Ten Things You Need to Know About the Oil Spill (including $270M insurance payout to Transocean)

[garybeck]

How the owner of the exploded oil rig has made $270 million off the disaster, and nine other shocking, depressing facts about the oil spill.

1. Oil rig owner has made $270 million off the oil leak

<snip> Transocean reported making a $270 million profit from insurance payouts after the disaster.

2. BP has a terrible safety record

BP has a long record of oil-related disasters in the United States. In 2005, BP's Texas City refineryexploded, killing 15 workers and injuring another 170. The next year, one of its Alaska pipelines leaked 200,000 gallons of crude oil. According to Public Citizen, BP has paid $550 million in fines. <snip>

3. Oil spills are just a cost of doing business for BP
<snip>

4. The Interior Department was at best, neglectful, and at worst, complicit
<snip>
Ten years ago, there were already warnings that the backup systems on oil rigs that failed on Deepwater Horizon would be a problem. The Interior Department issued a "safety alert" but then left it up to oil companies to decide what kind of backup system to use.

5. Clean-up prospects are dismal

The media makes a lot of noise about all the different methods BP is using to clean up the oil spill. Massive steel containment domes were popular a few weeks ago. Now everyone is touting the "top kill" method, which involves injecting heavy drilling fluids into the damaged well.

But here's the reality. Even if BP eventually finds a method that works, experts say the best cleanup scenario is to recover 20 percent of the spilled oil. And let's be realistic: only 8 percent of the crude oil deposited in the ocean and coastlines off Alaska was recovered in the Exxon-Valdez cleanup.


6. BP has no real cleanup plan

Perhaps because it knows the possibility of remedying the situation is practically impossible, BP has made publicly available its laughable "Oil Spill Response Plan" which is, in fact, no plan at all.

7. Both Transocean and BP are trying to take away survivors' right to sue

<snip>

8. BP bets on risk to employees to save money -- and doesn't care if they get sick

When BP unleashed its "Beyond Petroleum" re-branding/greenwashing campaign, the snazzy ads featured smiley oil rig workers. But the truth of the matter is that BP consistently and knowingly puts its employees at risk.

An internal BP document shows that just before the prior fatal disaster -- the 2005 Texas City explosion that killed 15 workers and injured 170 -- when BP had to choose between cost-savings and greater safety, it went with its bottom line.

<snip>

9. Environmental damage could even include a climatological catastrophe

It's hard to know where to start discussing the environmental damage caused byDeepwater Horizon. Each day will give us a clearer picture of the short-term ecological destruction, but environmental experts believe the damage to the Gulf of Mexico will be long-term.

In the short-term, environmentalists are up in arms about the dispersants being used to clean up the oil slick in the Gulf. Apparently, the types BP is using aren't all that effective in dispersing oil, and are pretty high in toxicity to marine fauna such as fish and shrimp. The fear is that what BP may be using to clean up the mess could, in the long-term, make it worse.

On the longer-term side of things, there are signs that this largest oil drilling catastrophe could also become the worst natural gas and climate disaster. The explosion has released tremendous amounts of methane from deep in the ocean, and research shows that methane, when mixed with air, is the most powerful (read: terrible) greenhouse gas -- 26 times worse than carbon-dioxide.

Our warming planet just got a lot hotter.


10. No one knows what to do and it will happen again

The very worst part about the Deepwater Horizon calamity is that nobody knows what to do. We don't know how bad it really is because we can't measure what's going on. We don't know how to stop it -- and once we do, we won't know how to clean it up.
<snip>


to undo the <snip>s and read more:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19408

[gateley]

1. #5 -- On Rachel last night they were showing how they're even doing the

booms wrong - they're ineffective as they've placed them. For those who missed her show, I recommend watching the vid. I hope Obama saw it.

#6 -- BP's clean up plan seems to be to hide as much damage as possible. Oil? What oil? I don't see any oil.

#7 -- BP's lawyers are already playing dirty. I read (few days ago) regarding someone who was sick bringing a law suit, the BP lawyer said 'if we're responsible, then the federal government shares half the responsibility". And even in the PR spot w/Tony Hayward, he says any "legitimate" claim. We know their idea of legitimate and ours vastly differ.

#10 -- They are using the same steps they took in 1979 at Ixtoc. They haven't advanced the technology at all in 30 years.

# gateley -- I fucking hate BP

[didact]

2. Yep...they don't know proper fvcking booming!

Proper fvckin' booming

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6ZN6r5-1QE

[gateley]

3. Can you believe it? What the hell were they thinking? nt

[garybeck]

4. If you're on Facebook... join the Boycott BP page. n/t