put whatever is earned by selling off the bits and pieces into funding some actual experts.  :P

[Vekseid]

It's a British company. Which makes seeing federal and state/local officials doing their bidding and preventing reporting in the region seem downright treasonous. Either the Obama Administration is complicit or BP has active bribes with thousands to tens of thousands of government officials.

[Entendre]

Videos like this really bother me. While I admire the activism of the creator and his or her personal research into the topic, I don't think it is remotely fair to judge the accident like this.

Having seen the degree of intelligence necessary to get a job designing one of these rigs, I can comfortably say that the men and women engineering these floating drills are geniuses in their own rights. It takes up to a billion dollars to build a single rig and roughly a decade of systematic diligence. When you're complaining about drilling accidents, you have to consider the depth and pressure these engineers are dealing with. A comparable task to drilling at these depths would be blindly using twenty foot chopsticks to eat wonton soup. We all have a right to some basic information about the drilling accidents, but unless you're a mechanical or petroleum engineer with that type of experience and knowledge, I think you should really hold your tongue and let the experts do their best. Support, rather than criticism, would be nice.

Also, I don't blame BP in the slightest. I blame the economy and complaints about oil prices. When you complain about the price of gas, you allow politicians who support cutting corners in industry to lower oil prices to get elected. If BP didn't cut the same corners that Exxon, Lukoil and Chevron did, it would go out of business. Money is the cash cow and when you start buying higher priced gas with environmental awareness in mind, then companies can afford to start practicing greener, and safer methods of oil drilling and refining. Until then, oil users have no one to blame but their own greed.

Regarding booming, I don't honestly buy the testimony of the woman speaking. We live in a free-market economy and right now, this moment, her skills are in demand. If she were that good, BP would be hiring her this instant and the government would be paying her an arm and a leg to hopefully quell their public embarrassment. They would get less flak for hiring a loud-mouthed activist than they are currently getting for the spill.

[TheGerbilyOne]

Videos like this are honestly one of those things that just makes me smile. I can only hope that the media in general picks up on this.

I can only hope that this doesn't get any worse, even though considering the remarks of BP's Top Officials make me think that they are still treating it like it is none of our business.

[Trieste]

Having seen the degree of intelligence necessary to get a job designing one of these rigs, I can comfortably say that the men and women engineering these floating drills are geniuses in their own rights. It takes up to a billion dollars to build a single rig and roughly a decade of systematic diligence. When you're complaining about drilling accidents, you have to consider the depth and pressure these engineers are dealing with. A comparable task to drilling at these depths would be blindly using twenty foot chopsticks to eat wonton soup. We all have a right to some basic information about the drilling accidents, but unless you're a mechanical or petroleum engineer with that type of experience and knowledge, I think you should really hold your tongue and let the experts do their best. Support, rather than criticism, would be nice.

I don't really care what they show the general public, although I expect what is shared to filter through into the general public. What I do care about is that they are keeping other* experts out of the loop. When they estimate the flow of oil at 1,000 barrels a day and everyone else who gets a look at it estimates it at 5,000 or 10,000 or 30 frickin' thousand barrels a day, they are being shady. When they have to be forced by the government to stream video of the leak so that we can actually see what's going on down there, when there is evidence that the blowout preventer didn't engage because the hydraulic systems were improperly hooked up in order to pass a safety test, when we're told that it's only a little oil and the ocean is very big so it'll probably just be fine, BP gets labeled as scumbags. They should have every red cent seized, and the money should be put toward Gulf cleanup when the government finally caves to pressure (and they will; it's only a matter of time) and steps in to clean up their mess.

And blaming people for demanding cheap oil is somewhat pointless. We have a Democrat in the Oval Office and we have a Dem-controlled Congress. It's not like we have a bunch of oil barons in power, although until the government stops pandering to them they will still have a completely ridiculous amount of power.

* Meaning independent experts not employed by BP.

[Serephino]

I saw on the news that BP among the other companies involved are being investigated for criminal negligence.  This means that yes, they are at fault.  There was also talk of them being banned from doing business in our country anymore.  This of course comes after the explosion of the refinery in Texas a few years ago, and another incident I can't remember.   

[Vekseid]

I'd go so far as to say that defending BP and Transocean over this is not only a flat out lie as they both are demonstrably responsible for more than their share of incidents (Transocean was also responsible for the Ixtoc spill) - but also hideously counterproductive.

Every other oil company in the world has a better record than these two. The only time someone created a bigger disaster was when it was done intentionally.

BP and Transocean are clearly not as competent as their competitors, but their competitors are going to suffer for it anyway. Their responsible drilling operations are getting stalled over this mess despite comparatively spotless records. Liquidating the two will not diminish the value of the assets themselves, nor will the valuable employees that are working with them now vanish.

I have no illusions about our reliance on oil, or the sorts of people running these companies. But better can be done - we know it - and until we can get off our crack addiction, we have every right to demand better.

[Muninn]

I know I'm late but I recall a video I saw (whether online or on TV I can't remember nor find at the moment) where a class made a trip to a beach where an oil spill had occurred years ago, the students dug a shallow hole into the clean-looking sand, poured some clean water into it and watched as the sludge began to surface from this "clean" sand.  I'll try to find the video later.

I also have this, dunno if it's relevant but it definitely has an impact:

Caught in the Oil
(slight warning: Not for the faint of heart.  These are terrible, terrible images of suffering wildlife)

[Entendre]

I'm not going to post a detailed analysis of shear ram BOP technology, but until someone can demonstrate why this one BOP was any different from the roughly five hundred others which were successfully employed by toppled rigs over the last five years, I will have trouble believing that this was careless oversight let alone negligence.

As to safety for those working on the rigs, I agree that it is a deadly job, but that isn't really relevant. Hundreds of men die yearly on these rigs and get no attention. Safety would be nice, but I think this is more about the spilled oil.

Lastly, BP is one of the premier producers of solar cells, one of the largest contributors to green energy research worldwide, and donates millions to public research institutions annually. They may have screwed up, but I consider their past record at least minimal proof of their moral fiber.

[Sabby]

Dude, Entendre, at this point, the cause of the accident couldn't be less important. Whether it was criminal negligence, or a very severe case of bad luck that no force could have foreseen or prevented, the fact is that it has happened. BP owns these rigs, and knows what could happen if one were to fail, so it is their responsibility to prepare for just such an incident.

Even if they maintained perfect safety procedures and made sure that the margin of error was as small as possible, the fact they didn't properly prepare for an accident, and aren't acting on it appropriately, is the issue at hand.

I do hear what your saying man, but focusing on the reason this happened, and defending BP with an 'accidents happen' mentality is just so not guna fly. This COULD happen, and as a business, you HAVE to prepare for the worst case scenario. Because if the sad day comes, and you were spending all that time counting on it never showing up instead of preparing for it... well, look how its turning out :P

[Entendre]

I definitely and willingly concede that. BP was unprepared for a disaster of that magnitude and that is their fault. The original accident was not.

My only point was that this isn't a straightforward case of corporate greed. When people paint the picture as though BP was knowingly cutting corners in terms of preventing the disaster, then I rose to point out that this wasn't the case.

[Will]

You actually did say that they were cutting corners in your earlier post, and that it was totally okay.

Of course, it really isn't relevant to the thread, which is titled "BP's Oil Booming Failure."  In other words, their horrible response to the situation at hand.

[Oniya]

You actually did say that they were cutting corners in your earlier post, and that it was totally okay.

Of course, it really isn't relevant to the thread, which is titled "BP's Oil Booming Failure."  In other words, their horrible response to the situation at hand.

I think I've contracted Mr. Oniya's dyslexia.  This whole time, I've been reading that as 'BP's Booming Oil Failure' - as in a failure that keeps growing and growing.

[Phaia]

Its okay..all is now right!! We have James Cameron involved!!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jun/02/james-cameron-underwater-oil-spill

he Might very well have a lot of experince filming in deep water but filming and fixing the leak are two very different things!!!

But I do feel much better knowing that the government is listening closely to the director of the Titanic and Avatar!!


Phaia

[Oniya]

I'm not sure where I saw it other than articles like that one (I want to say that I saw a post that mentioned BP initially turning Cameron's offer away), but the man does have a fleet of submersibles and patents on various underwater equipment.

[Phaia]

yes he does have a fleet of small submarines and knows a great deal about filming at deep depths...but does that make him an expert in how to handle the leak?

I would much rather have people involved [other then BP] that actaully know about things like deep drilling and oil pressure. If James Camerons offers his submarines to help in seeing and guiding things then great but the impression I have gotten is that he has been making suggestion on how to close the leak!

Phaia

[Oniya]

From the article that you posted and the one in Vanity Fair, it looks like he's offering the use of the subs, and contacted a number of scientists and engineers that he's become acquainted with through his various films.

This week, drawing on his contacts in the deep-sea science world, the director convened a meeting of more than 20 scientists and engineers in Washington to brainstorm fixes for the leak.

“I know a lot of smart people who regularly work a whole lot deeper than that well,” says Cameron, referring to BP’s 5,000-foot gusher. “I figured this group of top sub guys and deep-ocean scientists and engineers could maybe come up with something constructive.”

[Sabby]

That confirms it then. There's Unobtainium in the Gulf.

[Trieste]

yes he does have a fleet of small submarines and knows a great deal about filming at deep depths...but does that make him an expert in how to handle the leak?

I would much rather have people involved [other then BP] that actaully know about things like deep drilling and oil pressure. If James Camerons offers his submarines to help in seeing and guiding things then great but the impression I have gotten is that he has been making suggestion on how to close the leak!

Phaia

It's not the handling of the oil they're having trouble with, Phaia.

The discussion was described by the Obama administration as a "listening session", though it is no secret that BP has struggled to find the right technology that can work at one mile below the ocean surface.

This has been the highlight of the failures. The problems they are facing - freezing, pressure - are all problems of deep-sea filming as well. They have dozens of people who know how to handle the oil around, so I don't see why bringing in someone with massive amounts of experience in very deep water is a bad thing.

The director of Avatar, the world's highest-grossing film, and the previous record-holding movie, Titanic, is considered an expert in the technology of deep-sea diving

Assuming the journalist isn't just throwing around the word 'expert', wouldn't that be exactly what BP needs?

In preparation for his 1997 blockbuster, Titanic, he created a new generation of mini remotely operated vessels (ROVs) that were small enough to enter the inside of the sunken ship.

It probably wasn't Cameron himself who designed them, but people working for him. Still, the kind of people who can design working vehicles both agile and small enough to work inside of a 70 (ish, I don't remember the precise year the titanic sank) year old wreck and not destroy it? These are the kind of people you want working with you.

He has filmed at depths of as much as two miles – twice the depth of the Deepwater Horizon well.

Yeah.

In addition to the information provided by your own article, you seem to also be forgetting that one of the dangers for the folks in the Gulf is fading publicity. If people get bored and wander away, if the media stops covering it, if people aren't reminded that a whole shoreline is now devastated by oil, then guess what happens? BP feels the pressure ease, and they start turning down claims and screwing over the locals again. What are they going to do, litigate? That worked so well with Exxon.

So yeah, a little bit of a celebrity expert is really not a bad thing, so long as he acts like an expert and not a Hollywood director, and makes sure to work with the other experts around. And you know what? It sounds like he's pretty good at doing just that, given the various entities he's collaborated with.

[Serephino]

If he has anything at all to offer I say great!  The people of BP are staring at it with their thumbs up their asses. 

[Dashenka]

Okay that video generally annoyed me for two reasons:

One, the voice over thinks she is more usefull than God, which is a totally ridiculous statement and annoyed me from the first line she spoke which resulted in me not taking her serious anymore. If she is more usefull than God, why is she complaining about it and not offering her help to BP or whoever wishes to help out. It's very and safe to be arogant about other's failures sitting at home. Yes BP is being incompetent, but I knew that without the comments of this obviously disgruntled woman. Strong language is good when it serves a purpose, in this case, I miss the purpose other than claiming her right and BP's wrong. (Which has already been proven without this woman.)

Honestly clips with idiot people like this woman only fuel the support for BP and not for the good cause. At least that's how it works on this part of the world. If you claim to be more usefull than God, proof it by deeds, or shut the hell up.

Second, and I know I'm on thin ice with this one. From what I've heard (read: I do not know if this is correct) Mr Obama said that he will hold BP responsible and it is their duty to clean up the oil. Now I understand he will hold them responsible but if this is true I think it's again a great sign of miss placed arogance by a person to let BP on their own with this.

I cannot imagine there is no government institution for this kind of accidents who should help out. It's easy to point the finger at BP and tell them to clean up their mess but their mess is endangering millions and now is not the time to be arogant.
Again I'm not sure what is being said and done about it by the government as we simply don't see that here in Russia but when a company is failing, like BP is now, I think it's the government's duty to help out.


So to summon up, yes BP is very incompetent in cleaning up their mess but as always, the loudest people scream and do not help. If you do not wish to help, shut up and let the people who are their jobs, (good or not) do their work.

[Ket]

Just a note - no where in that video did the person talking about booming state that they weren't helping.  That's an unknown.

[Will]

The woman in the video sounds as if she's been familiar with BP's ineptitude and irresponsibility for a long time.  Her frustration makes sense.  Saying that "Yes, BP screwed up, but you don't have to be mean about it" is really downplaying the magnitude of the situation. 

They fucked up my Gulf, severely.  I don't need to help out to be angry about it.  If someone dumped a bucket of crude oil on my front lawn, I wouldn't have to get out there with a scrub brush to have a right to be upset.

[Tambit]

I know I am somewhat new to Elliquiy and have only just caught this thread.  The information in that video is rather shocking, and it just further supports my suspicions.

But first, I feel something has to be said.  People seem intent on blaming either BP or the society at large.  I will defend society.  You cannot place blame for something like this on everyone who has ever used an oil product.  The reason is simple - oil is a monopoly.  Every man, woman, and child in the US and likely 99% around the world have, at some point in their life, needed or used an oil byproduct. We do not really have an option of NOT using oil byproducts.  Were you born in a hospital?  Plastic was used during your birth.  So, by your argument, the baby is now guilty of this disaster?  The system we have is broken and the powers-that-be do not seem to want to fix it (not that it would be easy to fix, mind you).  It is not a matter of complaining about the price of gasoline, either.  Just because I complain about the price does not mean the government allows the industry to skip corners to keep costs down.  The only time costs have dropped a significant amount was during the recession; my complaints have no real affect on the oil so long as I keep BUYING it.  In addition, the amount of money oil barons make is almost impossible to fathom.  So far, BP has claimed that it spent $1.2 billion on this clean-up effort.  That's equivalent to 2 days profit for them (according to NBC news).  If anything, it is their greed that is powering this calamity, NOT ours.  It has been said that one of these rigs costs upwards of a billion dollars to put up.  Given this level of profit, do you honestly think this is even a slight sting to their bank accounts?  And although hey have this much money, they show no signs of giving up more of it.

BP, who is responsible for this simply because they took charge and have failed time and time again, is trying to save face.  They have offered a sum of money to some of the inhabitants along the coast... how nice ($5,000 for the destruction of their way of life).  They are employing local boats to help (improperly) boom the oil... how generous (14% of which are residents and fishermen - the rest are rich boys in pleasure craft).  They are pumping out commercials announcing their effort to clean this up and how concerned they are... what a good gesture (except the gulf states are not getting these commercials; there's no point in wasting money on people who know better).  They recently spend several hundred million dollars on a solar plant for alternate energy (and in the same year spent tens of billions on acquiring a new oil rig).

If anyone is to blame for this, it is in fact BP and the US government (and it pains me to say it, because I am an Obama supporter).  The government has apparently taken a side seat to the clean-up efforts.  Why, exactly, is the Coast Guard getting all its info and deferring entirely to a private company - a company that is not based in America and which has an atrocious track record?  I know the government has been trying, but not enough.  Not even close to enough.

I for one am looking forward to buying an EV (electric vehicle).  I live in an area powered by a nuclear plant.  I have eliminated a large portion of plastics from my life (recycling plastic is, unfortunately, more detrimental to the environment than not recycling it).  I think everyone should try simple steps like these.  It would be a huge hit to the oil industry in America.


*gets off the soap box*