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BP’s middle-of-the-night made-up claim about how much their wellhead is spilling, and the Coast Guard’s and NOAA’s repetition of that number without insisting on independent verification by outside experts and instruments, makes these federal agencies look incompetent. BP, through its duplicity and incompetence, has infected the exact agencies Americans, and especially American scientists want to work with and help: the Coast Guard & NOAA.
These agencies must free themselves from the corporate self-dealing and self-protection umbrella that BP has thrown over them.
Americans, and especially American scientists, need to trust the independence and competence of the Coast Guard and NOAA. Foolish episodes — like the Coast Guard backing BP’s play when CBS News is shooed away from reporting on oil-soaked beaches and silly kabuki like NOAA’s upbeat teleconferences whose purpose only seems to be to chastise the media for alarming the American people when they need reassurance — that make our federal government appear to be in BP’s pocket need to stop NOW.
Having BP involved in the media messaging, the scientific problem-solving, the accountability and the measurement of its own ongoing catastrophe is no different than freeing OJ Simpson to look for Nicole Brown’s real killer.
95 Comments
I was under the impression that the early estimates, particularly the 5000 barrel/day estimate that had such hang time despite the mounting evidence to the contrary, were NOAA’s work (as reported in the NYT).
NOAA doesn’t have submersibles to measure the flow themselves. They put their imprimatur on BP’s lies, making them official government information. But the source of that data, as now, is BP.
Modifying that to add: NOAA has haad round-the-clock access to the livestream that the rest of us can only see now, and may have had its own ‘experts’ to evaluate the pictures they were seeing, but the 5,000 figure was originally BP’s. BP stuck to it, and ensured NOAA backed their play.
Until now.
People need to understand that NOAA and the Coast Guard weren’t to blame for this spill, and that the MMS and the political appointees of elected figures paid by the oil industry to reduce regulation created a very big problem for NOAA and the Coast Guard. NOAA is not by mission a “deep sea oil spill disaster response agency”. Nor is the Coast Guard a “deep sea oil spill disaster response agency”.
I maintain that there are many questions in the Horizon disaster, and a lot of blame, but the first question to ask is “How was a half-billion dollar oil rig allowed to start a deep sea drilling operation without having to prove first that it could respond to a predictable disaster by for example being able to rapidly and accurately measure flow rate from a burst pipe?”
I absolve no party in this disaster of guilt – but I do grow frustrated by environmentalists who have spent the last 10 years able to talk about global warming and ocean acidification with certainty because of organizations like NOAA suddenly acting like NOAA is a front group for the international oil industry.
NOAA is not the Federal agency in charge of deep sea oil exploration. NOAA is not primarily intended to be an undersea oil spill disaster fast-response agency. NOAA just had a great big disaster dumped on its lap by Federal failures in entirely different areas.
NOAA assuredly has responded pretty badly – and I won’t criticize the Coast Guard which is primarily a search and rescue and smuggling interdiction outfit that is now being blamed it seems for not having the ability to figure out a deep sea oil spill rate. I just wish people would quit totally condemning the two primary Federal agencies that responded to a disaster they didn’t ask for – that was created by a wholly corrupt Federal administration that actually HAD responsibility for deep sea oil drilling.
They or someone in government could have gotten the data from BP and the video and gotten that to NASA or any college with professors who could do the job.
It might not be fair to blame NOAA or the Coast Guard but the government as a whole? Yes thats fair
Government as a whole should be blamed? I agree! Completely! The Housing and Urban Development Department leadership should be dragged in front of the Senate to testify about the spill at once! Along with the Secretary of Education!
What legal authority do you see NOAA having to demand that BP make its property and information available? I agree completely that BP should have been forced to make the entire wreck site and all its technology available right after the spill so that a transparent determination of the damage could be done … and the proper agencies for that demand would be the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation under direct instructions from Obama himself.
Again, I am not absolving BP – they shouldn’t have had to be prodded by the publicizing of the Pelican’s preliminary results to demand that Obama get outside independent and qualified teams onto BP’s site fast – but they don’t just get to order BP to do whatever the NOAA scientists and engineers deem appropriate. NOAA is not a law enforcement agency and has no legal charter to compel access and resources from a private entity like BP.
I cannot blame NOAA. Believe it or not, this is NOT a national agency of 50,000 personnel, but consists of 500 uniformed personnel (five hundred) who manage the national fisheries, the National weather service, monitor the oceans, the atmosphere. For NOAA to send 25 people to a region, they have to deplete and/or cancel their other operations.
Also, the primary blame should go to the companies responsible, not the government (yet). The companies are responsible for complying with the law regardless of what the government says. If the government falls down on the investigation, fining, and filing of criminal charges, then I will start blaming the government. Until that happens blame should be directed at BP, Deepwater Horizon operators, and Haliburton.
You know the blame game is fascinating. Gee, did you notice that the indigenous poplulation of America disappeared one night? No,how did that happen? or Armenian genocide? Who cares and besides that was a long time ago and they would all be dead by now anyway. And surely the Turks are not to blame, because it never happened. or By the way, did you notice that the Jewish population of Europe dropped dramatically during WWII. Maybe they got themselves exterminated. Naw, never happened, they just migrated. or. We sure are killing a lot of innocent Iraqis? Naw, just proaganda, besides they are all terrorists. AND Did you notice that there is this rather big hole in the bottom of the Gulf sea floor and everything around it is turning blacker and blacker and real sticky? Your’re kidding, now how did that happen? Can’t tell, but let’s wait and see if it seals itself. Besides it is not this office’s problem; let someone else take care of it. After all, the Gulf is one hell of a big pond. Taking responsibility is a very hard thing to do,but taking responsibility is the only thing to do. Blame is an interesting academic exercise to be engaged in after the problem is resolved. The simple solution is to act now, act decisively, and solve the problem before the problem removes Homo Sapiens Spaiens entirely from the equation. Peace be unto to you all of my brothers.
The Coast Guard and NOAA are part of the Executive branch of the Federal Government. And the Chief Executive is …?
if there was money to be made awarding BP a thank you for the spill, Obama and our government would already be planning for it.
Who says they are not already planning?
Thanks for the update Teddy . . . and for all your work.
Rccd, of course.
McClatchy points out the obvious intent in lowballing the numbers…!
In a new twist…
Rather than “incompetent,” the better word is “complicit.”
We got Jim White in Florida the guy is good at the science stuff I wonder if he can do readings from Florida’s beaches Water and Air readings.
We got pups in a few of these states can we get them to get samples to send to Jim from their beaches?
I’m not trusting BP or the Government now to do anything but the minimum.
Tell me what happens to the oil when farm run off chemicals from farmers putting down fertilizer and weed killer mixes with the oil?
Every year those chemicals cause a huge algae bloom that causes a dead zone of no Oxygen in the gulf I wonder what happens this year?
I love, love , love the OJ analogy, very apropo. Obama Puhleeze. What is up with the Coast Guard riding around with BP telling the media what they can and cannot do. Could you set those limeys straight and while you at it have a word with the Coast Tards. WTF already.
Obama should federalize the BP operation and personnel in the gulf, then take over all activities to stop the gusher.
No more PR spin. No MOre BP execs wagging the US govt.
BP, by the way, should be paying extraction taxes on all the oil, whether it got into their tankers or not.
Yes the Navy and Coast guard have subs and ships they can do the job.
NOAA any Bush appointee’s still working there maybe even running the place?
Is this simple solution being discussed? I’m no expert on any of this (other than I do speak fluent Southern), but this seems quite feasible to me. Comments?
Holy %^&$! How much hay do we produce how much can we buy on the international market and can we get horses what ever animals to eat something else for a year like corn so we can get even more hay out there?
Numbers on how much a hay it takes to absorb oil a gallon of oil would be nice. Then if we can get some real numbers from BP or our government on the amount of oil floating on the top we can estimate how much hay we need.
I wonder how much hay Canada makes?
Well, I read a couple of days ago, where Noralco, the Illinois company which makes Corexit, the dispersant which has already been banned in the UK, saw an 18% jump in the value of their stock, just after it was announced that it was being used in the gulf by BP. Of some relevance is that I read an article saying that some of the board members of Noralco also serve on the boards of BP and Exxon-Mobile.
I think BP had “dispersed” about 600,000 gallons of it, before the EPA and the Obama administration, which was having a pretty good shitstorm start to break on it’s head over this, yesterday told BP that it had to use a less-toxic and supposedly more effective dispersant.
And that’s what’s going on; beat hell out of Obama and he might do the right thing…sorta-kinda. Shall we get to it? Oh, lets. :o)
No mention on google finance there is a company by that name in Illinois but the company profile is blank.
I think it maybe a private company if Google finance doesn’t cover it I’m not sure its listed on the stock exchange.
It’s all over the South East. Ready to go.
Any word on Kevin Costner’s device to clean up the oil?
Most people are under the impression that the low-ball figure BP put out of 5K bpd was just a PR move, just trying to downplay the level of disaster. This is just a collateral benefit of the real motive. This is our oil; oil they need to pay us for. The lower estimate is designed to rip us off, like they have been doing through the MMS for decades.
In other words, it is standard operating procedure. Kinda sucks, huh.
NOAA and the Coast Guard are still full of Bush appointees but it’s far too late to blame Bush for that. Obama should have gotten rid of them long ago. He owns the incompetence now.
Can you clarify what you think the Coast Guard should have done differently to date?
You mean other than not acting like BP’s private marine security force? Nope, that’s pretty much it.
In reply to your missing comment, did you edit your profile?
I opened that account and changed the display name so that hopefully that won’t happen again.
Please let me know if it does.
Thanks.
I didn’t edit my profile but Elliott may have since I agreed to sit in for DeVeria tomorrow morning and agreed to use my full name for that.
Can you clarify what you mean by “BP’s private security force”? That’s a pretty outrageous accusation. Really, is there some SPECIFIC THING you think the Coast Guard should have done earlier on?
As far as I can tell, the Coast Guard responded to the Horizon explosion by:
1) Evacuating a bunch of people who would have been burned to death or drowned otherwise,
2) Launched search and rescue in an attempt to find 11 people who are unfortunately dead,
3) Organize and police ship traffic all over the Northern Gulf of Mexico with the emergency needs to prevent further emergencies, develop an impromptu force of oil spill response craft cobbled together from fishermen and shrimpers, deploy every bit of oil spill boom they had in BAD, DANGEROUS WEATHER AND CONDITIONS, and a whole lot more.
Finally, the Coast Guard has law enforcement authority and responsibility when it comes to coastal shipping and maritime issues, and if they allow a maritime emergency to occur because they don’t police disaster areas, then they get blamed for THAT, too.
Again, is there a SPECIFIC THING that you think the Coast Guard should have done earlier? Likewise, what do you think they have done that would constitute being “BP’s private security force”? The first thing the Coast Guard has to do in a major maritime disaster is work with whatever industrial owner owns whichever ship, rig, submarine, whatever, where the disaster occurred. What do you think they should have done? They don’t have staff to deal with failed blowout preventers under a mile of water. They don’t have staff or capacity to measure an undersea oil spill, especially when they are trying to contain a surface slick using every deployable resource available.
They are having to respond to the surface spill by organizing immigrants in rusty little shrimp boats to deploy boom.
I mean, seriously … I am frustrated with the blanket total condemnation. There is a lot of blame to go around and plenty good targets for political anger.
Seymour, that’s a postFUL of straw horses. Those things are what the CG is supposed to do. If they weren’t trying to rescue those people and help out, there would have been some heads rolling.
That has nothing to do with their repeated pronouncements backing up positions and estimates by BP that we now know were utter bullshit.
You are aware that I was talking to a person who seems angry at the Coast Guard for not knowing the correct spill rate itself, or for acting as BP’s “private maritime security force”? You did read that far back, right? Not clear what sort of “straw horses” you are referring to given that the subject of the message intended for the other person was on the role of th Coast Guard in the disaster.
I am not going to argue with *you* about this stuff … the last time I interacted with you you called me a “pimp in the service of BP” and some other puerile things, and this sort of thing is not what I come to this web site for.
Have a good night -
“Nope, that’s pretty much it.”
Margaret’s on a roll. :o)
Lesseee, how about RAdmiral Mary Landry, instead of saying, three days after the explosion, that no oil was coming out of the wellhead, had said:
“We’re looking at a good-sized slick, but BP is telling us that none of it is coming from the wellhead. Speaking as a marine representative of the U.S. Government and it’s interest in protecting the environment, I’m in no position to concur with that assessment, since it’s coming from people who have one HELL of a vested interest in low-balling the living shit out of this situation.”
And how about, time and again, instead of saying: “Yep, those numbers about how much oil is escaping, are spot on..” the USCG said:
“We really need to see some of the video that BP is taking right at the wellhead. If we can do that, we can make a much better assessment of the situation. So, British Petroleum, pretty-please with a cherry on top of it, could we see that video?”
That’ll do for starters, I think.
As long as oil keeps flowing and no solutions are implemented for the clean up he has time.
What he needs is to since the pipe Iremember54 said it could be done easy.
Next step clean up Kevin’s device and the hay idea seem promising we need to start testing ideas quick.
I read somewhere and unfortunately I don’t have the source so for what it’s worth an insider in the oil industry supposedly said it could take years for the pressure to drop enough to do anything meaningful in capping the spill. If true the environmental consequences could be globally catastrophic, collapse of the food chain in the ocean for lack of oxygen etc. etc.
I would disavow any such claims.
I keep having that feeling. That they have tapped into something more powerful than we have tools to tame.
Thats the worse case scenario Iremember54 says they cinch pipes in shallow water all the time.
If this spill can’t be contained however and Iremember54 is wrong Hay futures and demand for Kevin’s device will skyrocket.
The oil that lands on the ocean’s bottom even with our best efforts could still kill everything in the Gulf though.
I wonder what long term effects this will have on sea life? I’ve heard that BP is not allowing teams of people that know how to clean up the animals that live to do their jobs because they want their own people to do it. It’s one clusterfuck of a coverup from top to bottom. This will easily go down in history as the largest disaster in my lifetime.
Jim White did some good diaries on growing anthrax in a lab. Maybe he can give us estimates of how much oil it takes to kill algae and plankton in a gallon of saltwater.
No Algae no plankton no food for the fish.
I dunno, I don’t think they look incompetent. I think they look quite competent…at helping to cover BP’s corporate ass…which seems to be just what Obama and his administration want them to do.
In fairness to ObamaRahma, many are burrowers that can’t be dismissed readily…! 8-(
“…but it’s far too late to blame Bush for that.”
Heresy! Burn this woman at the stake!
Seriously, give her the golden apple of truth. :o)
God, to see someone NOT willing to exculpate Obama for his 16 months of doing jackshit about changing the sweetheart drilling regs.
Flowers. Hugs. Smoochie. :o)
Obama has plenty of apologists over at HP. Place is crawling with them. Some people are just so pleased that at last the U.S. has a president that’s really “cool.” That’s enough for some. And we thought the Bushbots were insufferable.
Bleh… at least bush was a republic. I for one will be just as glad to see Orahma go.
Please stand by, Margaret.
*oopsie*…? ;-)
Three days after the platform exploded and sank, Rear Admiral Mary Landry, USCG spokeswoman, SHOULD have said:
“We are being TOLD by the people most responsible for this fuckup, that no oil is being released at the broken wellhead, but we’re looking at one hell of a slick and it’s getting bigger, as we speak. If any of you people are brickdumb enough to believe this bullshit, please go down to the nearest hospital and get yourself spayed or neutered, so you’ll be out of the gene pool.”
I think we can use Hay to absorb oil near the shore on the ground too the best way to do that I have not got a clue.
Still Hay and Kevin’s device I think we might have a shot at doing better with the clean up than we did in Alaska.
BP has opened Pandora’s box and Obama has sat idly by as chaos now rules the waves.
Obama’s responses have been belated and terribly insufficient.
That’s generous. He’s been weighing the political calculus instead of taking an environmental catastrophe head on.
I agree, I couldn’t agree more.
What responses? Stamping his foot once on live TV and saying I am mad?
Exactly. Obama, I believe, needed to have the Department of Justice and the FBI have a team in Houston within days after this disaster, when any leak at all became apparent, informing BP that non-cooperation of any sort with a transparent determination of the scope of the disaster was no longer acceptable or else.
Instead, Obama sat on his hands leaving the Coast Guard and NOAA to respond to and contain and be blamed for a disaster completely beyond the capacity of the Federal government and combined American oil industry together to stop once it had happened.
He sat on his hands and waffled about stopping oil drilling while Mary Landrieu of Louisiana argued that the disaster should not get in the way of more drilling.
“appear” to be in BP’s pocket.
How about embedded in BP’s pocket?
I am hearing some disturbing rumors about this event. Hopefully, it is just crap, because if it is not people are going to be more upset than they are already.
What kind of rumors?
Could you be more specific?
Not really. Jane & Co. have worked very hard at the “street cred” thing. I have heard some things and seen those comments repeated on other threads, so someone has heard the same stuff and has published it deep in comment threads of another blog. These comments are working around to different sites, so folks can hunt and find stuff if they want, but until I get some verification, I’ll not publish such things here. Unfortunately, this kind of thing may only come out under oath. Usually it leaks out earlier, though, especially under the klieg lights on this thing, and confirmation may come sooner. Suffice it to say some indications are this was human error.
Thanks. Rumors and stories are flying fast and furious, an indication of the anger and anxiety of the people.
But I did hear that Rand Paul blows goats. It would be irresponsible to speculate on the matter and I would be very much relieved when Rand Paul proves that he does not, in fact, blow goats.
I heard that someone asked him if he had “stopped blowing goats yet.”
It’s still appearing…! ;-)
Not worried so much about people knowing my last name. It’s the awaiting moderation that bothered me. I’ve been nice!
But it looks like the redoubtable Lurk has already fixed it. :-)
You’re always nice, to us…! ;-)
Aloha, RBG…!
I saw on TV today the Coast Guard admiral calling on BP to take action and measure the flow from the leak. The problem is, of course, she is making this call a month after the rig blew up.
Whether it is NOAA or the EPA there has got to have been a US agency that has as part of its mission to monitor and take samples in the Gulf. Except for the Pelican, this does not seem to have been done.
Then there is the Navy with both surface and submersibles. Where’s the Navy? Fat lot of good it does us to have such an enormous, yet worthless, fleet.
The Department of Defense was called in about three weeks ago and it became clear that the Navy’s deep sea resources were not even as good as BP’s for dealing with this issue. The Navy’s remote controlled deep sea submersibles are apparently limited to doing very different things.
The name, once again is now big but for a while all of my comments said they were awaiting moderation. Thought my cat had signed on and meowed rudely at someone. :-)
Seymour @ 29:
“NOAA has responded pretty badly.”
It certainly has, such as cutting the legs off of NIUST when they first announced the presence of huge oil plumes that weren’t visible from the surface.
Such as: attempting to keep definitive lab work on this catastrophe in the hands of a lab which already has huge contracts with…wait for it…BP and the oil industry.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/science/earth/21conflict.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
While I’m at it, federal officials are telling volunteers that bird cleaning and penalty-assessment has to be done by a company hired by BP.
Can you qualify the language “cutting the legs off” NIUST? Neither you nor I know what took place in terms of communication after NIUST released its first measurements to the New York Times and other news outlets. Can you show me a quote from a NIUST figure claiming that NOAA has cut his legs off?
It’s really easy to shriek and yell and get angry. And I am angry too. I was angry the day the spill started, and started writing diaries on it. However, when I start seeing the Coast Guard being demonized for not announcing the correct spill rate from day one of the disaster and otherwise acting as “BP’s private security force” I start to realize that anger has its drawbacks.
Eli is upstairs!
Rand Paul Gets Weary. Oh Yes, He Does Get Weary.
Thanks Lurk. I know what happened now. I just wasn’t expecting it is all. :-)
Happy to help.
Obama has become the modern day U.S. version of Nero. He didn’t light the match but he fumbled and fiddled while Rome burned.
The U.S. needs a President willing to tackle problems head on and dam the political consequences. Do what is right. Obama is looking more like a deer caught in the headlights.
Piece of cake. NIUST released the information about the plumes, and the posted on their site, the sampling procedures they were using.
And when the media got onto it, NOAA went after NIUST, accusing them of bad and premature science, and telling them to stop talking to the press.
To me, that makes the cut for leg amputation. Your mileage may vary. Since NOAA is a large part of their funding, it’s not hard to understand what happened then.
Here’s the thread by Jim White, since you seem to have missed it:
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/48816
Hot off the DellNews griddle:
http://apnews.myway.com//article/20100521/D9FRH8QG0.html
I don’t care if you argue with me or not. You may not believe in reality, but reality believes in you.
The Coast Guard, starting with Admiral Landry’s statment, has been toting the hod for BP’s version of this since the platform blew. Praising their rescue efforts IS a red herring for NOT talking about their PR “duties”.
As for the name calling, it may have been a bit over the line, but effectively, that’s what you’ve been doing.
BTW, one of your supporters on here called me an asshole. I didn’t see you take him to task. :o)
Sorry, I am responsible for that inappropriate remark which I was just about to use to criticize Seymour, whom I now regard as a wee bit too “friendly” in his defense of NOAA and the CG.
Jane Lubchenko has been embarrassing herself shilling for BP and the CG needs to tell BP to STFU when BP orders them to order a CBS News film crew, or any other group, to leave a public beach or be arrested and jailed.
Lubchenko used to be a respected member of the scientific community, but I doubt that she is anymore. That’s what happens when a person chugs Kool-Aid.
I believe that is what Margaret meant when she said “private security force” – their excuse was they were looking out for the safety of the CBS news crew. Of course.
~~~Disengage now you guys.~~~
The idea that the U.S. Navy doesn’t have the technological resources to take film of a wellhead at 5,000 feet, to me, makes no sense whatsoever. They could have been providing unfiltered and accurate footage of the escaping oil within a few days of the explosion. Instead, we had to wait something like three weeks, for BP to release THEIR video, and they only did it under pressure. To me, that’s just another piece of allowing BP to run this thing and feed us THEIR version of events.
As soon as it was released, the estimate of the amounts of oil coming out, took a big jump, based on the calculations of scientists who are not on BP’s payroll. As I recall, Seymour went to some length in his posts, to discredit the new amounts being talked about.
Since the Coast Guard and NOAA did take BP’s word as gospel and provided police muscle for BP then they show a certain incompetance. The Coast guard needs to get back to it’s core missions and quit trying to catch terrorists that should be the Navy’s mission. After all no one has been really interested in the CG’s police powers when we’re talking terrorists.
I understand terrorism is a major issue but it isn’t the only thing that’s going on in the world and we need to get back to everything else. I’m tired of terrorists setting our agenda.
Obama is only doing what he’s done from the beginning of his presidency-nothing. I guess that FDL ad ‘ain’t working too well on him.
Jindal and Coast guard guy bitch about BP – but it appears BP is in charge of boom placement:
http://www.wwltv.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/Jindal-questions-oil-spill-response-Coast-Guard-official-takes-blame–94624594.html
“CORPORATE SODOMY,” at the expense of Life and Liberty………
Seize the assets of these corporate fucking criminals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When will we understand we’ve been the target of a weapon of mass destruction by BP, TransOcean and Haliburton and respond as if it were any other group of global terrorists?
Why not just start with the premise that BP, et al, are LYING?
Take their figure on how much oil is being gushed, multiply by 10, and act accordingly.
What I find ASTOUNDING is the degree to which NOAA, at the very top, is apparently willing to engage in aiding and abetting behaviors that are morally criminal, if not legally so!
I had no idea that they were “on the take” in the same way the MMS so very famously is!
Are they more W left-overs? Or, like Salazar, and Obama, are they Republicans in Democrat clothes? aka simply Corpora-crats
That they are not actively engaged in measuring the oil plumes from the sea floor to the surface is stunning. Negligence of the very highest order!!
I think we need not a Commission. We need a figgin Federal grand Jury and Special Prosecutor!
You know that’ll never happen under Mr. “what me, look back, admit anything mad happened in the past, and try to fix it (now)?”
I say we let Obama, Salazar, and some heads of MMS, NOAA, etc. take a nice little swim in some marshes in Louisiana …